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Author Topic: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time  (Read 50776 times)

Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #140 on: April 19, 2020, 11:12:08 PM »
My apologies I misunderstood, I also agree about Gosling he's very good especially in the newer BLADE RUNNER. Everything Villeneuve does I really love, DUNE I have high expectations for

No need to apologize, basically anything 4 and above I'm really high on, 3.5 I quite like, 3 I like but am relatively unenthusiastic about it. I'm with you on Villeneuve, I'm a pretty big fan. Dune is both one of my most anticipated and feared releases of the year. I truly think if any modern film-maker can do it, he can. But can any modern film-maker actually do it? I'm just finishing the book for the first time, and I think he can, but it's pretty massive. I can't wait to see the worms with modern tech!
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #141 on: April 20, 2020, 12:15:41 AM »
Nashville
ROBERT ALTMAN, 1975
4.5 STARS OUT OF 5

This is a massive, sprawling film about flawed people and America that can be dissected in so many words, but also has the trait of a lot of my favorite cinema: It's essentially unspeakable. It's something you have to melt into, or otherwise be a fly on the wall. You'll do your share of hanging out and watching some great musical performance; and that's even if you don't like country, as I'm not a fan and thought the performances were wonderful. To the meaning of what you're seeing in any one frame, words can only do so much, but it's nothing like justice. Everyone is connected, everyone matters, even that studio musician with the raggedy, curly black hair putting in a half-assed effort to Haven Hamilton's incredibly jingoistic new jam, he's representing something there. It may just be the weary soul of a country playing the same song over and over, trying to convince itself of its worthiness, but it's something.

The ensemble cast is dizzyingly good, and Altman seems to capture each person's essence, their hopes, dreams, and failures. You have your country stars and their crews, your older generation good ol' boys like Haven (Henry Gibson) with their simple, American-loving moral transmissions. Your new-jacks are looking for themselves and failing at love. You have the amazing Lily Tomlin as Linnea Reese, a family, woman, mom, and oh by the way, a mammoth of a gospel singer, who doesn't have much of a place in the morally spurious Nashville - but she dips her toe in, nonetheless. Then, there's the BBC reporter, serving as a one-woman critique of the media, butting in on everyone's conversations and creating narratives that suit her BBC audience, monologuing to her tape-recorder in a school bus yard about the poor black and white children of Nashville. Jeff Goldblum, on that crazy motorcycle, just showing up and doing his magic tricks for whoever will pass by, mad hipster of the 70's. Let's not forget Shelly Duval as L.A. Joan; if you want to know the definition of "scenester", pay attention to her, popping up everywhere, and knowing exactly what? About anything? But she's still great. None of this is to glorify or hold any one character up on a pedestal. They are all incredibly flawed, and Altman hones in on that; as I said, each individual's essence. The only problematic detail might be the conservative stance taken on the stripping via the Suleen Gaye character, who can't sing so agrees to do a strip tease for a political fundraiser. It verges on slut-shaming, but never goes quite so far. Ultimately, Altman is hitting a ridiculously high percentage in succeeding with each successive scene.

The political satire here is inscrutable to me from a 1975 perspective, since I was -7 years old then, but it certainly echoes on into our modern age. After all, Hal Phillip Walker is the "Replacement Party" presidential candidate, and Trump's appeal to the outsider is similar, if the policies aren't. Like Trump, Walker is preying on people's reflexive attitudes on political insiders, painting Congress as a bunch of lawyers who lie for a living. He also plays on people's jingoism, stating he'd replace the current national anthem with something that touches people's hearts and expresses a true love of America. On the other hand, he wants to abolish the Electoral College, which is a reformist position taken up most often on the left. A Pew Research poll just last month showed that 58% of Americans favor replacing the Electoral College with popular vote. Not to get too in the weeds on the political stuff I love, but what Walker appeals most to in the film is to shake-up and reform Washington, something I think is perpetually desired by the populace. At times, the satire seems wedged into the film, but for good reason in that a hell of a lot of people don't care about politics and just want to hear the singers sing. None of the stars want anything overtly to do with Hal Phillip Walker, except maybe Haven, who gets buttered up over the course of the picture. The finale at the political rally can be interpreted in a number of ways. In a simple way, it's the will in our country for the next person to pick up the mic and keep the show going. But that's way simple. It also shows the strange interaction between politics, culture, and everyday life, and how, when they merge, situations can become highly volatile. The idyllic America many like to imagine, some almost unconsciously, can shatter under such pressure, but the power of art and music transcending any rhetoric a politician may offer is shown by the time we tilt up into the blue sky, and out.

