The Deer Hunter might be considered the best Vietnam movie if it weren’t for the viability of the final half hour or so.
There’s often these decisions that the great directors make that just seem to be “fuck yous” to the movie goers. Cameron Diaz in Gangs of New York is the epitome maybe.
When I hear great flawed films I think of films that are good, with a great idea, and a bad Director. To me the best example of this would be Joel Schumacher. He has done some films that are great but if they were put in better hand who knows how perfect they chould have been. The best example of this is “Falling Down”. Michael Douglas was great and I loved the story, however it seemed that Joel seemed to want to make Douglas the bad guy instead of the world around him and that has always bothered me. Then there’s “The Lost Boys”. Who am I kidding I would not want anything changed about tthat film.
“falling down”? i cant see a flaw in that film at all. its brilliant from start to finish. a great black comedy that seamlessly turns to tragedy.
douglas was a bad guy. why not? he’s certainly not good. no matter how bad the world is around you, it doesnt justify murder. at best, he’s an ambivalent anti-hero. that doesnt mean he isn’t a character out of tragic irony that deserves some pity.
Another great thing about Vertigo is that it unveils new layers every time you see it. For example, not long ago I was watching it when I noticed something I had apparently missed before in that final scene: that Madeleine/Judy actually follow the same fate as Carlotta Valdez, thrown away by a husband who had the “power and freedom” to do as he wished. Scottie’s accusation is a direct echo of the Carlotta story told by Pop Leibel in the Argosy Book Shop.
i never thought of that extra layer of mirroring either.
also, pop says the same idea that gavin elster does when he’s thinking wistfully of the glorious past. “you know, men could do that then. they had the power, and the freedom.”
Yep, Scottie says: “With all of his wife’s money, and all that freedom and all that power, and he ditched you, what a shame…”
Here’s another possible example of mirroring: Scottie, last scene, standing on the ledge, legs apart, arms loose…it’s almost the very same posture as in the dream sequence, where he watches himself fall into Carlotta’s open grave. Not sure it means anything, but in one he’s in free fall (his greatest fear) and in one he has conquered that fear. So maybe there’s something there, I dunno.
P.S, to Steve. Remember that scene in Zabriskie Point where all those couples are making love in the desert? The audience I saw it with was laughing. It looked so unpleasant. One girl said: “Now that’s just NASTY…” (and she did not mean it in a good way.)
yep. another great instance of mirroring. this is a film of doubles. madeline/judy is the strongest example. then the repitition in the plot. the story recapitulates itself (and there’s a literal recapitulation, during judy’s flashback). the music, constantly recapitulating itself in its mian motif. madeline mirroring carlotta. midge mirroring carlotta in a painting that mirrors the original painting. “vertigo” is a film full of dopplegangers. another thing that adds to its dizzying, vertiginous effect.
And, too, there are all the literal mirrors in the store where Judy is becoming Madeleine. Years ago, I compiled a lot of notes on all this for a planned essay I never got around to writing, but the movie kind of revolves around this idea of image vs. reality, of course, and the danger that comes with falling in love with an image (particularly when it looks perfectly real).
thats right. this is why hitchcock’s cinema is so interesting. layers upon layers of meaning and symbolism. and form truly mirrors content!
I love Bernardo Bertolucci’s “1900” but I know a few of the performances are over the top and some of the ideas behind the plot are pretty simple-minded. However, it is gorgeous and what does work, works beautifully. The movie has a romantic sweep to it. Ennio Morricone’s score is one of his best. If you see the full length version, it can be an overwhelming experience, for all it’s weaknesses.
I’m not with you Bobby. “Falling Down” is about a man that reached his breaking point and lashes back at the world that pushed him over the edge. About a guy that stands up for himself and against society’s ills(all the things that make us all angery and ashamed of our culture). In that light he is a hero, but I think Joel or the writters got cold feet and put in that whole violent temper thing. Why could it not just be about a guy trying to go home in this crazy mixed up world of ours. Instead they had to say that you have to be crazy to stand up for your self. Of course he went a little overbord at times, but it is a movie and thus was ment as satire. Anyway that’s my view, that the violent temper was a cope out. Who did he murder? I don’t remember him murderring anybody.
The Good shepard could have been the best CIA, Godfather type movie, but it fell on its face in the second half on the film. Too bad. I liked it.
I keep forcing myself to find something I like about Zabriskie Point, but I always come up short. I’m not too crazy about Identification of a Woman either.
in “falling down” michael douglas murdered the racist army surplus store owner.
Who wants to watch a flawless film? Flaws are what humanize. Just a few of my favorite examples:
PSYCHO – So many problems here, not the least of which is the casting of John Gavin. While I don’t, many see the psycho-babble near the end as a near-fatal flaw (is it meant to be scientifically insufficient? Ironic? “Why was he…dressed like that?”). Just to be clear, I think it’s a genuine masterpiece.
