Random Film Thoughts: Objectively Speaking, Clint Eastwood is Invictible to the Subjective Mind

[McTeague]

I’m exploring the mid-60’s now, and I must say I’m beginning to understand now why the love for the 70’s. Because, it’s true that by then Hollwyood was just regurgitating a classic mold in a diluted way. The true classic masters were dead, in decline or just delivering their last crepuscular masterpieces, and all that was left was the minor imitators, like Robert Wise, Fred Zinneman, and things like that. Looking at the Best picture nominees of 1962 onwards is sad. Not that the AMPAS lineup is the best mirror of each year’s quality, but it’s not a bad one in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s because it usually did include some fine true classics. But by the mid 60’s it’s just stale cinema, made bigger and bigger and deader and deader. And then, from 1967 onwards, it’s as if the new, fresh blood finally took mainstream Hollywood and started making mainstream films that were more alive. Compared to the days of Hitchcock, Ford, Hawks and company it just doesn’t hold a candle, but compared to the average Hollywood of the 60’s, the Hollywood of the 70’s was exciting again at last.

I still prefer the 60’s as a decade (and may be my favourite decade overall), because, previous Godard diss notwithstanding, I love both the new waves in Europe and the last masterpieces of the old masters that by that moment weren’t mainstream Hollywood anymore (did anybody care in its moment about masterpieces like Seven Women, Cheyenne Autumn, El Dorado…), but as far as mainstream Hollywood goes, yes, the 70’s meant new ideas and alive movies after the stale 60’s.

But that undeniable fact has led to an obnoxious overrating. Forman, Pakula, Spielberg, Lucas, Lumet, Ashby or even Polanski simply cannot be compared to Ford, Wells, Hitchcock, Lang, Hawks, Lubitsch, Wilder and company. The only two that ended up reaching the levels of the masters were Scorsese and Coppola, and Coppola only during that decade, and some of his films are overrated anyways, proving later that he was no Wells, Ford, etc. Declaring it the best decade is only a product of Godfather fanboyism (IMDb-ers who think Godfathers, Jaws, Star Wars and Chinatowns are all the classics a film buff must see) or of some critics feeling a misguided enfant-terriblism or the need to react against the establishment and canon existing when they started being critics.

[affy18]

So. Pierrot le fou (Godard, 1965)….

This is my true first Godard (I have seen “Breathless”, but eons ago and I read it’s not that significant of the rest of his oeuvre, although I don’t see it so far from this Pierrot).

It was rather silly. It felt like those “theatre” groups that randomly pop up in college to make a play about demonstrations and cats, written by one of the members, and where people alien to the group that happens to watch the “play” can’t help but feeling, with embarrassment, that these guys don’t realise they’re not being either funny with their in-jokes or provoking the things they present as provocations (and the fact that they openly laugh at their clumsiness during the representation doesn’t help). Nothing of what’s supposedly freewheeling, young and effervescent feels like that anymore (maybe it felt that way in the mid 60’s, though!) and nothing of what should be provoking ideas feel like anything other than clichés. It feels deeply, deeply banal in its need to throw supposedly anti-system catchphrases and ideas as if they were insightful (and they aren’t, not even remotely), and it’s rather obvious that this film will see its prestige vanish as soon as the generation of critics who feels nostalgia of their 60’s non-rebel-disguised-as-rebel youth vanishes too. Wise up guys, it wasn’t often that you fought at all, despite nominally being against certain things. Which is what this film amounts to.

And despite that, I cannot deny that at times, at bursts, usually when melancholy becomes the more prominent mood, it shows true emotion and poignant beauty, which, paired with the luminous cinematography and the aesthetic effervescence (as unmatched as it is by fake political effervescence) prevents it from being a bad movie. The balance somehow is positive, but the ridiculous and dated aspects are just too hard to ignore. LOL at this being higher than any Max Ophuls film or any Alain Resnais films in the TSPDT list. Especially comparing it with fellow nouvelle-vaguer (albeit, rive gauche) Resnais, it’s outrageous. Apparently people prefer a poppy semblance of innovation and bland pseudo-philosophy catchphrases to real innovation and depth.

