Author Topic: Respond to the last movie you watched  (Read 684433 times)

smirnoff

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3070 on: February 02, 2019, 08:33:49 PM »
While arguably I'd take a "take whatever dumb risks you want" approach to single men, I tend to have an empathic lacuna where the men have family responsibilities. At that point I become outright hostile to risk takers at even far less extreme risks than this one. As someone who longs to have a family, to see people who have one put it at risk over something functionally meaningless gets to me. Alex does not have a kid but the film focuses a lot on a developing relationship with Stephanie McCandless. That she shares a last name with someone else whose grand ambitions relating to nature ended in tragedy was not lost on me. There are moments where you see where Alex could be appealing but there are many that weigh against that. In response to the death of another free solo climber, he callously says of his widow "she knew what to expect," suggesting Stephanie should be perfectly ready to deal with his death. But while I might chide him, I too judge her a bit along those lines. Here's a guy who basically tells you to your face that he loves his climbing more than he loves you. I know jealousy is an ugly emotion, but I think I'd want to keep myself clear of that set-up for emotional disaster.

Great review, and I love your thoughts here on a tricky topic.

Would you nominate it for Cinematography? I haven't seen it... but I watched some Netflix mountain climbing doc called Mountain, which I thought was pretty staggering so nominated that. I imagine this is very similar. But it's kind of a question of whether the difficulty and extremes of capturing the footage is factor to be taken into account. And if it is, how do you compare the apples to the oranges, since no other movie would be anywhere near as extreme?

Given your thoughtful and honest reaction above, I would love to hear your feelings on Deep Water, which is a story that falls into slightly more grey territory. It's still a "man with family responsibilities", taking "risk over something functionally meaningless", but there are mitigating factors which put a different spin on the issue. Maybe you've already seen it. They're adapting it to film... Colin Firth to play Crowhurst. I'm pretty skeptical about it.

Bondo

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3071 on: February 02, 2019, 09:00:52 PM »
My review of Deep Water:
Quote
Not that sailing around the world is any worse than climbing a big mountain, but I have some problem investing in the stakes of a big johnson measuring contest. Oh sure, many sell this as some noble exploration of the capacity of man to accomplish or to tame the world. To me it is just pointless risk for pride’s sake. Touching The Void overcomes this problem through quality storytelling but Deep Water can’t quite match that. They do have various documents of Don and the other sailors but it isn’t quite like having first person narration. And I guess making matters worse is that Don was such a novice with a family which makes the whole venture that much more irrational and unsympathetic. These guys just have a mindset I cannot comprehend.

Re Mountain vs. Free Solo...I rarely think about tech stuff so I guess I don't recall Mountain's cinematography well enough to compare directly...I do remember not liking it as a documentary. The cinematography of Free Solo was reasonably safe...shots from the ground, drones, fixed cameras placed by roped climbers or, in other spots, just roped climbers operating alongside him. The presence of the cameras/people figures in somewhat heavily in the discussions. It's not a case where he has a Go Pro strapped to his head or anything.

smirnoff

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3072 on: February 02, 2019, 09:40:45 PM »
I'm surprised. You seem harsher, or at least more certain in your condemnation of Crowhurst, is that fair to say?

Don't you find Crowhurst more pitiable than Alex? Most of all because I think he was genuinely naive to how dangerous it really was. And then he got caught up in momentum of the event and the crowds. And then the financial obligations also came into play... so by the time he saw things more clearly it was difficult to turn back. That's the narrative the doc tends to embrace anyways, and I guess I'm choosing to accept that as true. It seems like it could be.

Whereas Alex is under no illusions about how dangerous his climbing is. So he's taking on the same or greater risks than Donald, and doing it 100% freely and consciously.

smirnoff

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3073 on: February 02, 2019, 09:45:10 PM »
Re Mountain vs. Free Solo...I rarely think about tech stuff so I guess I don't recall Mountain's cinematography well enough to compare directly...I do remember not liking it as a documentary. The cinematography of Free Solo was reasonably safe...shots from the ground, drones, fixed cameras placed by roped climbers or, in other spots, just roped climbers operating alongside him. The presence of the cameras/people figures in somewhat heavily in the discussions. It's not a case where he has a Go Pro strapped to his head or anything.

