Strong and Weak Film Decades?
David Manning
<3a8c0f99.0110...@posting.google.com>...
>
> The only decades I like are the seventies and nineties, to be frank. I
> like precious little from earlier eras; I find that "old" films are so
> unrealistic that they do not even touch upon most of the fundamental
> issues of existance. It seems to me that films from the first half of
> the century were crippled fatally by being a product of a civilisation
> that was not yet able to be realistic. They seem as though they were
> made for children. I know that sounds like an ignorant viewpoint, and
> god knows I've tried to like older films, because I have a strong
> respect for history and would like to be able to experience cultural
> continuity, but I largely can't. I basically just like new ones. Apart
> from some of the early pioneering stuff from the seventies, I
> basically stick to the nineties. There was beginning to be some good
> stuff in with all the bad; the nineties were a decade of surprising
> elegance in some ways. And now, I'm deathly afraid that the '00s are
> going to be terrible. There seems to be a new crappiness, reminiscent
> of the eighties, creeping back into culture. I hope it's just a
> temporary anomaly, but I worry a lot about it.
Hey, perhaps we should consider changing the name of
alt.movies.silent to alt.movies.fatally-crippled ...
Just out of curiosity, which films constitute the "early
pioneering stuff from the seventies" ... Star Wars? Badlands?
Cries and Whispers?
Robert Keser
Forbidden Paradise, Docks of New York, Love of Jeanne Ney,
Pandora's Box, and...?
Bob Keser
David Manning wrote:
> supervermi...@hotmail.com (Bag of Rats) wrote in message news:
> >
eric stott
David Manning wrote:
>
> supervermi...@hotmail.com (Bag of Rats) wrote in message news:
> <3a8c0f99.0110...@posting.google.com>...
> >
> > The only decades I like are the seventies and nineties, to be frank. I
> > like precious little from earlier eras; I find that "old" films are so
> > unrealistic that they do not even touch upon most of the fundamental
> > issues of existance. It seems to me that films from the first half of
> > the century were crippled fatally by being a product of a civilisation
> > that was not yet able to be realistic. They seem as though they were
> > made for children. I know that sounds like an ignorant viewpoint, and
> > god knows I've tried to like older films, because I have a strong
> > respect for history and would like to be able to experience cultural
> > continuity, but I largely can't. I basically just like new ones. Apart
> > from some of the early pioneering stuff from the seventies, I
> > basically stick to the nineties. There was beginning to be some good
> > stuff in with all the bad; the nineties were a decade of surprising
> > elegance in some ways. And now, I'm deathly afraid that the '00s are
> > going to be terrible. There seems to be a new crappiness, reminiscent
> > of the eighties, creeping back into culture. I hope it's just a
> > temporary anomaly, but I worry a lot about it.
>
Then why in the name of God are you posting here?
David Cavallo
news:e57e1dc8.01102...@posting.google.com:
> I find that "old" films are so
>> unrealistic that they do not even touch upon most of the fundamental
>> issues of existance.
Though weak on spelling, this is a pretty heavy assertion. IMO I'd guess
you haven't seen the "right" older films. Although film fans will fight
over what those might be, we'd probably agree on a couple dozen that might
just change your mind.
The day I started watching films from before the 70s marked a significant
turning point in my appreciation of film as an art form.
And the "made for children" bit...Fellini, Tarkovsky, Antonioni, Bresson,
Kurosawa, Kubrick -- yes, he made films in the 50s and 60s -- Dassin,
Siodmak, Lang, Renoir, Godard, Truffaut, Welles, Reed, Leone...uh, this is
getting silly..
They made movies for adults.
--David
Joanne Capella
> > The only decades I like are the seventies and nineties, to be frank. I
> > unrealistic that they do not even touch upon most of the fundamental
> > issues of existance.
This must have been posted by an AMC programming executive.
Joanne Capella
James L. Neibaur
Then you have some basic catching up to do.
>I
>> > like precious little from earlier eras
You haven't seen anything then.
>I find that "old" films are
>so
>> > unrealistic that they do not even touch upon most of the fundamental
>> > issues of existance.
As do such nineties films as Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot, RoboCop 3, and American
Pie.
JN
Please visit the most poorly designed web pages online:
my Favorite Movies web page:
http://hometown.aol.com/jimneibr/myhomepage/movies.html
and my Favorite Performers web page:
http://hometown.aol.com/jimneibr/myhomepage/rant.html
James L. Neibaur
>> pioneering stuff from the seventies" ... Star Wars? Badlands?
>> Cries and Whispers?
Probably Animal House, Porkys, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
James L. Neibaur
>>> pioneering stuff from the seventies" ... Star Wars? Badlands?
>>> Cries and Whispers?
>
>Probably Animal House, Porkys, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Wait, Porkys and Ferris were 80s werent they? I feel so silly!!
My response should have been Animal House, Billy Jack, and Pom Pom Girls.
JN
(who still thinks the original post was penned by Richard Roeper).
Feuillade
But first quotes someone else:
>> Just out of curiosity, which films
>> constitute the "early pioneering stuff
>> from the seventies" ... Star Wars?
>> Badlands? Cries and Whispers?
> Probably Animal House, Porkys, and
> Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
The last two are from the 80s. :)
My guess would be "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "Days of Heaven," "Celine and Julie
Go Boating" and a few others.
The kid put it in a very callow way that invites ridicule, but he does have a
point.
Tom Moran
R H Draney
wrote:
>>>> Just out of curiosity, which films constitute the "early
>>>> pioneering stuff from the seventies" ... Star Wars? Badlands?
>>>> Cries and Whispers?
>>
>>Probably Animal House, Porkys, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
>
>Wait, Porkys and Ferris were 80s werent they? I feel so silly!!
>
>My response should have been Animal House, Billy Jack, and Pom Pom Girls.
Don't forget that 70s perennial (it seemed our local drive-in ran it
at least once every couple of months): "The Legend of Boggy
Creek"....r
--
"We have lost everything in our download file,
as well as everything stored in our favorite places."
- Tamex
Christopher Jacobs
90s (besides that they're "newer") is that the current generation of
filmmakers is the first who are largely graduates of film schools, where
they learned how to make movies by watching all the older ones and are now
copying the parts they liked best in all those films of the 20s, 30s, 40s,
and 50s, and yes even the 60s). Previous filmmakers came up through the
business and developed their own styles or adapted to a studio style. Modern
filmmakers, although sometimes innovative on their own, often create
pastiches of styles influenced by their favorite films and directors from
the first half of the previous century.
And, with a certain number (even a substantial number) of notable
exceptions, I always felt the 70s was one of the least interesting cinematic
decades, along with the 50s, 60s, and 80s, and even much of the 40s (all of
which are the least-represented decades of the 20th century in my DVD
collection). In general, if presented the opportunity to see a film whose
title, stars, and/or director I never heard of, I would be most likely to
invest the time if its release date is between 1915 and 1934, simply because
the average film from that period tends to have more originality than
everything that came later (and which was often copying those earlier
films). Now the last half of the 20s was a period of slick, standaridized
studio formulas not unlike the past two decades, but even that has more
style than most of today's mass-marketed product.
--Christopher Jacobs
Robert Keser <rfk...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:3BD8B09B...@ix.netcom.com...
Precode
Well, anyone who signs his posts with such handles as "superhappyverminzone" and
"Bag of Rats" is clearly a person of astonishing maturity.
Mike S.
Bag of Rats
I was thinking of Scorsese and Lumet, not Star Wars.
Bag of Rats
I'm not saying that every single film from before the year 1970 is to
be written off. And when I said that they feel "made for children," I
was not actually saying that they were designed to only be watched by
children; I was just saying that a lot of movies from the thirties and
forties were pretty heavily censored because they had to be suitable
for all ages, or whatever the justification was back then. I'm saying
that we've come a long way in terms of what we can have represented on
film. You don't see a lot of nudity in Hollywood films from the
thirties, for instance. You also don't find people talking the way
they would really talk. I'm not saying that every movie has to have
people saying, "holy fucking shit," or whatnot, every two seconds; but
some movies call for that kind of unvarnished language, and it's
important that they be able to use it if they wish to. And so on.
I didn't say that Tarkovsky was crap. I just said that I'm a lot
happier with the roughness and realism of being able to have a naked
breast if we want one and being able to say "fuck" every three words
if that's what we want. It lets us do more. It gives us a freedom that
we didn't use to have.
I'm the kind of person who didn't use to read anything written later
than 1890, so don't lecture me on appreciation of the old stuff. I
used to be an opera fanatic, and if that isn't the ultimate old art
form I don't know what is. But opera is supposed to be highly
stylised, so you don't really need to say "fuck" every two seconds.
Films can be more realistic than any other art form, which is why it
is so important that they be able to actually have realistic content,
so that they can achieve their potential.
And you know what else? The thing I value most about film is the
ability to convey beautiful images. This often requires high-grade
colour film and excellent cinematography. Watching a blurry black and
white image can get really stifling. It's fine for some films, but not
for all. New Chinese films: now that's a cinema for you. They're
making some of the best films ever made right now in China.
Dr.Giraud
says...
that they can achieve their potential.
>
>And you know what else? The thing I value most about film is the
>ability to convey beautiful images. This often requires high-grade
>colour film and excellent cinematography. Watching a blurry black and
>white image can get really stifling.
So you've never seen a beautiful print of a black & white film in 35mm at a
repertory screening, and you've never seen a black & white film on DVD, mastered
from early or first generation 35mm sources. And you don't seem interested
enough to make the effort to do either. Your loss.
Shawn Stone
David Cavallo
> I'm the kind of person who didn't use to read anything written later
> than 1890, so don't lecture me on appreciation of the old stuff. I
> used to be an opera fanatic, and if that isn't the ultimate old art
> form I don't know what is. But opera is supposed to be highly
> stylised, so you don't really need to say "fuck" every two seconds.
> Films can be more realistic than any other art form, which is why it
> is so important that they be able to actually have realistic content,
> so that they can achieve their potential.
Didn't mean it as a lecture, or a swipe. If I'd known more about your
background (you may have commented on it in another post that I missed) I
might have simply solicited further observations, as you seem to have an
interesting vantage point.
Your points on realism in film are well-reasoned. I guess that as I like
so much noir that came out in the 40s -- and find a great deal of the
teeming 'below the surface' tension that obviously was a result of the
Production Code -- I don't really stop and think too much about what was
missing from American films of the earlier decades. (And that is NOT to say
that I support censorship in any form. I just happen to like a lot of
films from the 40s.)
Of course, whether using true to life dialogue (expletives, sexually
explicit talk and violence) and nudity more accurately depicts the human
experience than say, a movie like "The Bicycle Thief" is really hard to
say. It's all a question of what part of "reality" you wish to depict.
If THAT is the objective, in the first place. So many film-makers choose
the opposite route and offer up abstract, surrealist works that somehow
resonate on a human level despite their great distance from the mundane
workings of the planet.
In any case, I'm glad that film-makers today have the broadest possible
pallette of techniques to draw from when making films. (I do like a fair
share of newer films.)
On the cinematography issue, well, I'll have to disagree to an extent. If
you see a restored 35mm print or cleaned up DVD of a beautifully shot older
film -- admittedly not always the easiest thing to find -- IMO quality of
the images holds up to just about everything that's being shot today.
(The technical effects are an entirely different matter. They rule and
they suck, again all depending on who is pulling the strings.)
A poor example perhaps, since it was made in the last 30 years, which is a
general period that you don't really seem to be taking issue with, but is
"Days of Heaven" any less beautiful than "The Thin Red Line," which has had
the benefit of 20+ years of advances in film-making technology?
Hard to say. I guess I was just a sucker for older stuff, and I find the
photography of James Wong Howe, John Alton, Gregg Toland, etc. as
compelling as anything I see today. But the again, I am NOT intimately
familiar with any current Chinese cinema..
--David
Dr.Giraud
says...
>> > The only decades I like are the seventies and nineties, to be frank. I
>> > like precious little from earlier eras; I find that "old" films are so
>> > unrealistic that they do not even touch upon most of the fundamental
>> > issues of existance. It seems to me that films from the first half of
>> > the century were crippled fatally by being a product of a civilisation
>> > that was not yet able to be realistic. They seem as though they were
>> > made for children. I know that sounds like an ignorant viewpoint, and
>> > god knows I've tried to like older films, because I have a strong
>> > respect for history and would like to be able to experience cultural
>> > continuity, but I largely can't. I basically just like new ones.
Just out of curiosity, what older films drove you to this blanket dismissal of
most of cinema heritage?
Shawn Stone
TMRIEGLER
>I didn't say that Tarkovsky was crap. I just said that I'm a lot happier with
the roughness and realism of being able to have a naked breast if we want one
and being able to say "fuck" every three words
>if that's what we want. It lets us do more. It gives us a freedom that we
didn't use to have.
Well, it certainly frees up the writer since writing no longer requires
anything so pedantic as an extensive vocabulary. Not to mention that if you are
going to use "fuck" every three words you probably don't have to worry your
pretty little head about grammar either. Of course, you have that high-grade
colour film and excellent cinematography, so why should you bother to paint any
word pictures? Although, I'm not sure how much good that colour film is going
to do you when you are in desparate need of plot exposition.
