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Post by ibbi on Feb 2, 2023 17:12:57 GMT
The fact that they can not tell a story to save their lives is definitely an issue... but I've come to wish that they were to be stripped from any ounce of visual style somehow..... then everyone will realize how empty at core movies have become, sooner - and may try to find a solution. Sending our visionary filmmakers of the day back to the script-writing classes might help... somebody close to Baz "just made his best movie" Luhrmann better like him enough to say " hey... we just wrote those two pointless love scenes for da king of Rock'nRoll... maybe spend the next hour try and build something true between them so the final airport scene actually has anything of emotional substance to the offer the poor viewer?" ... or make Robert Eggers sit for a while and think to himself " Gee, I did my best getting those Scandinavian mythologies details super-duper right and the landscapes look gorgeous! How a 50+ yrs old revenge flick awakens more care in the viewer than my movie? Hell, how a Tarantino martial arts patiche from 20 years ago works better? " ... Won't call whatever I've seen in recent years as ounces of "heart" either. They feel like showoffs of technicality and budget. Hmm, well I apologize for saying this after your rant, but that part of my message you highlighted is a total mistype on my part, and I apologize . I wasn't actually talking about banal, flavourless, flat stories, but movies that are that way. Like, TV movies, only nowadays they've reached heights of obnoxiousness by color grading themselves to death in post and expecting that to pass for panache. I guess, when it comes down to it, those kinds of movies might be technically easier to watch, but I feel like they're also harder to really love. Anyway, to launch into a rant of my own in an attempt to answer @tyler 's original question - Would it have been better for Polanski and Brach to do a good job adapting Tess (don't give me any of that Colin McCabe Criterion excuse making!), or do as he did and simplify it heinously, drain every ounce of life from it (could have used some of that Polanski madness), but film it so prettily that you could hang every frame on a wall? And my answer is............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................(apologies to pacinoyes for gimmick infringement but I'm thinking deeply)............................................................................................................................... In an age when pics made on computers pass for epic spectacle, I find myself better appreciating mediocre movies from days gone by like Tess and Zhivago that are not very good, but are filmed outside under the sun and the moon with some of that old John Fordian psychology about horizon lines that make them feel huge a lot more than I once might have.
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Post by hugobolso on Feb 2, 2023 17:33:07 GMT
I don't understand your question. I mean cinema means that you told a story in a visual way. I hate the talkie Adam McKays movies. I prefer for example The first half hour of There will no blood, that there are no words. But still is telling a story. The same happens with Behind The Sun of Walter Sellez, zero words in the first minutes, and very little dialogue then.-
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2023 17:33:09 GMT
ibbi - I'm not here for the Colin McCabe libel.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2023 17:34:05 GMT
I don't understand your question. Surprise of the century.
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Post by hugobolso on Feb 2, 2023 17:37:23 GMT
I don't understand your question. Surprise of the century. A shit..y story with pretty and stilylistic images still a s... film.- In facts makes even more awful the film.-
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Post by Javi on Feb 2, 2023 17:47:42 GMT
I get what ibbi is saying and I agree with him.................................. (more pacinoyes copyright infringement)............ I'd say this isn't just a shitty period for writing but for visual splendor too. Most of the stuff that is being made doesn't just tell crappy stories: they look like crap, too. Even the acclaimed stuff is compromised. Whenever someone tells me how awesome Skyfall or Blade Runner 2049 or Dune look, I have no idea what they're talking about... no one will ever convince me Deakins' muted whites and oranges compare to Cronenweth's dreamy blues. That's just to cite one example. Movies like 2049 or Dune evoke nothing visually, all impressive decor that doesn't engage the senses, and the stories they're telling are pretty weak so visual resonance is badly needed and the one thing they can aspire to.
I love a good story but every movie I love has some kind of a look. This does not mean it must be beautiful, but it must be alive visually. And I don't think writing and cinematography should be at war. It's kinda the director's job to unify them. There's a reason why the greatest period for modern movies (late 60s to early 80s) had the best writers, the best directors and the best cinematographers... a reason why it wasn't just the age of Altman, Coppola, De Palma but also Schrader and Towne and incomparable visual poets like Nykvist, Storaro, Almendros, Zsigmond... the golden age of color cinematography corresponded precisely with that wave of writers and directors.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 2, 2023 17:50:03 GMT
Saying they're both equally important or aren't distinct is wrong and a reductive way to look at cinema. Anything captured on a camera to tell a story is cinema and thus inherently cinematic. Two people sitting in a restaurant talking for 90 minutes is less visually interesting than Apocalypse Now but it's not less cinematic. I dare anyone to tell me My Dinner with Andre (one of the best films of the 80s) or for that matter Frederick Wiseman aren't cinematic.
