Cellphone Rage

No, it’s not what you’re thinking — an over-the-edge moviegoer hasn’t thrown some obnoxious Dude! I’m totally watching Batman kick the Joker’s ass! texter through the screen. This Rage is a movie itself, the first to be filmed for simultaneous release on mobile, online, digital screens and DVD. It’s filmed specifically to be watchable on your cellphone screen. As such, it tells the story completely through a series of monologues. The notion is that a schoolboy is doing a report on the fashion industry… and then something unexpected happens.

This won’t be everyone’s minty chocolate goodness: I can already imagine Nicola’s response (*waves at sweetie through the internet*). But I’m an actor by training and a talker by nature, so the idea of a story that unfolds in breadth (linear storytelling) and depth (character exploration) through monologue fascinates me. And this kind of thing is clearly catnip for actors — watch the trailer and see the lineup for yourself:

 

 
And here’s an interview with the director, Sally Potter. Here’s Potter talking about what inspired her to use intimate filmmaking techniques to make a movie intended for distribution on tiny, utilitarian cellphone screens (arguably the least intimate viewscreen ever…)

I do think it is intimate… It is in part my direct experience from being on the internet and doing a blog and making myself accessible to people in a very intimate way and finding that for the first time in all my working life I was having a one on one global relationship with strangers…
— Sally Potter, director of Rage

Interested? You can get the DVD, or you can watch the film in installments over at Babelgum, which is distributing the film on mobile and the internet.

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