The single greatest SHOT ever...?

[Jason Murphy]

I don't agree -- "Saving Private Ryan", from the first battle shot where the doors of the boat open and half the men are killed instantly, clearly shows war to be a horrifying experience, an enormous waste of human life on an epic scale. My reaction to seeing the D-Day battle was definitely not "gee, I wish I were there!" What's glorious about seeing a man picking up his own severed limb? You even see American soldiers shooting surrending German soldiers during the battle. You're not thinking every time someone dies in the movie "oh well, at least it was for a good cause!" The characters in the movie are constantly questioning the point of everything they are involved in, with no easy answers given.

It's a major discredit to the people involved in the making of the movie to say that it is a "pro-war" film. All decent war movies are essentially anti-war movies.

And this is why I should know better than to make an off-the-cuff post before signing off for the night. My apologies.

At least it sparked some good discussion.

You are of course right, David, in saying that Saving Private Ryan is not a pro-war movie, and it definitely IS a disservice to everyone involved in the making of the movie to say so. The opening sequence (and many of those that followed) are definitely horrifying, and nobody in their right mind would find them appealing or pro-war. But I still think it did at times celebrate war in a way that The Thin Red Line did not.

I guess what I objected to in SPR was more the celebration of killing Germans/Nazis. This was specifically highlighted in the scene at the end in which the German soldier that Tom Hanks let go earlier in the film comes back and shoots Hanks in the final battle; the movie seems to make it clear that he realizes who it is he's shooting. Then Jeremy Davies' character gets the drop on him, and after being conflicted for a second, he shoots the German soldier. Both times I saw this in theatres, this action was met with rapturous applause (one man behind me yelled "Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' 'bout!"). It seemed at this point that the lesson of this scene was that all German soldiers were evil, untrustworthy dyed-in-the-wool Nazis without a shred of human decency, who should be coldly shot; you'll realize that those moral conflicts you had about it were misguided. Not that the whole movie was like this, and I don't even know that Spielberg intended the scene to read this way, but given his history of gleefully dispatching cinematic Nazis, it left a really bad taste in my mouth which definitely colored my view of the film, showing it in a much more negative light than it probably deserves.

Anyway, I'll end my little rant now. I do appreciate the thoughtful discussion that followed my earlier post; it's rare to find that on the internet.

Now, on with the shots...

 

[krd]

I don't agree -- "Saving Private Ryan", from the first battle shot where the doors of the boat open and half the men are killed instantly, clearly shows war to be a horrifying experience, an enormous waste of human life on an epic scale. My reaction to seeing the D-Day battle was definitely not "gee, I wish I were there!" What's glorious about seeing a man picking up his own severed limb? You even see American soldiers shooting surrending German soldiers during the battle. You're not thinking every time someone dies in the movie "oh well, at least it was for a good cause!" The characters in the movie are constantly questioning the point of everything they are involved in, with no easy answers given.

It's a major discredit to the people involved in the making of the movie to say that it is a "pro-war" film. All decent war movies are essentially anti-war movies.

The trouble here (I think) is that action movies of any sort are fundamentally, viscerally, exciting. The worst monstrosity, whether depicted brutually or deeply aestheticized, can become a kind of pornography on a screen. In that sense, the more accomplished the "realism", the better the production value and the more inventive the filmmaking, the more pornographic the whole venture becomes. We are, after all, animals, and we respond helplessly to stimuli.

Does this mean that all movies should be romantic comedies? Of course not, but it's difficult not to squirm or vociferate when someone like Spielberg takes on subjects that clearly exceed his moral authority and historical consciousness. Even forgetting (and forgiving) all the phony Tom Hanks humanism, and the Hollywood absurdity of many of the scenes -- my favorite is the blond granddaughters with thighs at Normandy, which tells you more about Steven than anything else in the movie -- the whole thing has the feel of a fraud. The fact that the first battle scenes don't seem to belong in the movie is the best evidence of that. Maybe the whole thing should have been inchoate, violent, unresolved -- still voyeurism in the end, but one which doesn't invite the viewer to associate himself with the "heroes" and congratulate himself for his own unexercised (and non-existent) virtue (rewarded, naturally, since this is Hollywood, by blond babes). But of course that wouldn't have been a Steven Spielberg movie....

As for Malick -- it's hard to imagine any American narrative film of serious intent which didn't somehow skirt pretentiousness, in one way or other. Or maybe the movies in general have an uneasy relationship to classical art, particularly when (as in the case of Malick) there's a literary basis to the films? Or it's an artifact of our times -- nobody is entirely comfortable with solemnity these days(?), particularly when it's in one's own language.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

That's certainly true -- "2001" is perhaps my favorite film, and certainly it has been called pretentious by some, arty by others. It all depends I guess on whether we feel the film was successful. An arty or pretentious film is a little like an unfunny joke -- we know the intent was to be funny, but we didn't laugh. But why we didn't laugh can be complicated.

As for the positive audience reaction at the killing of the German soldier, that's always a bit of a conundrum for filmmakers, a tonal issue, and it's hard to control an audience emotionally once you've worked them up during an action scene. For me, I saw that scene merely as the tragic irony of war, that there is no justice or fairness about war -- good deeds are not rewarded always, that in fact, it may backfire. But I don't think therefore that the message was "kill as many Germans as you can before they kill you", I don't think Spielberg is that simple-minded. But he may have been bringing up a moral conundrum that was too complex to explore effectively in his story.

Like I said, it's a problematic movie to say the least.

