tgd@floyd.UUCP (Tom Dennehy) (08/25/83)
First impression:
I agree with the poser of this question that technique is not
enough to plant a film in my mind and heartofhearts forever.
Many a film has has gone in one eye and out the other, despite
having the most gee whiz direction(writing,
cinematography,editing, ad nauseum) while considerably cruder
schtuff has been a lasting source of pleasure, and not even guilty
pleasure.
Some clarification, maestro.
Eraserhead and The Elephant Man (by David Lynch) had the same look,
and the same Dickensian images of machinery and industrial decay.
I would hesitate to call Eraserhead a "favorite" film. It disturbs
us, it keeps us at arm's length from the characters (do we really care
about these people??), and makes some pretty appalling statements
wrt male fears about love and family.
We're drawn into the E-man. We are forced to confront his pains. We
care. The anachronistic images of Ehead are appropriate to the time
and help us to feel the joy and agonies of his life. It's much more
personal than the play by Bernard Pomerance. (the film is NOT based on
the play, by the way, and the play takes a completely different
perspective and the situation focusing more on how Eman influenced
those to which he was attached than on his own plight) Stage action is
stylized - when Merrick is put into decent clothes, he's no longer
a freak - he's an actor in a morning suit making silly faces. You can
dress up Lynch's Eman, but you can't take him out. It's a sad, deeply
moving film whose images have stayed with me more than two years since
I saw it. They may be the same images as in Ehead, but they associate
closer with Eman.
A film has got to hit ya where you live.
Another example (a counter-example, actually). Perry Henzell's The Harder
They Come is a pretty poor endeavor, but it's a fave. The print is grainy,
the dialogue unintelligble (and not just because of the slang and Jamaican
accents), and the direction is pretty poor. BUT the premise of the film
is terrific (a singer achieves pop stardom only after he kills a man and
becomes an outlaw) and Jimmy Cliff's performance and music really cook
along. Content outweighs technique.
Guilty little pleasures can make favorite films. More on that later.
Tom Dennehy BTL Whippany {floyd!tgd}