This one has been a big surprise for me thus far in the marathon. I didn't know what to expect, and I got a masterfully crafted film incorporating so many elements I love in picture, including an emphasis on time and place over narrative. It's massive, observational, smart, witty, empathetic, gorgeous to look at, fun, sensual, and perhaps even a bit angry, and maybe a bit more. One I will definitely revisit.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2020, 01:21:15 AM by etdoesgood »
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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #142 on: April 20, 2020, 12:00:45 PM »
This is an old review and while Nashville didn't make my Top 100, it is one of my Essentials.

Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #143 on: April 21, 2020, 04:45:55 AM »
La Grande Illusion
JEAN RENOIR, 1937
2.5 STARS OUT OF 5

I've been thinking that I'm not scrutinizing war films as I used to, and here's one ripe to pick on. In the past, I shunned war films completely, under the belief that they all glorified war. I'm not a dove, my foreign policy beliefs may surprise you in fact, but it's ugly, shitty, and gory, and most war films fail to capture that. Most recently, I've signed off on 1917 and Dunkirk, the former where I still saw a number of flaws, the latter one I bought into because of how dramatically it captured a nearly hopeless situation where men were slaughtered as they were caught between the ocean and the theater of war. But for all of that, it overemphasized the heroics and assigned narrative to an atrocity and absurdity, however intriguingly plotted and told. Well, with Le Grande Illusion, a virtually bloodless WWI film about French officers captive in German POW camps, who face about as many hardships as people quarantining during COVID-19, there is actually little illusion that it has all that much interesting to say on war.

Of course, you have your honor between high-ranking officers on each side. Once the French officers we're following end up at a giant, seemingly inescapable castle, you have Captain Boeldieu and Captain von Rauffenstein from the French and German sides making friendly. While Boeldieu ultimately still helps two of his countrymen, Marechal and Rosenthal, escapes, it is Boeldieu by his hospital bed once they are gone. They wax poetic on the meaninglessness of their stations and deaths, but their portrayal contradicts their words. They seem to make plenty of meaning out of their stations in life, out of their duties, especially Boeldieu, as von Rauffenstein is a bit more jaded. Yet, they mourn the end of "their kind", you know, decent, upright, aristocratic.

It may have been done unwittingly, but if this film does anything properly in its wartime commentary, it's explore at least one side of the class divide. The French officers in their camps aren't living the high life, but they can receive packages, eat decently, drink, smoke, and at least in the first camp, put on plays. While we never see what happens to the enlistees when they're captured - if they are captured as opposed to simply disposed of - we can certainly imagine they do not have it so good. As well, the German and French officers get on decently when the former are acting in line, because there is a mutual respect between them due to their station in the military, and likely also in life. It's as if they've gotten through the formalities - capture and detain - and now everyone can get on sharing their stories. The officers we follow work diligently to escape, but there are probably a billion people on this planet that wouldn't mind the consistent, if poor, meals, shelter, clean water, and a yard to play in.

And truly, this film does not even boast memorable characters, as you might expect. The humor is a bit dated, though I rarely find the type of physical, pun-ny humor found in this film to be funny. Mostly, the officers just behave like captive officers might. When Marechal and Rosenthal finally escape the camp, there's the opportunity for them to be developed, but it truly never is to be. Instead, Marechal forms a relationship with a lone German farmer, Elsa, who lost her husband in the war and is terribly lonely, and all sorts of sentimentality ensues. Rosenthal is basically just there to translate and play an uncle type with her daughter Lotte. They bicker, they part ways, they come back together, sure, there is that. There is the sense that they've been companions through an ordeal. Yet, besides getting back stories from our characters early in the film when they are all made captive together, you don't truly get to know them. Solid, interesting characters might have made the film a little easier to like. These felt a little too stock.

