Ajouter une intrigue dans votre langueA graduate student (Nicholson) copes with a recent breakup by conducting interviews with various men.A graduate student (Nicholson) copes with a recent breakup by conducting interviews with various men.A graduate student (Nicholson) copes with a recent breakup by conducting interviews with various men.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Récompenses
- 1 nomination au total
- Harry
- (as Ben Gibbard)
- …
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I didn't notice the running length of the film (although several others have commented on its relative shortness). To me the length was "right" for the story. Figuring out the time sequence of the events might be tricky, and might steal your attention more than it should; keep the synopsis "a graduate student copes with a recent breakup by conducting interviews with various men" in mind at all times.
There's lots of variety in the ways the mens' stories are told. Initially I imagined a list of unbroken formal interviews back to back - various "talking heads" sitting on the same chair in front of the same wall. But the reality of the film isn't like that at all. Each of the threads makes use of different devices: flashbacks, flashforwards, flashsideways; intermixing formal interviews with informal contacts; overheard conversations; jumping between internal narration and external events; casual conversations at house parties and academic department parties and bars; imagination played out realistically right in front of your eyes; characters morphing into others; asides with related characters; and so forth. And almost all of the threads are broken into segments that are intermixed with other threads; themes are much more of an organizing principle than time. Even the formal interview segments are broken up by cuts --or faux cuts-- so there's never a dull visual moment.
Some of the cut techniques are new to me. In every case the sound is seamlessly continuous - a spoken sentence remains a spoken sentence without any gaps or shifts. But the words are sometimes split between the same character at different times saying the same thing. Or they're split between different characters speaking a very similar --or even the exact same-- thing. Or they might (and this is what I've termed "faux cuts") have a hitch in the image as though a few frames had been spliced out - nothing as big as a change of camera angle, but a visual discontinuity nevertheless. (Are these faux cuts the next "Ken Burns effect"?) To my mind considerable audio and visual editing skills --well beyond what's typical of most new director's efforts-- are demonstrated here; the conventional words are "production values are high".
If you listen very closely there are a few internal jokes. For example usually the interviewer pokes the tape recorder and says "do you mind if I turn this on?" But once she says "do you mind if I turn this off?" The words make no sense and aren't consistent with the action, and are easily overlooked.
I liked the adaptation of the short story form, and I hope it blazes a path for other future films. To my mind the weak link though is the acting. Much of the material is extremely subtle and challenging, and would overwhelm even many A-list stage actors. But the film's actors are neither veterans nor geniuses. I found a couple of the casting decisions just plain jarring: one of the waiters seemed awfully wooden, and failed to convey some intended humor; and the imagined father figure bathroom attendant looked younger than his son! Apart from these, the acting varies from workmanlike up to quite good ...but nobody "burns up the screen" even when the material cries out for it.
The well-known TV persona and skills of the director (which admittedly I'm not at all familiar with:-) don't seem to be any sort of guide to something as completely different as this. Like a typical "art house" film, this is not for everybody. At the small screening room where I saw it, one person noisily fell asleep and another walked out. But while this film asks for an open mind and some investment of mind-share, you'll be richly rewarded.
POSTSCRIPT: I've become aware from some others' comments and from an interview with John Krasinski that some of my impressions and even some of my "facts" may be so far off the mark they're just plain back-assward. I seem to have missed some of the comedy, misidentified some of the characters, misjudged some actors' experience levels, and who knows what else. Now I'm doubting myself, wondering if I really saw the same movie or if I paid sufficient attention the first time. Ambiguity and multiple interpretations are part of the point, but not so much as to account for all the distance between my views and some others. I'm now resolved to watch this film a second time. In the meantime please put what I've opined under advisement -- and go see for yourself.