>I'm the kind of person who didn't use to read anything written later
>than 1890, so don't lecture me on appreciation of the old stuff.
Oh dear, now we've written off the bulk of literature as well as film. You're
right. It simply isn't worth the time it would take to lecture you.
Terri Riegler
"Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to
distinguish what is worth reading."
G. M. Trevelyan
Archie Waugh
Archie Waugh
In article <3BD8B09B...@ix.netcom.com>, Robert Keser says...
Precode
Five bucks sez El Brendel was in it.
Mike S.
ChaneyFan
answer.
>>>I was just saying that a lot of movies from the thirties and
forties were pretty heavily censored because they had to be suitable
for all ages, or whatever the justification was back then. You don't see a lot
of nudity in Hollywood films from the thirties, for instance. You also don't
find people talking the way
they would really talk.
That is certainly true from 1935-1965, but less so for pre-1934. There is
*lots* of nudity in early films if you know where to look for it. I just
watched a 35mm print of DESTINY that had a topless girl dancing across the
screen quitre nicely. TARZAN AND HIS MATE has lovely full-frontal nudity in
it. Also, in silent films like WHAT PRICE GLORY, every third word is "fucking
son-of-a-bitch" if you can read lips! And films like BEHIND THE DOOR (1920)
had a scene where Jane Novak is gang-raped by a submarine crew and jettisoned
out of a torpedo tube.
The reality is that people *didn't* generally act that way in the 20s and 30s,
and therefore, these films are an accurate reflection of the times. A woman in
the 30s who wore a see-through blouse would be branded a slut and thrown out of
her apartment. Nowadays, they wear them to work in American corporations.
Likewise, anyone who said "shit" or "fuck" in public in the 20s would be
ostracized, and in some cases arrested. Now you hear schoolkids saying it.
(But mainstream publications still write s__t and f__k so readers won't be
offended!)
>>>Films can be more realistic than any other art form, which is why it is so
important that they be able to actually have realistic content, so that they
can achieve their potential.
So you don't like science fiction and fantasy films then? INDEPENDENCE DAY and
JURASSIC PARK clearly aren't "realistic" films.
>>>And you know what else? The thing I value most about film is the
ability to convey beautiful images. This often requires high-grade
colour film and excellent cinematography.
I agree. And that's why I like older films, because when seen properly they
blow today's films out of the water. Want to see great color? You can't beat
BLACK NARCISSUS in an IB Tech nitrate print. Compare the murky b/w of today's
music videos with a nitrate of THE SCARLET EMPRESS or TABU or DOCKS OF NEW
YORK. If I listed the 10 most beautiful prints of films I had ever seen *none*
of them would be later than about 1960.
Your points are all valid. I simply think you need to (a) consider older films
as an accurate reflection of the time in which they were made and (b) try to
see good 35mm prints of these. Watching something on TV is clearly no
comparison.
===============================
Jon Mirsalis
e-mail: Chan...@aol.com
Lon Chaney Home Page: http://members.aol.com/ChaneyFan
Jon's Film Sites: http://members.aol.com/ChaneyFan/jonfilm.htm
Archie Waugh
relativism all too common on campuses these days. Has it occurred to you that
there is more to the living experience (not to mention drama and literature)
than boobs and being able to say "fuck"? You also have no understanding of the
concept of boundaries in art, as important to ballet and opera as it is to film.
Perhaps someday you will expand your experience of the whole of world film, and
realize that there is more to film than that. Perhaps someday you will realise
that Kevin Smith is NOT a great film artist.
Film is NOT a realistic medium, it is merely an illusion of reality, as
dependent on style and technique as any opera, novel or painting. You want
realism? Go stare out a window; I dare say you will become bored pretty quick.
You want realistic? Check out some of the early Griffith portraits of life on
the streets in pre-World War I New York; they are as gritty and uncompromising
as any Scorcese film, and do not suffer one bit because the word "fuck" doesn't
turn up in the title cards. Or Pabst. Or Lang. Or Milestone. You want
beautiful images? The work of cameramen like Mate', Bitzer, Freund and Howe
stand against anything being done today, and are razor-sharp if one makes the
effort to seek out good print material.
In short, you are a short-sighted, inexperienced dweeb with an insignificant
frame of reference; come back in ten years if and when you have something to say
worth reading.
Or to speak in the vernacular of the peasantry, Go Fuck Yourself.
Archie Waugh
CChplnfan
>I'm a lot
>happier with the roughness and realism of being able to have a naked
>breast if we want one and being able to say "fuck" every three words
>if that's what we want. It lets us do more. It gives us a freedom that
>we didn't use to have.
Funny, I saw a flash of Mae West's naked breast tonight (on a painting) and I
don't feel any more free. What am I missing here?
I was thinking of using the above as my new sig, but I still like Dorothy
Gish's words better...
Leslie
"What good does it do anyone to kill themselves working? The worms just get
you in the end..."
-Dorothy Gish
James L. Neibaur
>relativism all too common on campuses these days.
It is really unfortunate that so many college-level students have no sense of
film history. I often teach intro-level film courses to college students, and
while they always like the class and enjoy the films, it is painfully obvious
that had they not taken my class, they would never have seen even the most
basic contributions to cinema history. There are a few students who enter
with some appreciation for film history and an eagerness to learn more, but
most believe the oldest thing worth watching is a rerun of Friends.
Unversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee did run a weekly Mondays With Chaplin series
featuring Charlie's best features and short films. But usually on-campus
movies star Ron Schneider or Will Ferrell.
JN
David B. Pearson
It's not right for you to call this idiot an idiot in our politically
correct society.
He's "mentally and conceptually challenged."
David B. Pearson
PS: Given "Bag of Rats" stunning arguments, I am now wondering if an
old-time silent black and white movie like "Sunrise" can realistically
compete -- either in camerawork, sets, story, acting, or direction -- with a
color, more culturally unrestricted and mature film of the 1970s, like
"Black Belt Jones."
:-)
R H Draney
>This is an intelligent, well-expressed response and it deserves a reasonable
>answer.
Huh?...what messages are *you* reading?...
>>>>I was just saying that a lot of movies from the thirties and
>forties were pretty heavily censored because they had to be suitable
>for all ages, or whatever the justification was back then. You don't see a lot
>of nudity in Hollywood films from the thirties, for instance. You also don't
>find people talking the way
>they would really talk.
>
>The reality is that people *didn't* generally act that way in the 20s and 30s,
>and therefore, these films are an accurate reflection of the times. A woman in
>the 30s who wore a see-through blouse would be branded a slut and thrown out of
>her apartment. Nowadays, they wear them to work in American corporations.
>
>>>>Films can be more realistic than any other art form, which is why it is so
>important that they be able to actually have realistic content, so that they
>can achieve their potential.
The film from the 70s that most accurately portrays what my world is
like is John Landis's "Into The Night"...at least, the first part,
before Jeff Goldblum goes to the airport and things start getting
screwy...it looks like a documentary to me....
>Your points are all valid. I simply think you need to (a) consider older films
>as an accurate reflection of the time in which they were made and (b) try to
>see good 35mm prints of these. Watching something on TV is clearly no
>comparison.
The only question left is why people are still trying to talk to this
person, who got in here on a stray crosspost to begin with....r
--
"Why is everything so blue?"
- English translation of the female background
voice in War's "Spill the Wine"
Michael Cummins
Archie Waugh <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
news:kZnC7.2264$xS6....@www.newsranger.com...
Archie, I admire your response. Cinema is a dramatic art, not a realistic
one, how he can equate modern cinema and Scorsese with gritty realism, I'll
never know.
Personally, I find Griffith is extraordinarily realistic in his emotion, I
can't look at a frame of Griffith without feeling something.
I think the average Joe's mind is so clutered with the usual modern
horseshit that they just can't get it without total re-education.
--
M. Cummins
------------------------
"Ni raibh d'oidhreacht aige ach an geal- ghaire do bhronn Dia air, agus gur
chreid se na chroibhe go raibh an saghal mor ar mire"
--Scaramuis le Rafael Sabatini
Dr.Giraud
>
<snip>
Cinema is a dramatic art, not a realistic
>one, how he can equate modern cinema and Scorsese with gritty realism, I'll
>never know.
>
<snip>
I like that one, too. Scorsese's films can take credit for (and be accused of)
many things, but not "realism".
Shawn Stone
Bob Birchard
> >
> > The only decades I like are the seventies and nineties, to be frank. I
> > like precious little from earlier eras; I find that "old" films are so
> > unrealistic that they do not even touch upon most of the fundamental
> > issues of existance. It seems to me that films from the first half of
> > the century were crippled fatally by being a product of a civilisation
> > that was not yet able to be realistic. They seem as though they were
> > made for children. I know that sounds like an ignorant viewpoint, and
> > god knows I've tried to like older films, because I have a strong
> > respect for history and would like to be able to experience cultural
> > continuity, but I largely can't. I basically just like new ones.
I would not force anyone to to sit and watch something they cannot
stand, on the other hand when I was teaching a course at UCLA Extension a
few years back I had an interesting moment with the class along these same
lines.
I ran a chunk of the 1933 film "42nd Street" and afterwards the class
commented on how corny and unrealistic it was. Then I asked them if they
had seen "Dirty Dancing" which then had just recently been released. Most
had seen it, and most thought it was a pretty good picture--but until I
pointed it out none of them could grasp that the two films had exactly the
same story, i.e.: The leading lady breaks her leg/gets a botched abortion
and the understudy goes on with the show and becomes a star.
Often audiences get so blinded by irrelevancies like costumes, and lack
of color, conventions of acting styles if earlier decades, etc. that they
miss the underlying values of the films. And yes, without exposure, earlier
films often seem quite foreign to modern eyes.
If I were recommending a crash course in films from earlier decades
that might offer some insight as well as enlightenment. I might suggest (in
no particular order:
1910's
The Italian (1915) directed by Reginald Barker
Hell's Hinges (1916) William S. Hart
Intolerance (1916) directed by D. W. Griffith
The Golden Chance (1916) directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Regeneration (1915) directed by Raoul Walsh
1920's
The General (1927) Buster Keaton
The Kid Brother (1927) Harold Lloyd
Smoldering Fires (1924) Laura La Plante and Pauline Frederick directed by
Clarence Brown
The Docks of New York (1928) director Josef von Sternberg
The Great K&A Train Robbery (1926) Tom Mix
Isn't Life Wonderful? (1924) directed by D. W. Griffith
1930's
I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)
The Dark Horse (1932)
The Scarlett Empress (1934)
Love Me Tonight (1932)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The Awful Truth (1937)
1940's
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Big Sleep (1946) both versions
Palm Beach Story (1942)
Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
1950's
The Searchers (1956)
Sweet Smell of Success (1956)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Funny Face (1957)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
North By Northwest (1959)
Strangers on a Train (1952)
Some of these are acknowledged classics, some are more obscure. With a
little hunting most of them can be found on video, though if you get an
opportunity to see any of them in a theater with an audience that is
definitely the best way to seem them. What should you start with? "The
Bride of Frankenstein" by all means.
--
Bob Birchard
bbir...@earthlink.net
http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/Guest/birchard.htm
Christopher Jacobs
James L. Neibaur <jimn...@aol.combatant> wrote in message
news:20011026223840...@mb-ci.aol.com...
> >It's typical of the inane moral
> >relativism all too common on campuses these days.
>
> It is really unfortunate that so many college-level students have no sense
of
> film history.
It's not just film history. It's any history. Anything older than last year,
or at best from before they were born. I had my students do a genre paper.
Of those who chose the war film, some actually seemed to have watched the
movies they talked about but still described THE THIN RED LINE as being
about the Vietnam war, in one case, and the Korean war in another case. A
couple of others were put to sleep by it because it was too slow and
confusing.
--Christopher Jacobs
Robert Keser
keeps projecting that image from Bringing Out the Dead of the villain
impaled on a cast-iron spike while exploding fireworks fill the sky
behind him. This is great florid imagery, but it sure doesn't look like
a slice-of-life to me.
Bob Keser
William Hooper
>>It's typical of the inane moral
>>relativism all too common on campuses these days.
>
>It is really unfortunate that so many college-level students have no sense of
and
>while they always like the class and enjoy the films, it is painfully obvious
>that had they not taken my class, they would never have seen even the most
>basic contributions to cinema history. There are a few students who enter
>with some appreciation for film history and an eagerness to learn more, but
>most believe the oldest thing worth watching is a rerun of Friends.
I'll lay this one on the folks at the colleges reducing the avaiability &
interest in film series.
*Last week* I was at a good-sized university, noticed fliers up for some
anime
& furrin films in one of the university's halls, & so wandered over there to
see their setup.
The "media school" guy (some sort of prof) was there directing a student
flunky trying to get the electric roll-down screen to work right.
The lecture hall was really great for a theater, & had been built to be a
double duty lecture hall/theater. Older, probably built in the late 60s or
in
the 70s, really nice, step rake, about 40x50 feet wide, the screen was abot
18
or 20' wide. Tall down front, with a roll-up screen, projection ports on
back
wall, more modern additions including speakers here/there for AV & lecture
reinforcement. Nice new seats, carpet, etc. multiplex auditoriums haven't
been this nice since the days when they used to put effort into building
twins.
