Forgotten cinematic contributions?
Vincia1
night, and I was struck by how its impact had diminished. One of the reasons
for this is the fact that a great deal of movies in the 90s were strongly
influenced either by the film itself or just the Scorsese Style. After watching
A Life in Pictures, one can tell just by viewing the selected clips that much
of what Kubrick did remains fresh, and I dare say that no major directors have
ripped off Kubrick in the direct way that they have ripped off Scorsese (the
constant use of 4-minute Stedicam shots, set-pieces set to pop-songs, vs. the
disuse of a 60-second zoom, slow-motion and Beethoven, etc.)
I know that many of you will have an argument with the above, which is fine,
air it out. But the main point of this is my question: what former cinematic
marvels have declined steadily over the years, where the impact was once
tremendous and now it is just screened in film classes, relegated to "history"?
Thanks,
Vince
PS Of course other directors have been "influenced" by Kubrick, but I can't
think of a single film that attempts to mimic the visual style of, say, Barry
Lyndon. The Kubrickian style seems to have sole ownership.
jmc
"Vincia1" <vin...@aol.comVince> wrote in message
news:20030406145217...@mb-fh.aol.com...
>
> PS Of course other directors have been "influenced" by Kubrick, but I
can't
> think of a single film that attempts to mimic the visual style of, say,
Barry
> Lyndon. The Kubrickian style seems to have sole ownership.
>
The 1995 British film The Young Poisoner's Handbook pays tribute to A
Clockwork Orange in terms of camera angles and even uses some of the same
music. It is directed by Benjamin Ross.
Kian Bergstrom
> Greetings, all. I watched Goodfellas for the first time in a while the other
> night, and I was struck by how its impact had diminished. One of the reasons
> for this is the fact that a great deal of movies in the 90s were strongly
> influenced either by the film itself or just the Scorsese Style. After watching
> A Life in Pictures, one can tell just by viewing the selected clips that much
> of what Kubrick did remains fresh, and I dare say that no major directors have
> ripped off Kubrick in the direct way that they have ripped off Scorsese (the
> constant use of 4-minute Stedicam shots, set-pieces set to pop-songs, vs. the
> disuse of a 60-second zoom, slow-motion and Beethoven, etc.)
>
> I know that many of you will have an argument with the above, which is fine,
> air it out. But the main point of this is my question: what former cinematic
> marvels have declined steadily over the years, where the impact was once
> tremendous and now it is just screened in film classes, relegated to "history"?
>
Interesting observation. I agree, and I wonder why... (thinking...)
One major difference to consider is that Scorsese's style is simply
more easily definable, and hence easier to recognize in others.
Kubrick's and Scorsese's working strategies were markedly different,
and resulted in visual ideosyncracies that were equally different.
Kubrick primarily relied upon staging and set design to inform and, in
no small way, determine his choice of shots and edits.
You can see this pragmatic shooting practice in, for example, the
remarkable shot in TS of Jack Torrance in the dry goods storage room
as he pounds on the door talking to Wendy. He's shot from directly
below, making a striking composition that never fails to surprise me a
little bit, and which effectively demonstrates the contrast between
what Jack and Wendy are saying - while he's shot in this curious,
non-classical manner, she's framed in, to my memory, straight on shots
that pan gently left and right with her.
At the same time, the shot is an economic and simple solution to a
potentially thorny problem: Jack's facing a brushed metal door and
yelling into it. Once the set has been constructed and the scene
blocked out such that it becomes clear that where Jack dramatically
should be is right in front of that door, it's clear that there's no
room in front of him to put the camera any more, and it simply
wouldn't make much sense to make the door so reflective that we can
see his face in it if the camera's placed behind him.
A great part of Kubrick's genius as a director, I feel, is his ability
to make these pragmatic decisions work within larger structures of
theme, chracterization, etc. A great many _good_ directors do not
have this ability. Their shots will alternate between the merely
plot-related and the thematic, with few if any shots serving both
purposes.
Scorsese's working method is built from the shot out, however, which
will automatically give him a visual style with more flair and
flamboyance than Kubrick's. He used to come to his shoots with his
entire film storyboarded out in big binders, and work his actors and
sets into those plans. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but
it does lead in what we might call signature moves, that can then be
taken by others and applied with minimal variation to entirely
alternate scripts and locations and meanings. It becomes a kind of
shorthand - Scorsese sets up elaborate steadicam shots to introduce
the society that the main character lives in, so that means that a
thousand other directors are going to do the same thing, not
considering that the shot does a lot more than just what you see at
face value. Placed within the film, it suddenly becomes a lot more
complicated.
