Ask The Gold Trumpet

Started by Gold Trumpet, April 30, 2003, 07:35:07 PM

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SHAFTR

Quote from: The Gold TrumpetAgain, no luck. This is annoying, but thanks for patience.

~rougerum

4 things you could try

1.  try refreshing
2.  right click on the image and click on "show picture"
3.  copy the link for the image and open it up in a new window, refresh
4.  restart
"Talking shit about a pretty sunset
Blanketing opinions that i'll probably regret soon"

aclockworkjj

do you just want that as an av?...if so, just copy this into the Upload from a URL part....

http://www.geocities.com/jjlast1/kiro.txt

I had to change the extension to upload it...but it should work, I think.

Gold Trumpet

To continue the debaccle, jj, your attempt said that the file at the page contained no data. Shaftr, of the ones I understood, they just went to dead ends and didn't work.

~rougerum

aclockworkjj

Quote from: The Gold TrumpetTo continue the debaccle, jj,
I suck...

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: aclockworkjj
Quote from: The Gold TrumpetTo continue the debaccle, jj,
I suck...

naw...naw...naw...you did great. It just wasn't meant to be.

~rougerum

Ghostboy


modage

oh MY GOD!!!!!! a fucking AVATAR!!!!!!!!!!!!
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

godardian

Quote from: The Gold TrumpetWell, Godardian, lets hope your enthusiasm extends beyond just one review. SoNowThen can't stand the man. Hopefully you won't join his club. And don't worry Ravi, I haven't forgot about you. College is killing me now and I'm searching for time to watch The World of Apu. The other two have been well in my thoughts. I've just never seen The World of Apu, yet. I hope to comment very very very soon on them all.

~rougerum

I will keep you posted as I read more. I did post in the Quentin Tarantino forum about how I felt Kauffmann displayed a great deal of insight into what Tarantino is/is not while acknowleding his tremendous talent as a filmmaker...
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Gold Trumpet

many thanks, Ghostboy. It looks great.

~rougerum

Vile5

i have no questions for GT just my congratulations for that great avatar  :yabbse-thumbup:  :yabbse-thumbup:  :yabbse-thumbup:
"Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die." - Salvador Dalí

Ghostboy

Quote from: The Gold Trumpetmany thanks, Ghostboy. It looks great.

No problem! You'll be receiving my bill shortly.

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: RaviGT, I'd like to hear your further thoughts on the Apu Trilogy, specifically about each film and also the trilogy as a whole.

I think the main idea to understand about the The Apu Trilogy is that when Satiyat Ray made the first one, he had almost no experience in actually making films at all. What drove him was belief in the story he was telling. Both these things drive everything good and bad in the trilogy.

With Pather Panchali, there are a few things that are strived to get across: 1.) is to capture life in this little Indian village, 2.) is to tell a simple story about misadventures of a little girl and how it impacts her village, but more importantly how her tragic death impacts her family. From my obversations, thats it. Point number one is achieved but to many disadvantages. First, the pacing is amazingly slow when telling so little. Scene after scene is piled upon daily chores and ineractions. Its tedious to watch. These are wonderful though in how realistic everything is. We do sense we are in a new world. They are also bad because the editing seems off a lot of the times. Scenes will wonder off after the main action has occurred for periods of time for no logical reason. On one hand, this could seem like a glorified achievement in realism and on the other hand, it could just seem like amateur editing and telling of a movie. I'm taking the latter because with Aparajito and The World of Apu, it is obvious Ray is progressing with each film in technique and going elsewhere. The story of the daughter and her eventual death has impact, but it also has a predictability syndrome. Again, scene after scene is a building of frustations for the village in dealing with her mischievous ways. Its just little kid stuff, of course, but the movie has a feeling of fate in that the family does feel doomed. And yes, she dies and yes, they all weep. If the film wasn't so realistic and its own world, this may be a major flaw. In the following movies, the idea of death in the family does become a major flaw in stortelling.

One last point: at the end, there is a magnificent scene of imagination and excitement and feeling anything is possible in this movie when the movie stops telling the story and switches between showing different random images of the village. Its effect is that it magnifies the authencity of the film as cultural document to this world.

