›
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE

Not enough old school film buffs on this forum

2»

Comments

  • MadassAlexMadassAlex
    One foot in front of the other, every day.
    I miss campy traditional takes on the Middle Ages.
  • MyrmidonMyrmidon
    "
    Vertigo"

    "formulaic "

    Get the hell out of here.
  • ThemThem
    Good people don't end up here.
    NEVAH

    Okay, that's a fair point. The first part of Vertigo was formulaic. The second part of Vertigo was not formulaic but it was an enormous pain to watch.
  • ForzareForzare
    Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the last Day.
    Aren't Hitchcock films formulaic because they pioneered said formulas?

    -has only watched Psycho-
  • MillerCrossMillerCross
    You can change. You can.
    Indeed. Psycho was one of the strongest films ever released for its time.

    Mind you, its "Strong and adult material" was stuff like "Showing a couple in the same room" and "Showing a toiler flushing"
  • ThemThem
    Good people don't end up here.
    Be that as it may, it's one thing to pioneer formulas and another to use the same formula repeatedly.
  • MillerCrossMillerCross
    You can change. You can.
    Unless I'm mistaken, there are hardly any similarities between Vertigo and North By Northwest. 

    Anyway,

    l. I respect Citizen Kane for pioneering so many cinematographic techniques, but really, from the storytelling or characterization side of things I really don't understand why it receives so much praise given that it's basically a long way of telling one particular person "I probably would have liked you better when you were a kid."

    A simple theme does not invalidate a marvelous execution. Also, you can easily reduce any plot of any complex work to a relatively un nuanced sentence.

    Like, say, "Girl comes into bar, meets her ex, his ex is still crushin on him, girl leaves him anyway, what a bitch"
  • MadassAlexMadassAlex
    One foot in front of the other, every day.
    "Evil may only succeed while good men do nothing."

    Guess the work.
  • MillerCrossMillerCross
    You can change. You can.
    Black Lord of the Braveheart Rings of Death?
  • MadassAlexMadassAlex
    One foot in front of the other, every day.
    Damn.
  • MillerCrossMillerCross
    You can change. You can.
    Anyway, all I can think of is Edmund Burke's "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"

    /Google fu
  • ThemThem
    Good people don't end up here.
    I wasn't thinking of Vertigo in that case, I was thinking of North by Northwest compared to The 39 Steps and The Man Who Knew Too Much.

    A simple theme does not invalidate a marvelous execution. Also, you
    can easily reduce any plot of any complex work to a relatively un
    nuanced sentence.

    Like, say, "Girl comes into bar, meets her ex, his ex is still crushin on him, girl leaves him anyway, what a bitch"

    I didn't say the execution wasn't marvelous. In fact, I believe I said the opposite - or at least meant to imply that.

    Let me see if I can make my disappointment more concrete, bearing in mind that it's been quite a while since I saw it.
    • I felt like I was supposed to care about who Kane was just because he was rich, famous, and influential. I didn't.
    • The ultimate answer to the driving question "Who was Rosebud?" wasn't much more complex than the paperman's hypotheses. She wasn't a person who represented something important to Kane, she was a sled that represented something important to Kane.
    • If the things Rosebud represented in Kane's mind were so important to him I'd have expected to see more of that inner conflict borne out in his life rather than held tight until he died. I didn't see that Rosebud's significance was foreshadowed.
    • The film seemed to want to be a deep character analysis of someone
      who wasn't really a deep character. Or who was supposed to be a deep character but whom I didn't find portrayed that way. I think that may be the underlying reason for both of the previous two points.
  • MillerCrossMillerCross
    edited 2011-12-29 18:03:31
    You can change. You can.
    I felt like I was supposed to care about who Kane was just because he was rich, famous, and influential. I didn't.

    I found that this actually worked for me. There was this dead person who provided us with a mystery, so I watched thinking "What motivated this person? What put it in the spot where he is today?"

    The ultimate answer to the driving question "Who was Rosebud?" wasn't much more complex than the paperman's hypotheses. She wasn't a person who represented something important to Kane, she was a sled that represented something important to Kane.

    I don't see how an answer being simple harms the narrative

    The film seemed to want to be a deep character analysis of someone who wasn't really a deep character.

    Hardly. The film is about perceptions and the lives people lead when choice is out of the question. Kane had no choice but to become who he was, as his own parents took his very childhood and themselves away from him. 

    If the things Rosebud represented in Kane's mind were so important to him I'd have expected to see more of that inner conflict borne out in his life rather than held tight until he died. I didn't see that Rosebud's significance was foreshadowed.

    What the movie studies and shows us, through the statements of the witnesses of Kane's life and behaviour, is the person who Kane wanted to show the world in order to avoid other people looking at the pain that was building up inside him. I'd say that it's rather believable, taking into account that the story that is in our hands is told by other people who never got to actually know the real Kane. 

    In fact, I'd say that the true beauty of the movie is that Kane is a character that is pretty ripe to interpretation and yet so simplistic in his desires and ways.

    I didn't say the execution wasn't marvelous. In fact, I believe I said the opposite - or at least meant to imply that.

    You referred only to the technical aspect of the film, but I feel that the script is just as good as the direction behind it.
  • ThemThem
    Good people don't end up here.
    I will happily defer to your more experienced analysis, but I'm afraid it doesn't actually improve how I think of the film. Maybe I'll watch it again some time, in which case I'll try to keep your thoughts in mind, but...
  • MillerCrossMillerCross
    You can change. You can.
    Eh, you don't have to agree. But it still bothers me when people criticize Kane for it not being 

    A) not the best movie ever

    and

    B) as tight as they expected.

    Mostly because coming onto such a movie and actually expecting it to the hype is bound to make you like it less. 
  • BeeBee
    edited 2011-12-29 22:26:52
    I don't by any stretch consider myself any sort of film buff, much less an old school one, but the fact that I had to explain who Buster Keaton was to someone older than me made me sadface.

    The poetic beauty of this of course is that Buster Keaton provides quite a good many sadfaces.


    • Sign In or Register to comment.