Waste of time
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Prismark10 — 15 years ago(March 15, 2011 09:05 AM)
The film is not a waste of time, it tries to make a bold statement if not all together successfully.
If Cimino intended that the dialogue be layered etc. That was a serious misstep as the choppy sound was one of the reasons why people could not understand the story as they could not hear key parts of the dialogue.
Its that man again!! -
laughing_solo — 14 years ago(August 16, 2011 03:35 AM)
If an attempt at a bold statement is what makes something NOT a "waste of time", then I've been on many dates with women who must have been trying to make a bold statement. Cimino's direction on "The Deer Hunter" was outstanding, even better on "The Sicilian", but I disagree that his foul-ups on "Heaven's Gate" were 'works of art' or attempts at making a bold statement. Cimino simply didn't know what the hell he wanted to do with the film and his obvious indecision produced a major WASTE OF TIME!!!
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Rich359 — 9 years ago(July 29, 2016 09:02 AM)
I agree. I tried many times to watch this film again since I saw it in NYC on t he second day of its opening. Its just bad. Christopher Walken is woefully miscast and plays the role as if its based in 1980 and in NYC, John Hurt is a silly and annoying character that does nothing but distract from the plot, Ciminos plays many scenes for claptrap value, and the scene where Sam Waterson slaps John Hurt and calls him a "silly son of a bitch" was so off and silly, that the whole theatre broke out in laughter. That with the impossible to hear dialogue, and soft focus sepia tone photography, the graphic gore, little character development, unlikable immigrants, I could go on and on. Its just bad.
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Xeokym — 13 years ago(April 22, 2012 08:58 PM)
That's not an example. That's a blanket statement.
You sure are fond of saying "blanket statement." What's slightly amusing is that repeating "That's not an example, that's a blanket statement," you are basically dismissing what the other person has said with the wave of your hand, which is also very similar to making a 'blanket statement.' Like a "blanket dismissal."
Your responses are almost as long & boring as Cimino's 1.3 million feet of footage (or 220 hours) for this sluggish trainwreck of a movie. You are OK with accepting that someone else doesn't have the
taste
for this movie, but when they give clear examples of the movie's faults, you seem to get agitated & very sarcastic, even insulting.
Isn't that special? The teacher of "Film Studies" at a University partaking in anti-intellectualism. I'm assuming your students write haikus for their final exam?
S/he wasn't
bragging,
he was simply saying he wasn't a "neanderthal."
Why nitpick details when the whole friggin movie is sluggish, boring, convoluted piece of crap?
Your example is the entire movie.
The characters are never developed, none of them garner an ounce of empathy in the audience. The dialogue is difficult to decipher, whole scenes stagnate without making any kind of point, and the plotline is vague, unresolute, and never manages to grab all the threads & pull them together by the end. It's an overlong, bloated corpse full of hot gas. Personally, a lot of my favorite movies are cheesy B-movies; I know they're "bad" but I don't care, I find something entertaining & enjoyable watching them. What other people think of the movie doesn't affect my enjoyment of it at all. So I don't know why you're so hellbent on defending this polished turd like it was a diamondI haven't seen you give one example of any sort of redeeming factor for this movie. All I see you doing is whining about how neanderthals are convincing all these other people (who, exactly? that's awfully vaguea blanket statement of sorts) to see their point of view. Which is nonsense. If someone is so stupid as to take some stranger's word for it that a movie is bad & they never give it a chance, so what? Again - how's it affect your enjoyment of the movie? Do you need back-up from 50 million other strangers in order to like a movie? What is so hard about saying "yeah it's got flaws, but I like it anyway?"
|{(V)
I can't understand your crazy moon language. -
bstephens21 — 13 years ago(April 22, 2012 10:09 PM)
You sure are fond of saying "blanket statement." What's slightly amusing is that repeating "That's not an example, that's a blanket statement," you are basically dismissing what the other person has said with the wave of your hand, which is also very similar to making a 'blanket statement.' Like a "blanket dismissal."
Of course, it's a blanket dismissal. There's nothing of substance to dismiss in detail.
Your responses are almost as long & boring as Cimino's 1.3 million feet of footage (or 220 hours) for this sluggish trainwreck of a movie.
More anti-intellectualism.
You are OK with accepting that someone else doesn't have the taste for this movie, but when they give clear examples of the movie's faults, you seem to get agitated & very sarcastic, even insulting.
Good. Poor film criticism is insulting to me, as it should be to anyone with any critical facility. May as well pay it back in full.
S/he wasn't bragging, he was simply saying he wasn't a "neanderthal."
Yawn I never said he was bragging, nor did I ever call him a neanderthal (which I explained in that very post)
Why nitpick details when the whole friggin movie is sluggish, boring, convoluted piece of crap?
A movie is a collection of details. You need to be able to "nitpick" those, otherwise, you don't actually have an opinion, just a series of blanket declarations than can only be "refuted" by descending into a flame war.
If you can't have this conversation, why even have these forums? Would we be better served making another "Six Degrees of" or "Type of characters name with your elbows" thread?
The characters are never developed, none of them garner an ounce of empathy in the audience. The dialogue is difficult to decipher, whole scenes stagnate without making any kind of point, and the plotline is vague, unresolute, and never manages to grab all the threads & pull them together by the end. It's an overlong, bloated corpse full of hot gas.
Good. This is a start. But without details, it does nobody any good.
So I don't know why you're so hellbent on defending this polished turd like it was a diamondI haven't seen you give one example of any sort of redeeming factor for this movie.
This isn't a thread entitled "Wonderful time spent" created by me. I'm going to react to what's posted before me. Those who make a statement need to be able to defend it. If the conversation organically gets to a point where it would be served by me defending the film, scene-by scene, in detail, maybe I will. I'd welcome the conversation taking a turn there. But I'm not going out of my way to write an BFI volume on this. Not in this context. My arguments are ultimately less about convincing the person before me he's wrong (people rarely admit they are) than inspiring a conversation which
other
people who aren't so stubborn and fixed in their opinion may get something out of.
Again - how's it affect your enjoyment of the movie? Do you need back-up from 50 million other strangers in order to like a movie? What is so hard about saying "yeah it's got flaws, but I like it anyway?"
Because I'm not so narcissistic to think that my own personal gratification is paramount to all others, nor so naive to think that the poor taste of others won't effect me. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe the cinema is a communal experience, and I think a society with a healthy culture is a healthier society, as great works of art enrich us. But you can't always expect a great film to passively wash over you: the greatest works of art are always the beginning of a conversation it is up to you to put in the work to respond to it.
A movie that doesn't inspire passion is a film that's hardly worth one's time. A great film makes you into a fanatic, it forces you to proselytize for it, to turn other into true believers. Others disliking this film, doesn't effect my enjoyment. I know it's a great film! What it does is effect others. It repels them, when they should be drawn in, it keeps them from watching a film that may very well love. It takes a film that reaches the dizzying rarefied heights of pure cinema, and then puts up wall in front of it marked "Verboten!" keeping other artists from even think of aiming that high again, and keeping viewers from demanding that other films aim for that standard. A true cineaste will fight for that ideal standard, if not in
Heaven's Gate
, then in
Modern Times
or
Au Hasard Balthasar
or
Police Story
. Too many people experience too much
product
and not enough
cinema
. They deserve to be shaken out of their complacency, if that means experiencing something real Now, I am enough of a narcissist to think that my preaching contributes to that. -
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Edohiguma — 9 years ago(July 28, 2016 10:31 AM)
I'm assuming your students write haikus for their final exam?
Wow. I would classify that statement as "racist" and/or bigoted, after all it displays a clear "haiku are garbage and easy" attitude by some Yank who tries to ride the pseudo-intellectual high horse (and fails.) -
Mustafa32 — 14 years ago(June 20, 2011 08:12 AM)
"I also teach Film Studies at a University"
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear
For starters, I suggest you stop making pronouncements about what a film "needs" to do and start trying to understand what a film intends to do. -
HindumunInc — 14 years ago(August 28, 2011 01:31 PM)
"I suggest you stop making pronouncements about what a film "needs" to do and start trying to understand what a film intends to do."
FUNNY! I say things like that to people who automatically write off comedies, action movies, horror movies, etc just because of their genre or their director. For example: Micheal Bay does not "intend" to win Oscars; he does not "intend" his movies for the same kind of people that like French Avant-garde, or David Lynch; Mr. Bay does not "intend" people to think his movies are artistic or that he is an "auteur". Micheal Bay intends his movies to be the movie equivalent of junk-food. I don't mean that in an insulting way like many others do. Sometimes you just want to relax and shut off your brain for two hours, it's no different than an upper-middle class person reclining at a spa, except much cheaper.