At least I have the consolation that it will, 100% sure, decrease in prestige as soon as the critics who were young in the 60’s die or stop being stupidly nostalgic.

I used to think like this the first time I saw this (and this is kind of what I think of Breathless, actually) but the second time I saw it, I came around it in a significant way.

I figured most of the Belmondo's rebellion is empty, almost a posture, against an alienating society but throughout the film, this rebellion reveals itself to be the product of a deep aimlessness and spiritual emptiness. The characters go through a physical journey in search of...something meaningful and they end with nothing and I think that's where the film's tragic beauty lies. The film's politics are a mess precisely because the characters don't have the capacity to understand themselves and what they precisely are rebelling against; that emptiness causes a fickleness and inability to commit to anything truthfully. The film's go-for-broke formal daring is yet another expression of the characters' desperate attempt to escape their banal lives (the irony is that their search is just as banal but the attempts at something truthful and transcendent are beautifully conveyed).

This is one of the only two Godard films I really like (the other being Vivre sa Vie, which is one of my absolute all-time favorites).

[Aaron Leggo]

I think there is something wrong with me.

I'm about two-thirds of the way through Meet Me in St. Louis and I'm... not really enjoying it. Considering how so many of you have said you love it, I'm not sure where I'm going wrong with it...

I'm kind of with you on this one. I didn't really dislike the movie, but it's a trivial piece of warm fluff that, while cute, is mostly forgettable and flat. It looks pretty, though. It just never really moved me.

[McTeague]

I figured most of the Belmondo's rebellion is empty, almost a posture, against an alienating society but throughout the film, this rebellion reveals itself to be the product of a deep aimlessness and spiritual emptiness. The characters go through a physical journey in search of...something meaningful and they end with nothing and I think that's where the film's tragic beauty lies.

I’d buy that if Godard didn’t make their “rebellion” so appealing, the characters so sympathetic and attractive. Well, the phrase “I’d buy that” may not be the best because I actually think Godard intended to express what you say, but I think he miserably failed at it, because the protagonist don’t look spiritually empty, but really cool and appealing (or he attempts to present them as such, although they can be incredibly irritating if you’re not into their cutesy dynamic and behaviour, especially Karina’s).

I know that’s where Godard wants “the film’s tragic beauty” to lie, but he doesn’t measure well at all the “beauty” (too much, especially if you consider this whimsy to be beautiful, which Godard obviously does) and the tragedy (too flimsy because he doesn’t know very well what he wants to say, and damn if this is not a film to preach things instead of questioning them).

Which leads me to:

The film's politics are a mess precisely because the characters don't have the capacity to understand themselves and what they precisely are rebelling against; that emptiness causes a fickleness and inability to commit to anything truthfully.

You’re too generous: the film’s politics are messy because Godard’s politics are so. Because he still hadn’t solved (in case he eventually did) the conflict between how much he worships (worshipped?) American popular culture (guns, cars, rock, etc., which were his fetishes as he himself declared and one of the reasons d’etre of the film) and how much he (hypocritically?) would hate the consumerism associated to it. Not that he has to solve it (can it be solved?) but he for sure could have expressed such conflict in a way that wasn’t totally whimsical and inconsequential, in which even a suicide feels cute. He presents the conflict with the intensity of Paris Hilton's conflict as to which shoes wear today. Tragic, indeed.

The film's go-for-broke formal daring is yet another expression of the characters' desperate attempt to escape their banal lives (the irony is that their search is just as banal but the attempts at something truthful and transcendent are beautifully conveyed).

Duh! However I insist: the formal rupture isn’t matched by a true intellectual/cultural/emotional rupture. It remains superficial. It is a superficial film, and Godard’s ideas 8and he clearly wants to express “ideas”) are superficial too.

Don't worry, Affy, you don't have to love everything some critics have declared good. This won't stand a larger test of time.

[affy18]

I’d buy that if Godard didn’t make their “rebellion” so appealing, the characters so sympathetic and attractive. Well, the phrase “I’d buy that” may not be the best because I actually think Godard intended to express what you say, but I think he miserably failed at it, because the protagonist don’t look spiritually empty, but really cool and appealing (or he attempts to present them as such, although they can be incredibly irritating if you’re not into their cutesy dynamic and behaviour, especially Karina’s).

