The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

I was just thinking about how you often hear of people who loved Fight Club but got the wrong idea about it (i.e. that Tyler Durden is the coolest movie character ever, and fighting each other and committing terrorism etc. are all cool things to do and we should all do it), thus missing all the messages of hypocrisy etc.

Anyway...based on that rough example, are there any other films that are often misunderstood by a large number of filmgoers? I think someone can think of a better way to word this than I can, but yeah, you see my point.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

I think Gone with the Wind is the most misunderstood movie ever made.

I think it is looked at, by many, as a view of a simpler, kinder, gentler civilization that was the ante-bellum South. I think this was also the view of the movie makers and the author of the book.

I think it is misunderstood because it is not an examination of a past era. It is a cover-up and propaganda piece attempting to persuade the audience of the merits of a social order that really had no merit.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

I think Blade Runner is often misunderstood.

I think it is a very profound, philosophical and existential look at the human condition.

I think its basic point is that we really are not in a position to judge any one else because we don't really have a grasp of what reality is. Our reality is colored with our own personal experiences, which definitely doesn't make our perceptions the correct ones.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

I also think, and have discussed on this board, how I think Last of the Mohicans (1992) is misunderstood.

I think, it very clearly paints Magua as the heroic victim. I also think, it just as clearly paints, Chingachgook and Uncas as collaborators and traitors.

If you moved the setting to Vichy France, circa 1945, they would have been hung at the end.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

American History X - it is often either loved or loathed for the glorification of racism and violence, which isn't really what the film is all about.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

You're right about GWTW embracing the whole "moonlight and mint juleps" myth of the Old South. So does Jezebel, Birth of a Nation, Steamboat Bill, Riverboat, Song of the South, The General, and any number of Civil War, pre-war, and post-war films. Makes me wonder why they never filmed best sellers like The Revolt of Nat Turner one of several slave uprisings that scared hell out of the South.

There's a piece of Houston, Tex., history that would make a great film--the Camp Logan riot early in the 20th century which is the only race riot in the history of this country in which more whites than blacks were killed. The rioters were armed members of a black infantry unit stationed here in Houston around the time of World War I. It's a hell of a story which has been done as a play, but no one has ever filmed it.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

I guess that depends on whether you see that film in a historical vacumn with no knowledge of the original book or of the history of that period. The book, which has been a popular classic for years (I read it as a boy and bought copies for my sons and grandsons) makes it very clear that rather than a heroic victim, Magua is a trouble-maker and a drunk who was driven out from his own tribe. The movie has him talking about the death of his sons at the hand of the British general--in the book, his hatred is based on the fact that the British officer had him flogged for drinking--a common punishment for British soldiers, American irregulars and Indian scouts under military command in that period.

Chingachgook and Uncas, on the other hand, are the adopted family of Hawkeye and share his loyalties to the British with whom their tribe had a treaty. In fact, the Mohicans had practically died off as a result of their alignment with the British against the French and their Indian allies like the Heron. Which makes Chingachgook and Uncas more like the Polish and Free French pilots who flew for the RAF against the Germans and Vichy French in the Battle for Britain.

The sad thing is that the Indian allies of the British retained their loyalty to the king a few years later which the Americans rebelled against English rule. Under those long existing treaties, the Indians accepted pay from British agents to fight against the Americans, only the Indians often didn't distinguish between Rebels and Loyalists when raiding frontier homes. Americans in turn were outraged that tribes with whom they had lived for years in close proximity and who they had fought beside against the French and the Indian enemies of the friendly tribes would now turn against them apparently for the money the British agents paid them. I think this more than anything led to "the only Indian is a dead Indian" policy that the US seemed to pursue through the 19th Century.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

What was it about, then?

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

The Matrix People think it was a profound exploration of Taoist philosophy and existentialism. It was actually a successful attempt by the leather industry to bring trench coats back into fashion.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

:laugh: Now that's funny!!!

