words on your screen
Joined Sep 2001
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words on your screen's rating
This film works perfectly because it could be 50 years old. At every turn I could see Rabbit as a white trumpet player from 1952, with his crew being the rhythm section, and Future being the promoter helping him gain respect at virtuoso 'cutting sessions' dominated by black musicians.
I had expected this to be just another wacky comedy, but I was treated to something a bit more special.
What I particularly liked was the way 'high' and 'low' art were contrasted [comic illustration vs. abstract sculpture; popcorn-flicks vs. Fellini]. This contrast was visible in substance as well as style: the script swayed between Farrelly Brothers-level fart and breast gags and Frasieresque wit, with just the right balance being struck. Ultimately I found it funny, sometimes touching, and very enjoyable.
What I particularly liked was the way 'high' and 'low' art were contrasted [comic illustration vs. abstract sculpture; popcorn-flicks vs. Fellini]. This contrast was visible in substance as well as style: the script swayed between Farrelly Brothers-level fart and breast gags and Frasieresque wit, with just the right balance being struck. Ultimately I found it funny, sometimes touching, and very enjoyable.
A lot of people have commented on the humour of Storytelling. I didn't really find it funny at all, which is not to say that I didn't thoroughly enjoy it.
Although the film is divided into fiction and non-fiction, truth is the theme here. The irony of course is that the authoress' 'fictional' short story is in fact entirely true, and the documentarian's 'non-fictional' film is in many ways a conceit. The one wishes to expose the truth, the other wishes to abuse it, yet for both the common purpose is successfully to apply the conventions of their medium to tell a story.
This structuralist analysis could be taken a step further back to argue that Todd Solondz was doing just exactly the same. (Remember his nod to the audience when he had Giamatti's character talk about how he'd invited Jacques Derrida to narrate his film?)
Although the film is divided into fiction and non-fiction, truth is the theme here. The irony of course is that the authoress' 'fictional' short story is in fact entirely true, and the documentarian's 'non-fictional' film is in many ways a conceit. The one wishes to expose the truth, the other wishes to abuse it, yet for both the common purpose is successfully to apply the conventions of their medium to tell a story.
This structuralist analysis could be taken a step further back to argue that Todd Solondz was doing just exactly the same. (Remember his nod to the audience when he had Giamatti's character talk about how he'd invited Jacques Derrida to narrate his film?)