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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Lost in Translation

  
  

Page: 123(4)56

 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
00:49 / 23.02.04
If it doesn't even hinge on sympathy than this film is worse off than it was before. What's left, craftsmanship?

I said "bring up" the nature of their relationship not explain it.
 
 
LDones
04:19 / 23.02.04
What's left? How about emotional nuance? Elegance and sincerity in expressing feelings about estrangement? Respect for actors and audience?

My intention is not to seem stand-offish, it just feels as though you're judging the film on criteria that are arbitrary to its content.
 
 
wembley can change in 28 days
05:09 / 23.02.04
It's about kitsch vs. quality; trash culture vs. real beauty; Roger Moore vs. Sean Connery.

I heart Jack Fear.

And I heart Cameron Stewart, for explaining omikuji. If anyone needs explanation for Kaurismäki films, I'm here all week.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
09:22 / 23.02.04
I'm sure we could probably go back and forth on this one for the rest of our natural lives, LD, but perhaps we ought to just agree to disagree, each of us staring out of our respective windows, a CD from the Astralwerks or Warp catalogue spinning in the background, musing on the sad fact that our opinions will never come any closer than the slightest graze between besockened feet.
 
 
LDones
10:25 / 23.02.04
Haha. Agreed.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
10:39 / 23.02.04
Can I whisper in your ear, though?
 
 
Quireboy
11:08 / 23.02.04
I finally saw this yesterday - enjoyable on the whole.

But the repeated jokes about the Japanese mixing their Rs and Ls was totaly unnecessary and detracted from the story. I think the idea that it adds to the sense of the two lead characters dislocation is bollocks frankly. If that was the intention it was lazy and crudely executed - and jarred with the overall mood of the film.
 
 
Quireboy
17:41 / 23.02.04
LoT has made it into Sleaze's (the relaunched Sleazenation) 'Top 5 racist Japanese momenets in film':

"Excesive bowing, short businessmen and period costume Geisha girls; this film takes the award for superfluous and, frankly, embarrassing racism. The only things missing were naked man with a small penis, a used panty machine and a Japanese teen obsessed with video games. Oh wait, it had that too.

Excessive bowing: 112 overtly polite bows in the first 20 minutes.
Teeth & eyes: A few oversized incisors but not much else.
Quote: While dining in a sushi restaurant, Murray suggests the chef might want to cut off and cook Scarlett Johanson's stubbed toe, or 'brack toe' as he puts it in Jap-speak."
 
 
pomegranate
19:15 / 23.02.04
but, bill murray's character is just kind of an asshole. (whether that's cos of his unhappiness w/his current situation or what, i don't know.) i don't think that makes the film racist. i did laugh at the part in the beginning, not at the japanese people bowing and handing over their business cards, but at bill murray's reaction. and i laughed because his delivery was very dry and because maybe he was too dumb to realize that's just custom in japan. i didn't laugh when he said "brack toe," cos i thought it was just unnecessary.
 
 
Quireboy
14:35 / 27.02.04
Hit film gets lost in racism row
George Wright
Friday February 27, 2004
The Guardian

A US anti-racism group is hoping that its campaign against hit film Lost in Translation, which it claims is guilty of a stereotypical portrayal of the Japanese, will ensure that the film finishes empty-handed on Oscar night.

Asian Mediawatch, which has been urging members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to vote against the film, says that the "Asian-American community is abuzz with concerns that the movie's critical acclaim legitimises a film that mocks the Japanese people".

Spokesman Tom Roman told Guardian Unlimited that the campaign may have influenced voting at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards last week, where Lost in Translation star Bill Murray - hot favourite to win the best actor award - was defeated by Johnny Depp, who played Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The outcome confounded many critics and industry insiders, but worse could be in store for the makers of Lost in Translation. Because the guild's members make up 22% of academy voters, the SAG awards are seen by many as a good indication of the way in which voting will go on Oscar night.

Mr Roman, who describes himself as "half Japanese-American", said that most of the people Asian Mediawatch had lobbied at screenings were either SAG or Academy voters.

