come anticipate "the saddest music in world" with me!

It's just a film.

I like that.

This is in no way my favorite movie ever but I'm finding it really interesting that the reasons people have been dismissing it are the same reasons I enjoyed it.

There are several singularly uninteresting back stories brought forward

But yeah, back stories are almost always uninteresting. Characters, plots, these are all uninteresting. They are shells upon which the interesting stuff hangs. And it's nice when they're treated as shells.

>"Saddest Music" would have probably been a less interesting movie if it had succeeded in being more emotionally, hm, "there".<

Funny, I found the final scene with Chester banging on the piano quite moving both times. As Maddin said, he figures it all out a few minutes late... (btw, Chester is named after Cagney's character in "Footlight Parade," and Mark McK said he had to restrain himself from "doing Cagney" throughout.)

Maddin has said he's fascinated by the use of "dead" styles and genres, which is why he uses pastiche to make personal films. He also cites Lynch as a major influence.

Jonathan Rosenbaum's fine review:

http://www.chireader.com/movies/archives/2004/0504/051404_1.html

I think amateurist was pretty much OTM with his comments upthread. There were only a few really touching moments near the end (with the brother), and the 'inventiveness' of changing visual forms from shot to shot wore off pretty quick. The set design was incredible (esp. the father's house all grown up, the repeated but unstated everything's buried in snow gag) and the general lack of establishing shots to create spatial distortion was a nice change of pace. I understand his point comment much better now - at some point this just stopped adding up to anything, kind of just riffing on the same gag for two hours without taking it anywhere.

I find Maddin's working methods infinitely more involving than the film itself (I can't wait to watch the making of). Do his other films rely on a more restrained palette of effects and methods? I really think that aspect (so self-conscious and distancing) hurt the film as a viewing experience.

Saw this last night, and thought it was amazing. I wonder if the discussion here doesn't somehow focus itself too much on Maddin and style -- a lot of the things I was responding to in this actually did come from the writing, ideas, content, and performances, and (with this being the first Maddin film I've watched) I was thrilled to see how much his style doesn't distance you from that stuff at all.

I tried watching this recently and couldn't get through it. I probably should've stuck with it but the faux early film styling was irritating, mostly because it wasn't very convincing. is that supposed to be part of the point? maybe I should take a run at cowards bend the knee.

define "convincing"... other film styles are just as artifice-laden as his, they're just what you're used to.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293113/

^^ really beautiful!! shot on dv, if i remember right, making the 'silent movie' stylization even more present, obvious and knowing, but the seamlessness of it renders it transparent, yeah

Beer legs!

define "convincing"... other film styles are just as artifice-laden as his, they're just what you're used to.

"convincing" meaning he could've done a better job of emulating the older production styles he's obviously striving to reproduce. I don't mind fakery, just make it good fakery. it seemed half-assed, like seeing a cheap commercial that tries to look like the 50s by shooting video in b&w. maybe the lack of total committment is supposed to provide some intentional brechtian distance, but it would be a lot more impressive if the film actually convinced me it was shot in the 1920s. why not go all out and actually use a hand cranked camera?

or maybe this was just the wrong place to start.

He does used hand cranked cameras all the time, I thought.

But I think "being inspired by" and "trying to reproduce faithfully" are two entirely different things.

Apparently I missed my brief chance to see My Winnipeg here. Dammit.