new vid: "Life is Fatal" (Trust)
Technically, this is not a Festivid, because 
renenet and I didn't sign up for Festivids. In practice, though, it's pretty much a Festivid. More on that below.
Life is Fatal
source: Trust (dir. Hal Hartley, 1990)
music: Lis Harvey, "Life is Fatal"
summary: It's a fly-by-night ephemeral thing. Maria/Matthew.
Download (XviD, 30 MB). I recommend VLC media player if you don't have it already.
Sometime in 1991 or 1992, the film series at my college screened Hal Hartley's Trust (1990). It was like no movie I'd ever seen before, and I loved it. When Hartley's other movies -- The Unbelievable Truth (1989) and Simple Men (1992) -- showed in the film series subsequently, I loved both of them too. When Amateur (1994) came out, several of my friends and I made a pilgrimage to the art house cinema in the nearest city to see it.
In recent years, Hartley's movies have become... let's be generous and say "uneven." But his early work was and is amazing, and Trust is the best of that excellent bunch. More than that, Trust was, if not the first non-mainstream film I ever saw (we had a pretty terrific film series -- I saw a lot of great stuff), the first one that really caught my imagination. It was, for me, a different way of thinking about what a love story could look like -- especially evident in the movie's two most famous scenes, the ones that provided the title and the poster respectively:
MARIA: Did you mean it? Would you marry me?
MATTHEW: Yes.
MARIA: Why?
MATTHEW: Because I want to.
MARIA: Not because you love me or anything like that, huh?
MATTHEW: I respect and admire you.
MARIA: Isn't that love?
MATTHEW: No, that's respect and admiration.
[...]
MARIA: Do you trust me?
MATTHEW: If you trust me first.
MARIA: I trust you.
MATTHEW: Sure?
MARIA: Yes.
MATTHEW: Then marry me.
MARIA: I'll marry you if you admit that respect, admiration, and trust equal love.
MATTHEW: Okay. They equal love.
MATTHEW: Why have you done this?
MARIA: Done what?
MATTHEW: Why have you put up with me like this?
MARIA: Somebody had to.
MATTHEW: But why you?
MARIA: I just happened to be here.
Scott Tobias writes insightfully about the movie's importance and appeal, though he misses one of the things that most captivated me about it, which is the de-glamming of the female lead -- a pitch-perfect inversion of the enduring trope wherein the weirdo girl gets dolled up to appeal to a guy (think Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club). I see the movie's gender politics a little differently than I did in 1992, but on the whole I think the movie still stands up pretty well in this regard.
As of a few months ago, Trust is available via Netflix's Watch Instantly feature, but weirdly, and unlike the rest of Hartley's movies, it hasn't been released on DVD -- except in Australia. Several years ago,
renenet got me a copy of the Australian DVD release for my birthday, and we joked that that meant I'd have to vid it -- if only I could find the right song!
Then I found a song. And when I played it for
renenet and she yelled "OMG THE TRUST FALL!" halfway through, I knew that, yeah, it was the right song.
So I made this vid for her, and for me, and for the college kids we used to be, and for anyone who loves this movie, and anyone else who would have loved this movie if only they'd known. Come join our fandom of two!
password: grenade
All comments and feedback are welcome, either here or via email (heresluck at gmail dot com).
NOTE: If you want to know when I post new vids but don't want to subscribe to this journal, you can track the "vids: announcements" tag. Find out more about tracking in the Dreamwidth FAQ.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth
renenet and I didn't sign up for Festivids. In practice, though, it's pretty much a Festivid. More on that below.
Life is Fatal
source: Trust (dir. Hal Hartley, 1990)
music: Lis Harvey, "Life is Fatal"
summary: It's a fly-by-night ephemeral thing. Maria/Matthew.
Download (XviD, 30 MB). I recommend VLC media player if you don't have it already.
Sometime in 1991 or 1992, the film series at my college screened Hal Hartley's Trust (1990). It was like no movie I'd ever seen before, and I loved it. When Hartley's other movies -- The Unbelievable Truth (1989) and Simple Men (1992) -- showed in the film series subsequently, I loved both of them too. When Amateur (1994) came out, several of my friends and I made a pilgrimage to the art house cinema in the nearest city to see it.
In recent years, Hartley's movies have become... let's be generous and say "uneven." But his early work was and is amazing, and Trust is the best of that excellent bunch. More than that, Trust was, if not the first non-mainstream film I ever saw (we had a pretty terrific film series -- I saw a lot of great stuff), the first one that really caught my imagination. It was, for me, a different way of thinking about what a love story could look like -- especially evident in the movie's two most famous scenes, the ones that provided the title and the poster respectively:
MARIA: Did you mean it? Would you marry me?
MATTHEW: Yes.
MARIA: Why?
MATTHEW: Because I want to.
MARIA: Not because you love me or anything like that, huh?
MATTHEW: I respect and admire you.
MARIA: Isn't that love?
MATTHEW: No, that's respect and admiration.
[...]
MARIA: Do you trust me?
MATTHEW: If you trust me first.
MARIA: I trust you.
MATTHEW: Sure?
MARIA: Yes.
MATTHEW: Then marry me.
MARIA: I'll marry you if you admit that respect, admiration, and trust equal love.
MATTHEW: Okay. They equal love.
MATTHEW: Why have you done this?
MARIA: Done what?
MATTHEW: Why have you put up with me like this?
MARIA: Somebody had to.
MATTHEW: But why you?
MARIA: I just happened to be here.
Scott Tobias writes insightfully about the movie's importance and appeal, though he misses one of the things that most captivated me about it, which is the de-glamming of the female lead -- a pitch-perfect inversion of the enduring trope wherein the weirdo girl gets dolled up to appeal to a guy (think Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club). I see the movie's gender politics a little differently than I did in 1992, but on the whole I think the movie still stands up pretty well in this regard.
As of a few months ago, Trust is available via Netflix's Watch Instantly feature, but weirdly, and unlike the rest of Hartley's movies, it hasn't been released on DVD -- except in Australia. Several years ago,
renenet got me a copy of the Australian DVD release for my birthday, and we joked that that meant I'd have to vid it -- if only I could find the right song!
Then I found a song. And when I played it for
renenet and she yelled "OMG THE TRUST FALL!" halfway through, I knew that, yeah, it was the right song.
So I made this vid for her, and for me, and for the college kids we used to be, and for anyone who loves this movie, and anyone else who would have loved this movie if only they'd known. Come join our fandom of two!
password: grenade
All comments and feedback are welcome, either here or via email (heresluck at gmail dot com).
NOTE: If you want to know when I post new vids but don't want to subscribe to this journal, you can track the "vids: announcements" tag. Find out more about tracking in the Dreamwidth FAQ.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth