The Assassination of Jesse James. If the movie is a long story by a campfire, the trailer is a guy at a bar relating a cryptic anecdote before he wanders out into the night.
Vanilla Sky – I know everyone hates it. I find it pretty interesting… especially viewed along with Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Lynch’s Blue Velvet, two more movies about a sinister dream invading a shallow, idealized everyday world
Falling Down – didn’t realize everybody hated this movie. I think it was pretty damn good. Read Roger Ebert’s review… it’ll convince you.
The Matrix Reloaded and The Fountain – two of the most baroque, unselfconscious movies of our generation, created with complete abandon. I can’t blame a movie that believes so completely in its own vision.
AI – I agree with a previous poster who said that the sublime sadness of the final act was totally necessary for the film to be complete. Modern novels always end in a nice climax and meaningful resolution, but AI wanted to be a fairy tale, and this required it to be a little uncanny at the end. It also had some of the most weirdly compelling images I’ve ever seen.
By the way, one of my favorite films will always be The Rundown, which had the best-executed cheap thrills I’ve ever seen.
Also – Pirates of the Carribean III, which was sprawling and bizarre enough that I was kind of blown away by it.
I must say, I’d love to see more movies that treat mental illness like that… manic depression represented fairly, with an understanding of the symptoms and of the toll it takes on the lives of the victim and the family, but not in a depressing way. It’s shown to be difficult, but very human, not frightening or transcendent or a source of mysterious wisdom.
Raging Bull felt very visceral and honest to me, esp. as a portrayal of a person whose emotions are too violent for them to control — LaMotta was essentially a character whose inhibitions were painfully inadequate in the face of his impulsive personality. I think I wouldn’t have appreciated the movie before I got to know people like that… people whose behavior is really wrenched around by their emotions. Raging Bull helped me put certain life experiences of my own into perspective.
In particular, the scene where LaMotta confronts his brother Joey over “cheating” while they’re trying to fix a TV… this is a scene where we see a man tortured by his own emotional instability, who can’t suppress his own insecurities and anxieties in order to maintain normal relationships. The film gave me a chance to stop condemning this type of uncontrollable impulsiveness, and to start seeing it with understanding, pity, and even sympathy.
Blow-Up hasn’t aged well, in my opinion. When you say “It captures the spirit of the 60’s” you’ve pretty much nailed it… it’s a beautiful, aesthetically detached film that speaks to a lot of preoccupations that were very important at the time (when postmodernism was gaining critical currency) that have been largely spent at this point. Self-reference, the loss of personal identity, the emptiness of glamour, the crushing weight of the mundane, and the uncertainty of experience — all themes that really deserved to be considered, especially after the glassy-eyed complacency of the 50’s.
The weird, sterile sense of boring everyday life isn’t a flaw in the movie’s message… it’s one of the essential points. It shows up in lots of Antonioni, and it’s very intentional. The scene with the mimes at the end wasn’t meaningless, either — it’s more an acknowledgment of the fact that everything is a farce or a facade, and our great existential crises are pretty much just shadow-plays we’re creating to dramatize our boring lives. However, I think as a culture, we’ve faced these facts and learned ways to deal with them, so these themes don’t seem as profound to us any more.
So your confusion is understandable… you just have to put yourself in a different pair of shoes to understand where Blow-Up is coming from. Understand that your boredom, and your dissatisfaction with the lack of resolution, are actually a big part of the film’s thematic POV.
I saw an old Chuck Norris film the other night… on VHS, no less… and it affected me enough that I wanted to talk to somebody about it. It’s called “Silent Rage,” and it’s based on the rather absurd B-movie premise that a company develops a treatment to turn people into regenerative superhumans, and in their infinite corporate wisdom, they run human tests on a homicidal psychopath. Of course, Chuck Norris, the local small-town sheriff, is the only man equipped to stop the subsequent mayhem.
The dialogue was bad, the characters were stock, and the plot was absurd. The director, Michael Miller, doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia page. However, at a few key moments, the filmmaker seemed to take the low-budget status of his film and use it as license to experiment. For instance, the first scene is a single long shot, deadpan and eerie, that introduces us to John Kirby, the psychopathic killer made terrifying by Brian Libby’s soulless performance. In between clumsy romances and biker gangs terrorizing the locals, we get other sinister glimpses of Kirby’s robotic insanity — when one character looks up from checking on a victim, she finds Kirby hovering and staring at her from just a few feet away, like some sort of autistic wildcat. In one scene, we see Kirby’s shadow descending a staircase in an apparent homage to German Expression… in another, he hacks through a door and looks into a room in an obvious reference to The Shining, which was released a couple years before. There are also interesting setups where muindane dialogue in the foreground is broken up by the subtle appearance of Kirby in the background, stalking his prey or escaping from a crime scene. The small town comes across as a lonely wasteland in rural Texas, punctuated by a few isolated oases of artificial light and human activity. Somehow, despite bad 80’s cheese and horror tropes, it manages to be evocative and surreal.
So after all this, I’m just curious… has anyone else seen this movie? If so, do you think there was any artistic merit beneath its B-movie production quality? Is this a key case of something interesting emerging from a lack of resources, a lack of experience, and a lack of preconceptions about how to make a karate horror movie? Or am I just looking too hard for something to like?
Interesting. First, BELLWHETHER – comparing this film to movies like Transformers is a little silly. Aaronofsky actually went out of his way to minimize the CGI… all those insane visuals in the “future” sections are created from underwater macro photography. CGI was only used for the color correction and compositing, from what I understand. The use of analog photographic process is one of the things that makes this film really great-looking, in my opinion, with its vision of a primordial far future.
All this disagreement seems to be coming about because we’re looking at this film on a couple different levels. The people who dislike the movie often seem to be seeing it on the “philosophical underpinnings” level, and they seem to be looking for the film’s purpose on this level, and finding it kind of empty and cliched. I can understand that… its discussions of mortality and the everlasting power of love are a little trite. “I will die!” Isn’t that the line that the main character repeats three times as a philosophical climax? If you’re a high-level thinker, looking for the most abstract concepts this film represents, you might dislike it. I could even understand tagging this film as “new age,” since it’s got a generically spiritual and generically literary feel to it. Some people think love and death are the only themes worthy of art… others are tired of these grand ruminations, and would rather see something a little more real.