How about another example: if you go to a comedy it doesn't matter if the cinematography is Oscar worthy, or that the plot is ironclad, or that the acting is Shakespearean, what matters is: is it funny? Granted I agree that the "movie" movies (Epic Movie, all but the first Scary Movie, etc) are not funny. But there are plenty of hilarious movies, or frightening movies, or action packed movies, that do what THEY intend to do, but film critics give them bad reviews anyways just because they were made for the sake of entertainment and not High Art or some kind of social commentary.
What I'm saying is it is hypocritical to defend a movie from the insults of the masses because it "intends" to be high art, but then turn around and criticize a movie that "intends" to be entertainment for the masses because it isn't high art.
Your argument that it's more important what a movie intends to do then how it does it means that Micheal Bay is by far the most successful director of our generation. Keep that in mind the next time you look down your nose at someone.
I am a heterosexual male who has seen all the Twilight movies-DAMN YOU RIFFTRAX! -
erwinvegas — 11 years ago(August 05, 2014 01:27 AM)
Extremely late to this party, I know, but with so many subjects sub-link these days, I'll never find them all on time
.
Your reply got me thinking for a bit and I had to respond. I couldn't let it go because your reply seems to twist this way and that, more of a high school debate captain's moves than coming to actual helpful points about movie making. Yet your questions are good, such as a riddle.
I think the answer is that movies have become more than art. That saddens me a little, because I am one of those supposed "hypocrites" for thinking the masses need help finding or understanding what an artful or thoughtful film was doing, while also making fun of (or hating) the films equivalent to, as you accurately described, junk food. I want movies to be art, though like you, I have belly-laughed at some bad well let's say sometimes I like "junk food" too.
Now forms of art have always collected fans and foes since the "beginning", however when I look back decades or more, at paintings, writings, music, and especially dance, it seems people today have evolved or devolved to include a broader spectrum of quality, and I swear it's because of not having the time to know any better, their worlds cluttered with the cheap, fast and out-of-control. The junk food is selling enough to make a good living, while people hundreds of years ago may have gagged if tasting cheetos or twinkies for the first time. Maybe not. All I know is my foreign exchange students used to food in Italy or France usually referred to our supermarket bread as "rubber bread" for a reason. The point is, standards have dropped for several reasons. It's still happening, from the experiences I've had with many films over the last 15 years. "Needs" AND "intentions" lazily included the film can still suck.
Finally, I think your point for the person "looking down their nose" is only part right. You don't actually provide an answer to the problem. And It's a tough one I understand. Another thing I understand is that Michael Bay is certainly not the most successful director of movies, unless success is only measured in "doing what you want" and you're still a joke. Do you know for sure Bay wants to make movies the equivalent of junk food? Maybe he's tried to be serious and realistic at times, and after enough people said "it sucked", he just followed what got them to buy tickets anyway. the non-stop schlock action instead of understanding how films he loved as a kid were made.
What I'm saying with all this stuff is this; I can only guess what the directors and others were trying to do with their films, and I DO make good guesses (according to follow-up interviews), however when I get "hypocritical" according to you, it's just not that simple. I see more films the last 20 years that attempt realism, comedy or everything, then turns out like a Michael Bay film (or IS a Michael Bay film), and starts to rot in continuity then the intention is impossible to know from the work, and it's a failure as a film even if masses have bought tickets to escape life. That's not success even if films are being forced to avoid being art for the sake of including something for everyone. The viewers should just go to an amusement park.
I still don't think the "professor" should say what a film "needs" to do. She/He should SUGGEST what a film that works well usually includes. Otherwise, an art professor would be right in telling someone what art "needs", when we all know some of the worst and best art in human history always flutters between objective/subjective when experienced, therefore the most "non-involving" pieces might still be considered masterpieces some day. -
SnoozeAlarm — 13 years ago(November 12, 2012 11:19 AM)
bstephens21 you come across as arrogant. you could make you points without the condescension
http://tinyurl.com/cjsy86c -
Mustafa32 — 14 years ago(June 20, 2011 08:07 AM)
The director's cut of Heaven's Gate is, and is widely regarded as, an absolute masterpiece. It does require the audience to pay attention and use their brains, however. And if you "couldn't make out who everybody is" then maybe you should be watching it in a cinema as intended and not on a mobile phone.