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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 24, 2017 13:29:13 GMT
I recently gave AS a rewatch and I think this film in comparison to mother! is an example of how troubled movies are now in entirely different ways. The film's could not be further apart to me - Sniper is entirely linear, "and then this happened", completely lacking any poetic digression; mother! more or less lacks coherence entirely and barely has a screenplay entire after the first 45 minutes, and is (theoretically) ALL poetic digression. I'm not just saying this for those reasons though - you have always had this in film, I mean it more as what people want from films now in this time. The interesting thing is how both of those are directorial shows for their fans.
These two films are great example of what mainstream audiences have turned film into - what do movies "mean" to them - one decidedly old fashioned but not exclusively an older audiences film) and one decidedly contemptuous of anything old fashioned but not exclusively appealing to the young. Both films (and I liked neither btw) would argue "what the film is saying" rather than how well they are saying it and I think you can use both of them as a sort of battering ram on what you see about the role of film in our lives - AS was a true phenomenon, maybe the most interesting box office player of the last 5 years in that regard...............and mother! was a film vehemently hated by most (F Cinemascore, etc) but passionately defended by some - I was literally shocked by Richard Brody's rave of mother! and I can't remember the last time that happened to me.
Is there anyone who liked both films and can speak to the kind of divide? I think back to my favorite films and how much they were screenplay based first and foremost and lately how rare a great screenplay and great writing seems to be but more importantly and oddly, how people seem to think that's not a necessary element right now anyway.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Sept 24, 2017 21:08:56 GMT
i like both films a good deal, AS a bit more.
AS is, to me, a film which portrays a post-9/11 rightwing united states in a fantastic way and, in many ways, is able to show the collective disappointment and ennui after the large failure of the bush administration. but i think it's very subtle about this, and eastwood's interpretation is way more interesting than "look at how this soldier was a hero but also a villain" since we've had a million of those movies.
Mother is, to me, kind of like Margaret. with Margaret when i first saw it, i couldn't believe it was so divisive - it seemed like an ordinary drama that would probably have good to great acclaim. but no, it's either top of the decade level from many people or utter shit from others. with Mother, going into it i knew it was divisive, but coming out of it i'm not really sure why. i mean, anything this arty on a large scale is going to put a bunch of people off (The Tree of Life, Spring Breakers etc) but past that i don't really get why it's had such big gaps in its reception.
your age is showing a bit, pacino. which you fully admit to and that's fine (it would be fine if you didn't admit to it, haha). i believe people aren't as interested in those sort of middle-of-the-road sorts of new hollywood films, wherein you have some mix of poetic and coherence. a lot of films are starting to diverge more into binaries from what i've seen. for me, i like that. but there's definitely a change in how people write movies - curious to see other input here.
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Post by pacinoyes on Sept 24, 2017 21:47:13 GMT
i like both films a good deal, AS a bit more. AS is, to me, a film which portrays a post-9/11 rightwing united states in a fantastic way and, in many ways, is able to show the collective disappointment and ennui after the large failure of the bush administration. but i think it's very subtle about this, and eastwood's interpretation is way more interesting than "look at how this soldier was a hero but also a villain" since we've had a million of those movies. That is a really interesting point and also (perhaps) reflective of how the movie played differently on different people - I mean I would think a lot of people would refer to Eastwood's direction as heavy handed and yet here you praise him for being subtle (and I think that's rightly so at least in that one regard of the film) - that POV would force a lot of people to perhaps do a re-think of what they thought they were seeing on-screen. I wonder how much people ever admit to a "re-think" of that kind of thing ever actually...... |
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