I asked if the movies were shown on 16mm; he laughed & addressed me as if I
were a child telling me that they "upgraded" to video years ago. There was
a
big, 3 lens projector mounted on the ceiling. He went on about the
"improvements" of video over film, one being it's cheaper & easier to get
product. Instead of paying "hundreds" for a film rental, they could just
rent
one at a video store.
He talked about how it was important for the university to provide the
filmoging experience of good, quality films for its students. Film is the
most culturally relevant art form, students have no place to actually see
good
films shown as they should be, in a theater, & you'll never see better films
like this at (scornful look & local cinema chain mentioned).
After listening until he seemed to sort of run dry on the BS that he was
volunteering, I began to tip my hand & said "isn't it illegal to show those
videos to a group?" He said, no, this was non-profit. But the warning on
the
videos says private use only. "The university is a private entity". Don't
they specifically exclude public showings? "They're not for the public,
they're put on by the university, although anybody in the public can come if
they want, & that's not illegal."
I remember going to 16mm film shows at college. Isn't 16mm better quality
than video? "Not anymore. And this projector has a thing called a line
doubler, so it's even better than your TV at home."
But those catalogs of films for rental to colleges & other groups, don't
they
usually say most titles are available in video for rental, so isn't there a
rental scale for these movies when shown at colleges & churches?
Blam, goes the fire shutter on his face!
"I don't know. I don't think I've seen one."
I thought NTSC video like at home & from Blockbuster had much lower
resolution
than 16mm film. Do you guys ever run 16mm any more?
"We don't run 16mm. It's old." He turned away & walked up to the student
at
the screen.
I peeked in the ports on the back wall. Empty, except for chair & junk
storage.
I came back that night & peeked in. About 15 people in that hall (suddenly,
it's a barn!) looking at the movie.
Okay, this is where the problem comes in with describing technical stuff in
a
place where the audience mostly has a more general knowledge. It is a
communication failure when abstruse technical terms are used in such a
circumstance, not the least because it alienates, tires, & disconnects the
hearers. But, for technical matters, to accurately describe what's there, a
vocabulary that has been developed for just that purpose must be used. So
if
you glaze over & have no interest in the qualitative aspects of image
presentation, you might want to go on now.
The picture on the screen was what technicians would know & refer to in
their
vernacular as a "big sack of shit". It was like the punchline to a joke,
especially for a house-watcher, to see these 15 people with theair heads
twisted up & squinting at this blob that forensic specialists would just say
to take outside & bury.
Nobody was coming to see that shit! Why should they?
The lip movements being made by the university guy have nothing to do with
access to cultural items, social events, or presentation of artistic
whatevers. It was just bullshit from presenters' conception to audience
perception.
-------------------
About two years ago, a local college was given the booth equipment from a
newish, pretty good size independent single screener that had closed.
Somebody there at the college got my name, asked me if I would come look at
the equipment which they had removed & stored near the building that the
college presented "films" in, see what it would take to install it because
it
would be perfect for their film program (foreign & classics), & talk to the
prof who runs their films. I showed up, this prof guy takes about 20
minutes
to emerge from his place & acts like he's wasting his time taking me to see
the stuff but obviously he's been told to do this.
Auditorim is a nice re-use of an older, large auditorium like public space,
with good-sized rollup screen, new construction of a booth at the back which
contains a video projector & some sound reinforcement stuff. The auditorium
was *really* a pleasant, good place to watch movieswith a bunch of other
people. We go around to the storage room where the donated 35mm film
projectors are. Nice stuff, newish Century's, eentsy xenon lamphouses that
were probably too small at the original venue but would be just spec on
here,
etc. I look at the stuff, I look at the auditorium, he looks out windows,
at
ceilings, etc. in an "I have better things to do" manner.
I said, this is great! It's simple, too! You've got a great booth, & this
is
nice equipment. I'll just sketch out the electrical service you'll need to
contract out, then put some notes together so some students can set it all
up,
then I'll come by and straighten out anything that may need it! You'll be
in
the movie business, & I'll be coming out here & watching them!
He sniffed, snorted, & said:
"We're not going to use this shit. We have video."
Okey dokey!
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Archie Waugh
Archie Waugh
Frederica
>Cinema is a dramatic art, not a realistic
>>one, how he can equate modern cinema and Scorsese with gritty realism, I'll
>>never know.
>>
><snip>
>
>I like that one, too. Scorsese's films can take credit for (and be accused of)
>many things, but not "realism".
I don't understand why realism must be gritty, other than it's a tired cliche.
There are a whole lot of people in the world whose experiences are pretty
darned cushy. That doesn't make their experience any less real. From a
personal standpoint, why would I want to roust myself from my usual torpor and
pay money to see realism? I can look out my window. Frankly, the view needs a
good editor and the soundtrack sucks.
Frederica
James L. Neibaur
> If I were recommending a crash course in films from earlier decades
>that might offer some insight as well as enlightenment. I might suggest
>(in
>no particular order:
>
>1910's
>The Italian (1915) directed by Reginald Barker
>Hell's Hinges (1916) William S. Hart
>Intolerance (1916) directed by D. W. Griffith
>The Golden Chance (1916) directed by Cecil B. DeMille
>Regeneration (1915) directed by Raoul Walsh
It is hard to use Griffith. Usually I run short films like Rescued From an
Eagle's Nest and Muskateers of Pig Alley and then a documentary offering clips
of Birth and Intolerance. I think you have to have some experience with silent
film viewing before tackling a Griffith picture.
>1920's
>The General (1927) Buster Keaton
>The Kid Brother (1927) Harold Lloyd
>Smoldering Fires (1924) Laura La Plante and Pauline Frederick directed by
>Clarence Brown
>The Docks of New York (1928) director Josef von Sternberg
>The Great K&A Train Robbery (1926) Tom Mix
>Isn't Life Wonderful? (1924) directed by D. W. Griffith
Being limited to only 15 class sessions per semester it would be hard to run
this many silents. I use Potemkin, Last Laugh, General, and The Kid most
often.
>1930's
>I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)
>The Dark Horse (1932)
>The Scarlett Empress (1934)
>Love Me Tonight (1932)
>Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
>The Awful Truth (1937)
I use Bride of Frankenstein, Grand Illusion, 42nd Street (it seems to go over
better than your experience would indicate), Music Box, M, and Angels With
Dirty Faces.
>1940's
>How Green Was My Valley (1941)
>The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
>The Maltese Falcon (1941)
>The Big Sleep (1946) both versions
>Palm Beach Story (1942)
>Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
I use Falcon, Citizen Kane, Shadow of a Doubt, Red River, Bicycle Thief, and
Stray Dog.
That would wrap up my Intro To Film course for semester one (Beginnings to
1950)
>1950's
>The Searchers (1956)
>Sweet Smell of Success (1956)
>Sunset Boulevard (1950)
>Funny Face (1957)
>Singin' in the Rain (1952)
>North By Northwest (1959)
>Strangers on a Train (1952)
I use Rear Window, La Strada, Searchers, Wild Strawberries, and 400 Blows
Of course the second semester would run up to the present, but I try to use
fewer films, post 1980, that the students would already have seen. I might
eventually incorporate Ghost World, and have already used Iranian cinema
(Crows) but only once. I change on what I offer from Kubrick. In fact I
change my films for the later years pretty often.
> Some of these are acknowledged classics, some are more obscure. With
>a
>little hunting most of them can be found on video, though if you get an
>opportunity to see any of them in a theater with an audience that is
>definitely the best way to seem them. What should you start with? "The
>Bride of Frankenstein" by all means.
Comedies seem to be a good introduction also.
William Hooper
Bob Birchard stated...
I think they're not irrelevancies. They're essential in the mechanism of
communication of whatever's on the screen to the viewer, which the viewer can
only interpret in terms of his or her own experience. If it is a component
being treated as essential in its consideration as an everyday, common thing,
but in fact is weird & alien, the effect is of course ludicrous.
I think the costumes & lack of color are not as alienating as acting, directing,
writing, & lighting styles.
I know a guy who I would always see afternoons with his family at a Shakespeare
in the Park thing decades ago, who loved it. But he wouldn't go to any indoor
productions. He'd been to several, & hated them all because they were so
unnatural & artificial. So, I'm digging, trying to figure this
out...Shakespeare, Moliere, & others were OK, but not more modern stuff by the
same local directors? Can't be writing, can't be period, can't be costume,
can't be direction, can't be acting styles... He's talking about how hokey
those other plays were, about guys standing over in the corner in the shadows, &
how it was all so affected...
It was the lighting. He was sensitive to being manipulated through the
artificiality of gobos, gels, light & dark areas of a set, turning them up,
turning them down, & he *knew* that it was being done to manipulate him. Bam,
it *is* artificial & hokey, he's outta there.
We and others are just used to it. We've grown up no problem with mid-Atlantic
accents, weird lighting, stencil-like allegorical plots, etc. not only on TV,
but in theaters. We got no problem. People who grow up in bilingual households
will watch Spanish-language shows, I'm completely uninterested in them.
And the awareness of the machinery itself is even more alienating.
Keeping in auditorium-based, personally-immersive context:
Have you ever heard descriptions by Baptists of what goes on with all that stuff
in some high church places like RC & other churches?
Have you ever heard Primitive Baptist folks describe the carrying on at places
like the first Baptist church, etc?
It's weird, ornate, affected, unneccessary, & way outside their experience.
It *is* artificial to them.
I can't put up a lot of times with it, especially mid-Atlantic accents.
I know how they got there, & most places where they were originally didn't
bother me because of that, but I'm still sensitized to them because now they are
an affectation, & the personal Onanistic pleasures of contemporary grotesquely
insecure affectatious music radio station announcers, English profs addressing
audiences, etc. I cannot count the number of times a perfect, flowing day has
been jolted off the rails for me as I've furiously reached down to punch a car
radio button while yelling (Alone! In the car, in traffic!) "Just talk like a
fucking human being! What is WRONG with you! NOBODY talks like that! You
haven't heard anybody talk like thJust talk like you do when you're in the hall
talking to somebody!"
So, uh, yeah, I know where he's coming from.
I also think that it's not easy for anyone to be acclimated to these things via
exposure to them on TV. I've always liked Casablanca, I saw it first on TV, but
I don't even feel the need to stop long to look at it when it's running on a
tube somewhere.
On the other hand, it's hypnotic & paralyzing on a movie screen. Claude Rains
is very constructed in that movie, but he's not alienating on a movies screen.
I've seen 2400 people, and about 70% young adults & children, in a theater just
transfixed at something that wouldn't slow them down on cable. And afterwards,
they eat it up, want more, when's the next one, the little kids weren't
screaming but twirling in the aisles, didn't want to go, etc.
B&W 24fps & 40 feet wide affects folks brain chemistry.
I'm not joking. I've watched lots of people on drugs, & lots of audiences in
movie theaters.
Eric Grayson
I put on a public show of Sabaka (PD!) the other day. You know, the Boris
Karloff film. I'd previewed it on video to make sure the print was OK, and
it ran OK. It didn't look very good and wasn't very interesting.
When I took it the big projectors for screening, it really opened up.
Here's a movie that's BAD, was made with BAD equipment, with BAD actors
(Karloff is only in it for 5 min.), on BAD Eastmancolor stock.
The print I have is a nice IB Technicolor print from 1955, and even with
everything running against it, it STILL was a lovely thing to see. The
movie is as boring as all hell, but it's BEAUTIFUL to look at, even though
the photographer can't keep things in focus all the time.
The difference between the way that same print looks on video and the way
it looks on a screen is that of night and day. It's no wonder that the
kids of today don't like older films if they're subjected to them on cheesy
videocassettes that look nothing like they're supposed to look.
Eric
Robert Lipton
Robert Keser wrote:
>
> Every time I see Scorsese and "realism" in the same sentence, my mind
> keeps projecting that image from Bringing Out the Dead of the villain
> impaled on a cast-iron spike while exploding fireworks fill the sky
> behind him. This is great florid imagery, but it sure doesn't look like
> a slice-of-life to me.
>
Happened to me twice last month.
Bob
ChaneyFan
Well, in fairness, a gorgeous DVD from a camera negative looks better than a
bad 16mm dupe. But all things being equal, a 16mm print should blow any video
format from comparable print material out of the water.
Eric Grayson
>>>>These people who say they have video that's better than 16mm are nuts.
>
>Well, in fairness, a gorgeous DVD from a camera negative looks better than
>a bad 16mm dupe. But all things being equal, a 16mm print should blow any
>video format from comparable print material out of the water.
True. A good example of this is Dave Shepard's Keaton restorations. The
Keaton material (with a few exceptions) that was out there on 16mm was
really terrible on almost every level. Shepard, who was working from much
better material, make a really great stride forward in image quality.
But someone who has never seen a good dye transfer Technicolor print on a
big screen doesn't know what he's missing. Video isn't designed for that
much contrast, and the saturated colors, practically oozing from the
screen, are a sight to behold.
I've run prints for older folks who told me they just thought they were
getting old when they watched an old movie and it looked so much different
on TV. They'll tell me, "Wow! This is the way I remember it!"
Eric
James L. Neibaur
>or at best from before they were born
True, but not in the case of music. They have an uncanny knowledge of sixties
music like Beatles, Dylan, Motown, et. al. And it was there age group that
made the Beatles "ONE" the hit that it was (people our age already had all
those songs).
