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Old Masters and Today's Filmmakers

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no...@webtv.net

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Jan 22, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/22/00
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A great poet wrote: "We know more than the old masters. They are what
we know".

nown.


alex crouvier

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Jan 23, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/23/00
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What movements do filmmakers today belong to? Baroque? Pop? Surrealism?
Impressionism? Medieval? Gothic?

Pop sells, but there are elements of other thing s evident in distinctly
personal filmakers.

Cronenberg reminds you of Bosch, the fascination with the grotesque and the
human condition. Coppola and his cinematographers in GODFATHER films and
APOCALYPSE NOW owe a great deal to Caravaggio's chiaruscuro (and his
fascination with dismemberment of heads). Atom Egoyan recalls the naturalism
of Dutch painters. John Woo is definitely baroque, Hellinistic even.
Scorsese has Caravaggio's penchant for portrayal of street life and
marginalized characters. Oliver Stone has a bit of Francis Bacon's torment
and the political provocateur in Jacques-Louis David. John McTiernan has
David's leaning towards masculine might and resolve, but not his patriotic
obsession in particular. David Fincher carries the tradition of dark,
allegorical art of Dutch painters like Bruguel and Bosch. And that leaves us
with Michael Mann whom I think is the only modern filmmakers in the bunch.
And aren't filmmakers today like Fincher and the Wachowski Bros. and many
other punks work in the visual style dubbed as Neo_Gothic which Ridley Scott
started with ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER.

Trent

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Jan 23, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/23/00
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alex crouvier wrote:
>
> What movements do filmmakers today belong to? Baroque? Pop? Surrealism?
> Impressionism? Medieval? Gothic?
>

I don't know about today, but I'd say the mid-90's was definitely the
Age of Irony, brought on by Tarantino. It was "Stuck in the Middle With
You" during the ear slicing scene that did it, I'm pretty sure.
Tarantino moved on with Jackie Brown, but the wannabes still wanted to
all remake Pulp Fiction.

So as a result we got 20,000 scenes of guys getting gunned down or
stabbed with hip 70's pop songs playing on the soundtrack.

-------> Trent

buster55

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Jan 23, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/23/00
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The Coen Bros. are like Warhol: recyclers of past images and ideas but with
an "oh-so hip" attitude.
alex crouvier wrote in message <388a6...@news.cyberway.com.sg>...

>What movements do filmmakers today belong to? Baroque? Pop? Surrealism?
>Impressionism? Medieval? Gothic?
>

MadiHolmes

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Jan 25, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/25/00
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>
>So as a result we got 20,000 scenes of guys getting gunned down or
>stabbed with hip 70's pop songs playing on the soundtrack.

Wait a sec.... didn't Scorsese do that even before Tarantino was a mere student
of the film arts?

And isn't it odd that I should read "hip" and "70's pop songs" in the same
sentence? <eg>

MadiHolmes

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