FMJ and BL Part 2
Nick C
Bottom line for me, FMJ doesn't have the refined feel and look of his
others, and was misinterpreted by many, most of whom are the kind of people
whos ways of thought it should have changed.
As for Barry Lyndon, I still haven't watched it that third time yet, but I
will. However, one thing I've noticed is that most people who say they like
it give some reason dealing with the photography or something of that
nature... I don't know... that's just one part of it.... but I just don't
think it's one of his best... I've always appreciated the langorous pace of
his films but there it's just too.... slow... and it was emotional, yes...
but in a subdued way that almost... detaches you from the main character.
There's no way BL can compare with movies like DS or 2001.... or EWS for
that matter.
Peter Tonguette
>it give some reason dealing with the photography or something of that
>nature
Well, I would never make a claim for greatness for BL on the basis of its
photography, if by "photography" you mean the prettiness of the images. That's
only one aspect of the film's visual content. The most important, to me,
involve Kubrick's mise en scene. That is to say, the way he uses the space
within the frame and how this relates to the film's "thematic" content. The
obvious example is how the backward zooms begin on the specific and pull back
to reveal a larger context for the action. This is crucial to the film's
vision. BL would be very different if it presented static tableaus minus the
zooms. Interestingly, my favorite shot in the film - and arguably one of the
most heartbreaking in the cinema - does something of the opposite: the shot of
Brian's funeral begins with a close-up of his casket, pulls back with the
action, which is moving towards camera. Consequently, the shot ends on
close-ups of Barry and Lady Lyndon. An exemplary use of cinematic space.
>and it was emotional, yes...
>but in a subdued way that almost... detaches you from the main character.
The film's subdued when and where it needs to be; 18th century England, among
the upper classes, wasn't exactly rollicking. So when emotion does break free
- Barry breaking down in front of the chevalier or Barry's fight with
Bullingdon - it's all the more explosive and powerful. Conversely, I find the
film's conclusion, and its sense of unspoken regret, as potent as anything in
Kubrick, despite not a word being said or a tear being shed.
p
Your Pal Brian
> The film's subdued when and where it needs to be; 18th century England, among
> the upper classes, wasn't exactly rollicking.
"Having mentioned laughing, I must particularly warn you against it.... Frequent
and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners; it is the manner
in which the mob express their silly joy at silly things; and they call it being
merry. In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible
laughter. True wit, or sense, never yet made anybody laugh; they are above it, they
please the mind, and give a cheerfulness to the countenance. But it is low
buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always excite laughter; and that is what
people of sense and breeding should show themselves above.... I am neither of a
melancholy nor a cynical disposition, and am as willing and apt to be pleased as
anybody; but I am sure that since I had full use of my reason, nobody has ever
heard me laugh." - Lord Chesterfield to his son
Brian
Darth Nub
Fair enough. I actually do agree with you on FMJ as being the 'worst'
Kubrick movie - I'd be inclined to use the term 'least', though.
That's if you don't count the short films & Fear & Desire (or
Spartacus for that matter).
It's still a great film, but it doesn't have the sheer power of some
of the others, & the imbalance between the two sections does lessen
the impact overall. It peaks too early.
Don't know about misinterpretation - more likely it just went over
some people's heads. You can't really criticise a film for that,
unless it's so unintelligible that no one can understand it.
A Clockwork Orange caused far more extreme misinterpretation, anyway.
As for Barry Lyndon...
OK, it is very slow, very deliberate & at times detached, & just
because it has beautiful cinematography doesn't necessarily make it a
great film.
However, I did find it to be extremely evocative of the period, & I
enjoyed the story itself. Too many period pieces, despite painstaking
attention to detail with art direction & such, still feel like nothing
more than modern people walking through these sets & wearing
old-fashioned clothes. Somehow, Barry Lyndon made it feel like you
were watching the real thing, & it wasn't just the sets & props. The
visual techniques used conveyed the spirit of the times.
I suppose the slowness of it all harkened back to a time where
everything was slower. The use of natural light, particularly in the
candle-lit scenes, removed the slickness of modern films. The frequent
use of slow zooming shots to establish a scene seemed to make one feel
like you were looking at an old painting - zooming keeps the image
very two dimensional, while tracking moves the viewer in three
dimensions.
However, when one puts aside all technical achievements, such as being
able to film with candle-light, whether Barry Lyndon (or most films)
is a good film or not comes down to one's own personal aesthetic
opinions, & that's not really something you can argue.