Somehow there respect for old pop songs does not extend to old films.
Bob Birchard
> > Often audiences get so blinded by irrelevancies like costumes, and lack
> >of color, conventions of acting styles if earlier decades, etc. that they
> >miss the underlying values of the films.
>
> I think they're not irrelevancies. They're essential in the mechanism of
> communication of whatever's on the screen to the viewer, which the viewer can
> only interpret in terms of his or her own experience. If it is a component
> being treated as essential in its consideration as an everyday, common thing,
> but in fact is weird & alien, the effect is of course ludicrous.
I understand what you're saying, but these things become irrelevancies when
you've seen a lot of movies and become familiar with the conventions of previous
decades. The goal is to educate the eye and ear, and this really requires an
"immersion" rather than "bi-decade" approach.
> I think the costumes & lack of color are not as alienating as acting, directing,
> writing, & lighting styles.
I think costuming is no longer the obstacle that it used to be--largely because
we are treated to a steady subliminal diet of costumes of the past 70 years seeing
old movies, clip shows, etc. on TV. But in the late 1950's, when the major studio
films from 1928-1948 first came on TV, it was indeed the costumes that were the most
off-putting. They literally looked like they came from outer space. But until TV
no one had ever really been able to travel back in time in such a fashion. Today,
we see such a wide variety of clothing on the street precisely because TV and old
movies have made such hybrid fashions possible. This got translated through the
Beatles and other pop groups into the sort of eclectic look we see today. Not
nearly as elegant as a top down fashion driven culture, but a lot more democratic.
Likewise, B&W versus color. In the late 1960's when everything went to color
there was a conscious effort to do away with B&W. My parents were typical. I can
still hear my dad bellowing: "I didn't pay $600.00 for a color TV so you could
watch Black and White!" Again, repetition of old movies in B&W had an effect and
music video producers started incorporating B&W images in their MTV fare. Now, I
doubt that the color vs. B&W issue is as big as some make it.
I doubt that lighting and direction, per se, are issues either. There might be
a little more fast cutting today, especially in short pieces like commercials, music
videos, etc. But the average shot length in feature films has remained relatively
constant over the past 80 years according to Barry Salt's published studies. It has
gone down in recent years, but only by about a half foot per shot on average-so that
while the average shot length used to be five feet it is now four and a half.
What is most off putting for audiences, I think, is lack of familiarity with
the performers and the performance styles of the past. Number one, today's
teenagers don't have a clue who Gable, Dietrich, Flynn, Crawford, Garbo, et. al.
are. Their reaction is akin to the opposite effect a parent might have today in
seeing Britney Spears for the first time and having no point of reference in their
own experience. Acceptance comes from exposure and repetition, and because there is
a vast heap of potential programming, and since no one could watch it all even if
they wanted to, there is a certain amount of luck (opportunity) and self motivation
that governs what we will see and respond to.
> I know a guy who I would always see afternoons with his family at a Shakespeare
> in the Park thing decades ago, who loved it. But he wouldn't go to any indoor
> productions. He'd been to several, & hated them all because they were so
> unnatural & artificial. So, I'm digging, trying to figure this
> out...Shakespeare, Moliere, & others were OK, but not more modern stuff by the
> same local directors? Can't be writing, can't be period, can't be costume,
> can't be direction, can't be acting styles... He's talking about how hokey
> those other plays were, about guys standing over in the corner in the shadows, &
> how it was all so affected...
I had a similar experience myself in y younger years. I hated musicals. When
the actors started to sing in movies it always bothered me that the sound quality of
the pre-recorded songs sounded so different than the sound of the surrounding
dialogue tracks. I went to see a program of old musicals (just because they were
old and I was interested in older movies and you couldn't really se them at the time
as they were starting to dry up on TV), and I was bored witless through the first
couple of weeks of programming. But, when I saw "Love Me Tonight" I suddenly had a
revelation--musicals were not supposed to be realistic--there was another aesthetic
going on. Opportunity and exposure.
> It was the lighting. He was sensitive to being manipulated through the
> artificiality of gobos, gels, light & dark areas of a set, turning them up,
> turning them down, & he *knew* that it was being done to manipulate him. Bam,
> it *is* artificial & hokey, he's outta there.
See above. Now, it is true, you can't force someone to like something, and
often you can't even force them to be exposed to something, even in a classroom
setting, without encountering closed minds. I always thought my college film
instructor had the best approach. He'd say: "I've selected the films I show for a
reason, but I'm not here to torture you. If you hate something we're showing, by
all means get up and leave. All I ask is that you give the films twenty minutes.
If you don't like it after twenty minutes, get up and leave." This safety valve
worked wonders, and I recall very few walkouts--although I did walk out on "Ziegfeld
Follies" which really IS a terrible movie.
> We and others are just used to it. We've grown up no problem with mid-Atlantic
> accents, weird lighting, stencil-like allegorical plots, etc. not only on TV,
> but in theaters. We got no problem. People who grow up in bilingual households
> will watch Spanish-language shows, I'm completely uninterested in them.
Again, opportunity and exposure filtered through your cultural bias. The kids
are rally no different than you on this stuff, they just have different biases.
> And the awareness of the machinery itself is even more alienating.
> Keeping in auditorium-based, personally-immersive context:
> Have you ever heard descriptions by Baptists of what goes on with all that stuff
> in some high church places like RC & other churches?
> Have you ever heard Primitive Baptist folks describe the carrying on at places
> like the first Baptist church, etc?
Again, lack of on-going exposure creates lack of understanding.
> It's weird, ornate, affected, unneccessary, & way outside their experience.
> It *is* artificial to them.
It is outside their experience and therefore SEEMS artificial. I detested soap
operas when I was a kid--couldn't get into them, flipped the channel, bye-bye, outta
there. But then I was sick abed for a couple of weeks in those pre-remote days and
was simply too done in to get up and change the channel after my favorite show gave
way to the soaps. Forced (more or less) to watch, I suddenly got into the
storylines and the characters, and suddenly the slow stilted storytelling style no
longer mattered. I came to appreciate soap operas for what they were, and I no
longer derided anyone who watched, but free of my sick bed I lost any interest in
seeing them--still it served as an educational experience.
> I can't put up a lot of times with it, especially mid-Atlantic accents.
> I know how they got there, & most places where they were originally didn't
> bother me because of that, but I'm still sensitized to them because now they are
> an affectation, & the personal Onanistic pleasures of contemporary grotesquely
> insecure affectatious music radio station announcers, English profs addressing
> audiences, etc. I cannot count the number of times a perfect, flowing day has
> been jolted off the rails for me as I've furiously reached down to punch a car
> radio button while yelling (Alone! In the car, in traffic!) "Just talk like a
> fucking human being! What is WRONG with you! NOBODY talks like that! You
> haven't heard anybody talk like thJust talk like you do when you're in the hall
> talking to somebody!"
Along these lines, it is the punch button and the remote that contributes to the
fractured nature of our media experience today. We have the ability to instantly
move away from things we don't immediately respond to. This may not be a good
thing.
> So, uh, yeah, I know where he's coming from.
>
> I also think that it's not easy for anyone to be acclimated to these things via
> exposure to them on TV. I've always liked Casablanca, I saw it first on TV, but
> I don't even feel the need to stop long to look at it when it's running on a
> tube somewhere.
In a theatrical situation you are forced to watch, at home on TV there are 80
other channels and beer in the refrigerator to distract your attention.
> On the other hand, it's hypnotic & paralyzing on a movie screen. Claude Rains
> is very constructed in that movie, but he's not alienating on a movies screen.
> I've seen 2400 people, and about 70% young adults & children, in a theater just
> transfixed at something that wouldn't slow them down on cable. And afterwards,
> they eat it up, want more, when's the next one, the little kids weren't
> screaming but twirling in the aisles, didn't want to go, etc.
>
> B&W 24fps & 40 feet wide affects folks brain chemistry.
>
> I'm not joking. I've watched lots of people on drugs, & lots of audiences in
> movie theaters.
See above, I think it's more the forced concentration than any hypnotic
effect. You're in the dark, there are relatively few distractions, and the picture
is big enough to command your attention.
Constance Kuriyama
>>supervermi...@hotmail.com (Bag of Rats) wrote:
>
>>I didn't say that Tarkovsky was crap. I just said that I'm a lot happier with
> the roughness and realism of being able to have a naked breast if we want one
> and being able to say "fuck" every three words
>>if that's what we want. It lets us do more. It gives us a freedom that we
> didn't use to have.
>
> Well, it certainly frees up the writer since writing no longer requires
> anything so pedantic as an extensive vocabulary. Not to mention that if you are
> going to use "fuck" every three words you probably don't have to worry your
> pretty little head about grammar either. Of course, you have that high-grade
> colour film and excellent cinematography, so why should you bother to paint any
> word pictures? Although, I'm not sure how much good that colour film is going
> to do you when you are in desparate need of plot exposition.
>
> >I'm the kind of person who didn't use to read anything written later
>>than 1890, so don't lecture me on appreciation of the old stuff.
>
> Oh dear, now we've written off the bulk of literature as well as film. You're
> right. It simply isn't worth the time it would take to lecture you.
I think you misread this. The poster is claiming that he once preferred
literature written *before* 1890--in which case, these days, he must be
a very odd bird indeed.
He's merely expressing opinions about movies shared by 98% of the film watching
public. Perhaps they need to be expressed here occasionally to keep the
regulars in touch with reality. How may filmgoers in the twenties went to
movies to admire the black and white cinematography? Most of them would
have preferred color if they'd had it, since most people respond more
immediately to "realism" and find it, in that nasty current idiom, easier
to "relate to." Heaven forbid that a work of art should require any effort
or adjustment on the part of the audience.
We're a weird lot, folks. Deal with it. ;-)
Connie K.
> Terri Riegler
> "Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to
> distinguish what is worth reading."
> G. M. Trevelyan
--
"there was one who heard . . ./And knew what the man/Wished to sing."-S.Crane
Constance Kuriyama
> Archie Waugh <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
> news:kZnC7.2264$xS6....@www.newsranger.com...
>> Your arguments are specious and sophomoric. It's typical of the inane
>> moral relativism all too common on campuses these days.
He didn't sound very relativistic to me. It appeared to me that he thought
current culture was mature and correct in every way, and that earlier
decades were childish and deluded.
Has it occurred to you
> that
>> there is more to the living experience (not to mention drama and
> literature)
>> than boobs and being able to say "fuck"?
Is this a rhetorical question? ;-)
You also have no understanding
> of the
>> concept of boundaries in art, as important to ballet and opera as it is to
> film.
>> Perhaps someday you will expand your experience of the whole of world
> film, and
>> realize that there is more to film than that. Perhaps someday you will
> realise
>> that Kevin Smith is NOT a great film artist.
>> Film is NOT a realistic medium, it is merely an illusion of reality
You're quite right. But the poster shares the current consensual view
as to the nature of "reality."
> Archie, I admire your response. Cinema is a dramatic art, not a realistic
> one, how he can equate modern cinema and Scorsese with gritty realism, I'll
> never know.
Oh, you know. Blood and violence are realistic. Lots of profanity is
realistic. People getting clubbed to death with baseball bats and buried
alive is realistic--happens every day on my block. Watching other people
have sex is realistic. We all do that several times a day. Alien invasions
are realistic. Activating "The Force" is a realistic way to deal with
everyday problems.
> Personally, I find Griffith is extraordinarily realistic in his emotion, I
> can't look at a frame of Griffith without feeling something.
>
> I think the average Joe's mind is so clutered with the usual modern
> horseshit that they just can't get it without total re-education.
This chap is an average Joe as far as his view of films is concerned.
Scary, isn't it? The only thing that makes him above average is that
he actually watches some films made more than ten years ago.
Connie K.
Constance Kuriyama
> YIKES!
> Archie Waugh
Believe me, this is a familiar story. Films are being shown everywhere
by people who think they know something about them, but don't know squat.
Projection of VHS is considered perfectly OK, even though the image is
hideously bad. New facilities aren't equipped with projectors, and fewer
and fewer people know how to run projectors--especially newer models.
People read papers at scholarly conferences analyzing framing in a film,
unaware that they've only "seen" it in pan and scan. People who wouldn't
dream of teaching Shakespeare in pulp paper editions are perfectly content
to screen films in less-than-optimal versions, or else resign themselves
to doing it because of the cost factor.
Connie K.
--
Constance Kuriyama
>>It's not just film history. It's any history. Anything older than last year,
>>or at best from before they were born
>
> True, but not in the case of music. They have an uncanny knowledge of sixties
> music like Beatles, Dylan, Motown, et. al. And it was there age group that
> made the Beatles "ONE" the hit that it was (people our age already had all
> those songs).
>
> Somehow there respect for old pop songs does not extend to old films.
Don't you think this may be partly a matter of exposure? Plenty of radio
stations air older rock music as part of their offerings. Older films just
don't get shown under such favorable conditions on such a regular basis.
It's harder to appreciate what you're not conditioned to appreciate. Many
people who like older films first developed this taste by seeing them on
TV in the fifties.
Connie K.
James L. Neibaur
>
>stations air older rock music as part of their offerings. Older films just
>
>don't get shown under such favorable conditions on such a regular basis.
