In our enlightened age, "damsels in distress" are supposed to be a thing of the past. Well, they are: because now we have damsels in pieces. Concurrent with the wails for better cinematic portrayals of women is a trend towards quasi-vivisections on screen. Each director seems determined to keep upping the ante for dismemberment. It's an arms race involving the removal of arms.
I recently saw A Walk Among the Tombstones, Liam Neeson's latest movie. It makes Taken look like an obtuse art film. I won't give away any plot points (first there would have to be a plot), but a woman ends up duct-taped in the back of a van as two sadists with blades contemplate how they're going to slice her. Any time two knife-wielding psychos are hovering above a kidnapped woman wearing nothing but duct tape we can pretty much assume she won't be writing a Yelp review of her evening.
But that wasn't enough for this director: he also has the two knife wielding psychos call her a cunt! Being a serial killer is pretty bad, but a serial killer who sneers out the c word? Now you're really a monster! 50 years ago if you wanted to convey that a film character was sinister, you had him not shave. Today he has to be a Holocaust-denying pedophile who eats puppies for breakfast and doesn't recycle.
The two knife-wielding psychos also gratuitously explain to the victim (and the audience) the anatomical reorganization they're planning to perform on her. Evidently the director thought the audience needed to be told that knife-wielding psychos who kidnap women have been known to use the knives to cut their kidnapped women.*
Later in the film, even after we have learned this woman's fate, the film unnecessarily flashes back to the repulsive images in the van, once again putting the victim's imperiled countenance squarely on camera. This is putatively done to build suspense; the jeopardized woman shown earlier in the film is shown again to remind us that other characters are in danger...as if we'd forgotten that these killers, you know, kill and stuff. Of course this doesn't build suspense. At all; it just makes the film a gross-out endurance test** (exactly like those much condemned '80s slasher films that an esteemed thespian like Neeson wouldn't have been caught dead appearing in). I wish they had told me ahead of time I was paying $16 to watch a Ginsu infomercial.
Here's what is behind a lot of this: If you make cartoonishly violent action films, long on explosions, cardboard villains, and impersonal body counts, you're classed as a crappy action director. If you personalize the violence and make it "realistic," even surgical, and make the people committing it cartoonishly shuddersome, you can still pass yourself off as some kind of artist (see all the people fooled by Drive). But these supposedly more artful vivisection films are just as manipulative and cynical as the basest Schwarzenegger flick. Actually, their pretenses make them worse. At least True Lies knew it was just a big dumb action movie.
Remember those William Castle film gimmicks - Smell-O-Vision, theater seats connected to electric buzzers? I anticipate a resurgence in cheap film gimmicks: Splatter-Vision! The Anato-Cam! Instead of a skeleton flying over the audience, how about a small intestine? Or we could have a Gallagher-style smashing of full bladders and stomachs onto filmgoers. Or let's do away with 3-D glasses and just issue specs whose lenses are made from pulled human skin! The great schlock artists of the past died too soon; we're braced for a new Golden Age!
The word rapey has entered the lexicon. It's time to add snuffy.
*Part of me also thinks the more unlikable we make the villains, the more we're able to rationalize the broader violence of the film.
**When feature films are this graphic, how much different are they than violent porn? Not much...the main difference is that people will admit to watching movies like A Walk Among the Tombstones.
Showing posts with label cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cinema. Show all posts
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
People who are better than you
Athletes are dumb, right? And sure, doctors may be smart, but all they have is a very specialized intelligence. Am I right, people?
Of course these statements are sometimes quite true, but often I think we shout them to make ourselves feel better about not measuring up. Athletes ("jocks") and high IQ folks detonate our insecurities, so we remind ourselves they MUST be deficient in other areas. Conveniently, the "important" areas where we claim to excel. I mean, you can't be athletic AND smart. No way: every smart kid got picked last in gym class! Haven't you ever watched an A&E Biography?
Unfortunately for those who excel in nothing, these truisms ain't universal. Many people whose talents are in the 1% distinguish themselves in several domains.
David Robinson
Robinson scored a 1320 on the SAT (before you could use calculators), and entered the elite United States Naval Academy, where he majored in mathematics. He couldn't continue in the Navy because he grew too tall for ships and planes. No, really.