"The majority of these people were willing to listen to what we have to say, and some of them even said that they would be returning DVDs they bought and asking for refunds. Reaction, overall was much better than we expected," he said.

"The SAG's voting block is obviously actors, and that has the majority in the Oscar voting block as well. And that's where we campaigned heavily. It didn't get best actor at the SAG awards, and hopefully it will go empty-handed on Oscar night.

"However, we are bracing ourselves for a best original screenplay win, since there is not much of a competition in that category, but we'll live with one Oscar. As long as it doesn't get best picture, director or actor."

Leslie Felperin, who writes on film for Sight and Sound, the Times and the Big Issue, said that she could understand if concerns over racist stereotyping swayed voters.

She said: "It is not a bad theory as to why Bill Murray lost to Johnny Depp at the SAG awards - although there were certainly other factors, too - for instance, many voters may have felt that comedy is often overlooked when it is actually harder to do than serious drama.

"People are quite politically correct in the US, and they get very sensitive if they are embarrassed about something.

"Last year was the first time that two black actors won Oscars, so the Academy's members will be feeling very good about themselves.

"They feel they have moved forward to a colour-blind casting - so any campaign suggesting that Lost in Translation is racist may give pause for thought, especially if the group has been effective at targeting voters' screenings." However, Adam Dawtry, the European editor of Variety, said that the racism issue would have no impact on Lost in Translation's Oscar chances.

"I wasn't even aware there was a campaign against the film. In my opinion, the film is not remotely xenophobic or racist. If it were really a clear-cut egregious case of racism, then it wouldn't have got where it did.

"I think that the case for racism in the film is very doubtful, and I don't think it will influence Academy voters at all."

Whatever happens at the Oscars, says Mr Roman, his group's campaign has given voters "an opportunity to open their eyes to the issues Asian-Americans and Asians face in American entertainment".

He added: "There has been some progress for the past few years, especially in American television, but this really should be an ongoing effort.

"Maybe next time when those people make movies or TV shows, they may remember this campaign and make more effort for better and balanced portrayals of Asian Americans and Asians. If that's the case, I think we are indeed successful. This is not a one-shot deal for us."

Focus Features, which produced Lost in Translation, did not respond to Guardian Unlimited's requests for a comment on this story. Neither did the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

What they said about the racism issue:

Director Sofia Coppola, interviewed in the Independent on January 2:
"I'm surprised [at the criticism] ...I can see why people might think that, but I know I'm not racist. I think if everything's based on truth, you can make fun, have a little laugh, but also be respectful of a culture. I just love Tokyo, and I'm not mean-spirited.

"Even on our daily call sheets, they would mix up the 'rs' and the 'ls' - all that was from experience, it's not made up. I guess someone has misunderstood my intentions. It bugs me, because I know I'm not racist. I think that everything you do, people could be offended by - unless you're just trying to be nice about everyone."

Producer Ross Katz, interviewed on CNN on January 29:
"We've shown the film in Japan, to a Japanese audience. The response was great."

Asian Mediwatch:
"The group feels that the film dehumanises the Japanese people by portraying them as a collection of shallow stereotypes who are treated with disregard and disdain.

"The film has no meaningful Japanese roles, nor is there any significant dialogue between the main characters and the Japanese. Such portrayals perpetuate negative stereotypes and attitudes that are harmful to Asian Americans in the US, where a significant minority of Americans already have negative attitudes towards Asians."

Kiku Day, the Guardian:
"Lost in Translation is being promoted as a romantic comedy, but there is only one type of humour in the film that I could see: anti-Japanese racism, which is its very spine."
 
 
Jack Fear
15:19 / 27.02.04
Y'know, a link to the article would've sufficed.
 
 
shirleydoe
13:55 / 01.03.04
Finally watched this...

I think if you have japanese friends and know anything about Japan...it's not as funny as others would find it.

Odd ruminations ala a Larry Kind USA Today article...

WOW, they have wacky video games and karaoke and TV shows that are weird to us.

