I don’t feel the same way about Wes Anderson. At all. But that happened to me with Eliseo Subiela. The wonder I felt when I initially watched Man Facing Southeast, The Dark Side of the Heart and Don’t Die without Telling Me Where You’re Going are nowhere to be experienced again. I still like Dark Side, but the others were major letdowns when I revisited them.
Great example, Ralch. The same exactly thing happened to me with Subiela. I loved all of those films you mention as well but Las Aventuras de Dios and El Lado oscuro del corazón 2 were just terrible. And after No mires para abajo, I won’t even see any of his films again. That would make me afraid to rewatch even a film I loved like Hombre mirando al sudeste as I might be sick of his brand of existential magic realism and pseudo-surrealism.
Pequeños milagros (Small Miracles?) was the one that killed the Subiela magic for me. I later saw part 2 of Dark Side, but out of mere curiosity. Didn’t expect much and that’s exactly what I got.
I don’t believe in retroactive contamination (though I think it’s a charming concept). I just hope Von Trier is gonna pull out of his self imposed funk.
I don’t think this happens.
No amount of bad films imo can take Breaking In away from Burt Reynolds or Breezy and Misty from Clint Eastwood.
Danny Boyle
To think I actually like Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, it kind of ruins the delight of watching these “trips” knowing you’ve watched a drowned project (The Beach), a poverty sick-o-rama (Slumdog Millionaire) and a prismatic sci-fi hot potato (Sunshine) and the rest of his pathetic filmography.
I am a huge zombie fan whenever there are good films of the genre but I don’t know if I’ll like 28 Days if I revisit it although it can’t be worse than the fragile sequel.
The way I think retroactive contamination can work is if an earlier movie seems to imply meaning beyond the surface, but later films really do show it was just about that service. I have to admit that I have no example onhand, but I think about how watching David Lynch engaging in his “transcendental mediation” schtick made me understand that in many cases he really is just making that shit up as he goes, until I realized how amazing it is that he even manages to make it work despite that working process. Ever since then I have ceased to take Lynch on much deeper than surface value, and in a way his filmography is actually better for it. No similar event has occured with negative results that I can recall at this time.
—PolarisDiB
In his work after “The Player,” Robert Altman tried hard to lose me. Despite the late-career bombs (“Ready-to-Wear”) and those that simply didn’t speak to me (“Prairie Home Companion”), Altman’s best—“Nashville,” “MASH,” “The Player”—could never be tainted.
Tim Burton—everything after Mars Attacks! casts a rather harsh light on his earlier films now.
James Cameron—I actually enjoyed The Terminator, The Abyss, and even Aliens for what they were. Hated Terminator 2 and everything after, and that’s soured me on those earlier films.
Woody Allen. The same person who made Manhattan also made Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But the true moment I realized this was when I saw Crimes and Misdemeanours, one of his countless obvious retellings of Crime and Punishment. It’s starring Martin Landau, who is one of my favourite actors, sadly dumbed down and ruined by the narcissistic presence of Mr. Allen who is there to explain to us the “message” of the film.
polarisdib
“but I think about how watching David Lynch engaging in his “transcendental mediation” schtick made me understand that in many cases he really is just making that shit up as he goes, until I realized how amazing it is that he even manages to make it work despite that working process. "
Which makes him a true surrealist.
Lars Von Trier. I think I’ve already expressed my feelings about that in another thread.
A writer, not a director, but Alan Ball. The later seasons of Six Feet Under and then True Blood made me think less of American Beauty.
“Which makes him a true surrealist.”
True.
—PolarisDiB
Dennis, Kay Lenz was so lovely in “Breezy”. Laurie Heineman played a similar character in John G. Avildesen’s undervalued “Save The Tiger”. You know, that sweet hippy chick that sees the beauty inside people and is genuinely friendly…and pretty much just wants to ball (damn I love the expression).
Tragically, none of these hippy chicks exist in the real world…at least not in great numbers in the 21st century. Most so-called “hippy chicks” are so fake these days. Sometimes I think I was born about 30 years too late. Or maybe they tend to go for guys like Jack Lemmon and William Holden.
Dennis, I happen to like all the Clint Eastwood films I’ve seen, which is quite a few. I think his most recent stuff is absolutely brilliant. He keeps getting better with age.
MATT: do you really hate Sleepy Hollow that much? ;-)
Clint Eastwood got better as a director, no doubt—-i just watched Misty a few days ago, and while it’s good, he has done better, and it has dated—but i think his output this decade is a little overrated. i much prefer White Hunter… and A Perfect World to Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby.
“but i think his output this decade is a little overrated.”