If there's anything I latched onto here, it's the portrayal of the bonds made between people in a common situation, and it's all competently shot and edited. We may not get to know the characters in the meaningful way that makes the best cinema, but there is something beautiful in their banning together to maintain their French identity and try to build a community in the confines of a prison, however generously that prison is conducted. The scene where they all play flutes to distract the German officers, so that some may escape, is funny and heartening. This is also where Boeldieu has his finest moment, playing his flute and dancing along the outside walls of the castle-prison, an elegant distraction that is a great piece of choreography and defiance. Were you just to analyze this film based on mise-en-scene, you'd likely come up with a much different outcome than I did. Me, I'm more concerned with themes, plot, and character.

If war isn't romanticized here, it's certainly not put to any real meaningful test. There is a sense of common humanity between the officers, but it's hard to truly empathize with anyone in the film. So many people died in World War I, and if 1917 did anything right, it was to show the bodies strewn throughout the battlefield. Here, there's little sense of the horrors of war, and that is a huge problem, indeed. There is way too much talking without saying anything meaningful, and ultimately this lacks the substance of a great story worth telling.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2020, 05:42:22 AM by etdoesgood »
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Teproc

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #144 on: April 21, 2020, 05:03:43 AM »
I'll admit I'm taken aback byt his. To see La grande illusion as soft on war is to profoundly miss the point of it. Renoir doesn't depict how horrible war is because he's living in a world where everyone knows what war is. WW1 was 20 years ago, he doesn't need to show you the gory stuff, everyone knows someone in their family who has lived through it, and beside he couldn't really show it to you even if he wanted to. Instead, what Renoir explores are the reasons behind the war. War is bad, we know that, yet we do it anyway. Why? Because some people are evil, and some people are good. This is the "Grand Illusion" of the title, and the one that Renoir wants to dispel, by making this pacifist plea for brotherood between people, and more specifically the French and German people, at a time where war seems once again inevitable.

He does all this through what is essentially an adventure film, but he does nothing to glorify war at all. He finds dignity in people trying to be free, which has very little to do with being a soldier.

The humour is what it is, and I get not liking this stylistically or thinking it's too naive or doesn't work on another level. But it certainly doesn't suffer of the war movie problem Truffaut describes in his famous quote. You mention Dunkirk and 1917, and both of those movies are about a million times softer on the idea of war than this is. I really like Dunkirk, but there is a degree of romanticism in Nolan's view of these soldier's story that Renoir wouldn't touch, probably because he's actually lived through one.

Compare and contrast with 1917, which is a theme park version of war, a safe version for you to experience and marvel at from the comfort of your movie theater/cinema room... I found that to be much more problematic than this extremely well-intentioned film, but I guess that's another question.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2020, 05:06:50 AM by Teproc »
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #145 on: April 21, 2020, 05:34:31 AM »
I'll admit I'm taken aback byt his. To see La grande illusion as soft on war is to profoundly miss the point of it. Renoir doesn't depict how horrible war is because he's living in a world where everyone knows what war is. WW1 was 20 years ago, he doesn't need to show you the gory stuff, everyone knows someone in their family who has lived through it, and beside he couldn't really show it to you even if he wanted to. Instead, what Renoir explores are the reasons behind the war. War is bad, we know that, yet we do it anyway. Why? Because some people are evil, and some people are good. This is the "Grand Illusion" of the title, and the one that Renoir wants to dispel, by making this pacifist plea for brotherood between people, and more specifically the French and German people, at a time where war seems once again inevitable.

Either I missed the point or I didn't think the point was made. Obviously, I believe the latter. There is no deep exploration on the reasons behind war here, the philosophy behind this film is weak. The point on living in a world where everyone knows what war is gives Renoir a good deal of slack. While I do appreciate some of the bond-building in the film, the overall effect of condemning war through a brotherhood of white French officers and somewhat with their white German officers is unconvincing.

Your latter comments on both 1917 and Dunkirk are well-taken. I got taken in by style where substance lacked in both, to differing degrees. Those are films worth revisiting, and opinions potentially worth revising. Your point on Truffaut, though a conclusion I came to myself before I knew who Truffaut was, especially as a former pacifist, is understood but I certainly disagree. Everything in this film is too polite, too naive to be a real take on war. Just reading up on him, he certainly saw war and even took a bullet, so there is purpose to what he did, but I feel as a viewer I have to evaluate whether he satisfied that purpose, and I definitely do not. Just reading his experience, I'm actually surprised he made such a film.