Darth
TansalQ
> Fair enough. I actually do agree with you on FMJ as being the 'worst'
> Kubrick movie - I'd be inclined to use the term 'least', though.
> That's if you don't count the short films & Fear & Desire (or
> Spartacus for that matter).
I'm afraid I don't agree. FMJ is one of my very favorites.
> It's still a great film, but it doesn't have the sheer power of some
> of the others, & the imbalance between the two sections does lessen
> the impact overall. It peaks too early.
I don't think it peaks too early. I assume you mean Pyle's self-destruction
as the peak. Except that the sniper at the end is a tremendous peak of its
own and a spectacular way to end a film that has been hammering the idea of
masculinity for most of the film, denigrating women as whores meantime.
Contrary to a lot of misogynist criticism levied against Kubrick, including
for this film, I think FMJ is a very strong feminist statement. It seems a
lot of people can't see below the surface of a thing. The entire core of
this film seems to me to be dealing with the empty posturing of manly men
and also their dehumanization in order to be good killers. Both themes are
worked out very ironically and powerfully over the course of the film, and
the second half of the film is ESSENTIAL to a proper understanding of the
first part. Many have suggested that the first part would make a great
short film all by itself, without the "poorer" second half. I suggest that
the first half all by itself would have only been part of the story, and not
nearly as meaningful without the results of the second half. Quite
immediately, just as the viewer is in shock and the completely different
world, so we must understand that the soldiers were not in the slightest
properly prepared for the reality of war, even after all that intensive
training that we went through with them as viewers. I don't want to get too
much into this lest I go on to compose an essay on the matter.
> Don't know about misinterpretation - more likely it just went over
> some people's heads. You can't really criticise a film for that,
> unless it's so unintelligible that no one can understand it.
> A Clockwork Orange caused far more extreme misinterpretation, anyway.
I think EWS is more perplexing than FMJ mainly because EWS deals with far
more private and complicated matters than FMJ, not to say that FMJ is at all
simplistic. Agreed about ACO.
> As for Barry Lyndon...
>
> OK, it is very slow, very deliberate & at times detached, & just
> because it has beautiful cinematography doesn't necessarily make it a
> great film.
I don't think beautiful cinematography alone can do anything to redeem a
film in the mind of a viewer who doesn't respond to the material. The Thin
Red Line is a beautiful film, but an absolute pretentious bore to me. And
none of those pretty shots could do anything to distract me from the
horrible viewing experience I was having.
I happen to like Barry Lyndon, and like it more with each viewing. What I
was suggesting in my previous posts about seeing it on a pristine 35mm print
was that this experience decidedly elevated the film's meaning to a whole
other level of excellence. And the same goes for 2001. I didn't mean to
suggest that the photography was all there was to it, and you either got it
or you didn't. The photography is there to elevate all of the other
wonderful elements of that picture that are already there. Seeing it under
reference conditions heightens the impact and has a collective greatness.
> However, I did find it to be extremely evocative of the period, & I
> enjoyed the story itself. Too many period pieces, despite painstaking
> attention to detail with art direction & such, still feel like nothing
> more than modern people walking through these sets & wearing
> old-fashioned clothes. Somehow, Barry Lyndon made it feel like you
> were watching the real thing, & it wasn't just the sets & props. The
> visual techniques used conveyed the spirit of the times.
There's a lot of sex in this movie too. Two moments that stick out for me
are the opening with the ribbon and the German woman with the baby.
I don't mean to harp on about this, but I never noticed the sexual tension
between Lady Lyndon and Barry during the card game, and outside afterward
when they first kiss, when I'd seen it on a television numerous times. The
image just lacks the necessary detail when reduced to 500 interlaced scan
lines. Perhaps a high-definition television with progressive scan
capabilities produces a more detailed image, I can't say. But seeing it in
a theatre most assuredly communicates the tension between the characters,
and therefore establishes the reason for their marriage beyond plain story
mechanics. I'll also add here that the moment outside, set to Schubert I
believe, plays so slowly that if taken out of context, it can mean nothing.
Scorsese illustrates something by excerpting this scene in his documentary
on American Movies, to show the interplay of framing, music, photography,
acting, choreography. Unfortunately, I think the illustration is lost to
anyone who hasn't already experienced this film properly and in entirety.