THE WIZARD OF OZ – You could stuff a sofa with all the continuity errors, but the film is so dream-like as a result that I almost wish there were even more…
DETOUR – Perhaps the most “flawed” film ever to develop a reputation. No one made a virtue out of limitation as ingeniously as Edgar G. Ulmer.
Michael-I read that Hitchcock wasn’t too happy with Gavin either. He’s kind of bland but the role doesn’t allow for much depth anyways and he’s never bothered me in it. The psychobabble at the end was unnecessary but I feel a very minor flaw.
Bobby…. the thing that flaws Vertigo for me is the reveal… I feel it less now than when I first saw it years ago, but I remember thinking that early on we’re in Stewarts position and sympathise with him, is it isn’t it? etc… but after the reveal we are seperated from that impulse… I kept thinking ‘of course it’s her you idiot’!… do you think it would have been better to have the audience still guessing?
that said it’s still a wonderful film…….
no, i agree with hitchcock. keeping the audience guessing is a little cold and unemotional. turning the tables, and keeping the audience in suspense is a much better choice. after all, there’s not much guessing you can do in that film anyway. its not a whodunit (which hitchcock hated).
REDS and DEER HUNTER I would not call great “flawed” films. I would just call them great films. PSYCHO flawed? Maybe the ridiculous psycho babble expository scene at the end of the film is nowhere near the quality of the rest of the piece, but it is not enough to catagorize the film as flawed.
To me some great flawed films would be:
RUMBLE FISH
ANGEL HEART
BIRD
BARFLY
SHADOWS AND FOG
THE COLOR OF MONEY
These are films I can watch over and over again because of specific things in the films that attracts me to them. Or to be more critical, films that strived for something great and just missed the mark. To me the cinematography and music in Rumble Fish are well worth the price of admission, but the characters are one dimensional, and the cinematography, music and performance by Forest Whitaker in Bird are amazing, yet the film often meanders and it is way too long.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear about PSYCHO being flawed. Given that Hitchcock made the film “on the cheap,” continuity flaws (and other minor concessions) were inevitable, even for a director as fastidious as Hitchcock.
More importantly, though, I think that there is a relatively distinct difference between an actual and a perceived flaw.
Regarding the psychologist’s speech at the end, it seems to me that Hitchcock didn’t buy it, or at least wasn’t trying all that hard to sell it, and that it is severely (and ingeniously) undermined by Mother’s soliloquy at the end. To say the least, the speech is a woefully insufficient explanation of and resolution to all that we’ve witnessed, most likely deliberately so (we can’t even trust the facts as stated, let alone the psychologist’s allegedly professional suppositions). Nonetheless, what I would define as a shining example of “Hitchcockian ambiguity” tends to be perceived by the average viewer as a flaw or shortcoming (and I’m speaking from experience on that point).
Because justice had to prevail given the censorial demands of the studio system, Hitchcock often (quite flippantly) paid lip service to a given moral code via the restoration of social propriety. STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, for me, is the most obvious example, while PSYCHO is Hitchcock’s most successful (if not subtle) subversion of this tendency.
To be shamelessly defensive about it, I think PSYCHO is easily one of the ten great American films and it is exquisitely flawed.
In other news…It’s fascinating that FALLING DOWN is getting attention here. I saw it three times when it came out, trying to navigate my way through its seeming contradictions. To view it as “great but flawed,” I think, is to correctly find blame with Joel Schumacher, who seems to rely on caricature as a defense against making a sincere statement relative to the severity of the cultural climate.
Might I add THELMA & LOUISE to the list for the same reason? Ridley Scott ruined what could have been perhaps the greatest film of its era by pointlessly caricaturing the male characters, often to the point of absurdity.
“It’s a flaw…in the iris.”
Bobby, Hitch took some of the suspense out by revealing the situation to us, but not to Jimmy Stewart… which just frustrated me a bit.
MVD ‘exquisitely flawed’….. nice call.
maybe we can consider “kill bill” as a great flawed film. as much as i disliked part 1, i absolutely loved part 2. i thought it was breathtaking. especially the acting of michael madsen and the opening twin pines shootout scene. if tarantino had showed more restraint with the film, if he had trimmed it down to one film at 2 hours or less, cutting all of the fat, i really think he would have made a great film. as such, in the form it is in now, i think it is a great flawed film.
“the cranes are flying”
“the cranes are flying” is a masterpiece. why do you think its flawed?
Psycho
OATMEAL IS EVIL!!!
“psycho” is probably the textbook example of a great flawed film.
I think Yoshida films are pretty flawed.
Also, Garrel’s Sauvage Innocence or Herzog’s Stroszek.
the idea is to find great flawed films, not flawed films. by great directors (holding to the theory of why there may be need for a category such as “great flawed films” in the first place). and then to state why.
Steve Oerkfitz
After to agree with Rodney. I saw Zabriskie Point on it’s initial release and again this year. It’s a terrible film.