board77

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I could have done without the stupid jokes that are the hallmark of too many Hollywood blockbusters.

Me too.

1) What the hell is wrong with close-ups? Specially when you have such good actors. Again, it's seems silly to me to try and objectively say that less close-ups is better than more close-ups much like it seems silly to me to say that a still camera is better than big camera movements. They are two different styles capable of communicating in different ways different things. I haven't seen a fraction of the films Semprini has seen (at least I've seen Rashomon and Seven Samurai), but I've seen almost all of Kubrick's films (loooove Kubrick). I can't stand back and say that one uses the camera better than the other (judging only LOTR) because, IMO, they both use the camera phenomenally well but for vastly different purposes. Camera use is definately not an area you'll have a hard time getting me to agree that PJ isn't great in.

2) I hate hate hate the claims that PJ's films are "video gamey". To point to a tiny handful of such moments (yes, POTD ) in a massive 10+ hour mega-epic and then talk as if PJ is having elves shield-surfing every 10 minutes is ludicrious. Standing back and looking at it objectively, there is a great deal of stillness and contemplation all over these movies, and in fact I'd bet there's probably more "quiet" scenes then there are big, OTT, in your face scenes. There may not be as much as you'd like or it may not be in the style that you want, but don't talk like if it isn't there.

I must admit that I do not understand very well how you can challenge the statement that a more contemplative, less mainstream, and less action-packed LOTR adaptation than PJ's LOTR would have also been "less video-gamey", which is what I claimed. In almost all of the numerous action scenes of TTT and ROTK involving Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, they kill hundreds of deadly looking opponents, while uttering extremely silly jokes, as if they were invincible killing machines having their breakfast at the same time. I find it very implausible. Several scenes involving Legolas and Gimli are almost parodical. Sorry to break it to you, but, yes, the great epic films are less video-gamey than PJ's films, despite the qualities of the latter. As for quietness, I think that we simply do not have the same definition of "quiet".

Also, I for one have no problem standing back and saying that Kubrick's camera work is better than PJ's. PJ is wildly uneven in that field.

Voronwe:

I saw Seven Samurai specifically because it was compared a whole lot to LOTR, TTT in particular. Man, what a disappointment that movie was! If TTT is mediocre compared to the supposedly great SS, I'll take mediocre any day. SS is, IMVHO, a joke of lame storytelling, terrible pacing, horrible acting, and a dull-as-dirt "action" climax. And people complain that Helm's Deep was too long!? Plus that goofy "comedy relief" character was approximately 1000 times more obnoxious and OTT then Gimli and Legolas combined.

I often think that past "greats" aren't really any better than modern artists, they're just speaking in different languages. Much like I can think of a ton of modern rock musicians that I think are vastly more artistically meaningful than the so-called great musicians of the past (Mozarts and Bachs and such). But it's probably not that my fav rock artists are necessarily "better" than a Mozart, just that Mozart isn't communicating in a language that speaks to me personally while modern artists are.

I guess that sounds like I'm arguing against judging artistic merit, which I'm not really trying to. It's just that discussions comparing past styles to modern styles often feel like they're missing the point.



PS - Seven Samurai sucked!!!!!! (But I did like Rashomon, the only other from him I've seen)

You have the right to think that Seven Samurai "sucks", although your arguments lack substance and...restraint. I have always found the comparisons between PJ and Kurosawa to be ill-advised, even ridiculous. They certainly give a false image of AK to those who have never seen his films. PJ and AK are vastly different directors, with vastly different abilities and vastly different goals. As for music, well...Mozart and Bach speak to me (modern rock musicians too, though... I like variety in art).

Sorry you didn't like The Seven Samurai, yov. It truly is one of the great films and however many times I watch it I see something new. Couldn't you see for instance what a burden those swaggering samurai were to the farmers; how they hated the situation that made them need help from such people? How the emissaries from the village had to bow and scrape for the sake of their community? How the samurai realised they were hated and feared but got on with the job anyway? That film is a picture postcard of what war and soldiers do to farmers the world over.

Semprini wrote:

You have the right to think that Seven Samurai "sucks", although your arguments lack substance and...restraint.

