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Busy day. Went to a forum on Immigration Law - which I volunteered to write an article on for my social action/justice committee at my church. Complicated topic. And just finished watching the
[Not edited, because I have to go to bed now!]
Christopher Nolan film Inception - which continues to explore a topic near and dear to Mr. Nolan's heart -"what is real" and how we construct or handle reality inside our heads, from a purely noir perspective. Fascinating film - which I enjoyed far more than my flist apparently did. Two people (and friends that I've met in person and like a great deal -but from vastly different backgrounds and worlds) on my flist who seldom agree, both disliked this film somewhat intensely.
But, I admittedly like Christopher Nolan's films - of which I've seen nearly all of. And enjoy the noir genre more than most. All of Nolan's films take place in neo-noir or noir, from Memento to well Inception. Or rather all the one's I've seen have. They are also all psychological thrillers, often use the same actors repeatedly (much like Scorseses, Hitchcock and Lynch do), have complex narrative or puzzle-box structures, and are about reality or how we view reality. Also without exception - they are all extremely violent in places, have lots of action and chase scenes, and deal with the death of a woman or women that the lead character feels extraordinarily guilty for and is directly responsible. Making me wonder about Mr. Nolan. Although this may well be the Jungian view of the male handling his anima. Hitchock had similar issues. As does, for that matter, Mr. Whedon with his waif-like women who get raped repeatedly before fighting off the bad men and saving the day. If you analyze and critique film enough - you begin to well, wish you hadn't or feel very sorry for these guys' wives. Although I'm beginning to think some of this is ingrained in our culture to such an extent, that our films are projecting it. Film, books, tv shows, music, and art in general is after all just a projection of what our culture is, who we are, how we think as well as a commentary of it. It's a reflection in the mirror, a dream if you will. If we hate it - it's not the film or art that must be challenged, but rather why that film or art came into being - what is it in our culture, in ourselves that projects this? If the most successful films are violent ones? Why is that? Why is the collective subconscious telling these tales over and over again? What is the problem we want to solve?
What I like about Nolan's films is the puzzle box aspect, but also the layers. The flaw in his work, which is the same one that is unfortunately at the heart of every single one of the films I've seen to date, including the one's nominated for an Oscar and why I've grown weary of Whedon's work - is that the story at the core of that elaborate puzzle-box is pretty standard and not all that interesting. The dreams that he examines aren't well as interesting as the narrative and architecture of the dreams. It's similar to my complaint regarding Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton - whose narrative structure and architecture of their worlds are more fascinating than well the actual story or plot. The Social Network had the same problem - the intricately layered narrative structure blew me away, it too was a puzzle-box narrative (although Inception's was more interesting to me, not misogynistic, and far less sexist - and with more likable characters not to mention a far more interesting plot but that's just me), but lacked much at the center. It was of course about what was real and not real as well.
In fact - that seems to be a trend with the films nominated for Oscar this year or the one's I've seen to date at any rate. The concept of reality.
( spoilers for Inception, and vague ones for films such as Black Swan, The Fighter, and Toy Story 3 )
[Not edited, because I have to go to bed now!]
Christopher Nolan film Inception - which continues to explore a topic near and dear to Mr. Nolan's heart -"what is real" and how we construct or handle reality inside our heads, from a purely noir perspective. Fascinating film - which I enjoyed far more than my flist apparently did. Two people (and friends that I've met in person and like a great deal -but from vastly different backgrounds and worlds) on my flist who seldom agree, both disliked this film somewhat intensely.
But, I admittedly like Christopher Nolan's films - of which I've seen nearly all of. And enjoy the noir genre more than most. All of Nolan's films take place in neo-noir or noir, from Memento to well Inception. Or rather all the one's I've seen have. They are also all psychological thrillers, often use the same actors repeatedly (much like Scorseses, Hitchcock and Lynch do), have complex narrative or puzzle-box structures, and are about reality or how we view reality. Also without exception - they are all extremely violent in places, have lots of action and chase scenes, and deal with the death of a woman or women that the lead character feels extraordinarily guilty for and is directly responsible. Making me wonder about Mr. Nolan. Although this may well be the Jungian view of the male handling his anima. Hitchock had similar issues. As does, for that matter, Mr. Whedon with his waif-like women who get raped repeatedly before fighting off the bad men and saving the day. If you analyze and critique film enough - you begin to well, wish you hadn't or feel very sorry for these guys' wives. Although I'm beginning to think some of this is ingrained in our culture to such an extent, that our films are projecting it. Film, books, tv shows, music, and art in general is after all just a projection of what our culture is, who we are, how we think as well as a commentary of it. It's a reflection in the mirror, a dream if you will. If we hate it - it's not the film or art that must be challenged, but rather why that film or art came into being - what is it in our culture, in ourselves that projects this? If the most successful films are violent ones? Why is that? Why is the collective subconscious telling these tales over and over again? What is the problem we want to solve?
What I like about Nolan's films is the puzzle box aspect, but also the layers. The flaw in his work, which is the same one that is unfortunately at the heart of every single one of the films I've seen to date, including the one's nominated for an Oscar and why I've grown weary of Whedon's work - is that the story at the core of that elaborate puzzle-box is pretty standard and not all that interesting. The dreams that he examines aren't well as interesting as the narrative and architecture of the dreams. It's similar to my complaint regarding Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton - whose narrative structure and architecture of their worlds are more fascinating than well the actual story or plot. The Social Network had the same problem - the intricately layered narrative structure blew me away, it too was a puzzle-box narrative (although Inception's was more interesting to me, not misogynistic, and far less sexist - and with more likable characters not to mention a far more interesting plot but that's just me), but lacked much at the center. It was of course about what was real and not real as well.
In fact - that seems to be a trend with the films nominated for Oscar this year or the one's I've seen to date at any rate. The concept of reality.
( spoilers for Inception, and vague ones for films such as Black Swan, The Fighter, and Toy Story 3 )