Oh...and that was before he joined the NBA, where he was a 10-time All Star and league MVP. In fact, one of the criticisms he faced during his career was that he lacked the psychopathic competitiveness of Jordan and Bird because his interests and talents outside of basketball were too wide-ranging.
You'll notice Tony Parker didn't seduce Robinson's wife. Probably afraid Robinson would trap him in a mad scientist torture device (No Mr. Parker, I expect you to die).
Eric Heiden
Won five speed skating gold medals at the 1980 Olympics...before he decided to attend medical school (to became an orthopedic surgeon). And just to keep himself busy after retiring from skating, he also won the U.S. Professional Cycling Championship. So not only did he dominate speed athletics; he dominated endurance athletics. And he became a doctor, a different kind of dream that many have but few can attain.
Heiden probably saves a lot on medical costs; how many athletes do you know who can operate on themselves?
Kris Kristofferson
After being a college athlete who got a mention in Sports Illustrated, Kristofferson became a Rhodes Scholar, and while at Oxford received a Blue award in boxing. Most would have stopped there and spent the rest of their life telling everyone at the local pub that they could beat them in bar trivia and bar brawls.
Not Kris. He joined the military, where he attended Ranger School and became a helicopter pilot.
He wasn't done embarrassing the rest of us.
He took up song writing; writing big hits like "Me and Bobby McGee" and "For the Good Times". Then he recorded some big hits for himself; becoming a heartthrob in the process. Then he became a respectable actor in some big time feature films.
We'd better hope Kristofferson never takes up artificial intelligence or we'll all be replaced by robots within six months.
Michael Crichton
Let's see, graduated summa cum laude from Harvard; later went to med school there. That alone supersedes the achievements of most everyone.
Begins writing novels; several become blockbuster bestsellers whose components - Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park - make their way into the vernacular.
Starts directing films. You know how everyone - actors, writers - talk about directing but it never happens or it happens and ends in tragedy? Crichton actually did it, and one of those films -Westworld (scripted by Crichton and the first feature with CGI) - was a critical and commercial hit that spawned a sequel and, four decades later, a much-watched TV series. Another film, Coma, this time an adapted work, was also a hot success.
In 1994, a TV show named ER hit the airwaves. Crichton created it. The Andromeda Strain was published in 1969. ER came 25 years a later, and was also a sensation. Not only did the man have mega success in print, film, and television; he managed to have mega success in multiple decades. Think about how different the entertainment landscape was in '69 vs. '94. Yet MC threaded the needle.
It's rare for a writer to stay relevant in publishing for many decades*, let alone relevant in several other mediums (did I mention Crichton also created a successful computer game). Anyone remember Peter Blatty? Peter Benchley? Apparently writers named Peter have short shelf-lives...
Crichton's only mistakes: getting married five times and collecting abstract art. I guess he had to do something wrong just to entertain himself.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Not just the most successful bodybuilder ever; the ONLY iconic bodybuilder. I rather doubt my mother has heard of Joe Weider.
Outside of iron pumping, Arnold becomes a prosperous entrepreneur in multiple fields.
Then he tries his hand at Hollywood acting, and becomes one of the biggest actors in the world and sustains it for a couple decades. He manages this despite a thick Austrian accent. How many blockbuster Hollywood actors can you name who have deep continental European accents? Austrian accents do not make people all warm and gooey inside the way British accents do (quite the opposite). So here you have someone with the most hated kind of accent ascending from bodybuilding to acting to...
...politics. He makes his first foray into politics and gets elected Governor of California, the 8th largest economy in the world, AS A REPUBLICAN! Everyone laughs about it...hahahaha, he's The Governator now. Guess what: Governator got reelected. Arnold was such an unstoppable force that the only thing that could stop him was himself.
*Stephen King has stayed relevant and exceptional. But when he tried to direct, the result was Maximum Overdrive; which he has repeatedly ridiculed.
Of course these statements are sometimes quite true, but often I think we shout them to make ourselves feel better about not measuring up. Athletes ("jocks") and high IQ folks detonate our insecurities, so we remind ourselves they MUST be deficient in other areas. Conveniently, the "important" areas where we claim to excel. I mean, you can't be athletic AND smart. No way: every smart kid got picked last in gym class! Haven't you ever watched an A&E Biography?
