Uncomfortable long takes, jarringly rapid scene changes, nearly incomprehensible and typically improvised dialogue, complex illusionary elements, and limited narrative explanation: these are the stimulating formal aesthetics of a film that conjoin to create discomfort and activity in its audience. Typically, mainstream films tend to stay away from these formal elements, in order to set the audience at ease. As Bordwell states, “in the classical cinema, narrative form motivates cinematic representation… To this end, cinematic representation had recoursed to fixed figures of cutting… mise-en-scene… cinematography… and sound.”1 Audiences are transcended into a world of comfortable fantasy, clarity, and delight through the linear, causal plots and editing that allows for exact specificity in setting, with a cheerfully entertaining battle between good and evil, where the former triumphantly prevails. These components are most notable with classical Hollywood films, like Singing in the Rain and Miracle on 34th Street: feel-good films that encourage a sense of passivity in their audiences, lulling them into blissful escapism. Why would films stray from such peace?       Life does not …