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Author Topic: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts  (Read 561916 times)

Verite

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #560 on: April 04, 2009, 06:15:12 PM »
Hong gets the most out of the people he hired for the job without ever resorting to cheap tricks. In fact you can forgive me if this comes off as silly or simply incorrect, but I’m detecting a bit of neo-neo-realism here. Or just realism, I don’t know.

You're not crazy.  There's not really any difference between "Asian minimalism" a group you could, I guess, lump Hong into, and the American films Scott and Brody are arguing about.

What Scott's detecting, really, is an international art house style of slow-moving, long take films set in real locations that attempt to represent real life.  There's nothing particularly Asian, or American, or European about it, but film festival audiences and critics seem to dig it the world over.  Directors like Hou hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, Rahmin Bahrani, Jim Jarmusch, Hong Sang-soo, Jia Zhang-ke, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Abbas Kiarostami, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Bela Tarr, etc, all seem to be working in the same broad style that's distinctly different from mainstream Hollywood films.

There's an abstract quality in Weerasethakul (mysterious, kinda mystical) and Tsai films (metaphysical, sometimes absurd) not found in Wendy and Lucy/Chop Shop/Ballast, et cetera.  Hong also said in an interview that he begins with abstract structures that remain in the films themesleves like Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors and Power of Kangwon Province.  I don't think those Asian filmmakers fit into what Brody and Scott are talking about.  Offhand, I see a stronger case for Hou with the exception of Good Men, Good Women and Jia Zhang-ke with the exception of his animation passages.
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sdedalus

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #561 on: April 04, 2009, 06:55:46 PM »
I'm grouping them in the broadest sense.  Indeed there are differences, some major, some minor, between all these directors, and within each directors' body of work as well.  Even still, director like Jia, Tsai and Weerasethakul still use a realist style to film even the most mystical or metaphysical elements of their films (granting the animation in The World can't be realistic).

But they all share an opposition to mainstream filmmaking style, I think, even if some of them are more magic realist than purely realist.

It's very possible that I just haven't seen enough of these "neo-neo" films to make this claim, or that these films' rejection of the kind of magical elements in Tsai/Jia/Weerasethakul is a bigger determinative factor in what kind of film they are than the broader, international technique. 
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edgar00

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #562 on: April 04, 2009, 07:03:04 PM »
If I may ask since, you know, I'm the idiot here, some of you have mentioned how directors the likes of Tsai, Jie and Hong to name a few are in opposition to mainstream filmmaking.

What, according to you guys, do you consider to be mainstream filmmaking? What are its basic elements just so I get a feel for this argument here?
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Verite

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #563 on: April 04, 2009, 07:09:34 PM »
I'm grouping them in the broadest sense.  Indeed there are differences, some major, some minor, between all these directors, and within each directors' body of work as well.  Even still, director like Jia, Tsai and Weerasethakul still use a realist style to film even the most mystical or metaphysical elements of their films (granting the animation in The World can't be realistic).

But they all share an opposition to mainstream filmmaking style, I think, even if some of them are more magic realist than purely realist.

It's very possible that I just haven't seen enough of these "neo-neo" films to make this claim, or that these films' rejection of the kind of magical elements in Tsai/Jia/Weerasethakul is a bigger determinative factor in what kind of film they are than the broader, international technique. 

In the broadest sense, I definitely agree with you.  Classical vs. non-classical.  And Tsai does have in common with Rossellini - Bazin's idea of cinema capturing realistic time, unbroken time. 

It's just specifically in the context of the films that Scott and Brody mentioned (a scope narrower than yours), those Asian filmmakers don't fit in.  But what they do have in common is capturing unbroken time (for the most part), pace, and less dialogue (Hong's are comparatively talky).
« Last Edit: April 04, 2009, 07:16:50 PM by Verite »
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sdedalus

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #564 on: April 04, 2009, 07:18:30 PM »
If I may ask since, you know, I'm the idiot here, some of you have mentioned how directors the likes of Tsai, Jie and Hong to name a few are in opposition to mainstream filmmaking.

What, according to you guys, do you consider to be mainstream filmmaking? What are its basic elements just so I get a feel for this argument here?

That's a big question, and the short answer is "Hollywood".

I'm a David Bordwell kind of guy.  I think this essay, comparing the techniques of a scene in The Shop Around The Corner to the same scene in its remake, You've Got Mail, does a good job of encapsulating both the classical and contemporary Hollywood styles and the differences between them.
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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #565 on: April 04, 2009, 07:25:12 PM »
I'm grouping them in the broadest sense.  Indeed there are differences, some major, some minor, between all these directors, and within each directors' body of work as well.  Even still, director like Jia, Tsai and Weerasethakul still use a realist style to film even the most mystical or metaphysical elements of their films (granting the animation in The World can't be realistic).