I was a big fan of The Fountain when I saw it, but it was less for the high concept, and more for the treatment and execution… the attention to details, and weaving of various thematic threads. The feminine force takes on different forms in each era — the queen as mother to the nation and her people, the wife as lover and caretaker, and the tree as force of nature and bastion of organic life. The threads of the film were woven really tightly, and the themes, though melodramatic, were well-executed. I never minded melodrama.
I’ve cooled off a lot on the film, though… perhaps because of the aforementioned thinness of its philosophical underpinnings. As my specific memories of the film recede further into the past, I remember it more and more as a pretty film about fairly generic literary themes. I have it somewhere on DVD… it’s probably time I rewatched it, to see if my enthusiasm returns.
MWAMC was stunning. I agree completely that it would be good training… enjoyable, and especially so if you can teach yourself to just let go of your need for narrative and resolution, so that you can get caught up in the rhythm and patterns of meaning. It was an enlightening experience.
As for me, I have a strangely conditioned mishmash of opinions on movies. The ones I like most naturally… that have inspired an authentic fandom… are movies from the early 90’s, when I was old enough to enjoy them but young enough not to think too hard about them. These are films like Terminator 2 and Aliens… Aladdin… you know, my childhood favorites. There are some newer movies I’ve loved in the same way, although I don’t have the nostalgic connection to them: The Rundown and The Emperor’s New Groove are good examples.
A couple years ago, I embarked on a mission to educate myself on the history of great cinema, and although I was ready to really work for that goal, I still found I needed dedication and patience to experience the true classics. “A Philadelphia Story” was brilliant in its charm and personality, but the dialogue comes so fast, with no obvious cues… I really had to work to focus my attention and pick up all the key details. It took some real mental effort. The same was true of all the old films, from “Nosferatu” to “Seven Samurai.” I’ve still got to commit to an old movie before I can really get something out of it. However, once I am willing to commit, they’re priceless, fascinating, educational experiences.
I’m glad to still be seeing current movies, and to find some that appeal to both the popcorn flick mentality and the art-film curiosity. Moon… the Pixar movies… Goodbye Solo… The Wrestler… The Assassination of Jesse James… Let the Right One In… contemporary acting and filmmaking techniques can definitely yield a profound, thought-provoking film, even when they’re paced for excitement and entertainment. So in a sense, I think it’s a great time for film, you know?
Don’t dismiss the current age of movies too quickly. I’ve seen some fascinating films recently… Goodbye Solo, Moon, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Let the Right One In… these are current films, but they resonate like classics already. They bring compelling characters into a narrative world that feels really authentic, carved out painstakingly, with love and dedication. Because they’re generally made by young directors, they also feel fresh… maybe more so than the later films of Antonioni and Godard, who may have started to get hung up on auteur-ship itself.
Of course, you have to bear in mind a point made in that other thread, linked above: in every era, there are piles of mass-produced garbage, and only a few real gems. So “most of the new films” includes a lot of generic stuff that will never be worthy of a critical word.
I wrote a paper not too long ago about Falling Down and The Boondock Saints, and how they both represent the same psychological complex. They seem like totally different films, partly because Falling Down seems very self-aware, whereas Duffy’s Boondock Saints seems off-the-cuff and masturbatory… but they’re actually about a lot of the same things: self-righteous vigilante-ism, the white male superiority complex, and the influence of the parent in violent psychology.
I don’t know if you should necessarily use these movies, per se. My point is more that I think you can find some profound cultural meaning in pretty much any movie(s), even if they’re considered big-budget popcorn crap. Every movie is an expression of our cultural preoccupations, whether it’s intentional or not.
I’m firmly in the camp that believes it’s a mistake to see the past through rose-colored glasses. Who’s to say what makes good art, and can you really justify a definition of “good art” that excludes everything contemporary?
A lot of the opinions here seem to indicate that good art is anything more than two decades old that’s survived the filtering processes of time. That’s where the whole “good old days” perspective comes from… after fifteen or twenty years, the individual and the culture forgets the crap and remembers the few gold nuggets, so the distant past seems pretty idyllic.
But you can show a 13-year old the whole cinema canon, from Citizen Kane to Stroszek to Star Wars, and he’ll hate most of it. His favorite movie will still be Star Wars Episode 3. We would love to show kids of today Episodes I and II and show them how much better they were, but those kids won’t confirm our biases. They’ll just think we’re boring and confusing. And although it’s a more primitive sort of preference than our “art appreciation,” who’s to say it’s a less valid way to evaluate and appreciate cinema?
And I bet, if you wait 20 years and then ask our children (the next generation of cinephiles) what they think is the pinnacle of movie history, they’ll point to OUR time… to movies like WALL-E and Dark Knight and Children of Men… and say this is the highest point of cinema’s evolution. They may also say that what’s going on in their time is complete crap, but they’ll be just as wrong as we are now.
In my experience, this movie stood largely on the power of the setting and atmosphere, which was oppressive and prison-like, even in the open French countryside (i.e. the long clip of the van driving to the concentration camp at the beginning of the film). The empty, lonely hopelessness of an oppressed nation really came through, from beginning to end.
However, I don’t think this atmosphere was the key dramatic element… it was just the necessary groundwork. The key dramatic element was actually the guilt and inner conflict of civilians at war, dramatized in the moments of conscience that were scattered through the film. In particular, I’d cite: the protagonists’ early hesitation to commit murder and the haunting experience of getting over that hang-up; Phillipe’s tortured and futile attempt to face the Nazi machine gun without running; and the final twist in the story, which was probably a minor incident in the grand scheme of the revolution, but which was a morally crushing moment for the characters and their sympathetic audience.
The flow of plot was a bit jumpy, I’d say, like the lives of its protagonists; however, the film was ruthlessly honest in its portrayal of violence, anxiety, and emotional fallout.
Discussions about politeness and moral enforcement fascinate me. One person can argue that the government shouldn’t imprison someone just for making an insensitive remark, and another person can argue that language has the power to make people feel oppressed, and somehow these two people can think they’re responding to the same debate topic.