>It's harder to appreciate what you're not conditioned to appreciate. Many
>people who like older films first developed this taste by seeing them on
>TV in the fifties.
But there are 24 hour stations that play nothing but old movies. So I would
think they have as much access to those films as we did, maybe even more.
When I was in college during the seventies there as a big nostalgia revival for
films of the 20s-40s. Now there is a similar revival for music of the sixties.
R H Draney
>William Hooper wrote:
>
>> I can't put up a lot of times with it, especially mid-Atlantic accents.
>> I know how they got there, & most places where they were originally didn't
>> bother me because of that, but I'm still sensitized to them because now they are
>> an affectation, & the personal Onanistic pleasures of contemporary grotesquely
>> insecure affectatious music radio station announcers, English profs addressing
>> audiences, etc. I cannot count the number of times a perfect, flowing day has
>> been jolted off the rails for me as I've furiously reached down to punch a car
>> radio button while yelling (Alone! In the car, in traffic!) "Just talk like a
>> fucking human being! What is WRONG with you! NOBODY talks like that! You
>> haven't heard anybody talk like thJust talk like you do when you're in the hall
>> talking to somebody!"
Why does the name Tina Turner (aka Annie Mae Bullock from Tennessee)
suddenly come to mind?...r
--
It ain't over till the fat lady chokes on a chicken bone.
Frederica
>He's merely expressing opinions about movies shared by 98% of the film
watching
>public. Perhaps they need to be expressed here occasionally to keep the
>regulars in touch with reality. How may filmgoers in the twenties went to
>movies to admire the black and white cinematography? Most of them would
>have preferred color if they'd had it, since most people respond more
>immediately to "realism" and find it, in that nasty current idiom, easier
>to "relate to." Heaven forbid that a work of art should require any effort
>or adjustment on the part of the audience.
>
>We're a weird lot, folks. Deal with it. ;-)
I'm vaguely interested in the idea that ANY film is realistic, when the entire
medium is patently as artificial as the grapes on my turban. I'm sure this has
much to do with being "brainwashed" by television, movies, blah blah. I don't
think this kid is a dead loss; he's obviously thinking about what he's seeing.
I only got into silents six years ago myself and I have to admit I wouldn't
have if I hadn't been trapped in front of my television with the remote not
within my grasp. I was forced to PAY ATTENTION. Silents are just another form
of storytelling and most people are simply not interested in working at being
entertained. Why should they be? It's entertainment, after all. I try to be
open to lots of different forms, but so far, no success on Noh Theater. And
ballet still makes me giggle.
Connie's right, we are a weird lot.
Frederica
Bob Tiernan
On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, David B. Pearson wrote:
> PS: Given "Bag of Rats" stunning arguments, I am now wondering if an
> old-time silent black and white movie like "Sunrise" can realistically
> compete -- either in camerawork, sets, story, acting, or direction --
> with a color, more culturally unrestricted and mature film of the
> 1970s, like "Black Belt Jones."
A future generation of Bag of Rats people, raised in a world
of 3D films with Smell-O-Rama, will say that films prior to
2010 are antiquated and unrealistic, and will support 3D-ing
tolder ones for TV as well as creating scratch-n-sniffs
for them, (smellerized by Ted Turner.)
This idiot Bag o' Rats is probably opposed to plays
written before 1910 or so because they were only
plays instead of screenplays because of technical
limitations of the era.
Bob T.
Bob Tiernan
On Sat, 27 Oct 2001, Bob Birchard wrote:
> If I were recommending a crash course in films from earlier decades
> that might offer some insight as well as enlightenment. I might
> suggest (in no particular order:
[snip]
> Regeneration (1915) directed by Raoul Walsh
I need to see this one again (and fortunately, it's in a
local library). I was much impressed with Rockliffe
Fellowes and his acting style (Elmer Booth was in the same
league). Had this film been thought of as a Griffith film
it would be praised far more than it is.
[snip]
> 1930's
> I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)
> The Dark Horse (1932)
> The Scarlett Empress (1934)
> Love Me Tonight (1932)
> Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
> The Awful Truth (1937)
The Dark Horse should be viewed during each
election cycle. The Awful Truth has that
great "Marriage is a beautiful thing"
sequence that's worth the price of
admission. There are a few on your
entire list that I've not seen and will
make a point to do so (the few silents
I need to see will be harder to see),
and while I shouldn't toss in some
suggestions without fully understanding
the criteria, I might add Dodsworth
to the 30's list. Bag of Rats thinks
Police Academy is a mature film, but
if he hasn't seen Dodsworth than he's
never seen one.
Bob T.
Bruce Calvert
<kZnC7.2264$xS6....@www.newsranger.com>, Archie Waugh stated
>
>Your arguments are specious and sophomoric. It's typical of the inane moral
>there is more to the living experience (not to mention drama and literature)
>concept of boundaries in art, as important to ballet and opera as it is to film.
>Perhaps someday you will expand your experience of the whole of world film, and
>realize that there is more to film than that. Perhaps someday you will realise
>that Kevin Smith is NOT a great film artist.
>dependent on style and technique as any opera, novel or painting. You want
>realism? Go stare out a window; I dare say you will become bored pretty quick.
>You want realistic? Check out some of the early Griffith portraits of life on
>the streets in pre-World War I New York; they are as gritty and uncompromising
>as any Scorcese film, and do not suffer one bit because the word "fuck" doesn't
>turn up in the title cards. Or Pabst. Or Lang. Or Milestone. You want
>beautiful images? The work of cameramen like Mate', Bitzer, Freund and Howe
>stand against anything being done today, and are razor-sharp if one makes the
>effort to seek out good print material.
>In short, you are a short-sighted, inexperienced dweeb with an insignificant
>frame of reference; come back in ten years if and when you have something to say
>worth reading.
>Or to speak in the vernacular of the peasantry, Go Fuck Yourself.
WOW Archie! Well put!
--
Bruce Calvert
(who usually makes it throught the day without hearing the f-word, and who rarely saw a bare breast until I met my wife seven years ago (except at those "realistic" movies of course...))
Philip Sawyer
"Frederica" <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
news:loYC7.3751$xS6....@www.newsranger.com...
No, it's the 98% who are weird. We are all normal...well, I am, at least.
Philip Sawyer
"Constance Kuriyama" <do...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:9rhfv0$2b8$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
I think the real reason is that old pop tunes are mostly under 5 minutes
long and you can listen while you are doing something else, so people get
exposed to them, particularly when used as background filler in shops or in
the car. And if your parents make you listen when you are too young to say
"no", you get that exposure. There probably aren't many (or enough) parents
who make their kids watch silent movies.
Also back in the 50s (and in Australia until recently) there were few enough
TV channels that you were sometimes forced to watch something that didn't
grab your attention immediately.
Philip Sawyer
"Bob Tiernan" <zu...@pacifier.com> wrote in message
news:Pine.BSO.4.33.01102...@shell.pacifier.com...
On the other hand, the best in creativity comes when you have to say things
that can't be said openly. Back when naked breasts and profanity were taboo
most of the time, filmmakers and other artists tried to express things
through subtext, lighting, montage etc etc, all the tricks of the trade that
make craft into art. Today's artists don't make great art because they
aren't forced to be creative about what they say. If they want to suggest
that a couple are having a sexual relationship, then they show them naked in
bed together going through the motions. They don't show the man lighting
two cigarettes and giving one to the woman a la NOW VOYAGER.
Therefore, your average filmgoers don't have to think about what is being
shown on screen because it is all laid out for them. This might now be
called the "bag of rats" effect.
James Russell
news:20011028125726...@mb-ml.aol.com...
> But there are 24 hour stations that play nothing but old movies. So I
would
> think they have as much access to those films as we did, maybe even more.
That's only fine as long as you *can* access those films. I don't have cable
myself, so am denied that access and have to rely on the impossibly rare
free-to-air showing of anything worthwhile or on the collections and efforts
of other folks. Admittedly this is by choice, in that I could get cable if I
wanted to. However, as long as the cable providers insist on excluding the
movie channels from their basic package, thus forcing you to pay extra for
them and thus denying access after a fashion, then I refuse to encourage
them. Quite apart from which, the "old film" cable channels here don't play
the same old films as the US ones do. If Australian TCM were the same as
American TCM, I'd be more tempted to rethink my policy...
JG
Frederica
James Russell wrote:
> That's only fine as long as you *can* access those films. I don't have cable
> myself, so am denied that access and have to rely on the impossibly rare
> free-to-air showing of anything worthwhile or on the collections and efforts
> of other folks. Admittedly this is by choice, in that I could get cable if I
> wanted to. However, as long as the cable providers insist on excluding the
> movie channels from their basic package, thus forcing you to pay extra for
> them and thus denying access after a fashion, then I refuse to encourage
> them. Quite apart from which, the "old film" cable channels here don't play
> the same old films as the US ones do. If Australian TCM were the same as
> American TCM, I'd be more tempted to rethink my policy...
>
> JG
Just out of curiosity, how does Australian TCM differ from American TCM?
Frederica
Precode
>
> I ran a chunk of the 1933 film "42nd Street" and afterwards the class
>commented on how corny and unrealistic it was. Then I asked them if they
>had seen "Dirty Dancing" which then had just recently been released. Most
>had seen it, and most thought it was a pretty good picture--but until I
>pointed it out none of them could grasp that the two films had exactly the
>same story, i.e.: The leading lady breaks her leg/gets a botched abortion
>and the understudy goes on with the show and becomes a star.
>
Or how about this? The veteran quarterback breaks his leg and the rookie comes
off the bench, wins the game and becomes a star.
Yes, folks, it's Oliver Stone's ANY GIVEN SUNDAY.
Mike S.
(and on Sundays, it's P-U)
Constance Kuriyama
Right you are. There are too many channels on cable for the ones that
show silents to compete with. But some of my son's friends did see
some Chaplins on cable, so it happens occasionally.
David Totheroh
The signal is broadcast upside down so it'll look right on Southern Hemisphere TVs?
James Russell
"Frederica" <missme...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3BDD7AEA...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com...
> Just out of curiosity, how does Australian TCM differ from American TCM?
Try an almost complete lack of silent films. And not really that many 1930s
films either.
JG
R H Draney
wrote:
>Frederica <missme...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com> wrote in message news:<3BDD7AEA...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com>...
>>
>> Just out of curiosity, how does Australian TCM differ from American TCM?
>
>The signal is broadcast upside down so it'll look right on Southern Hemisphere TVs?
And it swirls the other way 'round when you watch it....r
--
"With a bit of care and knowing the way things work, I
was able to get the image of a Twinkie on the first try."
- Skitt unlocks one of the secrets of the universe
Philip Sawyer
"James Russell" <jg...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3bdd...@turakina.six.asn.au...
Mostly true. There are a small number of silents shown on TCM here
intermittently. Recently from memory they have had the 4 hour version of
GREED, plus THE BIG PARADE, THE WIND, THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE,
THE TORRENT, THE CONQUERING POWER, FLESH AND THE DEVIL and a few others.
They've also shown a few Keaton features. But that's about it.
This year for TCM started as the best since I first subscribed to cable
(about 4 years now). They showed a lot of 30s films, including many
pre-code films I hadn't even heard of. Now they are just repeating all of
them and there's only 1 film on this month I haven't already seen.
It's been a long time since I looked at the US TCM schedules (too
depressing) but I recall that they usually show films once in a day. Here
each film gets shown 3 times in a day.
And, judging by the recent AMC controversy, you'll like this: commercials.
Every 20 or 30 minutes there is a commercial break. You do get used to it,
seeing as there is no alternative way of seeing these films.
Frederica
R H Draney wrote:
> On 29 Oct 2001 15:54:24 -0800, dtot...@aol.com (David Totheroh)
> wrote:
>
> >Frederica <missme...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com> wrote in message news:<3BDD7AEA...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com>...
> >>
> >> Just out of curiosity, how does Australian TCM differ from American TCM?
> >
> >The signal is broadcast upside down so it'll look right on Southern Hemisphere TVs?
>
> And it swirls the other way 'round when you watch it....r
STOP WITH YOUR BAD SELVES!!
Frederica
William Hooper
Instead of a little TCM "bug" in the corner of the screen, they have a
koala.
Precode
>
>>===== Original Message From missme...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com =====
>>R H Draney wrote:
>>
>>> On 29 Oct 2001 15:54:24 -0800, dtot...@aol.com (David Totheroh)
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> >Frederica <missme...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:<3BDD7AEA...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com>...
>>> >>
>>> >> Just out of curiosity, how does Australian TCM differ from American TCM?
>>> >
>>> >The signal is broadcast upside down so it'll look right on Southern
>Hemisphere TVs?
>>>
>>> And it swirls the other way 'round when you watch it....r
>>
>>STOP WITH YOUR BAD SELVES!!
>
>
>Instead of a little TCM "bug" in the corner of the screen, they have a
>koala.
>
And instead of Robert Osborne, it's Dame Edna.
Mike S.
Stephen Cooke
On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, William Hooper wrote:
> >===== Original Message From missme...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com =====
> >R H Draney wrote:
> >
> >> On 29 Oct 2001 15:54:24 -0800, dtot...@aol.com (David Totheroh)
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Frederica <missme...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:<3BDD7AEA...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com>...
