Chas,
It’s all a matter of perspective on who the hero is in CTHD. Regardless, the movie blows egg foo young anyway.
It would of made more sense in Hebrew. ;j
My take… I’ve always thought that the “shaky camera” technique is best to promote a sense of disturbance and unease in the viewer. Since Traffic was all about disturbance and unease… well… you get the picture. However, I think this technique is best used during fast-paced action sequences, such as the torpedo-launching scene in U-571.
You never heard of a guy named Spike Lee?
Well, and the shakey-cam stuff works also during any Klingon attack, but requires Bill Shatner to stumble around.
Ooner, look, pal, I happen to agree with some of the points that the film was trying to make. I’ve been saying them for close to 20 freakin’ years, now, so maybe that’s why I was so underfucking whelmed by the film, but let’s be realistic, here, shall we? First of all, if the wife wasn’t a suspect, then why in the name of all motherfucking god did they park a surveillance in front of her house? The lawyer thought that they had her home phone tapped, so why the fuck wouldn’t they eavesdrop on her cell phone calls? (Uh, they can do that you know. Its not hard. You can even buy the equipment yourself, if you know the right sources. Its not legal for you to own it, but you can do it.)
Secondly, the film reinforces the stereotypes that African-Americans are supposed to be drug dealers. None of the rich white girls that I’ve known ever went to the projects to get their drugs. They all had a white connection who lived (or at least hung out) in their section of town.
Third, they made a big deal out of her screwing the African-American drug dealer. Why? Because they wanted to make the point that drugs make rich white girls go out and have sex with African-American men! (Did you see any non-addict interracial couples in that movie? I think not.)
Fourth, Benecio Del Torro’s character doesn’t want money to for narking on his boss, he wants a baseball field so the kids won’t do drugs. Riiiiiight. Because the kids can now play baseball, they’ll leave drugs alone, and no one will ever hook up at the baseball game to do a drug deal. :rolleyes:
Come on, pal, that movie was lame and about 20 years behind the times.
Don’t worry your pretty little head, Chas - there’s a lot more to the movie.
Esprix
Tuckerfan is right, Traffic sucked. Do rich girls get their drugs by heading down to the inner city? Um, no they get them from their fawking classmates, who get them from their connections, who get them from their connections.
And the movie had a totally unrealistic portrayal of drug addiction. Come ON. How many rich girls end up as crack whores? I understand that plenty of rich girls end up addicted, and many of them end up in questionable relationships because of it. But crack whores? I think not. The daughter’s addiction was completely plot driven. We had no idea why she did the things she did, it made no sense. Wait, the idea was to show that addiction makes people do things that make no sense except to the addict! Fuck that, addicts are human beings too. They have recognizable, understandable human behavior. Drugs don’t turn you into a fawking coke-bot whose only thought is to get more drugs.
And what self-respecting drug kingpin’s wife would scream “Shoot him in the head!” into her CELL PHONE? And what self-respecting DEA agent wouldn’t have the wife monitored? And when their star witness winds up dead, don’t you think that you could use that little fact to perhaps, oh I don’t know, pin a murder rap on the perp?
And ooooh, the Mexican drug czar is actually a drug trafficer! Very subtle point…all Mexicans except Benicio Del Toro are corrupt. Why, it’s like the whole country is corrupt! Mr. Sonderburgh, you are an idiot.
Hand-held Cameras: Personally, I don’t mind hand-held cameras. Some people have extreme reactions to them, but after a while I don’t even notice. But it’s really a physiological thing. It doesn’t make me sick, so I don’t care.
I didn’t watch Homicide for years because I despised the hand-held camera, not to mention the instant-replay, or whatever the hell it’s called.
Kicking myself for that inane decision. Still hate the hand-held cameras.
Oh, I will say one other thing in defense of Traffic, it did portray something realistically at the time that I thought was totally unbelievable. The bit where the daughter walks away from the rehab clinic. I just couldn’t believe that the Washington folks would be so stupid as to send the daughter of the drug czar nominee to a place she could easily runaway from. After all, they’d be smart enough to stuff her someplace where someone could keep a lid on her until she dried out. Then, of course, the Bush daughters got busted. Oh well, at least they got something right. :rolleyes:
Perhaps you would do some good doing research on the Internet. The Director of Dancer in the Dark is the founder of an entire cinematic movement (Dogma 95) of which the use of handheld cameras a major part of. Granted, Dancer in the Dark is not exactly a full on Dogma 95 film, but you really can’t expect tripods from Lars von Triers.
Whether you like it or not, handheld cameras revolutionized film. I suggest you do some research and look at why directors do the things they do, instead of whineing “This doesn’t look like (insert name of inane Hollywood movie here)”
Actually, I believe it is a religously Dogma 95 film… why did you think it wasn’t? Because of the music? My understanding (which may be wrong) is that music is permitted if it is part of the story itself, not manipulative background stuff, and the music in Dancer was precisely that.
stoid
Ok, I take that back. I just read the Dogma 95 “Vow of Chastity” and Dancer does not qualify. Close, but no cigar.
stoid