I know that’s where Godard wants “the film’s tragic beauty” to lie, but he doesn’t measure well at all the “beauty” (too much, especially if you consider this whimsy to be beautiful, which Godard obviously does) and the tragedy (too flimsy because he doesn’t know very well what he wants to say, and damn if this is not a film to preach things instead of questioning them).

I think the fact that their rebellion plays out like some road trip fugitive movie is a commentary itself on the way the characters can't escape from an entire culture that will swallow them in its ideologies. Belmondo's rebellion is both truthful in its desperation and fake in that he wants to do it "in style". I too want to escape the current cultural climate I am in but I want to do it "cool", LOL.

I think the film manages to say quite brilliantly how, no matter how hard we try, we can't fully transcend our culture. We're bound to be consumers, of a different market that will make us feel more special and with more integrity, but a market nonetheless.

And I think the film achieves a tragic beauty in the attempts. Godard doesn't take himself so seriously despite the weightiness of the issues he tackles and finds at moments a sharp sadness in the futile attempts of these two renegades. Their trip starts out very appealing, but by film's end the characters find themselves cornered and with no way out.

You’re too generous: the film’s politics are messy because Godard’s politics are so. Because he still hadn’t solved (in case he eventually did) the conflict between how much he worships (worshipped?) American popular culture (guns, cars, rock, etc., which were his fetishes as he himself declared and one of the reasons d’etre of the film) and how much he (hypocritically?) would hate the consumerism associated to it.

He doesn't solve it in a way that is life-affirming but he shows the ideological conflict and a resolution (a nihilistic one but a resolution, nonetheless).

Don't worry, Affy, you don't have to love everything some critics have declared good. This won't stand a larger test of time.

LOL, I don't think I love everything critics declare good? Like, I don't really like Contempt and Breathless, both films who critics adore and I didn't even care for Band of Outsiders either. I did think Pierrot le Fou is one of the instances in which Godard did work for me.

[McTeague]

Hey, I added things by editing! The nihilistic conclusion feels more "cute" than nihilistic, and isn't a way to solve or question anything with true weight. As Godard himself called his generation, the children of Marx and Coca Cola, well, that ending is more Coca Cola than Marx, and the whole film is a monument to cutesy that cannot help being cutesy despite nominally saying it's trying to challenge a certain status quo or meditating bitterly about it. There's no true challenge or bitterness. There are a lot of bubbles, though.

[affy18]

Hey, I added things by editing! The nihilistic conclusion feels more "cute" than nihilistic, and isn't a way to solve or question anything with true weight. As Godard himself called his generation, the children of Marx and Coca Cola, well, that ending is more Coca Cola than Marx, and the whole film is a monument to cutesy that cannot help being cutesy despite nominally saying it's trying to challenge a certain status quo or meditating bitterly about it. There's no true challenge or bitterness. There are a lot of bubbles, though.

Hm, I didn't feel the conclusion was that cute. There's an air of ridicule on Belmondo's part because even when at the edge of death, he wants to go out in grand, explosive style but that to me makes it even sadder (the expression on Belmondo in that scene is powerful), not to mention his ultimate indecisiveness even in offing himself and the bluntness of the explosion.

There's cutesy in the film but I chalk that to the romanticism and possibilities the idea of escaping brings for these characters.

[Howard Beale's Toothpaste]

I saw James Mangold's Knight and Day last night, and found it to be a buried gem. Diaz and Cruise have incredible chemistry, and both are adorable in it. The film has this charming, subdued energy to it. It's so unusually warm and friendly for a blockbuster action film. A lot of big action films have a very inhuman, hostile quality about them, but this seems to have nothing but love for its two leads. Also, yay, Viola Davis in a minor supporting role! And Riley from Buffy?!

[erikdean]

I saw James Mangold's Knight and Day last night, and found it to be a buried gem. Diaz and Cruise have incredible chemistry, and both are adorable in it. The film has this charming, subdued energy to it. It's so unusually warm and friendly for a blockbuster action film. A lot of big action films have a very inhuman, hostile quality about them, but this seems to have nothing but love for its two leads. Also, yay, Viola Davis in a minor supporting role! And Riley from Buffy?!