I also had a problem with the L and R deal. But some people strive to learn all about a culture and others just shamble through life thinking they know all the answers. I think we impose our wills on others, we expect them to be like us, but then everything becomes homoginized. So maybe Japan is alien in many respects, but it should be!

I didn't like him sleeping with the singer. It just seemed out of place and for no reason, but one could argue that forming a bond like he did with Scarlet's character was more "cheating" than anything physical. He couldn't even remember the singer when he woke up in the room and I doubt he'll forget Scarlet. But I think that's me doing teh work for a story's inconsistancy. Maybe because I wanted to like the film so much.

Anyways, i didn't fall asleep. And I'll be wrestling in Japan in April and May, so trust me, that's a culture clash, fighting people you can't even communicate with.
 
 
MojoJojo
14:34 / 01.03.04
"And I'll be wrestling in Japan in April and May

Cool. Good luck.
 
 
Bear
14:42 / 01.03.04
I didn't like the sleeping with the singer thing either...

One Oscar for Screen play, thought they might have got at least one more.
 
 
Cold Bacon
23:40 / 01.03.04
I aporogize if anyone's already read this:

Sofia Coppola's new film Lost In Translation has a lot going for it. It has Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson (formerly known as that other chick from Ghost World), and more quirky Japanese people than you can shake a Tokyo ball at. It offers American audiences more about modern Japan than I ever could. Where else can you hang with young Asian chicks in Cossack hats besides, I guess, Budweiser ads? Then there's the not-young Asian chicks not in Cossack hats. I for one was fascinated to learn that Japanese women execs are mainly used for reception lines, and they dress exactly the same as Japanese prostitutes, who hold the real power in society. Of course Peter Greenaway's Eight And A Half Women already broke this story, including the deal with loneliness, pre and post mid-life crisis, and especially the deal with pachinko, and in a much darker and richer context. But that's okay because he left out the Simon and Garfunkel-tinged hotel bars, Nicole Kidman's formerly-anorexic sister, positive karoake, Japanese T.V. ad directors, photographers, the So Johnny Carson of Japan (see Telemundo), busy intersections, oversections and tiny green cabs. And Greenaway's a complete nut job. At least Sofia Coppola still has her sanity. That is clear and not to be scoffed at. Try buying Greenaway's film on DVD.

Wait—we could start over. Lost In Translation: It's a decent film and it doesn't reek like Personal Velocity. Astute audiences will note the film takes place in modern day Tokyo (formerly Edo, established 16c). Cultural nuances well shown if at times with no clear purpose. Twenty seconds hopping on steps at the Daitoku-ji: four thousand dollars. Thirty seconds of flower arranging footage: six thousand dollars. Fifteen seconds at the Saiho-ji: two thousand dollars. Not having to use your brain while watching a nice little movie about nothing: priceless. I would like to simply accuse LIT of creeping Orientalism and be done with it. But the thing is Coppola truly has nothing against Japan. Her superficiality extends pleasantly to all she touches. The relationship between our little blonde girl and her photographer (was he even an actor?) husband was as thin—and satisfying—as a cream-colored waifer. Maybe if Coppola had inserted the beginning of Contempt as prologue, we could have cared about her troubled marriage. Maybe if Charlotte wasn't a spoiled little twit who hangs around in a hotel bars, we could give a shit. It's not a spiritual void. It's called unemployment.

On the other hand, perhaps if Coppola didn't see herself in young Scarlett Johansson, she would have cast a less dreamy, but more engaging actress. Everyone says Johansson is the thing next to butter, but I just don't see it. I put her acting somewhere between klonopin and trazadone—or maybe half an Ambien divided by Sofia Coppola's performance in Godfather III. On the other hand, Bill Murray is acting even when he's not just like Al Pacino always tells the truth even when he lies. Why? Because he's old and has dark hair. Johansson, on the other hand, has no history, no scars, no dark hair. She barely even has an ass! So who cares about her pink underwear? Don't get me wrong. Johansson is very pretty, but I can't decide if I should buy her a drink or some energy bars with ginko biloba. Murray's character is obviously Coppola's reaction to her experience of growing up being hit on—or maybe not being hit on enough—by older Hollywood actors. The point is the whole thing just doesn't hold water. None of the characters had any inner struggle to explain their decisions or make us care about them as individuals or make us even think at all. Being half asleep does not count as inner struggle.