> >> >>
> >> >> Just out of curiosity, how does Australian TCM differ from American TCM?
> >> >
> >> >The signal is broadcast upside down so it'll look right on Southern
> Hemisphere TVs?
> >>
> >> And it swirls the other way 'round when you watch it....r
> >
> >STOP WITH YOUR BAD SELVES!!
>
> Instead of a little TCM "bug" in the corner of the screen, they have a
> koala.
And if they have time to spare between features, they throw a little Shemp
on the barbie.
Stephen
R H Draney
wrote:
And for "filler", instead of Keanu Reeves pics they run Yahoo
Serious....r
Precode
<Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.101...@halifax.chebucto.ns.ca>, Stephen
Cooke says...
With a side order of curly fries.
Mike S.
James L. Neibaur
Or perhaps reruns of Skippy The Bush Kangaroo with Chips Rafferty.
James Russell
Yeah, quit it with the Australia-mocking. One more crack like that and I'll
be onto the TV networks to export another one of our s(h)itcoms to the US
which will be compulsory for everyone to watch. Trust me, you *don't* want
that to happen.
JG
Archie Waugh
started about Yahoo Serious; as it is, at least you don't have to sit through
those revolting faux-Aussie commercials for Outback Steakhouses, featuring
sweaty, sun-bronzed Californians pretending to be always-partying Australians,
sucking down beer, munching "blooming onions" (which I bet no Australian has
ever eaten) and molesting kangaroos.
Archie Waugh
In article <3bdf...@turakina.six.asn.au>, James Russell says...
William Hooper
<9WHD7.6695$xS6....@www.newsranger.com>, Archie Waugh stated...
>Please, God, know...Paul Hogan's old show was bad enough, and don't even get me
>started about Yahoo Serious; as it is, at least you don't have to sit through
>those revolting faux-Aussie commercials for Outback Steakhouses, featuring
>sweaty, sun-bronzed Californians pretending to be always-partying Australians,
>sucking down beer, munching "blooming onions" (which I bet no Australian has
>ever eaten) and molesting kangaroos.
>Archie Waugh
It's certainly an insult to our country, which has fine marsupials of its own:
the opossum, for instance.
And if anyone not in the US doubts the reverence & respect accorded to the
opossum here, you should know that the TCM southeast US feed, instead of a "bug"
in the corner, has a possum.
Stephen Cooke
On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, Precode wrote:
> Cooke says...
> >On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, William Hooper wrote:
> >> >===== Original Message From missme...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com =====
> >> >R H Draney wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> On 29 Oct 2001 15:54:24 -0800, dtot...@aol.com (David Totheroh)
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> >Frederica <missme...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com> wrote in message
> >> news:<3BDD7AEA...@RATSPAMMERSyahoo.com>...
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> Just out of curiosity, how does Australian TCM differ from American TCM?
> >> >> >
> >> >> >The signal is broadcast upside down so it'll look right on Southern
> >> Hemisphere TVs?
> >> >>
> >> >> And it swirls the other way 'round when you watch it....r
> >> >
> >> >STOP WITH YOUR BAD SELVES!!
> >>
> >> Instead of a little TCM "bug" in the corner of the screen, they have a
> >> koala.
> >
> >And if they have time to spare between features, they throw a little Shemp
> >on the barbie.
>
And a glass of ho-moe milk.
Stephen
James Roots
You've heard of triple-X movies? In Oz they have four-X. Tastes
great, less filling.
Jim
(reliving the summer of 1999)
James Roots
> Yeah, quit it with the Australia-mocking. One more crack like that and I'll
> be onto the TV networks to export another one of our s(h)itcoms to the US
> which will be compulsory for everyone to watch. Trust me, you *don't* want
> that to happen.
Please, God, no... I've already had to see four kids through both
"Bananas In Pajamas" AND "Teletubbies".
Jim
(How come Po is so?)
Eric Grayson
Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, or a spate of other folks.
The Yahoo that people have seen in the US is Young Einstein. No one likes
that here because most of the really good jokes go over peoples' heads
(I've seldom laughed harder than when I saw Charles Darwin walking a dog
with a sign around its neck: The Beagle--and I was the only one in the
theater who laughed).
But Yahoo's other films are funny too... Reckless Kelly has a keen visual
sense of the absurd in it (an island being towed away by a ship), and Mr.
Accident is just plain bizarre (all worth it for the payoff shot at the
end).
I'll bet I'm the only non-Aussie on this group who's actually seen all of
Yahoo's films.
Eric
Bob Birchard
> I'm vaguely interested in the idea that ANY film is realistic, when the entire
> medium is patently as artificial as the grapes on my turban. I'm sure this has
> much to do with being "brainwashed" by television, movies, blah blah. I don't
> think this kid is a dead loss; he's obviously thinking about what he's seeing.
You and Connie are both right on this point. Movies are not particularly
realistic and they never have been. They are filled with various conventions that
audiences take for granted at a given moment in time. Look at Westerns over the
years. The solo good bad man, then the jaunty hero with a comic sidekick, later
add a guitar to that mix, then comes the old hand who is bucking the progress of
civilization in some undefined noble pursuit, then the existential inner
conflicted cowboy, and so it went. None of these characters are particularly real
. . .
But, on the other hand, "realism" is often the critical yardstick by which
movie progress is measured. There was a time when critics looked at the films of
Josef von Sternberg and proclaimed them "realistic." Today, virtually everyone
would agree that they are highly stylized works--but at the time they first
appeared they looked so different from other films that they gave the "impression"
of realism to viewers who were unfamiliar with the technique (just think of all
those bozo critics in the 1970's who went ga-ga over the "realism" of Robert
Altman).
--
Bob Birchard
bbir...@earthlink.net
http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/Guest/birchard.htm
R H Draney
wrote:
Pretty safe bet, that..."Mr Accident" was never released outside of
Oz...I *have*, however, seen "Reckless Kelly"....r
--
"You are not expected to believe that I really have
vibrating rhubarb in my house."--Peter Deutsch
David Totheroh
And mo better short ribs than anywhere else on the planet.
Lloyd Fonvielle
The problem is that realism is too vague a word to be helpful in discussing these
things. Many expressionist works deal with startling psychological "realities", and
many naturalistic films present highly unrealistic visions of life. Realism means
different things to different people, and at different stages of film history. Art
in general, and film in particular, is intrinsically unrealistic, but may use
strategies of "realism", either in subject matter or presentation, to express a truth
or create entertainment. "Last Tango In Paris" startled many with it sexual
"realism", but it was one of the most stylized films ever made.
Precode
Well, it's not something to brag about. :-)
Mike S.
"You used to laugh, Harry. You used to laugh all the time."
"The world was a lot funnier then."
--Jeri Ryan and Nicky Katt on BOSTON PUBLIC
James L. Neibaur
>Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, or a spate of other folks.
wrong
Eric Grayson
<mailto:jimn...@aol.combatant> wrote:
>>Hey! Yahoo Serious is FUNNY! He's a damn sight funnier than Jerry
Lewis,
>>Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, or a spate of other folks.
>
>wrong
>
>JN
Have you seen his films? Do you have enough science background to catch
all the references in Young Einstein? Based on what I know about your
comedy preferences, Jim, I'd guess you'd probably like Reckless Kelly best.
Eric
Dr.Giraud
>The problem is that realism is too vague a word to be helpful in discussing
these
>things. Many expressionist works deal with startling psychological
"realities", and
>many naturalistic films present highly unrealistic visions of life. Realism
means
>different things to different people, and at different stages of film history.
Right you are. The original poster, Mr. Rats - who used the "realism" of of
today's films to dismiss the rest of movie history as "unrealistic" - is reading
this, I hope.
Shawn Stone
James L. Neibaur
>all the references in Young Einstein?
If I have to get a Bachelor of Science degree to effectively enjoy Young
Einstein, I will stick to the liberal arts.
>Based on what I know about your
>comedy preferences, Jim, I'd guess you'd probably like Reckless Kelly best.
I think Yahoo Serious fits in beautifully alongside the likes of Sandler, et.
al., except for the huge bank account that the American comedians somehow
managed to acquire. Yes I have seen Reckless Kelly. I'll admit to the
occasionally clever sight gag, but other than that it was hardly at the level
of Jerry Lewis, let alone true masters like Keaton, etc.
Eric Grayson
et.
>al., except for the huge bank account that the American comedians somehow
>managed to acquire. Yes I have seen Reckless Kelly. I'll admit to the
>occasionally clever sight gag, but other than that it was hardly at the
level
>of Jerry Lewis, let alone true masters like Keaton, etc.
I didn't say Keaton!
What I like about Serious is that the whole point of his comedy is not
being loud and obnoxious, which separates him from Carrey, Sandler, etc.
As much as I have trashed Lewis, at least he was original.
I think Serious is, too, in a weird way. His diatribes about Hollywood
screenwriters in Reckless Kelly (and the Wal-Mart gun scenes) are clever.
It's much funnier than a badly edited fistfight between Adam Sandler and
Bob Barker--any day of the week.
Eric
Bag of Rats
Yes, you're exactly right. "Realism" is not even a very good word to
use. I should have thought more carefully about what I meant. There is
no such thing as "realism." Each film calls for its own treatment;
some films call for elegant stylisation, some call for elegant
antistylisation, some call for glossy stylisation, some call for
unvarnished grittiness; but none of these should really be called
"realistic." No artistic medium can be realistic. In fact, the word
doesn't really mean anything. Each person's experience of the universe
is different; each reality is something different: so all we can do in
film or prose or any art form is to try to convey our feelings. What I
was trying to get at, I believe, was that film today seems to be a
little (not much, just slightly) better able to deal with the
existential terrors and queasiness that I have experienced as a
significant part of my personal reality. I find that natural lighting
helps a great deal; also, less "stylisation" (this is probably the
closest thing to "realism"). But this isn't to say that we are now at
a place qualitatively different and better, or "more realistic," than
where we were in 1947 or whenever; it's a continuum and there's still
a lot of progress to be made in terms of understanding what we are
trying to do when we make a film.
James L. Neibaur
>being loud and obnoxious, which separates him from Carrey, Sandler, etc.
>
>As much as I have trashed Lewis, at least he was original.
You like Lewis about as much as I like Serious --- and vice versa.
William Hooper
<3a8c0f99.01110...@posting.google.com>, Bag of Rats stated...
Oo, ah, now I remember where it was!
"What were you talking about? Oh, pictures. Personally, I
rather like them; they are so refreshingly real and probable,
they take one away from the unrealities of life."
-- Saki, from "Reginald on the Academy", a quotation coming soon to the first
paragraph of some program notes of a film series near you.
Christopher Jacobs
Bag of Rats <supervermi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3a8c0f99.01110...@posting.google.com...
> all we can do in
> film or prose or any art form is to try to convey our feelings. What I
> was trying to get at, I believe, was that film today seems to be a
> little (not much, just slightly) better able to deal with the
> existential terrors and queasiness that I have experienced as a
> significant part of my personal reality. I find that natural lighting
> helps a great deal; also, less "stylisation" (this is probably the
> closest thing to "realism").
--------------------------
It's not so much that films today are better able to deal with such
materials, it is that they are more willing to do it and there is a larger
audience that seems more willing to watch disturbing films today than was so
in the past, perhaps because of more widespread, immediate and intense news
coverage of disturbing real events. Nevertheless, it's still the predictable
schlock with happy endings that is more likely to sell tickets. The trend
towards slick, mass appeal movies seems to have begun in earnest shortly
after the First World War, and was well-established by the early1920s. There
are quite a few films from the teens and even the first decade of the 20th
century that are remarkably grim in their outlook, and, incidentally, using
natural sunlight throughout because artificial lighting was less practical
and more expensive. The problem with natural lighting is that too many films
that use it to look "realistic" merely come across as looking
amateurish--but then that may well be their intent. I never did think the
"New York" style of street filmmaking that came into vogue in the late 40s
and 50s and continues today quite had either the artistry or dramatic impact
of more artificial-looking but more dramatic films of similar stories (e.g.
Hollywood vs. NY-made film noir).
--Christopher Jacobs
Bag of Rats
> Your arguments are specious and sophomoric. It's typical of the inane moral
> relativism all too common on campuses these days.
Moral relativism? What is this, a sermon from a Jesus freak?
But seriously, if you're suggesting that there's something wrong with
moral relativism, then you aren't exactly in the intellectual elite.
You're just an old-fashioned, small-minded prude. I'm not even saying
there's anything wrong with that, but you shouldn't pretend to be part
of the elite. You're probably from Nebraska or some other redneck
region.
> Has it occurred to you that
> there is more to the living experience (not to mention drama and literature)
> than boobs and being able to say "fuck"?
Well, you're assuming things that are incorrect. I never said that
that's all there is to life; I never implied it. But those things are
PART of life, and so it shouldn't even be an issue about putting them
on the screen. They go right in with everything else. To show a naked
breast shouldn't be a big deal. It could appear in the corner of the
screen without being particularly astounding. And as for your
denotation of that anatomical feature, I can only say to you, "How
mature do you really think YOU are?" I mean, Christ, man. Grow up.
> You also have no understanding of the
> concept of boundaries in art, as important to ballet and opera as it is to film.
> Perhaps someday you will expand your experience of the whole of world film, and
> realize that there is more to film than that. Perhaps someday you will realise
> that Kevin Smith is NOT a great film artist.