Quick Note/Modification: The most effective war movie I've seen, maybe ever, was when I got to The Spirit of the Beehive. Your only interaction with a combatant is a wounded soldier who a little girl takes for a spirit, helps, and then is unceremoniously discarded in the dead of night. The psychological effect of such an event is written all over both the father and the little girl through a wordless interaction at breakfast where he plays the song on the watch that was originally his and came from the dead soldier's pocket. Killing without discrimination and the psychological damage that reverberates from war is to me a much more effective way to demonstrate what war is than what I saw in La Grande Illusion.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2020, 05:42:51 AM by etdoesgood »
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Teproc

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #146 on: April 21, 2020, 07:11:33 AM »
What do you think of the scene towards the end (spoilers, I suppose), where Jean Gabin, on his way to Switzerland, is hosted by a German woman? This, along with the sort of friendship that forms between Gabin and von Stroheim, is the crux of the film's pacifist message, to me.

Re: the "politeness" of war, what are your thoughts on how this aspect of officers dealing with each other (because yes, there is also a lot in here about class relations) in this versus in Colonel Blimp?

To be clear, though I don't think La Grande Illusion is aiming to depict war in the sense of making the spectator experience it, I also don't believe that a war movie has to be dark and gritty, necessarily. This takes place in prisoner camps, where conditions varied wildly from one place to the other. As I recall, the film does get into that somewhat. But again, I don't think this is meant to be a depiction of how terrible war is (again, I don't think Renoir would have deemed it necessary to make that point), rather a reflexion on how pointless it is, which was a much more trenchant inssue in 1938.

I apologize if the tone of my previous comment seemed a bit aggressive, by the way, it does read that way looking at it now. I just think that, whatever the aesthetic faults of the film might be, its ethos is pretty clear to me.
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #147 on: April 21, 2020, 04:10:24 PM »
What do you think of the scene towards the end (spoilers, I suppose), where Jean Gabin, on his way to Switzerland, is hosted by a German woman? This, along with the sort of friendship that forms between Gabin and von Stroheim, is the crux of the film's pacifist message, to me.

With Elsa and Marechal, I thought it was kind of a predictable romance between a lonely woman and a man that needed her. That time period at her house is portrayed sentimentally and not very interesting. With the two captains, and I think you mean von Stroheim and Fresnay, like I said, I thought it said more about privilege and status transcending nationality, not necessarily a brotherhood that transcends nationality.

Re: the "politeness" of war, what are your thoughts on how this aspect of officers dealing with each other (because yes, there is also a lot in here about class relations) in this versus in Colonel Blimp?

This came to mind while I wrote about La Grande Illusion, wondering if my love for one and dislike of the other was contradictory. Maybe it is, to an extent. However, I favor Blimp because it's a satire, so you can get away with a mock war exercise where "War begins at midnight!" because it's clearly lampooning Candy's polite and orderly view of war. Although he's ultimately a sympathetic figure, he's also a tragi-comic one, giving his life to the military that makes a sucker out of him. You further see the consequences of war through Theo, who is forced out of his country, and who has lost his two sons, the only remaining connections to his beloved wife he met through Candy, to the Nazis. But ultimately, I think it works on the level of satire, as well as a great character study with a challenging and believable central friendship.

To be clear, though I don't think La Grande Illusion is aiming to depict war in the sense of making the spectator experience it, I also don't believe that a war movie has to be dark and gritty, necessarily. This takes place in prisoner camps, where conditions varied wildly from one place to the other. As I recall, the film does get into that somewhat. But again, I don't think this is meant to be a depiction of how terrible war is (again, I don't think Renoir would have deemed it necessary to make that point), rather a reflexion on how pointless it is, which was a much more trenchant inssue in 1938.

I apologize if the tone of my previous comment seemed a bit aggressive, by the way, it does read that way looking at it now. I just think that, whatever the aesthetic faults of the film might be, its ethos is pretty clear to me.

You're right, definitely not meant to make a spectator experience, and that's OK if it's really a reflection on its pointlessness. I just don't get that from La Grande Illusion in any strong way. As far as making a war movie that isn't so dark and gritty, I think that's possible, too, with a different tone, i.e. the satire in Blimp. It's a tricky act to pull-off, though, considering what war really is.

