Lord_Buscemi
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Post by Lord_Buscemi on Apr 6, 2020 14:35:55 GMT
Propaganda films are off limits because that's too obvious.
I recently watched Capturing The Friedmans, so this topic is on my mind. I was captivated and had a visceral reaction to the film in its portrayal of a disintegrating family but upon further reading that Jarecki omitted some really crucial evidence in the case (an entire third co-defendant was absent, Jesse Friedman's confession on a talk show isn't in the film). It's tricky and raises a question of moral responsibility on behalf of a director, particularly with such sensitive material.
I've also questioned a film I really love, Chinatown, before - a story about a powerful rapist getting away with rape - which is an eerie mirror of what Polanski himself would become. This is probably more on the side of creepy foreshadowing than morally questionable, but it's still an uncomfortable stain on the film.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 6, 2020 14:55:37 GMT
Propaganda films are off limits because that's too obvious. I've also questioned a film I really love, Chinatown, before - a story about a powerful rapist getting away with rape - which is an eerie mirror of what Polanski himself would become. This is probably more on the side of creepy foreshadowing than morally questionable, but it's still still an uncomfortable stain on the film. I respect your POV but to me that's a gross misreading of the film's narrative - Chinatown is most certainly not "a story about a powerful rapist getting away with rape" that happens yes - but to say that's what it's "about" is pretty reductive and simplistic imo. It is rather a story about a "heroine - a female destroyed by two males - her father (intentionally) and her protector" (unintentionally). Like almost all Polanski movies it has a rape in it yes (Rosemary's Baby, (imagined) Repulsion, Tess, Death & The Maiden and like all of them his integration of it into the plot is complex. I would say Saving Private Ryan for me - a film that starts with a very profound and ironic/cruel point "In America OTHERS died for your freedom" - you don't have to "earn it" and ends with a morally questionable and sickening flag waving ending that contradicts that initial point - that says we HAVE to (or should at least) earn it - which is neither true or coherent to the film's setup. It's trite and morally compromised too.
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Post by Film Socialism on Apr 6, 2020 15:31:29 GMT
agree on Chinatown
i recently watched Inventing the Future which, while i find some of it agreeable politically, the singularity post-work stuff is pretty laughable. i also like The Fountainhead by vidor and randism is obviously bullshit. i find it's easier to like morally questionable films when their values are so fringe so that they haven't actually had any real world negative effect for the most part.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 6, 2020 16:03:21 GMT
How about the moral reprobates in Pretty Woman (1990) - where the Richard Gere character doesn't do one (ONE!) crooked deal, but is still keeping his many millions from the many deals he's already done.......... goes back to his sex-aaaaaaaaaaaay prostitute - offers to NOT pay her for it, um - does that seen fair or just like you don't understand how Rules of Hookers actually work? But hey she toughs it out - what a trooper! - and doesn't sleep with him for free - YASSSSSSSS Queen, but .......wait, you know her and him are going to be living the high life on his (previously, sketchily gotten) millions anyway, so wtf. Some people really do deserve each other..... ![:laugh:](//storage.proboards.com/6692321/images/30ulL7PvEvGt97femFHx.gif)
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Post by jimmalone on Apr 6, 2020 16:24:27 GMT
That's a good topic. Theoretically every movie where someone takes the law into his own hands is pretty problematic, but sometimes the film is presented in a way that I can really understand the characters. In westerns I usually really understand it.
But when in films like Three Billboards (which is very good BTW) somebody burns down a police station, just because they can't find the murderer it's really questionable.
Not even to talk about Gangster films - if they get away with their crimes that is.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2020 18:05:41 GMT
Dogville maybe.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Apr 6, 2020 19:06:20 GMT
I think there's a world of difference between "morally questionable" and "triggering." Usually if I take issue with a film it's more because of the latter, but even then I almost always can separate in my own mind the offense to my own sensibilities (and this happens occasionally: Dark at the Top of the Stairs is a recent example) and the question of whether this film actually caused measurable harm in the real world. That's an important distinction to me. Times change, societies and perceptions evolve, so a film that seems irredeemably offensive in 2020 might have been totally innocuous in 1960 or 1970. And when it comes to films reinforcing stereotypes or repressive norms, that's putting the cart before the horse because films are windows into the culture but are rarely responsible for it. Asian stereotypes were a thing and legitimized long before Mickey Rooney donned yellowface in Tiffany's...