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

What is is about? I have bought it but still haven't watched it :nope: I feel I have to be in the right mood :goof: not sure when that will be :goof:

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

Well, really, it's about someone who sees the error of his ways and tries to escape his past, but can't. It isn't saying 'hey be a racist, kick someone's head in and have fun!', more 'hey this is what some people do, here is the way a lifestyle like this can suck you in, here are the consequences'. To grossly oversimplify it...

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

Thanks :)

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

I agree with you that Blade Runner is often misunderstood, but disagree, in part, with your definition.

For me it's about what makes us human. When does a machine stop being a machine and become human? Who is to say that just because someone (Roy, Rachel, etc) is manufactured that they are less human than someone who came into being through the more traditional "natural" route? Very existential stuff, and one of my favorite films. Ever.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

I agree. I just think that beyond the story line there might be some points being made about, not only what it is to be human, but what it is to Nazi in 1940, or a racist in 1957 Mississippi or a Serb in the 90's.

I think Blade Runner is making a point that it is ludicrous for a human to judge the humanity of another (sub-human or replicant).

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

Dune, Blow-up, most of Felini's movies.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

In what way are these misunderstood?

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

kill bill?

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

Looks like the most missunderstood answer to the most misanderstood question

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

I don't know how you can say his answer is any more 'misunderstood' than yours...neither of you have explained why you think the films you have picked are misunderstood.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

If you have to ask than obviously there is a misunderstanding.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

No, there is you not being clear. That is not misunderstanding, that is just not giving people anything to understand in the first place.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

Well, i think Tarantino is misunderstood in that most his films are a series of surface references strung together with his overly personalised dialogue but most people think they're hip, original and the best of independent cinema they look smart for name dropping. Of course in a lot of ways, it's both those things just think more people should truly appreciate exactly what Tarantino does.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

the glorification of racism and violence

I have no idea what people think movie's themes are : though I look at every angle a film has to offer when i'm watching it.

I think everyone misunderstands david lynch's movies : becuase it's really just random scenes he put together and originally was going to call it the "David Lynch : Crazy Hours"

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

So you believe it promotes racism and violence or that it argues against it?

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

What about "A Clock Work Orange" if ever there was a misunderstood film it would definetelys be among the top 5. This film made a social commentary about prison reform at its worst and predicted everything that is wrong with our penal system to date.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

Prison reform, really? That movie has a lot of themes, teenage gangs, the roles of sex and violence in society, hypocrisy, the fallacy of thinking that 'High Culture' is inherently edifying and some people have even read it as a coded warning from Kubrick about the coming of the Illuminati's NWO. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oxhxXTHBOoM

Primarily, though I think it's about compelling people to do good through Skinnerian cognitive-behavioural conditioning versus free will. The title itself, "Clockwork Orange" is a reference to Skinner's principle that the mind is fundamentally mechanical, a proposition that the source novel's author Burgess found ludicrous. But hey, it's a rich movie and you can tease whatever meaning you can support from it. It just strikes me that Prison reform is a minority theme.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

I think it glorifys it and promotes racism - though you can argue that it's main characters isn't racist anymore : that dosen't really matter because you already have been bombarded by this story where white people hate black people and vice versa

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I see it as a humanization of what our society would call pyschopaths and murdeders .

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

It's not a humanization, it's dehumanization. It's about messing with human psyche in order to create someone who will obey and never do anything wrong - a machine. Of course, there is no appropriate punishment for some crimes, but messing with free will is wrong, and that's what the movie is trying to say.

Re: The most misunderstood movies ever made
 

Showing something in a film, even if the characters themselves enjoy it, is not the same as glorifying and promoting it. The characters are racist, yes, but does that make the film racist? Being about something isn't the same as being it. Is Do the Right Thing a racist film? Is Lolita promoting paedophilia?

You can't dismiss the main character's change of heart, either. It is not so much the fact that he decides it isn't good to be racist anymore as the way his violent past catches up with him that is important. It is like reading Crime and Punishment and saying that the ending isn't important because it has already shown a crime and therefore glorified it.