i don’t like the suggestion that art should avoid any particular topic

i watched a film called irreversible a while ago. it’s a french flick that is infamous for a brutal rape scene in it. a friend told me about the film and said it was really good, but pointed out the rape scene was tough to watch because it was so convincing. he said it was quite long, like 10 minutes or so, and done in a single, non-stop shot. my pal found it hard to stomach but felt that there was a purpose to both the scene and how it was done. he felt that such a horrific event shouldn’t be edited or stylized, that it should be shown unflinchingly to try to communicate just how ugly and awful it truly is. i thought that was really interesting.

then i was chatting with another friend (a film studies graduate) about the same film, and mentioned all of this to him. this friend seemed to disagree with what my first friend had said, suggesting instead that no acting, directing, or anything else could come close to communicating the real horror of rape, and it was offensive to attempt to simulate it for the sake of film.

i can understand both arguments and think either position is reasonable, but i think the rationale for the second one is kind of flimsy and over-generalized. you could use the same argument and posit that any art about any sensitive issue trivializes it, and is offensive to those who have actually experienced it. i think war films are a great example of this: anyone who has been in ground-level combat will likely tell you that war is hell, so by my second friend’s logic, wouldn’t it be offensive to veterans to see a bunch of artists dancing around on a staged set, trying to imitate something horrible that they have not experienced and couldn’t possibly understand on a visceral level? sure, i think so.

i love the deer hunter but i bet that if i had survived being a POW in vietnam, i’d probably find its depictions of war cheap and inaccurate.

that wouldn’t make the offended veteran’s opinion the ‘right’ opinion though. there would probably be just as many veterans who felt the opposite way. my point is there’s no consensus on what’s offensive so i don’t think it’s fair to say any subject matter should be taboo due to its sensitive nature.

i think that, like most things in life, this is not something you can make a blanket statement about (even though those are my favourite kind of statement to make). i think each case must be judged on an individual basis: was that art exploitative? did it do justice to whatever it was trying to recreate or communicate? was it being respectful to the subject matter? each viewer should be critical and think about these kinds of questions, come up with their own answers, feel what they personally feel about a piece of art, and accept that other people may feel differently.

to each their own, for fuck’s sake.

biopics suck

a co-worker is watching some biopic about jimi hendrix right now and it’s fucking annoying. i was just talking about this with dana the other day, how i hate dramatizations or ‘interpretations’ of how real events occurred. i mean, there is only a small number of people who were there to witness hendrix on his rise to fame and his relationship with his girlfriend, but he was a big star so all that stuff has been documented by friends and associates, then reinterpreted by historians and enthusiasts, and on and on until some dumb fuck decides to make a shitty movie about it. and then we have actors playing out many famous scenes and interactions between people, which are all just further interpretations. and each interpretation is just another step further away from the truth.

the process that the truth goes through before it becomes a biopic is like the telephone game that kids play where they sit in a circle and one kid whispers something in the ear of the kid sitting next to them. the second kid does the same to the next kid, and on and on until the initial message gets back to the kid that started it. at that point, that kid announces that the message he received is nothing like what he said at the start of the game, and all the filthy little monsters howl with laughter.

except i’m not laughing.

this game makes me feel isolated by illustrating how hopeless true communication between human beings is. i’d rather play ‘spin the bottle’ instead.

of course, i realize it can be argued that the people making biopics aren’t trying to accurately document history, that their intent is to tell a story in an entertaining way. well, i don’t give a fuck about that. fuck entertainment. i want truth.

all i can do when watching biopics or any other ‘based on a true story’ stuff is remind myself the whole time that everything i’m watching is probably completely, entirely, totally different than what actually happened — the truth is probably a lot less showy and dramatic. or i can do like i am right now and ignore the piece of shit, instead spending the time writing about how much i hate such junk.

everyone speaks english, apparently

a co-worker has been watching a bunch of period shows on netflix lately in which everyone from danish vikings to roman emperors speaks english. mind you, they speak it with a british accent so i guess that’s supposed to illustrate that they’re old world and foreign.

that bugs the hell out of me.

are film and tv producers so lazy that they can’t be bothered to use the correct language of the people they are making shows about? are audiences so lazy that they don’t care about that kind of detail, just as long as they don’t have to read any super annoying subtitles? are audiences expected to believe that a british accent is the only difference between us and every other language in the world?

yup.

i think it’s absurd. it’s like having a talking dinosaur in a serious film aimed at an adult audience. it simply doesn’t make sense and it’s stupid, and people should recognize that.

or how about this: instead of having a british accent, why not have those roman emperors speak in modern english and call each other ‘dude’ and ‘bro’? i think anyone who watched that would say, “holy shit, this is stupid.” but that’s no different from what these shows are already doing. it’s completely fucking inaccurate and laughably absurd but for some reason, it happens all the time without anyone saying so.

if i had a film studies class, rule #1 would be: english with a british accent is not a suitable replacement language for every bygone age and culture.