There are so many forces at work here. “Censorship,” the coercive use of force by a government to prevent certain things from being communicated in a society, is the first, and the simplest topic to address. Very few people, including the most “PC” liberals, will argue in favor of censorship, because “freedom of speech” is a principle that was established in the enlightenment and in the constitution. Arguing against that is going to be an uphill battle. However, once we object to “censorship” as a general rule, we have to consider: do we accept a society where all speech is celebrated and accepted, including “Birth of a Nation,” “Triumph of the Will,” and Fred Phelps’ abominable protests?
The answer is, of course we don’t just accept and celebrate those kinds of communication. Instead, we find some other way to normalize and enforce tolerance and sensitivity… education, social pressure, integration, etc. This is how ethics develop in an intelligent, adaptive society… they emerge from arguments and debates like the one above, over whether it’s acceptable to portray racist ideas on screen, whether in propaganda form (Birth of a Nation) or as a subtext in a more traditional narrative (Gone With the Wind). In this case, developing and vehemently arguing an opinion is not censorship (as some pedants will try to argue it is) — it’s actually a key part of contributing to the formation of a collective conscience.
Somebody I’m very close to was highly offended by the movie “The Holy Mountain”… she argued that it’s basically a two-hour rush of images that are intentionally offensive to normal sensibilities, and that by mixing these aversive images with traditional Christian and religious themes, the film aggressively associates Western religion with mutilation, sexual deviance, and cruelty. I was quick to defend the film as a piece of art, claiming that it’s important to understand and appreciate the underlying themes and see where the auteur is coming from. After I thought about it, though, I wondered… why am I so intent on defending such a disturbing little film? Its artistic message wasn’t particularly profound or moving. In the end, it seems to be that I’ve set myself up as a defender of the little protective bubble that we’ve erected around artistic expression, and in the interests of protecting that bubble, I’ll come to the defense of some pretty disturbing shit.
And maybe The Holy Mountain is just as offensive as Birth of a Nation, especially if you’re a thoughtful, sympathetic Christian. It’s worth noting that The Holy Mountain is still screened as a work of art, whereas Birth of a Nation is pretty much never exhibited, except as a quaint historical curiosity. I’m not arguing that either of these should be censored, but hey… it shows how complex the censorship discussion actually is.
Great post, Witkacy. This is a point that needs to be made often, and with vigor: there is no horde of liberals representing “PC” as a movement. There’s just a lot of minorities who don’t want to be pinned under regressive stereotypes, and a media establishment that decided they should put a label on these people to marginalize them in the cultural discourse.
So what’s the greatest long take you’ve seen? I keep running across movies that are famous for one particular long shot… is it the opening to “Touch of Evil”? The finale to “The Passenger”? The whole film “Rope”? (this last one is debatable because of the hidden cuts) One of the unhinged shots wandering through the house in “Rules of the Game”?
Who uses the technique most dynamically and effectively? What else am I missing?
Watched Wild Strawberries last night… my second Bergman, after Persona a couple years ago… not realizing it was so close to his birthday. Happy birthday IB.
I’ve tried to catch up on some Eastern cinema along with my American and European canon, and I’ve discovered I really like Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter, Kurosawa’s Ran, and (I’ve known this for a while) Miyazaki, especially Mononoke Hime.
I’ll be seeing more soon… including Sansho the Bailiff, Sword of Doom, and others, I’m sure.
Interesting, reading a comparison of Fellini and Antonioni. You’re right that Antonioni’s alienation seems more profound, probably in part because of the minimalism of his sets and the fixation on transitional events and moments of uncertainty. For this, I give him credit for being a purist… however, I find Fellini’s films I’ve seen a little more compelling. I certainly don’t sympathize with his protagonists, but I do so more than with Antonioni’s almost soulless main characters… and the sense of involvement in a complex, robust world seems more realistic than Antonioni’s vacuous landscape. When I feel alienation in Fellini’s short-sighted world, I feel truly estranged from normalcy, whereas in Antonioni, there’s never a sense of comfort in the first place. To me, Fellini’s dialectic seems more developed than Antonioni’s, even though the latter seems more committed to his aesthetic.
I’m interested in the effect of unsympathetic protagonists on movies. My first thought is “Control,” a biopic about Ian Curtis of Joy Division — beautifully shot, and unflinching in portraying Curtis as a tortured, poisonous presence in the lives of people who cared about him. When I walked out of the theater, I had enjoyed the film for its aesthetic sensibility, but the friend who accompanied me apparently hated it, because she hated the main character so much.
This is also the point of John Gardner’s modernist novel Grendel, where the creature acting as protagonist is so flawed and self-loathing that you’re ultimately supposed to reject his philosophy and celebrate his demise. At least, the author claims that was his intention.
I’ve seen a few discussions on The Auteurs about whether you can enjoy a movie with a reprehensible, unsympathetic protagonist. This seems more relevant today than ever, with the popularity of French extremism and dark postmodernist themes appearing in films. So my question: what movies have you seen like this? What do you think of it as a narrative technique?
Yeah, I see Jake La Motta to be sympathetic, even if it’s just that he’s a victim of his own insecurities, and we kind of root for him to find his way out of his misery. I agree that he’s not likable. That’s a unique case, too, because La Motta is simultaneously the hero and the villain of his own life. It’s not quite the same with Ian Curtis, who seems pretty thoroughly unforgivable by the end of the film.
Scorcese does an interesting job portraying heroism in general. Travis Bickle is another dubious hero, a character who’s disturbed and reprehensible, confused, and self-destructive, but who has a little shining light of redemption in that he seems to care genuinely about Iris. Because we’re following Bickle and watching his downward spiral, I think we tend to grasp at any possibility of redemption that his story offers.
In other words, these characters are sort of like what I’m talking about, but they still have something we can root for. How about movies where the protagonist seems pretty much beyond forgiveness or redemption?
I’m trying to figure out what makes some of these movies seem like they’re from the 70’s. In No Country, I expect it’s largely the production design and costumes… the Levi’s vintage jean look, the dusty plains, and the cowboy hats. There’s something about films from the 70’s that makes them look a little dry and chapped, from Harold & Maude to Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. It might be the type of film that was largely in use? The exposure and process trends at the time?
Anton’s hair is definitely 70’s throwback hair, too, if that has anything to do with it.
