I agree with litost on Dancer. But then again, I sometimes really want to be emotionally manipulated by a film, and Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts do nothing for me.
I just piped in to suggest that if you do something like this again, UWmite, try a film called The Piano Teacher. Viewing it left me feeling bereft for a few days, much like the other two did, and then after some thought I felt kind of exploited. Call me crazy, but I enjoy that in a flick.
The story and acting of Dancer really moved me. The way it was filmed truned my stomach and gave me a headache.
I’m sorry but a handheld camera is not more realistic. When I look at the world through my eyes it does not shake around like that.
Well, maybe you just aren’t doing the right drugs, buddy!
My feeling about “Requiem for a Dream” is that its worse flaw was all the jump-cutting they did in Jennifer Connelly’s lesbian double dildo scene. I mean, it was a scene worth SEEING and they botched it.
Dude, I have GOT to see that movie.
After Requiem for A Dream, I had to wait for the theater to empty before I could compose myself enough to be seen in public.
Sobbing, not just tears down the face, but big wracking sobs. Ellen Burstyn was amazing, and I thought the other actors did very good work as well. I saw it again, at home, with the same reaction. And I downloaded all the music off of Napster, so when I am in “a mood”, I listen and remember it all over again.
Speaking of depressing double features, last night I watched THE PIANO TEACHER and BULLY.
Oy.
Not at all; more like agreeing with him that this is a valid comment. I don’t think superiority comes into it: Surely one can comment on some aspect of culture, even negatively, without being accused of a superiority complex?
That said, LVT has a HUGE superiority complex. But to be honest, I don’t think it’s unrealistic. I think he’s one of the most important filmmakers working today, and I think, further–and this is even more impressive–he’s come as close as any artist I can think of to making great art out of postmodernism.
And I’m sad to see that you bought the childish backlash against the Dogme 95 thing rather that considered it for yourself. To call it lame nonsense is ridiculous and, frankly, smacks of a superiority complex. The directors behind Dogme 95 weren’t turning their back on mainstream filmmaking; they were simply proposing a new genre. That they proposed it as a remedy to the Indpendence Days and Jurassic Parks was taken by many to mean that such films had no further right to exist, but that’s not at all the case. Each of the directors behind the Dogme 95 manifesto made one film each within its rules, and then went back to making films outside of Dogme 95.
Well, of course these objections are about your own expectations; you can’t fault VT for that. What’s more, he’s saying, you have no right to do so. And what you complain about–the disconnect between the actors’ “sincerity,” as you call it, and my interpretation of the film; between the “Hollywood triteness” and the verite; served very well to make his point about the disconnect between real emotional life and the fake life so many of us (myself included, of course) get from the screen.
The fact that VT constructed a gritty, wrenching, torture of a film out of a grab bag of some of Hollywood’s favorite cliches should make his intentions abundantly clear. And the fact that you felt manipulated and betrayed–the fact that you expected a certain kind of emotional experience from him and he refused to indulge you–yes, that IS exactly the point of Dancer in the Dark.
Sure, but I would think that a requirement of that comment on culture wouldn’t use derogatory terms like “stupid” and “artistically lazy” and “gullible” and “rubbing your nose in it.” How is it wrong to detect more than a hint of superiority in that?
How could you possibly have inferred from my parenthetical aside jab that I never considered Dogme 95 for myself? And I’m still not clear on how that got turned around to my having a superiority complex, but whatever. (Is it because I consider myself superior to Von Trier? If it’s in regards to being less of an insufferable prick, then hey, guilty as charged.)
Anyway, I’ll grant that the only Von Trier movies I’ve seen are Zentropa, which I thought was visually and stylistically impressive but ultimately empty and superficial, and Dancer in the Dark. But I did read the whole Dogme 95 Manifesto and rejected it on my own, thank you very much. If you’ll take a moment to read the FAQ associated with it, you’ll see that the creators themselves acknowledge it as silly, albeit deeply serious and important at the same time. (Remember: “Irony and seriousness is interlinked in inseparable,” according to the FAQ.) They acknowledge that it can be perceived as a big PR stunt, but you see – ha HA! That’s part of the point!
And that’s my point; like so many other attempts at “postmodernism” and “deconstructionism” and Craig Kilborn, it’s trapped in its own spiral of irony and just implodes into a singularity of pointlessness. More simply, it comes down to the oldest and cheapest of counter-arguments: “Put up or shut up.” Any idiot can go around talking about how x sucks; the internet proves that, if nothing else. But that has no artistic value. A true artist would make his comment on some aspect of culture, even a negative one, by presenting us with something better. You don’t get at the “truth of film” by presenting a list of arbitrary rules; the whole concept is absurd. There’s nothing inherently “true” about handheld cameras. The “truth” is in what you do with the film, whether or not you decide to use standard cinematic conventions. If you’ve made a good movie, it should speak for itself and not require a “confessional” or a statement describing what you were trying to say.