Story and dialogue is more important because that's the foundation of storytelling. Who's in frame more than the frame itself. Cinema offers a wide variety of tools to tell a story but using them is not required and in many circumstances would be inappropriate. In many cases those tools are used to tell stories with actually very little to say and they tell on themselves in the visuals.
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Post by Pavan on Feb 2, 2023 18:54:15 GMT
I lean a little bit towards the visual side, not necessarily the beauty aspect of it but the mood, atmosphere and emotion that the visual aspect can tell without telling anything verbally. That's the beauty of visual storytelling and its not just pretty images. That said a film without a basic foundation of a story worth telling, visually or verbally is not worth telling at all.
For me it's a right mixture of both but i sometimes find myself comfortable with a film that's telling its story a bit more with visuals than words.
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Post by Martin Stett on Feb 2, 2023 19:57:26 GMT
I lean a little bit towards the visual side, not necessarily the beauty aspect of it but the mood, atmosphere and emotion that the visual aspect can tell without telling anything verbally. That's the beauty of visual storytelling and its not just pretty images. That said a film without a basic foundation of a story worth telling, visually or verbally is not worth telling at all. For me it's a right mixture of both but i sometimes find myself comfortable with a film that's telling its story a bit more with visuals than words. It's lipstick on a pig. The writing has to be good enough for the visual elements to elevate it. If the writing is poor, no amount of filmmaking expertise can make the movie great - at best the filmmaking can mask the issues so long as you don't think.
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Post by Film Socialism on Feb 2, 2023 22:07:50 GMT
so...do you all just like, not enjoy experimental/a-g films at all?? i feel like it's kind of insane to take the position that story is key when there are like hundreds of great non narrative works out there
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Post by VERITAS on Feb 2, 2023 22:27:34 GMT
I mean...elaborate. The irony here is the OP being such an open-ended question...
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 2, 2023 22:27:44 GMT
so...do you all just like, not enjoy experimental/a-g films at all?? i feel like it's kind of insane to take the position that story is key when there are like hundreds of great non narrative works out there Not particularly but I haven't seen many films that I can call truly non-narrative. Even films that play with or subvert the medium are usually trying to convey some kind of narrative or idea, just in a roundabout or non-traditional way.
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Post by Film Socialism on Feb 2, 2023 22:48:25 GMT
so...do you all just like, not enjoy experimental/a-g films at all?? i feel like it's kind of insane to take the position that story is key when there are like hundreds of great non narrative works out there Not particularly but I haven't seen many films that I can call truly non-narrative. Even films that play with or subvert the medium are usually trying to convey some kind of narrative or idea, just in a roundabout or non-traditional way. i don't think this is true at all. structuralist films are about the closest thing to this but tons of stuff exists far outside of that framework and isn't going for anything close to narrative. they might have some "ideas" yes but i don't think that is at all a synonym for "story" here.
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Post by Martin Stett on Feb 2, 2023 23:06:32 GMT
so...do you all just like, not enjoy experimental/a-g films at all?? i feel like it's kind of insane to take the position that story is key when there are like hundreds of great non narrative works out there They operate under different rules, trying different things, and so there is no point trying to compare them to traditional narratives. That said, non-narrative films are not my cup of tea in the VAST majority of cases.
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Post by Film Socialism on Feb 2, 2023 23:19:56 GMT
so...do you all just like, not enjoy experimental/a-g films at all?? i feel like it's kind of insane to take the position that story is key when there are like hundreds of great non narrative works out there They operate under different rules, trying different things, and so there is no point trying to compare them to traditional narratives. That said, non-narrative films are not my cup of tea in the VAST majority of cases. i don't see why they would be excluded on the basis that their intent is different when they are still movies. there are tons of movies that look like shit that people here have no issue accepting as movies, even if they're doing something in opposition to what many films set out to achieve.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2023 23:28:01 GMT
ppl seriously saying style is separate from substance. This made me think of Swedish academic Anna Backman Rogers' passionate defense of Sofia Coppola... "Therefore, it is telling, but sadly not surprising, that this lazy proclivity of critics and scholars alike to associate the surface of the image with superficiality and redundancy has extended into the popular and cultural reception of Coppola’s films. Consider, for instance, the critical taxonomy and dismissive descriptors used on a regular basis to delineate Coppola’s aesthetic appeal: ‘tedious vacuity’ and ‘uncritically rendered’;1 ‘a day-dreamy and gorgeous-looking soufflé’;2 ‘this is like a manicurist claiming to capture the inner experience of your pinkie’;3 ‘it’s only for girls and gays’;4 ‘one of the daftest things I have seen for a long time’;5 ‘no weight, depth or particular story’;6 ‘shallow’, ‘superficial’, ‘psychologically diffuse’, ‘vague’, ‘vacuous’, ‘no depth’ and ‘blank’.7 Readers may be curious to note that it is male critics who nearly always perpetuate the infuriatingly gendered tone prevalent in this cultural discourse that has irrevocably shaped the reception of Coppola’s films. The misogynist implication that is embarrassingly evident here is that Coppola’s ‘pretty’ and decorative mise-en-scène is taken to signify nothing beyond its pleasing surface; indeed, her oeuvre is frequently likened to cinematic pastry, a delightful cream puff, full of delicious air but lacking in meaty (and masculine) substance (a metaphor critics employed with alarming alacrity with regard to Marie Antoinette (2006))."