Take the (justifiably) famous shot at the Copa Cabana in _Goodfellas_:
in itself, it's showing simultaneously the glamour of Henry Hill's
world and how seductive he can be, and the pettiness of that same
world, which involves basically bribing a slew of folks so you can
sneak in through the kitchen to watch a man tell "Take my wife,
please" jokes. In context, though, it sets up the second section of
the film as an elaborate reworking of _Touch of Evil_ (compare the
Scorsese steadicam shot and the opening of Welles's film for a real
treat sometime) in which the bomb that seperates Vargas and his new
wife and nearly destroys their relationship becomes Henry's unexamined
gangsterism, which breaks him and his girlfriend, soon to be his wife,
into pieces before us.
Directors looking for quick ways to make their films stylish and cool
look to Scorsese because his shots glisten with pinache. You can
excerpt a Scorsese shot and, wholly out of context, it will still make
you stop and take notice, and that's not something you can do with
nearly any Kubrick shot. Scorsese, it seems to me, thinks up shots
and then finds the films and the scenes that they're good for, but it
opens him up to theft in a big way. Someone like Paul T. Anderson
will look at Scorsese and not understand that while it may be a
fantastic shot, it's still there for very good reasons, only some of
which involve the basic plot needs. It's too bad, because the ease
with which Scorsese's style is aped by others makes sure that his
films age very fast indeed at times.
I think it's very telling that _2010_ did not attempt to copy the
visual style of _2001_, don't you? But can you imagine some other
director coming along and making a sequel to _Taxi Driver_ or
_Goodfellas_ that didn't look just like their originals?
> PS Of course other directors have been "influenced" by Kubrick, but I can't
> think of a single film that attempts to mimic the visual style of, say, Barry
> Lyndon. The Kubrickian style seems to have sole ownership.
_Pan Tadeusz_, maybe? Or _Tess_? They're not really all that close,
but they do go in similar directions. And, of course, Scorsese's own
_Age of Innocence_ harkens back, though it owes more to Ozu than to
Kubrick, in my opinion.
-Kian
drakes
<jamesmart...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>"Vincia1" <vin...@aol.comVince> wrote in message
>news:20030406145217...@mb-fh.aol.com...
>>
>> PS Of course other directors have been "influenced" by Kubrick, but I
>can't
>> think of a single film that attempts to mimic the visual style of, say,
>Barry
>> Lyndon. The Kubrickian style seems to have sole ownership.
Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence" seems very Barry Lydon influenced.
******
drakes
Dave C
> > PS Of course other directors have been "influenced" by Kubrick, but I
can't
> > think of a single film that attempts to mimic the visual style of, say,
Barry
> > Lyndon. The Kubrickian style seems to have sole ownership.
>
> _Pan Tadeusz_, maybe? Or _Tess_? They're not really all that close,
> but they do go in similar directions. And, of course, Scorsese's own
> _Age of Innocence_ harkens back, though it owes more to Ozu than to
> Kubrick, in my opinion.
Ridley Scott's "The Duellists" and Bernard Rose's "Immortal Beloved" are
both strongly influenced by, and mimic the visual style of, "Barry Lyndon"
Dave C
Your Pal Brian
[Good stuff snipped]
> Directors looking for quick ways to make their films stylish and cool
> look to Scorsese because his shots glisten with pinache. You can
> excerpt a Scorsese shot and, wholly out of context, it will still make
> you stop and take notice, and that's not something you can do with
> nearly any Kubrick shot. Scorsese, it seems to me, thinks up shots
> and then finds the films and the scenes that they're good for,
This is, in my opinion, what's wrong about Scorsese's style. The idea of shots-for-the-sake-of-shots
strikes me as more than a bit off the mark. It smacks of gimmickry. Like Rouben Mamoulian, he gives us
a burst of technique, perhaps even brilliant technique, and then returns to normalcy with a thud. And
like Rouben Mamoulian, whose style was big news in his day for these touches, I wonder if it'll last
beyond today's critics.
