I recently viewed There Will Be Blood and well I know that I don't necessarily need to 'get it' but I didn't. Yes, I witnessed a man isolated and isolating by his compulsions. I noticed the distant aspect of the 'brotherhood,' it was the one venue that offered any hope to Daniel, but in the end they were both false brothers that he killed, was this the modern severing of faith and family?
Any thoughts out there on this movie? I had high hopes and I'm not sure what to make of it.
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Friday, June 06, 2008
Is There Blood?
Saturday, May 12, 2007
A Complex Character or Just Another Straw Man?
In it is an old story that Hollywood has tried to distance itself from the black and white hat characters of the westerns. Characters now are supposed to be more nuanced and complex; neither good nor bad but human. The camera has attempted to penetrate the thin facade of suburbia uncovering such stories as American Beauty. I recently viewed Little Miss Sunshine (just so you know this post is full of "spoilers") and was, through most of the movie, pleased. A little girl in a middle-class home finds out at the last minute that she has a spot in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pagent. The family is complete with recently fired gay suicidal academic uncle, angst-ridden son who reads Nietszche and has taken a vow of silence, a perverted heart-of-gold grandpa, a bring-home-the-bacon mom, and aspiring motivational speaker dad who is trying to cut a book deal on how to be a winner. And that is the plot. Who are the winners and who are the losers. And what better backdrop than there last minute attempt to drive 1000 miles to a beauty pagent. The bulk of the movie is spent on the road where grandpa dies, the son finds out he can't pursue his dream job, the uncle meets his ex-boyfriend who ran off with another scholar, and the dad loses his book deal. All have lost. All are losers.
However, they do manage to make it the pagent in the nick of time. Olive's turn for the talent competition comes up. Olive has been working on her routine with grandpa and no one has seen it. However, after seeing the other contestants dad is feeling like her girl is outmatched and wants to convice her not to go on. Mom stops him and allows Olive to perform.
It turns out that Olives performance is a pre-pubecant strip-tease which is performed to Super Freak. The audience is offended and begins to leave. In act of triumphant solidarity the whole family comes on stage to dance with Olive for the remainder of the song.
It is all fine and good to critique society via "beauty pagent" imagery, however, sex is once again leveraged as the liberator of docile mass culture. In fact I believe sex is a good domain to critique but does an "innocent" six year old strip tease offer a redemptive image for dysfunctional families and lives? As I write this I am beginning to see that perhaps Olive and the rest of the family are significantly "complex". Through Olive's purity she translates grandpa's strip tease into a redemptive act liberating the family for the expectations of the beautiful culture, the winners. While I respect Olive's character I view the old Hollywood character of Sex as suspect. Sexual deviance remains the leading man for cultural change in Hollywood. Much of Hollywood remains convinced that sex is primal and does not reflect on how sex offers imagery for the deeper movements of holiness, the real complex character.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
The Davinci Code
(Warning! If you still haven't read or watched The Davinci Code you probably don't want to read this)
I suppose most of the hoopla has died down by now but I finally watched The Davinci Code (I am not sure I will ever have the time to read it). On my first viewing I thought the movie was quite good. I am sucker for cryptic suspense. I enjoyed it right up until it began to start sermonizing in the last 10 minutes.
No Sophie was no proven to be an heir of Christ. So in response Langdon offers the painfully repetitive refrain of the western modernity, "the only thing that matters is what you believe." Really? That is how world-renowned historian Robert Langdon sums up his world view? No, that is not all. He follows to say that "history shows that Jesus was an amazing example, a human inspiration, that's it. That's all the evidence has ever proved."
What?! How has that been proven?
Anyway . . .
Then Langdon returns to the story of when he fell down the well as a child where he reveals to Sophie that he prayed to Jesus. He thought that perhaps he was not alone. To which he comes to the conclusion. "Why does it have to be human or divine. Why can't it be that human is divine?" Correct me if I am wrong but isn't the whole paradox of orthodox the believe that only Jesus is human and divine?
I do not want to undervalue that aspect of the movie because I believe there is validity in someone reaching out and experiencing the presence of the unknown. I just have an issue with how it was framed here.
I also find some validity in Langdon's next question. "Why couldn't Jesus have been a father and still capable of all those miracles?" I think that is a pretty good question. I don't really have thoughtful answer for it. Unless perhaps part of the Jesus's celibacy was to remove biological gender from the issue of salvation.
Of course in the end the "debunking" of orthodoxy is secured in the reliability of our hero Langdon as he uncovers the true resting place of Mary Magdalene and so bolsters a view that critical reason has finally prevailed over the myth of Christianity, though it cannot over conclusive proof.
This is a fairly unnuanced post and a little late in coming for the discussion but there you go.
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