Let's not even mention the atrocious phone conversations between Bob (Murray) and his stale stateside wife. If the goal was to make me not want to get married, then that's a pretty weird goal. If the point was to show us why Bob would think about leaving his wife, shouldn't it also have shown us why he might not? Instead, we're given an empty-hearted caricature whom this man would never have married in the first place. Perhaps he just didn't want to leave his family? He still could have slept with Charlotte and her foot. But I guess Bob has suddenly become enlightened and is trying to do the right thing? But who said not sleeping with Charlotte is the right thing? I did not say that. Or maybe he's not not doing it for her? Maybe he has ED? Or VD? Maybe that's what he whispered in her ear that made her smile. "I was born, but..."

Bob is annoyed at the antics of the ‘Johnnie Carson of Japan’ show, but he signed up for it—he went to Japan, for money—he placed himself in this situation like a reviewer who goes and sees a dumb film and then whines about it. “You went and saw the film motherfucker! Why should I feel sorry for you?” Sure he's clever and amusing, but he's also a jerk. If Coppola expects us to fully sympathize with Bob in this instance, then there is nothing more to discuss. If, on the other hand, I can side with the Japanese, then this conflicts with the earlier scene where I fully sympathize with Bob as he talks to his disinterested wife. The problem with LIT therefore is one of conflicting identification with character. The same thing happens with Charlotte. One minute we are supposed to sympathize with her (phone conversation to her disinterested friend, her neglecting husband, the world is conspiring to make her bored). The next minute she's whining about some blond actress and basically being a wet blanket. The net result is we don't really care what she thinks. We are as indifferent toward her as she is toward herself.

Stylistically, the film's selling point is its serious jet lag melancholy and ennuic pacing. The restaurant scene after Bill's indiscretion was slow and sweet like a Maggie Cheung Tony Leung longing contest. And it definitely captured the 'Weekend's over--nothing to say' feeling. But if you like this languid style and missed romance, try Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild or In The Mood For Love. For better ennuie and real desperation, look up Jia Zhangke's Uknown Pleasures. You can get it on DVD, region I starting in March.

So what about the humor? Murray is as charming and witty as one could possibly expect considering he just joined the California Neo-Nazi movement. Yeah, how you like the film now? There's even a cameo by Not Cameron Diaz presumably to allow for some hot Hollywood satire. But if you're going to have satire, why ever deviate from Bunuel? Why be cheap when you could be oblique? Or if you must be a cheap window shade, then pull the string down and let it rip up. Lost's satire is unfortunately the fill-up-the-screen-waste-my-time variety—far from the maddening Being John Malkovich and nowhere near as punishing as the low blows of Ghost World. "We both have dogs. We both live in L.A." Yes, very funny. You can pretty much get unlimited this on 'E'. Speaking of Not Cameron Diaz, has anyone seen Chasing Amy? It sucks. Here's an example of Coppola's failure to actuate the signal. We're supposed to think our girl is smart while Not Cameron Diaz is Charlie's Angels dumb because she's going under Evelyn Waugh, a male author's pseudonym. But actually, it's pretty cool for a girl to use a guy's pseudonym like that. Nevermind the real Cameran Diaz thinks Evelyn Waugh is a suitably priced hair product, or at least that's what she told Craig Kilborne's knee. Here, Sofia Coppola and friends have simply made an honest miscalculation. This sort of thing has cropped up before and it's always been due to human error. I prescribe Spirited Away.
 
 
Baz Auckland
01:37 / 02.03.04
Where is that review from?

"Murray is as charming and witty as one could possibly expect considering he just joined the California Neo-Nazi movement. Yeah, how you like the film now?"