Well, I wasn't trying to do a formal review or anything, just saying I thought it was a pretty dull movie. My main point was about how the "language" of art seems to change over time and that a language that speaks to one person may not speak to another without being able to objectively say one is superior to the other (thought brought up primarily by Jn's criticicism of PJ's big camera movements).

Tosh, I suppose I could see where you find those things within the movie. What was entirely lacking for me within the movie was why I should give a fuck.

Close ups are akin to underlining/capitalization/embolding. So to me, PJ's films are

LIKE THIS! IN YER FACE! NO CALMNESS! NO RESTRAINT! SHOUT! YELL! HOLLER! SCREAM! KILL! SHRIEK!

... for 3 hours.

Eventually - actually quite quickly - the close ups close their impact, as my writing would if I embolded every word instead of just the occasional word.

In The Searchers there is only one close-up of Edwards (John Wayne), after he mocks the rape victims. The effect is more shocking, more powerful, than anything PJ has ever achieved.

Jackson's over-use of close-ups has a flattening effect. When he needs to underline and emphasize he has no tools left: he has used them over and over again.

Exactly, QB, I could not have said it better, although I have always counted two close-ups of Wayne in the Searchers.

PS: This flattening effect you mentioned is the reasons why PJ's films exhaust me; I found that watching ROTK required a great effort, greater as the film progresses, and I did not care anymore at the time of The End of All things. All these shoutings, close-ups of overracting actors, bombastic music, narrative reversals, absence of hierarchy in the presentation of the scenes (all treated by the director with the same heavy-handed style as if they were all extremely important; eg, the opening worm scene filmed with the same directing tools as the destruction of the Ring with a ridiculously overacting Serkis), ie all this confusion, had become meaningless.

Queen_Beruthiel wrote:

Close ups are akin to underlining/capitalization/embolding. So to me, PJ's films are

LIKE THIS! IN YER FACE! NO CALMNESS! NO RESTRAINT! SHOUT! YELL! HOLLER! SCREAM! KILL! SHRIEK!

Interesting and it makes my point well. The close-ups don't seem to have that effect on me at all. Which is what I was saying - different people are "hearing" the language differently. Considering that the last hour or so of ROTK is a perpetual emotional build-up for me, and that I am always in tears by the time End of All Things rolls around, clearly there is no "flattening" effect for me because I am not "hearing" the shouting that you are.

This reminds me of my mom telling me that my music was "just noise" when to me it is moving, beautiful, and meaningful. Both of us were right.

Yov,

As someone who is twice your age and who has moved from a love of the raucous to a love of the contemplative, let me say that I understand your point of view. I also know that you will change and will come to understand the virtue of restraint. Both serve a purpose.

From King Feisal in Lawarence of Arabia:

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Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.

I'm glad you are thoughtful enough to be in the discussion.

IdylleSeethes wrote:

I also know that you will change and will come to understand the virtue of restraint. Both serve a purpose.

I think I understand the virtue of restraint. 2001, quite probably the slowest, stillest, quietest, subtlest movie I've ever seen is easily in my top 10 fav movies, probably even top 5. I'm not arguing against restraint. I'm arguing against the notion that the "raucous", to borrow your term, is intrinsically lesser then a restrained approach, which is what I feel Semprini and Jn have been trying to say.

yovargas wrote:

I think I understand the virtue of restraint. 2001, quite probably the slowest, stillest, quietest, subtlest movie I've ever seen is easily in my top 10 fav movies, probably even top 5. I'm not arguing against restraint. I'm arguing against the notion that the "raucous", to borrow your term, is intrinsically lesser then a restrained approach, which is what I feel Semprini and Jn have been trying to say.

I agree with you, yov.

I always think of PJ's LOTR as a sort of popular operatic version of Tolkien's LOTR.

And I, too, understand the virtue of restraint and firmly believe that PJ's LOTR would strongly benefit from this here and there!!!

But I have no beef with PJ's overall popular operatic style. I like it. It involves me. It pulls me in.

I've never seen 'The Searchers' or 'The Seven Samurai' although I would love to.

