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Author Topic: 1SOs Great Movies Hit List  (Read 17564 times)

sdedalus

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Re: 1SOs Great Movies Hit List
« Reply #30 on: April 25, 2011, 03:19:15 AM »
The full title of the book is Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, if that helps.
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Bill Thompson

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Re: 1SOs Great Movies Hit List
« Reply #31 on: April 25, 2011, 08:30:57 PM »
Chuck, any thoughts on how extremely racist the film is?

1SO

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1SOs Great Movies Hit List - The Deer Hunter
« Reply #32 on: April 25, 2011, 08:57:18 PM »
The Deer Hunter

Quote from: MARK KERMODE
At the risk of being thrown out of the 'respectable film critics' circle, may I take this opportunity to declare officially that in my opinion The Deer Hunter is one of the worst films ever made, a rambling self indulgent, self aggrandising barf-fest steeped in manipulatively racist emotion, and notable primarily for its farcically melodramatic tone which is pitched somewhere between shrieking hysteria and somnambulist somberness. It is a monument to everything that was wrong with American cinema in the mid-seventies, and a testament to the fact that, if allowed to do whatever they want, filmmakers will take their cameras and crawl up their own backsides.
Read the rest.

The Deer Hunter is a supreme challenge for anyone who writes about films. To call it a terrible movie is to overlook the many scenes and moments of great emotional power. The film has both enthralling set pieces and beautiful recreations of the minuate of daily life. It's both neo-realist and overly melodramatic, and considering its faults I'm impressed how well the two extremes work together. The biggest fault is that the film is self-indulgent and overstuffed with Michael Cimino's belief that he's making the greatest, most important film of all time. There are a handful of embarrassing scenes and moments. I almost turned on this film and started sharpening my knives, but it deserves better. (Kermode's rant did the job nicely for me.) Often, the actors are great enough to get me past Cimino's B.S., though there are shots where the obvious rambling improv weighs down their credibility. On some takes Christopher Walken is the most convincing small town steel worker I've ever seen. Other times he's a mannered actor overly methoding the steel worker experience. The difference is like Jekyll and Hyde and any good editor should have been able to separate one from the other.

When I first saw The Deer Hunter 20 years ago I hated it completely. I knew next to nothing about it at the time and the endless first act turned me right off. All I held onto were the powerful Russian Roulette sequences. This time I went in with the attitude that the wedding is a short film preceding a two-hour Deer Hunter. I believe it was the right approach and made me very patient towards a lot of the indulgent pacing. In fact it's why I applaud the realistic moments created in that opening.

"This is This. This ain't something else. This is This."

DeNiro says that line when the guys prepare to go hunting. He's referring to a bullet he waves at John Cazale, but WTF is that line saying. It makes no sense. So much so that Cazale even calls him out as someone who often doesn't make sense. (Actually, the whole hunting prep scene reminds me of the worst of Cassevetes.) The great Meryl Streep is introduced with an abusive father who's never seen again. Thank goodness since is acting is so bad he makes Streep come off as a bad actress. And so it goes. Great scenes you don't want to skip and Embarrassing scenes you'd like to erase from your memory. I will probably agree with anybody who responds. There's enough in The Deer Hunter's quantity and quality to accommodate all opinions.
GRADE: **1/2
« Last Edit: April 25, 2011, 11:52:04 PM by 1SO »

smirnoff

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Re: 1SOs Great Movies Hit List
« Reply #33 on: April 25, 2011, 09:32:37 PM »
These star ratings are grrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!


Bondo

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Re: 1SOs Great Movies Hit List
« Reply #34 on: April 25, 2011, 10:36:12 PM »
Upon watching it for the first time a couple years back I called The Deer Hunter a five star two hour film stuck in a four star three hour film. The first hour is almost entirely useless. But there is a great power and tragedy in the main part about the destructive force of warfare on the human psyche that I really appreciated it ultimately.

