What's The Last Movie You’ve Seen?
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Gyp Rosetti
Banned
Wow! Great ****ing movie!
Gyp Rosetti
Banned
Meh. I liked it but thought its ending was awful.
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Gyp Rosetti
Banned
Now imagine Tarantino had directed it, what would your thoughts be? My point? You're hating on the film and Nolan for the same fan-boy reasons that people love him and suck at his teet. Seriously, it's sort of pathetic dude. Your crush on Tarantino that is. I expect better from you.
That said, the film is bigger than just a heist. For me personally, the scene where Murphy encounters his dead father, comes to the realization of his "disappointment" and opens up the safe to take out his childhood toy was powerful as ****. Very Citizen Kane-ish. An embodiment of the film and what it stands for as a whole. IMO.
Craig K. Manscill
Well-Known Member
Yeah, his criticisms of the use of the name "Ariadne" and a crumbling dreamworld are pretty flippin' weak. Like, just because he figured out what Nolan's referring to there means they make the film bad in some way. You're supposed to get what he's saying there, it's not "heavy-handed". They aren't particularly amazing parallels that he's making, but they work.
Also, he criticizes the aggressive musical score and the "singular pacing" being an assault on the audience, but if that's true, why does this method seem to be extremely successful with the audience. They seemed to be entertained thus far. Maybe the audience likes being "assaulted" and Kicky would prefer a more low-key flick.
-Craig
Also, he criticizes the aggressive musical score and the "singular pacing" being an assault on the audience, but if that's true, why does this method seem to be extremely successful with the audience. They seemed to be entertained thus far. Maybe the audience likes being "assaulted" and Kicky would prefer a more low-key flick.
-Craig
Impossible. Tarantino's version of the film would be almost unrecognizable from its current state. You're basically asking me to imagine if Back to the Future was directed by Ingmar Bergman.
I already threw out in the Inception thread that I think the film would have been greatly improved had it been directed by Tarsem Singh, but that has more to do with his directorial style already being proven to be amenable to dream like fantasies and impossible geometry.
I don't think I'm hating on the film at all. I even went out of my way to compliment Cotillard.
I think it's a good heist movie and it's not so great beyond that. I thought it was about as good as something like Ocean's Eleven or the Italian Job (Marky Mark edition). Those are pretty good movies, but they're not anywhere near the best of all time conversation that Inception has been put in.
I wrote a lot of more specific criticisms because I thought that's what safetydan was asking for. I note you have no real response to those criticisms.
I literally laughed out loud very hard. I sincerely hope that was a joke.
Those are heavy-handed because they are pounded into your skull. It's false symbolism because it's structured to be so obvious that it's no longer actually symbolic anymore. It might as well be stated to you verbally (and in the case of Ariadne, it basically is through her dialogue). There is no real insight there. A five year old could understand it. By definition, it's playing to the lowest common denominator.
Compare, for example, Martin Scorsese's works where he much more subtlely uses Catholic imagery in his earlier films. Whether its having the gun dealer in Taxi Driver lay out all the guns in specific shapes and orders so that they resemble the arranging of an altar prior to mass, or burning flowers before the act of killing, or in "Mean Streets" when the liquor is poured into glasses over crossed fingers. These are images that aren't explicitly explained, but mean a lot within the universe that the characters inhabit and as a result are more powerful thematically.
I think about imagery and symbolism in films that same way that P.T. Anderson talks about proper nouns in films that he writes: if you're spending too much time on them or defining their terms verbally, you're going down the wrong path. What we're talking about here is sort of like the difference between writing a christ-like figure into your story, and feeling the need to give that Christ-like figure the initials JC to make sure that people understand what you're trying to do. They both go the same route, but one is the far more obtrusive way of going about it.
This is a variation on the popular = good argument. Audiences also clearly loved Transformers 2.
I don't think it's much of a stretch to make the claim that a film that would be less one-note for 2.5 hours would be an improvement.
Think about it this way, Nolan's best film is probably Memento. That film is structured so that it proceeds at a different pace and even at a different direction in time through its black and white "Sammy Jankis" sequences than the main narrative in the present tense. The rest of the film works better because of the breaks in pacing of those black and white sequences. If the film were cut to eliminate those sequences or tell them all at the beginning consecutively and then proceed with the main narrative it wouldn't be as effective, in part because it makes the film less dynamic.
Craig K. Manscill
Well-Known Member
Fair enough. That was such a thoughtful/civil reply to my post that I'm going to admit I agree with your points to some degree now. The first point regarding symbolism can be debated. I see what you're saying about naming a Christlike character JC, but having his dreamworld crumbling isn't quite the same. Obvious, yes, but that's why I don't think he was trying to make any flashy symbolism there.
-Craig
-Craig