It never occurred to me that The Wrestler looks 70’s, but I guess you’re right about that. Does it have something to do with the unadorned cinematography? The prevalence of medium eye-level shots, the unobtrusive camera movement and pacing… all these things seem like cinema traditions that were prevalent in the 70’s, and then were replaced in the 80’s and 90’s with more dramatic low angles, close-ups, slow reveals, and quick cuts.
Am I totally wrong about this stuff? I haven’t studied it in depth… it’s just what’s occurring to me as I review the handful of 70’s films I’ve seen, and mentally compare them to films of other eras.
Point taken, Christopher. I’m not convinced all the commenters above are talking about theme and outlook, nor that the aesthetics and stylization can be dismissed in all cases, but I realize the aesthetic details I sorted out aren’t the only reason people may see a film and think “70’s.” I’m now reconsidering my experience with 70’s movies in light of the scope and thematic concerns of the period.
Do you think there’s a current lack of movies defying Hollywood artifice and trying to capture the truth of everyday existence and experience? How about movies like Man Push Cart and Goodbye Solo for those issues?
I know this topic has been dormant for a while, but I just finished a second closer watch of Wild Strawberries, and some of the comments above seem like interesting questions. In particular, I’m interested in the issues that Borg spends the movie dealing with. His daughter in law gives us the first hint at what’s “wrong” with Borg, that he’s supposedly selfish and “ruthless,” but as the viewer, we never really get to see those traits. Marianne’s complaints seem to be the misinformed by-product of Borg’s aloofness, and his refusal to forgive his son’s debt.
In fact, Borg’s dream sequences seem to suggest that he’s TOO generous and forgiving, so much so that he comes across as self-important and emotionally impotent. This, I feel, is the subtext of the most powerful flashbacks: Borg’s cousin Sara claiming that he’s sweet and loving but unexciting; his wife anticipating his patronizing tolerance of her infidelity. This is certainly a personal flaw that’s caused him frustration and heartache, and led him into a painful marriage, but it isn’t the same thing as selfishness and ruthlessness, is it?
How do you square Marianne’s perception of Isak with Sara’s and his wife’s perception, and with Isak’s perception of himself?
Yeah, the Dreamers is about an anarchist preoccupation, but it’s also about the impotence of the anarchist dream. It depends on whether Justin is asking about films that explore anarchy as an dream (which The Dreamers does) or films that actually motivate it and seem to offer it up as a possibility (which The Dreamers doesn’t really do… as the final shot of the film indicates).
Another great stop-motion short, adapted into a music video for the artist “Kenna”, although I don’t remember the video’s original title: Hell Bent
Every time I see a showcase of animated shorts, I’m blown away by the quality of work being produced right now. The new digital tools makes this an especially fertile ground for new talent, I think.
(still trying to figure out the link thing cause I’m a n00b)
A while back I used decided to find a “favorite clip” to use in a video project, and this is what I found. Recovering it has put me on a film noir kick today.
(the project ended up here: Rene — and the clip shown above appears around the 2:00 mark)
Props to T2: Judgment Day… it was the first action film I thought of, and I’m glad to see I’m not alone. All the dramatic undercurrents beneath the action — the Conors and their struggle to deal with their importance — Sarah, perhaps the strongest female ever scripted, driven to altruistic ruthlessness out of desperation and tortured trauma — the T-1000, a terrifying adversary if ever there was one — and a movie driven by perfect details and choreography, always plausible in just the right ways. A complex father/son/caretaker/companion relationship developing between Sarah, John, and the T-800… the right amount of sentimental cheesiness to remind us that this is truly an epic narrative… brute-force action that makes you want to pump your fist… (the T-800 on a Harley, chasing a semi down a drainage canal, shooting through gates with a shotgun and jumping off ledges to keep up… jesus!) … there are so many reasons to love this movie. It’s a masterpiece.
The Matrix: Reloaded — this choice meets with a lot of resistance, but I’ll stick behind it. The whole movie was super-ballsy, with the bizarre philosophical tangents and inexplicable plot developments, complicating the hell out of the series. The centerpiece chase/fight scene was groundbreaking, full of all the little build-ups and turning points and victories that I expect out of the best action sequences, from video games to anime.
The Project A series — Old Jackie Chan is fantastic, and the stunts were brilliant, back when he just had to block out the scene and film people doing ridiculous shit. Real people, flipping over off balconies and landing on their faces, doing somersaults and getting kicked in the head… this was kung-fu cheese, backed by some of the coolest action I’ve ever seen.
The Rundown — Sean William Scott and The Rock had real on-screen chemistry, and each of them played characters that brought out the best in them. I know Zack Snyder is now the king of the loud slo-mo action sequence, but The Rundown worked that angle, too, and it did it just right, emphasizing the massive crunch of body blows and the snaps and bangs of melee combat. The brilliant action sequences were padded with lots of goofy, frenetic plotting and silly humor, and Christopher Walken is awesome as the diamond tycoon… the characters are one-dimensional, but it’s a great movie because it showcases the ridiculous personalities of the actors themselves.
Can film trailers be an art themselves? almost 3 years ago
The Assassination of Jesse James. If the movie is a long story by a campfire, the trailer is a guy at a bar relating a cryptic anecdote before he wanders out into the night.
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Films you love but most people hate. almost 3 years ago
God such interesting choices!
Vanilla Sky – I know everyone hates it. I find it pretty interesting… especially viewed along with Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Lynch’s Blue Velvet, two more movies about a sinister dream invading a shallow, idealized everyday world
Falling Down – didn’t realize everybody hated this movie. I think it was pretty damn good. Read Roger Ebert’s review… it’ll convince you.
The Matrix Reloaded and The Fountain – two of the most baroque, unselfconscious movies of our generation, created with complete abandon. I can’t blame a movie that believes so completely in its own vision.
AI – I agree with a previous poster who said that the sublime sadness of the final act was totally necessary for the film to be complete. Modern novels always end in a nice climax and meaningful resolution, but AI wanted to be a fairy tale, and this required it to be a little uncanny at the end. It also had some of the most weirdly compelling images I’ve ever seen.
By the way, one of my favorite films will always be The Rundown, which had the best-executed cheap thrills I’ve ever seen.
