Cinemexperience: part deux., Some more filums you saw. Options

[logger]

Pulp Fiction

It had been a while so I decided to watch this. It seems easy now to forget just how important this film is, it's been copied, discussed, homaged and parodied so much it's lost some of its initial presence due to familiarity. Anyone too young to remember when this first came out might not understand just how fresh this was at the time. Whilst the evolution of cinema was already heading in this direction this film was not a certainty. People like Soderbergh, Spike Lee, the Coens, Gus Van Sant and a whole lot of others were becoming more successful with original, independent films and were in a position to work on more and more ambitious projects but none of them really caught hold of the cultural zeitgeist the way this did. It changed what a successful film could be. It's arguable that without this there might not have been something like Boogie Nights.

Watching it now it still holds up as a valuable work. Some of it feels dated now, particularly early on, but part of this is due to the strew of pale imitations that followed. Sure, it's a bit obvious at times but that's kind of the point. It's pulp fiction given a high literature bent. In these lurid tales is a look at the importance of art, culture and iconography in the individual's life. The characters are all fanciful cinema tropes, hitmen, gangsters, a boxer told to throw a fight, but their depiction is fleshed out to the point of almost being believable people, something that some films based on true stories don't always get right. We see parts of the characters' lives that wouldn't normally be in this kind of film, a lot of the film takes place in 'dead spaces' where nothing much is really happening, say a back alley, an empty hotel foyer, some wasteland as children play offscreen. This all adds to the verisimilitude, letting the viewer identify with the people on the screen, seeing themselves there, involved in some mundane activity, standing in a lift, somebody being rude to us, getting lost in a restaurant whilst high, yet all the more cool, more dangerous, more important.

At a time were television, films and music are so central to our lives, more so now than in 1994, were people live their lives as if they are characters in a film, it's no surprise to find characters in a film who think they're real, were the distinction is blurred. Don't we want to be the ones in control like this, spouting hip dialogue in a world of disposable iconography like some kind of gun toting, coked up Leopold Bloom (no coincidence that Sam Jackson refers to cunnilingus with the same phrase that Bloom uses about wiping his arse) holding on to the macguffins that we hold precious. This begs the question, is this what art is for, to find and lose ourselves? To reflect the world we live in whilst adding to it? To understand the importance of this film just remember this, this is the film that gave the world the term 'gimp mask'. Isn't that what art is all about.

[fatseff1234]

Pulp Fiction
At a time were television, films and music are so central to our lives, more so now than in 1994, were people live their lives as if they are characters in a film, it's no surprise to find characters in a film who think they're real, were the distinction is blurred.

You been reading The Dark Tower by any chance?

[logger]

You been reading The Dark Tower by any chance?

No. What is it?

[Shack]

Alice in Wonderland

Like, the new one.

Lovely to look at, but a bit devoid of depth.

I liked how HBC channelled Miranda Richardson in Blackadder though.

[maian]

My Best Fiend

Between 1972 and 1987, German director Werner Herzog made five films with Klaus Kinski, an actor whose incendiary, wide-eyed on-screen performances were matched only by his off-screen tirades. The two men produced some of the most striking and indelible images in the history of cinema, yet they were often (quite literally) at each other's throats, and their collaborations were fraught with tension.

Kinski died in 1991, just four years after the two made their final film together, Cobra Verde. Herzog directed this documentary in an effort to explain just what is was that drew he and Kinski together, and why they kept working together even though every time they came together they seemed as intent on killing each other as they were on making films.

It's important to note that this is not a documentary about Klaus Kinski or Werner Herzog: It's a personal exploration of the passion that drove them. It does not attempt to explain who they were before they started working together on Aguirre, Wrath of God, what they did on their own, or what they did after their collaboration ended with Cobra Verde. In short, anyone looking for a primer on the work of either man will be disappointed. Herzog, who narrates, doesn't try to explain the plots, or even give away too much in terms of the productions of their five films. Instead, he lets the footage of Kinski's unhinged performances and back-stage 'raves' tell the story of what it was like to work with him. By giving us an inkling of what Kinski was like, but without burdening us with technical details, Herzog creates a sense of what the atmosphere was like on his films, the tension between Kinski and pretty much everyone else, and the sense of awe he inspired in those who witnessed this tornado of a man.

