Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

[Jimski]

On the old otf, Heston Bee started a thread with this title in the books section. The idea was somebody nominated a generally well-thought-of book that they really didn't 'get'. Then somebody else would defend it. The latter person could then make a nomination of their own.

I thought at the time it would be a good idea for films too, but never got around to it on the old otf. So here goes...

2001: A Space Odyssey

(A decent middle section does not a great film make...)

[Amor de Cosmos]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

Almost everything I say in it's defence would be probably based on its effect on me at the time of its release, which was profound and impossible to set aside.

It was the first non- Cold War influenced, non-cheapo special effects, non-B-movie, sci-fi film to appear since ... I dunno Things to Come? It had production values which were absolutely state of the art. It validated its scale and medium in ways that "epic" movies had failed to do since the 50s. It was a (very) big budget movie with a non-linear plot, and screwed around with cinematic conventions in ways that only "underground" films were then doing. Kubrick eschewed stars to privilege visuals and sound over dialogue — only twenty odd minutes of speech in an, almost, two and a half hour flick, unheard of then and rare since. Most of all he encouraged the film's audience to find their own meanings within it. More than any important film I can think of (with the possible exception of Gance's Napoleon) you have to experience 2001 on a really large screen with good sound, it just doesn't work otherwise, it's like looking at Rothko in a paperback book. Unlike most movies you weren't led through it, you were, rather, placed inside it if that makes sense. The notion of ending the experience as an embryo, like Dave, was an absolutely appropriate, and brilliant, metaphor. That's how I felt, the first, second, third and fourth time I saw it. The fifth time I was stoned...

I could go on but...

[Ginger Yellow]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

You can't really say it wasn't cold war influenced. Clearly, it wasn't influenced in the same way that all those 50s commie scare movies were, and it's way less overt than in the book, but the influence is definitely there. You have new technology being used to kill ourselves in the prologue, the US/Soviet tension over the moon base at the beginning, and the ending which is clearly a reaction to cold-war apocalypsism.

Anyway, I could probably give a well reasoned, detailed defence like AdC, but it wouldn't really explain why I love it. The real reason is simple: the film is staggeringly, achingly beautiful.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

Point taken (re: the Cold War influence.) It was just less central and heavy-handed than we were used to.

Another innovation — which seemed kind of incidental at the time — was a soundtrack made up of pre-recorded tracks by different artists. Today it's standard but, except in something like Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising, I'd never heard it done before.

And GY's dead right, it is, most importantly, an extraordinarily beautiful film.

[Jimski]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

Well, AdeC (or for that matter GY) is meant to nominate his own choice now...

[Amor de Cosmos]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

Oh, OK. Give me a few minutes...

[Amor de Cosmos]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

I was going to put this in the Worst Endings thread, but that isn't really sufficient. I can't think of another example of a director torpedoing his own movie (except maybe the ill-advised remake of The Vanishing) that's more full-frontal than the last twenty minutes of:

Schindler's List

I mean, did you have to put yourself in your own movie Steve? What a Screaming Neon Ego.

[jason voorhees]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

2001 - No other film ever made captured what it's like to be in outer space. Or if I was to ever make it to outer space, my first frame of reference would be to compare it to 2001. Solaris is more-liked by myself, but only because of its internal structure and the implications of what it's asking emotionally of the viewers.

2001 has so many memorable moments that are ingrained in everyday life, from the bone becoming the space ship, to the lip-reading, to everytime I walk an indoor track I'm thinking I'm Bowman running laps.

Also has the creepiest and most sanitized death scene ever (what's more santizied than the deaths of 3 people you never see, behind white cubes, who are sleeping - whose only life force is 5 or 6 colored lines ?)

But hey, when in doubt, defer to Ebert.

[jason voorhees]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

Can't remember Spielberg in the end. All I remember is the ceremony at the gravesite, of which I completely lost it. If anything, it's the first movie I've seen that the 4 hours of filmmaking is a set-up for 5 minutes of documentary. It's the only scene I really take from that film.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

He's pretty much front and centre at the gravesite.

[Incandenza]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

GY, on 2001:

the ending which is clearly a reaction to cold-war apocalypsism.

Huh, I've never thought that at all.

[Jimski]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

Solaris is more-liked by myself

Oh god, Solaris is in an entirely different class. It's about people, for a start. I'm not sure it's actually possible to emotionally engage with 2001, is it? One can be impressed by it, to a greater or lesser degree, but actually engage with it? I personally think Solaris is more visually impressive too. In a subtle way obviously - Kubrick is virtually hitting you over the head with his images.

And it seems nobody is willing to defend Schindler's List. Heh. I've not seen it, and never really wanted to.

[Wyatt Earp]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

I'll defend it. First some caveats, though: I think it fails on a number of levels. But in the main that's because it's dwarfed by its subject matter, and the same would be true of any "holocaust movie" with the possible exception of Shoah. If you're going to make popular drama about the holocaust (and perhaps you shouldn't, though I'm not convinced of that), Schindler's List is about as close as you can get to getting it right.