Also – Pirates of the Carribean III, which was sprawling and bizarre enough that I was kind of blown away by it.
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GREAT FILMS DEPICTING INSANITY AND MENTAL ILLNESS almost 3 years ago
Michael Clayton
I must say, I’d love to see more movies that treat mental illness like that… manic depression represented fairly, with an understanding of the symptoms and of the toll it takes on the lives of the victim and the family, but not in a depressing way. It’s shown to be difficult, but very human, not frightening or transcendent or a source of mysterious wisdom.
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I Didn't Like Raging Bull... almost 3 years ago
Raging Bull felt very visceral and honest to me, esp. as a portrayal of a person whose emotions are too violent for them to control — LaMotta was essentially a character whose inhibitions were painfully inadequate in the face of his impulsive personality. I think I wouldn’t have appreciated the movie before I got to know people like that… people whose behavior is really wrenched around by their emotions. Raging Bull helped me put certain life experiences of my own into perspective.
In particular, the scene where LaMotta confronts his brother Joey over “cheating” while they’re trying to fix a TV… this is a scene where we see a man tortured by his own emotional instability, who can’t suppress his own insecurities and anxieties in order to maintain normal relationships. The film gave me a chance to stop condemning this type of uncontrollable impulsiveness, and to start seeing it with understanding, pity, and even sympathy.
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Blow Up...What the hell? almost 3 years ago
Blow-Up hasn’t aged well, in my opinion. When you say “It captures the spirit of the 60’s” you’ve pretty much nailed it… it’s a beautiful, aesthetically detached film that speaks to a lot of preoccupations that were very important at the time (when postmodernism was gaining critical currency) that have been largely spent at this point. Self-reference, the loss of personal identity, the emptiness of glamour, the crushing weight of the mundane, and the uncertainty of experience — all themes that really deserved to be considered, especially after the glassy-eyed complacency of the 50’s.
The weird, sterile sense of boring everyday life isn’t a flaw in the movie’s message… it’s one of the essential points. It shows up in lots of Antonioni, and it’s very intentional. The scene with the mimes at the end wasn’t meaningless, either — it’s more an acknowledgment of the fact that everything is a farce or a facade, and our great existential crises are pretty much just shadow-plays we’re creating to dramatize our boring lives. However, I think as a culture, we’ve faced these facts and learned ways to deal with them, so these themes don’t seem as profound to us any more.
So your confusion is understandable… you just have to put yourself in a different pair of shoes to understand where Blow-Up is coming from. Understand that your boredom, and your dissatisfaction with the lack of resolution, are actually a big part of the film’s thematic POV.
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Chuck Norris's "Silent Rage" as unsung artistic achievement? almost 3 years ago
I saw an old Chuck Norris film the other night… on VHS, no less… and it affected me enough that I wanted to talk to somebody about it. It’s called “Silent Rage,” and it’s based on the rather absurd B-movie premise that a company develops a treatment to turn people into regenerative superhumans, and in their infinite corporate wisdom, they run human tests on a homicidal psychopath. Of course, Chuck Norris, the local small-town sheriff, is the only man equipped to stop the subsequent mayhem.
The dialogue was bad, the characters were stock, and the plot was absurd. The director, Michael Miller, doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia page. However, at a few key moments, the filmmaker seemed to take the low-budget status of his film and use it as license to experiment. For instance, the first scene is a single long shot, deadpan and eerie, that introduces us to John Kirby, the psychopathic killer made terrifying by Brian Libby’s soulless performance. In between clumsy romances and biker gangs terrorizing the locals, we get other sinister glimpses of Kirby’s robotic insanity — when one character looks up from checking on a victim, she finds Kirby hovering and staring at her from just a few feet away, like some sort of autistic wildcat. In one scene, we see Kirby’s shadow descending a staircase in an apparent homage to German Expression… in another, he hacks through a door and looks into a room in an obvious reference to The Shining, which was released a couple years before. There are also interesting setups where muindane dialogue in the foreground is broken up by the subtle appearance of Kirby in the background, stalking his prey or escaping from a crime scene. The small town comes across as a lonely wasteland in rural Texas, punctuated by a few isolated oases of artificial light and human activity. Somehow, despite bad 80’s cheese and horror tropes, it manages to be evocative and surreal.
So after all this, I’m just curious… has anyone else seen this movie? If so, do you think there was any artistic merit beneath its B-movie production quality? Is this a key case of something interesting emerging from a lack of resources, a lack of experience, and a lack of preconceptions about how to make a karate horror movie? Or am I just looking too hard for something to like?
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The Fountain almost 3 years ago
Interesting. First, BELLWHETHER – comparing this film to movies like Transformers is a little silly. Aaronofsky actually went out of his way to minimize the CGI… all those insane visuals in the “future” sections are created from underwater macro photography. CGI was only used for the color correction and compositing, from what I understand. The use of analog photographic process is one of the things that makes this film really great-looking, in my opinion, with its vision of a primordial far future.
All this disagreement seems to be coming about because we’re looking at this film on a couple different levels. The people who dislike the movie often seem to be seeing it on the “philosophical underpinnings” level, and they seem to be looking for the film’s purpose on this level, and finding it kind of empty and cliched. I can understand that… its discussions of mortality and the everlasting power of love are a little trite. “I will die!” Isn’t that the line that the main character repeats three times as a philosophical climax? If you’re a high-level thinker, looking for the most abstract concepts this film represents, you might dislike it. I could even understand tagging this film as “new age,” since it’s got a generically spiritual and generically literary feel to it. Some people think love and death are the only themes worthy of art… others are tired of these grand ruminations, and would rather see something a little more real.
I was a big fan of The Fountain when I saw it, but it was less for the high concept, and more for the treatment and execution… the attention to details, and weaving of various thematic threads. The feminine force takes on different forms in each era — the queen as mother to the nation and her people, the wife as lover and caretaker, and the tree as force of nature and bastion of organic life. The threads of the film were woven really tightly, and the themes, though melodramatic, were well-executed. I never minded melodrama.
I’ve cooled off a lot on the film, though… perhaps because of the aforementioned thinness of its philosophical underpinnings. As my specific memories of the film recede further into the past, I remember it more and more as a pretty film about fairly generic literary themes. I have it somewhere on DVD… it’s probably time I rewatched it, to see if my enthusiasm returns.
