me too, I await clarification
I completely agree with the OP. This was a movie completely driven by the bad decisions among people who should’ve known better.
Any counter-arguments that this movie is a “statement” about something fails due to the complete inability of anybody in the film to do the right thing.
With all due respect, this sounds to me like one of those meaningless soundbites uttered by people who discuss “film” and say things like “I loved his use of light.”
ISTM that how the film is about something is in virtually every case subordinate to what the film is about – and appropriately so, because if the audience can’t figure out the latter, they aren’t going to care much about the former. IME, people who say “plot, schmot; let’s discuss how the film was made” generally are defending an inferior movie.
I couldn’t stand the film. No plot–ok, so maybe the characters are interesting. Nope, the characters are unsympathetic (except for the Japanese man–poor guy, his wife offed herself and his daughter is crazy, too). What am I supposed to take away from this film? People I don’t care about do things I wouldn’t do? I can get that from watching Cops.
The acting was good, but Babel shows that good acting is not enough to hold together a movie.
Mr. Athena and I watched this last night, and we both really liked the movie. I don’t understand all the hatred. Sure, it wasn’t your typical movie, and it did try to make some points, but overall we found it engrossing. I was drawn into all the characters.
Was it one of my all time favorites? No. But I found it worth watching.
Was this one of those “important” movies? anytime I see that word in the description, I stay away, far, far, away.
I disagree vehemently. It is this type of thinking that elevates every middlebrow mediocrity to Great status simply because it’s about something important, whether it be the Holocaust, AIDS, genocide, the evil of war, etc. Very often, these types of films get away with remarkably lazy filmmaking, because it’s so obvious that the Message is the Movie. Sure, sometimes the quality of writing and/or acting help elevate it to something special, but how a film communicates a story shows a mastery of a medium beyond simply planting a camera and turning it on.
The relegation of westerns, horror, sci fi, melodramas, etc to the genre dustbin (which was done for decades and still often occurs today) is another result of this mindset. “Well, it’s only a space movie–how can you say it’s more important than this treatise on Man’s Inhumanity?” Easy. Because from a creative standpoint, it’s a much better film. If a film shows ingenuity, resourcefulness, and a novel POV in its approach to “conventional” material, I’m going to hold that film in higher esteem than one that’s trying to impress me with it’s self-important What.
And as for “I loved his use of light”: That is the difference between text and subtext. Film is largely a visual medium, and if you can convey an idea, a theme, a characterization through the “use of light” (or composition, or editing, or camera movement), that is a much more effective use of the medium than if it’s simply done by talking.
And who cares if the “audience can’t figure it out”? Audiences are often spoonfed Cause & Effect, Stimulus & Response so transparently, that I wouldn’t trust them to always understand a device that’s actually a little more sophisticated or complex or original. Most audiences approach movies as passive experiences, and that’s fine. But what that means is that they’re looking for release, or escape, or validation, and are not necessarily in the mood to be challenged. Reading a film for the HOW is so much more difficult than the WHAT. But I think it’s also more rewarding, and the best films I know (rather than the “inferior” ones) are the ones I defend on that basis.
But this doesn’t follow from anything I said. I never said every film must be about Something Important, or that every film about Something Important must therefore be Great. I said that disregarding content and plot (what a film is about) in favor of style is frequently a defense of poor movie-making. Not every film must be about Something Important, but every film worth watching is about Something – and that Something isn’t style. I am no fan of movies that elevate style over substance.
On the contrary; this relegation was accomplished by elevating “style” over plot – precisely the sort of ordering of importance that I deplore. So I’m not really certain what “mindset” you’re referring to, because it certainly isn’t mine.
:rolleyes: What I really enjoy about film discussions is the rapidity with which self-professed cinephiles become patronizing.
The audience, for one. People do not enjoy being confused. They do not enjoy being patronized, bored, or condescended to. A medium that relies on communication to an audience should not be given a gold star or elevated to High Art when it fails in the fundamental act of communication. Not all art must be comprehesible to everyone, but audience-based art should be comprehensible to the audience. If it isn’t, that doesn’t mean the audience is stupid; it means the medium has failed. This is not to say that there is no place for Waiting for Godot, but it’s a pretty small place and Waiting for Godot is already in it.
Aaaaand out comes the patronization and the condescension. Audiences are too stupid to recognize good film when they see it. Except not YOU, of course. You’re smart. That’s why you enjoy “film.” That and the opportunities it gives you to dismiss others as “spoon-fed” while you congratulate yourself on undertaking a “more difficult” task that is of course beyond them.
The fact of the matter is, that great films almost without exception have BOTH style and substance. They do not attempt to elevate HOW the story is told over the story itself, because THAT is the hallmark of bad arthouse films.
