Sad news for American Splendor fans: According to The Comics Journal, Harvey’s lymphoma is back, as of shortly after the film wrapped.
I’m going to bump this thread as I just saw Lost in Translation this evening.
I enjoyed this film, though not as much as some people in this thread. The cinematography was brilliant at times, but the hand held jerkiness of the cameras got to be a bit much after awhile.
The main problem I had with this was the characters. Bob is going through a stage in his life where he seems to hate (or at least is apathetic) to everyone and everything. His wife, his kids, his work, his fans, everything.
Then along comes this woman, to him this girl, and…what? What is it about her that he finds so fascinating? What does he see in her that’s so special to break through his exterior? I don’t feel the movie does a good job of showing or telling this very key aspect.
But then let’s switch it to Charlotte. Who is she? We know she’s a Yale graduate, constantly looking inward and constantly exploring outward, to try to find out who she is. OK. But that’s all the movie really explains.
She’s also bored with life. She’s bored with her husband (or, rather, upset with how he treats his job as more important than her), bored with his friends and their conversations and everything around her.
Yet, when she talks to Bob, her conversations really aren’t all that interesting. Talking about her black toe? How is that any more intellectual than her husband’s friend talking about purifying herself? When that same person gets up and does Karaoki at the bar, they laugh at her. Yet, not 24 hours before, they were doing the exact same thing.
It’s hypocritical of her. But she never seems to realize that she is being hypocritical, nor does the film seem to suggest that this hypocracy is intentional.
I can accept that they’re alike in so many ways and that, yes, they share something that bonds them to one another. I just have a problem with the general nature of their friendship. I don’t believe they’d ever have met each other as they did, nor would they have kept their relationship long enough for that bond to form. That’s the fatal flaw I see in this movie.
I loved Lost in Translation. I see it as a very impressionistic movie - the plot and the dialogue are kinda thin, but what carries it is the acting. The point isn’t so much what Charlotte and Bob say to each other, but how they react to each other and the odd environment they find themselves in. There are so many scenes where if you were in another room and could only hear the audio, it would sound completely vapid and pointless. But when Bob sings that song in the karaoke booth, you can see all his doubts and misery plainly written on his face. And when Charlotte watches him sing, you can see her instant comprehension and sympathy, because she feels the same way. As for the husband’s friend singing, they are very different scenes. With Charlotte and Bob and the others, they are in a booth, no one else can hear them, and they are clearly just goofing around. With the starlet, she’s trying to get everyone in the bar to pay attention to her and her fabulousness, even though she’s not a good singer.
How did Charlotte and Bob meet? Well, they were just two lost souls swimming in a bento box, and happened to bump into each other. If everything else in your life is severly lacking, and your are in a strange country to boot, running into someone even the least little bit like you is going to catch your interest.
I like the duality of this thread: “Two truly excellent movies…”
Enderw24 - I pondered many of the same questions you raise after I saw the movie. For instance, it seemed odd when Charlotte sent a glass of wine (sake?) over to Bob who was commiserating after the Suntori shoot. Yet maybe she saw those jacket-clips (or the makeup) before we did. Their next scene (‘midlife crisis’, ‘did you buy a porsche yet’?) is cinema magic (The film has many long, single camera shots). The humour and subtle awkardness when Bob wears the orange cameo T-shirt and reverses it… Bob’s gentle squeeze of Charlotte’s foot, whispered words our protagonists share; that we - who consider Bob and Charlotte friends - do not hear - and perhaps need not hear.
LiT is the kind of film that hovers in your head - that land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. Tomorrow, maybe, EnderW - many of your questions will be unanswered - yet that’s a movie you’ll want to see again.
Krokodil re: Pekar, this is something he wrote recently:
http://www.freetimes.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=442
He doesn’t mention any relapse - so I hope that’s not true.