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Do you prefer what is current? Can you fully appreciate older films? almost 3 years ago
MWAMC was stunning. I agree completely that it would be good training… enjoyable, and especially so if you can teach yourself to just let go of your need for narrative and resolution, so that you can get caught up in the rhythm and patterns of meaning. It was an enlightening experience.
As for me, I have a strangely conditioned mishmash of opinions on movies. The ones I like most naturally… that have inspired an authentic fandom… are movies from the early 90’s, when I was old enough to enjoy them but young enough not to think too hard about them. These are films like Terminator 2 and Aliens… Aladdin… you know, my childhood favorites. There are some newer movies I’ve loved in the same way, although I don’t have the nostalgic connection to them: The Rundown and The Emperor’s New Groove are good examples.
A couple years ago, I embarked on a mission to educate myself on the history of great cinema, and although I was ready to really work for that goal, I still found I needed dedication and patience to experience the true classics. “A Philadelphia Story” was brilliant in its charm and personality, but the dialogue comes so fast, with no obvious cues… I really had to work to focus my attention and pick up all the key details. It took some real mental effort. The same was true of all the old films, from “Nosferatu” to “Seven Samurai.” I’ve still got to commit to an old movie before I can really get something out of it. However, once I am willing to commit, they’re priceless, fascinating, educational experiences.
I’m glad to still be seeing current movies, and to find some that appeal to both the popcorn flick mentality and the art-film curiosity. Moon… the Pixar movies… Goodbye Solo… The Wrestler… The Assassination of Jesse James… Let the Right One In… contemporary acting and filmmaking techniques can definitely yield a profound, thought-provoking film, even when they’re paced for excitement and entertainment. So in a sense, I think it’s a great time for film, you know?
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WHY ARE OLD FILMS BETTER THAN THE NEW ONES almost 3 years ago
Don’t dismiss the current age of movies too quickly. I’ve seen some fascinating films recently… Goodbye Solo, Moon, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Let the Right One In… these are current films, but they resonate like classics already. They bring compelling characters into a narrative world that feels really authentic, carved out painstakingly, with love and dedication. Because they’re generally made by young directors, they also feel fresh… maybe more so than the later films of Antonioni and Godard, who may have started to get hung up on auteur-ship itself.
Of course, you have to bear in mind a point made in that other thread, linked above: in every era, there are piles of mass-produced garbage, and only a few real gems. So “most of the new films” includes a lot of generic stuff that will never be worthy of a critical word.
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WHY ARE OLD FILMS BETTER THAN THE NEW ONES almost 3 years ago
Random WORDS in all CAPS make me feel like I’m being LECTURED by Captain KIRK
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Violence in films. almost 3 years ago
I wrote a paper not too long ago about Falling Down and The Boondock Saints, and how they both represent the same psychological complex. They seem like totally different films, partly because Falling Down seems very self-aware, whereas Duffy’s Boondock Saints seems off-the-cuff and masturbatory… but they’re actually about a lot of the same things: self-righteous vigilante-ism, the white male superiority complex, and the influence of the parent in violent psychology.
I don’t know if you should necessarily use these movies, per se. My point is more that I think you can find some profound cultural meaning in pretty much any movie(s), even if they’re considered big-budget popcorn crap. Every movie is an expression of our cultural preoccupations, whether it’s intentional or not.
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WHY ARE OLD FILMS BETTER THAN THE NEW ONES almost 3 years ago
I’m firmly in the camp that believes it’s a mistake to see the past through rose-colored glasses. Who’s to say what makes good art, and can you really justify a definition of “good art” that excludes everything contemporary?
A lot of the opinions here seem to indicate that good art is anything more than two decades old that’s survived the filtering processes of time. That’s where the whole “good old days” perspective comes from… after fifteen or twenty years, the individual and the culture forgets the crap and remembers the few gold nuggets, so the distant past seems pretty idyllic.
But you can show a 13-year old the whole cinema canon, from Citizen Kane to Stroszek to Star Wars, and he’ll hate most of it. His favorite movie will still be Star Wars Episode 3. We would love to show kids of today Episodes I and II and show them how much better they were, but those kids won’t confirm our biases. They’ll just think we’re boring and confusing. And although it’s a more primitive sort of preference than our “art appreciation,” who’s to say it’s a less valid way to evaluate and appreciate cinema?
And I bet, if you wait 20 years and then ask our children (the next generation of cinephiles) what they think is the pinnacle of movie history, they’ll point to OUR time… to movies like WALL-E and Dark Knight and Children of Men… and say this is the highest point of cinema’s evolution. They may also say that what’s going on in their time is complete crap, but they’ll be just as wrong as we are now.
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Army of Shadows almost 3 years ago
In my experience, this movie stood largely on the power of the setting and atmosphere, which was oppressive and prison-like, even in the open French countryside (i.e. the long clip of the van driving to the concentration camp at the beginning of the film). The empty, lonely hopelessness of an oppressed nation really came through, from beginning to end.
However, I don’t think this atmosphere was the key dramatic element… it was just the necessary groundwork. The key dramatic element was actually the guilt and inner conflict of civilians at war, dramatized in the moments of conscience that were scattered through the film. In particular, I’d cite: the protagonists’ early hesitation to commit murder and the haunting experience of getting over that hang-up; Phillipe’s tortured and futile attempt to face the Nazi machine gun without running; and the final twist in the story, which was probably a minor incident in the grand scheme of the revolution, but which was a morally crushing moment for the characters and their sympathetic audience.
The flow of plot was a bit jumpy, I’d say, like the lives of its protagonists; however, the film was ruthlessly honest in its portrayal of violence, anxiety, and emotional fallout.
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Can a film ever be truly offensive? almost 3 years ago
Discussions about politeness and moral enforcement fascinate me. One person can argue that the government shouldn’t imprison someone just for making an insensitive remark, and another person can argue that language has the power to make people feel oppressed, and somehow these two people can think they’re responding to the same debate topic.
