Author Topic: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons  (Read 75841 times)

pixote

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #250 on: October 19, 2016, 05:16:11 PM »
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari / The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)

Which score did you watch it with?

I liked the film slightly more than you on my recent rewatch.

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Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #251 on: October 20, 2016, 03:23:38 AM »
I think we're on the same page for the most part. As to the music, Giuseppe Becce is credited on the back of the DvD so I assume it's the original score.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #252 on: October 20, 2016, 05:04:21 AM »
The Grave of the Fireflies scene is the montage, set to an old Japanese tune, where we see images of Setsuko in and around the bunker while Seita is away... we see her eating "rice balls" made of mud but also just play around... It's the film in a nutshell : playful childish innocence wrapped in heart-wrenching tragedy, and with the music... it's where I break down.

Great, now I'm crying too.
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Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #253 on: October 24, 2016, 04:44:21 AM »
Robinson Crusoe (Luis Bunuel, 1954)



Adam & Josh's takes (starts at 1:15:42)

Robinson Crusoe as adapted by Luis Bunuel ? Sounds crazy right ? As it turns out, it really isn't that crazy or weird, it's just bad. Bunuel is obviously completely uninterested in a story of survival and overcoming one's limitations, which would be fine if he had more to say that "aren't Victorian ideals dumb and hypocritical ?", and I have a hard time seeing anything more in his satire here. Adam & Josh make it sound like Bunuel is being a lot more subtle that it seemed to me : I don't think you could possibly watch this and not realize its subversion of the material, if only because there is nothing of interest here other than Bunuel taking cheap shots at Robinson over and over again. They might be deserved, but because Robinson is never a character here, it's just that : cheap.

Visually, it looks like a badly colorized episode of Gilligan's Island, and that's perhaps its biggest crime. Un chien andalou and L'âge d'or work because they're interesting to look at, and this is only interesting in the sense that it's ridiculously awful. Part of what makes Bunuel's satire feel hollow here is that it lacks that edge, that unsettling feeling. I suppose one could argue that the dismal production values provide another type of surrealism to this film, but that seems like being overly charitable just because it's Bunuel, to me.

Dan O'Herlihy's performance is probably in the running for the worst performance to ever be nominated for Best Actor : even by silent film standards he'd be hamming it up, and everything he does is underlined by one of the most egregiously redundant uses of voice-over narration I've seen. He gets more tolerable once Friday shows up, in part because the voice-over is less present but also because his buffoonery now has something to be played against... but that's also where such "subtle" bits of interaction such as "You, Friday. Me, Master. Friends" come up.

I wish I had found something in Robinson's finding of religion, but again there's the problem of Robinson never being given any character in the first place : perhaps if Bunuel had cared even a little bit about portraying those first days of survival instead of skipping it and just cutting to Robinson having settled in a relatively comfortable lifestyle... the film is only interested in mocking and ridiculing him, which is ineffective because I was never brought to care about him in any way whatsoever. That is probably the core failing of the film, both Bunuel's of O'Herlihy's.

2/10
« Last Edit: October 24, 2016, 03:23:33 PM by Teproc »
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #254 on: October 24, 2016, 09:35:00 AM »
Yea, I found it pretty unbearable, and I love the book.

oldkid

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #255 on: October 24, 2016, 02:28:11 PM »
Okay, well that's enough to give me courage to avoid it.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #256 on: October 24, 2016, 03:17:33 PM »
All the other Bunuel I've seen is more worthy of your time.

MartinTeller

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #257 on: October 24, 2016, 10:53:52 PM »
The entirety of my review from 2004 is: "Adequate adaptation, but nothing to write home about.  Or blog about.  Rating: 6"

I'd completely forgotten it was in color.

Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #258 on: October 25, 2016, 02:21:09 AM »
The entirety of my review from 2004 is: "Adequate adaptation, but nothing to write home about.  Or blog about.  Rating: 6"

I'd completely forgotten it was in color.

I saw that and was wondering what you had found adequate about it (maybe you weren't as put off by O'Herlihy as I was), but I'm guessing it's been too long for you to remember specifics.

If anything, the color makes it look cheaper, somehow.
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MartinTeller

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #259 on: October 25, 2016, 08:37:59 AM »
Yeah I don't remember much at all.