There Will Be Blood - now with child/partner forum we call H.W.

Started by depooter, March 27, 2005, 02:24:56 PM

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tpfkabi

Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on June 26, 2007, 02:36:03 AM
Quote from: bigideas on June 20, 2007, 04:18:16 PM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on June 20, 2007, 03:46:03 PM
I knew there were other influences to PDL than just Tati. The problem for me is that I hadn't seen those films mentioned so I do need to see them before I can comment. But I still think my argument stands. My referencing Tati is just an example.

My original argument is that compared to Magnolia and Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love has references that override the story. It forms the shape of the story and guides the characters. They don't exist as freely as they do in Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Those films are based closer to drama. Punch-Drunk Love is the film experiment.

I think PDL is good and fine, but its ceiling for its ambition is limited. I think greater heights are to be reached with what Boogie Nights and Magnolia do.

i'm def not saying you are wrong, i'm just wanting more specifics like "this scene in PDL references this scene in this Tati film," etc.

PDL's form seems so New Wave to me.

it seems french new wave to me, too. I regret lopsiding my comparison to one filmmaker, but to explain...

In Tati, the focus of the character was from afar and focused on his physical handicaps with the world around him. I think a similar touch is applied in Punch-Drunk Love. Some shots are close ups, but most shots are static shots from afar that isolate Barry Egan from everyone else and make his mannerisms and awkwardness the subject of the film's approach.

In some ways, this could be argued as what defined Chaplin as well, but I think there is a difference. The character of Monsieur Hulot has little semblance with a real character. Chaplin's Little Tramp really did. I think Barry Egan is a mixture of the little tramp and Hulot. Someone of Barry Egan's shyness and awakwardness can exist, but it would not be trumped up in such a heightened way. Egan's actions skid on believability a lot of times and frankly cross over into unbelievity.

Also, one has to consider the times both filmmakers existed in. Chaplin's character was considered realistic for its time. Chaplin was applauded for putting real sentiments into a genre that most people considered had absolutely none. When Bernard Shaw was asked why film lacked qualities of realism and deep feelings, he simply said "incompetence". Film has evolved and by the time Tati made the Hulot films, his choice to make Hulot unrealistic was a stylistic choice. As far as Chaplin knew, he was doing the very best one could to do add realism to what could have been a stock figure in a bad comedy.

So when PTA made PDL, he was also making a choice in how to portray Barry Egan. In chaplin's day it would just be assumed the characterization would be one way. By the time Tati came around, choices were available. Tati surrounded the film with a style and filmmaking scheme that is closer to PDL. If Anderson rid the film of its stylistic approach and just focused on the character of Barry Egan, the influence would be more Chaplin.

ok. i see where you're coming from. i was thinking more thematically at the time - where every Tati film (that i've seen) deals with a character having trouble adjusting to the rapid world around him, but now that i think about it, Barry experiences this too, just more in the social sense - instead of man vs. technology.

one difference with Tati is the overwhelming sense of sentimentallity (or yearning for days gone by), whereas i don't think that is really present in PDL. if anything Barry is tormented by the past (his sisters, the hammer, the doghouse).
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

Xx

#496
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tpfkabi

Quote from: flagpolespecial on June 27, 2007, 06:26:03 AM
i think pdl is more a woman is a woman influenced.

i think there's a similiar blue suit.
what else?
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: bigideas on June 27, 2007, 07:44:39 AM
Quote from: flagpolespecial on June 27, 2007, 06:26:03 AM
i think pdl is more a woman is a woman influenced.

i think there's a similiar blue suit.
what else?

I'm glad this has been mentioned, but I don't think the influence is huge for PDL. A couple shots here and there are ripped off. The camera following Karina at her first strip show behind stage and looking to someone playing music and cutting back was also done in PDL in a beginning scene showing Hoffmann at his business and the camera following a character and moving with the same exact motions.

But I think the movements of the camera in A Woman is A Woman have been found in other PTA films. His camera goes glide like Altman films do, but Altman's do at such a distance. He canvasses the area around the characters as much as he does the characters themselves. It's a bigger high light of his filmmaking than overlapping dialogue or anything.

And PTA doesn't do that. A Woman is a Woman has many gliding moments, but does so to the personal touch that is closer to PTA than I think Altman is. He just got branded by Altman because he continually says he respects Altman and Magnolia has too many links to Short Cuts not to miss but both filmmakers seem very different to me.