Its central character is complex and flawed, for one thing. For another, it refrains from trying to make easy sense of life and death in the camps, where your fate depends on things like whether Amon Goeth's hangover is bad enough that morning that he'll happen to miss you when he's out taking potshots.

There are vulgar mistakes this movie could have made and mostly, with a few exceptions, didn't. The Holocaust miniseries is where to look for those; and even that's justifiable, for things like its effect on German public opinion.

So the List is off the hook. My nomination: Star Wars.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

I think 2001 is very much about people. The entire human species in fact.

[Wyatt Earp]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

That's not the same as being about people.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

Oh alright, it is about humanity though. And I think that the fact that the individual with the most recognizably person-like characteristics is a computer makes a significant point about ourselves, and also provides the engagement that Jimski refers to.

There are vulgar mistakes this movie could have made and mostly, with a few exceptions, didn't.

I agree, totally. If the film had ended with the moment the prisoners left the factory, it would have been an exceptionally fine film. Sadly it didn't because Spielberg possesses not just the cinematic talent of Orson Welles but also the soul of Walt Disney, and produced a sequence that is so bathetic and sentimental vulgar doesn't begin to cover it.

it's dwarfed by its subject matter, and the same would be true of any "holocaust movie" with the possible exception of Shoah.

Do you mean films "about" the holocaust, that attempt to come to terms with the scale of the horror? Or do you include those set "within" it too? If the former I'd agree, but there are very good smaller films — like The Counterfeiters that succeed by not attempting to be epic.

[Reed John]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

Star Wars

I've given this some thought and I can't come up with an articulatable explanation. I could go on about "epic sweep" and "tale of redemption" and "imagination" and "creating a whole new world," but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't convince anyone.

The awesomeness of Star Wars is just self-evident, but if you can't see the awesomeness, then there's nothing that can be done.

In the past, I was inclined to say that people who didn't like fantasy and superheros and what not were just missing out. But now it occurs to me that people like that may not be as interested in fantastical worlds as I am because they find much more satisfaction in the real world. So perhaps it is I who is missing out.

[Incandenza]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

The awesomeness of Star Wars is just self-evident, but if you can't see the awesomeness, then there's nothing that can be done.

Wyatt also doesn't get Kurt Vonnegut.

[Wyatt Earp]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

The awesomeness of Star Wars is just self-evident, but if you can't see the awesomeness, then there's nothing that can be done.

Does that mean Star Wars is still on the board?

[Ek weet nie]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

I'm breaking the rules here but I would be grateful if someone could explain why Breathless/A Bout De Souffle is so awe inspiring?

[Ginger Yellow]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

the ending which is clearly a reaction to cold-war apocalypsism.

Huh, I've never thought that at all.

To be fair, it's totally explicit in the book, and I came to the film with that in my memory, so some of the stuff about the ending may have seemed clearer to me than to others[/quote]

[Jimski]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

It is actually far more difficult to explain why one likes a film than why one dislikes it, but I'm gonna try to make a decent case for A Bout de Souffle.

The central characters are engaging from the first moment they are on the screen. He's a murderer, and not (objectively speaking) a particularly likeable murderer either. And yet he immediately holds the attention. His relationship with her is unusual and one wants to see it progress.

Yet one knows that he and thus the relationship is doomed from the start. Indeed the entire film is inevitably going to be a march towards that doom. This is what makes it so compelling, so ultimately sad.

One might compare it to Badlands (another favourite of mine) where another young couple who one really ought to despise pull one relentlessly into their world. It's something about their youth, their ultimate naivete, their kick against the system (no matter how objectively horrific).

And then there's her, perhaps ultimately the more cold-hearted, the more depraved? She hasn't murdered anyone, and what's more she turns him in, yet her motivation for doing so makes one feel like perhaps, just perhaps, she's the scarier one. It's one of the greatest film endings, I think.

And the journey there is utterly exhilarating. All kinds of memorable scenes whizz by at pace, the photography marvellous, the conversations memorable, the iconography as cool as fuck.

It's a work of genius, I think.

As for another nomination, just to prove I'm not a sucker for all of the nouvelle vague: Jules et Jim. What is all the fuss about?

[Guest]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

A Bout De Souffle: It's the jump-cuts that do it for me every time. And the smoking.

[Ek weet nie]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

Thanks for that Jimski. I didn't think A Bout de Souffle was terrible by any means. I really liked the photography but for me the cool and the smoking grated after about an hour. I felt the story was poorly executed and the bungling police unbelievable.

I'd read a lot about the jump cuts and how the film in general was a step-change in cinema. I guess my expectation levels were a little too high because I expected to be blown away and was only impressed.

In fairness though, I didn't put a lot of thought into the girls actions. I'll have a think about that when I get a chance.

We seem to be opposites. I really liked Jules et Jim. I'll think about what made it special in my eyes and get back to it.

[Ginger Yellow]

Mission Possible: Re-educate Us

I'll second Jimski both on liking A Bout de Souffle and disliking, or at least being totally underwhelmed by, Jules et Jim.