(But yov, please, Mozart and Bach were not 'so-called' great musicians they were great musicians. They were giants, they built musical architecture. And I don't even care for Mozart's music that much (Bach I adore) but I know he was a genius. In the same way, I know that the Stones are a great rock band - I just don't care for their music that much.)

With regard to the pros and cons of "restrained" or "raucous" (or "vigorous" if you will ) films, I would suggest that the former are a more satisfactory tool for a director who wants to examine themes and ideas.

2001 is a well-nigh perfect example of such a film.

An action film, even if based upon a thoughtful book, is bound to skim over the themes and treat ideas cursorily, if it treats them at all.

Does a modern big budget film for mass audiences have to be a rather noisy action film, with little thoughtfulness? It wasn't so when Ford and Kubrick were directing: I think it may be so now.

Thanks, Di. Good post.

(And the "so-called" came off more condescendingly than I intended it to. All I meant was that they are identified as The Greats in music, but they mostly leave me bored. Actually, same goes for the Beatles since we're on the topic. )

Queen_Beruthiel wrote:

With regard to the pros and cons of "restrained" or "raucous" (or "vigorous" if you will ) films, I would suggest that the former are a more satisfactory tool for a director who wants to examine themes and ideas.

Depends on the themes/ideas being examined, I would imagine. One example that comes to mind: Saving Private Ryan's opening. To sit around talking about it being too noisy and the camera moving too much would surely be to have missed the point entirely. Much (though certainly not all) of the anti-PJ thought around here strikes the same chord with me.

If memory serves, SPR (which I don't much care for: too sentimental) has only two notable action sequences: the battles which more-or-less book end the film. There is far less action than in PJ's 2nd and 3rd films.

Anyway, I don't know what themes SPR is supposed to convey, other than War Is Hell.

It's quite a conventional film, surely?

There is nothing wrong with a film having vigorous moments. We do need a chance to catch our breath and coalesce what we just experienced. There is some of that in LOTR, but not nearly enough.

I watched LOTR (yes all 3 films) with a dozen people. 9 hadn't read the books or seen the films. They were unanimous in thinking the last 2 films to be just prolonged battles. Because of my familiarity with Tolkien, it did not strike me until that day how imbalanced PJ's view of LOTR is. Yes I thought there was too much activity and not enough contemplation, but I hadn't considered how serious an effect this had on viewers with no background. For a non-reader, liking TTT and ROTK is reduced to the issue of how well they compare against other action movies.

I resent that. That is not the Tolkien that I love.

Tolkien's books have a lot of action in them but that certainly isn't what they are about and PJ's imbalanced presentation cannot be overcome without some background. As much as I like Indiana Jones, I don't want Tolkien's work to be considered just another example of that kind of story.

I would like to repeat that my frustration is that PJ has proven that he can provide these moments of contemplation very eloquently. They are just used too sparingly and I think, if he had been more liberal with them, the films would have been better.

The journey of Frodo and Sam makes up half of TTT. In the movie version, I would guess it makes up, say, less than a third of the film time.

Helm's Deep and the fighting in Moria have been lovingly preserved as they are in the books, while other less violent scenes are cut or reduced or given over to comedy or caricature. Actually, one could argue these two fighting scenes have been greatly expanded from what they were in the books.

One can argue about liking or disliking contemplative vs. noisy filmmaking all day and there will be no winner. But it is impossible a noisy movie to be thoughtful and really worth studying. The great themes must be communicated with precision. Precision of communication requires calmness and consistency, both of which Jackson's movie lack.

I don't have any time, but fortunately Di has been here so there is not a lot that I need to say, other then as usual I agree with Di.

A couple of random points. I like much of PJ's use of closeups, but there are some that are painful to watch (and not in any good way). The closeups of Frodo when he gets stabbed by the cave troll and stung by Shelob are just embarrassing. In contrast, I think his stabbing by the Witchking is very well done. Frodo's internal struggle to resist the Ring is very well shown, and his pain and suffering is not overdone like it is in the other two.

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They were unanimous in thinking the last 2 films to be just prolonged battles.

They weren't paying attention.