The oscar votes are the *sine qua non *of subjectivity (or is that a vice versa?). If I were voting for the best picture oscars, movies that cynically manipulate audience emotions in order to sell a pro war message would not get my vote. I’d vote for *Triumph of the Will *for best editing, but not for best picture.
Sorry, I obviously misremembered.
Still, it illustrates my point nonetheless: he thinks the subject matter speaks for itself, and thus relieves himself of all responsibility as an artist.
No, that’s simply your baseless ASSERTION of how he feels, without any proof whatsoever and certainly none in the very short quote that I gave.
Those movies which have a message that lissener agrees with are, by definition, good movies. That is why Starship Troopers is brilliant, see. It’s anti-war. Those movies which have a viewpoint opposite one that lissener holds are, by definition, terrible movies. That’s why SPR deserves nothing.
Huh. I could see some justification of the misquote, but the actual quote? That’s just stupid.
Knock yourself out, guy. You planning on ever actually discussing the movie, or are you just here to re-enact Monty Python’s argument clinic sketch?
I’ve already discussed the movie. I went into the reasons I disagreed with lissener—that the movie didn’t glorify war, but honored the soldiers involved and that it was most certainly antiwar or at least not pro-war because it showed in graphic details not only the horror that war visits upon the men who fight it physically but also the moral degradation that occurs even on the side we see as good.
:gape mouthed smiley that doesn’t look like a bj: No No No!!! You totally had me up until that line! Ordinary People is just about perfect.
The painted bars on helmets were commonly referred to as “aiming stakes.”
On occasion a tad of suspension of disbelief is essential in watching any theatrical work. Believing that Douglas was a French Colonel was one such occasions.
Yeahbut…Kirk Douglas? shakes head That was even aggressively worse miscasting than Burt Lancaster in Frankenheimer’s The Train. But a great movie, nonetheless. Just not my first pick.
Stranger
I agree. Having the French characters in the film speak with an American accent is no less ridiculous than having the French characters in the film speak English in the first place. If you can accept one, there’s no reason you can’t accept the other.
Not all of them.
I guess the reason I think it portrays war accurately is the absolute insanity of the whole thing. The WWI French Army’s method of punishing mutiny by random selection of people to be put to death for it, which was true, was one such insanity. There are others.
Every one I’ve talked to (including my late father).
And no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.
Stranger
Yeah, Lancaster’s wonted woodenness doesn’t do much to help an already pretty dang wooden movie. Frankenheimer has his strengths, but he also gots a lot of weaknesses. Very interesting film; an essential in the WWII “canon,” if you ask me, because of its unique approach to the subject. But it coulda been way better.
Stop teasing him, David.
Rik, as I recall, David is a WWII vet. So I’d wager he can point to one such vet who doesn’t think it’s all that sweet.
Since they never release the final vote tally for the Academy Awards and since nobody exit polls Academy voters, any discussion on how and why “Movie A” was picked over “Movie B” for Best Picture is just going to be speculation. In terms of the reason why SPR lost to SIL, I lean more towards the backlash theory. SPR had been released that previous summer to great acclaim and huge box office so there was a lot more time for momentum to build, peak, and shift (and more time for people to analyze and pick out any flaws) than there was for SIL which was released months later. Had they delayed **SPR ** until November or December when most of the other Best Picture nominees were released, perhaps it might’ve won. (But, then again, it would’ve run into direct competition with another eagerly anticipated WWII epic, The Thin Red Line.)
For the record, I preferred SPR over SIL but the latter’s victory never really upset me. I never let myself get too bent out of shape over whether the wrong person or movie won the Oscar any given year.
To be honest, I think it’s actually LESS dumb to have them speak with their own accents than to put on French accents. (I am similarly unwilling to critize “Enemy at the Gates” for having Russian soldiers speak with English accents. Besides, “Enemy at the Gates” has a zillion other things you can criticize it for.)
I mean, does anyone with an IQ above 75 actually think French soldiers speak English with French accents? What does putting on a French accent accomplish, exactly?
“Ah’m French! Why else would I have zis outrageous accent, you seelly king!”
At least in “The Hunt for Red October” they told the audience, through the little camera trick in the captain’s berth scene, “Okay, we’re switching over from Russian to English now.” It was kind of a neat move. I felt like, hey, they’re not going to insult my intelligence by pretending Sean Connery can actually speak Russian.
I’d forgotten about that little trick. You’re right…it was a neat move.
[OT]Mel Brooks also did a similar thing in his remake of To Be or Not To Be. Except he had a voice-over announce the dialogue was going to be in English rather than Polish.[/OT]