Unfortunately for those who excel in nothing, these truisms ain't universal. Many people whose talents are in the 1% distinguish themselves in several domains.
David Robinson
Robinson scored a 1320 on the SAT (before you could use calculators), and entered the elite United States Naval Academy, where he majored in mathematics. He couldn't continue in the Navy because he grew too tall for ships and planes. No, really.
Oh...and that was before he joined the NBA, where he was a 10-time All Star and league MVP. In fact, one of the criticisms he faced during his career was that he lacked the psychopathic competitiveness of Jordan and Bird because his interests and talents outside of basketball were too wide-ranging.
You'll notice Tony Parker didn't seduce Robinson's wife. Probably afraid Robinson would trap him in a mad scientist torture device (No Mr. Parker, I expect you to die).
Eric Heiden
Won five speed skating gold medals at the 1980 Olympics...before he decided to attend medical school (to became an orthopedic surgeon). And just to keep himself busy after retiring from skating, he also won the U.S. Professional Cycling Championship. So not only did he dominate speed athletics; he dominated endurance athletics. And he became a doctor, a different kind of dream that many have but few can attain.
Heiden probably saves a lot on medical costs; how many athletes do you know who can operate on themselves?
Kris Kristofferson
After being a college athlete who got a mention in Sports Illustrated, Kristofferson became a Rhodes Scholar, and while at Oxford received a Blue award in boxing. Most would have stopped there and spent the rest of their life telling everyone at the local pub that they could beat them in bar trivia and bar brawls.
Not Kris. He joined the military, where he attended Ranger School and became a helicopter pilot.
He wasn't done embarrassing the rest of us.
He took up song writing; writing big hits like "Me and Bobby McGee" and "For the Good Times". Then he recorded some big hits for himself; becoming a heartthrob in the process. Then he became a respectable actor in some big time feature films.
We'd better hope Kristofferson never takes up artificial intelligence or we'll all be replaced by robots within six months.
Michael Crichton
Let's see, graduated summa cum laude from Harvard; later went to med school there. That alone supersedes the achievements of most everyone.
Begins writing novels; several become blockbuster bestsellers whose components - Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park - make their way into the vernacular.
Starts directing films. You know how everyone - actors, writers - talk about directing but it never happens or it happens and ends in tragedy? Crichton actually did it, and one of those films -Westworld (scripted by Crichton and the first feature with CGI) - was a critical and commercial hit that spawned a sequel and, four decades later, a much-watched TV series. Another film, Coma, this time an adapted work, was also a hot success.
In 1994, a TV show named ER hit the airwaves. Crichton created it. The Andromeda Strain was published in 1969. ER came 25 years a later, and was also a sensation. Not only did the man have mega success in print, film, and television; he managed to have mega success in multiple decades. Think about how different the entertainment landscape was in '69 vs. '94. Yet MC threaded the needle.
It's rare for a writer to stay relevant in publishing for many decades*, let alone relevant in several other mediums (did I mention Crichton also created a successful computer game). Anyone remember Peter Blatty? Peter Benchley? Apparently writers named Peter have short shelf-lives...
Crichton's only mistakes: getting married five times and collecting abstract art. I guess he had to do something wrong just to entertain himself.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Not just the most successful bodybuilder ever; the ONLY iconic bodybuilder. I rather doubt my mother has heard of Joe Weider.
Outside of iron pumping, Arnold becomes a prosperous entrepreneur in multiple fields.
Then he tries his hand at Hollywood acting, and becomes one of the biggest actors in the world and sustains it for a couple decades. He manages this despite a thick Austrian accent. How many blockbuster Hollywood actors can you name who have deep continental European accents? Austrian accents do not make people all warm and gooey inside the way British accents do (quite the opposite). So here you have someone with the most hated kind of accent ascending from bodybuilding to acting to...
...politics. He makes his first foray into politics and gets elected Governor of California, the 8th largest economy in the world, AS A REPUBLICAN! Everyone laughs about it...hahahaha, he's The Governator now. Guess what: Governator got reelected. Arnold was such an unstoppable force that the only thing that could stop him was himself.
*Stephen King has stayed relevant and exceptional. But when he tried to direct, the result was Maximum Overdrive; which he has repeatedly ridiculed.
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