Not only overrated but completely bollocks. Only Mystic River survives from this pile and that’s debatable much like Iwo Jima because of the moralistic decisions of the protagonists and the “unchangeable fate” they’ll eventually face, as if Eastwood’s saying “no one can change their past and future”. Not to mention True Crime is terrible from the past decade and Invictus and Space Cowboys are the ultimate trash from the 2000’s.
It’s funny, with Eastwood, I haven’t seen much from his early directorial efforts but his 90’s and 2000’s output doesn’t increase my enthusiasm for him. At least his acting roles will survive, in spite of he being a stupid actor.
“No amount of bad films imo can take Breaking In away from Burt Reynolds or Breezy and Misty from Clint Eastwood.”
While i wouldn’t use those examples i have to agree with Den here. I used to have what Ari’s describing happen to me all the time but these days if someone has made what I consider to be a great film no amount of trash they make later on will hurt that film. I think a lot of the past examples I could give and others give of retroactive contamination weren’t veery good to begin with.
Also for the filmmakers I tend to like the chances of them even getting to make more that 1 or 2 films is slim. If they ultimately choose money over the pursuit of independence I don’t celebrate their choice but I don’t trash their early efforts. It probably helps that if i smell a mainstream rat I just run the other way so I don’t have to sit through the nonsense. For instance, I a huge fan of Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World and, to a lesser extent, Crumb but I have no plans as of now to sit through Bad Santa.
Any David Gordon Green fans find his early output contaminated by his current direction?
Dimitris, in case you haven’t realised, acting isn’t about going through the entire range of expressions from A to Z and wowing the audience by playing “look at me”. The problem with many actors and actresses is they know all the techniques and devices, but they don’t know what they mean, and consequently don’t know how and when to use them. In case you haven’t noticed, 75 percent of the people in the real world are pretty dry. Clint Eastwood tends to play down-to-earth, no-nonsense, dry characters. Clint might be monotone at times in certain roles, but only when the character calls for it. And few actors could have played the Harry Callahan persona with such wry dark humour and a menacing edge. Simply “being” a character is often better than “performing” a character. Michael Caine is often accused of playing himself, and maybe he does sometimes, but again, just “being” is smarter than trying to trick the audience with a silly, over-the-top melodramatic performance that isn’t really you—or doesn’t have a little bit of you in it. Clint plays his roles straight and consequently is effective, because he understands this is what is required, and that actually makes him an intelligent actor. An egotistical, dumb actor goes for the big emotion, the showing off every time. That’s not Clint.
Retroactive contamination happens more with actors than directors for me. e.g pacino and deniro etc.
“acting isn’t about going through the entire range of expressions from A to Z and wowing the audience by playing “look at me”.”
This is not about discussing Eastwood’s mediocre acting but really, if the Dirty Harry Eastwood expressions aren’t similar to any other crime films Eastwood has played (not necessarily a brutal cop e.g. Tightrope), then pardon my Greekness and my ignorance on what great acting is and as to how many actors I know who are better than Eastwood. It’s not all about Americana all the fucking time mister Vaseline, stuff that in your little brain before supporting the likes of Eastwood or a Burt Reynolds or whatever shitty actor again.
Mystic River semi-sucked, Dimitris, wtf are you talking about? Only the strength of the acting and its subject mater keep it barely afloat. Perhaps Eastwood’s most pedestrian work of direction, among those of his I’ve seen. True Crime, on the other hand, flows ever so smoothly (as I recall), despite its genre conventions.
Maybe the Op can also be interpreted as “outgrowing” (in a very personal sense, of course) the work of a director.
In a related fashion, once I began to explore Ingmar Bergman further and further, the impact of his films seen later was diminished by having seen some others first, as he repeated his themes and dramatic patterns quite a lot. By the time I saw Winter Light and Autumn Sonata, I couldn’t be as impressed as I would have been if I had seen them before others such as The Silence, Persona, Wild Strawberries, etc.
“Perhaps Eastwood’s most pedestrian work of direction, among those of his I’ve seen.”
Those lines I’d have written about Million Dollar Baby which is a true pedestrian work in Eastwood’s 2000’s career. Not to mention the tragicomic Flags of our Fathers where Iwo Jima at least managed to correct the faux bravado of “corruption”.
I agree with Bergman but not as much with Winter Light rather with Scenes from a Marriage and of course, the lukewarm Autumn Sonata. I have the same complaint about Bunuel but his French period is hardly his best.
Dimbulb Psychosis:
I never said it was “all about America”.
Clint Eastwood was the subject.
He happens to be American.
If we were discussing, say, Ewan McGregor, I’d defend him as a great actor.
Then of course, you’d twist things and say:
“It’s not all about Anglophones”.
What the fuck ever, Dimitris. Grow up.
