muller@src.umd.edu (Christophe Muller) (09/19/90)
In article <6348@castle.ed.ac.uk> erdb04@castle.ed.ac.uk (D Neilson) writes: Warning: be prepared for something very subjective! (with "good" in the title, what would you expect anyway.. ;-) In article <6348@castle.ed.ac.uk> erdb04@castle.ed.ac.uk (D Neilson) writes: > Point taken. Nearly all films that enjoy general distribution need some > sort of *ending* that tells you the film is finished, the threads are > all tied up and you can go home now. If Lynch had finished W@H with a > scene where Dern was reading a magazine and drinking coffee back home, > and/or Cage reading a paper at a bus stop then we would have left the > cinema still expecting *something*. I think with the sort of movies > Lynch is now making (like Greenaway) he needs to tie it up for us to > make us believe that it's over. This is especially true to help us cope > with the levels of sex, violence, depravation and nastiness that goes > on. The devices used by Lynch (and Greenaway) definitely make us examine > our attitudes to lots of important things in ways that talking about the > weather or reading the paper don't. A nice sweet lasting image, right at > the end, packages the film away and provides an opportunity for > reflection and analysis. Just think if he had finished it with Harry > Dean Stanton having his brains blown out or Laura Dern beating up her > kid. The lasting image would have been VERY NASTY and could have given > the film a high negative rating for viewers. > I know lots of people who hate the film. They think it's sexist and > contains too much gratuitous violence. They have a point and it's good > to have to argue why you think the film is a masterpiece against these > criticisms. I'd like to have somebody explaining to me *why* Wild at heart is so wonderful. Maybe I just missed everything, or the cultural gap is too large (I haven't even seen "Wizard of Oz", shame on me ;-). But I keep on thinking that the two last films of David Lynch are not worth all the noise about them (compare to Woody Allen's last film "Crimes & Misdemeanors" which is IMHO his best, or the works of Jim Jarmush that might well be the best hope for American Cinema's future! :-) So what are these two movies (Blue Velvet and W@H) about? Dark and bright side of human beings? Heroic initiation? It's hard to make something new on such a subject.. (Once more, feel free to correct me or flame me). It seems to me that at least 10 films of Alfred Hitchcock are much better than that, like "Shadow of a doubt" (43) where young Charlie, living on the sunny West coast discovers that she is finaly very close to her uncle (coming from the dark east coast and murderer of old rich widows). Ok, this is a spoiler, but 47 years after it's no big deal.. ;-). I have the same feeling of artificial work if I compare W@H with the first movies of Jean-Luc Godard ("Pierrot le fou" or "Breathless") or even Lawrence of Arabia. What bugs me in the last David Lynch movies is the number of effects that don't really have any meaning or justification other that trying to make a prefabricated cult-movie (camera at the grass level, funny dialogues..) I wonder if he is going to film in the same vein during the next ten years (maybe it's lucrative enough..). Now when you go to a new Lynch's movie, you expect to see flames on the screen, violence, weird things,.. but why??? It doesn't bother me to see weird things in Fellini's movies because I understand why they are there. Unfortunately not with David Lynch. Anyway... > Anyway, keep talking about it. It beats all this shit posted on ALL > these dreadful films churned out by the Holywood industry. Agreed. > I know, I don't need to read it (I don't), and people don't need to read > this, so save the flames. Well.. say.. keep the flames for the next David Lynch movie :-) and let's move this to rec.arts.cinema. I don't read these articles either (this will certainely be interpreted as arrogance, I know that already ;-) ;-D), but they don't bother me, as long as gnus doesn't take too long to browse among the titles and stop me at the Greenaway, Arcand or Kurosawa stations (even Lynch! :-) :-) :-)). Also, I'd rather see one hundred titles about "Back-to-the-future N" or "Darkman" than one about Citizen Kane saying "What's so great about this movie?" or about any Antonioni or Tarkovski's film saying "It was sooooo boring!!!". This usually doesn't happend, or not so often. On the contrary I read some TERRIBLE things in "real life, real newspapers" reviews from so-called real professional critics. I'd give two examples, just for fun (and also I'll feel better after :-), one is a review about "Jesus of Montreal" that I read in a paper in San-Fransisco (forgot the title, sorry), and the other one is from the Washington Post of friday, about "Dreams". Basically, the subject of "Jesus of Montreal", as I understand it, is imposture in the world: everything in our society is false and superficial. Falsification and manipulation rule the world, helped by TV