Visual Stimuli
Okay, am finally getting around to talking about some of the movies I've seen over the last couple of weeks. It's a diverse list, and I still have Prick Up Your Ears to finish at home tonight (damn that young Gary Oldman, he's simply too engaging and crazy at the same time).
( Gangster No. 1, or that movie in which Paul Bettany aims lots of suggestive looks at David Thewlis )
( Gangster No. 1, or that movie in which Paul Bettany aims lots of suggestive looks at David Thewlis )
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The Thewlis/Bettany movie sounds good though.
To help scrub out the icky history butchering from your brain, here, have a snip from today's Times about Sean Bean's new film: There is even a scene where he has to run naked and screaming across the ice - was it a romantic loyalty to the project, or pure Ran-ulph Fiennes-esque pluck? “The last thing you really want to do after a few late-night drinks is run stark naked across the f****** Arctic,” Bean admits.
...I lol'ed.
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Try to find Gangster No. 1 if you can. It's worth it, for the David Thewlis in expensive suits alone, oh yes.
Wait, Bean's got a new movie out? And he's naked?!??? Oh dear, oh dear, it seems I must keep up more with movie news.
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Oh, our library has it! I have put it on hold. I checked out The New World a couple months ago and Thewlis had a very small bit role in it. They completely wasted him if you ask me. But I had issues with that film. Namely, I kind of hated it.
Oh, I heard about it on the BBC America Anglophenia blog. But anyway, yes. Naked in subzero temperatures. You have to respect that sort of commitment to the project!
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You know, I'm of the impression that Thewlis has been wasted in almost everything except Naked. Perhaps that's his curse; get one amazing movie at the beginning of your career and then have to take crap in order to pay the mortgage. Well, okay, Total Eclipse was okay, and Seven Years in Tibet wasn't half bad, but otherwise he's been in some real dogs. I think part of the problem may be that he's not one who's adverse to kissing and telling; he's more than happy to slag people off in interviews when they deserve it.
I rented New World but never watched it. Fell asleep after the first five minutes. I'm honestly not a huge fan of that ( ... )
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I am recalling a debate or two on Perseph's LJ about why filmmakers should be permitted to circumvent history to tell their even better, engaging story. Not sure I've ever agreed with that, so I kept my peace. I can see making a few changes/brushovers to keep a story going, but if you are exchanging an engrossing history, you had better have an even more engrossing story to tell.
And there is no excuse for the Mary Queen of Scots accent. Giving her a French accent would in no way have impinged upon said engrossing fictionalization. Audiences should not be treated as though they are stupid.
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See, I can totally agree with changing fact for fiction, when the fiction in no way disservices the fact and eases fact along for the sake of narrative. However, films like this one, which practically entirely jettisons fact for fiction, lose track of the realities which made this woman, her life, and her times so remarkable and worthy of retelling. In the end, the film boils down more as some sordid romantic menage (Raleigh, Bess Throckmorton, Elizabeth) than as an interpretation of one of the most contentious times in early modern England. I think, honestly, the film relies more heavily on the old Bette Davis movie The Virgin Queen than any reputable written source for its narrative ( ... )
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My argument wasn't that filmmakers should be permitted to circumvent history to tell "their even better, engaging story." My argument was that screenwriters--who face a challenge of structure and time in their craft--should not and cannot be held to the strictures of historical chronologies. That they have to select whatever they feel is necessary to best dramatize whatever the point of the movie is, which in the end is all the space a feature film allows for. (The writer did it with arguable success for the first Elizabeth.) This is because a feature film is actually an artform and a medium of its own. They can draw from history, or whatever the source material might be, but the fact is that from that source material, they have to craft something entirely new. Something that speaks to audiences in an entirely different form of communication from a book or even a documentary. It's not an ( ... )
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I'm trying to muster energy for this, but I'm afraid I'm giving up on Hollywood. Actually, though it's not all horrifying. Milk was beyond brilliant and Public Enemies was pretty good. Missed Food, Inc. but seriously nothing else at all calls to me these days. :(
*runs back* Wait! Fast and Furious was fun in a truly-stupid-but-full-of-Hotfuckers-and-bring-on-the-slash kinda way!
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