Am I the only person in the world that can watch a movie and NOT look for deep inner meaning, reshuffle the letters in characters names into words and phrases with deep inner meaning … look at the costuming without seeing deep inner meaning?
I have been reading the movie threads in the dope, and some of the forums on IMDB … I swear there is a group of posters on the IMDB that make wordplay with character names looking for super secret deep inner meaning phrases…I was looking at specifically At the Mouth of Madness …
Dudes, it is a freaking horror movie based on H P Lovecraftian memes … John Carpenter was out to make a buck, the writers were out to make a buck, the actors were out to make a buck … Horror movies were popular that year…
Ferris Bueller was out to have fun, skip school and maybe get laid … the Breakfast Club were sitting through detention and trying to amuse themselves.
Deal with it, sometimes a movie is just a movie … the studios want to make some money, not make deep inner meaning.
I wouldn’t worry about it. If there is a Deep Inner Meaning, you should get it- or not. Trying to “decode” a subtext misses the point, it wouldn’t be meant to be appreciated on that level.
A work of art is like a ball. There are lots of different ways to play with it. One person might bounce it up and down, someone else might throw it against the wall, two other people might use it to play catch.
What is the right way to play with a ball?
That doesn’t mean that properties of the ball itself are immaterial. Soccer balls lend themselves to certain types of games. Baseballs lend themselves to others. And don’t even get me started with hockey pucks.
But the fact that a ball might have been manufactured with a particular game in mind doesn’t mean you’re required to play it. What if my friends and I construct a set of rules that allows us to have fun by rolling a hockey puck down a hill to see how far it goes? The fact that a hockey puck can be used like that is kind of interesting, even though the manufacturer never envisioned it being used that way.
All movies allow a wide range of different ways to experience them. Some of those ways were intended by their creators, but many others weren’t. Constructing a framework that allows you to “play” with a movie in a new way is fun, just like figuring out a new set of rules to play with a ball is fun.
I have said in other threads that I’m pretty shallow when it comes to movies - my only requirement - and my only goal in going - is to come away feeling good.
So what is your ‘comfort food’ movie … one movie that you will want to watch if you aren’t feeling good, or don’t want to have to think about anything? Mine is Buckaroo Banzai because it is pure cheese, if I am ill and want brainless amusement and M by Fritz Lang if I want to enjoy a good noir …
Whether you look for it or not, I suggest that movies that DO have a deeper meaning are the ones you can watch over and over and again. There are some movie that you look at once and enjoy, and that’s it. You can’t watch it a second time, it’s boring. There are others that you watch over and over, and still enjoy them. This is often because that movie has deeper levels (whether you want to call them “meanings” is irrelevant, but deeper levels of understanding, certainly.)
By analogy: within the murder-mystery genre, I read an Agatha Christie novel once, and that’s it. OK,Yeah, I might be able to read it ten years later when I’ve forgot the plot, but that’s all there is. On the other hand, I can read the same Dorothy Sayers novel several times.
aruvqan, I don’t really have one I guess. I used to watch The Princess Bride with friends way back in the day, but I don’t have anything that I put on over and over now.
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C K Dexter Haven**, I’m not saying movies never have deeper meanings, but it isn’t a requirement for my enjoyment. Having said that, I am not one to re-watch movies much. On a lazy day I might watch parts of a movie I’ve seen before, but I can’t remember when I last sat through an entire movie that I had already seen.
It’s not that everybody watches for the deeper, less obvious stuff; it’s that the ones who do are the ones you tend to hear from, because it gives them something to talk about.
Well, occasionally creators intend a deeper meaning. Some stuff works on several levels, from obvious to subtle. On the other hand, if someone really reaches in their interpretation and goes beyond the subtle to incredibly convoluted, there’s probably no meaning except the one they invented.
My perfect example of this sort of film wankery is in a comedy - The Freshman matthew Broderick is playing a guy off to college, film school of all things. Paul Benedict plays the film professor. He seems to think that The Godfather is the worlds greatest film, and there are several hysterical scenes in class where they are watching and discussing the movie … he literally treats the movie like some deep secret enlightenment.
There seem to be a number of films that people worship - The Godfather, Apocalypse Now being two of them. I have serious trouble staying awake through Apocalypse Now - the favored name for the movie in my circle of friends is PorkLipz Now as we really cant figure out why people seem to worship it. It is stultifyingly boring and one time I actually watched it with the reels out of order, and it made as much sense as watching it in order. The Godfather is about mobsters. People kill other people, make deals and try to kill more people. Meh. Puzo wrote the book to make money, the studio made the movie to make money.
If you approach a work merely as a sequence of events, most narrative is boring. The depth comes from the opportunities that the story provides for extended rumination. What were Michael’s motivations? How do our family ties determine our fate? Can a criminal be tragic … or even noble?
The Godfather is not Transformers. If you just sit there passively and expect to be entertained by thrilling chase scenes and explosions, you’re going to be disappointed. Enjoying The Godfather requires that you do a little work to get inside the character’s heads and try to puzzle out their actions.
Nothing in jest, of course (I myself have interpreted “I Am the Walrus” as being about an alien invasion). However, a serious specious interpretation shouldn’t be put forth as fact.
I think that everyone so far who have posted in this thread have fallen into aruvqan s little philosophical trap.
On the face of it he/she APPEARS to be making a case for movies being made to enjoy at its ovious level.
Ah ha …ON THE FACE OF IT !
Whereas at a very subtle multi level even the most basic anaylsis shows that he/she is in fact asking us to question the very meaninglessness of the Exisitentialists shallow version of reality when as applied to ourselves using a post Jungian psychological metaphor.
Why even the O.P.s name is an anagram of the name of a famous T’ang dynasty poet/warrior noted for her commentaries on the underworld as compared to a fading Lotus blosom in autumn.
Anyone who has seen “The Nutty Proffessor”,that savage indictment of neutralism in a world conflict knows that.
I am saying that a long lingering shot of some guy doing the whole cigar prep and light ritual doesnt mean sex, he might just be taking his time lighting a cigar. Just because we now associate cigars with Monica Lewinski and Bubba, it does NOT mean that there is anything about sex going on. The director probably eneded a pause for timing and putzing with a cigar took the right amount of time.
So your argument is “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”?? How very Freudian of you.
The whole thing reminds me of an old Jay Leno joke, which boils down to “First the wife whines ‘what about my needs?’ and then the husband whines ‘what about my needs?’ Hey! What about MY needs? I need to be entertained. Go blow up a car or something!”