For instance, there's a bit in Goodfellas, I think it is, where Deniro and someone sit down at a booth in
a diner and Scorsese does a big slow dolly-zoom, I guess to show that their awareness is becoming
narrower in focus as the conversation grows more intense. Fine and dandy, and the film students love
it. But then the rest of the film goes on as though that shot had never even happened. It never coheres
into a style, it just remains a flourish.
Compare with The Shining. Here we have the labyrinth as the basic metaphor for the film, and so the
steadi-cam tracking shot becomes its natural visual expression. Hallways, hedge mazes, maze carpets,
etc., and we glide ghost-like though all of them. A style, rather than just a stand-alone gimmick. Get
it?
Brian
Your Pal Brian
(I'm reposting this because the margins were screwed up. If they're still screwed up this time, then to
hell with it.)
> Directors looking for quick ways to make their films stylish and cool
> look to Scorsese because his shots glisten with pinache. You can
> excerpt a Scorsese shot and, wholly out of context, it will still make
> you stop and take notice, and that's not something you can do with
> nearly any Kubrick shot. Scorsese, it seems to me, thinks up shots
> and then finds the films and the scenes that they're good for,
This is, in my opinion, what's wrong about Scorsese's style. The idea of shots-for-the-sake-of-shots
Your Pal Brian
> (I'm reposting this because the margins were screwed up. If they're still screwed up this time, then to
> hell with it.)
Ah, fuck.
Brian
Sébastien Smith
"Kian Bergstrom" <kian.be...@dartmouth.edu> a écrit dans le message de
news: 5cbe2b24.03040...@posting.google.com...
This may steer the conversation a bit elsewhere, but...
I feel, mainly because they were so important -if not essencial to the
birth and growth of film art-, that the major movements; German
Expressionism, Italian Neo-Realism, French Neo-Impressionism, Russian
Montage and Japanese Impressionism are unfortunately long gone.
We do find certain films that still hold to those traits, Dogma 95 for
example, the danish movement created by Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von
Trier, is to me the closest we'll ever get to Neo-Realism as the italians
saw it, and to a truly substancial cinematic contribution. Mainly for the
form it is presented in, and for the honesty of its content and truth as a
whole, technically and artistically speaking.
As of now, people don't tend to search for these cinematic contributions...
Even in american films, there has been a strong movement in the late forties
and early fifties, a contribution I like to call American Epicism...
People don't, to the great misfortune of the few brilliant storytellers
left, have the patience nor the curiosity of these long, powerful monuments.
Cleopatra, Lawrence of Arabia, The Ten commandments, Stanley Kubrick's never
made, but brilliant masterpiece Napoleon, they're all film with forms and
content we'll most probably never see again.
Ssmith
Thornhill
lifted, particularly that odd, forward-track, zoom-out shot...or, was
it a rear-track, zoom-in? Maybe we should call this shot anomaly that
had little or nothing to do with the film, "The Old In-Out Shot".
Not sure who's the lesser director, the lifter or the liftee. Each
scores very high on the "That's cute" scale.
Thornhill
Your Pal Brian <brian...@iFreedom.com> wrote in message news:<3E916114...@iFreedom.com>...
Wordsmith
Did you see *Panic Room*? There's a scene where the camera, in a God-like
manner, meanders all over the house, but it doesn't jibe with the rest of the
film in any important way.
Wordsmith :)
Josh
>will look at Scorsese and not understand that while it may be a
>fantastic shot, it's still there for very good reasons, only some of
>which involve the basic plot needs.
I think P.T. Anderson knows what he's doing, and understands why Scorsese (or
any other master director) will use a certain shot, and I've been satisfied,
based on interviews, directors commentaries, etc., that Anderson has reasons
for his shots and doesn't throw something in just because it looks pretty.
Josh
Me (cool stuff) http://members.aol.com/vertigoman/me
CDR Trading:
http://members.aol.com/vertigoman/me/bootlist.html
Josh
>manner, meanders all over the house, but it doesn't jibe with the rest of the
>film in any important way.
Yes! That's exactly what I thought too! The camera would frequently move
through walls, pipes, down halls and through rooms, for no real reason. Then
again, the movie itself didn't have much of a reason for existing. It was like
the "Phone Booth" of 2002!
Josh
2001 since then. Sci-fi movies of today are centered around fast pacing,
faster cutting, more extreme angles, extraneous special effects.