With a film having BOTH style and substance, I have no problem with a person wanting to look beyond the story that is told to engage in or examine how the story is told, and the ways in which the “how” adds to the story itself. But a quote like “It’s not so much what a film is about as it is how a film is about what it is about” reads as nothing so much as the elevation of style over substance, and I strongly disagree with it.
But, gosh, maybe I’m not to be “trusted” with anything more complex than simple cause and effect. I’m sure I would completely agree with you if only I was as smart as you. :rolleyes:
Eh. It was a fairly entertaining film that probably didn’t deserve an Oscar, but got one anyway.
It’s certainly not worth a Pit thread, but when I see that it comes from one of our more persistent and prolific recent members, I’m somehow not surprised to find this thread here.
ETA: When I say “persistent,” I mean “trollish.”
Babel wasn’t confusing. It was convoluted because it had so many characters, but it wasn’t confusing. I feel I completely understood both text and subtext. I just didn’t like it, didn’t like the message, and the acting couldn’t save the script from itself.
I don’t know if this is true-- you seem to be arguing that the audience, as a monolith, should get the movie, or it has failed. Well, I don’t know that every movie has the same audience, nor that every audience member who sees a movie has to “get it” for it to be successful. Some pieces of art make you work for your interpretation, and that’s OK by me if it’s well done and worthwhile. The most recent example of a movie like this was The Fountain.
Every story that’s going to be told has pretty much already been told, right? There’s nothing new under the sun. Thus, what makes a movie great is how it’s told, not what it’s telling. I think that’s what ArchiveGuy and Ebert are saying. That’s not elevating style over substance, it’s giving weight to the artfulness of the way the story is wrought, not just to what the story is about. I think this is true of all literature, not just movies. Or stated another way… Two writers tell the same story. One of them is William Faulkner, the other is one of my 7th graders. I’m guessing what will make Faulkner’s better is the way he told the story.
As for Babel, I liked neither the story nor the way it was told, so there you go.
No. This is another example of how every argument must be taken to the extreme in order to be refuted. A movie that is confusing, incoherent, or loses its intended audience is not a good movie. This doesn’t mean that every single person has to understand and enjoy every single movie ever made. I am patently NOT making that argument, and I frankly don’t think I even “seem” to be. I am speaking in generalizations, not in specifics. Art and opinion are subjective. There is no way to authoritatively say “this movie is good” or “this movie is bad” because it’s all a matter of opinion. I only get exasperated by people who act as though those who do not share their own opinions must be uneducated, ignorant, or stupid, as opposed to simply legitimately disagreeing with them. It bugs me that every discussion about the merits of “film” has to almost immediately devolve down to “Oh, you must not have understood it.”
My point is you must have BOTH. And a quote that IMO elevates one over the other is not one I agree with. And if you HAD to elevate either style or substance, one over the other, then going with “style” is IMO the wrong choice.
You presume both tell a good story, at which point I agree, you look at who tells it better. But 400 pages of navel-gazing meandering drivel will not become Literature even if it’s written by Faulkner. You cannot have style without substance. You cannot elevate style OVER substance. A person is not stupid nor desirous of being “spoon-fed” to expect audience-driven art forms to have BOTH.
You’ll have to ask zoe if you are being whooshed, one can only hope so. One can also only hope that Peter Travers was doing so in Rolling Stone when he referred to the movie as “a towering achievement.” (from the back cover of the DVD.)
Kiss my ass you malodorous pervert and by malodorous pervert I mean you Neutron Star.
I definitely wouldn’t have gone to see a movie about a deaf, Japanese, teenaged volleyball player coming to grips with her mother’s suicide and sexual awakening while her father buries himself in work. I feel kind of duped that they tacked such a movie onto what I thought would be something interesting starring two actors I particularly like.
I’ll echo this sentiment. The only argument made in here against the film that I agree with is that it was manipulative. I actually disliked the storyline with Pitt’s character the most, but found the other two rather engrossing.
Eh…to each his own.
Cites for the facts that I either:
a.) Am a pervert.
b.) Don’t smell very good.
Thanks in advance,
neutron star
(In other words: God you’ve proven yourself to be a repeatedly annoying, trolling, completely unfunny, jackass far too many times on this board. Please just go away.)
Don’t freak out, Jodi. This is the Pit but I’m not trying to attack you. You said “audience” in your original post, not “intended audience.” Sometimes the audience at large, as in “moviegoers,” IS stupid, or members of it are, and if they don’t “get it,” they will disparage it. I think the intended audience for The Fountain is different from that of Norbit, for example. If that’s what you’re saying, then we agree. But it is a meaningful distinction.
