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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 25, 2019 8:00:44 GMT
In The Conversation - we see him in counterpoint to Harry Caul he is not the opposite or enabler but rather an eerie symbolic representation. Harry fears how he may end up and he can never go to the police, who can never prolong the mystery ever, can't investigate further. He is too horror stricken to act further because the horror is so.......... personal it has to be merely put away. It's funny, I rewatched this just the other day when showing to someone who had never seen it before, and her question at one point was "why doesn't he just go to the police?" What you say makes total sense, though one other thing I would say is that his paranoia makes him fearful of the unknown repercussions of choosing to act further... how much further would he involve himself in this situation that he doesn't understand? Question: do you have a specific interpretation of how much of the final scene is real or in Harry's head? The person I watched it with seemed to think that final phone call from Harrison Ford at the end was definitely imagined, whereas I've never really decided if I think that's the case or not... The_Cake_of_Roth - Regarding The Conversation I would say quite real - in fact if its not I would be pissed because my favorite little touch in the film is Harry not breaking the little Virgin Mary figure which he then returns to and smashes to bits - which is emotionally gutting because it's really happening. The camera also moves like a surveillance camera in that scene - maybe that's stretching it but that's how I took it (pans back and forth) - which I took as a sly in-joke - it's either a surveillance camera or Coppola mimics one a bit as a cruel joke a bit. I think most scenes are real because I'm literal minded and have no imagination - I would say a majority of my friends even think Taxi Driver is not literal at the end and I'm like incredulous at that - "What? No she gets in his cab, wtf - do you think I'm imagined too?"
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Post by Longtallsally on Aug 25, 2019 8:21:22 GMT
Max von Sydow: Ingmar Bergman directed him to outstanding lead performances in The Seventh Seal, Hour of the Wolf, e.g. (haven't seen The Virgin Spring) and well acted supporting/minor roles in Through a Glass Darkly, Shame, Winter Light and Wild Strawberries.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Aug 25, 2019 9:12:00 GMT
It's funny, I rewatched this just the other day when showing to someone who had never seen it before, and her question at one point was "why doesn't he just go to the police?" What you say makes total sense, though one other thing I would say is that his paranoia makes him fearful of the unknown repercussions of choosing to act further... how much further would he involve himself in this situation that he doesn't understand? Question: do you have a specific interpretation of how much of the final scene is real or in Harry's head? The person I watched it with seemed to think that final phone call from Harrison Ford at the end was definitely imagined, whereas I've never really decided if I think that's the case or not... The_Cake_of_Roth - Regarding The Conversation I would say quite real - in fact if its not I would be pissed because my favorite little touch in the film is Harry not breaking the little Virgin Mary figure which he then returns to and smashes to bits - which is emotionally gutting because it's really happening. The camera also moves like a surveillance camera in that scene - maybe that's stretching it but that's how I took it (pans back and forth) - which I took as a sly in-joke - it's either a surveillance camera or Coppola mimics one a bit as a cruel joke a bit. I think most scenes are real because I'm literal minded and have no imagination - I would say a majority of my friends even think Taxi Driver is not literal at the end and I'm like incredulous at that - "What? No she gets in his cab, wtf - do you think I'm imagined too?" Oh, I definitely agree about the mimicking of a surveillance camera in that final shot and the reality of him tearing apart his apartment... I actually just meant the phone call that Harry receives from Martin Stett, and the possibility of him imagining that exchange and the bug in his apartment, which leads to him actually tearing apart his apartment. I just wasn't sure if you felt strongly about that potential ambiguity one way or the other...
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 25, 2019 10:08:56 GMT
No, never thought that about that being imagined tbh - although of course Harry is an unreliable narrator so it's possible - just doesn't play that way to me. Harry is on multiple levels cracking up - one of the funniest examples is that for such a surveillance expert he is repeatedly duped (the pen, the present in his apartment, Teri Garr telling him she "catches" him when he visits etc).
I will say the dream sequence where he reveals personal things - the "I am not afraid of Death" sequence is so jarring it probably leads some people to say that more of what we see after that scene may "not be real" too
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 25, 2019 11:01:08 GMT
Hanna Schygulla / Rainer Werner FassbinderFassbinder one of the great film/dramatic minds ever was also one of the cruelest - people who worked with him and loved him were driven to suicide, breakdowns and very few from his stock crew of actors ever really shined more than once for him. He used the same actors but how he used them was often arbitrary. Hanna Schygulla - one of modern films great actresses because of how she transcended that and the films she made for Fassbinder and the great survivor of his love/hate - she shines for him multiple times in ways that illuminate and confound him. In 1974's Effi Briest when the punk Rock kid overtly tried to make an austere masterpiece - he leaned on her and her control in stark, unforgettable black and white images - her beauty, resolve, and the contradiction within her - her ability to be weakened and broken on film was everything he needed for the role but she was never broken by him. She could play the role......she was not the role. She didn't work with him for a long time (because he was nuts naturally ) before his great (and her greatest) performance "The Marriage of Maria Braun" a film which gave him the mainstream success he so craved and where Schygulla is in effect triumphing for him AND over him. This film and performance is fairly close to The Story Of Women I mentioned for Huppert/Chabrol and has a similar but even more personal design in the lead actress is a reference point of the directors vanity and cruelty and practicality in her role too. That "practicality" is key because she had appeared (memorably) in support in many Fassbender films prior to Effi Briest but when he needed her well he sought her out and constructed pieces that would be unimaginable without her. She was also his movie star in need of a genius - Effi Briest, Maria Braun, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Lili Marleen - what actress could turn those parts down.......and who else would know him, understand him, be able to work within his own odd and unique methods anyway? She was with him at the start and almost until the end - they may have worked together 10 more times if he had lived......she may have said "Enough" and been done with him.....they were a true film couple in a way although he'd find that sentimentality a bore and she'd say it was too simple a description. A complex pair and maybe the pair whose work says more about the era they actually worked in and the country they made films for and about than any male/female combination.
