Author Topic: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons  (Read 75819 times)

Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #110 on: March 02, 2016, 12:53:13 PM »
The Heartbreak Kid (Elaine May, 1972)



Adam & Josh's take

a.k.a. Elaine May's The Graduate.

I'll give you an idea of where I'm going by starting with this : I have a lot of respect for what May is doing here. A lot of what I'll say here was covered by Adam & Josh, but the way she takes on gender roles and especially male entitlement/self-delusion as relating to the American Dream (because why not ?) is impressive. And there's no question that she gets her points across very effectively and pointedly. Much more effectively than The Graduate, by the way, but I guess I'll get to that later since it is part of the New Hollywood marathon (it's mostly because the last shot of this fits with the whole film, as opposed to The Graduate's).

But I kinda hated the first two thirds. It's extremely cringey comedy, and I think Adam brings up a very good point when discussing the differences between this and A New Leaf : that was farce and black comedy, this is social satire and it's too real. Watching Lenny make a fool of himself and his wife was like nails on a chalkboard. Initially I thought it was Grodin's performance as opposed to someone like Matthau, but the last third proved me wrong. As soon as the divorce happens, I was able to enjoy the comedy a lot more, because the only person suffering here was Lenny (mostly). So those dinner scenes, and especially the confrontation with the father afterwards work very well : Eddie Alberts's incredulous delivery of "There is no deceit in the cauliflower ?" is absolutely priceless. Like Adam, I'm a little bothered by Kelly's turnaround on Lenny : the attraction I get, but at all times I expected her to randomly drop out, to mirror how he treated his wife. It seems to me like the wedding has to happen for the ending to work (and it does), but May & Simon never quite got Kelly there.

Really though, that first hour was harder to watch for me than the first part of A Clockwork Orange, and I think that is a significant failure : I never found Lenny remotely close to relatable, and might have just not watched all the way through if I hadn't planned to write a review. The last third is good, but not quite enough to completely redeem the whole experience for me.

5/10

P.S. : I thought Jeannie Berlin was Elaine May the whole time. I assumed she looked older in A New Leaf because of makeup or something.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2016, 04:04:11 PM by Teproc »
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Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #111 on: April 02, 2016, 12:36:44 PM »
Solyaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)



Adam & Sam's take

You know, I really thought I would understand this better the second time around. It certainly didn't feel that way watching it, in part because I was wondering about the ending all the time... regardless, I still loved it.

Yes, it's slow, and long. Compared to Andrey Rublyov, it's also unfocused. But that feels appropriate : there's a reason the guy we follow in this space station is psychologist, not a physicist. The comparison to 2001 is inevitable, but despite their similarities (sci-fi, highly acclaimed director, late 60's-early 70's, thematically ambitious, extremely deliberate pacing), Solyaris is messy where 2001 is controlled through and through. I saw a review about Solyaris saying it would have you reaching for a razor, and... I guess I can see that but completely disagree. If anything I read it as an invitation to appreciate life in all its aspects, though I also have an "optimistic" reading of 2001, so maybe that's my personal tendencies showing more than anything else.

I can't exactly say I have a reading of Solyaris though. I keep coming back to the word "messy", but that's also because its ambitious : it's about love, grief, existential doubt, identity, truth, and of course the implications of "the Contact", as they call it... and I don't feel anything I can say about it would in any way be as satisfying as the experience of watching the film. Those first 40 minutes, which basically serve as an extended prologue, already feature some stuning imagery (see above) and conclude with a very long series of shots from the point of view of a car in traffic that is the epitome of Tarkovsky's style (from, you know, the grand total of thre films I've seen). It's long, and will seem utterly pointless and endlessly frustrating if you're not exactly on the film's wavelength. It's also my favorite sequence of the whole film, making you look at these banal landscapes as if you were, well, completely alien to it (see also : Under the Skin). There's also something which I took to be a mistake on first viewing, but seems too obvious to be unintentional : the use of sudden rain in what is very clearly a sunny day : almost as disconcerting as the rain inside the house at the end, and again making the familiar seem bizarre.