POST-POSTSCRIPT after second viewing next day: I couldn't find any evidence of "the hitchhiker" character, either in the film itself or in the credits. My hypothesis is after Lucy Gordon's unfortunate death but before final release, the film was re-cut to remove all the scenes that included her. My guess is there were originally a lot of flashbacks in what's now John Krasinski's monologue. That's where the hitchhiker's story appears to fit best, lots of cuts there too would have made that segment much more stylistically similar to the rest of the film, and the film would have had a more typical length. Also, I've softened my view on the acting – many of the performances are really very good. My bottom line is unchanged though: in the end the extraordinary material overpowers the acting. We're talking King Lear here, but we're not quite talking Laurence Olivier.
I appreciate a movie that is thoughtful and isn't yet another stupid Hollywood film about crap blowing up and running gun battles, and I'll give it some stars for trying...but in the end, I found it sterile and without significant effect. In a week, I strongly suspect I'll have forgotten it. But thank you, filmmakers, for making something aimed at thinking adults rather than the adolescent/sociopath who loves watching crap blow up for the zillionth time.
That doesn't mean it wasn't well done. I appreciated both the ideas presented in the film and the ingenious mode in which the movie was montaged. The actors played well and the soundtrack completed the scenes perfectly. What I do mean is that I am sure I only got about 10% of what the makers of the movie wanted to express, and that is clearly a failure of communication.
Maybe other people got other 10 percents and so it was meant to be, or maybe I am not sophisticated enough to get it, yet this is my bottom line: a great story is not so much about the things happening in it, but on how it is told so that both author and reader/watcher understand the same thing and enjoy it together.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesDirectorial debut of John Krasinski.
- Citations
Ryan: I'm aware of how all this sounds and can well imagine the judgments you're forming, but if I'm really to explain this to you then I have no choice but to be... candid.
[sighs]
Ryan: Yes, it was a pickup. Plain and simple. And she was what one might call a granola cruncher. A hippy. And she was straight out of Central casting: the sandals, flamboyantly long hair, financial support from parents she reviled, and some professed membership in an apostrophe-heavy Eastern religion that I defy anyone to pronounce correctly. Look, I'll just bite the political bullet and confess that I classified her as a strictly one-night objective. And that my interest in her was due almost entirely to the fact that yes, she was pretty. She was sexually attractive. She was sexy. And it was really nothing more complicated or noble than that. And having had some prior dealings with the cruncher genus, I think the one-night proviso was due to the grim unimaginability of having to talk with her for more than one night. Whether or not you approve, I think we can assume you understand. And there's something-I mean, near contempt in the way that you can casually saunter over to her blanket and create the sense of connection that will allow you to pick her up. And you almost resent the fact that it's so goddamn easy. I mean, how exploited you feel that it is so easy to get this type to regard you as a kindred soul. You almost know what's going to be said before she even opens her mouth.
[sighs]
Ryan: Okay, so now there we are in my apartment, and she begins going on about her religious views. Her obscure denomination's views on energy fields and connections between souls via what she kept calling "focus." And in response to some sort of prompt or association, she begins to relate this anecdote. And in the anecdote, there she is: hitchhiking. Well she said she knew she made a mistake the moment she got in the car. Her explanation was that she didn't actually feel any energy field until she shut the car door and they were moving... at which point it was too late. And she wasn't melodramatic about it, but she described herself as literally paralyzed with terror. It was something about his eyes. She said she knew instantly in the depths of her soul that this man's intentions were to brutally rape, torture, and kill her. And that by the time the psychotic had exited into a secluded area and actually said what his true intentions were, she wasn't the least bit surprised because she knew that she was going to be just another grisly discovery for some amateur botanist or scout troupe a few days later-unless she could focus her way into a soul connection that would prevent this man from murdering her. I mean to focus intently on this psychotic as an ensouled and beautiful-albeit tormented-person in his own right, rather than merely as a threat to her. And I'm well