Though certainly fiction, Kubrick created a world in 2001 that was believable -
you just don't see that in sci-fi movies today. Every other ship except for
the Discovery has gravity in outer space! They had an explaination for why
there was some gravity on Discovery, but in any other science fiction film,
just press a button and there's artificial gravity, presto! As if gravity is
something that can be stored in a tank like oxygen.
The more I watch Kubrick's later films especially, the more I'm captivated by
his use of long, uninterrupted takes. Rarely does Kubrick do anything that
screams "Look at me! I'm doing something with the camera! I'm directing!
Notice me!" Maybe that's why you don't see so many copies of Kubrick shots,
because they weren't meant to be explicitly flashy, and because they don't draw
an undo amount of attention to themselves.
Peter Tonguette
>through walls, pipes, down halls and through rooms, for no real reason.
> Then
>again, the movie itself didn't have much of a reason for existing. It was
>like
>the "Phone Booth" of 2002!
Actually, in the case of "Panic Room," my sense was that these shots were meant
to both give the viewer a sense of the geography of the apt. and also emphasize
the close quarters in which the story is about to unfold. I wouldn't argue
that the movie has much of a reason to exist either, but I still found it
pretty entertaining and well realized.
Boaz
> One major difference to consider is that Scorsese's style is simply
> more easily definable, and hence easier to recognize in others.
> Kubrick's and Scorsese's working strategies were markedly different,
> and resulted in visual ideosyncracies that were equally different.
> Kubrick primarily relied upon staging and set design to inform and, in
> no small way, determine his choice of shots and edits.
Scorsese has said many times he will screen certain films to get an
idea of how to stage his own scenes. He will choose something that may
work within the context of what his latest project is (e.g., he
screened "Queen Margot" for a riot scene that helped him with the
Draft Riot sequence in "Gangs of New York") and screen it for his cast
and crew so they can see where he is coming from.
> You can see this pragmatic shooting practice in, for example, the
> remarkable shot in TS of Jack Torrance in the dry goods storage room
> as he pounds on the door talking to Wendy. He's shot from directly
> below, making a striking composition that never fails to surprise me a
> little bit, and which effectively demonstrates the contrast between
> what Jack and Wendy are saying - while he's shot in this curious,
> non-classical manner, she's framed in, to my memory, straight on shots
> that pan gently left and right with her.
It has been said that Kubrick has gone on to his sets without any idea
where to put the camera until he has seen a run-through of the action
of the scene. There is a good example of that in the "Making of The
Shining" documentary. I still haven't seen it all the way through yet,
but I did download a small clip when it made the rounds on the 'Net
shortly after Kubrick's death. It shows Kubrick trying to figure out
where to put the camera when Nicholson is trying to plead with Duval
to let him out. Kubrick has his viewfinder and looks for a good angle,
saying, "It might be better this way," and that's when Kubrick lays on
the floor and peers up to Nicholson through the viewfinder. He has
Nicholson lean against the door and doing a dry run-through of his
lines (meaning that Nicholson simply said the lines without much
emotion or emphasis that he would when the cameras would roll).
Kubrick then asks Nicholson if he can "look up," instead of into the
lens. It's funny when Kubrick says that, because for a moment he does
the "crazy Kubrick stare," rolling his own eyes up to indicate how
he'd like Nicholson to do it. But it shows how both the shot and the
performance can evolve organically merely by necessity.
> At the same time, the shot is an economic and simple solution to a
> potentially thorny problem: Jack's facing a brushed metal door and
> yelling into it. Once the set has been constructed and the scene
> blocked out such that it becomes clear that where Jack dramatically
> should be is right in front of that door, it's clear that there's no
> room in front of him to put the camera any more, and it simply
> wouldn't make much sense to make the door so reflective that we can
> see his face in it if the camera's placed behind him.
And it would make the point too obvious that Jack is talking, not
necessarily to a ghost, but to whatever demon is residing in his head,
if we did see his reflection. We never saw his reflection when he was
talking to "Lloyd" in the bar, though it was obvious that there were
mirrors behind the bar, and then later when Lloyd "appears" Kubrick
frames them where they are looking at each other that suggests mirror
images. The same thing happens later when Nicholson is in the mens
room talking to "Grady."
> A great part of Kubrick's genius as a director, I feel, is his ability
> to make these pragmatic decisions work within larger structures of
> theme, chracterization, etc. A great many _good_ directors do not
> have this ability. Their shots will alternate between the merely
> plot-related and the thematic, with few if any shots serving both
> purposes.