There's a similar scene much later, though much less extreme, where we are just looking at a painting along with a character (literally, since the camera focuses on one specific part of it at a time), which I might call a vacuous attempt at profundity 9 times out of 10, but here it works. Part of it might be that Tarkovsky is not exactly afraid to have his characters actually talk about those themes, yet another technique that can often backfire pretty spectacularily, but works well here : Snaut's birthday party being the main example, especially the points Snaut makes about humans being more interested in infinitely expanding Earth than actually exploring the universe, something that obviously applies to discrete humans as well.

I guess I'll end with my one petty complaint, which is the sound mixing of dialogue, which is just a step above Italian-style dubbing (better synchronized, but still sounds wrong). It works well enough in the first fourty minutes which are meant to feel "off" anyway I think, but detracts a bit from the "sense of dread" Sam was talking about once on the station, because it prevents the kind of complete immersion needed for that.

9/10
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oldkid

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #112 on: April 02, 2016, 04:13:27 PM »
Solyaris:  No matter how great our technology, no matter how far we go into space, no matter what alien races we encounter, in the end it is the space between our ears that creates our environment.

This is why Tarkovsky wanted to answer 2001.  Kubrick and Clarke created a world in which higher life forms and the power of technology and the depth of space changes humanity.  Tarkovsky says no, it is our minds that will change space.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

verbALs

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #113 on: April 02, 2016, 04:24:51 PM »
The Space Baby is a creature of the mind.
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #114 on: April 02, 2016, 04:34:28 PM »
Yeah, I don't think you're being entirely fair to 2001 oldkid, but Solyaris is certainly more interesting in actually exploring the human psyche on a personal level, whereas 2001 stays more theoretical.

Much more succint than I was though, I gotta work on that.
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oldkid

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #115 on: April 02, 2016, 04:52:57 PM »
I think 2001 is a better film than Solyaris, but I think they are intellectually equal.  I am just exploring what I think Tarkovsky was getting at when he said that he felt that 2001 was "cold and sterile" and that he made Solyaris as a response to it.

And the "Space Baby" is the next evolution of humanity, as created by a higher alien life form, according to Clarke who co-wrote the movie.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #116 on: April 02, 2016, 04:58:48 PM »
Huh, I didn't know it was a specific response to it. Obviously I figured it was on his mind but that's interesting, given that the big thing in 2001 is humanity's relation to technology, something that isn't really present in Solyaris. I guess that was your (and his) point, now that I think about it.
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oldkid

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #117 on: April 02, 2016, 05:03:48 PM »
And see, now that I"m thinking about it, I want to compare a number of scenes to 2001.  The long driving scene, where we see a bunch of ugly freeways.  Perhaps not very cinematic, but if they are compared to Kubrick's majestic long takes of spacecraft, we are forced to look at reality instead of some science fiction fantasy, dreamed up by a architect, not someone who lives in a real world.  Solyaris is dirty, complex and sometimes gross, while 2001's space is prestine and just too neat.

Again, I prefer 2001's vision and it is certainly more cinematic.  But I wonder if Solyaris says more about human nature.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #118 on: April 02, 2016, 05:10:27 PM »
Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about that, but Solyaris feels very much like a stepping stone between 2001 and Star Wars in terms of how the space station looks. It still has that white, pristine aspect to it, but like it's... out of order. Not quite the "used" look Star Wars would impose (unless it's earlier ?), but somewhere in between.

I think they're both extremely cinematic and visually arresting, though in different ways. 2001 is a lot more focused and purposeful, but then it has that second part which really brings it down for me (aside from its very last moments). I'd give the edge to Solyaris overall I think.
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oldkid

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #119 on: April 02, 2016, 05:14:05 PM »
My recently-found love of 2001 probably has something to do with that I finally saw it in 70MM.  What a stunning experience.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky