rmikec
Joined Apr 2002
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Reviews9
rmikec's rating
Obtuse, inaccessible, deliberately paced... in short, one of the greatest films of all time!!!! Forget the stunning visual achievement, the masterful and incredibly influential score, the sublimely subdued acting, the brilliant direction and camerawork, the poignant (lack of) dialogue, the bits of disconnected and reconnected narrative, and the patently Kubrickian humor... the stances taken and the questions posed are amongst the most profoundly philosophical to ever appear in film!
This is probably the only film that subjugates plot' in a traditional sense for that of sustained metaphor whether visual or musical, scene dependent or 2.5 hour film wide. Something like 80% of the film is carried without dialogue and more successfully than any treatment could that featured dialogue. For that reason, most people don't get' it.
In fact, there's not a whole lot to get' if you're looking for one or two unified master threads of narrative, an answer to a question, a continuing plot. This isn't like "The Usual Suspects" where everything gets all wrapped up in a tidy package at the end, rewarding you for sitting through 2.5 hours of non-linearity and confusion. Kubrick provides no answer, no goal, only a journey. Confused? You're supposed to be! Is that not a valid effect one can create in a film? Like Bowman releasing the physical body of Poole from the mechanic grip of B Pod, you too must let go the assumptions and expectations created by viewing a lifetime of largely jejune films. Once you start to recognize and appreciate the metaphoric subtleties (i.e. birth/baby/birthday metaphors; tool use and eventual dead ending of a consciousness that relies on that physicality 4 million years later; eyes of perception; conceptual twinnings; macro and microcosmic conjunctions; etc.), Kubrick's statements become so obvious that it's hard to believe you missed them before!
Every single detail in this movie was intentional. It is a completely conscious work, it is art. It's (loosely, though primarily) a film about the next step' of evolution in a transcendental rather than physical sense, and about the consciousness and reflexivity that, despite every other conceivable difference, is universally at the base of all intelligent beings in the universe. But characteristically, Kubrick paints many many threads, some of which lead in different or even opposing directions. This is intentional, this is genius, there are no answers in this film. That's the point. You can't appreciate this film in one viewing. You may start to appreciate it at 5 viewings. Does that bespeak a failing of the film or a failing of the average American viewer? I think the answer is obvious The sheer scope, achievement, and courageously non-linear treatment of such an audacious set of topics has never and will never be duplicated! One of my favorites! I had privilege to view a fresh print of the film at the AFI Silver Theatre, and I can say with absolute confidence you have not truly seen it until you've seen it on the big screen and involuntarily covered your ears at the volume of the Monolith's radio emission! Kubrick!
This is probably the only film that subjugates plot' in a traditional sense for that of sustained metaphor whether visual or musical, scene dependent or 2.5 hour film wide. Something like 80% of the film is carried without dialogue and more successfully than any treatment could that featured dialogue. For that reason, most people don't get' it.
In fact, there's not a whole lot to get' if you're looking for one or two unified master threads of narrative, an answer to a question, a continuing plot. This isn't like "The Usual Suspects" where everything gets all wrapped up in a tidy package at the end, rewarding you for sitting through 2.5 hours of non-linearity and confusion. Kubrick provides no answer, no goal, only a journey. Confused? You're supposed to be! Is that not a valid effect one can create in a film? Like Bowman releasing the physical body of Poole from the mechanic grip of B Pod, you too must let go the assumptions and expectations created by viewing a lifetime of largely jejune films. Once you start to recognize and appreciate the metaphoric subtleties (i.e. birth/baby/birthday metaphors; tool use and eventual dead ending of a consciousness that relies on that physicality 4 million years later; eyes of perception; conceptual twinnings; macro and microcosmic conjunctions; etc.), Kubrick's statements become so obvious that it's hard to believe you missed them before!
Every single detail in this movie was intentional. It is a completely conscious work, it is art. It's (loosely, though primarily) a film about the next step' of evolution in a transcendental rather than physical sense, and about the consciousness and reflexivity that, despite every other conceivable difference, is universally at the base of all intelligent beings in the universe. But characteristically, Kubrick paints many many threads, some of which lead in different or even opposing directions. This is intentional, this is genius, there are no answers in this film. That's the point. You can't appreciate this film in one viewing. You may start to appreciate it at 5 viewings. Does that bespeak a failing of the film or a failing of the average American viewer? I think the answer is obvious The sheer scope, achievement, and courageously non-linear treatment of such an audacious set of topics has never and will never be duplicated! One of my favorites! I had privilege to view a fresh print of the film at the AFI Silver Theatre, and I can say with absolute confidence you have not truly seen it until you've seen it on the big screen and involuntarily covered your ears at the volume of the Monolith's radio emission! Kubrick!
