PTA is not very food

Started by cinemascope, August 27, 2003, 01:09:42 PM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

cinemascope

It wouldn't have been as thinly drawn out if PTA had kept all the sister sequences in, honestly I thought he should have kept those.  The characters are the only thing I liked in PDL, cinamticaly, specifically the compositions  are all blatently ripped off.
"But...Some people call me...the Street Fighter"-Sonny Chiba (Street Fighters Last Revenge)

aclockworkjj

shut up now...

PDL is there for substance...ah fuck...ok, here goes...

scope I said this awhile back:
Quote from: aclockworkjj....a challenge to all you folk...make a thread, that captures hearts alike, and has meaning (in this forum, and relevant to it)....I will be the judge....convince me....and I will send you a present worth your time.
I think you have done this...congrats....pm me with shippin' info, as you deserve my prize.

aclockworkjj

Quote from: pLasmatroNAcockwookie DJ, will you ever shut the fuck up? Stop trying to be black as Justin Timberlake tries to be. Step off, let the real niggaz in and please shut the fuck up.
great post...will your 5th post be equally as good?  go 4 it real nigga.

budgie

Quote from: cinemascopecinamticaly, specifically the compositions  are all blatently ripped off.

But isn't the skill in how things are juxtaposed. Isn't the movie about meetings?


Quote from: Jeremy Blackman
Quote from: budgieI would say that Punch-Drunk Love is great because of its style, not because of the characters, who really are rather thinly drawn.

I'm pretty sure I agree with that. But is Barry really thinly drawn, or is he just alien? I think his character is actually thick (though not consistent), and only easy to identify with in strange undefinable ways.

By 'strange, undefinable' I assume you mean, emotional. Which may be strange to you? Do you find your own identification with Barry strange, Jeremy?

As for 'alien', ditto. I recognize him, and I have smashed a window.

What I am implying of course (as you are too I think) is that his character is drawn in the subconscious rather than on the paper, where he is hardly delineated, and only with a fine line. That is, not as is usual with 'narrative' film of the sort churned out in the mainstream. It means that you will only identify with Barry if you share some of his psychological traits, or perhaps if you can own them. To a greater or lesser degree, you may need more information than is given, which isn't much. I would say that actually all of PTA's work is like that, it's very much dependent upon you recognizing his way of experiencing people, very idiosyncratic and really quite narrow-focused.

Does that mean he's not a great filmmaker? I wonder how everyone here will feel about his movies in 20 years' time, or even less? Will you still recognize Barry then? Will he?

What is remarkable about PTA is the way he does tap into the psyche, in movies where that isn't a usual approach (rom com, for instance). He's using abstract visual style to do that more and more, but the area he's really developing, surely, is sound, which no one talks about. The firecracker scene in BN is by far the most remarkable, Claudia's smile only packs its punch because of the level of the soundtrack, and PDL is exemplary. He's not the only person to experiment, but he's maybe unique in that he's doing it with melodramas and comedies (normally dependent for their pull on characterisation and plot), and at least on the fringes of the mainstream (even if he is heading towards being pushed into arthouse).

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: budgieBy 'strange, undefinable' I assume you mean, emotional. Which may be strange to you? Do you find your own identification with Barry strange, Jeremy?

I hope not, but it may be true. I definitely identify with him, but I'm sure that there's more beyond the surface. I can pick apart the movie without finding it. And doesn't that prove that it's subconscious, like you said? I recognize him too, but I can't find him. Maybe he's only alien in that he's so close.

The first time I saw the movie, it was Barry that wouldn't get out of my head. I was shaken. I had to see the movie again a few hours later. Barry will live forever under my skin.

pete

yeah, at first I was like, PTA is great, then after reading your thread, I was like, PTA is not that great.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

Link

It's like deja vu.  Every day I come to this message board, and I see at the top of the list, this thread, and every time, I think "Why won't it just die?"

Gold Trumpet

the structure of PDL, sharp focus on Barry and thin focus on everyone else, I think has to do with the film creating a structure similiar to the Chaplin and Keaton films. Both films were basically portraits of one character, with all the others acting as tools to heighten the main character in some way.

Anderson, on character portraits, seems very much to work as a natural director in just observing the actions of a character, higher meaning or not. Boogie Nights was more flushed with symbolism and overt references. Magnolia strayed more but still had it. Punch Drunk Love is him at his most natural because if being able to be referenced, none of the actions say to speak for anything specific. They are just what the character does. His portrait. The great actress Louise Brooks always gave the reason for not writing an auto biography because it would force her to condense her life into something meaningful and understandable. Serious portraits, as she said, made the character even more confusing at the end. Punch Drunk Love is tidy at the end, but only in Barry finding love. He is, still, mostly a mystery.

~rougerum

Banky

Quote from: rustinglasscinemascope, you're cool, you've got balls.

i agree with 1/2 of that statement

The Silver Bullet

QuoteWe love PTA 'cause he writes stories that tow the line of realism but leave room for movie magic...
The nail.
On the head.
You hit it.

Hard.

More than anything else, you just summed up what PTA is all about for me personally.
RABBIT n. pl. rabĀ·bits or rabbit[list=1]
  • Any of various long-eared, short-tailed, burrowing mammals of the family Leporidae.
  • A hare.
    [/list:o][/size]

Pubrick

Quote from: LinkIt's like deja vu.  Every day I come to this message board, and I see at the top of the list, this thread, and every time, I think "Why won't it just die?"
i was gonna lock it but then budgie started talking. and i can't interfere with that, it's a very rare thing.
under the paving stones.

SoNowThen

Quote from: The Gold Trumpetthe structure of PDL, sharp focus on Barry and thin focus on everyone else, I think has to do with the film creating a structure similiar to the Chaplin and Keaton films. Both films were basically portraits of one character, with all the others acting as tools to heighten the main character in some way.

Punch Drunk Love is him at his most natural because if being able to be referenced, none of the actions say to speak for anything specific. They are just what the character does. His portrait. The great actress Louise Brooks always gave the reason for not writing an auto biography because it would force her to condense her life into something meaningful and understandable. Serious portraits, as she said, made the character even more confusing at the end. Punch Drunk Love is tidy at the end, but only in Barry finding love. He is, still, mostly a mystery.

~rougerum

Yes. Absolutely. Good post, and I agree 100%.
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

finlayr

Just wondering...How can anyone believe that PTA ''ripped off'' the compositions in Punch-Drunk Love?  From who and what????
Filmmaker

SoNowThen

Truffaut for one...


but I think that's cool.
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

MacGuffin

Quote from: finlayrJust wondering...How can anyone believe that PTA ''ripped off'' the compositions in Punch-Drunk Love?  From who and what????

From Greg's site:

When Barry is running away from the brothers in their truck, PTA stages the shot EXACTLY like the opening of Truffaut's "Shoot The Piano Player" (side tracking shot of character running through shadows). LENA is also the name of the love interest in Truffaut's film as well...
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks