If I’m not mistaken, Domenico’s mother tells him that. As to what significance the sound of trumpets has, I suppose it has to do with emerging from a cocoon like state e.g. how the film begins with an awakened Domenico still tucked in.
Hey guys, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is a Chinese saying generally used to refer to people who are by all surface appearances are aspecial, yet possess hidden talent (though not always talent for things virtuous e.g. the tiger and dragon metaphors).
The phrase is commonly associated with people who are live on the “jiang-hu”, which is approximately equivalent, in English, to being a person “of the streets” as in people who come from possibly criminal (e.g. hustlers) or non-conventional walks of life which include circus people or traveling salesmen and other sorts of transitory people with murky backgrounds.
I mean we can imagine the Paul Newman character in “The Hustler” as epitomizing or at least falling under the description of the sorts of people one would call a “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. He makes his trade by hustling others in games of pool.
Hey guys, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is a Chinese saying generally used to refer to people who are by all surface appearances are aspecial, yet possess hidden talent (though not always talent for things virtuous e.g. the tiger and dragon metaphors).
The phrase is commonly associated with people who are live on the “jiang-hu”, which is approximately equivalent, in English, to being a person “of the streets” as in people who come from possibly criminal (e.g. hustlers) or non-conventional walks of life which include circus people or traveling salesmen and other sorts of transitory people with murky backgrounds.
I mean we can imagine the Paul Newman character in “The Hustler” as epitomizing or at least falling under the description of the sorts of people one would call a “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. He makes his trade by hustling others in games of pool.
I apologize for not getting the gist of your post. For instance, what in the world is " the modern ideology"?
Anyhow, the internet has done wonders to the way we watch film.
The value of each individual film, as a separate product, is determined dispositionally by our own idiosyncratic experiences of them, which means that at every interval we actually have to watch a film in order to really know exactly what sort of thing we are getting for $5 and 2hrs (as opposed to other consumer products such as washing powders). The opaqueness of film consumption and the inherent evaluative difficulties of the product means that a lot of those $5 and 2hrs go to waste. Thanks to the internet, some of those problems are eased.
Since countless film reviews are now merely a click away, and we have easy access to internet forums, trailer streams, illegal downloads, we are no longer as hampered by the fact that we know absolutely nothing about the films that we are thinking about watching. At the very least, we have little excuse for going to see what by all means appears to be a low quality product. If anything, this should at least raise the stakes of the “word of mouth” game, and hopefully lead to better films.
Furthermore, if the complaint that technological transformation has led to merely another platform for consumerism and “multinational corporate franchise[s]”, think again. The DVD medium has been great, at least in my opinion, in preserving and promoting classic films (thanks Criterion!). Hopefully, we will no longer have cases of film prints rotting in some damp cellar. Non-serious viewers will also not be hampered from being left out of the film festival circuits.
How about using the internet as a platform for promoting films by amateur or aspiring filmmakers? Or even better, why not ruthless self-promotion?
“The main problem I experience when watching an action film is the ‘yeah right’ reflex which can’t accept the massive implausibilities that I’m expected to swallow:”
This is why there are no action films proper. They are subsumed under the category called “comedy”.
“One of my pet peeves: Zhang Yimou not Yimou Zhang.”
One of my pet peeves: Zhang, Yimou … not Zhang Yimou, Yimou Zhang … etc. etc.
His greatest work was probably the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which is rather a sad testament to his career as a filmmaker.
He has always been a better cinematographer than a director, though I must say that some singled-out elements of his films are extraordinary (most notably for me: the gambling sequence at the beginning of To Live).
I find it very hard to discern, in this case, what is meant by an affliction with ‘seriousness’ . The more ‘seriously’ they take themselves the more I laugh (and it need not all be in scorn either). The fact that anything in those films could be genuinely cited as being serious is a sign that there are people who take those films ‘seriously’.
Simply speaking, if the Russians won the Cold War, no one would be giving James Cameron two hundred million dollars to make a boat sink.
Well, if the Soviet Union had won the Cold War, in order to commemorate its most glorious victory it would have promptly collapsed under the immense burden to finance films that look like this (yeah, so “Russia” gets that pretty right).
Concerning Hitchcock, why hasn’t any one mentioned “Rope”? Wouldn’t it be most appropriate from a “moral” point of view?