Which is why "A.I." would have been a very different film had Kubrick
been alive to direct it.
> Scorsese's working method is built from the shot out, however, which
> will automatically give him a visual style with more flair and
> flamboyance than Kubrick's. He used to come to his shoots with his
> entire film storyboarded out in big binders, and work his actors and
> sets into those plans. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but
> it does lead in what we might call signature moves, that can then be
> taken by others and applied with minimal variation to entirely
> alternate scripts and locations and meanings. It becomes a kind of
> shorthand - Scorsese sets up elaborate steadicam shots to introduce
> the society that the main character lives in, so that means that a
> thousand other directors are going to do the same thing, not
> considering that the shot does a lot more than just what you see at
> face value. Placed within the film, it suddenly becomes a lot more
> complicated.
Scorsese has also said in interviews that his choice of music is
indicated in the script. In other words, whatever song was on the
soundtrack in "Goodfellas" or "Casino" they were pre-determined before
filming began. This is not so unusual, or bad, for that matter; but to
have it all put into the script, not allowing for alternative choices
during post-production, is very rare.
> Take the (justifiably) famous shot at the Copa Cabana in _Goodfellas_:
> in itself, it's showing simultaneously the glamour of Henry Hill's
> world and how seductive he can be, and the pettiness of that same
> world, which involves basically bribing a slew of folks so you can
> sneak in through the kitchen to watch a man tell "Take my wife,
> please" jokes. In context, though, it sets up the second section of
> the film as an elaborate reworking of _Touch of Evil_ (compare the
> Scorsese steadicam shot and the opening of Welles's film for a real
> treat sometime) in which the bomb that seperates Vargas and his new
> wife and nearly destroys their relationship becomes Henry's unexamined
> gangsterism, which breaks him and his girlfriend, soon to be his wife,
> into pieces before us.
Interesting observation.
> Directors looking for quick ways to make their films stylish and cool
> look to Scorsese because his shots glisten with pinache. You can
> excerpt a Scorsese shot and, wholly out of context, it will still make
> you stop and take notice, and that's not something you can do with
> nearly any Kubrick shot. Scorsese, it seems to me, thinks up shots
> and then finds the films and the scenes that they're good for, but it
> opens him up to theft in a big way.
When Scorsese appeared on "Inside the Actors Studio," he said his
overhead shots came from two sources, one was his childhood days
observing the world from his third floor apartment window, and Alfred
Hitchcock. It's interesting that so many novice directors will ape
Scorsese, more often than not using that overhead shot when showing a
violent scene, perhaps not realizing he got it from Hitchcock.
> Someone like Paul T. Anderson
> will look at Scorsese and not understand that while it may be a
> fantastic shot, it's still there for very good reasons, only some of
> which involve the basic plot needs. It's too bad, because the ease
> with which Scorsese's style is aped by others makes sure that his
> films age very fast indeed at times.
Yes, it isn't fair to blame Scorsese for the number of films out that
copy his style. I think it says more about the filmmakers who do that
than the person they aped the technique from. Anderson didn't just
copy Scorsese's shooting style in "Boogie Nights," he pretty much
copied the whole structure, from the editing, use of source music and
heightened violence. A friend who saw the film with me said the film
felt "synthetic" in trying to be like Scorsese but not really being
Scorsese.
> I think it's very telling that _2010_ did not attempt to copy the
> visual style of _2001_, don't you? But can you imagine some other
> director coming along and making a sequel to _Taxi Driver_ or
> _Goodfellas_ that didn't look just like their originals?
It's just as well that Hyams didn't try to copy Kubrick too much in
"2010," since the film wasn't that good anyway.
> > PS Of course other directors have been "influenced" by Kubrick, but I can't
> > think of a single film that attempts to mimic the visual style of, say, Barry
> > Lyndon. The Kubrickian style seems to have sole ownership.
I don't quite agree. "One Hour Photo" (one example) tries too hard to
use wide angle lenses and source lighting in some places to get that
"sterile" look. The influence of Kubrick's films has been seen and
felt on other films and filmmakers, but what is not copied, and what
hasn't seemed to have been copied, is the structure and themes that
Kubrick is also noted for. Most filmmakers go for the obvious, the
visual style, without thinking (or caring) how those shots are so
intregal to the story Kubrick is telling and what part of those themes
the shots are telegraphing at the time. I think that's why for the
most part many films that try to use "Kubrickian shots" end up looking
hollow and obvious; there is nothing in their story that is strong
enough to justify the use of such an image, except for stating the
obviousness of their influence from having seen Kubrick's films.