...um... can anyone explain this?
 
 
Spatula Clarke
02:03 / 02.03.04
Here, from the looks of it.

Guys, could we maybe stop posting entire reviews and link to them instead?
 
 
Pants Payroll
02:58 / 02.03.04
Today I heard someone say that we shouldnt put too much stock in the Oscars because, after all, Eminem has one, and thats one more than the academy has given Francis Ford Coppola and Stanley Kubrick combined. Made sense to me.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
08:20 / 02.03.04
Except for the fact that 'Lose Yourself' was one of the more deserving Oscar-winning songs of recent years, your theory is sound.

I'm wary of posting all this next bit after people have been chastised for not just linking, 'cos most of it's already on my blog, but I wrote it with this thread in mind, so here goes.

Interesting that this film has mostly polarised people, whereas it split me down the middle.

Things I liked:

- The soundtrack (just amazing, I'm not sure I've ever seen a film which blended original music with selections of existing music to such great effect - plus, shoegazing is hip now, who'd a thought?). Never has a certain kind of listless, hard-to-pinpoint angsty melancholy been better evoked.

- The cinematography.

- Bill Murray. Specifically, Murray's ability to convey being incredibly emotionally damaged with very little in the way of fanfare (highlights being two phonecalls: begging his agent to get him out of Japan, with his back to us, voice cracking; calling his wife drunkenly late at night after being out partying with Charlotte and friends, a really important scene because it tells you that he still genuinely loves/misses her, thus avoiding a standard lazy cliche of "poor adulterous male protagonist, he is stuck in a loveless marriage" which elsewhere threatened to emerge.

- I'm glad Coppola's acknowledged Wong Kar Wai in her Oscars acceptance speech, because I did find myself thinking "this film wants to be Chunking Express so badly" - but that's not necessarily a bad thing: more people need to start using music like that, for one thing.

- Something else I was reminded of: Bob's jetlag/insomnia/cultural displacement is almost identical to Laney's experience of Tokyo in William Gibson's Idoru. Don't know if that's conscious, but I'm always happy to be reminded of one of favourite stretches of writing in Gibson.

- The ending. Best bit of the film, and The Jesus & Mary Chain have never sounded better.


Things I disliked:

- The racism (in the debate about this, what both sides seem to have missed is the fact that the racism in LIT is omnipresent and inherent, but usually not overt, not protruding above the surface - in fact the only people who seem to have really got it are the ones who asked "so is any film about a couple of white people being all alienated and shit in Japan racist?" - because yes, of course it is, of course, very much so).
Okay, so that isn't phrased as well as I would like. Persephone from this very board summed it up much better elsewhere: I have this slight feeling that there's this fantasy of purity behind both absolving and condemning this movie for its racism. My reading of the movie is that it's about a feeling of dislocation that is exacerbated by the existent racism of the characters, which exists also in every person making and watching this movie.
That's what I was trying to get at. I wouldn't absolve or condemn the movie per se either, and remember that I'm using racism as a term in a much wider sense (alas to thread!) - it's not necessarily about hatred - and bear in mind that I'm a former English Lit student who digs Edward Said and Anthony Julius, in other words I do think it's possible that you can have an artistically valid piece of work that at the same time is deeply problematical on a sort of moral/political level... I don't expect purity, but I feel the need to comment when I see some people claiming it's there (cf the Barbelith thread on the film where more than one person has basically said there's nothing dodgy going on at all, which seems insane to me given "lip my stockings" etc).

- The cultural snobbery demonstrated by the sledgehammer cartoon paper tiger straw people who are Giovanni Photographer's friends - he makes hip-hop beats, stupid haha! (He should be into Elvis Costello instead, right Sofia?) I think Jack Fear nails exactly one of the things the film is doing when he talks about the idea of a good American cultural tradition (Costello, Roxy, Pretenders) versus a shallow incarnation of American culture, but unfortunately I just don't quite buy into it.