Another topic concerning philosophy that has been ignored here is that of “moral luck”. It seems that film is in a great positions to explore and reflect on the topic of how human choices become “deformed” by chance. Where there is this sort of “inertness” about our actions to shape the world in which we live. A good example of this is Pasolini’s Mama Roma, thus the title character’s failure to change her life makes it absolutely terrifying for the viewer.
Another topic that has not been brought up is Aristotle’s “incontinence” or weakness of the will. This has also seemingly be dealt with by numerous films … off the top of my mind are the two Marcellos of Il Conformista and La Dolce Vita.
And why is there no love for analytic philosophers (anglo-american tradition)???
Concerning Hitchcock, why hasn’t any one mentioned “Rope”? Wouldn’t it be most appropriate from a “moral” point of view?
Another topic concerning philosophy that has been ignored here is that of “moral luck”. It seems that film is in the one of the best positions to explore the topic of how human choices become deformed by chance. Where there is this sort of “inertness” about our actions to shape the world in which we live. A good example of this is Pasolini’s Mama Roma, and thus the title character’s failure to change her life makes it absolutely terrifying for the viewer.
Another topic that has not been brought up is Aristotle’s “incontinence” or weakness of the will. This has also seemingly be dealt with by numerous films… off the top of my mind are the two Marcellos of Il Conformista and La Dolce Vita.
And why is there no love for analytic philosophers (anglo-american tradition)???
I think there is some misunderstanding as regards to the what is meant by analytic philosophy. If one is talking about the anglo-american tradition (as opposed to the continental tradition) it is simply wrong to say that it does not deal with values and ethics. Furthermore, your reference to Wittgenstein is more of an accurate reflection of early Wittgenstein as opposed to the offspring of his later work, which has led to considerable flourishing and development of contemporary action theory and value theory. The contrast between continental philosophy and the anglo-american tradition has more to do with their approach to the literary quality of their respective works (i.e. the anglo-american tradition is more “academic”). Though this is itself something that has been changing considerably over the years.
Furthermore, there is the work of one “analytic” philosopher, Stanley Cavell, who does do some work in the area of film studies (i.e. his “The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film”). Stanley Cavell taught Terrence Malick at Harvard, of course. Terrence Malick then went on to make great films (after not completing his PhD under Gilbert Ryle) such as Badlands, which despite not having any “analytic” themes goes on to explore the possibility of an amoral life albeit with “happiness” (as is the case in Days of Heaven, the burden is on the audience to decipher whether they have succeeded in their enterprises or not — whether those “days of heaven” were worth it no matter how temporary.)
Though I can’t say that I am a expert on how these fields meld into one another, it seems to me that many of the problems of ethics in contemporary academic philosophy have their counterparts in film. And as I have mentioned in my above post, the two problems I raised are well and living issues in contemporary academic philosophy, and yet are something the subtleties of film carry very well.
And I think there is some irony as regards my giving the example of Hitchcock’s “Rope”, which merely touches on the issues of Nietzschean thoughts, but cannot be adequately described as deeply exploring any serious moral or ethical problem or problems. If I remember correctly, Leopold and Loeb were rather stupid despite their extremely high IQs.
At the very least, film is a good mining ground for examples (and for use in teaching). We are talking about ethics after all — what does anything not have anything to do with ethics?
Though not strictly true (actually laughably false): “academic” as roughly equivalent to publishing academic papers and not making literary pursuits – more in line with the boring things familiar to academics in the US. Now, perhaps the gap between analytic and continental is not what it once was (hence the term: “anglo-american” instead).
I agree with Jesse on how so-called analytic philosophy appears to deal with only self-contained problems, but it seems that for any problem to be properly constructed or analyzed requires that it be contained — and by this I don’t mean to imply that so-called continental philosophy does not deal with genuine problems, in fact I am suggesting the very opposite.
And I can’t quite comprehend what is meant by: ‘reducing conceptual content to just what’s “true.”’ I suppose that if we had any conception of “truth” it would seem that pursuing it would be of greatest value … wouldn’t it? But this is not equivalent to reducing everything to truth, and here lies the misunderstanding that so-called analytic philosophy does not concern itself with ethics (which is absolutely ridiculous given the studying of first-order or virtue ethics). Now, even in meta-ethical debates there is still the existing debate of the exact ontological status of moral statements. Not everyone, so-called analytics included, adhere to the view that moral statements express propositions that stand to be true or false. As I mentioned before, what does not escape ethics … the concern with human happiness?