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 2, 2023 23:31:21 GMT
They operate under different rules, trying different things, and so there is no point trying to compare them to traditional narratives. That said, non-narrative films are not my cup of tea in the VAST majority of cases. i don't see why they would be excluded on the basis that their intent is different when they are still movies. there are tons of movies that look like shit that people here have no issue accepting as movies, even if they're doing something in opposition to what many films set out to achieve. I don't think anyone's excluding them. The question in the OP is about what viewers gravitate towards and speaking for myself I don't gravitate towards experimental or non-narrative films generally but of course they're still cinema. Greenaway and a taste of Alain Robbe-Grillet every now and then is as far as I go which I know isn't very far.
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Post by Film Socialism on Feb 2, 2023 23:37:32 GMT
i don't see why they would be excluded on the basis that their intent is different when they are still movies. there are tons of movies that look like shit that people here have no issue accepting as movies, even if they're doing something in opposition to what many films set out to achieve. I don't think anyone's excluding them. The question in the OP is about what viewers gravitate towards and speaking for myself I don't gravitate towards experimental or non-narrative films generally but of course they're still cinema. Greenaway and a taste of Alain Robbe-Grillet every now and then is as far as I go which I know isn't very far. saying "non narrative films don't count" when asked if one prefers story or visual beauty is excluding them, especially when non narrative films are the ones that have no story and oftentimes the most visual beauty. if people don't like them in general i mean that's weird to me but whatever, but saying they wouldn't fit into this discussion is wrong
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 2, 2023 23:47:52 GMT
ppl seriously saying style is separate from substance. This made me think of Swedish academic Anna Backman Rogers' passionate defense of Sofia Coppola... "Therefore, it is telling, but sadly not surprising, that this lazy proclivity of critics and scholars alike to associate the surface of the image with superficiality and redundancy has extended into the popular and cultural reception of Coppola’s films. Consider, for instance, the critical taxonomy and dismissive descriptors used on a regular basis to delineate Coppola’s aesthetic appeal: ‘tedious vacuity’ and ‘uncritically rendered’;1 ‘a day-dreamy and gorgeous-looking soufflé’;2 ‘this is like a manicurist claiming to capture the inner experience of your pinkie’;3 ‘it’s only for girls and gays’;4 ‘one of the daftest things I have seen for a long time’;5 ‘no weight, depth or particular story’;6 ‘shallow’, ‘superficial’, ‘psychologically diffuse’, ‘vague’, ‘vacuous’, ‘no depth’ and ‘blank’.7 Readers may be curious to note that it is male critics who nearly always perpetuate the infuriatingly gendered tone prevalent in this cultural discourse that has irrevocably shaped the reception of Coppola’s films. The misogynist implication that is embarrassingly evident here is that Coppola’s ‘pretty’ and decorative mise-en-scène is taken to signify nothing beyond its pleasing surface; indeed, her oeuvre is frequently likened to cinematic pastry, a delightful cream puff, full of delicious air but lacking in meaty (and masculine) substance (a metaphor critics employed with alarming alacrity with regard to Marie Antoinette (2006))."this kind of makes me want to walk back what I wrote earlier. Marie Antoinette is a textbook example of style and substance being intertwined because the way Coppola told that story is more interesting than the story itself. Thanks for sharing this this quote, those male critics were dumbasses. I think "style over substance" is an easy way to reject something you didn't connect with in the same way that calling a movie "boring" is a lazy cop out when you have nothing else to say. When I see a film like The Revenant which I loathed, I'm tempted to call it style over substance because it's a highly stylized film with a very specific aesthetic that I don't think matches the narrative and results in a film that felt pretentious (to me). But it's not that the film isn't substantive or saying *nothing*, it's that I didn't connect with the vision Inarritu was going for. Style over substance is lazy shorthand. I think we all know what it means but it's not useful or correct.