As for influencing harm... well, that itself is a can of worms because you have to ask whether a film alone is responsible and that's almost never the case (there are always other factors that carry a lot more weight). Perhaps this is different for Birth of a Nation and Riefenstahl's propaganda but those belong in their own category and next to films like that, I wouldn't call something like Chinatown morally questionable even a little bit.
As for Chinatown itself, I agree that the ending always leaves a terrible taste in my mouth whenever I see it but I also can accept that's a personal and subjective thing. To me, if that film had been directed by anyone else it probably wouldn't have been as off-putting, but knowing that Polanski's story mirrors Noah Cross's in those key points (re: sexual abuse of minor, pedophilia) and that Noah Cross gets away totally unscathed definitely casts a shadow over the film. I honestly think the ending could have gone down differently while keeping the "forget it Jake, it's Chinatown" line palatable. But getting the pedophilic rapist off scott-free and with a new potential victim to devastate feels unnecessarily perverse.
Did not know that about Capturing the Friedmans... damn.
So in answer to the question... ummm... nothing comes to mind! I guess I just don't think most films (or art in general) carry enough power to be moral agents, let alone the subjectivity of cinema. It's entirely possible to read a problematic worldview into a film (Pretty Woman for example) that most just appreciate as light fun, and those films usually have their good points too.
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Post by Javi on Apr 6, 2020 19:10:23 GMT
Anything with a tacked-on phony message (usually near the end). Last one that comes to mind is Angels with Dirty Faces - was really digging it until the priest character is revealed to be more sadistic than all the gangsters and crooked politicans combined... and yet we're meant to be in awe of his supernatural nobility and integrity. Which consists of bullying and brainwashing a convict into faking cowardice in death so that society will learn to see him as the scum he really was--scum because he was a loser, not a criminal. Presented as a cleansing and "powerful" ending, all I could think of was the priest better burn in hell.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 6, 2020 20:17:09 GMT
This is cheating since I hated the film but here it goes:
I don't know if anybody else took that hot mess - and best screenplay winner! Jojo Rabbit this way but basically if that little girl was a little boy she'd be long dead........ and the little kid wouldn't have had an awakening that Nazi's are bad because he wouldn't have been nearly as hornily motivated I guess and the family wouldn't have had a secret houseguest too (I'm guessing) and it probably held back his career in the military (um) but that's not the point........well unless the little girl was a little boy AND he was gay....... which he wasn't .........so it's basically saying that straight little kids are also less sensitive/perceptive/progressive than hypothetical gay little kids?
Wait, that's ridiculous - is that what it's saying?........dammit, if it is saying that, well then THAT in and of itself is morally questionable.
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Post by finniussnrub on Apr 6, 2020 20:22:29 GMT
This is cheating since I hated the film but here it goes: I don't know if anybody else took that hot mess - and best screenplay winner! Jojo Rabbit this way but basically if that little girl was a little boy she'd be long dead........ and the little kid wouldn't have had an awakening that Nazi's are bad because he wouldn't have been nearly as hornily motivated I guess and the family wouldn't have had a secret houseguest too (I'm guessing) and it probably held back his career in the military (um) but that's not the point........well unless the little girl was a little boy AND he was gay....... which he wasn't .........so it's basically saying that straight little kids are also less sensitive/perceptive/progressive than hypothetical gay little kids? Wait, that's ridiculous - is that what it's saying?........dammit, if it is saying that, well then THAT in and of itself is morally questionable.
