Monday, April 30, 2007
Jaws
“Flaws aside, Spielberg’s masterpiece is, I believe, a rather important and uniquely American work of art. The idea of a small-town flatfoot realizing that his duty requires him to step on a boat and head off to sea is a metaphor that not only resonated with WWII veterans in the 70s, but still resonates today with anyone who’s had to leave the comforts of home to go confront a threat. Also, with its entire story circling down to that amazing moment when the grizzled old seadog Quint has gotten a look at the beast he’s going to be confronting and decides to unpack and assemble a fearsome harpoon, the film strongly echoes Melville, as well as all the other literature and art that’s been inspired by America’s centuries-long quest to tame the Atlantic ocean. This is one of our touchstone movies that won’t go out of style until people have lost their fear of sharks, the ocean, drowning and the unknown in general—in other words, never.” Ryan Stewart, Cinematical. In context of a review of a new documentary on Jaws titled The Shark is Still Working.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Lady in the Water
Science Fiction novelist John C. Wright reviews Lady in the Water and suggests that critics missed the point. It’s the first review of this film I’ve seen that makes me want to watch it. A quote on myth and critics: “When something supernatural or something epic happens to us in real life, we have no means of dealing with it except what we have learned through stories. Myths are the soul of the civilization. When a war starts, for example, whatever the governing myth is in the society dictates how men will react to this epic circumstances: if Viet Nam is the governing myth of the society, we will react to all wars according to what that myth says, and we will call the war a quagmire. If David and Goliath is the governing myth in society, then we will root for the little guy. So the movie had to deal with the question of what happens to a man who over-intellectualizes his myth. What do you do when you do not have a myth ready to deal with things of mythic magnitude in life? The character, to make this point, had to be someone who knew stories backward and forward, but who was not himself a creative person: a critic, in other words. Someone who sucks the magic out of myth-making for a living. Of course he has to come to a bad end: the point of the story is that we need stories to live, we need the inspiration as a lantern in the dark. A man who throws that lamp away, according to the logic of the story theme, has to stumble.” The article also reviews and interprets Take the Lead.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Get Happy, Get Bliss
If you don’t have time to watch Modern Times, Citizen Kane, Brazil, The Wall, E.T., the Australian satire Bliss, Office Space and The Matrix, then steal a few moments to watch More, the stop-motion-animated film that captures the message of those films with the density and essentialness of a zen koan. In the age of time compression, look for this as the trend of future filmmaking: two years to make a six-minute masterpiece that is itself a condensation of 70 years of filmmaking.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Good Night and Good Luck
Reader David Schaap has blogged a great interpretation of George Clooney’s feel-good political film (the black and white one, I mean). “This film is not about the wanton abuse of political power for self-aggrandizing purposes and the persecution of liberals and other political enemies during the 50’s. Oh, no. It is about the persecution of smokers today.” Great stuff. “Are you now, or have you ever been, a smoker?”
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Metropolis
Matt Bailey has a review of Metropolis at Not Coming to a Theater Near You, a DVD and video review site. Pretty much sums up my experience: “Metropolis has to be one of the most talked-about and written-about of silent films, yet I find that I have next to nothing to say about it. As visual spectacle, it is perhaps without equal in its era. There is no question that Fritz Lang was a crackerjack conjurer of images, one who continues to influence film technique and style to this day. Yet under the surface (and what a surface!) of Lang’s film churns a narrative that is, at best, befuddling, and, at worst, silly.” A nice, quick read that gets its point across without fuss.
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Hero and Propaganda
Jeff at the Beautiful Atrocities blog calls to our attention his discussion of Zhang Yimou’s Hero, suggesting that it may not be promoting pacifism but passivism. As for me, I’m off to see Zatoichi this weekend instead.