But they all share an opposition to mainstream filmmaking style, I think, even if some of them are more magic realist than purely realist.

It's very possible that I just haven't seen enough of these "neo-neo" films to make this claim, or that these films' rejection of the kind of magical elements in Tsai/Jia/Weerasethakul is a bigger determinative factor in what kind of film they are than the broader, international technique. 

In the broadest sense, I definitely agree with you.  Classical vs. non-classical.  And Tsai does have in common with Rossellini - Bazin's idea of cinema capturing realistic time, unbroken time. 

It's just specifically in the context of the films that Scott and Brody mentioned (a scope narrower than yours), those Asian filmmakers don't fit in.  But what they do have in common is capturing unbroken time (for the most part), pace, and less dialogue (Hong's are comparatively talky).

Fair enough.  Would you agree with me that Scott is wrong to highlight this as a uniquely American trend, though, right?

Seems to me we have an international film festival style of critic friendly films, that are paced very differently from mainstream films and tend to tell non-genre stories about realistic people with realistic problems, some of which are ultimately more realist than others, but taken as a whole, the movement is nonetheless more realist than the mainstream.
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edgar00

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #566 on: April 04, 2009, 07:46:53 PM »
If I may ask since, you know, I'm the idiot here, some of you have mentioned how directors the likes of Tsai, Jie and Hong to name a few are in opposition to mainstream filmmaking.

What, according to you guys, do you consider to be mainstream filmmaking? What are its basic elements just so I get a feel for this argument here?

That's a big question, and the short answer is "Hollywood".

I'm a David Bordwell kind of guy.  I think this essay, comparing the techniques of a scene in The Shop Around The Corner to the same scene in its remake, You've Got Mail, does a good job of encapsulating both the classical and contemporary Hollywood styles and the differences between them.

I appreciate you posting that. It was a great read and educational. It seems silly to actually count the number of seconds each shot lasts on average, but when one reads those numbers, it's pretty fascinating. I personally really like long shots and careful edits that are made only when necessary. Obviously I'm a Bond fan so I take exception with action films, but I would agree that in non-action related films, not every single freaking reaction or movement deserves a cut for the sake of it. I haven't seen You've Got Mail, but I understood the gist of what the director did for that film.

It is a funny phenomenom in filmmaking isn't it? Really, what kind of genuine improvement is there is having a cut every 2.4 seconds or whatnot if the viewer is watching to people discuss outside on the street or at the table at a restaurant? It obviously works for some films, like an action film (although even then I've watched action movies where I thought the editing, while quick, was absolutely superb in showing the viewer what kind of action was taking place on screen. I find Bullitt to be a good example of that). A cut should be a sacred thing, not used excessively. Of course, many would disagree, but those are my two cents.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2009, 07:48:25 PM by edgarchaput »
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sdedalus

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #567 on: April 04, 2009, 07:52:53 PM »
I agree whole-heartedly.

For further reading on editing and action films, here is Bordwell on The Bourne Ultimatum.
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Verite

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #568 on: April 04, 2009, 08:01:45 PM »
I'm grouping them in the broadest sense.  Indeed there are differences, some major, some minor, between all these directors, and within each directors' body of work as well.  Even still, director like Jia, Tsai and Weerasethakul still use a realist style to film even the most mystical or metaphysical elements of their films (granting the animation in The World can't be realistic).

But they all share an opposition to mainstream filmmaking style, I think, even if some of them are more magic realist than purely realist.

It's very possible that I just haven't seen enough of these "neo-neo" films to make this claim, or that these films' rejection of the kind of magical elements in Tsai/Jia/Weerasethakul is a bigger determinative factor in what kind of film they are than the broader, international technique. 

In the broadest sense, I definitely agree with you.  Classical vs. non-classical.  And Tsai does have in common with Rossellini - Bazin's idea of cinema capturing realistic time, unbroken time. 

It's just specifically in the context of the films that Scott and Brody mentioned (a scope narrower than yours), those Asian filmmakers don't fit in.  But what they do have in common is capturing unbroken time (for the most part), pace, and less dialogue (Hong's are comparatively talky).

Fair enough.  Would you agree with me that Scott is wrong to highlight this as a uniquely American trend, though, right?

Seems to me we have an international film festival style of critic friendly films, that are paced very differently from mainstream films and tend to tell non-genre stories about realistic people with realistic problems, some of which are ultimately more realist than others, but taken as a whole, the movement is nonetheless more realist than the mainstream.

Yeah, it's not uniquely American and it's not a recent trend.
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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #569 on: April 05, 2009, 10:19:54 AM »
Great writeup, edgar. Both movies sound amazing, if not quite as amazing as the first time through. ;D

The Power of Kangwon Province sounds like my kinda movie. But so does hallucinogenic humanoid cats, so...