72teeth

i might just be talking out my ass here, but does anyone get kind of a Popeye feeling during the part where he's bouncing that baby and wearing that goofy hat...
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The Sheriff

Quote from: 72teeth on June 28, 2007, 01:04:41 AM
i might just be talking out my ass here, but does anyone get kind of a Popeye feeling during the part where he's bouncing that baby and wearing that goofy hat...

no, but you may be a pedophile. you better keep an eye on that
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mogwai

Quote from: Depraved, Inc. on June 28, 2007, 05:10:24 AM
Quote from: 72teeth on June 28, 2007, 01:04:41 AM
i might just be talking out my ass here, but does anyone get kind of a Popeye feeling during the part where he's bouncing that baby and wearing that goofy hat...

no, but you may be a pedophile. you better keep an eye on that

amazing, you're officially Demented.

children with angels

Quote from: mogwai on June 28, 2007, 05:34:25 AM
Quote from: Depraved, Inc. on June 28, 2007, 05:10:24 AM
Quote from: 72teeth on June 28, 2007, 01:04:41 AM
i might just be talking out my ass here, but does anyone get kind of a Popeye feeling during the part where he's bouncing that baby and wearing that goofy hat...

no, but you may be a pedophile. you better keep an eye on that

amazing, you're officially Demented.

Been thinking the same thing. Cecil not around anymore?
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tpfkabi

Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on June 27, 2007, 11:54:40 PM
Quote from: bigideas on June 27, 2007, 07:44:39 AM
Quote from: flagpolespecial on June 27, 2007, 06:26:03 AM
i think pdl is more a woman is a woman influenced.

i think there's a similiar blue suit.
what else?

I'm glad this has been mentioned, but I don't think the influence is huge for PDL. A couple shots here and there are ripped off. The camera following Karina at her first strip show behind stage and looking to someone playing music and cutting back was also done in PDL in a beginning scene showing Hoffmann at his business and the camera following a character and moving with the same exact motions.

But I think the movements of the camera in A Woman is A Woman have been found in other PTA films. His camera goes glide like Altman films do, but Altman's do at such a distance. He canvasses the area around the characters as much as he does the characters themselves. It's a bigger high light of his filmmaking than overlapping dialogue or anything.

And PTA doesn't do that. A Woman is a Woman has many gliding moments, but does so to the personal touch that is closer to PTA than I think Altman is. He just got branded by Altman because he continually says he respects Altman and Magnolia has too many links to Short Cuts not to miss but both filmmakers seem very different to me.

has PTA ever mentioned French New Wave or any of it's directors?
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

martinthewarrior

He mentions Truffaut in the PDL commentary. "Shoot the piano player" to be exact. I always saw him as a 70's American cinema guy. PDL was th first time I noticed much new wave stuff. I guess Hard Eight had a bit of that.

modage

with Darjeeling and No Country taking the Opening and Centerpiece slots at the New York Film Festival that would probably mean if it does not get the Closing Night slot it will not play the fest.   Boogie played there and PDL was the Centerpiece film i believe so i doubt that it would take one of the regular slots.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

tpfkabi

I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.


tpfkabi

Quote from: mogwai on June 28, 2007, 05:03:52 PM
Quote from: bigideas on June 28, 2007, 04:18:16 PM
Quote from: martinthewarrior on June 28, 2007, 02:52:21 PM
PDL commentary.

:?:

it's an easter egg on the saudi arabia edition.

ah, he must have meant Hard Eight.......now that i think of it he compares the match in the pants to the dead mother in Shoot i believe...
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

I Don't Believe in Beatles

He talks about Shoot the Piano Player in one of the Boogie Nights interviews:


5.  Shoot the Piano Player (Francois Truffaut) (1960)
"I always loved gangster movies, but if you've seen a hundred of them you've seen two hundred of them, right? But in this, Truffaut took the American gangster movies that I knew and loved as a kid  all that Humphrey Bogart stuff - and turned it on its ear. It was shot in Cinemascope, which was pretty much reserved for big budget Hollywood movies. And it also re-invented the gangster genre, and it took it somewhere brand new and postmodern: our hero could be a little skinnier and not so tough. One of my favorite things in this film is, this guy's driving the car and he's saying, 'may my grandmother drop dead if I'm telling a lie right now,' and it cuts to a shot of his grandmother falling down on the floor dead! Then it cuts back to the scene and that's all there is. That said to me, if one can do that, one can do a million other insane things. This film also taught me how I wanted to dress - I wanted to wear those suits! I wanted to be in that movie! The people in the film weren't typically handsome, but they were so sexy and cool."

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"A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later." --Stanley Kubrick