> I suppose the slowness of it all harkened back to a time where
> everything was slower. The use of natural light, particularly in the
> candle-lit scenes, removed the slickness of modern films. The frequent
> use of slow zooming shots to establish a scene seemed to make one feel
> like you were looking at an old painting - zooming keeps the image
> very two dimensional, while tracking moves the viewer in three
> dimensions.
Kubrick seems to have been most sensitive in his camerawork in this film,
more than any of his others - which have a generally more dynamic look to
them. Each of the shots seem very precisely framed, every time there is a
zoom it seems entirely appropriate, whenever the camera is handheld it's for
a very violent moment, and the moments where the camera is tracking are
always carefully chosen. This is not to suggest that SK wasn't just as
careful in planning his other films visually, but that he's working in a
subtler idiom with Barry Lyndon. Several moments come to mind right now:
Handheld: BL's boxing, BL's Bullingdon fight, BL's wife's suicide attempt.
Tracking: BL's son clopping into the concert venue in oversized shoes.
Zooming: Too numerous to mention.
Track/Zoom: BL first spies Lady Lyndon in the park, BL's son's funeral.
> However, when one puts aside all technical achievements, such as being
> able to film with candle-light, whether Barry Lyndon (or most films)
> is a good film or not comes down to one's own personal aesthetic
> opinions, & that's not really something you can argue.
Here, here.
Tansal
dc
> Kubrick movie - I'd be inclined to use the term 'least', though.
> That's if you don't count the short films & Fear & Desire (or
> Spartacus for that matter).
I'm afraid I don't agree. FMJ is one of my very favorites.<<<<<<<<<<<
And Spartacus tops my list of favorite films of all time, even though
Kubrick denounced it.
dc
Wordsmith
To use Freudian tropes, *BL*'s topology is polished superego, while
its underbelly is tarnished id.
Sigmundsmith :)
Wordsmith
Art is transcendental.
W :)
Your Pal Brian
> I'll also add here that the moment outside, set to Schubert I
> believe, plays so slowly that if taken out of context, it can mean nothing.
> Scorsese illustrates something by excerpting this scene in his documentary
> on American Movies, to show the interplay of framing, music, photography,
> acting, choreography. Unfortunately, I think the illustration is lost to
> anyone who hasn't already experienced this film properly and in entirety.
>
Marty manages to make every film he excerpts look worse than it actually is. I
don't know how he does it.
And he has a severe case of Brownlow's Disease, the chief symptom of which is
the compulsive desire to make documentaries that give away the endings of movies
the audience probably hasn't seen yet.
The bastard.
Brian
TansalQ
LOL! Yeah, but you gotta love his new American Express commercial...
Tansal
Darth Nub
> On 5/11/03 7:03 AM, "Darth Nub" <gonzo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Fair enough. I actually do agree with you on FMJ as being the 'worst'
> > Kubrick movie - I'd be inclined to use the term 'least', though.
> > That's if you don't count the short films & Fear & Desire (or
> > Spartacus for that matter).
>
> I'm afraid I don't agree. FMJ is one of my very favorites.
You say tomato, I say tomato...
>
> > It's still a great film, but it doesn't have the sheer power of some
> > of the others, & the imbalance between the two sections does lessen
> > the impact overall. It peaks too early.
>
> I don't think it peaks too early. I assume you mean Pyle's self-destruction
> as the peak.
No, not at all - the 'peak' I'm referring to is the entire body of the
first part of the film. It was something different, something new, &
an extremely intense piece of cinema. The second part, in Vietnam,
just seemed to cover more familiar ground. It suffered in comparison
to the first half, not through any fault of its own, just the sheer
power of the first half overshadowing it.
Again - my opinion. When one talks about 'power' in a film, you're
really referring to the subjective impact of it, i.e. what it did for
you.
> > Don't know about misinterpretation - more likely it just went over
> > some people's heads. You can't really criticise a film for that,
> > unless it's so unintelligible that no one can understand it.
> > A Clockwork Orange caused far more extreme misinterpretation, anyway.
>
> I think EWS is more perplexing than FMJ mainly because EWS deals with far
> more private and complicated matters than FMJ, not to say that FMJ is at all
> simplistic. Agreed about ACO.
I think the misinterpretation originally referred to was regarding
violence, that's why I brought up ACO. Most people who hated EWS
didn't understand it & didn't want to. Like 2001, it's the sort of
film that bypasses misinterpretation, as it provokes the development
of your own 'meaning' to the whole thing
>
> > As for Barry Lyndon...