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Post by TerryMontana on Aug 25, 2019 13:07:00 GMT
The_Cake_of_Roth I always thought the final scene of the Conversation to be real and not imaginery. Then again, it's been more than 15 years I've watched it... I need a rewatch.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 25, 2019 18:54:14 GMT
Frances McDormand / Joel & Ethan Coen
They've made several movies together but Joel (Frances' husband) and Ethan Coen have 3 times created a haunting panorama of love, trust, marriage, family mixed with the decline of all those things. All of these feature McDormand as their face, mind or (lost) soul. The first of these key movies, Blood Simple had McDormand cheating on her abusive husband and loving another man with an implicit idea "how do you know the person you fall in love with?" - can you ever know them or are you doomed to misunderstand? The second of the key collaborations - Fargo wondered what kind of world her character and her husband - a good man and a good marriage but that was subject to the realizations that you can't live alone and where you live and the people around you seeps into your world. The third film which harkens back to Blood Simple but deepens it - not only can't you "know" the person you love (or no longer love) but you can also not know their mysteries and the results of your own actions too. Those actions effects on others or on you - and if you don't know that - what can you control. It's been a great partnership - sometimes funny in small roles too - but in these 3 works the best US filmmakers of their era and their muse fleshed out some very complicated and meditative and universal ideas. McDormand is picture perfect in these roles - she understands what she needs to convey and never once overplays her hand - and often the audience never sees any of this until the final scenes in each case.
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Post by Mattsby on Aug 25, 2019 19:47:35 GMT
Max von Sydow: Ingmar Bergman directed him to outstanding lead performances in The Seventh Seal, Hour of the Wolf, e.g. (haven't seen The Virgin Spring) and well acted supporting/minor roles in Through a Glass Darkly, Shame, Winter Light and Wild Strawberries. Most would say Sydow, Björnstrand, or Erland Josephson were Bergman's best actor collabs. And they'd be right. But there's another one rarely talked about -- Jarl Kulle. All four studied at Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theater School which is like a rite of passage for Swedish actors. I could be wrong but I believe Kulle was a considerably more visible and practiced theater actor than the others - he later did King Lear and Long Day's Journey into Night under Bergman's direction. But as for movies he only did five with Bergman. To me Kulle is highly interesting in how his acting style differs from the others in Bergman's repertory of talent. He is much more flamboyant and zealous and can be quite childlike, such as in his best, Fanny and Alexander, one of my fave performances ever. He's imo the MVP of Smiles of a Summer Night, all bombastic pomp, in perfect marriage with the material - how he physically erects himself with almost unnatural elegance and excuses himself from the self-serving others; "You're all ridiculous" he says as he is that too of course. Lesser movie but I've seen The Devil's Eye and he's amusing there too with a knowing posture and a handsome wicked glint to him. Haven't seen the other two, All These Women & Waiting Women.
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Post by TerryMontana on Aug 25, 2019 19:54:44 GMT
Frances McDormand / Joel & Ethan Coen
They've made several movies together but Joel (Frances' husband) and Ethan Coen have 3 times created a haunting panorama of love, trust, marriage, family mixed with the decline of all those things. All of these feature McDormand as their face, mind or (lost) soul. The first of these key movies, Blood Simple had McDormand cheating on her abusive husband and loving another man with an implicit idea "how do you know the person you fall in love with?" - can you ever know them or are you doomed to misunderstand? The second of the key collaborations - Fargo wondered what kind of world her character and her husband - a good man and a good marriage but that was subject to the realizations that you can't live alone and where you live and the people around you seeps into your world. The third film which harkens back to Blood Simple but deepens it - not only can't you "know" the person you love (or no longer love) but you can also not know their mysteries and the results of your own actions too. Those actions effects on others or on you - and if you don't know that - what can you control. It's been a great partnership - sometimes funny in small roles too - but in these 3 works the best US filmmakers of their era and their muse fleshed out some very complicated and meditative and universal ideas. McDormand is picture perfect in these roles - she understands what she needs to convey and never once overplays her hand - and often the audience never sees any of this until the final scenes in each case. Yeah, that's a very obvious one!! Great analysis there, Pacinoyes.
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