Just because it's weird doesn't make it art
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scatterheart — 19 years ago(August 11, 2006 03:15 AM)
lol, okay, so was that really bowie's package we saw, or a body double's?
there might be a scene where it goes from package and pans up to face, but i'm not too sure gotta rewatch to make sure. anyway, yay, if it's bowie's package, then yay, he's a lucky man. (and labyrinth just further proved this point) -
electroniccarcass — 19 years ago(August 25, 2006 04:51 PM)
I don't think this film would have been half as interesting if it had just been a sober adaptation of the novel (which, with Roeg at the helm, was never ever going to happen).
I mean, the book was hardly a great story that needed to be told, it was just a fairly sedate metaphor for the corruption inherent in the seventies' 'me generation' (and, yes, I have read it).
Roeg just chopped it up and sprinkled in some trippiness so that we could live events through the alien visitor. I suppose Roeg thought it would be more effective and poignant this way. I tend to think that he was right.
And anyway, even if you do think the film stinks, you have to admit that there aren't too many other flicks from 1976 that would cause such a heated debate in 2006. It's hard to find a find movies that people give a flying beep about for more than five mins, so perhaps this film has got more going for it then you might think. -
electroniccarcass — 19 years ago(August 25, 2006 05:11 PM)
I wanted to make a comment about non-linear editing: Roeg is the bloody master of the art-form.
Recent auteurs, Tarantino in particular, have made narrative-chopping entertaining and palatable for the mainstream, and good on them, cos their films (Tarantino's in particular) are great fun.
But Roeg used his Byzantine editing techniques for loftier, more pure (yes, art-fag) reasons. He used his cutting in Bad Timing and Don't Look Now (in particular) to such devastating effect that they make even the great David Lynch seem novice in his approach to the dissassembaling of narrative in cinema.
(His genius peaks in Don't Look Now, where a flash-forward actually becomes part of the narrative when it appears. So it becomes both linear and non-linear in the same instance. It beep me up even thinking about it, and I've never seen anyone come close this cebral horror gem.)
So, anyways, when wahoodoss says: "Just because a movie is on the weird side, is not linear in it's storytelling, is disjointed, etc. doesn't make it art. Or good. Sometimes it means the movie is weird, is not linear, is disjointed, and just plain bad." He's dead right. Most art-movies are as cack as the dross Hollywood pumps out - let's face it, most films are rubbish - but I'd like to think this this movie, and most of Roeg's catalogue, are some of the exceptions to the rule. -
Pook_Pook_Pook — 16 years ago(March 31, 2010 10:23 PM)
Yes indeedA very well thought out comment.
I mean firstly you have to take into account when the movie was made & what the world was like back then.times really have changed.
I won't here Avatar being put down thoughI mean sure the script, plot and acting werewell, I believe the word "meh" covers them perfectly
..but just look at it, it's so pretty. The skills of the true artists that really made that movie is truly amazing.
The media response to Lady GaGa and therefore the response of the masses who will be shocked by what ever they are told to be shocked by always makes me laugh. It's as if the 70's,80's & 90's didn't even happen apparently.
.oooh look at her she's wearing funny clothes omg!
Actually to some extent I admire her at least she's putting the effort in, and frankly if you are going to be in the public eye you should be putting a show on for us all the time!
It's also conviniently veryvery good marketing
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kidjay83 — 13 years ago(January 01, 2013 05:30 PM)
"Just because a movie is on the weird side, is not linear in it's storytelling, is disjointed, etc. doesn't make it art."Just because it's a movie period doesn't make it art .Movies are purely made to entertain no matter how weird or unweird they are .
"Movie directing is the perfect refuge for the mediocre"