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Scorsese makes Joker movie - or The Death of Culture

Started by Frank, 23 August, 2017, 08:16:27 PM

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GrudgeJohnDeed

Of course we're all free to criticise art, have storytelling we like and storytelling we don't, but trying to sort all things into a category of high art and low art is something else entirely. It does just feel pompous and exclusionary, and ultimately has no positive aspect to me.

I can understand someone's frustration at the homogeneity of the cinema that is successful at the moment, absolutely, but to say it's low art in Kareem's case or 'not cinema' in Scorsese's is just a bit stuck-up to me. Scorsese is a legend and I still love him, of course. Kareem was in Airplane so he's awesome too.


JOE SOAP

Quote from: Frank on 12 October, 2019, 09:33:18 PM
Regret posting that Scorsese quote. This board is no place for old men who think everything was better when they were young.

And some of it didn't even exist (Texas City/MC-1 Civil War).

I'm just waiting for Spielberg to take the Netflix ruble.

Frank

Quote from: GrudgeJohnDeed on 12 October, 2019, 09:33:42 PM
... to say it's low art in Kareem's case

As he makes clear, Kareem loves Marvel movies. He says he pities Scorsese for never experiencing them.

Like I say, I think your problem is with the terms he adopts*


* I'm not sure I like them either - specifically, the binary opposition they imply. But I don't think anyone would seriously argue with the definitions he provides - just the (apparent) linguistic privileging of one over the other. As KAJ says in his brilliant piece, the very best films - his examples are The Third Man, The Godfather, 2001 and Chinatown - are a mixture of both.

JOE SOAP


Robin Low

Quote from: Frank on 12 October, 2019, 11:04:14 AM
Roger Murdock weighs in with an unusually thoughtful and well-argued piece for someone who once fought Bruce Lee:

<SNIP>

Celebrated British novelist and screenwriter Graham Greene (The End of the Affair) divided his fiction between "entertainments" and "novels," with the latter being his serious art. He was making the distinction between melodrama (entertainment) and drama (art): Melodrama emphasizes plot over character, while drama (or cinema for Scorsese) emphasizes character over plot.

This argument all falls apart, of course, when one notes Marvel movies are their characters, not their plots.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't think Goodfella's would have been massively improved by Batman bursting through the ceiling and kicking the shit out of everyone, then tying them up and leaving little greeting cards with bat symbols on them tucked into the ropes.

Regards,

Robin

TordelBack

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 12 October, 2019, 09:41:29 PM
I'm just waiting for Spielberg to take the Netflix ruble.

I do hope it happens. It ain't cinema, but the bottomless coffers and seemingly endless space that Netflix provides have so much potential for the (low) artist. Lately I find myself fantasising that they hand their mega-expensive Second Age Middle Earth project to Louis Leterrier and the Jim Henson Company. I'm doing it right now. Mmmmm nice.

Tiplodocus

Be excellent to each other. And party on!

karlos


Frank

Quote from: karlos on 16 October, 2019, 08:45:04 AM
Caught Crispin Glover's thoughts on it all - very interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qWdoHBmTJM

I haven't seen all of the Marvel movies, but it seems difficult to argue that Thor: Ragnarok, for example, is legitimising US foreign policy*

Glover, presumably, has the Avengers movies in mind, which provide an easy analogue for the last 80 years of calamitous and often self-defeating interventionism.

But then you have Cap 2: ARE WE THE BADDIES? and Tony Stark 3's prescient observation that we were all hatin' on a trust fund fantasist wanking to CD-ROM porn in a cave while the real threat to democracy came from tech bros in Northern California** 


* Although Professor Bear could do so easily. Anything that depicts superior strength as conferring moral superiority is problematic, I suppose. But that's quite vague and applies to everything except Woody Allen movies, which have problems of their own.

** At the time, I thought Guy Pearce's ugly nerd who gives himself a makeover and becomes a preening, hate-fueled narcissist obsessed with literal and metaphorical power was just a generic villain. Then I read about Elon Musk.

CalHab

Quote from: Robin Low on 13 October, 2019, 10:01:48 AM
Quote from: Frank on 12 October, 2019, 11:04:14 AM
Roger Murdock weighs in with an unusually thoughtful and well-argued piece for someone who once fought Bruce Lee:

<SNIP>

Celebrated British novelist and screenwriter Graham Greene (The End of the Affair) divided his fiction between "entertainments" and "novels," with the latter being his serious art. He was making the distinction between melodrama (entertainment) and drama (art): Melodrama emphasizes plot over character, while drama (or cinema for Scorsese) emphasizes character over plot.

This argument all falls apart, of course, when one notes Marvel movies are their characters, not their plots.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't think Goodfella's would have been massively improved by Batman bursting through the ceiling and kicking the shit out of everyone, then tying them up and leaving little greeting cards with bat symbols on them tucked into the ropes.

Regards,

Robin

Absolutely! Gangs of New York would be immeasurably improved by having the Mike Mignola Victorian Batman as well.

Yours sincerely,

Alfred Pennyworth

Robin Low

Quote from: CalHab on 16 October, 2019, 12:02:52 PM
Quote from: Robin Low on 13 October, 2019, 10:01:48 AM
I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't think Goodfella's would have been massively improved by Batman bursting through the ceiling and kicking the shit out of everyone, then tying them up and leaving little greeting cards with bat symbols on them tucked into the ropes.

Regards,

Robin

Absolutely! Gangs of New York would be immeasurably improved by having the Mike Mignola Victorian Batman as well.

Yours sincerely,

Alfred Pennyworth

America was born in the streets... shaking in deep shock... dying for no reason at all...

Yes, I'd pay money to see that... and surely there already is a Gangs of Gotham story out there somewhere.

Regards,

Robin

radiator

It struck me the other day just how much the theatrical poster for Joker looks like a Jock painting. Anyone know if he had a hand in it's design?


Frank


Frank Coppola misinterprets the meaning of #MeToo and joins Scorsese's bandwagon: Old Man Shouts At Clown

Mr Dracula doesn't have anything new to add, but discussion of his remarks reminded me of the 2013 speech their mate, Steve - one of the two guys most responsible for the blockbuster model of film making - gave talking about exactly this increased specialisation in theatrical distribution.

Forgetting any arguments about virtue, snobbery, or high art, it's difficult to compare these two (US) charts and deny the marked difference in subject matter, genre and the variety of both. I don't think anyone can argue with Scorsese's point that theatres are now trading almost exclusively in spectacle:



JOE SOAP


Frank