INHERENT VICE (No Major Spoilers)

Started by cronopio 2, December 02, 2010, 09:51:28 AM

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Punch

i dont get why that observation gets plp riled up, i can see something wrong with the angry black woman in magnolia & still loved the film or the misogyny at times in inherent vice which is in the book & still love the story. western criticism as of recent seems to just be interested in aesthetics & comparisons to other films. cinematography, story, character & material conditions of the characters, class, race, dialogue, sex, plot, mise en scene editing etc should all be apart of the discussion about any film no? as long as were not hacking away at one thing over & over again.
"oh you haven't truly watched a film if you didn't watch it on the big screen" mumbles the bourgeois dipshit

ono

Quote from: Alexandrofilmmakers are not supposed to be the united colors of benetton...
Exactly.

Quote from: Punch on October 08, 2014, 10:27:06 AM
i dont get why that observation gets plp riled up, i can see something wrong with the angry black woman in magnolia & still loved the film or the misogyny at times in inherent vice which is in the book & still love the story. western criticism as of recent seems to just be interested in aesthetics & comparisons to other films. cinematography, story, character & material conditions of the characters, class, race, dialogue, sex, plot, mise en scene editing etc should all be apart of the discussion about any film no? as long as were not hacking away at one thing over & over again.
Because 1) there's nothing wrong with Marcie.  There are many people like that, and it was one of the most real parts of the movie.  And 2) because saying something as empty as the politically correct claptrap that PTA doesn't write good female characters is a) wrong and b) empty.  I couldn't find my A-2-D here.  Biff was better at that.  Anyway, they're just looking for a fight when there's none to be had, wishing film portray their rose-colored idealized perception of reality rather than the truth of the situation: that yes, there are obese loud mouthed black crooked women in the world, that back at the turn of the century women weren't at the forefront of society, that chicks did porn, that some guys have abusive, overbearing sisters that make them a shell of a man until they find someone that treats them kindly.  By saying something about the kind of people you wish were portrayed, you aren't saying anything of value about what actually DID happen.  Go make your own film.

Punch

the reason why I see it as wrong is becuase its a constant stereotype the obese angry black mammy but its a toss up if this is how you see negros then fine & i never said pta couldnt write woman characters i think he has. i said inherent vice the book is misogynist at times i didnt say this should be changed, this is the film he made, im not one to tell someone what kind of film they should have made, all i was saying is why can't one aspect of a film be critiqued just like anything else thats it
"oh you haven't truly watched a film if you didn't watch it on the big screen" mumbles the bourgeois dipshit

SailorOfTheSeas

I've got a question to people who've ventured into the OTHER iv thread. Are there proper actual spoilers on there now or is it still just more relatively unspoilery reactions and quirky delights being discussed? I wanna go hear more xixaxian reactions but dont want to spoil myself of anything like the changed ending or departures from th book

chere mill

punch is right. and he should not be attacked for merely stating what i think is pretty obvious. anyone who takes film seriously needs to consider it from a larger sociological perspective - the filmmaker's world view, the representation of minorities, the film's political implications, etc. i find it ridiculous how reactionary some people become (generally straight white guys) when these issues get mentioned. i consider pta one of the very best filmmakers working today and in fact magnolia was my favorite movie for a long time. but as i have gotten older, i have noticed some problems.