Brilliant. The film contains typical Quentin Tarantino hallmarks of black humour, ultraviolence, improbable story narrated and populated by over the top, absurd, flawed (and ultimately totally human) characters, and unforgetable action sequences.
What really impressed me was the detail. The film is bricolage writ large. Postmodern pastiche. Tarantino is a brilliant postmodern semiotic architect. Deconstructing is the wrong word here, though it's always used incorrectly in this context; disassembling is better. Tarantino excels at disassembling low culture film and media - from Star Trek to McDonalds, film noir to Anime, from Hong Kong Action/ vintage kung-fu to kitsch pop music - painstakingly dissecting each into it's most elementary form, and then reassembling these symbols with new coherence and meaning into his own film. Each element, form, or style he lifts from B movie culture becomes an isolated symbol removed from it's original context. Moving it into a new context, it retains some, all, or none of it's original meaning, gains new context dependent meaning, and becomes part of a new gestalt - that of the Quentin Tarantino film. Tarantino's comprehensive understanding of his low culture source material and the mechanics of his narrative allow him to populate his film with excessive richness but with total economy and consistency. What you get is a Disney World effect - thrilling, stimulating, richly detailed, and at times disorienting - but fabulously entertaining. Academically and personally I enjoy and appreciate this type of work - which makes this one of if not the best film I've seen in the last 3 years. But I don't expect most to agree with me.
Can't wait for the second one, can't wait to see this one again.
What really impressed me was the detail. The film is bricolage writ large. Postmodern pastiche. Tarantino is a brilliant postmodern semiotic architect. Deconstructing is the wrong word here, though it's always used incorrectly in this context; disassembling is better. Tarantino excels at disassembling low culture film and media - from Star Trek to McDonalds, film noir to Anime, from Hong Kong Action/ vintage kung-fu to kitsch pop music - painstakingly dissecting each into it's most elementary form, and then reassembling these symbols with new coherence and meaning into his own film. Each element, form, or style he lifts from B movie culture becomes an isolated symbol removed from it's original context. Moving it into a new context, it retains some, all, or none of it's original meaning, gains new context dependent meaning, and becomes part of a new gestalt - that of the Quentin Tarantino film. Tarantino's comprehensive understanding of his low culture source material and the mechanics of his narrative allow him to populate his film with excessive richness but with total economy and consistency. What you get is a Disney World effect - thrilling, stimulating, richly detailed, and at times disorienting - but fabulously entertaining. Academically and personally I enjoy and appreciate this type of work - which makes this one of if not the best film I've seen in the last 3 years. But I don't expect most to agree with me.
Can't wait for the second one, can't wait to see this one again.
This film still would place in my top 100 of all time. Burton's musical and visual aesthetic alone has been highly influential, and this is the film that made it salient. The direction, story, score, and aesthetic is typical gaudy, nostalgic, satirical, yet brilliant Burton - but it is also a very touching film that resists oversentimentalization.
Not unlike Shelley's Frankenstein - this is the story of an inwardly benevolent outcast who doesn't fit because of the way he looks. His hands are razor sharp - in a painfully delicious twist his creator dies just short of upgrading him to the real thing. Edward therefore has the potential to mangle anything he touches and bears the scars to prove it... Though there have been other wonderful treatments of good/outcast theme (Frankenstein, E.T., The Elephant Man), Burton's postmodern look at insipid modern American suburbia / teenhood rings truest for me. Somehow Burton has managed to tap an emotional nerve that is still raw in a staggeringly large group of us.
Not unlike Shelley's Frankenstein - this is the story of an inwardly benevolent outcast who doesn't fit because of the way he looks. His hands are razor sharp - in a painfully delicious twist his creator dies just short of upgrading him to the real thing. Edward therefore has the potential to mangle anything he touches and bears the scars to prove it... Though there have been other wonderful treatments of good/outcast theme (Frankenstein, E.T., The Elephant Man), Burton's postmodern look at insipid modern American suburbia / teenhood rings truest for me. Somehow Burton has managed to tap an emotional nerve that is still raw in a staggeringly large group of us.