I never said I liked Kevin Smith. You have no idea what my tastes are;
you're guessing. And I couldn't really call it an educated guess. This
shows again that you're just a reactionary; I mean, after all, how
original do you think your sentiments are? I said something about old
films being no good and your considered response is just to attack me?
Gee, I never would have anticipated that. That's what everyone has
done. It's not really a very original response. Don't you bore even
yourself?
> Film is NOT a realistic medium, it is merely an illusion of reality, as
> dependent on style and technique as any opera, novel or painting.
Well, "realism" isn't even a particularly useful term. Maybe I
shouldn't have used it. But in order to get at the essence of
experience, shouldn't we be free to do what we want to show this? I
never said that we had to be free of style. I never said what you are
attributing to me. I've commented elsewhere in this thread on the
concept of "realism."
> You want realism? Go stare out a window; I dare say you will become bored
> pretty quick.
Again, I never said we should film two hours of people walking on the
sidewalk and call that an entertaining film. You're continuing to
attribute things to me that were never in any of my comments.
You're assuming, incorrectly, that I am saying all films should be
realistic. Elsewhere in this thread I stated that the type of film
dictates the style. I'm not saying realism is better, that everything
has to be "realistic," whatever that means. What I said was that
breasts are real. You can't deny that. They exist, believe it or not.
You won't see an exposed breast in some 1950s Hollywood picture. It's
part of life; those old films are denying this facet of reality. It
doesn't show our actual experience. I believe somewhere you or someone
like you made a comment about the issue of what to show in film; that
person said that sex never used to be shown, that it was implied by
showing cigarette smoking or whatever, and not the sexual act itself.
This, that person stated, was a better technique. I'm not saying it's
a worse technique. I'm saying it's a different technique. If you have
a story in which people have sex and other things happen, the story
itself is not about the sex so it probably shouldn't be shown; it's
unnecessary from a narrative point of view. BUT: if the film is about
the experience of having sex, then it has to show the sex. It has to
attempt to describe what the experience is like. It has to be as
intimate as possible. This is a completely different agenda than the
narrative agenda. And this is something that wasn't done much until
recently. Until recently, a major part of life was left unexplored.
The idea of sex may not have been utterly removed, but the experience
of sex was largely gone, or at least minimised, in the old films. This
is terrible for the filmmaker. Sex is big. One wants to be able to
show it. Ignoring important issues is not cleverness. It's opacity.
> You want realistic? Check out some of the early Griffith portraits of life on
> the streets in pre-World War I New York; they are as gritty and uncompromising
> as any Scorcese film, and do not suffer one bit because the word "fuck" doesn't
> turn up in the title cards. Or Pabst. Or Lang. Or Milestone. You want
> beautiful images? The work of cameramen like Mate', Bitzer, Freund and Howe
> stand against anything being done today, and are razor-sharp if one makes the
> effort to seek out good print material.
Well, it is hard to find good prints of old films. For the larger part
we have to watch them on VCR, which doesn't work well. But that's not
even really the point. The lighting on some of those old films is
incredibly stylised; they often don't look like real life at all, so
how can that evoke the daily experience? Now, you'll say that I'm
wrong to think that today's Hollywood films are any more realistic. I
don't think that. I hate Hollywood films of today that are trying to
be realistic but use ludicrous lighting. I'm not saying that today's
industry is good. For a lot of things, it isn't. However, I never said
that only realistic films should be made; I was addressing that facet
of the creative process. There is definitely a call for stylisation,
as I stated elsewhere in this thread. Take a John Woo film, for
instance. "Face/Off" is not about "realism" (whatever that is). It's
operatic; it's a fantasy; it's about conveying a riveting experience,
not a realistic one. There are many completely different types of
films, and I was only addressing the problems of "realism," or
conveying the experiential reality, which is but one type of film. I
never said it was everything; this you wrongly assumed.
> In short, you are a short-sighted, inexperienced dweeb with an insignificant
> frame of reference; come back in ten years if and when you have something to say
> worth reading.
> Or to speak in the vernacular of the peasantry, Go Fuck Yourself.
Wow, what a display of wit. Would you say that this is "something to
say worth reading"? Why don't YOU come back when you have something to
say that isn't an exact carbon copy of everything everyone else is
saying. Your attitude, after all, is not, as I said before, exactly
original.
You know what? After responding to your comments, I went back to read
what I had written earlier, afraid that I'd said some things I
shouldn't have. You kept saying I was inexperienced and so on, so I
figured I'd been a bit hasty with some comment. But I said nothing
that I take back. Read my comments again with an open mind, rather
than with assumptions about "where I'm coming from." I never even said
that old films are all "bad." For that matter, I sure as hell didn't
say that all new films are "good." I think you just got defensive
concerning my comment that "old films are 'designed' for children."
You tried to prove me wrong; you tried to prove me more childish than
yourself. But using the word "boob," failing to think through what you
were saying, and ending with a witticism such as "Go fuck yourself"
doesn't really speak volumes for your defence.
> Archie Waugh
>
>
>
>
> >I'm not saying that every single film from before the year 1970 is to
> >be written off. And when I said that they feel "made for children," I
> >was not actually saying that they were designed to only be watched by
> >children; I was just saying that a lot of movies from the thirties and
> >forties were pretty heavily censored because they had to be suitable
> >for all ages, or whatever the justification was back then. I'm saying
> >that we've come a long way in terms of what we can have represented on
> >film. You don't see a lot of nudity in Hollywood films from the
> >thirties, for instance. You also don't find people talking the way
> >they would really talk. I'm not saying that every movie has to have
> >people saying, "holy fucking shit," or whatnot, every two seconds; but
> >some movies call for that kind of unvarnished language, and it's
> >important that they be able to use it if they wish to. And so on.
> >
> >I didn't say that Tarkovsky was crap. I just said that I'm a lot
> >happier with the roughness and realism of being able to have a naked
> >breast if we want one and being able to say "fuck" every three words
> >if that's what we want. It lets us do more. It gives us a freedom that
> >we didn't use to have.
> >
> >I'm the kind of person who didn't use to read anything written later
> >than 1890, so don't lecture me on appreciation of the old stuff. I
> >used to be an opera fanatic, and if that isn't the ultimate old art
> >form I don't know what is. But opera is supposed to be highly
> >stylised, so you don't really need to say "fuck" every two seconds.
> >Films can be more realistic than any other art form, which is why it
> >is so important that they be able to actually have realistic content,
> >so that they can achieve their potential.
> >
> >And you know what else? The thing I value most about film is the
> >ability to convey beautiful images. This often requires high-grade
> >colour film and excellent cinematography. Watching a blurry black and
> >white image can get really stifling. It's fine for some films, but not
> >for all. New Chinese films: now that's a cinema for you. They're
> >making some of the best films ever made right now in China.
Bag of Rats
>
> Archie, I admire your response. Cinema is a dramatic art, not a realistic
> one, how he can equate modern cinema and Scorsese with gritty realism, I'll
> never know.
>
I never said that I equated Scorsese with realism (which I definitely
don't) or modern cinema with "gritty realism" (which I also don't).
You and everyone else here keep assuming things about what I said
rather than actually taking what I said at face value. I stick to my
original comments. Also my newer comments on "realism."
Bag of Rats
> Now Archie,
>
> It's not right for you to call this idiot an idiot in our politically
> correct society.
> He's "mentally and conceptually challenged."
>
> David B. Pearson
>
> PS: Given "Bag of Rats" stunning arguments, I am now wondering if an
> old-time silent black and white movie like "Sunrise" can realistically
> compete -- either in camerawork, sets, story, acting, or direction -- with a
> color, more culturally unrestricted and mature film of the 1970s, like
> "Black Belt Jones."
>
> :-)
Wow, that's funny stuff. You really got me, there.
I've never heard of this film "Black Belt Jones," but it doesn't
exactly sound like a model of brilliant filmmaking. I didn't say it
was. I also didn't say that all films prior to 1970 are "bad" in my
opinion. I never said any of the things that you're attributing to me.
I said that a lot of old Hollywood films aren't exactly very
"realistic," by which I meant they don't convey the existential
elements very well. Again, I was using a generalisation, thinking of
Hollywood films, not saying that anything old is therefore bad. I was
talking in terms of the history of moviemaking, I was not proposing a
law of physics or whatever.
> > From: Archie Waugh <nos...@newsranger.com>
> >
> > Your arguments are specious and sophomoric. It's typical of the inane moral
> > relativism all too common on campuses these days. Has it occurred to you that
> > there is more to the living experience (not to mention drama and literature)
> > than boobs and being able to say "fuck"? You also have no understanding of
> > the
> > concept of boundaries in art, as important to ballet and opera as it is to
> > film.
> > Perhaps someday you will expand your experience of the whole of world film,
> > and
> > realize that there is more to film than that. Perhaps someday you will
> > realise
> > that Kevin Smith is NOT a great film artist.
> > Film is NOT a realistic medium, it is merely an illusion of reality, as
> > dependent on style and technique as any opera, novel or painting. You want
> > realism? Go stare out a window; I dare say you will become bored pretty
> > quick.
> > You want realistic? Check out some of the early Griffith portraits of life on
> > the streets in pre-World War I New York; they are as gritty and uncompromising
> > as any Scorcese film, and do not suffer one bit because the word "fuck"
> > doesn't
> > turn up in the title cards. Or Pabst. Or Lang. Or Milestone. You want
> > beautiful images? The work of cameramen like Mate', Bitzer, Freund and Howe
> > stand against anything being done today, and are razor-sharp if one makes the
> > effort to seek out good print material.
> > In short, you are a short-sighted, inexperienced dweeb with an insignificant
> > frame of reference; come back in ten years if and when you have something to
> > say
> > worth reading.
> > Or to speak in the vernacular of the peasantry, Go Fuck Yourself.
> > Archie Waugh
Frederica
Bag of Rats wrote:
> I've never heard of this film "Black Belt Jones," but it doesn't
> exactly sound like a model of brilliant filmmaking. I didn't say it
> was. I also didn't say that all films prior to 1970 are "bad" in my
> opinion. I never said any of the things that you're attributing to me.
> I said that a lot of old Hollywood films aren't exactly very
> "realistic," by which I meant they don't convey the existential
> elements very well. Again, I was using a generalisation, thinking of
> Hollywood films, not saying that anything old is therefore bad. I was
> talking in terms of the history of moviemaking, I was not proposing a
> law of physics or whatever.
But as we pointed out, NO film is realistic, and very few of them are made with the goal of conveying
existential elements. This is a good thing. Occasionally I am faced with the rare film that attempts to
educate and enlighten me--the film that strives to make me a better person. When faced with such a film, I can
move at near light speeds exiting the theater, or even faster diving for the remote. I see films to be
entertained, not to be lectured. So really, it hardly seems fair to judge an art form on whether it succeeds
at something it never set out to achieve in the first place. It is what it is.
Frederica
Archie Waugh
>Moral relativism? What is this, a sermon from a Jesus freak?
Nope, you don't have to be a Jesus freak to understand the fallicy of moral
relativism.
>But seriously, if you're suggesting that there's something wrong with
>moral relativism, then you aren't exactly in the intellectual elite.
Thank God! If that's the "intellectual elite", spare me please.
>You're just an old-fashioned, small-minded prude. I'm not even saying
>there's anything wrong with that, but you shouldn't pretend to be part
>of the elite. You're probably from Nebraska or some other redneck
>region.
As hilarious an assumption about me as any I made about you, as anyone in this
newsgroup can attest. I'm sure glad you're not one of those people who leap to
pigeonhole others.
>> Has it occurred to you that
>> there is more to the living experience (not to mention drama and literature)
>> than boobs and being able to say "fuck"?
>
>Well, you're assuming things that are incorrect. I never said that
>that's all there is to life; I never implied it. But those things are
>PART of life, and so it shouldn't even be an issue about putting them
>on the screen. They go right in with everything else. To show a naked
>breast shouldn't be a big deal. It could appear in the corner of the
>screen without being particularly astounding. And as for your
>denotation of that anatomical feature, I can only say to you, "How
>mature do you really think YOU are?" I mean, Christ, man. Grow up.
I see nothing wrong with making a comical comment ("boobs", for those just
joining the thread) on your bizarre obsession with breasts in film as some kind
of gold standard of "realism" and modernity. Also, check out Hedy Lamarr's
hooters in "Exstasy"(1936) and the hot bare-breasted babes in "Ben Hur" (1926).
>I never said I liked Kevin Smith. You have no idea what my tastes are;
>you're guessing. And I couldn't really call it an educated guess. This
>shows again that you're just a reactionary; I mean, after all, how
>original do you think your sentiments are?
My reactionary comments were in response to your equally blanket, reactionary
statements against all pre-1970 films. And my statements may not be original (I
never said they were) but are pretty reflective of how many in this newsgroup
reacted to yours.
> I said something about old
>films being no good and your considered response is just to attack me?
Because it was a phenomenally stupid and ignorant statement.
>Gee, I never would have anticipated that. That's what everyone has
>done. It's not really a very original response. Don't you bore even
>yourself?
Why should I? I'm having too much fun boring you.
>Well, "realism" isn't even a particularly useful term. Maybe I
>shouldn't have used it.