The behind-the-scenes footage of Kinski and Herzog working together are almost indistinguishable from the excerpts from the films themselves. This is partly because all the footage was shot on film, and because both sets of footage share the same loose, organic feel of most of Herzog's work, but it's also because of Kinski, his madness and his magnetism. In real-life, Kinski had the same animalistic energy that his best performances thrived on, but completely without restraint. We are given access to Kinski's rants at Herzog and other members of the crew, exquisite, explosive screaming fits that would go on for hours at a time, leaving Kinski exhausted and everyone around him terrified. (Herzog exploited these rages repeatedly, letting Kinski tire himself out so that his performances would be quieter than he wanted them to be.) He embodies many of the characters that Herzog had him play; an obsessive striving for something profound at the expense of all else.

The central question anyone watching the film will ask themselves is, "If they hated each other so much, why did they keep working together?" The answer is in the title. Yes, at times they hated each other to the point of violence and murder - famously, Herzog threatened to shoot Kinski if he left Aguirre before shooting finished, and (less famously) Herzog tried to firebomb Kinski's house. He was prevented from doing so only by Kinski's Alsatian - but there was also a deal of affection between the two men. When Herzog talks about Kinski, whether on his own or interviewing others, his voice is filled with respect for his erstwhile muse. There are scenes of the two men at a film festival, joking around and hugging, that indicate a friendship that was deeper than their creative squabbles. Though they were nemeses, they were creatively simpatico in ways that defy explanation.

Like many of Herzog's best films, My Best Fiend touches upon something profound in a way which is almost guileless. Herzog freely admits that his affection for Kinski comes as much from watching footage of them having fun together as from his actual memories, and that the positive memories take the greater precedence in his mind. Even if the stories of threats, intimidation and screaming are the most striking, the one that matters is of Kinski with a butterfly on his face, delighting in the sheer joy of being alive. We all want to remember the best parts of people, even the ones we contemplate killing. Much like Kinski, it's an idea that is thoroughly insane and hauntingly beautiful.

This post has been edited by maian: Mar 24 2010, 11:08 PM

[fatseff1234]

No. What is it?

Steven King series, to do with characters coming to life/visiting their author.

[Jubei]

Alice in Wonderland

Like, the new one.

Lovely to look at, but a bit devoid of depth.

I liked how HBC channelled Miranda Richardson in Blackadder though.

Big time. I did find jonny depp a bit hard to understand at times, and never warmedto alice. All in all it was a bit flat. And they used some really gimmicky 3d, the falling down the hole part was just painful to watch. Enjoyable but forgettable. Tweedledee and tweedledum were good, as was the Cheshire cat though.

[logger]

Steven King series, to do with characters coming to life/visiting their author.

Oh.

I just got bored writing it so I deleted quite a bit and edited it down which is probably why it's a bit muddy. What I was going in to would have gone on for ages and would probably have been better in the review thread.

[Raven]

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

A curious little film, where - as it turned out - nothing of any major consequence ever actually happened.

[fatseff1234]

Oh.

There's a lot more to it than that and it's all one massive head f**k from half way through to finish. Ace though.

[maian]

The Quiet Duel

Early-ish Akira Kurosawa film in which Toshiro Mifune plays a young Army doctor who accidentally contracts syphilis when he cuts himself operating on an infected patient. Upon returning to Japan, he hides his illness from his father (Takashi Shimura) and calls off his engagement to his fiancee (Miki Sanjo) because he knows she would become infected if they married, but doesn't want her to waste her life waiting for him to get cured.

Quite a solemn film by Kurosawa's standards, the film is clearly intended as more of a morality story about the dangers of syphilis than an actual dramatic piece, but it does have a lot to recommend it. Mifune delivers one of his most restrained performances as a man trying to stoically suffer without hurting anyone else, and there's a lovely moment when his father discovers his condition and they both go to light each others' cigarette.

I read that the U.S. occupation censors forced Kurosawa to change the script so that it didn't end with the doctor going insane, for fear that it would so horrify people suffering with syphilis that they would be too scared to seek help. It's probably for the best since that ending would have made the film - which also features violence, a pretty rough (by the standards of the time) miscarriage and moments of hysteria - pretty devastating. It's one of the few instances where a happy ending is preferable to a heartbreaking one.

[Outatime]

I watched the last hour or so of Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night, I might get it on DVD because it's one of the few films recently that I find myself wanting to watch more than once.

[Zoe]

Gigantic (2008)

Typical indie fare featuring rich dysfunctional families and Zoey Deschanel.

I think most of it was supposed to be metaphorical.

I'm glad I don't live in an indie film, with metaphors punching me in the face all the time.

[logger]

The Fourth Kind

Dumb and duller.

[sweetbutinsane]

Shutter Island

I can't decide whether I liked it or not. I hate when that happens.

It was predictable, which took some of the enjoyment out of it, but I did like seeing how everything pieced together at the end.