Truman show is still a absurdist comedic movie.Eternal sunshine made 72 million on a 20 million which isnt much of a hit considering they had to spend on marketing etc. If all the movies of jim carrey were making similar money he wouldnt be one of the biggest stars of 90s. Ange lee was always a small director. I dont care about similar themes i care about whay kind of brand name he has at the boxoffice. There are directors who make movies that get oscar nominations and due to those their movie would be hit. Do you think morten tyldum aka the director of imitation game or tom hooper of kings speech is an auteur ? of course not. Even though their movies make 400 million in case of tom hooper twice at the boxoffice they are not auteurs. Auteurs are directors with certain singnature style and enough popularity for people to identify their work as unique and in addition boxoffice appeal.Quentin tarantino is an auteur , even his hateful eight made 150 miilion. I am not sure how dicaprio being consistent contradicts any of my arguments. Spielberg on the hand can sell movies with his own name. People know who he is and will flock to movie theaters to watch his movies or chris nolan.
If you care more about brand names at the box office than about similar themes, then how much do you really care about auteurs in the first place? Box office has nothing to do with a director's qualification as an auteur. This is especially ironic considering how you condescendingly told off Cobpyth for apparently thinking that success automatically equalled greatness.
Also,
Truman Show was a mix of comedy and drama, much like
Man in the Moon was. It just so happened to have more mass appeal. So what.
Refer to my previous previous points. No one cared about billy lynn or hulk when they flopped. No one was expecting an ang lee movie. But people were expecting a Spielberg directed indiana jones movie.You are mistaking a decent director with auteur. Innaritu is more consistent and an auteur than ang lee. Say what you want but spielberg is much much more consistent and a brand than ang lee.
You make a
lot of points inside these walls of text so excuse me if I'm having trouble responding to whichever ones you're talking about here - also, again with the trying to no-true-Scotsman the idea of the auteur.
I had to highlight this point because this clearly proves my point. If you are relegating david o russell movies to quirky comedies then you should re-evalute how you watch movies or just come to terms with the fact that you are a multiplex audience who just views movies as entertainment.Nothing wrong with that but just get that straight.
You're right, he went from making quirky comedies to making quirky comedies that got Oscar nominations. Besides, good luck calling me a "multiplex audience" as if I wasn't the one who brought up Ang Lee's non-Hollywood films in his defence against someone who just called him "the director of
Hulk".
Because i noticed there has been a backlash against american hustle when it came out.People said it was overrated but the same people worshipped wolf of wallstreet. There is a thing called story telling.The difference between something like the big short or american hustle and revenant or wolf of wallstreet is that the later movies are compromised by their financial goals. They have to appeal to multiplex 10-35 yr old males who like macho movies.So all the rough edges are smoothed.Wolf of wallstreet was marketed as a cautionary tale of capitalism but i saw posters of Jordan belfort in dorm rooms.People were worshipping the character. Where did they go wrong ? they didnt portray a well rounded story. They touched it on the surface and 10-35 yr olds will gravitate towards lawbreaking and overly partying character and its good for producers as long as the movie made money.This is equivalent to mcdonalds. The big short is much more complicated story to tell.That what i call challenging film making. Direction of the big short is 10 times better than that of wolf of wallstreet. Because it was much more ambitious undertaking. Telling the story of financial crash by going deep into it is a much more complicated undertaking than telling the story about drugs and debauchery when you got 150 million. But multiplex audience dont care.As long they get the adrenaline rush from the movie they will think its better than anything. Same with american hustle. The way he deals with characters and storylines is much more complicated than the gimmick of shooting in natural lighting and single takes. Its great directorial achievement but story wise its nothing. Dicaprio's team knows that..They know what stories to pick that would appeal to 10-35 yr old multiplex male fanboy audience so that they would get box office and at the same time get oscar recognition. You would be foolish to think he takes projects that are risky. Prestige pictures with top auteurs is a recipe for oscar gold.
Whatever, I don't particularly like any of these films anyway. In any case, I wrote
this review of
The Big Short that should tell you what I thought of it.
Exodus was risky in terms of the finished product and not how it got made. Think about it this way. A script comes to christian bale which says a bible movie with ridley scott who just made the couselor and his last three movies are body of lies,robinhood and Prometheus.All were critically/fan-wise not well received. And this is a movie that shows god as little boy and when was the last time a bible movie was a success ? All this things point to the film being a failure and it was a failure. That to me is a risk. Jumping from playing an overweight conman to playing Moses..i don't know if there is bigger jump than that. It all boils down to subverting expectations. You don't expect him to play a overweight conman or a cracked up drug addict or moses.
The jump from a smooth-talking stockbroker to a grizzled fur-trapper?
As for pretty boy eating bison liver..thats not acting thats eating bison liver. And how are you going to explain this "Dicaprio is a vegan and when he ate bison liver he spit it out and that reaction was in the movie. But in the time period the movie was set..his character would not be so grossed out by the bison liver..in 1890s people used to eat meat..so what is acting and what is clever oscar campaign ?"...if he really was a great actor as you say..should he be grossed out by bison liver if he is character ?
You never know. It is eating raw meat, after all - I can imagine that even a character like that wouldn't get used to eating it (especially if they're only doing it out of complete desperation).
The essence of who dicaprio is and who christian bale is are summed up by titanic and machinist...life isnt always fair to anyone but i would rather appreciate an actor who overcame challenges in the career to prove who he is than a guy who was handed 100 million budgets in silver platter just because he struck gold with titanic Idols are supposed to be real and should display characteristics of resilience and dedication and self motivation. Its easy to take the winners side. From out side everyone will side with dicaprio.."ooh look at him he is putting out a movie in december and its right away getting oscar nominations and all is well"...but to me its not so black and white...i will gravitate towards why hostiles struggled to get a distribution and why was it snubbed oscar nominations even though it dealt with its themes much more personally than revenant. Few times dicaprio veered into working with directors who has not so good track record , it backfired...j.edgar,great gatsby or body of lies...risk taking is essential for artists...a century from now people will remember dicaprio like they remember charlton heston.oog that guy is good but he is the same character in every movie..but they will remember christian bale like marlon brando...he has a lot of range. hey there is nothing in siding with winner ...i would rather side with self made winner than a corporation chosen winner.
Bale starred in an actual Spielberg movie when he was a kid, but sure, he's the self-made guy who came up from nothing.