yes, pta has some problems in his representation of women. i don't consider him sexist, but he is fairly phallocentric. he tends to relate more to his male characters (emotionally and psychologically) than the female ones - the male's desires, ideas, problems, etc. while there are some exceptions,  many of the female characters have been the nurturing, motherly type for the leading man. lena in punch-drunk love is a bit of an enigma beyond that role. she seems to have had some problems, but emotional/psychological damage is only truly explored in barry egan. his emotions/thoughts are given much more weight while she is left with the traditional gender role for the woman (caregiver, nurturer, motherly). there are reasons one could give to justify these decisions, but as a love story it feels pretty one-sided. there will be blood's almost total absence of female characters is problematic, too. it could make sense when considering daniel plainview's isolation and lack of romantic interest in women, but this is a bit retrograde in its thinking (as if to say "well it's not a love story, so why should there be a woman?!"). the removal of all female characters in a dark story about greed and corruption seems to inadvertently reinforce the traditional role women have been assigned ("this is not a story about love or healing, therefore women do not belong."). but there are always options to have powerful, domineering female characters, and even in the case of twbb, to have them merely explored outside the major, all male, characters (daniel plainview, his son, eli sunday, henry). it's not overtly sexist in any way, but that doesn't stop it from being a bit of a boy's club. pta's obsession with father/son dynamics plays a role in these decisions, too.

and magnolia, yeah, i wish he would've kept the dixon story. on the magnolia documentary you can see pta extremely frustrated with that segment, seeming unsure where to go with it. it's a problem he never seemed to figure out and thus omitted it. for black characters we are left with marcie, who is, yeah, a bit of a stereotype (and i don't consider "that's real" convincing enough to justify it, as if pta had no responsibility as a writer/director, he was merely forced by "reality"). this stereotypical portrayal is a bit compromised however by the inclusion of the april grace character, the skillful, highly intelligent black woman conducting frank's interview. in terms of racial dynamics, i think the film improves here. still, i can't help but feel the dixon story might have improved it even more. i would never say magnolia is essentially white people whining about first-world problems for 3 hours, but its scope feels a bit limited and unfulfilled.

of course all of this is part of a much larger problem in the film world, which is not pta's fault. perhaps these issues would not stand out as much if we had more diversity in filmmakers - more women, gays, racial minorities telling stories. it's not a shame when a straight white male filmmaker tells a story from their point of view, it's a shame when we get that so often and not much else. it places too much emphasis on one point of view at the expense of everyone else. if our patriarchal system evolved into something more inclusive, more welcoming of people from different economic backgrounds/genders/races/sexual persuasions, we would all be better off - both the filmmakers and the audience.

porgy

Quote from: chere mill on October 08, 2014, 05:30:19 PM
yes, pta has some problems in his representation of women. i don't consider him sexist, but he is fairly phallocentric.

agreed.  I dont think agreeing though takes away at all from his general immeasurable talent, as others have kinda suggested.

Quotethere will be blood's almost total absence of female characters is problematic, too. it could make sense when considering daniel plainview's isolation and lack of romantic interest in women, but this is a bit retrograde in its thinking (as if to say "well it's not a love story, so why should there be a woman?!"). the removal of all female characters in a dark story about greed and corruption seems to inadvertently reinforce the traditional role women have been assigned ("this is not a story about love or healing, therefore women do not belong."). but there are always options to have powerful, domineering female characters, and even in the case of twbb, to have them merely explored outside the major, all male, characters (daniel plainview, his son, eli sunday, henry). it's not overtly sexist in any way, but that doesn't stop it from being a bit of a boy's club.

I agree in some senses- Blood is definitely a Dudes story about Dudes.  Father/son exploration aside I think that masculinity is a big part of that movie.  Maybe not to a conscious degree but to a point where given the period, the location, and the themes of the movie the omission of female characters doesn't strike me as the biggest sin.  It just seems like a story about that generation of men, their ideals of masculinity and self, etc.  I think people gravitated towards Amy Adams in The Master precisely because she was in that masculine environment but was so clearly defined and, at least to me, extremely empathetic.   

Quotestill, i can't help but feel the dixon story might have improved it even more. i would never say magnolia is essentially white people whining about first-world problems for 3 hours, but its scope feels a bit limited and unfulfilled.
I don't disagree either.  I think that big markers of privilege aren't all necessarily there, with the exception of Moore and her relationship, so in that sense the scope of the film seemed broader than, say, The Darjeeling Limited, where it felt like a specifically very privileged group just made it feel a little bit more cartoony, a little hard to swallow, and offbase.  I mean that juxtaposition is part of that movie but I dont think it exactly hits home hard enough for me.