1SO

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Re: 1SOs Great Movies Hit List
« Reply #35 on: April 25, 2011, 11:09:48 PM »
Chuck, any thoughts on how extremely racist the film is?
I had to check and see which film you were referring to. Recently I've watched King Kong, Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter, plus my Merry Musical Marathon had Show Boat and a blackface number in Going Hollywood. Throw in You Can't Take it With You's lazy house servant and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon's treatment of Indians and Ben-Hur is the least racist films I've watched recently.

So I read your review because I couldn't remember any racism or even antisemitism beyond casting a white man as an Arab Shiek, which I didn't bat an eye at after Alec Guinness in Lawrence of Arabia. It seems you take issue with the color of the horses. I always subscribed that this was from the old stereotype of good guys wear white while bad guys wear black. It's not a slam against black people but the dark night of evil versus the angelic goodness of white. (Plus Arabian Horses are commonly white. That's just science.)  If the black horses were lazy and didn't feel like working then I might see a racial parallel, but your way is like the ol' "love is blind, God is love therefore Ray Charles is God." The horses are the steeds of evil and are not meant as any comment on dark skinned people.

Bondo

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Re: 1SOs Great Movies Hit List
« Reply #36 on: April 25, 2011, 11:15:45 PM »
Ben-Hur was a slave, Ben-Hur is the hero, black people used to be slaves, ergo black people are heroes.

sdedalus

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Re: 1SOs Great Movies Hit List
« Reply #37 on: April 26, 2011, 02:20:19 AM »
The Deer Hunter would be great if it cut out every scene that happened in Vietnam.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: 1SOs Great Movies Hit List
« Reply #38 on: April 26, 2011, 08:18:32 AM »
The Deer Hunter would be great if it cut out every scene that happened in Vietnam.
And most of the wedding.

1SO

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1SOs Great Movies Hit List - Andrei Rublev
« Reply #39 on: April 27, 2011, 02:16:03 AM »
Andrei Rublev

I discovered Andrei Tarkovsky in film school when I was invited to watch the Director's Cut of Solaris, hailed as an even better take on 2001. It was a brand new theater print and I was very excited. The film opens with a lengthy shot of tall grass that didn't go with the dialogue at all. Early on is an endless shot behind a car driving through a city. I couldn't believe my eyes. I mean, what was I supposed to be getting from this? I blamed it on the extended cut and left the theater before the film even left Earth.

Thanks to Filmspotting (then Cinecast) I ventured to watch Andrei Rublev, which baffled and bored me in equal measure. I still have no idea what I saw except a filmmaker who really knew how to use a camera and had no idea how to tell a story. 
And that's half of what this marathon is all about, giving myself a second chance with highly-acclaimed films. Post Stalker I was willing to retry this monster, and I gave it my full attention. I would not be stopped. I was wide awake and ready to be challenged. The results were a heck of a lot better. I checked out so hard last time I would consider this my first official viewing of Rublev. And while I didn't really dig it, I understood it and I understood its acclaim.

Everyone says that my big fault is I'm too hung up on narrative. I have a hard time letting that go. Looking at the three Tarkovsky I've seen, I'd peg him not so much as a filmmaker as I would a philosopher. (And that is not a slam on his visual technique at all.) He likes to make you think and question your belief of emotions, spirituality, just your whole belief system. All three films feature a lead in great crisis over what their life was and now is. Rublev spans the most amount of time. Had we met Andrei at the same time as the other two it would've been after the raid, after his vow of silence.

When do I get to say this film was way too long? I mean you all know it's coming. This isn't simply 1 film, it's a trilogy or a miniseries and while I was actually okay with the overall pace there were too many stories and too much time spent walking around the woods or a burned out building listening to Theophanes. What's interesting is the best character is the bellmaker's son, who we don't meet until the last hour. He's so passionate, so young that he electrifies the film right when it should start to feel like death. His moments of self-doubt further drive him and up the tension considerably.

So I've now watched 3, and his 3 longest films at that. I can say that I am not done watching Tarkovsky. I'm all up for adding Ivan's Childhood, Mirror, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice to my queue. Not anytime soon and I'll probably rewatch Stalker beforehand. But I don't hate Tarkovsky anymore.

GRADE: **1/2

 

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