commercials, movies (yes!), lawyers, critics (of course :-), and even books. But the interesting thing is that Arcand is using the king media of falsification (cinema) to make his point, and then it becomes very interesting.. He chooses to show to the spectator that _even his film_ is a falsification. He does that with numerous visual effects, tricks,.. like the shot of a beautiful woman, walking to the sound of delightful music, and then the camera goes backward and shows a crew filming a commercial; or like the play into the film (interrupted several times by "Next station, ladies and gentlemen please come this way!). The characters themselves are victims of illusions: in the hospital because of the make-up, or the priest assisting to a rehearsal... The first "Next station, ladies and gentlemen" is funny, but then you start thinking that the filmmaker is somewhat destroying his work. What he actually tries to do is telling you: "This is not real life", "this is a work art", "you have to do some work, to make some interpretations", etc... Peter Greenaway does the same in "The Cook.." (e.g., at the beginning, we see some curtains being opened, and at the end we see some other being closed..) Now what has our wonderful critic found? That "this movie was not realistic" .... :-( No comment. The other article is from the Washington Post of September 14th, by Mr. Hal Hinson, "Washington Post Staff Writer" (with all the capital letters :-). He starts very strong, in case the reader won't read everything (which is probably a good idea BTW, he must be conscious of his talent..): > By titling his new film "Akira Kurosawa's Dreams", the Japanese master > has engaged in a little false advertising. "Pontifications" might have > served as a more accurate header. I won't quote every stupid things (It'll take me too much time), but this one is pretty funny: > Though he is one of the undisputed masters of the medium, Kurosawa has > never been a particulary personal artist [...] Anyway, in a nutshell Hal Hinson thinks that "Dreams" is just a set of little short stories, directly coming from Kurosawa's dreams, shown in no particular order, with no particular intention except "giving lessons". Unfortunately for Hal Hinson, this is completely bullshit, and the first lesson Kurosawa is giving us is not a "social commentarie" or a "lofty philosophical pronouncement", it is first a lesson of CINEMA. And "Dreams" is certainely not only a sequence of little dreams, it is a masterpiece, and the age of the filmmaker (80) has nothing to do with that. Of course, (in another article in the same paper), Kurosawa says: "those eight dreams are my actual dreams, but I did make adaptations." Yeah, sure, he adapted a little, but no big deal.. and poor Hal Hinson is believing him!!! *This guy is lying*! He is a genius but doesn't want to admit it! (just like when he says: "I'm a little worried because I don't feel that I understand cinema"). And here comes the big quote, the one that should force Hal Hinson to look for another job (or stay with reviews of "Ghost" or "Ninja whatever"): > [And] instead of simplifying his techniques, in later films like > "Kagemusha" (1), "Ran", and now "Dreams", Kurosawa has placed even more > emphasis on artifice. The importance of visual design, of costuming, makeup ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > and the composition of the frame, all of which are dazzling here, has grown ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > so pronounced that parts of "Dreams" play like dance or performance art; > they're carefully choregraphed pageants of color and form, ravishing but > uninvolving. _______________________ (1) Golden palm at Cannes, "by the way". Man, THIS IS WHAT CINEMA IS ABOUT!!! This is a *visual art*, just like painting; and the composition of the shot, the mise-en-scene, and the montage are the essence of Cinema. What do you want? more dialogues, car chase, big stars (with their names in BIG LETTERS)? We're not talking about cinema here, TV series maybe. And Kurosawa is one of the few directors to try to push the limits of his art far beyond what we already know, just like Chaplin, Welles, Hitchcock, or Antonioni in the past, or Greenaway (again!) nowadays. I don't claim that everybody should appreciate this film, or that it is the greatest film of the year. Differences of jugdement are always possible, a friend of mine doesn't like "The belly of an architect" (the best Greenaway IMHO), because arccoding to him, it is less structured than for example "The Cook"; I disagree but respect this opinion. But saying that in a film "Visual design is taking too much importance" is the greatest bullshit I ever heard, even from a "Staff Writer"... The conclusion of the article is: > In making "Dreams", Kurosawa seems to working reflexively, making a film > because making films is what he does. Yep, just like Painting was what Picasso was doing, and Composing Music was what Beethoven was doing! This is sort of a reflexive reflection... Cheers, Christophe.