Quoteof course all of this is part of a much larger problem in the film world, which is not pta's fault. perhaps these issues would not stand out as much if we had more diversity in filmmakers - more women, gays, racial minorities telling stories. it's not a shame when a straight white male filmmaker tells a story from their point of view, it's a shame when we get that so often and not much else. it places too much emphasis on one point of view at the expense of everyone else. if our patriarchal system evolved into something more inclusive, more welcoming of people from different economic backgrounds/genders/races/sexual persuasions, we would all be better off - both the filmmakers and the audience.

Agreed. :bravo:

EDIT: and just to be clear I'm not exactly faulting PTA for the content of the movie.  and I'm not suggesting that the political context of the portrayals or anything diminish what is a great movie from an amazing director.  but it's definitely not the most inclusive PTA film. 

ono

Punch is not right.  Neither is chere mill.  cbrad said it best, really.  Art is a mirror, and it tends to reflect that which is most prevalent in the viewer's mind.  You are projecting all of your hangups on to PTA.  It is not his responsibility to change the world.  He only takes his snapshot of the world out there to interpret it how you will.  That is the inherent joy of making a film for others' consumption.

As for the issue of why there aren't more women filmmakers, it's not a field that necessarily attracts women.  It's not a problem that needs active fixing.  Women don't necessarily gravitate towards coal mining, or garbage collecting, or -- heh -- oil drilling, just as men don't gravitate towards fields that are traditionally populated by women such as nurses, secretaries, and marine biologists (I shit you not -- every third girl in my high school wanted to be one, and they all rode horses, too).  Stop trying to press too hard on the proverbial seesaw and just treat people as equals.  We need more good filmmakers, period.  And me, I'd love to watch a good film, regardless of your plumbing or your socioeconomic background.  But I am grateful PTA never falls into the trap of making boring social justice tripe and pandering to those who would cry out to have him do so.

Thread rebalanced.

Frederico Fellini

We fought against the day and we won... WE WON.

Cinema is something you do for a billion years... or not at all.

Punch

"Art is a mirror, and it tends to reflect that which is most prevalent in the viewer's mind." exactly i completely agree with this. did you read what i said? what is there to disagree with i was merely talking about whats brought up during film criticism, that it should be more then aesthetics. that the critique should be complex.
"oh you haven't truly watched a film if you didn't watch it on the big screen" mumbles the bourgeois dipshit

Jeremy Blackman

These are the questions that are important to me:

- Are PTA's films racially problematic or sexist to any significant degree? No.
- Is it still fair to bring those things up? Sure. He's not perfect.
- Does PTA have a responsibility to advance social issues? Nah, I don't think he does.

Anyway, in this conversation I don't think people disagree with each other as much as they think they do.

Quote from: chere mill on October 08, 2014, 05:30:19 PMyes, pta has some problems in his representation of women. i don't consider him sexist, but he is fairly phallocentric. he tends to relate more to his male characters (emotionally and psychologically) than the female ones - the male's desires, ideas, problems, etc. while there are some exceptions,  many of the female characters have been the nurturing, motherly type for the leading man...

I think on the whole, PTA's female characters are closer to archetypes than stereotypes. But otherwise I thought you brought up some interesting points. It's absolutely true that PTA is imperfect on race and gender, and yet it doesn't bother me at all. PTA makes phallocentric films, and so what? Almodovar makes films about women. Lynch makes films about dreams and darkness. Every filmmaker is allowed to have their strength. We don't need to have one mega-filmmaker who contains and expresses the entirely of human experience.

Alexandro

this is the guy who made a film about a substitute father son relationship, followed that one up adding a lead with the biggest cock in the world, continued with tom cruise's mantra "respect the cock", turned adam sandler man child into an emasculated shell, made a film about an OIL MAN who DRILLS holes in the ground and several shots of oil spilling up from below like fucking sperm and his latest is about a pretty much homoerotic relationship between two men and a disruptive woman, one minute into the film the lead is fucking a sand sculpture at the beach. Being phallocentric is basically his fucking point, that notion is at the heart of all his movies, wether he knows it, likes it or not.