And, no worries. I appreciate your defense of this film, gives me some counterpoints to think about. That's always valuable.
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #148 on: April 22, 2020, 05:42:05 PM »
Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise)
MARCEL CARNE, 1945
3.5 STARS OUT OF 5

I'm in a stretch of films that I know nothing about, so when I got the basics on Children of Paradise, essentially a woman with four men vying for her affection, clocking in at 3 hours, 10 minutes, I kind of dreaded what was in store for me. Last night I felt pretty energized, so I grabbed a few key beverages, and pumped myself up a bit. Three hours is nothing. Have a sip, have another. Cuddle the dogs, just give it a try. If it doesn't work out, there are six reasons you can still have a good late, late night. Thing is, it took maybe 30 minutes for this movie to really hook me. I ended up fretting over nothing.

The theater and a beautiful woman, Garance, bring together a strange circle of male characters that you could dissect for days. It's quite a philosophical production that goes well beyond its love narrative.  I thought of The Brothers Karamazov more than a little as I watched, considering what these men in Children of Paradise mean to the world as you consider what the very different brothers in the Dostoevsky novel represent: Alyosha the moral and pious, Ivan the nihilist, and Dmitry the sensualist. Likewise, here we have the two actors: Baptiste the romantic and Frederick the materialist and the bullshitter. You can see their opposition at the end, when they've both risen in fame, as one wears white face in a personal and pained show, the other blackface in Othello because he can understand the titular character's jealousy - although that is more coming from his vanity and pride than genuine emotion. Then you have the nihilistic, chilly criminal and playwright, Lacenaire, plus the abundantly wealthy Count Edouard de Montray. The effect of these four characters, their desires via Garance and their overall desires in life create a complex portrait of what a human is, according to director Marcel Carne and writer Jacques Prevert. It's easy to get lost in both the plot, but more than that, the ideas, plus the bustling re-creation of mid-19th Century Paris. Expansive stuff.

Yet, Garance is a full character in her own right, not merely an object of affection. She may not be the absolute strong female lead, depending on men for food and shelter, but she asserts her agency throughout and resists anyone that tries to put her in a box. She's evasive about her true identity, even keeping that as something only for her to know. However, by the end, her passions run through, and if we might have suspected that she had ice water in her veins, we learn that she has kept her passions buried for the sake of preservation in a man's world. And presumably, they are buried again once the curtain drops, not to give too much away.

I'm going to pose an issue to address it now, but there is something unpleasant about a scorned lover in blackface pulling back the curtain on his lost love with a man in whiteface; the treachery of the blackface and the innocence of the white. But putting on blackface and playing Othello is very much in Frederick's wheelhouse given his vanity and lack of self-reflection. It's not about putting blackface on the shitty guy, it's the shitty guy having the audacity to put on blackface. Maybe some don't think this even needs to be discussed, but it's vital we see things through modern optics, to get a sense of whether or not something should still be considered great. My general rule is, if you think something might be racist, that thing is almost definitely racist, whether it's covert, overt, conscious or subconscious. But that doesn't apply here.

More analysis of story, character, and themes over actual filmography for another entry. I read an interesting view here earlier this week, where Will proposed that people primarily come to cinema from a theater POV or a photography POV (to paraphrase). However, I come to film from a poetry and prose POV, as someone interested in literature - including a fair amount of classic literature - and popular forms of music, often drawn to it by the lyrics. I was never into the visual arts because I have always found it so hard to express myself that way. I took an IQ test as part of a battery of cognitive tests a few years back to get a better look at my mental health conditions, and while not all visual-spatial elements came out bad - though some came out bad m- I am far, far, far superior in verbal knowledge, learning, and retention. My aim is to understand how the camera is used to tell the story, to more accurately and colorfully analyze mise-en-scene, but with something so rich in story, theme, and character as Children of Paradise, I almost forget there is a camera involved and feel more like I am in the midst of a really good visual novel. Then, I remember that such a feeling is a product of a certain style of film-making that de-emphasizes what the camera is doing and edits for continuity so you never feel outside of the picture. That's as much as I can see for that aspect of the film.

Hopefully, anyone reading this is becoming accustomed to my tangents and asides. Anyway, I'd say for anyone who hasn't given much thought to watching this film that it might be a good one for quarantine. It's long, complex, intricately staged, and superbly acted, especially the absolutely magnificent Jean-Louis Barrault as Baptiste Debureau. Watch it, analyze it, hey, rip it apart, but it'll likely be worth the time.