Yeah, I don't think Mountain is a particular good doc either. I guess I'm just amazed by lengths they went to to capture stuff. Roped or not... I just find it absolutely insane what people are willing to do, and what they're capable of... all to capture someone else's story. Wild stuff.

Bondo

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3074 on: February 02, 2019, 10:16:41 PM »
Well, Alex is a legit great climber, which like you say isn't applicable to Crowhurst as a sailor. Also, a girlfriend is not a wife and kids.

ProperCharlie

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3075 on: February 03, 2019, 03:31:25 AM »
Smultronstället (1957) aka Wild Strawberries
Victor Sjostrom is having bad dreams. A simple demonstration of how walls are built to protect ourselves from others and their drawbacks. Using a road trip to revisit the events that have changed him, the lead character avoids the ‘mental masturbation’ of psychology. Each scene impacts on him as he leans back and looks out of the car windows, reflecting. Amazing acting and directing filling the screen with quiet melancholy, regret and the profundity of making peace with one’s own life. Quite the most beautiful journey through a Swedish summer.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
J.K. Rowling expands her franchise into the political machines of early 20th New York and the desire to catch ‘em all. When the world of Harry Potter first appeared on our screens it was filled with colour. The trains were Gryffindor red, the fields Slytherin green. By the final two episodes, it had become night, illuminated only by wand-white sparklers and populated by grey-shrouded witches. The skies of New York inherit that monotone pallor and bring forth rain. They joy has gone. Only blandness remains.

Roma (2018)
Alfonso Cuaron grounds life in the rituals of cleaning and care as slowly ticking grenades at the core of a family and a country wait to detonate. While riding out the waves of chaos, it’s often wise to focus on the details in life. The clarity of black and white cinematography allows an intimate view into the detail only momentarily allowing the bigger pictures to surge through like the tide. When it arrives, the catharsis is deadened by the central character’s sheer ability to cope and continue. Beautifully done in every respect.

The Cockleshell Heroes (1955)
José Ferrer proves to be tone deaf when it comes to sacrifice and military discipline. On the one hand a Boy’s Own rollicking war adventure with a soupcon of Carry On farce, on the other a dramatic re-enactment of a real WWII commando raid with all the resulting loss of life that entrails. Clunky, unbelievable and in poor taste, Ferrer is out of his depth without canoe, wet-suit or snorkel. Amongst the laughable miniature work and perfunctory set design, it is well-paced and incidentally tense. Not often enough to make it worth while.

после смерти (1915) aka After Death
Isolated Andrei discovers that too much love isn’t necessarily a good thing. A still film. Not only is there little action in this film, there’s very little movement either. There is much staring at interesting things off-screen, occasionally in a wheat-field. The cold and clammy fingers of Death claim not only the women in Andrei’s live, but inveigle their way through the lens and into the celluloid as well. Tableaux mourants. The composition may be haunting, but the obsessive moping brings a rare touch of farce to a tragedy.

Split (2016)
Emotional trauma is the origin of super-villainy according to M. Night Shyamalan. While this is an admirably low-key approach to the super-origin story, it’s also dangerous and delicate ground to tread. This veers too far towards ham-fisted handling of its subject matter, saving its subtlety for the revelation of the monster inside. There’s a degree of sympathy voiced by several of the characters, but inevitably the voices in the Horde arguing for restraint are drowned out by the director-driven narrative imperative from the outset.

Behind the Screen (1916)
Charlie Chaplin performs a slapstick cavalcade. There’s nothing like a backstage set comedy to get all the classic slapstick moments into a two-reeler. If you need a trapdoor gag or a pie-fight in your life, this is for you. This is all about Charlie’s physical performance skills and charm. Throwing in Edna Purviance cross-dressing in dungarees and some questionable commentary on labour relations in the film industry and it’s 25 minutes of escape from the grim bits of the world outside.

