Over Analyzing Films

People have written at length how "Howard the Duck" left an impression on them, too.

And I would listen to what they have to say.

Same. For example, MKS has this on his watchlist and the runtime has kept him away.

I just watched this very honest interview with Akerman (she was 25 when she made Jeanne Dielman?!?!?!?!?) and thought it was worth linking:

Why? Wouldn't it help you to understand why some folks like it?

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Links, please!

This hearkens back to earlier in our discussion. We all agree that we get a bit annoyed when people review/analyze a film in a way that is clearly divorced from the author's intentions and/or the overall arc of the movie.

But the runtime of Jeanne Dielman was, from the mouth of the director herself, a very intentional aspect of her exploration of domestic ritual and the "invisibility" of the people who perform those roles. Someone talking about the usefulness of the long runtime isn't inventing something out of whole cloth or pretentiously trying to defend an ambiguous element of the movie.

If you think that Jeanne Dielman is 3.5 hours long because it was a gimmick unconnected to the film's theme that was just being used to make the movie a curiosity piece, you're under-analyzing the film and maybe deliberately ignoring the point that it is clearly making.

It is my understanding that German expressionism was intended as an artistic reaction to the fallout of Germany's defeat in World War I, embracing fantastically off-kilter art direction as a means of illustrating how disturbed postwar society and its inhabitants had become (a more direct example of this being the lopsided sets and gloomy characters seen in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari). The designs in Metropolis may be more polished and straightforward but they still reflect those same anxieties about the class divide that led to lower classes effectively being sacrificed for the good of the upper classes. This is most obviously represented in the protagonist seeing workers suffer in a factory and envisioning it turning into an ancient temple for human sacrifice to the god Moloch, whose name is spelled out in heavily stylised and angular letters instead of the more conventional font seen in other title cards to truly accentuate the discordant nature of the image. In drawing this comparison between literal human sacrifice in the past and the physically ruinous demands of working-class employment in the future, Metropolis outlines not just the severity of the haves treating the have-nots as expendable resources but also how such a dynamic has existed since time immemorial and would certainly continue to exist without direct intervention. It's imagery that establishes that this is a concern that extends beyond a modern viewer's superficial visual association with concentration camps - this film didn't predict the Holocaust, it merely understood how poorly in-groups could mistreat out-groups if it suited them.

The "movies have been bad for the last 40 years" guy is going to complain about pretentiousness now? Especially when you want to write off a movie for giving people something to talk about 50 years later as if being significant enough to be talked about for decades afterwards isn't what practically every piece of art ever made strives towards. Bet if I said The Battle of Algiers shooting in a documentary style was a pretentious gimmick you'd give me sh*t over it.

Besides, "if there was a 5-hour movie coming out tomorrow"? Leaving aside how a filmmaker like Lav Diaz drops films that exceed 5 hours on a regular basis, there's also the matter of Martin Scorsese dropping The Irishman last year (itself about as long as Jeanne Dielman) but it's hard to judge how much of its viewership was done purely out of "curiosity" and not for all the other reasons one might watch it (e.g. because it's good).

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You are totally right on the meaning of german expressionism and i never said that metropolis predicted the haulocaust.I only used the metropolis exemple to show that audiance from different generations have diferent knowledge and now once ww know what germans did in the war we can see a similarity but oubviously fritz Lang at the time had no idea Nazi's were gonna burn people

Midsommar

Seriously. We can almost always learn from differing points of view that might make us consider a film from another angle. After all, it's not like were talking about Baby Driver here.

And speaking of Baby Driver, did MKS ever supply a link to his TV thing?

Relevant!

I still have the feathers in a scrap book.
Also, hotdog shapes.

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I have a lot to say about this topic, just saving it until I have time to properly compose my thoughts.

And yes, MKS did provide a link but I don't think you can stream it on demand. I watched it when it aired live. It's on NUDU.tv which I swear is not a porn site.

When people write about film, you learn about the film, you learn about the writer, or some mix of the two.

The guy who wrote the 1/10 review for Jeanne Dielman also said "It's very difficult to believe that a woman who is this dull would become a prostitute and that she would be able to gain and keep clients." The person who wrote this review has a fundamental lack of understanding of . . . many things.

Oh, okay. Well, if you swear.

I just don't see what value there is in being stubborn in ones opinions about art. Not that we are obligated to ever change them, just that it is good to engage with those who disagree with us.

It's also good to have pointed out to us how wrong most of our first impressions are. Being humbled can be a sweet salvation.

It's good to like as many movies as possible. And without the interjection of others, we'd probably never learn to like anything outside of what comes natural to us.

Boooring!

Anything can be a porn site if you try hard enough.