Frederico Fellini

Quote from: Alexandro on October 08, 2014, 09:34:57 PM
this is the guy who made a film about a substitute father son relationship, followed that one up adding a lead with the biggest cock in the world, continued with tom cruise's mantra "respect the cock", turned adam sandler man child into an emasculated shell, made a film about an OIL MAN who DRILLS holes in the ground and several shots of oil spilling up from below like fucking sperm and his latest is about a pretty much homoerotic relationship between two men and a disruptive woman, one minute into the film the lead is fucking a sand sculpture at the beach. Being phallocentric is basically his fucking point, that notion is at the heart of all his movies, wether he knows it, likes it or not.


Ive been saying this since fucking forever, Twbb is full of phallic shit, thank you Alex.
We fought against the day and we won... WE WON.

Cinema is something you do for a billion years... or not at all.

Lottery

And that TWBB draft where Daniel's dick didn't work.

matt35mm

Yeah, I see his movies as engaging seriously with notions of masculinity, which is really interesting when he does it. I actually have tended to be more drawn to movies that engage with femininity in a serious way. I am generally uninterested in movies about dudes by dudes. PTA is the major exception. He makes movies about very peculiar but very specifically masculine relationships. He has a lot he wants to explore about men, and he's doing it so well, and I want to see him dig deeper in that direction because it's meaningful and illuminating when he does it. Masculinity is a major theme in his movies, and to have the focus on the men makes very good sense.

In my own films, I know that I'm always going to be more interested in engaging with femininity. I have nothing I want to explore about masculinity, but I have endless fascination with femininity. If you just look at the movies I've made so far, they could be called sexist in that they never feature major male roles. Several of my movies only feature women. The more movies I make, the more it's going to be this way.

The problem with almost every other movie is that it is not seriously engaged with any of these ideas, and the male dominance is done simply as the default. But for a filmmaker's movies to be heavily masculine or feminine is not a problem to me, if that is that filmmaker's interest. To me, the real enemy is the tendency to fall back on the default, and that default is sexist and racist and ageist and all of that. But if a filmmaker moves away from the default and into serious engagement, or at least personal obsession, then I don't see much to get pissed off about. It's the default, thoughtless stuff that's the problem.

To address something else, the idea that directing is not something that attracts women is just not correct. It's something that men assume they can do (even though most of the men I know who say they want to direct are idiots and should not direct), and the whole system assumes that men can do, and that many women who have legitimately great ideas are unsure if they really should direct because the system assumes that they can't. The general mentality and assumptions about how a director is supposed to behave is something that blocks the very many women who want to direct but aren't taken seriously by others or themselves, even though they should be. Men are just very good at being oblivious to their own idiocy/ineptitude, which is fine because they can let "being a man" do all the heavy lifting as far as getting people to take them seriously. How men have ever gotten so far is a mystery. Have you ever noticed how many men are just bad at their jobs, and not very smart or interesting or thoughtful? Yes, the same is true of women, but men don't get penalized for it in the same way, or quite as pigeonholed into ideas of what they can and can't do, even when they've never demonstrated any special ability. They can skate by, and this perfumes them with an ill-gotten confidence that allows them to skate even more by. Meanwhile, we all have to suffer the general lowering of standards that happens when the actual best person for the job isn't the one getting to do the job, and when an untold number of women who could do really brilliant work if they were encouraged to fully bloom their abilities are instead (understandably) cowering in self-doubt from having to suffer 20x the amount of social pressure that men do.

Anyway... yeah PTA's great.

Alexandro

there is a difference between an ARTIST like  PTA and every other industry hack who will be phallocentric because that's the way commercial films pander to audiences. when PTA (or any other serious artist) does it, the less he plays around with PC correctness the better, because he's not following non written rules about gender or race in cinema, he's just submitting to his impulses and finding himself through his films.