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Post by Martin Stett on Feb 3, 2023 0:45:56 GMT
They operate under different rules, trying different things, and so there is no point trying to compare them to traditional narratives. That said, non-narrative films are not my cup of tea in the VAST majority of cases. i don't see why they would be excluded on the basis that their intent is different when they are still movies. there are tons of movies that look like shit that people here have no issue accepting as movies, even if they're doing something in opposition to what many films set out to achieve. The difference is that "story" is practically non-existent in non-narrative features. You can't say that gravitating towards story in those cases is even possible, because that isn't the goal. If I asked people if they gravitated more towards the color red than the color blue when they looked at paintings and then tried to argue "WHAT ABOUT ALL THESE PAINTINGS THAT DON'T USE RED AS A DELIBERATE CHOICE!?!?!?" that argument would be baseless, as everybody would rightly say that they prefer the color red so long as it is actually being used.
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Post by Film Socialism on Feb 3, 2023 0:57:33 GMT
i don't see why they would be excluded on the basis that their intent is different when they are still movies. there are tons of movies that look like shit that people here have no issue accepting as movies, even if they're doing something in opposition to what many films set out to achieve. The difference is that "story" is practically non-existent in non-narrative features. You can't say that gravitating towards story in those cases is even possible, because that isn't the goal. If I asked people if they gravitated more towards the color red than the color blue when they looked at paintings and then tried to argue "WHAT ABOUT ALL THESE PAINTINGS THAT DON'T USE RED AS A DELIBERATE CHOICE!?!?!?" that argument would be baseless, as everybody would rightly say that they prefer the color red so long as it is actually being used. they are gravitating towards visual beauty (in many cases); why wouldn't they count for this question? "paintings that don't use red" would be an important category of things to bring up if people are debating red vs blue in paintings, i have no idea why that would be baseless. should we just ignore films like CODA for this argument since they only try to tell a story as artlessly as possible? i don't see why we would; same for takashi makino for the opposite.
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Post by Martin Stett on Feb 3, 2023 2:43:04 GMT
The difference is that "story" is practically non-existent in non-narrative features. You can't say that gravitating towards story in those cases is even possible, because that isn't the goal. If I asked people if they gravitated more towards the color red than the color blue when they looked at paintings and then tried to argue "WHAT ABOUT ALL THESE PAINTINGS THAT DON'T USE RED AS A DELIBERATE CHOICE!?!?!?" that argument would be baseless, as everybody would rightly say that they prefer the color red so long as it is actually being used. they are gravitating towards visual beauty (in many cases); why wouldn't they count for this question? "paintings that don't use red" would be an important category of things to bring up if people are debating red vs blue in paintings, i have no idea why that would be baseless. should we just ignore films like CODA for this argument since they only try to tell a story as artlessly as possible? i don't see why we would; same for takashi makino for the opposite. CODA still uses visual elements to tell its story. I am unaware of Makino, but I have seen some Frampton and Snow, and they straight up refused to have any sort of story to their films. If CODA was literally a black screen and just a narrator, maybe there'd be an argument to make that it is similar. But it is still using the visual medium to convey its primary purpose. I haven't seen how Frampton uses a story to convey his primary purpose.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2023 16:44:27 GMT
ibbi - Re. Polanski's Tess - Do you think it possible to NOT condense/streamline that enormous novel in order to make a film that feels truly cinematic? Unless you're filming a BBC miniseries, I don't think it is. I mean, did you want Joanne Woodward to read the entire novel aloud to us? #TeamColinMcCabe
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Post by ibbi on Feb 3, 2023 17:35:40 GMT
ibbi - Re. Polanski's Tess - Do you think it possible to NOT condense/streamline that enormous novel in order to make a film that feels truly cinematic? Unless you're filming a BBC miniseries, I don't think it is. I mean, did you want Joanne Woodward to read the entire novel aloud to us? #TeamColinMcCabe I like the movie! I was just being an asshole for the lolz.
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Post by TylerDeneuve on Mar 8, 2024 14:56:57 GMT
Film is, above all, a visual media... I gravitate towards auteurs who push it to its "deliriously beautiful" limits! Visconti... Polanski... Wong Kar-wai... Sofia Coppola...
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