aware that what she is about to describe is nothing more than a variant of the stale, old love-will-conquer-all... but for the moment, just bracket your contempt and try to see what she actually has the courage and conviction to really attempt here. Because imagine what it must have felt like for her. For anyone. Contemplate just how little-kid-level scared you would be and that this psychotic could bring you to this point simply by wishing it. And now here she is in the car, and she's realizing that she's in for the biggest struggle of her spiritual life. She stares directly into the psychopath's right eye and wills herself to keep her gaze on him directly at all times. And the effects of her focus... she says that when she was able to hold her focus, this psychopath behind the wheel would gradually stop ranting and become tensely silent. And she wills herself not to weep or plead, but merely to use focus as an opportunity to empathize. And this was my first hint of sadness in listening to the anecdote as I found myself admiring certain qualities in her story that were the same qualities I had been contemptuous of when I first picked her up in the park! And then he asked her to get out of the car and lie prone on the ground. And she doesn't hesitate or beg. She was experiencing a whole new depth of focus so that she could hear the tick of the cooling car, bees, birds. Imagine the temptation to despair in the sound of carefree birds only yards from where you lay breathing in the weeds. And in this heightened state, she said she could feel the psychotic realizing the truth of the situation at the same time she did. And when he came over to her and turned her over, he was crying. And she claimed it took no effort of will to hold him as he wept... as he raped her. She just stared into his eyes lovingly the entire time. She stayed where he left her all day in the gravel, weeping, and giving thanks to her religious principles. She wept out of gratitude she says. Well I don't mind telling you, I had begun to cry at this story's climax. Not loudly, but I did. She had learned more about love that day with the sex offender than any other stage of her spiritual journey. And I realized in that moment that I had never loved anyone before. She had addressed the psychotic's core weakness. The terror of a soul-exposing connection with another human being. Nor is any of this all that different than a man sizing up an attractive girl at a concert and pushing all the right buttons to induce her to come home with him. And lighting her cigarettes and engaging in an hour of post-coital chitchat. Seemingly very intent and close. But what he really wants to do is give her a special disconnected telephone number and never contact her again. And that the reason for this cold and victimizing behavior is that the very connection he had worked so hard to make her feel terrifies him.
[pauses]
Ryan: Do you see how open I'm being with you here? Well I know I'm not telling you anything you haven't already decided you know. I can see you forming judgments with that chilly smile. You're not the only one who can read people you know. And you know what? It's because of her influence that I am more sad for you than pissed off. Because the impact of this story was profound and I'm not even going to begin to describe it to you. Can you imagine how any of this felt? To look at her sandals across the room on the floor and remember what I had thought of them only hours before. And I'd say her name and she'd say "What?" and I'd say her name again. Well I'm not embarrassed-I don't care how this sounds to you now. I mean, can you see how I could not just let her go after this? I just-I grabbed onto her skirt and I begged her not to leave. And then I watched her gently close the door and walk off barefoot down the hall. And never seeing her again. But it didn't matter that she was fluffy or not terribly bright! Nothing else mattered! She had all of my attention-I had fallen in love with her! I believed that she could save me. Well I'm aware of how all this sounds, I can see that look on your face. I know you. And I know what you're thinking. So ask it. Ask it now, this is your chance. "I believed she could save me" I said. Ask it now. Say something! I stand here naked before you. Judge me, you bitch. You happy now? You all worn out? Well be happy because I don't care. I knew she could and I knew I loved. End of story.
Meilleurs choix
- How long is Brief Interviews with Hideous Men?Alimenté par Alexa
Détails
- Date de sortie
- Pays d’origine
- Site officiel
- Langue
- Aussi connu sous le nom de
- Entrevistas breves con hombres repulsivos
- Sociétés de production
- Voir plus de crédits d'entreprise sur IMDbPro
Box-office
- Montant brut aux États-Unis et au Canada
- 33 745 $US
- Week-end de sortie aux États-Unis et au Canada
- 18 510 $US
- 27 sept. 2009
- Montant brut mondial
- 33 745 $US
- Durée
- 1h 20min(80 min)
- Couleur
- Mixage
- Rapport de forme
- 2.35 : 1