The only thing that I agree with about this is the buried part.

[David Giancarlo]

The Seven Year Itch was a gigantic mess. Tom Ewell's voiceover and verbalization of every thought that goes through Richard's head was tedious and irritating. I cannot believe tht he won a Golden Globe for this, while Marilyn Monroe was not even left with a nomination. The film was too self-conscious in its humour, especially in having 98% of the movie structured as Richard's daydreams, and in the moments where it winks at the fact that it is a movie (You don't say?! ), when it jokes about Cinemascope, and the possibility that blonde in the shower might be Marilyn Monroe. Still, it was worth watching for Monroe, and it can't be exaggerated how much she saves this movie, especially after being stuck with only Tom Ewell and his imagination for the film's first twenty minutes. Her effervescence and charm thankfully breathe some life into this.

[OscarsFan 2.3]

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) - Tom Six, either never make a movie again or vanish into obscurity and die. Both would be more than satisfactory. I should have learned my lesson with the first one: boring and gross. In this one, Tom Six tones down the boring and antes up the repugnant in indescribable ways, varying from the casting of the impossibly grotesque looking Laurence R. Harvey as the psychotic lead (psycho German guy from the first movie, please come back; you're missed) to the extreme gore (Netflix streamed the "censored" version, so all the really grotesque sexuality was thankfully removed).

Here's my thoughts on on-screen violence in horror films: for me, gore is effective if the idea/motivation behind it is equally as frightening. Take Videodrome, Antichrist, or, to an extent, Hostel as examples. Are they gross? Oh yes. What makes their violence and gore all the more frightening is the ideas behind them. Unfortunately, for us, all Tom Six is invested in is seeing how far he can drag his talents through the mud before we scream "enough."

The Human Centipede II will now overcome Bucky Larson and sweep my Worst of 2011 choices like wildfire.

[Howard Beale's Toothpaste]

The only thing that I agree with about this is the buried part.

Well, why? I don't really understand how you could hate it, so I really need more information from you to understand. I'm not letting that stand without any defense.

[Timmer]

That said, I shouldn’t speak to you for not liking Meet Me. And you have the nerve to ask for Habsy’s ban in the silent films thread! Truly the enema of AD’s screen, you are.

Okay, so after finishing Meet Me in St. Louis, I think I know why I didn't love it.

First, and this is the crucial part; I'm not a Judy Garland fan. I mean, I didn't even love her in Wizard of Oz. There is something about the overly innocent look on her face all of the time that bugs me. Her acting style is too broad, or something; she reminds me of Mary Pickford's silent perfs?

So right away, I was in trouble there. Next, and this is the era, I tend to have trouble connecting with the old-style stories about women waiting for handsome men to swoop in and sweep them off of their feet. I know, it was how it was, yadda yadda, but no household of women that *I* know would take a move to NY like they did, because, you know, it's what Daddy wants.

Of course, the film isn't bad in any sense. It's solidly paced and shot by Minnelli, the songs aren't cloying or annoying, no one in the cast stands out as out of place, it's a fine film. I just didn't love it.

If I've got one question, it is this: what was this the weird Hallowe'en segment in the middle? It has no connection to the film at all except to give the younger kids some added scenes? And how fucked up was Hallowe'en back then that little kids are torching old furniture and shit in the middle of the streets? What the fuck was that??



I also watched DeMille's Cleopatra ('34). This one was amusing, mostly for Claudette Colbert's Bronx accent,or whatever it is. She was completely out of place as the Queen of Egypt, but she was also one of the biggest stars of the day so I guess I understand the casting choice?

DeMille doesn't really capture the essence of Caesar, imo. Warren William is a wooden actor, and maybe there just wasn't much for DeMille to do here, but the entire Caesar segment is dull. However, things pick up nicely when we shift to the Marc Antony half. This was the first time I'd heard of Henry Wilcoxon, but he had some decent charisma in the role. And the sequence where Cleopatra seduces him is just classic DeMille; the scale of the seduction is ludicrous, with dancing cat-women and ladies pulled out of the ocean bearing oysters full of jewels? It's completely over the top, but DeMille handles the overkill perfectly.

