But did you like the movie???
Sorry, but i don’t think those posts answered the question that Kalhoun was asking. You might think i’m being obtuse, but it seems to me that they related to this specific movie, andnothing more.
Ah, that’s more like it. At least now you make clear that this isn’t just about this specific movie or these specific characters. And nor is it about all movies. We learn, i think for the first time, that your complaint is specifically attached to stories of “troubled love” and your need to “feel sorry” for the main characters in such stories, and to believe that they “deserve something better.”
Personally, i think you’ve sort of got the chain of causation all messed up in this particular movie. The reason that the two main characters do things that we find problematic is that they are so alienated from their society. In that sense, i do feel sorry for them, and i do believe they deserve something better. Sure, ideally they wouldn’t be unfaithful etc. along the way, and would avoid hurting the people who love them, but all this is part of the pathos of their story for me.
But this is merely a case of differing about this particular movie, which is fine. While i don’t agree with you about the movie, at least i understand better where you’re coming from now regarding the general question of unsympathetic characters in movies.
It’s true that they are dissimilar to Brokeback Mountain, but i still think a certain general principle applies.
I’d reiterate Kalhoun’s question about whether you liked those movies. And i’d be interested to know why it is that those movies “do not hinge on [you] actually liking the characters.”
Personally, despite their unsavory actions, i do sort of like Marsellus and Vincent. And that, for me, is one of the intertesting things about the film-maker’s craft—the way that the audience can be convinced to cheer for people who they would, in real life, find frightening or immoral.
I’ll be finding out this weekend if I like BBM. We’re driving out to vegas friday afternoon, so I plan on watching on the road.
I can’t find any list of movies posted by Kalhoun, so I don’t know which movies “those movies” are. Since we’re talking about Pulp Fiction; yes, I like that movie very much.
Because the point of the movie doesn’t rely on me liking them. What’s the point of Pulp Fiction? Damned if I know, but it sure isn’t that Vincent Vega was screwed by fate.
That isn’t the point of Brokeback either.
Thanks, Mhendo…you’re much better at getting to the essence of the question here. As far as I can tell, Priceguy is still judging movies based on the characters. I liked every depraved character in Pulp Fiction (with the exception of Leather Dude On A Chain), to a degree. Which is pretty much how real life is. Nearly every person on the planet has at least some likeable qualities.
So, Priceguy…aside from the characters, what did you like about Pulp Fiction and Brokeback Mountain?
The major qualities of Pulp Fiction, to me, were the same as with most Tarantino films: the unreal dialogue, the black humour, the portrayal of characters who are really from a totally different world than I, the violence. The absurdity of the situations shown; two people (at least one of them a killer) doing a drug deal while agreeing that people who key cars should be killed, no trial, no jury, straight to execution. It’s a fantasy whose twist is that it ostensibly takes place in our own world.
As for Brokeback Mountain, there really wasn’t much I liked about it. I didn’t even care for the performances, which surprised me, as I’ve seen and enjoyed both Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in other movies. The one moment that moved me was the first time they meet after the shepherding summer, when Ennis bursts out of the house and goes “Jack fucking Twist!”; those three words said more to me than most of the rest of the dialogue.
I like Tarantino’s “real people” approach to the criminal element. They ARE real people. Not normal by any means, but real. They have conversations about cheeseburgers. They have interests outside of blowing guys’ heads off. The contrast within the characters is one of the most appealing things about a Tarantino flick, to me.
As for Brokeback Mountain, I found the scenery and the mood to be equally as important to the overall film as the characters. Anyone who’s been in the boonies in the west can relate to the vastness and how that wash of immense silence sort of permeates everything, including the people. The cinematography was absolutely stunning.
Things I didn’t like about Brokeback:
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Heath’s accent was very difficult for me. I have a bit of a hearing deficit, and I had to struggle to make out what he was saying. As I mentioned in another thread, I have a tough time with some accents anyway, and his was very hard for me.
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Jake’s Fucking Mustache. He’s not a mustache guy. Someone needs to tell him that.
What strikes me as interesting is that about 90% of all BBM negative criticism I’ve read, heard or seen uses this explanation: Cheaters are assholes. Ennis and Jack are cheaters, therefore they are assholes. As such, there is no way I can sympathize with their struggle. Fair enough, but it seems like an overly-simplistic approach to a film with a lot of emotional layers and historical/regional context (which have all been discussed previously). In addition, nobody seems to view the cheating in its proper context: if anything, Ennis and Jack are unfaithful to each other with their wives.
Ennis and Jack are the first couple we meet, and the whole first act is devoted to setting theirs as the primary relationship in the film. It is these two characters we are supposed to emotionally engage with (particularly Ennis). The relationships with the wives and children, while still important and a source of great emotional resonance, aren’t the point of the story. It is Ennis and Jack’s basic humanity - not any particular behavior - that makes them deserving of love, and why you root for them even though they are in an impossible situation.