Though I have perhaps not put my points quite forcefully enough, the problem with philosophy is very much like that of film. Because people aren’t exactly always up to date on esoteric subjects it seems that we aren’t doing justice to those subjects. People don’t read contemporary academic philosophy because … well … it is academic (and boring … just like how “art-film” is boring). And the problems that they deal with are generally lost on those sorts of people. So if pop-psuedo-philosophy seems fine then so be it. (Of course please weigh my analogy of this to film at the beginning of the paragraph.)
On the first reply about the Fellini-Bergman anecdote with Bergman as a “morose ghoul”. I think this was mentioned in one of the interviews with the cast members of the White Sheik (on the Criterion DVD). The interview was with the male lead (the husband in the film), who recalls the episode when Bergman came down Italy to visit Fellini. Fellini then requested the actor (the male lead in that film and his good friend; also more of a comedian) to come along in order to ease what he thought would be the humorless atmosphere of Bergman.
And Godard sucks by the way (to which he would probably reply: “well its my style to ‘suck’.”).
films whose titles don't make sense to you over 2 years ago
Do you remember:
“Even the sound of trumpets won’t wake you”?
If I’m not mistaken, Domenico’s mother tells him that. As to what significance the sound of trumpets has, I suppose it has to do with emerging from a cocoon like state e.g. how the film begins with an awakened Domenico still tucked in.
Go to Comment
films whose titles don't make sense to you over 2 years ago
Hey guys, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is a Chinese saying generally used to refer to people who are by all surface appearances are aspecial, yet possess hidden talent (though not always talent for things virtuous e.g. the tiger and dragon metaphors).
The phrase is commonly associated with people who are live on the “jiang-hu”, which is approximately equivalent, in English, to being a person “of the streets” as in people who come from possibly criminal (e.g. hustlers) or non-conventional walks of life which include circus people or traveling salesmen and other sorts of transitory people with murky backgrounds.
I mean we can imagine the Paul Newman character in “The Hustler” as epitomizing or at least falling under the description of the sorts of people one would call a “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. He makes his trade by hustling others in games of pool.
Go to Comment
films whose titles don't make sense to you over 2 years ago
Hey guys, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is a Chinese saying generally used to refer to people who are by all surface appearances are aspecial, yet possess hidden talent (though not always talent for things virtuous e.g. the tiger and dragon metaphors).
The phrase is commonly associated with people who are live on the “jiang-hu”, which is approximately equivalent, in English, to being a person “of the streets” as in people who come from possibly criminal (e.g. hustlers) or non-conventional walks of life which include circus people or traveling salesmen and other sorts of transitory people with murky backgrounds.
I mean we can imagine the Paul Newman character in “The Hustler” as epitomizing or at least falling under the description of the sorts of people one would call a “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. He makes his trade by hustling others in games of pool.
Go to Comment
"The Medium is the Message" over 2 years ago
I apologize for not getting the gist of your post. For instance, what in the world is " the modern ideology"?
Anyhow, the internet has done wonders to the way we watch film.
The value of each individual film, as a separate product, is determined dispositionally by our own idiosyncratic experiences of them, which means that at every interval we actually have to watch a film in order to really know exactly what sort of thing we are getting for $5 and 2hrs (as opposed to other consumer products such as washing powders). The opaqueness of film consumption and the inherent evaluative difficulties of the product means that a lot of those $5 and 2hrs go to waste. Thanks to the internet, some of those problems are eased.
Since countless film reviews are now merely a click away, and we have easy access to internet forums, trailer streams, illegal downloads, we are no longer as hampered by the fact that we know absolutely nothing about the films that we are thinking about watching. At the very least, we have little excuse for going to see what by all means appears to be a low quality product. If anything, this should at least raise the stakes of the “word of mouth” game, and hopefully lead to better films.
Furthermore, if the complaint that technological transformation has led to merely another platform for consumerism and “multinational corporate franchise[s]”, think again. The DVD medium has been great, at least in my opinion, in preserving and promoting classic films (thanks Criterion!). Hopefully, we will no longer have cases of film prints rotting in some damp cellar. Non-serious viewers will also not be hampered from being left out of the film festival circuits.