> >
> > OK, it is very slow, very deliberate & at times detached, & just
> > because it has beautiful cinematography doesn't necessarily make it a
> > great film.
>
> I don't think beautiful cinematography alone can do anything to redeem a
> film in the mind of a viewer who doesn't respond to the material. The Thin
> Red Line is a beautiful film, but an absolute pretentious bore to me. And
> none of those pretty shots could do anything to distract me from the
> horrible viewing experience I was having.
(snip)
>
> Tansal
Thin Red Line is a great example - I remember walking out a little bit
confused, then saying to the friend I'd seen it with, "Wait a minute,
that sucked, didn't it?"
It was beautifully shot & well-acted, but there were only so many
times I could watch Jim Caviezel's character look around with that
Jesus Christ look on his face & his voiceover basically saying the
same thing every time, "Why oh why do we do this to each other..."
What really pissed me off was that up to & during the first battle
scene I thought I was in for a 3 hour treat. The pacing leading up to
it was perfect, & the battle started brilliantly - the editing made
the gunfire sound like music, & the soldiers running look like
dancers. That sounds like the testosterone charged gibberish of a war
nut, which I'm NOT - it was simply the cinematic technique that blew
me away.
Unfortunately, the film seemed to go absolutely nowhere after that.
The Thin Red Line has been brought up on AMK before - get ready for
war. Oh why oh why do we do this to each other...
Darth
Darin Boville
> No, not at all - the 'peak' I'm referring to is the entire body of the
> first part of the film. It was something different, something new, &
> an extremely intense piece of cinema. The second part, in Vietnam,
> just seemed to cover more familiar ground. It suffered in comparison
> to the first half, not through any fault of its own, just the sheer
> power of the first half overshadowing it.
[snip]
> Thin Red Line is a great example - I remember walking out a little bit
> confused, then saying to the friend I'd seen it with, "Wait a minute,
> that sucked, didn't it?"
> It was beautifully shot & well-acted, but there were only so many
> times I could watch Jim Caviezel's character look around with that
> Jesus Christ look on his face & his voiceover basically saying the
> same thing every time, "Why oh why do we do this to each other..."
>
> What really pissed me off was that up to & during the first battle
> scene I thought I was in for a 3 hour treat. The pacing leading up to
> it was perfect, & the battle started brilliantly - the editing made
> the gunfire sound like music, & the soldiers running look like
> dancers. That sounds like the testosterone charged gibberish of a war
> nut, which I'm NOT - it was simply the cinematic technique that blew
> me away.
> Unfortunately, the film seemed to go absolutely nowhere after that.
>
> The Thin Red Line has been brought up on AMK before - get ready for
> war. Oh why oh why do we do this to each other...
>
> Darth
Hi Darth,
I don't know how many times you've seen either film, but you fairly
well captured my feelings after seeing both films. The boot camp
portion was rather intense and then you're hanging out in Vietnam.
Then you get the other officer yelling at Joker and it sorta seems
lame in comparison to the first part of the film.
Thin Red Line was the the same in some ways, as you describe.
For me, however, all of these initial "problems" faded away on
subsequent viewings. The break in intensity in FMJ seems purposeful
and well-chosen on later viewings. The confusion and moral ambiguity
of the Vietnam portions seem to mate well with the regimented boot
camp portion.
In Thin Red Line I had hell of a time figuring out which character
was which, who was doing the voice over, etc. Also, I was expecting
something of a war film rather than a meditation on human nature. All
of that was very, very distracting in the first viewing, and hard to
shake at first on #2 and #3. But like FMJ, you sort of get over those
issues and are able to judge it more clearly on its merits. Sometimes
that means you come to love a film you once hated--or the reverse!
(Though I confess I don't see the dancers and music...)
I admit I was slightly (though I wouldn't have admited it at the time)
dissappointed in FMJ. I was expecting something as great as 2001, ACO,
BL, or TS. I was quietly dissappointed, knowing full well that it
would be many years until the next SK film. But FMJ grows. At least
for me it did.
--Darin
Darin Boville
Fine Art Photography and Video
www.darinboville.com
TansalQ
I don't want to seem sacrilegious but all or most of Kubrick's films have
left me on initial viewing with a kind of speechless, opinionless blah
ambiguity. I had no idea what to think or how to process what I just saw.
And what's impressive is how he manages to do this every time. I had been a
fan of 2001 for a long time, then watched Strangelove. Then Clockwork
Orange. I didn't know how to place them. They're different kinds of films
- they're not like Batman or Lethal Weapon or what have you.