This argument is as old as art itself. I’m sure there were people lookig at Ug’s cave paintings saying, “I love his use of light,” while others were saying, “Paintings of buffalo hunts are SO last week!” The high/low art argument, the “I know it when I see it, and that ain’t it” argument, etc. I do think some movies are better than others, and a lot of why I think so lies with the thoughfulness and craftsmanship that goes into it.
Yeah, I hate that too. I understood Babel, I just didn’t like it.
I don’t know about that. If every story to tell has essentially already been told, then the way to distinguish a good movie or book or whatever from a mediocre one or worse is HOW it’s told. You can ruin a perfectly good story idea by telling it poorly, confusingly, or manipulatively, or with lots of gimmicks, or with bad acting and directing. I would argue that’s not a matter of style over substance, at least not the way you’re saying it. It’s a matter of craftsmanship, of artistry, not of text per se.
No one is arguing that you can have style without substance and create a meaningful work. That’s a straw man, really, because I don’t see anyone in this thread asserting that. What I’m saying is that creative, well crafted style delivers the substance in a more effective way. Thus, the style is as important as the substance, and in fact, trying to separate them out is a fool’s errand, because they are intertwined.
I think I will just ignore this little temper tantrum of yours and let your own pathetic posts speak for themselves. I hereby recant. To my knowledge you are not a malodorous pervert. (Humorless, neurotic, whiny, egocentric, egotistical, drug addled, self deluded yes, but to my knowledge not a malodorous pervert.)
I hated the movie because I detested every character in it. I found myself becoming thoroughly willing to go out and kill every goddamned last one of them myself if it meant the movie would be over sooner.
Brad & Cate? Just the kind of obnoxious spoiled entitled jackasses that make my life more difficult when I travel because the fuckers have been there already and taught the locals that all Americans are complete jackasses. Complete lack of any sort of common sense or intelligence, the fucking “call the EMBASSY, to get a HELICOPTER out to the boonies to RESCUE my princess WIFE, RIGHT NOW GODDAMIT!!” scenes just made me cringe–you’re in a third world country, shit happens, suck it up there, buttercup! Oh, and MAKE me believe in that whole fucking bus that nobody had a first aid kit or a bottle of vodka to use as antiseptic, go ahead, make me!
The goatherd family? Oh please, I just love it when movie makers go out of their way to portray characters in as base and squalid a fashion as possible–it so enrichens my life and it’s so goddamned life affirming. It matters that the younger kid spies on his sister naked and jerks off why? So I feel all attached to him and feel bad when they all get gunned down later? Sorry, didn’t work.
Illegal immigrant nanny? Yeah, so your son’s getting married–of COURSE you’re going to risk crossing the border TWICE with a couple of gringo kids and there’s just no chance that Emigre might pop you, what are you, STUPID? Oh, that’s right, Mexicans just ARE that stupid and shiftless, because not only do you we have the housekeeper first trying to fob off the kids (which she loves as though they were her own, we’re led to believe) on friends, then decides to take them with her to Mexico, then is so goddamned smart she’ll get into a car with a drunk guy (and her kids let her and don’t find another ride) who then runs from the border patrol (the wrong way) and dumps them out in the boonies (where they can’t backtrack even though it can’t be more than a couple of miles and cars DO leave tracks in sand, you know) and on and on and on–I just wanted to slap every one of THAT bunch, including the incredibly uncharismatic kid actors. Seldom do I root for dehydration to set in on a five year old, but I was rooting hard for it by the end.
As for deaf Japanese girl–aside from being paralyzingly cute with a nice snatch I could not care less about her fucking angst. Hey, sorry your mom offed herself but then again, you ARE Japanese, right? Seppuku is a time honored tradition! So, you’re all upset because your mom’s dead and that means you have to try to fuck every guy that crosses your path? Please, your DENTIST? A random cop? Oh, it’s okay for you to act like a stupid little tramp because you’re all alienated because you’re deaf–fuck that! Get some dignity or some therapy, whatever. I was really rooting for Dad to throw her off the balcony, or maybe just fuck her dumb little brains out–by that time only the hardcore sex scene could have rescued the movie for me.
And the whole Japanese connection hinged on the likelihood that a fairly nondescript hunting rifle is registered in some worldwide instant access database by its serial number. Not enough :rolleyes: 's in the universe! Or that it would even goddamned well matter where the stupid rifle came from in the first place–shit, 200,000 rifles belonging to the US military are floating around the middle east right now and nobody knows where THEY are, but this one super special rifle gets traced instantly back to some Japanese business man–just so we can see a cute Japanese girl flash her snatch. I am NOT BUYING IT!!
To quote a lolcatz caption–PHAAILL!
It’s not like she had a hangnail and he was demanding a medevac unit! She was shot! Damn right I’m going to get on the phone and try to get a helicopter, battleship or unicorn out there to get my wife out if she is shot!
(oh, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie. Watchable, but meh.)