How about using the internet as a platform for promoting films by amateur or aspiring filmmakers? Or even better, why not ruthless self-promotion?
Go to Comment
Yearh Right - The Problem with Action Films over 2 years ago
“The main problem I experience when watching an action film is the ‘yeah right’ reflex which can’t accept the massive implausibilities that I’m expected to swallow:”
This is why there are no action films proper. They are subsumed under the category called “comedy”.
Go to Comment
O/T: The NFL- TheAuteurs NFL Fans Report Here over 2 years ago
Patriots. I’m a bastard bandwagon jumper (except in the case of film that is ;D).
Go to Comment
book or novels you wanted to adopt for a film ? over 2 years ago
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh. Though I am tired of war films in general.
Go to Comment
Yimou Zhang criticism and praise. over 2 years ago
“One of my pet peeves: Zhang Yimou not Yimou Zhang.”
One of my pet peeves: Zhang, Yimou … not Zhang Yimou, Yimou Zhang … etc. etc.
His greatest work was probably the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which is rather a sad testament to his career as a filmmaker.
He has always been a better cinematographer than a director, though I must say that some singled-out elements of his films are extraordinary (most notably for me: the gambling sequence at the beginning of To Live).
Go to Comment
Yearh Right - The Problem with Action Films over 2 years ago
I find it very hard to discern, in this case, what is meant by an affliction with ‘seriousness’ . The more ‘seriously’ they take themselves the more I laugh (and it need not all be in scorn either). The fact that anything in those films could be genuinely cited as being serious is a sign that there are people who take those films ‘seriously’.
Go to Comment
people on autuers are good critic but film makers no over 2 years ago
Simply speaking, if the Russians won the Cold War, no one would be giving James Cameron two hundred million dollars to make a boat sink.
Well, if the Soviet Union had won the Cold War, in order to commemorate its most glorious victory it would have promptly collapsed under the immense burden to finance films that look like this (yeah, so “Russia” gets that pretty right).
Go to Comment
Films you love but most people hate. over 2 years ago
Now, Voyager. — low quality, but underestimated in terms of content (in comparison to a film like My Fair Lady).
I think this is a movie that people genuinely hate … sappy stuff.
Go to Comment
Philosophy over 2 years ago
Concerning Hitchcock, why hasn’t any one mentioned “Rope”? Wouldn’t it be most appropriate from a “moral” point of view?
Another topic concerning philosophy that has been ignored here is that of “moral luck”. It seems that film is in a great positions to explore and reflect on the topic of how human choices become “deformed” by chance. Where there is this sort of “inertness” about our actions to shape the world in which we live. A good example of this is Pasolini’s Mama Roma, thus the title character’s failure to change her life makes it absolutely terrifying for the viewer.
Another topic that has not been brought up is Aristotle’s “incontinence” or weakness of the will. This has also seemingly be dealt with by numerous films … off the top of my mind are the two Marcellos of Il Conformista and La Dolce Vita.
And why is there no love for analytic philosophers (anglo-american tradition)???
Go to Comment
Philosophy over 2 years ago
Concerning Hitchcock, why hasn’t any one mentioned “Rope”? Wouldn’t it be most appropriate from a “moral” point of view?
Another topic concerning philosophy that has been ignored here is that of “moral luck”. It seems that film is in the one of the best positions to explore the topic of how human choices become deformed by chance. Where there is this sort of “inertness” about our actions to shape the world in which we live. A good example of this is Pasolini’s Mama Roma, and thus the title character’s failure to change her life makes it absolutely terrifying for the viewer.
Another topic that has not been brought up is Aristotle’s “incontinence” or weakness of the will. This has also seemingly be dealt with by numerous films… off the top of my mind are the two Marcellos of Il Conformista and La Dolce Vita.
And why is there no love for analytic philosophers (anglo-american tradition)???
Go to Comment
Philosophy over 2 years ago
Dear Frank,
I think there is some misunderstanding as regards to the what is meant by analytic philosophy. If one is talking about the anglo-american tradition (as opposed to the continental tradition) it is simply wrong to say that it does not deal with values and ethics. Furthermore, your reference to Wittgenstein is more of an accurate reflection of early Wittgenstein as opposed to the offspring of his later work, which has led to considerable flourishing and development of contemporary action theory and value theory. The contrast between continental philosophy and the anglo-american tradition has more to do with their approach to the literary quality of their respective works (i.e. the anglo-american tradition is more “academic”). Though this is itself something that has been changing considerably over the years.
