[Closed] Recent Viewing Part III

Fallen Angel (1945), a true film noir film. It has the con man, murder, love triangle, and good photography with a superb Raksin score.
Tom

Oh yeah, SPRING BREAKERS is certainly something! I especially found the (sometimes shocking) images of the girls partying juxtaposed with Martinez' haunting score and the girls' calls with their family telling how much they were 'finding themselves' in this 'unforgettable holiday' to be really poignant.

Yes, more than anything it seems to be a contemplation of youth in search of their identity and their vulnerability, and how easy they can be impressed and manipulated in this uncertain period. It gives some insight in how many can get on the wrong path in this moment of their lives.

PATTON ( 1970 )

Excellent film with a powerhouse performance from title star George C Scott who won a well deserved Oscar. As usual the accuracy of military vehicles is exceptionally iffy ( all German tanks are American models from a later period ) but unlike in a film like, say, THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE where it was about one of the greatest tank battles in history and therefore makes it's anachronisms unforgivable, I can forgive that in Patton where the war takes second billing to the story of the man.

Jerry Goldsmith's score is one of the true greats, it's criminal that he didn't win the Oscar.

Just to be perverse, I found JACK REACHER hilariously good.

'Did I have a knife in Siberia?'

Raiders Of The Lost Ark

This film is art.

A lost art.

Nice.

Going through war movies recently I got back to the close-to-masterpiece movie that definitely is Platoon. It's not without its disadvantages - some of the acting from supporting characters can be dodgy (even Sheen is sometimes dangerously close to overacting; though Berenger with his understated *madness* and Dafoe's Elias are a pure joy to watch; also some masterful contribution from Forest Whitaker, Keith David and the, I know he wasn't a name at all, even if he *was* actually considered as Taylor for a short while, underused Johnny Depp).

Though I must say that while I love Adagio for Strings and I don't necessarily agree that it's an overused piece... it is definitely overused in THIS movie (maybe that's what Timmer meant in his assessment). Basically every possible dramatic and emotional scene blasts Barber.

I haven't heard Delerue's own Adagio, I intend to amend that soon.

It also used in the funerals of American presidents. So yeah -- it's all over the place.

But film-wise, I do think it works best in PLATOON (because of its symbolic firepower in Dafoe's death scene).

Currently enjoying the hell out of ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK.

Excellent new series on Netflix.

-Erik-

Actually, I don't think that they aimed for that symbolism, it is there, yes, but what I heard is that this is a reference to a journalist photo, not to the Bible.

So your perception can turn anything into a work of art? Or does it need some kind of creator's intention to establish a potential, that trained perception may realize as an individual experiance of art? In other words: Does art exist in an ontological way? And do we suffer it to be elitist in nature? Or is something a work of art because a determining elite - say the New York gallery and art critics scene - say it is?

Volker

Sure it is, I think the problem that I encountered in my post (though actually the original photo referred to by Stone should be used for comparison) is that I did fall into intentional fallacy.

However, I think the problem with work of art is that while I think everybody accepts that semantically it gets a life of its own, we could go through all the post-structural ideas or even just hermeneutic (which, while not openly accepted, is in a way post-structural, though Gadamer's classic was released 6 years before the revolutionary Derrida paper) is that there IS intentio auctoris and there are conscious references that filmmakers/writer do.

The question is how does our interpretation differ from the aim. And why?