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Post by Christ_Ian_Bale on Apr 6, 2020 20:24:48 GMT
For a recent example, I loved Richard Jewell, though it's probably the worst possible movie to be accompanied with a controversy involving portraying a person in a negative way that, by accounts, wasn't truthful.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Apr 6, 2020 21:21:23 GMT
I don't agree with some of the concerns over The Passion of the Christ being an anti-Semitic film, but I completely understand how it can come across that way.
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Post by countjohn on Apr 6, 2020 22:13:43 GMT
Dirty Harry is always the first thing that leaps to mind for me here. Love it but completely disagree with the politics, it's basically pro-police state and anti-due process.
Agree with Saving Private Ryan although I would barely say I "like" it, it's just exceptionally well directed. Depicting that operation as anything other than a waste of life so the army could save face and get good PR is just insulting. Schindler's List was a better context for Spielberg to make his "infinite value of one life" movie.
Then there are things like Gone With the Wind, which I am surprised no one has said yet. Not sure it applies to be honest, it has a racist POV but I don't know that there's anything morally objectionable about the narrative itself. It's not like they were setting out to make a pro-slavery film, that's just the backdrop.
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Post by idioticbunny on Apr 6, 2020 22:50:28 GMT
Then there are things like Gone With the Wind, which I am surprised no one has said yet. Not sure it applies to be honest, it has a racist POV but I don't know that there's anything morally objectionable about the narrative itself. It's not like they were setting out to make a pro-slavery film, that's just the backdrop. To be honest, some aspects of Gone with the Wind (portraying Union soldiers as pure evil, making the black characters as insufferable and weirdly loyal as possible, etc.) were things that weren't just a product of the POV and rather I feel were some weirdly racist undertones put in by the filmmakers. Call it a conspiracy theory on my part, but I still feel like the reason the film was the highest grossing of its time (and sadly all time) was because of the same people who showed up in 1915 to make Birth of a Nation such a moneymaker. It gives credence to their ideas. If Birth of a Nation gave new life to the KKK, Gone with the Wind basically forever sealed the deal by romanticizing it IMO. Either way, both of those films are necessary in terms of studying the evolution of cinematic language, but I'd personally only make them essential to anyone studying film (the same goes for Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will). Kind of baffling how one gets tons of hate now for its depiction of racism and the other is still revered as a classic. Also, Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will and Olympia would be my answer to the question. As someone who is on the path to being a director, I love the cinematic language in those films (particularly Olympia which in itself inspired literally every Olympic broadcast since), but both send a terrible message to anyone who doesn't understand the general notion that Nazism was very obviously bad (which shouldn't need saying in this day and age, but here we are) and the films were made under the control of a racist and evil regime.
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Post by chris3 on Apr 7, 2020 1:00:42 GMT
I love Apocalypto but I always saw the ending as a little, umm, weird, what with the arrival of the white Europeans, bathed in an angelic glow carrying their holy tomes, destined to bring civilization to the "savage" world we've inhabited throughout the film. I haven't seen the movie in many years, so maybe that's a misinterpretation, but given who wrote and directed it maybe not...
Excellent choice with Capturing the Friedmans. I loved that movie and felt almost betrayed by the director when I discovered Jesse's confession interview. Omitting that from the film is absolutely unethical to me.
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Post by stephen on Apr 7, 2020 1:03:51 GMT
I love Apocalypto but I always saw the ending as a little, umm, weird, what with the arrival of the white Europeans, bathed in an angelic glow carrying their holy tomes, destined to bring civilization to the "savage" world we've inhabited throughout the film. I haven't seen the movie in many years, so maybe that's a misinterpretation, but given who wrote and directed it maybe not... Yeah, that's absolutely not what Gibson was going for. The appearance of the Europeans was meant to induce dread, because we know exactly what their arrival means for the indigenous peoples.
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Post by no on Apr 7, 2020 1:51:36 GMT
all films are morally questionable as art is evil
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Post by no on Apr 7, 2020 1:59:23 GMT
Lawrence of Arabia and Birth of a Nation
Inventing the Future, Triumph of the Will, and Olympia
Pinku violence and other exploitation films
Pretty much everything Stan Brakhage made
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Post by finniussnrub on Apr 7, 2020 2:02:20 GMT
Not sure I'd define it as a moral disagreement, but I find JFK to be largely the ravings of a nut, but love the film.