> _Pan Tadeusz_, maybe? Or _Tess_? They're not really all that close,
> but they do go in similar directions. And, of course, Scorsese's own
> _Age of Innocence_ harkens back, though it owes more to Ozu than to
> Kubrick, in my opinion.
>
> -Kian
In the film tie-in book of "The Age of Innocence," Scorsese lists all
of the films that influenced his approach to making his, and "Barry
Lyndon" was somewhere at the top of the list.
Boaz
Josh
>than the person they aped the technique from. Anderson didn't just
>copy Scorsese's shooting style in "Boogie Nights," he pretty much
>copied the whole structure, from the editing, use of source music and
>heightened violence.
There's obviously the Scoreses influence there, but what I thought was
interesting was that PT Anderson said that he was thinking more of the works of
Jonathan Demme rather than Scorsese when he was making the movie, and was
surprised that he got all fo the Scorsese comparisons and that no one picked up
any of the Demme.
>It's just as well that Hyams didn't try to copy Kubrick too much in
>"2010," since the film wasn't that good anyway.
I don't think it's bad - maybe the ending is weak, but that's the fault of the
source material. I think Hyams' 2010 is a very good adaptation of Clarke's
2010 novel. The 2010 novel (and film) make a good sequel to the 2001 novel,
but doesn't really tie in with the 2001 film. Whew! Did that sentence make
any sense?
>Scorsese has also said in interviews that his choice of music is
>indicated in the script. In other words, whatever song was on the
>soundtrack in "Goodfellas" or "Casino" they were pre-determined before
>filming began.
Scorsese's use of music is often amazing; his choice of existing music works
far better in a lot of places than a complete original score would. I love how
with Casino or GoodFellas, two films that spanned a long time period, you're
instantly oriented by the music playing - the way he picks songs and matches
them to his images, and even edits the images around the music really helps to
set up characters and scenes better than dialogue or title cards could.
Darth Nub
The recent 'One Hour Photo', starring Robin Williams, screamed the
influence of Kubrick to the heavens, at least visually. The way the
scenes in the mall were shot were like a cross between 2001 & The
Shining.
Darth
Matthew Dickinson
> >Did you see *Panic Room*? There's a scene where the camera, in a God-like
> >manner, meanders all over the house, but it doesn't jibe with the rest of the
> >film in any important way.
>
> Yes! That's exactly what I thought too! The camera would frequently move
> through walls, pipes, down halls and through rooms, for no real reason. Then
> again, the movie itself didn't have much of a reason for existing. It was like
> the "Phone Booth" of 2002!
::shrugs:: Phone Booth was a decent movie, actually. I wasn't
suspecting much from the trailers and Schumacher's past. Not a
philosophical masterpiece, but it does have an interesting philosophy
worth thinking about. I haven't read the reviews but I had the
impression the phone call was like a revelation from God - even the
cops at the beginning seem to wonder whether he's talking to himself
on the phone like a schizophrenic. The way Farrell (Jim Carrey was
originally billed for this part which would have been interesting) is
forced to face his sins and beg for forgiveness or otherwise suffer
hell seemed like some kind of modernized Judaic moral tale straight
out of the Old Testament, though I havne't read that book. It's
notable that the "bad guy" gets away scott free at the end, possibly
undermining this label.
Matthew
Josh
>The way Farrell (Jim Carrey was
>originally billed for this part which would have been interesting) is
>forced to face his sins and beg for forgiveness or otherwise suffer
>hell seemed like some kind of modernized Judaic moral tale straight
>out of the Old Testament
Except that his sins really aren't big enough to warrant that kind of
treatment. I think the movie would have worked if the role had been done
differently one of two ways: either make him an innocent, likeable guy at the
wrong place at the wrong time, or make him a really asshole who deserves it.
If you make him the likeable guy, the audience will sympathize, if you make him
the asshole, the audience will enjoy his suffering. The way they did it, they
made him this tough-on-the-outside, nice on the inside sympathetic character
that, for me, didn't work. If he's capable of admitting all of his faults as
he does at the end of the film, it seems the attention the sniper gives him is
unwarranted.
