Indie Film Release Guide: April 21st [An ONTD Original]

[scriptedending]

Comments

[sandstorm]

many ONTDers have noted its historical inaccuracies in past posts.

Have we? I still may see it tomorrow.

[little_vienna]

I've ranted about it in every Chevalier post so I think it might just be me lol

[theactualworst]

I’m intrigued, what’re the inaccuracies?

[little_vienna]

I wrote a bit more last year on it but in general they just... take names and vague events and make up the details of them. The "opera scandal" happened but it wasn't at the same time as his rumored affair with a white aristocrat, he never had a falling out with the court or Marie Antoinette, there's stuff with his mother in the film which is wholly made up, etc.

[theburningdoll]

I saw Suzume yesterday and LOVED IT. I'm glad I watched it the theater bc it was a great experience. I was the only one in the audience bc it was 1:30 pm on a Wednesday lol. I even splurged on a giant bag of popcorn and a huge Cherry Coke.

The animation was gorgeous and it was a lovely story. Very heartwarming and all about the importance of kindness, relying on others, the connection of humans to nature/our surroundings

[flyevita]

i keep hearing Suzume is amazing! luckily its showing in IMAX near me, i think it'll be worth it

[theburningdoll]

I wish I could have seen it in IMAX!

[sapphiredragon]

I also ended up seeing it on IMAX on Tuesday and was really glad I did since I rarely watch things on IMAX (so expensive). Lol I ended up weeping through the last half hour.

[stillglows]

the number of people on twitter losing it over Chevalier and accusing the movie of being "woke" sure are something. tell me you know nothing about history without telling me you know nothing about history. also as if they'd see a movie like that about a white person anyways. fffs.

[little_vienna]

There is definitely an overlap between "Morons who don't realize Joseph Bologne was real" and "The people review-bombing it with 1-stars on IMDB."

[stillglows]

these people are so ridiculously racist that they'd rather just assume that everyone before the 1950s was white (like black people sprung out of the ground or something) than accept that someone of influence wasn't white. i'm almost tempted to go see the movie just to support it because of these losers even if it's not really my thing.

[little_vienna]

It's like they think the history of black people is either "slavery" or "civil rights in the 1960s" with nothing in between, regardless of region, time, culture, etc. It's ridiculous.

I've heard Harrison Jr. is absolutely electric in it, and it's not even 2 hours long, so definitely not a bad way to pass the time.

[little_vienna]

Oop re: the 'What you should know on' Chevalier, lol. I'm going to see it tomorrow. It's going to be hard to write about because based on the write-ups and reviews from TIFF, and the marketing/interviews/talkbacks I've watched, I get what they're doing. I get the themes. It's just... those themes don't apply to Joseph Bologne in the way they want them to, and pretending that they do is not doing justice to this historical figure.

Notably, suddenly the marketing PR lines all include admitting how it's heavily fictionalized, pulling from myth/rumor, when leading up to the past 2 weeks (and you can see this when you watch the featurettes) the marketing was mostly about how they're telling the "real history" of his "untold story."

Also the film as well as the marketing keeps pushing the myth that Napoleon banned and/or erased his music, which there is zero evidence for. And weirdly enough, the biography that Stefani Robinson cited in an article as being the first step specifically points out that the Napoleon claim is unsupported, and

[sandstorm]

Hm. I listened to an interview with the director/writer on BoxOfficePodcast last week and while I don't remember what they said, I don't remember them touching too much on the validity of the story.

[little_vienna]

This recent one that came to mind.

Specifically:

“Every piece of information I could find [on Bologne] was helpful,” Robinson said. “I did my best to fact-check, but taking in things that might not have been true, rumors or contradictory facts about him, was useful. Anything that crashed the myth and legend of this person.”

From the beginning, Robinson and Williams agreed that Chevalier would not be a traditional biopic. “We thought of the film as a mash-up of what actually happened and a series of imaginings that we thought were truthful and, hopefully, spiritually honored Joseph Bologne.”Which just, to me, contradicts what's been said in the featurettes and earlier marketing--that they wanted to tell his story, bring him into the forefront, etc. But they're not really doing that with this film with how much they've changed or made up, especially in regards to taking Bologne's achievements in real life and giving them to white people instead. Such as in real life, Bologne earned the title of chevalier on his own merit by

[little_vienna]

Also I ranted back in November about my primary issues about how the film treats Bologne's story. I'm excited, though, to finally see the full film and not just go by write-ups, reviews, and clips.

[hiimtish]

Chevalier looks SO good, I’m ready!

It’s hard not being able to watch movies much anymore but love when one comes out that I know will be a sensory win for me! Haven’t felt that since Banshees so I’m overdue lol