It's easier to get behind a war movie that points out the insanity and absurdity of war (which tend to be WW1 movies, being a less understandable conflict) -- "Paths of Glory", let's say.

 

[krd]

As for the positive audience reaction at the killing of the German soldier, that's always a bit of a conundrum for filmmakers, a tonal issue, and it's hard to control an audience emotionally once you've worked them up during an action scene.

Somebody else raised that scene (not me), but apart from the implication that maybe it's good to kill unarmed Germans in war time, here we have this craven American soldier, the brainy undersized guy, acting like most of us would in combat for the first time (terrified and incapable and getting our buddies killed because of it). Then, as a measure of his instantly acquired maturity (a movie conceit if there ever was one?), he's shown capably shooting a German soldier in cold blood without a second thought, and we, the audience are supposed to approve (if not cheer). It's nuts -- the sort of conceit only a poolside Angelino could come up with. I'd argue that far from losing control, this is exactly what the filmmakers were after -- part of the larger lie, that this filmmaking is itself heroic and "moral", so whatever works dramatically or pleases an audience has to be "good".

Paths of Glory certainly is a telling comparison -- one measure, I think, of how much more rigorous and mature Kubrick was as a filmmaker.

 

[Tom Lowe]

That's certainly true -- "2001" is perhaps my favorite film, and certainly it has been called pretentious by some, arty by others. It all depends I guess on whether we feel the film was successful. An arty or pretentious film is a little like an unfunny joke -- we know the intent was to be funny, but we didn't laugh. But why we didn't laugh can be complicated.

Well high art in cinema is a funny thing. I find TTRL to be high art, even transcendent in places. I also find the same to be true of 2001, though to a lesser extent. Intelligent people can disagree, because esoteric art films will appeal to people for different reasons.

 

[Kenn Christenson]

Actually, I'm kind of fond of "Band of Brothers" you can't really match the poignance of those interviews at the end of the series.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Actually, I'm kind of fond of "Band of Brothers" you can't really match the poignance of those interviews at the end of the series.

Absolutely! I prefer Band of Brothers to Private Ryan. Those old guys almost had me in tears at the end.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

What ever but people like all those little downloads!!!!!

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

NOTHING LIKE>>>
Have a look now at the two examples of Vittorio Storaro's masterpieces...

APOCALYPSE_NOW_WITH_BRANDO.mov

ftp://84.112.86.213/Library/FTPServer/FTPRoot/Movies/APOCALYPSE_NOW_BRANDO.mov

or

LAST_TANGO_IN_PARIS

ftp://84.112.86.213/Library/FTPServer/FTPRoot/Movies/LAST_TANGO_IN_PARIS.mov

Storaro is talking about use of a natural light in the work of Gianni Di Venanzo another revolutionary Italian cinematographer.

Ipod size of the clip 320x180, 17min, about 205 MB.
ftp://84.112.86.213/Library/FTPServer/FTPRoot/Movies/storaro-venanzo.mov

TO FTP DOWNLOAD USE FIREFOX ON BOTH PLATFORMS!!!!

Also an exclusive 48 hours of download time limit. Get it as soon as possible.

 

[P Andersson]

what if tarkovsky had made bladerunner with brando

 

[Alex Boothby]

Brando would never have made that jump across the rooftop. And his fingers were to fat to break.

 

[Alexander Nikishin]

what if tarkovsky had made bladerunner with brando

I think Tarkovsky and Brando would have made for an extraordinary collaboration.....but not for the film Blade Runner.

Tarkovsky is the master of mis en scene. He holds on a single shot like there were no tomorrow.

Brando loves the camera, he prefers a long, grueling performance shot.

Blade Runner would be a completely different film than the Blade Runner I know and love.

If there were any films tailor made for Tarkovsky's style they would be those of Akira Kurosawa's. I think he would blend in perfectly Kurosawa's love for the wide shot and performance pieces.

 

[Tom Lowe]

The Third Man, what kind of server do you have to be able to host all these clips?

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

The Third Man, what kind of server do you have to be able to host all these clips?

Tom, nothing special, it is a very old computer Apple G3 upgraded to G4 running also an old version of Apple Mac OS X Server version 10.3.9.
BUT it's a ROCK STEADY SERVER on a cable/broadband connection. That's it.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

And more Tarkovsky examples coming soon!!!
Stay tuned.

 

[James T Mather]

what if tarkovsky had made bladerunner with brando

or van helsing with eddie murphy

 

[Jason Murphy]

If there were any films tailor made for Tarkovsky's style they would be those of Akira Kurosawa's. I think he would blend in perfectly Kurosawa's love for the wide shot and performance pieces.

This makes sense: Tarkovsky was, incidentally, a huge admirer of Kurosawa and his work. You can read a number of things he wrote about Kurosawa and his films in Sculpting in Time, his book about filmmaking (which is about as good a book on the subject of filmmaking as has been written; highly recommended for those who haven't read it yet).

 

[David Mullen ASC]

or van helsing with eddie murphy

Imagine Stanley Kubrick's version of "Home Alone" or other inappropriate director / feature combinations, like Tarkovsky's "Happy Gilmore"... or Michael Bay's "Tokyo Story"...

Anyone remember SCTV's skit of a Jerry Lewis / Ingmar Bergman collaboration called "Scenes from an Idiot's Marriage"?

 

[P Andersson]

bergman doing van helsing with macaulay culkin

 

[James T Mather]

Terry Malick helming spaceballs.
Kubrick on showgirls

Ang Lee doing Hulk....oops.