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by Sydney
Infact, I don't think I know anybody who likes it. Respects it maybe but not actually likes.

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I like it but then I could watch Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton all day.

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by Sydney
but it was an applauded twist ending that caught out most of the critics and the film going public.

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I deliberately tried not to guess the ending. Beautifully crafted piece of filmmaking IMO.

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by Sydney
Of course i noticed it, but it isn't the over-riding message of the film and certainly not the message that Ford Coppella wanted taken away by the audience.

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In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that anyone focusing on the fact that Potter escapes justice in the mundanest sense is willfully misinterpreting the movie. If the message of the film is that a man is the sum of the things he does and the way in which those things impact on others, then Potter is judged by us the audience, by everyone he meets and by the emptiness and misery of his own life, not to mention that implicitly he will be judged by the angels who are willing to intervene in human affairs to save George Bailey.

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by In a State of Dan
It probably wasn't the intended message, but then, apart from the rather trite 'no man is a failure who has friends', what is the films message?

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Aside from the fact that I fail to see how that is trite ... isn't the message of the film that achievement is measured not by the property you own or the money you earn but by the impact of your actions. George Bailey believes himself to be a failure because in his own terms he has not succeeded, whilst the rest of the community believe him to be the greatest of men because of the way he has improved their lives.

(one of my favourite movies btw)

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by april__29
well i agree witht eh whole learning film studies can ruin films a bit, as i do tend to over analysis stuff when im watching it.

and for all the film people out there dont you think some ppl over analysis films a bit too much! like we had a piece on king kong and he he supposedly 'representes black man because of his blackness' but hes a giant gorrila! of course he's gonna b black thats what colour they are!?! it realy does bug me how far ppl 'read;' into films

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Can we differentiate between analysis and interpretation?

Having studied Film for three years at university, not once have I thought 'I wish I'd never learnt about narrative, or editing techniques, about use of sound or about mise en scene.'

I have however often disagreed with film interpretation (feminist freudian film theory being my particular bug bear [the shark in Jaws is *not* frightening because it is a vagina dentata, it is frightening because it is a big fish that eats people!])

That said, I can see the argument for Kong being a metaphor for racial difference and slavery though.

David Bordwell wrote a great book called Making Meaning which debunks most ideological film criticism and focuses on formal understanding of film as artefact.

(Edited by Incandenza 25/04/2002 15:04)

Have to admit that I'm of the opinion that nearly all feminist freudian film theory is a load of tosh (then again all freudian theory is tosh)- but I can write essays on it convincingly which is a good job as I did a huge feminist film theory module and it figured a great deal in my dissertation.

However, all film theory is based on someones interpretation. The only reason individual interpretations are accepted as academic theory is because people can argue effectively for them and get their arguments published.

So Inc - get yourself published and the big fish with teeth theory will have just as much weight as the vagina dentata one!

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by Sydney
However, all film theory is based on someones interpretation. The only reason individual interpretations are accepted as academic theory is because people can argue effectively for them and get their arguments published.

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That isn't entirely true though. Work on montage for example is based on identifying of formal and objective characteristics, for example Christian Metz's Grand Syntagmatique.

Bordwell's argument is that it is possible (and indeed desirable) to consider film by recourse only to the verifiable physical characteristics it exhibits rather than attempting to 'read' the text.

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by Incandenza
(quotes)

Bordwell's argument is that it is possible (and indeed desirable) to consider film by recourse only to the verifiable physical characteristics it exhibits rather than attempting to 'read' the text.

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Forgive me, its been a while since i've covered any of this academically (?) and I haven't read Bordwell - so i may have understood that wrong - but I don't think it's possible to consider a film purely on its physical characteristics. If that were the case then a film made in 1930 would have the same impact and connotations when shown today.

It's a really small pantsy example but when "Gone with the Wind" was released it was a shock to have the word "Damn" in a film. The same peice of dialogue doesn't have that level of impact today because ideology has changed and as a result our interpretation of the text has changed.

Physical elements of films remain the same no matter who watches it and when, however ideology is a dynamic principal that changes from culture to culture and person to person.


(Edited by Sydney 25/04/2002 15:57)

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by Incandenza


That isn't entirely true though. Work on montage for example is based on identifying of formal and objective characteristics, for example Christian Metz's Grand Syntagmatique.

Bordwell's argument is that it is possible (and indeed desirable) to consider film by recourse only to the verifiable physical characteristics it exhibits rather than attempting to 'read' the text.

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And for those of us who don't speak "Spielbergian" ?!?!? Could you roughly translate this for us please Inc?

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by MonSTeR
(quotes)

And for those of us who don't speak "Spielbergian" ?!?!? Could you roughly translate this for us please Inc?

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Montage = editing

Metz was a semiotician so his study was concerned with breaking film down into individual units of meaning akin to words but this is difficult because film is a literal representation rather than an arbitrary socially mediated signifier.

Metz concluded that the simplest unit of film is a depiction of a discrete and continuous time and place (e.g., a scene). He then identified a number of different strategies for creating meaning dependent on how these scenes were edited (i.e., cross cutting). And that is as much as I can remember this afternoon.