Half of Aparajito flows in similiar fashion to Panchali. Day to day details are observed in a similiar fashion that ends with yet another tragic death in the family, this time of the father. The effect though is gone. It is the same treatment of death as in the first and it just brings wonderment to why this film rested upon death in the family yet again. For the second half of the film, Ray shows his progression of film craftsmanship much more. Tonally, though, the second half felt different to me. With Apu going to school, his progressing life and sick mother at home was bringing the material yet again to the pitfalls of easy melodrama. Its just this time the filmmaking seems inspired for the subject. Ray's editing feels quicker and instead of dwelling on minor things, everything is shown generally and Ray cuts down time with even using a montage at one point. Death again comes up again (with the mother) but everything is clearly evident in melodrama terms. The mother's situation is outlined, with easy answers on how she can be saved. Apu's situation is outlined on how he would want to save her, but also would want to progress with his life. The film turns into a race of whether or not Apu will get home in time before his mother dies. He is given a last minute letter telling him about her situation, but of course, its too late. Upon his arrival home, she is dead. Too nicely packaged to be reminding of the honest truth in Pather Panchali.

The World of Apu is an even further decline. Everything in the film is highly romanticized on in a cynical level, we can actually applaud Ray for finally making a film complete in terms of tone and craftsmanship. Its just that he bleeds the honest air of Pather Panchali into the most convential of films. The premise is goofy: To save a bride from the disgrace of a failed marriage reception due to her groom being insane at the last moment, Apu volunteers to marry her. This is the ploy and the set up of it is to have a drama of an honest relationship that suffers the tradegy of the young wife dying during birth of the first child. In the trilogy, this is the fourth death elevated to meladrama terms and the most pathetic. So quickly, the marriage is set up and so quickly, Apu outlines his life of struggle to her (in one scene, actually) and so quickly, they do begin to care for each on such odd terms of marriage. Then, like that, she dies in a miscarriage. He is too traumatized to see the child or anyone and wanders in search of himself only to be faced eventually to see the child and claim the responsibility of being his father. All emotional melodrama again driven down our throat again. What happened to the realism?

Its sad I disliked The World of Apu as much as I did, because on the old board, my best friend was there was of Indian decent and recommended me this movie and called it one of the best and most poetic films he had ever seen. I hadn't seen it then, but I really expected more than what I got. For me, the trilogy best stands for most of it serving as cultural document to another world. Even with many dramatic problems, the authencity holds. Its just with half the second film and third film does that authencity fade and a man highly intent on making films more technically accomplished, more saddening because it is more convential. Ray seems setback in skill for understanding how to tell stories better but valuable in deeply caring about his country and aiming to tell it the most truthful way he can. He does that to some satisfaction.

~rougerum

SHAFTR

My Weekly questions for GT (feel free to go over to SHAFTR Says... and ask questions, that thread is dying)

1.  Throne of Blood (just watched a print of it today on the big screen)
2.  Hiroshima, Mon Amour (ditto to this)
3.  The Man With No Name Trilogy
4.  Finding Nemo
"Talking shit about a pretty sunset
Blanketing opinions that i'll probably regret soon"

NEON MERCURY

what was the last film that you saw ..in theatres that you were experiencing  something truly original and unique....(once and only kind of film).....

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: NEON MERCURYwhat was the last film that you saw ..in theatres that you were experiencing  something truly original and unique....(once and only kind of film).....

This is easier to answer:

City of God, on just first showing, floored me. I had never seen anything like it before. I went in with Budgie's comparison to Goodfellas in my mind and realized that, surface level, it was like Goodfellas. Everything else was an explosion on the chordal sense and its realism and effectiveness to me still has been unparralled. I was so pumped about the movie I immediately caught it the next night again and on the trip home (I was out of town to see it), when I wasn't driving, I was in the back seat already writing my thoughts because I was dead afraid I'd forget everything. A lot of what I wrote there and what went into my original review (by far my longest review) was realized on my second viewing. My first viewing was just being floored. Usually I am good with experiencing and analyzing at the same time. This was a rare exception. I guess looking think back to what I did write in that original review (can be found in City of God thread at Now Showing), anything I suggested of the film being of great depth is likely wrong; its quite superficial, but so is 8 1/2. Its just the greatest work of superficiality in filmmaking since 8 1/2 or maybe Richard Lester at his most daring in filmmaking. But other than that, I'm still young at movies (only been serious since '99) and still learning (still only 20). I am very thankful for having seen City of God and felt the impact so hard so quickly.

~rougerum