- This, coupled with the fact that I couldn't quite see what she's so miserable about, made me find Charlotte an unsympathetic character for large portions of the movie. At first I assumed she was meant to be alienated from the modern world in total, but when she gets together with her cool friends it's different - so she's really just a snob, right? When the Cameron Diaz diss character says she's checked in as Evelyn Waugh, crucially that character NEVER SAYS that Everlyn Waugh was female. Charlotte just assumes that - which could be a moment of subtle, telling, uncharacteristic criticism of her character, if the rest of the film wasn't so indulgent to her. And yes, rich pretty privileged young people are allowed to be angsty and stare out of hotel windows in their underwear, just don't expect me to care too much.
Coppola at certain points in the film really is saying "look at these stupid people, how terrible it is for sensitive alienated people like me and my characters to be surrounded by stupid people" - which I agree 100% is something everyone feels at one time another, but it's still kinda annoying. Basically I'm not sure it's a sentiment to wallow in, which the film is sometimes guilty of doing.
(NB: I have worried quite a lot over whether my sympathy for Bob and lack thereof for Charlotte reflects some deep-seated misogyny, but I think it's actually all about age. Bob strikes me as a somewhat ruined figure: he loves his kids but can't remember their birthday; he loves his wife but can't not cheat on her; he used to love his job but somewhere along the line ended up hating it. I'm not sure his life can be fixed. Whereas Charlotte's worries are that she doesn't know what to "do" with her life - she tried writing for a bit, but she's not sure if she's any good... *sigh*... she takes photos sometimes... y'know... it's just, like... what does it all mean? All very adolescent. I'm not sure I can explain why, but with Murray's performance I really got the feeling that if and when Bob's nasty, it's a pathetic defence against feeling confused and vulnerable - whereas Charlotte just seems spoilt. Maybe she does remind me a bit of someone I used to know, though, and that's influencing my take on the film... I still can't help wonder whether perhaps what Bob whispers to her at the end isn't "Get a job.")

- The opening shot. WTF? It's basically saying: "Do you like this arse? Well, do you?" Thanks to Todd for pointing out, however seriously or not, that this may be a reference to Bardot in Contempt...
 
 
Pants Payroll
12:56 / 02.03.04
Except for the fact that 'Lose Yourself' was one of the more deserving Oscar-winning songs of recent years, your theory is sound.
 What theory? I'm not saying "if it wins, it sucks". I'm just relating something that was pointed out to me that gave me a little perspective. I think the idea is to take the oscars with a grain of salt, whether you agree with the decisions or not.
 
 
gridley
13:23 / 02.03.04
- The opening shot. WTF? It's basically saying: "Do you like this arse? Well, do you?" Thanks to Todd for pointing out, however seriously or not, that this may be a reference to Bardot in Contempt...

Well, Sophia has said that it was inspired by the opening shot of Kubrick's Lolita (where the camera, I believe, voyeuristically explored Lo's foot).
 
 
Ethan Hawke
13:30 / 02.03.04
She's better off with saying it's from Contempt. A Lolita reference to a 20 something girl is just plain stupid.
 
 
Cold Bacon
18:51 / 02.03.04
of course it was a reference to Bardot in Contempt.

All of S. Coppola's techniques are imitations of other better directors. Her camera work is imitating WKW (whom she thankfully did acknowledge). Her pauses seem like an attempt to imitate Antonioni (although i'm not sure which was more hilarious: that she attempted to put herself in the same category with Atonioni, or that probably less than 1/2 of the people in that auditoreum have even seen an Antononi picture). She mentioned Godard, although her filmmaking has about as much to do with Godard as a tampon.

The one person she didn't mention is Jia Zhangke. His film 'Unknown Pleasures' is full of young people, long shots, ennuie, longing, desperation, mist. For non-Chinese viewers, it even offers a bonus slice of a completely unique/foreign experience. And Jia's camera work is 8x closer to Antonioni than Coppola's will ever be. I urge anyone who is arguing that S. Coppola is anything but a quaint, likeable, but ultimately harmless director to see 'Unknown Pleasures' and get back to me.