My point was that his theory was not about interpretation but the objective analysis of the formal characteristics of film.

David Bordwell has written several seminal (if boring) texts on film theory and his book Making Meaning advocated focusing criticism on things that were quantifiable such as editing strategies rather than 'reading' the film from an ideological perspective (e.g., Freudian analysis, Lacanian analysis etc).

Sydney is right to say that a film is inherently linked to the time and place of its production, but it is very hard to quantify the impact that external factors such as the country of origin have on a film so the conclusions are less reliable and more subjective.

As for the various film 'theroies', churned out by know-nothing, arrogant sheep, I agree, I hate them too. People go on and on about 'the Psychology of Star Wars' and Geroge Lucas' keen analitical views of the human world. What a load of (swear word)!!!!!!. He got lucky, for better or worse he got lucky, proved by the fact in 3 and 4, when he was on the helm once more, he failed to do good again, even till this day he still doesn't know what made Star Wars great!

As for other disliked classics -

Casablanca, it wasn't terrible, but considering it's meant to be one of the best films of all time, WHAT A LET DOWN!

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by KieranFrost
He got lucky, for better or worse he got lucky, proved by the fact in 3 and 4, when he was on the helm once more, he failed to do good again, even till this day he still doesn't know what made Star Wars great!

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I'm inclined to have a little bit of agreement with you on the fact that Lucas wasn't sure what made Star Wars so great!!!

But do you mean Episodes VI (Return of the Jedi) and I (The Phantom Menace)? Because 3 hasn't been released/filmed yet and 4 was the first (and in Inc's opinion) best SW film!!!

I mean Episdoe VI and Episode I, sorry for the confussion

Ummmmm, to go back to the original topic ....

I completely agree on Gladiator And though I haven't seen all of Schindler's List, what I have seen of it bored the pants off me and didn't stir any emotion (which is usually very easy to do, I'll cry at almost anything! )

Also I'd like to throw 2001:A Space Odyssey into the bag. How dull is that? The Hal part is quite cool, but you can scrap the other 2 hours of it.

Anyhoo, I'll just run away and hide now so that the deep, intellectual type stuff can carry on ....

Casablanca is a favourite of mine, with fantastic dialogue and enough pathos for me to personally keep kleenex solvent for another century.

2001 bored and confused the hell out of me first time round, but after viewing 2010 and giving it another go I've personally formed a higher regard for it over the years.

Problem for me, though, is that the term 'classic' has little or no meaning. Are we talking about only films which after, let's say, a minimum of two decades are considered to be of high quality by the majority of adults today? If so, so what? I personally don't care whether the majority do or do not like something. I refuse to have my tastes defined as being either mainstream or alternative only. A film is good because of the reaction it has on me, but if someone else loves/likes it what of it? I love Casablanca and KieranFrost considers it a let down. Guess we have different tastes. Should this redefine the film's status as 'classic'?

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by JayJay
Problem for me, though, is that the term 'classic' has little or no meaning. Are we talking about only films which after, let's say, a minimum of two decades are considered to be of high quality by the majority of adults today? If so, so what?

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I agree, we all have totally different tastes, I personally (*Kieran Frost IS REALLY ready to run and hide in shame*) like the film 'Masters of the Universe'. Now I know most people don't like it, but they have no taste Really I put the term 'classics' into the equation, because no other word would properly convery what I meant.

As for 2001 Space Odyssey, I agree. When ever I see a clip for the film the phrase "next stop, Yawn Town" comes into mind

Here's another classic I'll throw into the water-works:

The Thomas Crown Affair (the origonal, not sure if the names the rightuzzled. Though I generally dislike 're-makes' for what they stand for, I must admit I LOVE the remake and hate the original.

Oh well, I guess not everyone can have my god-like taste

I loved 2010, I thought it was a fantastic piece of cinema. Roy Scheider is always fun to watch

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by KieranFrost
Though I generally dislike 're-makes' for what they stand for, I must admit I LOVE the remake and hate the original.

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This from the man who dislikes films for being made before 1980 and would rather they were all in pretty colour.

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by Demona
This from the man who dislikes films for being made before 1980 and would rather they were all in pretty colour.

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But of course

Coming from you, who stakes her shelf with novels BECAUSE they are 'considered classics' and no other reason. I do believe, madam pot, the kettle has won!

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by MonSTeR
Roy Scheider is always fun to watch

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You're going to need a bigger boat.

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by PictureOfFlowers
Also I'd like to throw 2001:A Space Odyssey into the bag. How dull is that? The Hal part is quite cool, but you can scrap the other 2 hours of it.

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The monkeys are cool though.

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by Incandenza
The monkeys are cool though.

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Hmmmmmmm ...... yeah alright, I'll give you the monkeys!

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by KieranFrost
(quotes)

But of course

Coming from you, who stakes her shelf with novels BECAUSE they are 'considered classics' and no other reason.

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Erm... actually that's because I'm an English Lit student...