“‘allo, we’re danish vikings form the 9th century. jolly good then, cheerio.”

from scary to stupid

here’s yet another spoiler alert. i’m going to bitch about the witch and the conjuring so if you haven’t seen them and don’t want me to ruin them for you, move on. or if you have seen them, liked them, and don’t want me to ruin them for you, you might also want to move on.

here’s the problem i have with both of them. they are both ok — decently dark and scary — up until they go too far and get super stupid.

in the conjuring, there is a scene where the kid hears a sound in the armoire. the kid approaches it, then sees some sort of demon on top of the armoire.

that scene should have stopped right there. that would have been scary and left me wondering what evil befell the kid. my mind would have run wild.

but it didn’t. the next thing that happened was the demon jumping down on the kid and engaging in some kind of wrestling match/struggle.

that’s so fucking dumb. a wrestling match is the least scariest thing i could think of. supernatural beings don’t need to wrestle with anyone to overcome them, and if they did get into some sort of physical altercation, you know that their strength would be otherworldly. they’d rend you limb from limb effortlessly. evil demons aren’t skinny fucking wimps, man.

the demon from the conjuring goes to the beach.

the witch didn’t live up to the hype i’d heard about it but it was still pretty good…up until the ending. there is a scene where thomasin is talking to black phillip, trying to determine if he really is the devil, where he finally speaks back to her.

great. that’s fucking weird and creepy. they should have ended the film right there. did the goat speak or did it turn into a man or some other form? did thomasin get taken to hell? did she become the devil’s concubine? or was her goodness incorruptible? we would never have known. it would have been an excellent cliffhanger.

but nope. black phillip turns into a man with a fashionable goatee (i know, har har), a cowboy hat, and black cowboy boots with spurs. he looks like a fucking member of nightwish.

no joke, he looked just like this fruitcake.

then thomasin is naked out in the forest, watching a bunch of other naked women dancing wildly around a fire. then they all start floating in the air. then thomasin does too! and she’s laughing like crazy! WHOAH, SHE REALLY MUST HAVE FLIPPED HER WIG.

i’d love to talk to directors who are responsible for scenes like these ones and ask them wtf they think they are accomplishing when they over-explain things, when they tear the veil away to expose the ‘true horror and evil,’ but that horror and evil falls flat, is silly and childish. i don’t understand how film makers have not learned that leaving some details to the viewers imagination is usually far more effective than whatever image or definitive conclusion they can put on a screen.

i’m convinced that even without any training, i could make a better horror film than most of the shit i see. i should hire myself out as a professional horror flick consultant.

“as you can clearly see, your films suck shit. not scary.”

disregard

last night i watched a flick called under the skin. i had never heard of it before until rid sent me a clip from it as an example of a good use of soundtrack to create an atmosphere in a film. everything about the scene was right up my alley so i was keen to check it out, and it was as great as i had hoped it would be. it was slow, dark, and strange.

but what i liked even more than those qualities was that it didn’t talk too much, didn’t over-explain anything. in fact, if you don’t read any synopsis on it, you will see the film from a totally different perspective than was intended by the author of the original story because the film never actually addresses a particular detail. and i like it that way. it’s a needless detail, it only serves to restrict the audience to seeing the story in one particular way, and i prefer it to be more interpretive than that. so i want to shake the fucking director’s hand and say, “thanks for not spoonfeeding me as if i’m a god damned idiot.”

i love being weirded out, bothered, disturbed, etc

i’m surprised i’ve never heard of under the skin before though. it stars scarlet johansson, and that alone seems like a detail that would garner more attention, regardless of the films various other merits. in fact, the netflix rating was only one star. that had me worried because i’ve seen a few super, super shitty ‘made for netflix’ horror movies and documentaries that have been made on a budget of about $10, and they’re fucking crap. with a 1-star rating, i thought this might be the same. but i guess the only people rating it on netflix are cavemen and philistines, people who can’t appreciate a finely crafted piece of interpretive art. it just goes to show, like i always complain, that you can’t listen to anyone. no one really knows shit.

that includes me. maybe you’ll watch under the skin and think it’s a piece of shit and i’m out to lunch. whatever. i say watch it, but you do whatever feels right to you. just don’t read about it if you are going to see it. go in with no knowledge other than ‘this might be dark and weird and good.’ because that should be enough of a reason to see it.