Whenever I find someone who says what a great film this is (my ex-girlfriend for example), at first I am in awe. I want to say, yeah, yeah, certain things were good about it, but how can you compare it to real films from truly great directors like X or Z? Then I remember. Wait a minute. She didn't like Antonioni. She didn't like Tarkovsky. She didn't like Contempt or Alphaville or any Godard I've burned her. So what am I talking about? Why should I care if she likes Lost In Translation? Or me?

She's gone though. That's for certain.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
19:31 / 02.03.04
Alphaville sucked.

LiT's problem was that Coppola was trying to mix Antonioni and Wong Kar Wai, without realizing that Antonioni's style is at the service of portraying characters who are morally empty whereas INtMFL's characters are anything but. She want to make a movie about empty people who feel real deeply.
 
 
shirleydoe
19:32 / 02.03.04
Some people like things they may not understand wrapped in more palatable packages.

Just listen to the director's comments on Boogie Nights. It's all...this shot is from...blah.

So what if the beginning is one long shot like The Magnificent Ambersons? Is the story interesting?

Most directors (and almost everyone, to tell the truth in direction, art direction in ad agencies my most experienced example) are like Rob Liefeld. They do a lot of blow. And they copy a lot of ideas.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
20:01 / 02.03.04
So what if the beginning is one long shot like The Magnificent Ambersons? Is the story interesting?

Hell yes! That dong was enormous!
 
 
Spatula Clarke
20:06 / 02.03.04
how can you compare it to real films

'Strue. As a moderator of this here forum, I suggest that everybody now compares this to imaginary films.
 
 
Cold Bacon
00:49 / 03.03.04
Todd,

Antonioni was a visual genius in roughly the same category as Fellini (although most people would probably say they prefer Fellini's films). Coppola does not have this gift. It's an entirely different, higher form of art. There's not a lot more to say about that. But I appreciate what you're saying in your post. Morally empty characters feeling deeply. That has a ring to it. Sounds pretty much like my last three weekends. As for you hating alphaville. I forgive you.

As for the moderator. Yeah, I guess that one about "real films" was a bit over-the-top. I'm so embarassed. I forgive myself.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
02:56 / 03.03.04
In no way was I trying to equate the skillz of SC and MA. I think all would agree that LiT is not a particularly visually innovative film. What I was trying to do was to interpret LiT in light of SC's unfortunate Oscar Night comments. That is, SC has placed herself, humbly or not, in the company of these directors, inviting comparison with them. From what I've seen of Antonioni, his characters are (The thousandth times) empty, merely reacting to stimulus. Maybe capitalism made them this way. I can't really say. I'm just thinking, as sort of a joke, that SC thought she was making a cross between L'Avventura and In the Mood For Love. Think about it for a second - the In the Mood for Love comparison seems pretty obvious, but in L'Avventura, you get another mismatched pair of overprivileged lovers, thrown together in unfamiliar territory, whose feelings for each other are just reflections of their narcissicism and emptiness. There's a scene of the jilted female catching the man "cheating" - as if that could have any meaning in these "relationships." The most you can say for Charlotte and Bob in LiT is that they have the dawning realization that their lives ARE meaningless but are powerless to change them. Because of capitalism and the coppola family vineyard.
 
 
HCE
18:31 / 03.03.04
The wine's crap too, for that matter.

I enjoyed the film when I first saw it, perhaps because I had the lowest possible expectations. I just wanted to see Bill Murray's face, really. I didn't find it particularly racist. It did portray casually racist characters, but I thought that was accurate. I don't believe any depiction of racism is always already an endorsement of it, though it's an arguable point. The relentless in-jokes that load the film overwhelm the story, but again, so what? This is entertainment, not Cinema.

What's dismaying is that people get terribly excited over things like this, as thought it were the product of some kind of great talent. Much like Amelie -- a empty, soulless, barely coherent and rather pretty piece of crap -- but unlike Amelie in that Jeunet has produced much better films. Amelie's Jeunet Lite, but LiT isn't even the watered down version of anything else.