There are so many forces at work here. “Censorship,” the coercive use of force by a government to prevent certain things from being communicated in a society, is the first, and the simplest topic to address. Very few people, including the most “PC” liberals, will argue in favor of censorship, because “freedom of speech” is a principle that was established in the enlightenment and in the constitution. Arguing against that is going to be an uphill battle. However, once we object to “censorship” as a general rule, we have to consider: do we accept a society where all speech is celebrated and accepted, including “Birth of a Nation,” “Triumph of the Will,” and Fred Phelps’ abominable protests?
The answer is, of course we don’t just accept and celebrate those kinds of communication. Instead, we find some other way to normalize and enforce tolerance and sensitivity… education, social pressure, integration, etc. This is how ethics develop in an intelligent, adaptive society… they emerge from arguments and debates like the one above, over whether it’s acceptable to portray racist ideas on screen, whether in propaganda form (Birth of a Nation) or as a subtext in a more traditional narrative (Gone With the Wind). In this case, developing and vehemently arguing an opinion is not censorship (as some pedants will try to argue it is) — it’s actually a key part of contributing to the formation of a collective conscience.
Somebody I’m very close to was highly offended by the movie “The Holy Mountain”… she argued that it’s basically a two-hour rush of images that are intentionally offensive to normal sensibilities, and that by mixing these aversive images with traditional Christian and religious themes, the film aggressively associates Western religion with mutilation, sexual deviance, and cruelty. I was quick to defend the film as a piece of art, claiming that it’s important to understand and appreciate the underlying themes and see where the auteur is coming from. After I thought about it, though, I wondered… why am I so intent on defending such a disturbing little film? Its artistic message wasn’t particularly profound or moving. In the end, it seems to be that I’ve set myself up as a defender of the little protective bubble that we’ve erected around artistic expression, and in the interests of protecting that bubble, I’ll come to the defense of some pretty disturbing shit.
And maybe The Holy Mountain is just as offensive as Birth of a Nation, especially if you’re a thoughtful, sympathetic Christian. It’s worth noting that The Holy Mountain is still screened as a work of art, whereas Birth of a Nation is pretty much never exhibited, except as a quaint historical curiosity. I’m not arguing that either of these should be censored, but hey… it shows how complex the censorship discussion actually is.
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Can a film ever be truly offensive? almost 3 years ago
Great post, Witkacy. This is a point that needs to be made often, and with vigor: there is no horde of liberals representing “PC” as a movement. There’s just a lot of minorities who don’t want to be pinned under regressive stereotypes, and a media establishment that decided they should put a label on these people to marginalize them in the cultural discourse.
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long take, montage, or both almost 3 years ago
So what’s the greatest long take you’ve seen? I keep running across movies that are famous for one particular long shot… is it the opening to “Touch of Evil”? The finale to “The Passenger”? The whole film “Rope”? (this last one is debatable because of the hidden cuts) One of the unhinged shots wandering through the house in “Rules of the Game”?
Who uses the technique most dynamically and effectively? What else am I missing?
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The Official Ingmar Bergman Birthday Thread almost 3 years ago
Watched Wild Strawberries last night… my second Bergman, after Persona a couple years ago… not realizing it was so close to his birthday. Happy birthday IB.
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FAVORITE JAPANESE MOVIE almost 3 years ago
I’ve tried to catch up on some Eastern cinema along with my American and European canon, and I’ve discovered I really like Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter, Kurosawa’s Ran, and (I’ve known this for a while) Miyazaki, especially Mononoke Hime.
I’ll be seeing more soon… including Sansho the Bailiff, Sword of Doom, and others, I’m sure.
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ANTONIONI almost 3 years ago
Interesting, reading a comparison of Fellini and Antonioni. You’re right that Antonioni’s alienation seems more profound, probably in part because of the minimalism of his sets and the fixation on transitional events and moments of uncertainty. For this, I give him credit for being a purist… however, I find Fellini’s films I’ve seen a little more compelling. I certainly don’t sympathize with his protagonists, but I do so more than with Antonioni’s almost soulless main characters… and the sense of involvement in a complex, robust world seems more realistic than Antonioni’s vacuous landscape. When I feel alienation in Fellini’s short-sighted world, I feel truly estranged from normalcy, whereas in Antonioni, there’s never a sense of comfort in the first place. To me, Fellini’s dialectic seems more developed than Antonioni’s, even though the latter seems more committed to his aesthetic.
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Unsympathetic Protagonists (Control, etc) almost 3 years ago
I’m interested in the effect of unsympathetic protagonists on movies. My first thought is “Control,” a biopic about Ian Curtis of Joy Division — beautifully shot, and unflinching in portraying Curtis as a tortured, poisonous presence in the lives of people who cared about him. When I walked out of the theater, I had enjoyed the film for its aesthetic sensibility, but the friend who accompanied me apparently hated it, because she hated the main character so much.
This is also the point of John Gardner’s modernist novel Grendel, where the creature acting as protagonist is so flawed and self-loathing that you’re ultimately supposed to reject his philosophy and celebrate his demise. At least, the author claims that was his intention.
I’ve seen a few discussions on The Auteurs about whether you can enjoy a movie with a reprehensible, unsympathetic protagonist. This seems more relevant today than ever, with the popularity of French extremism and dark postmodernist themes appearing in films. So my question: what movies have you seen like this? What do you think of it as a narrative technique?
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Unsympathetic Protagonists (Control, etc) almost 3 years ago
Yeah, I see Jake La Motta to be sympathetic, even if it’s just that he’s a victim of his own insecurities, and we kind of root for him to find his way out of his misery. I agree that he’s not likable. That’s a unique case, too, because La Motta is simultaneously the hero and the villain of his own life. It’s not quite the same with Ian Curtis, who seems pretty thoroughly unforgivable by the end of the film.
Scorcese does an interesting job portraying heroism in general. Travis Bickle is another dubious hero, a character who’s disturbed and reprehensible, confused, and self-destructive, but who has a little shining light of redemption in that he seems to care genuinely about Iris. Because we’re following Bickle and watching his downward spiral, I think we tend to grasp at any possibility of redemption that his story offers.
In other words, these characters are sort of like what I’m talking about, but they still have something we can root for. How about movies where the protagonist seems pretty much beyond forgiveness or redemption?