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I was between 4 and 4.5 stars. Ultimately went four because I have some conflict about the Garance character, as well as Nathalie. The first act may drag just a little, as well. I also judge films just a little, little bit on rewatchability. I don't know if I'd ever watch this one again. Still, it's really good.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2020, 08:06:16 AM by etdoesgood »
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #149 on: April 25, 2020, 05:52:15 AM »
L'Eclisse (The Eclipse)
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI, 1962
2.5 STARS OUT OF 5

In his bio, Michelangelo Antonioni, who grew up with economically successful parents, seems to romanticize the poor a bit. He emphasizes that his friends generally came from the proletariat, which helps further understand his mindset when coming to make three films on the alienation of the bourgeoisie from each other and the world they are in. L'Eclisse was the final of this trilogy, and while it meets its mark thematically, it's not the most captivating thing to ever be filmed.

L'Eclisse primarily evades me on a visceral level, because of its lifelessness. Several of the flats, including our protagonist's Vittoria's and her ex's, Riccardo's, have plenty of idle objects, including a good deal of abstract art. Combine the settings with the personalities on the screen, and at best they come off vacuous and useless, at worst entitled and stupid. The larger Roman architecture and setting has some life until we're forced to watch Vittoria and her new love, stock market tradesman, Piero, walk the streets. They seem to drain it of anything interesting. That might as well be the point, too. I'm not criticizing the film because I don't think Antonioni fulfilled his vision. I question if any of it is actually as things were or are, and if it makes good cinema.

Antonioni's vision of how to film certain events and draw out their maximum impact is unquestioned. Just Vittoria's break-up with Riccardo in the first few minutes of the film is observant and fascinating. One of the finest parts is when Vittoria is standing in Riccardo's apartment, using an empty photo frame to create a still-life scene of meaningless objects on his table. For the rest of the film, I had wondered if I was watching people who were like those objects, abstractions, molded clay amounting to nothing. Antonioni's filming of the stock market captures the frenetic energy and overall inscrutability of the action on the floor. This is where cuts are the fastest, and even in the action, he's always able to frame Piero within it, giving us a glimpse at his day-to-day. You get both the larger and smaller picture within this financial ecosystem. When the market crashes, it seems like the end of the world, but again, only as an abstraction. Rome continues moving. We're even told that things will resolve themselves with foreign investors and possible government intervention, so really, there's not a whole lot at stake. Just a way for the rich to keep themselves entertained.

There is certainly room to grow in my estimation of this film, but before that can happen, I will have to overcome the failed love story that doesn't provoke the thought in me at which Antonioni seemed to be driving. Bringing Vittoria and Piero together in a meaningful way is like trying to press together the north ends of two magnets - good luck. The pieces do not fit, no matter what. It leads to a lot of stunted, frankly sad conversation and actions that aren't all that compelling to watch or analyze. It's just kind of boring. I put so little stakes into romance in general, that when these two do not ultimately meet back up, however good that final sequence that emphasizes their not coming together is, it all makes little difference to me. Thus I think to myself: Was it worth those two hours witnessing this stunted and eventually failed relationship to come to an understanding of how disconnected the bourgeoisie are?

Also, to show that a little heavy-handedness can go a long way, the scene in the apartment with the white woman from Kenya may be more effective to show how disconnected the bourgeoisie are from reality than anything else. Here, we have Vittoria dressed up in blackface (black body!) and dancing to African music, while the woman from Kenya talks about how the black Kenyans are "monkeys" and belittles them for their lack of education and worldliness. She has a table made of an elephant foot and all sorts of rifles for killing game on the wall. The whole scene is a shit show, and is likely the most absorbing scene of the film.

This is a case where I understand what the director was up to, but the effort failed to engage me consistently over the two-hour run time. Again, I attribute a lot of that to the overall lifelessness of the people being filmed, as well as their homes. Maybe that's the point! Yet, it doesn't amount of a great experience. There are a lot of images here to enjoy and fall into, but you are also constantly reminded how disconnected everyone is, almost to the point you may actually want to rent a conventional romcom afterward as a tonic, or at least listen to a good love song. I respect L'Eclisse as a work of cinematic art, and maybe it could even grow on me with a second viewing, but I don't know if that will ever happen. L'Avventura, another of the supposed trilogy on modern, post-war consciousness comes up later in the marathon, so that might give me an in. For now, Antonioni and I have failed to connect as Vittoria and Piero. We kissed a little, though. We tried.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2020, 06:33:36 PM by etdoesgood »
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