Moderators policing enthusiasm? Or just a sly reference to Dutch DJs Arling & Cameron's 'Music for Imaginary Films'? We may never know.
 
 
HCE
19:17 / 03.03.04
It was too funny, I had to post:

from: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/jia.html

"While these impressive points of reference may lend a feeling of familiarity to those unacquainted with Jia's films, what risks getting lost in the translation is the glorious strangeness of Jia's aesthetic. It's worth making this point because the strangeness of the world is itself a central theme of Jia's films. It's a strangeness that descends on his characters and impedes their ability to cope with changes which may be as imperceptible as the shifting trends in music and fashion over months and years, or as sudden and calamitous as a factory explosion."
 
 
Cold Bacon
19:49 / 03.03.04
Todd,

I feel your comparison between the surface content of ‘L'Avventura’ and LIT is a useful one. The fact that she mentioned him further supports your claim. The thing about ‘L'Avventura’, however, is that you don't have to relate to the characters in order to realize you're watching a work of high visual art, made by a true master. And if you have any doubts you need only grab the nearest professional photographer and ask them. As for WKW, S. Coppola has essentially done nothing but imitate his style. You only have to see one of his films and one of Jia Zhankge's films in order to see that S. Coppola is a Ford to their BMW.

But it's obviously too much to ask all of the people who are gushing of S.C. to actually sit thru ‘L'Avventura’ or ‘In the Mood For Love’ or buy 'Unknown Pleasures' from Amazon when it comes out on region I in March '04. So what can I do to make my case? The only thing I have left is to attempt to convince people of the basic flaws within LIT itself, apart from external reference, which serve as mini-clues to its sub-masterpiece status.

I suppose for me, the foremost of these flaws is the film’s inconsistency with regard to our identification with character. It's not that Coppola can't expect us to shift our sympathies for and against the various characters throughout the film. The problem is there is no coherent pattern to it. One minute, Bob is charming, the next, an ass. One minute Charlotte is pitiful, the next cute, the next spoilt, the next just plain boring. Again, it would be fine if Coppola had set out to have me develop a sophisticated (Parisian) reaction to Bob as the ‘charming ass’, for example, just like Barry Lyndon as the ‘likeable scoundrel’. But this is not what she does at all. Instead, Coppola seems to defy reality. She demands for you to love Bob or Charlotte so deeply and unconditionally when they are saying things we’re supposed to like. But then when they’re exhibiting behavior with which (I hope to God) we’re not supposed to sympathize, such as Bob the 'ugly American' or Charlotte the 'spoilt Ivy league brat', it undermines the unconditional nature of that sympathy which had been so deliberately constructed. Then by the end, Coppola expects us to once again love Bob and Charlotte with all our hearts in sort of a Liv Tyler-esque moment. Not only can I not do this, but my intelligence is insulted by the fact that she expects me to.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
23:45 / 03.03.04
Moderators policing enthusiasm? Or just a sly reference to Dutch DJs Arling & Cameron's 'Music for Imaginary Films'?

Neither, just wondering what a movie is if not a 'real' film.
 
 
HCE
01:31 / 04.03.04
E. Randy Dupre: I was just teasing.

Cold Bacon: What about naming the band Sausalito? Was that not a stroke of genius? Perhaps a very oblique reference to WKW since Maggie Cheung (ITMFL) and Leon Lai (Fallen Angels) starred in a cheesy movie by that name? Christ, this movie's like the fucking Kabbalah, interconnections everywhere you look.

I still maintain that you are ascribing too-lofty ambitions to this project. What does it set out to do? I think it sets out to portray a certain person's experience, to amuse people who like playing 'Where's Nigo?' (somebody observed that he's becoming like Waldo, which I thought was funny), to showcase SC's friendships with Hiromix et al., etc. Low ambitions, mostly met.
 
 
Cold Bacon
03:55 / 04.03.04
if all of my friends were like you, i would have stopped talking about LIT the day after i saw it. unfortunately, they are not.
 
  

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