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Simplicity or Complexity?

Banana Nut

over 2 years ago

How do great filmmakers craft the simplest of stories to make the greatest of films (i.e Stranger than Paradise), or how do they make the most complex of films great (i.e 8 1/2), or how do they simultaneously make an incredibly simple film so perplexing and thought-provoking? (i.e 2001: A Space Odyssey)

Drew Gregory

over 2 years ago

Magic?

Fredo

over 2 years ago

There’s nothing more complex than the most simple of stories.

Fredo

over 2 years ago

There’s nothing more complex than the most simple of stories.

apursan​sar

over 2 years ago

Both terms are rather shallow and don´t cover the various connotations apparantly “simple” narrative or stylistic devices can carry. Although images are not metaphorical per se does our collective subconscious give a higher meaning to a device in case that it recognizes it. Those directors who manage to make seemingly simple films which at the same time are perceived as complex understood how to make use of those archetypical and allegorical meaning of images, words or structures.

Nathan M.

over 2 years ago

When Peter Bogdanovich asked John Ford how he was able to shoot the Dakota land rush in his silent film, Three Bad Men, Ford answered with: “A camera”.

apursan​sar

over 2 years ago

I would have expected him to answer: “A revolver”.

Nathan M.

over 2 years ago

Apursansar – I think you’re getting Ford and Phil Spector mixed up. Somehow.

apursan​sar

over 2 years ago

Isn´t Phil Spector the one with the eye patch? And wasn´t John Ford the one who built cars? I think his brother Henry had a weird haircut, but I tend to confuse them.

tom

over 2 years ago

Phil Spector is the single best music producer of rock & roll history.

Fredo

over 2 years ago

And OJ Simpson was a damn fine running back.

tom

over 2 years ago

The difference here is that I’m not making fun of the goofy little man. I wish he could still produce. though music is generally crap.

Banana Nut

over 2 years ago

I always found that Pixar is so consistent because of their simplicity. They start with really basic settings and characters and once they get that out of the way, that’s when they can get creative, I feel the more pithy setting and character development is, the more creative a filmmaker can be. For instance, in Monsters Inc: Monsters generate their city’s power by scaring children, but they are terribly afraid themselves of being contaminated by children, so when one enters Monstropolis, top scarer Sulley finds his world disrupted. Notice how everything befor “but” is an incredibly simple plot line. Or in Toy Story: A cowboy toy is profoundly threatened and jealous when a fancy spaceman toy supplants him as top toy in a boy’s room. Both incredibly basic story points that cannot be made simpler.

Banana Nut

over 2 years ago

Your right Fredo

ginger root

over 2 years ago

directors built them , and if they ability to ‘survive’ , by creating critism, building thougts about them, exposing their difference aspects whatever.. then we can be able to pay these movies ‘attention’. But i cant say it determines by its simplicity or complexity. Sometimes we can get mess with only one look or gesture(Autmn Sonate), sometimes we need whole movie for this(mostly Kubrick). And sometimes we dont even need to get mess, the portait itself intrigues us(Permanent Vacation)..
And that is why we need directors and their looks..