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CONTEMPORARY FILMS THAT HAVE A 70S VIBE almost 3 years ago
I’m trying to figure out what makes some of these movies seem like they’re from the 70’s. In No Country, I expect it’s largely the production design and costumes… the Levi’s vintage jean look, the dusty plains, and the cowboy hats. There’s something about films from the 70’s that makes them look a little dry and chapped, from Harold & Maude to Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. It might be the type of film that was largely in use? The exposure and process trends at the time?
Anton’s hair is definitely 70’s throwback hair, too, if that has anything to do with it.
It never occurred to me that The Wrestler looks 70’s, but I guess you’re right about that. Does it have something to do with the unadorned cinematography? The prevalence of medium eye-level shots, the unobtrusive camera movement and pacing… all these things seem like cinema traditions that were prevalent in the 70’s, and then were replaced in the 80’s and 90’s with more dramatic low angles, close-ups, slow reveals, and quick cuts.
Am I totally wrong about this stuff? I haven’t studied it in depth… it’s just what’s occurring to me as I review the handful of 70’s films I’ve seen, and mentally compare them to films of other eras.
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CONTEMPORARY FILMS THAT HAVE A 70S VIBE almost 3 years ago
Point taken, Christopher. I’m not convinced all the commenters above are talking about theme and outlook, nor that the aesthetics and stylization can be dismissed in all cases, but I realize the aesthetic details I sorted out aren’t the only reason people may see a film and think “70’s.” I’m now reconsidering my experience with 70’s movies in light of the scope and thematic concerns of the period.
Do you think there’s a current lack of movies defying Hollywood artifice and trying to capture the truth of everyday existence and experience? How about movies like Man Push Cart and Goodbye Solo for those issues?
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Wild Strawberries almost 3 years ago
I know this topic has been dormant for a while, but I just finished a second closer watch of Wild Strawberries, and some of the comments above seem like interesting questions. In particular, I’m interested in the issues that Borg spends the movie dealing with. His daughter in law gives us the first hint at what’s “wrong” with Borg, that he’s supposedly selfish and “ruthless,” but as the viewer, we never really get to see those traits. Marianne’s complaints seem to be the misinformed by-product of Borg’s aloofness, and his refusal to forgive his son’s debt.
In fact, Borg’s dream sequences seem to suggest that he’s TOO generous and forgiving, so much so that he comes across as self-important and emotionally impotent. This, I feel, is the subtext of the most powerful flashbacks: Borg’s cousin Sara claiming that he’s sweet and loving but unexciting; his wife anticipating his patronizing tolerance of her infidelity. This is certainly a personal flaw that’s caused him frustration and heartache, and led him into a painful marriage, but it isn’t the same thing as selfishness and ruthlessness, is it?
How do you square Marianne’s perception of Isak with Sara’s and his wife’s perception, and with Isak’s perception of himself?
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IMMORTAL QUOTES FROM UNFORGETTABLE MOVIES almost 3 years ago
Good CALL, Francisco.
“You ARE dangerous.” -Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon… nobly reprised by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Brick
Bogart’s noir work had a whole host of the best lines in cinema. Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe were gold mines of slick dialogue.
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TRULY ANARCHIC FILMS almost 3 years ago
Harold & Maude.
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TRULY ANARCHIC FILMS almost 3 years ago
Yeah, the Dreamers is about an anarchist preoccupation, but it’s also about the impotence of the anarchist dream. It depends on whether Justin is asking about films that explore anarchy as an dream (which The Dreamers does) or films that actually motivate it and seem to offer it up as a possibility (which The Dreamers doesn’t really do… as the final shot of the film indicates).
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favorite short film. almost 3 years ago
Balance
Another great stop-motion short, adapted into a music video for the artist “Kenna”, although I don’t remember the video’s original title:
Hell Bent
Every time I see a showcase of animated shorts, I’m blown away by the quality of work being produced right now. The new digital tools makes this an especially fertile ground for new talent, I think.
(still trying to figure out the link thing cause I’m a n00b)
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What is (are) your favorite frame(s)? almost 3 years ago
A while back I used decided to find a “favorite clip” to use in a video project, and this is what I found. Recovering it has put me on a film noir kick today.
(the project ended up here: Rene — and the clip shown above appears around the 2:00 mark)
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Top Five Action Films and Why almost 3 years ago
Props to T2: Judgment Day… it was the first action film I thought of, and I’m glad to see I’m not alone. All the dramatic undercurrents beneath the action — the Conors and their struggle to deal with their importance — Sarah, perhaps the strongest female ever scripted, driven to altruistic ruthlessness out of desperation and tortured trauma — the T-1000, a terrifying adversary if ever there was one — and a movie driven by perfect details and choreography, always plausible in just the right ways. A complex father/son/caretaker/companion relationship developing between Sarah, John, and the T-800… the right amount of sentimental cheesiness to remind us that this is truly an epic narrative… brute-force action that makes you want to pump your fist… (the T-800 on a Harley, chasing a semi down a drainage canal, shooting through gates with a shotgun and jumping off ledges to keep up… jesus!) … there are so many reasons to love this movie. It’s a masterpiece.
The Matrix: Reloaded — this choice meets with a lot of resistance, but I’ll stick behind it. The whole movie was super-ballsy, with the bizarre philosophical tangents and inexplicable plot developments, complicating the hell out of the series. The centerpiece chase/fight scene was groundbreaking, full of all the little build-ups and turning points and victories that I expect out of the best action sequences, from video games to anime.
The Project A series — Old Jackie Chan is fantastic, and the stunts were brilliant, back when he just had to block out the scene and film people doing ridiculous shit. Real people, flipping over off balconies and landing on their faces, doing somersaults and getting kicked in the head… this was kung-fu cheese, backed by some of the coolest action I’ve ever seen.
The Rundown — Sean William Scott and The Rock had real on-screen chemistry, and each of them played characters that brought out the best in them. I know Zack Snyder is now the king of the loud slo-mo action sequence, but The Rundown worked that angle, too, and it did it just right, emphasizing the massive crunch of body blows and the snaps and bangs of melee combat. The brilliant action sequences were padded with lots of goofy, frenetic plotting and silly humor, and Christopher Walken is awesome as the diamond tycoon… the characters are one-dimensional, but it’s a great movie because it showcases the ridiculous personalities of the actors themselves.
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