As for this vision of a world where The Idiots and Dude, Where’s My Car? can peacefully co-exist, it’s just not there; I believe that’s your own interpretation. The whole thing is worded as a counter to the problem of films today, which is, of course, a value judgement. Sure, maybe they allow that “superficial” movies like Independence Day still have a right to exist, but only in the most condescending way possible. “Sit passively and watch your so-called ‘entertainment’ you mass-media slaves; meanwhile we will save our culture by creating truth.” To imply that that’s not a dismissal of other movies is just being fatuous.
To paraphrase, “The movie is all there plain as day, you just didn’t get it.” No. I certainly can fault Von Trier for the film’s not meeting my expectations, and I certainly do have every right to do so. Movies are communication, and communication works both ways. They only work if the audience and the filmmakers are willing to meet each other halfway, and Von Trier’s detachment and, yes, superiority, prevent that. I did have a preconceived idea, based on the music and the plot synopsis, of how the movie was going to play out, and it didn’t. But that’s not the only reason I’m saying the movie sucked. I say it sucked because it failed to work on any level.
Believe me, I did leave the movie trying to make some sense out of it, if only to make myself feel that I hadn’t wasted the last, what, FIFTEEN HOURS of my life. Was it supposed to be taken at face value? If so, it was hopelessly shallow and contrived. Okay, then, was he trying to be arty and contrast the bright, colorful, shallow, and simplistic world of Selma’s fantasy life with the harsh reality of the real world? If so, then the bright colorful world of the musicals wasn’t distinguished enough, and the “real” world was hopelessly contrived and unrealistic. So, then, I was left with your theory, which is that the whole thing is “meta,” and the whole point is that the “real” world is itself part of a movie, and is therefore hopelessly contrived and unrealistic.
Which gets back to the question I raised in my last post: “Why bother?” Or, more relevant to me, “Why take so long to say it?” The whole thing was summed up much more effectively, and more succinctly, in Spike Jonez’ video to Bjork’s song “It’s Oh So Quiet.” Musicals are silly! It’s crazy and nonsensical how people suddenly burst into song and get all happy! Word on the street is that Von Trier chose Bjork for the movie after seeing this video, which leaves me wondering how he intended to improve on it. Why would he subject people to two and a half hours of pointless, pedantic posturing unless he were saying something that hasn’t already been said countless times before? Could it be because, I don’t know, he’s an egomaniac?
And I don’t know if this is true or if my seething hatred of Von Trier has colored my memory: I seem to recall that at the beginning of Dancer in the Dark, during the prelude, the words “LARS VON TRIER” fade in in giant letters across the screen, excruciatingly slowly as the music swells. And then there are no other credits. Did this really happen?
Hey, I’m America and Julia is absolutely my sweetheart, but this is the god’s truth.
Damn, UWmite… you’re a brave one. Both of those movies in one night must have packed quite a wallop. Would you say they left you completely numb, or just made you dissolve into a heap of useless slag for a while?
As for me, I saw them about a year apart… Dancer in the Dark first. I had listened to the soundtrack and liked it (I’m a big Bjork fan), but it didn’t at all prepare me for the film. I rented it one night and watched it after my wife went to bed. I amazed at the deft manipulation of elements and the twisting of all the themes of the musical genre on themselves, and at the same time I found my own emotions turning down, and down, and down. The ending just left me flatlined. I turned off the television and went to bed cold. I woke the next day and went to work, where I was completely anti-social and useless (not my usual state at all). I was still a bit grumpy when I came home. The film affected me deeply. I still can’t listen to the soundtrack without feeling an echo of that depression.
And, by the way, I agree more with lissener’s reading of it. A brilliant film, successful on many levels.
I watched Requiem for a Dream a few months ago, and it disturbed me pretty deeply as well, but if it caused any “depression” aafter I saw it, it didn’t last through until the next day. It was a very effective, twisted, moving film, but didn’t have a lasting emotional efffect on me for some reason.
Both on the same night? I don’t think I’d even attempt it.
I loved Dancer in the Dark, but strangely I didn’t find it depressing at all. It was just an enjoyable movie. However, I don’t think it works as a statement that audiences are letting films manipulate them, blah blah blah, because there are so many movies with that message (some unintentional) that they are almost their own genre. It’s not exactly a unique idea.
I haven’t seen RfaD, but DitD destroyed me. I had had the plot explained to me, in great spoilery detail, twice. I thought I knew what to expect, but actualy seeing it…my goodness. I was a mess, my brother was sobbing out loud, my friend went and hid in the bathroom for an hour.
I then decided it was brilliant, and all my friends needed to see it, so the very next night a half dozen of us watched it again, me figuring that I’d be able to handle it.
Wrong.
Once it was finished, and we had sat sniffling in silence for a while, one of my friends, tears streaming down her face, smacked me upside the head and said ‘you are never, ever, picking the movie again. Ever.’
I saw The Piano Teacher a while ago. Ouch. I wasn’t as unhappy as I was after DitD, but I felt slightly sick all night. The two guys that we were with actually left the theater halfway through - according to the girl that worked at the theather that was really common.