― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 17:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 17:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 17:49 (nineteen years ago) link
If it were Todd Solondz behind the camera, I'd agree with you. (Actually, wait, doesn't his new film Palindromes do the whole multiple-actors-playing-the-same-character thing, too? That's weird.) But Haynes truly does have the ability to transcend his conceits. That combination of intellectual cleverness and genuine, overwhelming emotion is why Far From Heaven and Eternal Sunshine are two of my favorite films of this decade.
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 18:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 18:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 18:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 18:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― jones (actual), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 18:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Thursday, 24 March 2005 09:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 24 March 2005 09:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 24 March 2005 14:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― anthony, Friday, 25 March 2005 12:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― anthony, Friday, 25 March 2005 12:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― anthony, Friday, 25 March 2005 12:28 (nineteen years ago) link
i think the conceit is sort of similar, but haynes's film was much more imaginative in its reworking of the source materials and much more rigorous in its evocation/replication of the style of said materials.
i don't know, i think van sant is gifted but not very smart, honestly. haynes could not be accused of not being smart, i suspect.
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 March 2005 15:02 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 March 2005 15:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 March 2005 15:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― jones (actual), Friday, 25 March 2005 17:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 25 March 2005 17:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― jones (actual), Friday, 25 March 2005 18:10 (nineteen years ago) link
i guess the most interesting part about "elephant" was the degree of human sympathy it elicited for characters not often seen in films (NOT the killers, but some of the students introduced in the first half ), but that was ultimately sort of incidental to the film and its main reason for being. i've written about this on an "elephant"-specific thread.
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 March 2005 18:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 25 March 2005 18:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 25 March 2005 18:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― shookout (shookout), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:26 (nineteen years ago) link
what's funny is that haynes seems such an unlikely person to be obsessed with bob dylan. in the sense that dylan's legacy has been "owned," or rather leased, of late by the sort of rock critics who emphasize his folk roots and so on. to the point where there isn't a pervasive sense of dylan as a pop persona, as a modernist figure. so i'm very interested to see where haynes goes with this. (i mean, it's hard to imagine haynes making a movie that concerns itself with, uh, different versions of "st james infirmary," simply because that's a strain of american culture the celebration of which takes on a certain role that seems anathema to haynes's own self-fashioned role in the culture. if that makes sense.)
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:35 (nineteen years ago) link
― shookout (shookout), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:35 (nineteen years ago) link
xp
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― jones (actual), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:39 (nineteen years ago) link
eg the gap between dylan (in toto) and glam (in toto) is smaller than dave van ronk wants it to be
― mark s (mark s), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:42 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0306814072/qid=1111779776/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/102-1769521-6410552?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
[i]http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0306814072.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg[/i]
― shookout (shookout), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― shookout (shookout), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― shookout (shookout), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:47 (nineteen years ago) link
i agree, i was trying to say (i think i failed) that the reigining dylan paradigm doesn't really involve much glam and doesn't really evoke anything that haynes has previously been known to be interested in. that doesn't mean that dylan himself, or his music or pop persona, doesn't have affinities with what haynes has previously been known to be interested in.
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:51 (nineteen years ago) link
I can't think of a single thread/discussion/reaction that I've ever found more interesting than the film it's discussing.
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 25 March 2005 19:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 25 March 2005 20:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 25 March 2005 21:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― anthony, Friday, 25 March 2005 21:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― jones (actual), Friday, 25 March 2005 21:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― jones (actual), Friday, 25 March 2005 21:39 (nineteen years ago) link
Dylan never should've left Toto, he was the best one!
― The Yellow Kid, Saturday, 26 March 2005 09:00 (nineteen years ago) link
anyway i think i was being really unclear upthread... due to my trying to condense a difficult thought that i hadn't even quite reasoned out into a few words (because i was at work and rushed). i'll try to explain myself again a little later, when i have time.
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 26 March 2005 16:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 16 April 2007 14:21 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah, between this and Showing Up it was a good year for awkward.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 9 January 2024 23:04 (two months ago) link
Showing Up is awkward, and is a remarkable film about a small local community of people (an arts community in Portland OR) trying to navigate the world, with all of the frustrations and divided feelings that come with it. It is my favorite movie so far from this year.
May December is also a favorite film this year, but it seems very slippery and knowing and almost conniving, and is almost the opposite of awkward to me, although there are some moments in it that are cringy
― Dan S, Wednesday, 10 January 2024 01:34 (two months ago) link