Furthermore, there is the work of one “analytic” philosopher, Stanley Cavell, who does do some work in the area of film studies (i.e. his “The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film”). Stanley Cavell taught Terrence Malick at Harvard, of course. Terrence Malick then went on to make great films (after not completing his PhD under Gilbert Ryle) such as Badlands, which despite not having any “analytic” themes goes on to explore the possibility of an amoral life albeit with “happiness” (as is the case in Days of Heaven, the burden is on the audience to decipher whether they have succeeded in their enterprises or not — whether those “days of heaven” were worth it no matter how temporary.)
Though I can’t say that I am a expert on how these fields meld into one another, it seems to me that many of the problems of ethics in contemporary academic philosophy have their counterparts in film. And as I have mentioned in my above post, the two problems I raised are well and living issues in contemporary academic philosophy, and yet are something the subtleties of film carry very well.
And I think there is some irony as regards my giving the example of Hitchcock’s “Rope”, which merely touches on the issues of Nietzschean thoughts, but cannot be adequately described as deeply exploring any serious moral or ethical problem or problems. If I remember correctly, Leopold and Loeb were rather stupid despite their extremely high IQs.
At the very least, film is a good mining ground for examples (and for use in teaching). We are talking about ethics after all — what does anything not have anything to do with ethics?
Go to Comment
Philosophy over 2 years ago
sorry reposted!
Go to Comment
Philosophy over 2 years ago
Though not strictly true (actually laughably false): “academic” as roughly equivalent to publishing academic papers and not making literary pursuits – more in line with the boring things familiar to academics in the US. Now, perhaps the gap between analytic and continental is not what it once was (hence the term: “anglo-american” instead).
I agree with Jesse on how so-called analytic philosophy appears to deal with only self-contained problems, but it seems that for any problem to be properly constructed or analyzed requires that it be contained — and by this I don’t mean to imply that so-called continental philosophy does not deal with genuine problems, in fact I am suggesting the very opposite.
And I can’t quite comprehend what is meant by: ‘reducing conceptual content to just what’s “true.”’ I suppose that if we had any conception of “truth” it would seem that pursuing it would be of greatest value … wouldn’t it? But this is not equivalent to reducing everything to truth, and here lies the misunderstanding that so-called analytic philosophy does not concern itself with ethics (which is absolutely ridiculous given the studying of first-order or virtue ethics). Now, even in meta-ethical debates there is still the existing debate of the exact ontological status of moral statements. Not everyone, so-called analytics included, adhere to the view that moral statements express propositions that stand to be true or false. As I mentioned before, what does not escape ethics … the concern with human happiness?
Though I have perhaps not put my points quite forcefully enough, the problem with philosophy is very much like that of film. Because people aren’t exactly always up to date on esoteric subjects it seems that we aren’t doing justice to those subjects. People don’t read contemporary academic philosophy because … well … it is academic (and boring … just like how “art-film” is boring). And the problems that they deal with are generally lost on those sorts of people. So if pop-psuedo-philosophy seems fine then so be it. (Of course please weigh my analogy of this to film at the beginning of the paragraph.)
Go to Comment
Philosophy over 2 years ago
I hate my mouse … always double clicks. Apologies again!
Go to Comment
Herzog, Welles, and Bergman on Godard over 2 years ago
On the first reply about the Fellini-Bergman anecdote with Bergman as a “morose ghoul”. I think this was mentioned in one of the interviews with the cast members of the White Sheik (on the Criterion DVD). The interview was with the male lead (the husband in the film), who recalls the episode when Bergman came down Italy to visit Fellini. Fellini then requested the actor (the male lead in that film and his good friend; also more of a comedian) to come along in order to ease what he thought would be the humorless atmosphere of Bergman.
And Godard sucks by the way (to which he would probably reply: “well its my style to ‘suck’.”).
Go to Comment
Herzog, Welles, and Bergman on Godard over 2 years ago
f.
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What is your favorite animated film, excluding all of Disney? over 2 years ago
This is probably more depressing than the film itself: … why so little love for Grave of the Fireflies?
(supposing that we change the topic from “favourite” to “greatest” and allow for the vagueness of whatever that is supposed to mean.)
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