I think the posts that followed indicated pretty clearly that it was indeed an
inept choice on your part, yet you used the word about 75 times, so I am afraid
you're stuck with it.
>But in order to get at the essence of
>experience, shouldn't we be free to do what we want to show this? I
>never said that we had to be free of style. I never said what you are
>attributing to me. I've commented elsewhere in this thread on the
>concept of "realism."
>
>
>> You want realism? Go stare out a window; I dare say you will become bored
>> pretty quick.
>
>Again, I never said we should film two hours of people walking on the
>sidewalk and call that an entertaining film. You're continuing to
>attribute things to me that were never in any of my comments.
>
>You're assuming, incorrectly, that I am saying all films should be
>realistic. Elsewhere in this thread I stated that the type of film
>dictates the style. I'm not saying realism is better, that everything
>has to be "realistic," whatever that means. What I said was that
>breasts are real. You can't deny that. They exist, believe it or not.
>You won't see an exposed breast in some 1950s Hollywood picture.
You won't see a penis, either. Or anal penetration. Or defecation. Forgive me
for not noticing, but somehow I doubt that in the great book of film history
there will be a chapter on how the sudden appearance of bare breasts in
Hollywood films ushered in a new Age of Enlightenment. For the most part it
ushered in a Golden Age of Low Budget Sleaze with Questionable Artistic Value;
remember, for every "Last Tango in Paris" there are a hundred "Hollywood Pom-Pom
Girls".
>It's
>part of life; those old films are denying this facet of reality. It
>doesn't show our actual experience. I believe somewhere you or someone
>like you made a comment about the issue of what to show in film; that
>person said that sex never used to be shown, that it was implied by
>showing cigarette smoking or whatever, and not the sexual act itself.
Wasn't me, but I appreciate what they were trying to say.
>This, that person stated, was a better technique. I'm not saying it's
>a worse technique. I'm saying it's a different technique. If you have
>a story in which people have sex and other things happen, the story
>itself is not about the sex so it probably shouldn't be shown; it's
>unnecessary from a narrative point of view.
>BUT: if the film is about
>the experience of having sex, then it has to show the sex.
And approximately what proportion of (non-porn) films are about having sex?
It has to
>attempt to describe what the experience is like. It has to be as
>intimate as possible. This is a completely different agenda than the
>narrative agenda. And this is something that wasn't done much until
>recently.
And are we all the richer for it? (See above about the Golden Age of etc.)
Until recently, a major part of life was left unexplored.
>The idea of sex may not have been utterly removed, but the experience
>of sex was largely gone, or at least minimised, in the old films. This
>is terrible for the filmmaker.
For which filmmaker? Russ Meyer?
Sex is big. One wants to be able to
>show it. Ignoring important issues is not cleverness. It's opacity.
>
>Well, it is hard to find good prints of old films.
Bullshit.
For the larger part
>we have to watch them on VCR, which doesn't work well.
Then buy a DVD player and treat yourself to quality prints, or visit a museum or
revival house, there are lots of them.
But that's not
>even really the point. The lighting on some of those old films is
>incredibly stylised; they often don't look like real life at all, so
>how can that evoke the daily experience?
And the key word here is "some" - you're making outragous assumptions based on
viewing very very few older films. Extremely stylized lighting is generally the
exception, not the rule, in older films. Perhaps more common in black and
white, but that's the nature of black and white photography, and still is today,
both in motion pictures and still photography.
Now, you'll say that I'm
>wrong to think that today's Hollywood films are any more realistic. I
>don't think that. I hate Hollywood films of today that are trying to
>be realistic but use ludicrous lighting. I'm not saying that today's
>industry is good. For a lot of things, it isn't. However, I never said
>that only realistic films should be made; I was addressing that facet
>of the creative process. There is definitely a call for stylisation,
>as I stated elsewhere in this thread. Take a John Woo film, for
>instance. "Face/Off" is not about "realism" (whatever that is). It's
>operatic; it's a fantasy; it's about conveying a riveting experience,
>not a realistic one. There are many completely different types of
>films, and I was only addressing the problems of "realism," or
>conveying the experiential reality, which is but one type of film. I
>never said it was everything; this you wrongly assumed.
Well, you did babble on about "realism" (your choice of words) for about three
pages, so what were we to draw from that?
>> In short, you are a short-sighted, inexperienced dweeb with an insignificant
>> frame of reference; come back in ten years if and when you have something to say
>> worth reading.
>> Or to speak in the vernacular of the peasantry, Go Fuck Yourself.
>
>Wow, what a display of wit.
Actually, if you had enough of a frame of reference to recognize where the first
part of that line came from, you'd think it was pretty damned witty.
Would you say that this is "something to
>say worth reading"? Why don't YOU come back when you have something to
>say that isn't an exact carbon copy of everything everyone else is
>saying. Your attitude, after all, is not, as I said before, exactly
>original.
No, it's pretty representative of how many people in this group responded to
your silly comments. I find it interesting that my reply was the only one you
decided to respond to, considering how unoriginal and boring you found it.
>You know what? After responding to your comments, I went back to read
>what I had written earlier, afraid that I'd said some things I
>shouldn't have. You kept saying I was inexperienced and so on, so I
>figured I'd been a bit hasty with some comment. But I said nothing
>that I take back.
Then you're still a short-sighted, inexperienced dweeb, and perhaps a bit of a
fool.
Read my comments again with an open mind, rather
>than with assumptions about "where I'm coming from." I never even said
>that old films are all "bad."
You certainly did, and to a newsgroup full of people who love old films and find
much of great value in them, generally speaking far more artistry and beauty and
skill than most modern films.
For that matter, I sure as hell didn't
>say that all new films are "good." I think you just got defensive
>concerning my comment that "old films are 'designed' for children."
Because it was a silly, uninformed comment.
>You tried to prove me wrong; you tried to prove me more childish than
>yourself. But using the word "boob," failing to think through what you
>were saying, and ending with a witticism such as "Go fuck yourself"
>doesn't really speak volumes for your defence.
The word is spelled "defense". The word "boob" was used for humor in relation
to your obsession with the aforementioned, and unlike you, I don't need to speak
volumes to get my point across. The witticism was in the line "To speak in the
vernacular of the peasantry", as you are an intellectual peasant; and the "Go
fuck yourself" was merely my way of joining you in the celebration of the new
freedom we now experience in modern film dialogue.
Have a nice day.
Archie Waugh
David B. Pearson
rom: supervermi...@hotmail.com (Bag of Rats)
> "David B. Pearson" <da...@silent-movies.com> wrote in message
> news:<B7FF903C.2E98%da...@silent-movies.com>...
>> PS: Given "Bag of Rats" stunning arguments, I am now wondering if an
>> old-time silent black and white movie like "Sunrise" can realistically
>> compete -- either in camerawork, sets, story, acting, or direction -- with a
>> color, more culturally unrestricted and mature film of the 1970s, like
>> "Black Belt Jones."
>>
>> :-)
>
> Wow, that's funny stuff. You really got me, there.
Well... at least I enjoyed it.
:-)
> I've never heard of this film "Black Belt Jones," but it doesn't
> exactly sound like a model of brilliant filmmaking. I didn't say it
> was. I also didn't say that all films prior to 1970 are "bad" in my
> opinion. I never said any of the things that you're attributing to me.
Oh, then you haven't really lived. "Belt Belt Jones" cancels out "The
Godfather, Part II" on the scales determining whether the '70s were a great
film making decade or not.
:-)
Seriously, I read what you wrote pretty carefully.
As I recall, you wrote:
> > The only decades I like are the seventies and nineties, to be frank. I
> > like precious little from earlier eras; I find that "old" films are so
> > unrealistic that they do not even touch upon most of the fundamental
> > issues of existance. It seems to me that films from the first half of
> > the century were crippled fatally by being a product of a civilisation
> > that was not yet able to be realistic. They seem as though they were
> > made for children. I know that sounds like an ignorant viewpoint, and
> > god knows I've tried to like older films, because I have a strong
> > respect for history and would like to be able to experience cultural
> > continuity, but I largely can't. I basically just like new ones. Apart
> > from some of the early pioneering stuff from the seventies, I
> > basically stick to the nineties. There was beginning to be some good
> > stuff in with all the bad; the nineties were a decade of surprising
> > elegance in some ways. And now, I'm deathly afraid that the '00s are
> > going to be terrible. There seems to be a new crappiness, reminiscent
> > of the eighties, creeping back into culture. I hope it's just a
> > temporary anomaly, but I worry a lot about it.
... which has gotten roundly hooted down. Now, I can understand where you've
tried to soften that opinion with the much more reasonable...
> I said that a lot of old Hollywood films aren't exactly very
> "realistic," by which I meant they don't convey the existential
> elements very well. Again, I was using a generalisation, thinking of
> Hollywood films, not saying that anything old is therefore bad. I was
> talking in terms of the history of moviemaking, I was not proposing a
> law of physics or whatever.
... but you are still getting yourself into serious trouble because even
your softened generalization seems based on the belief that films were
always under a banner of industry self-censorship prior to the mid-1960s.
This is not correct, as silent films and early talkies made prior to the
Hayes/Breen codes slapped on them in the early 1930s. These eariler films do
not suffer from the "realistic" factor you seem to be talking about. In
"It," for example, one can quite clearly see an angry Clara Bow tell a
social worker to "Fuck Off!" There is also a fair amount of incidental
nudity in silent movies. Mainstream films tackling subjects such as drug
(heroin and cocaine) addiction, prostitution, ethnic humor, comedies kidding
homosexuality, sexual role reversals, serious criticism of social double
standards, social/racial hatreds, and social/racial tolerance -- in short,
most any "realistic" topic you might hope to discuss. Everyone in the
alt.movies.silent group this thread has cross-posted into knows all this to
be true. And your not qualifing your thoughts to reflect this, makes your
opinion about "realistic" films to be a recent idea to look pretty damned
foolish. It also appears to reveal a bigotry towards the past, as your
failure to watch them reveals much more about yourself that the films your
condesending generalization incorrectly portrays the past to be.
In short, to have a better all round understanding of cinema, you need to
see a LOT more films -- and not just SOME films YOU like from the '70s and
'90s -- because everything, from "The Sneeze" to the films released today
are all apart of a medium we love.
David B. Pearson
David B. Pearson
> From: Archie Waugh <nos...@newsranger.com>
>> You tried to prove me wrong; you tried to prove me more childish than
>> yourself. But using the word "boob," failing to think through what you
>> were saying, and ending with a witticism such as "Go fuck yourself"
>> doesn't really speak volumes for your defence.
>
> The word is spelled "defense". The word "boob" was used for humor in relation
> to your obsession with the aforementioned, and unlike you, I don't need to
> speak
> volumes to get my point across. The witticism was in the line "To speak in
> the
> vernacular of the peasantry", as you are an intellectual peasant; and the "Go
> fuck yourself" was merely my way of joining you in the celebration of the new
> freedom we now experience in modern film dialogue.
> Have a nice day.
> Archie Waugh
A word in "defense" of the intellectual peasant:
"Defence" is the correct spelling in (UK) English.
As for the rest of what the child is saying, as we watch him trying to come
to terms with what reality is supposed to be, let me quote "Black Belt
Jones" in reviewing his sadly collapsing arguments...
"Don't BULLSHIT me!!! I'm from New Orleans!"
;-)
DBP
Robert Keser
To expand a bit on one of Archie's points: almost all of the people in
this group are professionals working in film, many directly and others
as writers, historians, and teachers. The purpose that brings us together
is exchanging information and viewpoints (and jokes) about the great
works of film history. Then, you enter proclaiming that "(t)he only
decades I like are the seventies and nineties, to be frank. I like precious
little from earlier eras; I find that 'old' films are so unrealistic that they
do not even touch upon most of the fundamental issues of existance [sic]"
and that " films from the first half of the century were crippled fatally by
being a product of a civilisation that was not yet able to be realistic.
They seem as though they were made for children." Well, what kind of
reception did you expect? Would you show up at a conference of
classical musicians to announce that you don't like their work because
"real" music began with the rock era? How do you think people would
react?
Maybe you'll recall my original reaction in an earlier post: "Can we tie
this kid down and force him to watch Greed, White Tiger,Forbidden
Paradise, Docks of New York, Love of Jeanne Ney, Pandora's Box,
and...?" This is a list of films for grown-ups, films of great sophistication
and adult themes as well as being peaks of film artistry. Why don't you
try to see as many of these as you can, and then come back to tell us
your reaction?
In the meantime, if you want to participate, why don't you tell us
how many silent films you've seen and which ones gave you
"trouble"?
Bob Keser
Stephen Cooke
On Fri, 2 Nov 2001, David B. Pearson wrote:
> As for the rest of what the child is saying, as we watch him trying to come
> to terms with what reality is supposed to be, let me quote "Black Belt
> Jones" in reviewing his sadly collapsing arguments...
>
> "Don't BULLSHIT me!!! I'm from New Orleans!"
FWIW, I'll be one of the first people in line to buy a copy of Black Belt
Jones (and hopefully its sequel, Hot Potato) when it gets issued on DVD.
Mostly so I can see every film ever made that features Isaac from The Love
Boat, but there's also some trampoline kung fu and that final fight in the
car wash.
Anyone want to buy my VHS copy?
Stephen