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bart

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:25 am

Joined: 05 Dec 2005 Posts: 2381 Location: Lincoln NE

Saw History of Violence on the small screen, which definitely muted some of its visceral punch and let me focus more on virtues like the absolute perfection of its pacing. I didn't fully register this the first time I saw it. Also some of the contrasts in the Viggo/Maria relationship before and after her knowledge of his past were sharpened for me -- as when she dresses up as a cheerleader and he's all "wow, this is so wild and sexy" and you think this is hugely transgressive and licentious for them...compare to their angry wild sex on the stairs later, when she knows what he's capable of.

Always amazed at how Cronenberg makes me aware of how we know the world through the body, and how the body reveals truths about ourselves.

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Befade

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 12:55 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 3784 Location: AZ

Appreciate your correction, Inla. We are on the same viewing wave length. McCabe & Mrs. Miller is next for me...........I don't think I've ever seen it.

Bart wrote: "Always amazed at how Cronenberg makes me aware of how we know the world through the body, and how the body reveals truths about ourselves."

Could you elaborate? I don't understand. Does this mean you liked his movie, Crash? I hated it.

bart

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:05 pm

Joined: 05 Dec 2005 Posts: 2381 Location: Lincoln NE

Betsy,

Crash is the only Crones I haven't seen. It's on my list. What I meant is that Crones tends to use the human body in a very direct and literal way. His characters deal with the world through very vivid experiences of their own bodies and other bodies, whether it is transformations (The Fly) or strange extensions and secretions and openings (Videodrome, Naked Lunch, eXistenZ) and so on. So, when he takes on violence, it is also very literal and graphic and bloody, it is about actions that seem to almost erupt from our bodies that may have been previously quiet or even slumbering. Cronenberg touches on the way our bodies are hardwired, deeply so, for our self-preservation.

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Befade

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:14 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 3784 Location: AZ

Bart wrote: "Cronenberg touches on the way our bodies are hardwired, deeply so, for our self-preservation."

I do understand this. One night walking back from the Plaza in Sante Fe with a friend, a car pulled up to us and a young blonde guy hopped out with a long, shiny knife..........shouting, "Give me your purse, bitch."

My reaction was not thought out or calculated........it was automatic. I ran in the opposite direction toward the main road, yelling "help, help, help".

The car sped away past me, but not without the knife puncturing my friend's back. I did not think to get the license plate and I could have.

I spent the night in the hospital with her..........the aftermath for me being a very sore throat from yelling.

bart

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:22 pm

Joined: 05 Dec 2005 Posts: 2381 Location: Lincoln NE

Yeah. Flight or fight takes over, and license plate reading is lower priority in the survival program.

I know a couple people whose strategy is to act insane. They contend that muggers etc. really don't like to deal with crazy people. I think that's a terrible strategy to stake your life on, but I've heard of people making it work.

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marantzo

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 2:36 pm

Guest

As an hilarious line from Dylan states, "I didn't know if I should duck or run, so I ran."

inlareviewer

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 8:10 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

Befade wrote:

Appreciate your correction, Inla. We are on the same viewing wave length. McCabe & Mrs. Miller is next for me...........I don't think I've ever seen it.

Por nada, mai plaisir, it's just that from experience many Army brats and Navy brats and Air Force brats and Marine brats seem, like Taffy Davenport, prone to near-psychotic levels of brattiness over such things as military designation. McCabe & Mrs. Miller is some kind of masterpiece, though what kind I'm sure I dare not say. Somewhere between Fitzcarraldo gone Peckinpah-ly and a daguerrotype developed by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's road crew wearing John Ford's eye-patch. Or a Mark Twain fever dream channeled by Antonioni after a dinner of beans and grits. And though I snark about Shirley's Baby Brother's tics, that's really as crucial to the title character's immense doofus impact, as is Ms. Christie's hard-edges-against-soft-center attack the key factor in the brilliance of her Mrs. Miller. I mean, for crying out loud, Altman and company built a whole mining town in British Columbia...during the shooting of a film in which industrial-commercial concerns and religious fanaticism and the feral pull of the mountains all threaten the would-be honest monopoly and psycho-emotional high jinks of a gonzo gambler and a opiated madam of a burgeoning mining town. Unique, even for Altman.

Edited because I watched it again tonight while tabulating, and editing is what it's all about, baby. Ah, Presbyterian Church.

Last edited by inlareviewer on Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:18 pm; edited 4 times in total
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Joe Vitus

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:14 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston

It's one of my favorites. Some people find it difficult, which I don't really understand. It's also one of the most beautful looking movies I've ever seen.

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inlareviewer

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:51 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

Breathtaking, without getting too persnickety about it.

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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

ehle64

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:58 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 7149 Location: NYC; US&A

Ah men.

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Ghulam

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 10:25 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4742 Location: Upstate NY

Fourty years later, Bergman's Persona holds up quite well. Considered by many to be his finest achievement, together with Seventh Seal (and my favorite Fanny and Alexander), it tells the story of two beautiful women who have some facial resemblance to each other, and who carry their own baggage of guilt. Through close proximity while living in an isolated beach cottage, and through projection, identification and transferance, their holds on their identities loosen and their identities come dangerously close to merging. Brilliant photography with frequent close-ups and interplay of light and shadow add to the impact of the theme. Bergman shines both as a director and a writer, justifying his often being called an "authorial" movie maker.

chillywilly

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 3:22 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8251 Location: Salt Lake City

bart wrote:

A History of Violence was a great movie, with Viggo and Maria (especially Maria) putting in some great performances.... even Maria getting down and dirty in more ways than one (using guns and gams).

One of my favorite films of 2005 (that I didn't see until 2006).

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"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend"

Syd

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 8:46 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12929 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Currently watching Jezebel, which about the chaos that ensues at a ball when all but one woman show up wearing the same dress.

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Nancy

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 10:40 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4607 Location: Norman, OK

Syd wrote:

Currently watching Jezebel, which about the chaos that ensues at a ball when all but one woman show up wearing the same dress.

She was just wearing the wrong shade of white.

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yambu

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 2:46 am

Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area

Breakfast on Pluto is the best comedy/drama of last year. I applauded the fearless, intrepid, loving Patrick "Kitten" Braden at every turn. The conceit of unlikely people thrown together for their own betterment has never worked better. With a terrific Liam Neeson, as Fr. Liam.

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