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Post by no on Apr 7, 2020 2:11:48 GMT
Not sure I'd define it as a moral disagreement, but I find JFK to be largely the ravings of a nut, but love the film. JFK's "death" is largely the ravings of a nut.
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Post by Film Socialism on Apr 7, 2020 3:54:38 GMT
Lawrence of Arabia and Birth of a Nation Inventing the Future, Triumph of the Will, and Olympia Pinku violence and other exploitation films Pretty much everything Stan Brakhage made curious on the brakhage mention here
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Post by no on Apr 7, 2020 6:30:42 GMT
Pretty much everything Stan Brakhage made curious on the brakhage mention here Mainly starting to view a chunk of his films as bordering into misanthropic territory through the absence of humans and what he chooses to show as beautiful and that being above humans. This is still a developing shift of perspective kinda from his corpse-ploitation picture shot at the morgue, the Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes is just like a bit much especially and really exemplifies my objection. There's probably a good counter to this claim of course and I do recognize he's made a number of films dealing specifically with positive human relations. But he's also doing us a disservice by stripping sound from film and leaving images isolated in their ugliness/beauty because it's revoking a crucial component of human experience and element obviously integral to the trajectory of film's evolution. It's regressive in some ways. This is why the films in I... Dreaming and Kindering are among my favorites, as they not only are humanist but contain sound as they morally should.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 7, 2020 6:43:04 GMT
curious on the brakhage mention here Mainly starting to view a chunk of his films as bordering into misandrist territory through the absence of humans and what he chooses to show as beautiful of above humans. This still developing shift of perspective kinda from his corpse-ploitation picture shot at the morgue, the Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes is just like a bit much especially and really exemplifies my objection. There's probably a good counter to this claim of course and I do recognize he's made a number of films dealing specifically with positive human relations. But he's also doing us a disservice by stripping sound from film and leaving images isolated in their ugliness/beauty because it's revoking a crucial component of human experience and element obviously integral to the trajectory of film's evolution. It's regressive in some ways. This is why the films in I... Dreaming and Kindering are among my favorites, as they not only are humanist but contain sound as they morally should. This is one of the most interesting, lucid and complex points ........that I've ever read on this board.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2020 7:30:07 GMT
Mainly starting to view a chunk of his films as bordering into misandrist territory through the absence of humans and what he chooses to show as beautiful of above humans. This still developing shift of perspective kinda from his corpse-ploitation picture shot at the morgue, the Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes is just like a bit much especially and really exemplifies my objection. There's probably a good counter to this claim of course and I do recognize he's made a number of films dealing specifically with positive human relations. But he's also doing us a disservice by stripping sound from film and leaving images isolated in their ugliness/beauty because it's revoking a crucial component of human experience and element obviously integral to the trajectory of film's evolution. It's regressive in some ways. This is why the films in I... Dreaming and Kindering are among my favorites, as they not only are humanist but contain sound as they morally should. This is one of the most interesting, lucid and complex points ........that I've ever read on this board. U can thank me for reminding him about this forum
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Post by PromNightCarrie on Apr 7, 2020 13:09:47 GMT
Propaganda films are off limits because that's too obvious. I recently watched Capturing The Friedmans, so this topic is on my mind. I was captivated and had a visceral reaction to the film in its portrayal of a disintegrating family but upon further reading that Jarecki omitted some really crucial evidence in the case (an entire third co-defendant was absent, Jesse Friedman's confession on a talk show isn't in the film). It's tricky and raises a question of moral responsibility on behalf of a director, particularly with such sensitive material. I've also questioned a film I really love, Chinatown, before - a story about a powerful rapist getting away with rape - which is an eerie mirror of what Polanski himself would become. This is probably more on the side of creepy foreshadowing than morally questionable, but it's still an uncomfortable stain on the film. On Chinatown, I remember the great Robert Towne said it was about "the futility of good intentions." That said enough for me.
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