東京流れ者 (1966) aka Tokyo Drifter - Rewatch
Seijun Suzuki boils the yakuza thriller down to its fundamentals and keeps boiling. Reduced almost to abstraction and hanging together by the sinews of a plot, he throws some of the most stylistic and bold visuals at the screen. Big chunks of primary colours. Snow drifts. The ennui of loyalty in a world of cool. A 1960s ronin with his own folk song motif and uniform. This is a dramatic directorial statement, the Mondrian of yakuza eiga, but I would happily sit and watch a yakuza film set in the grainy black and white pre-credit world.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Doug Liman enjoys repeatedly killing an actual height Tom Cruise. It’s Groundhog Day again. Essentially a dumb militaristic action film masquerading as something cleverer. The film is trapped in an eternal recurrence of previous events until the plot riddle can be solved and destroyed with major ordnance. Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise get to enjoy a romance based on mutual fulfilment of their primal death urges, frequently involving tentacles. Enjoyable and aware of its own ridiculousness.

Puce Moment (1944)
Kenneth Anger raids his grandmother’s wardrobe for a moment in the sun. A dress, a splash of perfume, some fake eyelashes and we’re transported into a dream of 1920s Hollywood glamour. It’s hard to repress the sheer stuttering excitement this simple sequence of actions inspires in Anger. As his star reclines on a bed, she dreams of the past. So does the man behind the camera, projecting his fantasies figuratively and literally while toying with the film speed for that hand-cranked look.

Europa Report (2013)
Sebastian Cordero utilises the professionalism of a crew of astronauts to extract the terror from a mission gone disastrously wrong. The lack of a score and the low-budget found footage camerawork don’t help. It’s the flat affect and lack of reaction of a crew of scientists working on out the way forward when faced with catastrophe that kills the drama. It’s well constructed and paced. A truly interesting experiment. Leaving the audience to insert its own stomach-clenching with no cues needs revision.

« Last Edit: February 03, 2019, 03:37:58 AM by ProperCharlie »

valmz

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3076 on: February 03, 2019, 09:50:00 AM »
The centerpiece of Free Solo is a once-ever event where cameramen mostly couldn't be present, so if it were to be the best cinematography it would make all of the other potential winners look like chumps: You had as long as you wanted to prepare, and as many tries as you wanted, and you still failed?!?!?

The other major climbing film that is far better and far better cinematographed would be the better contender (The Dawn Wall). That team had the time and ability to set up extensive and first-of-their-kind systems to get the shots and the ability to try different things and go for aesthetic shots over simply the most efficient shot - and they were up there on and off for the better part of a decade as the project progressed. They talk a bit about this at 5:40 in the clip below. In Free Solo they get one shot, and they're basically just doing the same kind of expedition photography they would do on any one-time climb.

The Dawn Wall (making of)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk9-HLJPm6w&t=47s

Bondo

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3077 on: February 03, 2019, 10:48:17 AM »
Is context irrelevant to cinematography?

philip918

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3078 on: February 03, 2019, 02:03:58 PM »
Great little write-ups, Charlie. This made me laugh out loud:

Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise get to enjoy a romance based on mutual fulfilment of their primal death urges, frequently involving tentacles.

valmz

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Re: Respond to the last movie you watched
« Reply #3079 on: February 03, 2019, 03:28:59 PM »
Is context irrelevant to cinematography?
I think it's relevant, like how in Mountain it's basically just a show-reel of Renan Ozturk's various footage around the world that wasn't intended for any film at all and doesn't cohere into anything of-itself. If you're talking about context being relevant to cinematography, then Jimmy Chin and the aforementioned Renan's efforts as a team on Meru should have been in consideration, not Jimmy and his team's work on Free Solo. Free Solo was about as easy a day out as those guys will ever have. Jimmy and Renan almost died while climbing (and failing before trying again) an unclimbed Himalayan peak - and managing to photograph it, as well.

The cinematography on Free Solo isn't the star of the film, and it's certainly not a crowning achievement of adventure photography. Simple as  that.

 

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