Since they both know the other is married, I can’t really see that particular behaviour as assholish.
The movie failed to get me to root for them, which is the point I’ve spent four pages trying to make.
I think that the “adultery” objection (and I don’t include Priceguy in this) is for a lot of people simply an excuse to slam the movie because they don’t like the homosexuality. It gives them the illusion of a moral high ground which allows them to evade having to admit the real reason they have a problem with it (and a bunch of those people haven’t even seen it).
The movie doesn’t excuse or endorse adultery, nor does it expect the audience to root for the relationship of the leads at the expense of other characters. It’s not a love story. That’s not what it’s about.
I sometimes think it’s that. Other times I think people who can’t get past the cheating are people who have had a bad experience with adultery. Sure, cheating is wrong, but in the context of BBM, how hard is it to feel a little sympathy for these characters? The societal pressures that led to the marriages have to be greater than anything I’ve ever had to put up with.
I was actually going to add this exact point in my post, but I figured I already had enough in there.
I don’t think anyone disbelieves that you don’t like the movie or the characters, it is just that the adultery argument feels disingenuous.
Your argument - and it is not just yours, of course - is that the protagonists, and by extension the movie, are unlikeable mainly because of their adultery. But the whole beginning of the film (something like forty minutes? an hour?) is devoted to making you, the viewer, fall in love with Ennis and Jack while they are falling in love with one another. Remember, this is before either of them are married, and before we, as viewers, have met Alma or Jack’s wife. If you aren’t fully engaged emotionally with Ennis and Jack’s relationship at the end of that summer, if your heart didn’t ache when Ennis punches the wall and sobs, then you are *never *going to root for them. At that point you have already refused to accept the characters at their most pure moment. Since it could not have been the adultery (since it hadn’t happened yet), it must have been something else that turned you off. Maybe the sex, maybe the punching, maybe shooting the elk, who knows? But it’s not the adultery.
So the movie failed to get you to fall in love with its protagonists. That’s fair. But also you failed to accept what the film was narratively constructed to do. That doesn’t make it a bad movie or you a bad viewer, it just makes you a bad match for one another.
Two points:
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No, my argument isn’t that they’re unlikeable mainly because of their adultery. The adultery is one of the things that show Ennis and Jack to be assholes. I’ve listed other things several times.
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As I’ve also said previously, Ennis is already engaged to be married that summer. He’s never “pure”, he’s a cheater from the start.
Maybe I would have started rooting for them if I’d found the performances convincing. Maybe that wouldn’t have helped either. I don’t know.
By your logic, everytime someone fell out of love with their first love, they’d be “impure”. In our society (particularly at that time in our history), the lock-down doesn’t occur until marriage. If they had a chance to pursue their love in this society, fiancees would have been dumped and they’d have rode off on horseback into the sunset. That’s the *point. * And there wouldn’t have been much of a movie. Without conflict, where’s your story?
Caveat: I haven’t got around to see the movie yet.
[idle speculation]
Could it be that this is a very, very American movie? The SSM debate surfaced a few years ago, the cowboy myth that is so ingrained in the lore of America, the heartland and traditional family values. But mmany gays have adopted the cowboy look too:
I wonder if BBM would’ve caused a stir in the 70’s?
And I wonder if you have to be American to truly appreciate the movie.
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As much as box office receipts translates into appreciation, international audiences have so far appreciated the film about 12 million dollars more than US audiences have.
I don’t see that; the life of a cowboy, as often as not a single man working in remote areas, has little bearing on “traditional family values.” Traditional family values are usually generated by, you guessed it, families, not men working cattle.
That’s not really saying much, not only about appreciation, but the American-ness of the flick: If you look at the international returns, you’ll see that some countries bring in large revenues, typically the UK, but note that Australia shows a better return than Germany (which has four times the population).
On preview:
Wallon - I don’t think so. The lonesome cowboy is working hard to make money so he can go home and propose to his childhood sweetheart. It’s all part of a package: “Go west, young man”. Hit the heartland, get going working as a cowboy, fieldhand, shepherd. Make a little money, get married and settle down on a farm. Raise some kids and scrape by, thanking the Lord in daily prayers and on Thanksgiving. As a non American, I’ve seen this so many times n movies, that when I finally drove across the Midwest, to the Rockies, it felt as if I was driving on a movie set. If you’re actually raised in that country, where it’s part of a national heritage, part of what defines you as a people - “My great grandparents came here from Sweden and left for Minnesota, looking for a better life” - it’s something that resonates more deeply with you guys, I think, than it would for me, who might see this movie and enjoy it more on an intelletual level than an emotional level.
Maybe I should shut up till I see it.
There are plenty of men with families who spend the majority of their time away from the family working. Salesmen, truckers, reporters, etc. They have non-Ozzy-and-Harriet families, but families nonetheless.