“If we were discussing, say, Ewan McGregor, I’d defend him as a great actor.
Then of course, you’d twist things and say:
“It’s not all about Anglophones”.
Your continuous Eastwood appreciation as well as your manic support for Network (amazing film regardless of our discussion) pushes you towards the vein of Americana. Yes, McGregor is an Anglophone and he’s not even an example of a great actor, you only have English-language examples? So much for your cinematic open-mindedness. Please, insult my beliefs, not my “growth” or any other family business as you’ve done so countless of times in the recent past. What’s next? Are you gonna attack a heritage like you commonly do?
“I used to have what Ari’s describing happen to me all the time but these days if someone has made what I consider to be a great film no amount of trash they make later on will hurt that film”
Just to make one thing clear from my original post, it’s not just the fact that the filmmaker has gone on to make trash that makes me experience retroactive contamination. It has to be that the director pursues the same themes and stylistic devices in such an awful way that it ruins their original use. Trier is a good example for me. I can still watch Zentropa or The Idiots or Elements of a Crime yet subsequent films I’ve despised like Antichrist and Dancer in the Dark has retroactively contaminated Breaking the Waves (a film I used to love but would not revisit any film which Lars inflicts his redemptive suffering on more women)
Eastwood is one of those actors who’s got a very limited range but very good within his narrow comfort range.
Dim, you’re one to talk about ad-hominem attacks, because you’re always the first one to accuse somebody of being narrow-mindedly American whenever they like anything you don’t like produced in America.
You attack Eastwood films because you don’t agree with the moral decisions made by the characters. If I applied that logic I should hate every socialist film ever made and over half of the films chosen in Director’s Cup. You should judge a film based on the quality of the expression of ideas, not just based on whether you agree with those ideas.
I’ve been watching American films all my life, and I’ve been watching films from other countries for only a couple years. So naturally, my knowledge of American films is more extensive, and the same goes for a lot of young American viewers. Implying this difference of exposure is some kind of intentional snubbing of anything that isn’t American, is kind of ridiculous, since you’re commonly guilty of the reverse.
I’d say most of these directors listed are still respected- you couldn’t say that about M Night Shyamalan (sp.?)
I actually really enjoyed all of his work up to The Village, but stopped watching after that because of the brutality of the reviews. Even though The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable are very fine studio films, the output after that has condemned him to ridicule (I’d say unfairly). Probably most people think less of those two films now than they did previously.
“You should judge a film based on the quality of the expression of ideas, not just based on whether you agree with those ideas.”
I admire the moralistic decisions of the Unforgiven protagonists, there’s a certain aspect of defiled justice instead of pseudo-justice like in sooo manyyy of his recent features (let’s all prove that the government was OBVIOUSLY corrupt by the end of WWII, let’s all check out how some corny characters FINALLY go to space and gain their patriotism back), sorry. Contradict me with what you have, not with what you read and only.
“If I applied that logic I should hate every socialist film ever made and over half of the films chosen in Director’s Cup.”
Name those films and beware because you’re treading in dangerous grounds, what are you? A democracy advocate?
“Implying this difference of exposure is some kind of intentional snubbing of anything that isn’t American, is kind of ridiculous, since you’re commonly guilty of the reverse.”
That I don’t know of American culture? I know more than half of the Americans over there…
-MATT: do you really hate Sleepy Hollow that much? ;)—
Actually, I do sort of like Sleepy Hollow (though , so I guess it’s actually Planet of the Apes that crosses the line for me.
Ari
Has anyone else experience this phenomenon or is it my own particular psychological hang-up?
I’ll give my example via the films of Wes Anderson. Although it almost embarrasses me to admit it now, I was an early supporter of Wes. I was maybe one of five people who saw Bottle Rocket in the movie theaters. Rushmore, I also loved. By the time of the Royal T’s, he seemed to be a one trick pony. The same themes, the same mannerisms, the same contrived precociousness, the same overly fussy design but magnified. Another filmmaker that won’t grow up writing films about over-privileged man-boys that won’t grow up. And then came the The Life Aquatic and the Darjeeling Limited, two films that took this sensibility even further to even more diminishing results. I hated both films. And that was the end for me. I tried to rewatch Bottle Rocket recently and found it utterly awful. The charm that the film once had seems gone as you could see kernels in that film of everything that would grow into the future into films I can’t stand (the cloying sensibility, the mannerisms, the music, the rich kid whininess, the third world fetishism, etc,etc).It’s not simply the fact that a filmmaker’s later output is bad but for retroactive contamination to take place the badness of the latter films must be intrinsically linked to the earlier films.
I have a feeling Woody Allen is becoming like this for me. Hasn’t happened yet but i’m almost afraid to revisit a film like Manhattan.