Really, the guy was great at excess, wasn't he?

[McTeague]

Funny you mention the Halloween scene like that, because it almost wasn’t in the movie. The film was too long and Arthur Freed, pressed by Meyer and against Minnelli’s wish, wanted to cut it precisely for not having much contact with the main storyline, and they indeed cut it, but in a private screening, watching the movie from start to finish with the Halloween scene cut, they realized the movie wasn’t the same without it, and decided to bring it back (the result: they cut instead a couple of songs in the Christmas segment, and the truth is, for a musical, the final third is surprisingly void of songs, being “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” the only one).

If you see the film as a storyline it may not make much sense, but if you see it as a slice-of-life series of vignettes, it’s perhaps the most charming vignette. Minnelli loved it and prepared it with much care. The film is based on the serialised memories of some St. Louis authoress, and while Minnelli thought they were true to how middle-class family life was back then, he felt that was especially true of the Halloween part, since these girls, educated in dark Grimm tales, weren’t really as corny as just the romance stories of the elder sisters might suggest. So, he wanted to show how Halloween was supposed to be more genuinely scary, and how these girls could talk so casually about killing and ghosts and cruelty while burning things. I frankly adore the scene, and the sweeping tracking shots that follow Margaret O’Brien towards and back from her mission are among Minnelli’s most magical moments.

I kinda understand what you say about Judy garland’s acting in general, but I however find it surprising that you say it watching precisely “Meet Me in St. Louis”, where I think her acting is incredibly fresh and natural for a change. I in fact think she was worthy of an Oscar nomination over more mannered diva turns that were nominated that year. She’s perfectly believable as a turn-of-the-century common girl, and then she burst into singing and sells the hell out of all her numbers.

Oh well, different strokes…

But between that and your diss of Warren King-of-Precode Williams, I feel like you’re watching an alternate version of the classics. Although at least you understand De Mille’s bizarre brand of greatness… I frankly couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the cat women dancing, and then it was topped by the girls coming out of the fucking sea in fishing rods with huge oysters dripping pearls… But de Mille was also a master of pacing, framing and cinematic narration.

[Submerge]

As one of Stillman's whores, the following will come as no surprise.

I really loved Damsels in Distress. Not perfect, but still quite wonderful and hilarious. The Last Days of Disco will likely remain his crowning achievement (a true masterpiece - and I don't use this word lightly), but I'm beyond thrilled that this talented individual is making films again.

[Timmer]

But between that and your diss of Warren King-of-Precode Williams, I feel like you’re watching an alternate version of the classics.

Oh, I don't hate Williams in any way, I just felt that there wasn't much for him to do as Caesar. I didn't believe that he fell in love with her, but I also didn't get a sense that he was using her. He was just kind of there. I've liked him in other films, including as the director trying to put on a show in one of the Gold Diggers movies, if I remember right.

And yeah, there is more to Demille than excess for sure, but I think those other gifts are more evident in other films. Cleopatra struck me as a mediocre effort for him, which is terms of sheer entertainment is still pretty solid!

[BBKing44]

I loved The Others. It's beautifully shot and deliciously unsettling and the last 20 minutes were especially fantastic. Another great performance by Nicole Kidman, as well.

[haqyunus]

Cabin in the Woods. I liked it a lot. The main idea is very, very clever and executed extremely well resulting in lot of fun. It never feels like a gimmick or corny or half-hearted. The way genres are straddled ([spoiler]right from the opening credits to the end[/spoiler]) is perfect and you never feel any disconnect and the way they are subverted is highly enjoyable. I would not classify it as horror as for me it was more of a dark comedy/satire. This reminded me of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, which I like a lot and which also tinkered around in such detail meta-format with genres. Joss Whedon fans should love it ([spoiler]That unicorn scene![/spoiler])

[BBKing44]

Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman are both incredible in Tyrannosaur. Why has so little been said about this??

[Aurelius]

Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman are both incredible in Tyrannosaur. Why has so little been said about this??

Because so few people have seen it? But you are absolutely right.