What was most impressive for me was that after several viewings, I felt
right at home with all of these films. I rewatched them all with friends
leading up to the release of EWS, and wouldn't you know it - none of us knew
what to make of it that first night. People started comparing EWS
negatively immediately. I couldn't compare it favorably OR unfavorably - I
just had no idea.
I used to think that the first part of FMJ was much better than the second
part, and the first part is undeniably intense and relentless. It still
packs a punch. You're watching all these kids getting their scalps shorn
and suddenly a drill instructor is breathing down your neck - I don't think
I'll ever get used to that no matter how many times I watch it. And that
first scene lasts so long! The structure of the film is so unconventional.
The first bit of voiceover comes in many minutes into the film, and again we
don't hear it for long stretches. (Very judicious use of VO, IMHO.)
The relevance of the second part revealed itself to me only with multiple
viewings, and dare I say it, study. Now I'm of the opinion, which I've
written before, that it is essential to have the second part, and it is the
second part that makes FMJ the classic that it is.
A key thing here that separates Kubrick's films from The Thin Red Line, for
me, is that I didn't dislike, hate, or get bored to tears by any of
Kubrick's films, even if I didn't understand them. They captured my fancy
enough to justify future viewings, or even got real deep under my skin and
festered until I had to see them again. The Thin Red Line did not of these
things for me and was excruciating to sit through. When the film started, I
gave it five minutes to start - but it didn't seem to start. I waited. I
figured, another ten minutes and the film will be under way. A quarter hour
later, I'm still waiting. The film had an aimlessness to it from the get go
and this never shifted for the three-hour duration. Just as I had been
waiting for it to start, I started to wait for it to end.
You and Darth sum up my thoughts pretty well. I had no idea who was who
most of the time, and most of the VO was vacuous pseudo-philosophical mumbo
jumbo - I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone, but this is my opinion. Not only
that, but it all seemed very repetitious, beating one over the head with
these "why oh why" ideas with little or no variation. I've seen parts on TV
since that theatrical experience, and I've never had any problem switching
the channel on that movie, whereas this is an impossibility with a Kubrick
film, and sometimes even with obscure films that appear in the middle of the
night about vampires or whatever. From what I've read about The Thin Red
Line, it was bent out of shape in the editing room and with VO. I wonder
what the original script, as filmed, would have been like if he hadn't
chopped the hell out of it and added the voiceover.
Tansal
Peter Tonguette
>jumbo - I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone, but this is my opinion. Not only
>that, but it all seemed very repetitious, beating one over the head with
>these "why oh why" ideas with little or no variation.
I'm biased, as I think TTRL may be the greatest movie of the '90s, but I don't
get this at all. They may be a lot of things, but I'd never characterize the
voice-overs of Tall or Staros (or, like, the soldier who says in VO, "I killed
a man - and no one can touch me for it") as "pseudo-philosophical"... or even
"philosophical." I guess you're referring to Bell and Witt's voice-overs, but,
as I say, their's hardly constitutes the entirety of the film's vision and,
hell, I don't feel like one needs to apologize for their VO's anyway. Bell's
are largely drawn from extracts of letters to his wife and Witt's seem fully
consistent with his character.
One man's meat...
Darth Nub
> In Thin Red Line I had hell of a time figuring out which character
> was which, who was doing the voice over, etc. Also, I was expecting
> something of a war film rather than a meditation on human nature. All
> of that was very, very distracting in the first viewing, and hard to
> shake at first on #2 and #3. But like FMJ, you sort of get over those
> issues and are able to judge it more clearly on its merits. Sometimes
> that means you come to love a film you once hated--or the reverse!
> (Though I confess I don't see the dancers and music...)
>
That was a slight exaggeration. What I really meant was that as the
battle started, the sound of the gunfire somehow sounded like
drumbeats, & the soldiers running almost seemed choreographed, like in
some sort of huge ballet. It didn't seem fake at all - it was just the
way it was shot & edited, & looked (& sounded) fantastic.
Unfortuantely it made the rest of the film that much more of a
disappointment, wallowing in introspective gibberish.
I probably should see it again, though.
Darth
TansalQ
Perhaps if the VOs were less pervasive, more focused... There so much of it
and the lines that may have had some meaning to contribute to the film were
obscured by all the other lines, serving only to dilute their potency.
Tansal