>It's
>notable that the "bad guy" gets away scott free at the end, possibly
>undermining this label.
Yeah. I love Keifer Sutherland, and I thought his (offscreen) performance was
terrific. But the little cameo where you see him getting away just doesn't
really matter. I guess I became less and less interested with the caller by the
end of the film because we learn absolutely nothing about him - it's OK if
Colin Farrell doesn't know who the guy is, but at some point the audience
should get some kind of insight into the guy's motivations. Why is he doing
this? How was he able to stalk Farrell like that? Why should I care?
Matthew Dickinson
> WARNING: SPOILERS FOR "PHONE BOOTH" BELOW
>
> >The way Farrell (Jim Carrey was
> >originally billed for this part which would have been interesting) is
> >forced to face his sins and beg for forgiveness or otherwise suffer
> >hell seemed like some kind of modernized Judaic moral tale straight
> >out of the Old Testament
>
> Except that his sins really aren't big enough to warrant that kind of
> treatment. I think the movie would have worked if the role had been done
> differently one of two ways: either make him an innocent, likeable guy at the
> wrong place at the wrong time, or make him a really asshole who deserves it.
> If you make him the likeable guy, the audience will sympathize, if you make him
> the asshole, the audience will enjoy his suffering. The way they did it, they
> made him this tough-on-the-outside, nice on the inside sympathetic character
> that, for me, didn't work. If he's capable of admitting all of his faults as
> he does at the end of the film, it seems the attention the sniper gives him is
> unwarranted.
Except, though, few people wouldn't admit their faults under such
circumstances, but the question is how many would be affected enough
after the incident to change their lives for the better. I thought
Farrell did a good job playing his part, but it's true that his sins
aren't bad enough, at least in modern people's eyes. (Then again, a
lot of people complained that EWS was "unrealistic" because Bill
wouldn't have been that affected by his wife confessing that, even
during a time where she truly loved him, she was tempted to leave him
and her family for one night with a stranger.) I got the impression
the man on the other end of the phone was meant to serve as some hazy
representation of antiquated morality, which I think is the chief
problem of the film, because though he does get away at the end, it's
obvious most audience members rightfully hate him and wish he'd be
caught, especially since he killed two innocent men - though maybe in
his eyes no one is innocent, but that would beg the question of why he
doesn't kill Farrell's character from the get go (were the people he
did kill somehow worse or more hopeless than Farrell's character?) I'd
rather have him fleshed out better, with, as you pointed out, better
reasons for doing what he's doing, and a sense of morality for himself
which matched his beliefs about others' immorality. He could have, for
instance, been a character whose natural (?) sense of morality was
somewhat tragically at odds with the modern world's anomie, which
Farrell's character seems to realize about himself, but only himself,
after his confessions. However, if we know anything about human nature
it's that confessions - such as to a Catholic priest - rarely change
even the most puritanical of individuals, and so Sutherland's
character's satisfaction at the end rings hollow, as a character
intelligent as he would realize the futility of his efforts. Like half
of Hollywood's movies, the protagonist learns a lesson by the end and
is supposed to have permanently changed for the better, when real
change in a character (especially an adult) is gradual and painstaking
at best. So the morality tale the film is reaching for is canceled out
by too many conflicting ideas, but I still think it was a good try,
relative to what else is out there now, and an enjoyable, pared down
work of suspense.
> >It's
> >notable that the "bad guy" gets away scott free at the end, possibly
> >undermining this label.
>
> Yeah. I love Keifer Sutherland, and I thought his (offscreen) performance was
> terrific. But the little cameo where you see him getting away just doesn't
> really matter. I guess I became less and less interested with the caller by the
> end of the film because we learn absolutely nothing about him - it's OK if
> Colin Farrell doesn't know who the guy is, but at some point the audience
> should get some kind of insight into the guy's motivations. Why is he doing
> this? How was he able to stalk Farrell like that? Why should I care?
>
>
> Josh
>
> Me (cool stuff) http://members.aol.com/vertigoman/me
> CDR Trading:
> http://members.aol.com/vertigoman/me/bootlist.html
I agree. Definitely.
Forest Whitaker I also really liked. He's one of the best actors
working in Hollywood right now, IMO.
Matthew