Author Topic: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon  (Read 29153 times)

MartinTeller

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Re: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon
« Reply #150 on: January 09, 2011, 11:30:09 PM »
Maybe I'll comment tomorrow when I'm not thinking about getting ready for bed.  As this is one of my top 10 films of all time, I want to defend it... on the other hand, I feel it will be a waste of time and energy.

Bondo

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Re: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon
« Reply #151 on: January 09, 2011, 11:38:36 PM »
As this is one of my top 10 films of all time, I want to defend it... on the other hand, I feel it will be a waste of time and energy.

Defend it from the horror of a luke-warm response? I'd love to hear why you love it more than I'd love to hear why I'm wrong to have only liked it. The former wouldn't be a waste of time while the latter likely but not certainly would.

flieger

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Re: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon
« Reply #152 on: January 09, 2011, 11:44:17 PM »
Defend it from the horror of a luke-warm response? I'd love to hear why you love it more than I'd love to hear why I'm wrong to have only liked it. The former wouldn't be a waste of time while the latter likely but not certainly would.

Is this some sort of meta-ironic play on the awfulness of those subtitles?  (I kid! I kid!)  ;)

Seriously, go to the website in question, and get better subtitles next time. Listen to your elders! (Damn disobedient twenty-somethings...)  >:(

I think you should persevere with Ray. He'll be one of those directors you'll mention in that "Directors That Have Won You Over" thread. I guarantee it.

Bondo

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Re: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon
« Reply #153 on: January 10, 2011, 12:00:36 AM »
I'll make sure to get things right the next time I go for Ray.

MartinTeller

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Re: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon
« Reply #154 on: January 10, 2011, 12:03:33 AM »
As this is one of my top 10 films of all time, I want to defend it... on the other hand, I feel it will be a waste of time and energy.

Defend it from the horror of a luke-warm response? I'd love to hear why you love it more than I'd love to hear why I'm wrong to have only liked it. The former wouldn't be a waste of time while the latter likely but not certainly would.

Some comments from my various reviews of Mahanagar:

Quote
[Ray] touches on so many facets of humanity... pride, shame, integrity, jealousy, family, the value of work.  Very well filmed, too, lots of interesting shots.

Quote
Really a thing of perfection.  Ray takes a very simple domestic problem and makes it absolutely fascinating, relevant, touching and warm.


Bondo

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Re: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon
« Reply #155 on: January 10, 2011, 12:24:44 AM »
Quote
[Ray] touches on so many facets of humanity... pride, shame, integrity, jealousy, family, the value of work.  Very well filmed, too, lots of interesting shots.

Quote
Really a thing of perfection.  Ray takes a very simple domestic problem and makes it absolutely fascinating, relevant, touching and warm.

See, I guess that is the problem with the subjective emotional experience. I basically agree with the first quote (relatively factual claim, it does touch on all of those things) but even acknowledging that, the second (the emotional responses) didn't follow for me like they did for you. Pyaasa, to name one point of comparison (at least the man struggling somewhat with his ability to live up to gender expectations) that has come up today, has many facets but that one worked for me more and less for you.

Bondo

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Re: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon
« Reply #156 on: January 13, 2011, 01:11:48 PM »
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel, 1972)

Bourgeoisie has to be one of the least phonetic words ever. It should be spelled Borzwagé and make films Junior likes.

Anyway, based on the title and the Netflix blurb, I had some hopes for the film as a biting satire of the upper crust. The start is a bit slow and uncertain about where things are headed. The first attempt of the main group of friends to dine certainly has them behaving in a snobbish manner, but it doesn't immediately build on it. It took the first main hint of supernatural or surreal elements to convince me that something a bit more complex was going on. In some of the early scenes I saw things that could well have influenced some of the visuals for Tommy a few years later and something similar to the same year Monty Python cheese shop sketch (in this case a tea shop that is out of tea and everything else but water).

My first thought on seeing Jean-Pierre Cassel's name in the credits was "I wonder if that is Vincent's father" and upon seeing him one has no doubt. As an aside, in double checking that I see Vincent Cassel was married to Monica Bellucci prior to Irreversible. I guess that explains the incredible chemistry.

I appreciate certain things here and it is certainly better than having your eye cut by a razor. To use our classifications from the other thread, Bunuel tends strongly toward the artistic (and when failing, pretentious) than what I'd call the intelligent. He creatively hints at stuff but he doesn't really say as much. I recognize more than appreciate his talent.

Also too, since this is a film with dreams it is automatically perfectly comparable and better than Inception which everyone knows is the worst thing ever to use the word dream. Oddly I wrote this before I saw Bill throw out the Inception comparison in his review of a film with dreams. :D Seriously though, they don't even come close to trying to use dreams to the same purpose.

As a followup to my "when Lynch has bad acting it is praised, when The Room has bad acting it is taunted" line of critique, when Luis Bunuel has plot inconsistencies it is surreal, when The Room has plot inconsistencies it is poor filmmaking. Double standards and intensions and stuff. Blah.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2011, 01:24:42 PM by Bondo »

sdedalus

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Re: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon
« Reply #157 on: January 13, 2011, 02:20:10 PM »
I don't think it has dreams, does it?  Been quite awhile since I've seen it.

Anyway, Buñuel, unlike Lynch or Wiseau, was literally a surrealist.
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verbALs

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Re: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon
« Reply #158 on: January 14, 2011, 04:30:21 AM »
I would agree Discrete Charm is an artistic effort, in that the film is filled with unusual imagery. Each piece of imagery in itself isn't that strange but when placed in that context it creates an unusual reaction in the viewer. So my reaction to his films in general is that rather than providing answers he is provoking questions. Chief amongst those questions, for me, is why a certain scene makes me feel a certain way, why am I reacting to it in this way.

As an example  (and you don't have to answer this), there is a repeated scene of the group walking up a road between farmland in fact I think the film ends on it. How did this image make you feel? It certainly provoked a reaction from me and I realise that the basis of my reaction goes to how I feel about bourgeois types like these in general.

My opinion would be that this film has failed if scenes like the one I mentioned didn't make you feel anything in particular. All three of his films, that I have seen,  have provoked strong reactions, and not always favourable ones in me. The opening fantasy scene in Belle de Jour is a case in point but I won't go into that. If you are interested in exploring how Bunuel makes you react to his images (sans razor blades hopefully) then The Exterminating Angel is the one I would recommend as a companion piece to Discrete Charm. The imagery from one film definitely provokes a conflicting reaction in the other's

I would definitely say the this film is plotless- it doesn't just lack plot or have plot inconsistencies, so I don't understand why you compared it to a film that you say has been accused of having plot inconsistencies. Why use imperical, quantitative language to compare two films? I don't think it will ever prove a point doing that, just perpertuate an argument to no purpose. Film A has less plot than film B? Film C has worse acting than film D? Isn't that a conversational cul-de-sac?
« Last Edit: January 14, 2011, 04:33:40 AM by verbALs »
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

sdedalus

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Re: Lisztomania: A Classics Marathon
« Reply #159 on: January 14, 2011, 04:33:02 AM »
Discreet Charm is full of plot isn't it?  Lots of little plots, all involving people trying and failing to eat a meal?
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