Xixax Film Forum

Given that PTA says his next project may be his attempt to make his own Baraka, which is a visually intense film and also maybe an alienating one to general viewers given its structure and approach. Amazon review here:

The word Baraka means "blessing" in several languages; watching this film, the viewer is blessed with a dazzling barrage of images that transcend language. Filmed in 24 countries and set to an ever-changing global soundtrack, the movie draws some surprising connections between various peoples and the spaces they inhabit, whether that space is a lonely mountaintop or a crowded cigarette factory. Some of these attempts at connection are more successful than others: for instance, an early sequence segues between the daily devotions of Tibetan monks, Orthodox Jews, and whirling dervishes, finding more similarity among these rituals than one might expect. And there are other amazing moments, as when sped-up footage of a busy Hong Kong intersection reveals a beautiful symmetry to urban life that could only be appreciated from the perspective of film. The lack of context is occasionally frustrating--not knowing where a section was filmed, or the meaning of the ritual taking place--and some of the transitions are puzzling. However, the DVD includes a short behind-the-scenes featurette in which cinematographer Ron Fricke (Koyaanisqatsi) explains that the effect was intentional: "It's not where you are that's important, it's what's there." And what's here, in Baraka, is a whole world summed up in 104 minutes.

Do you predict that PTA's next work will alienate more fans of Boogie Nights and Magnolia who believe those films are his best work as he continues to evolve and push the envelope? PDL was alienating in some ways with general fans here and generally not as well received as his previous works by people around here.

~rougerum

I believe eventually he will.  He's a fucking artist, and it's great

i think he should expand ass an artist.  i would love if Paul Thomas Anderson would make a film like BARAKA.  that film is fuckin' brilliant!  with the cinematography of robert elwist and the music of jon brion with the direction of paul thomas anderson, what can go wrong?  i say bring it on PTA and fuck the mass audience!

viva la film snob!!

him mentioning he will make a baraka, is the same is him saying PDL was going to be HIS adam sandler romantic comedy.  no matter what he does, it will always have his touches of humor and humanity and always be PTA.  i will admit, when i heard about PDL a year or two ago, i was extremely curious and a little worried.  i wasnt sure if he would be compromising himself to make a different sort of movie, but after seeing it all my fears were taken away.  and now, (i cant speak for anyone else), but for me, i'm confident that whatever he does, it will be interesting.

sphinx says he'll trust pt to make a decent movie.  i don't worry about him alienating fans unless it's the point where he doesn't get to make any more movies.

I have a feeling his next film wont be the Baraka one, and it may still take place in the valley.... but I dont really care what he does as long as he doesnt take 9 years to do it. Id love to see PTA do different things, I know hed be good at it but maybe he should transition into the stranger stuff as to assure that he is able to make more movies. Baraka sounds good to me, and as long as he shoots on film and in cinemascope i wont feel too alienated

I would be extremely happy with the hallway movie he was talking about, or a western, or a musical... or anything, really. I will probably love everything that comes out of his imagination.

He has a new fan here.
And the more I can explain to my friends about "what the hell was that?" the more they enjoy the films also.

I would love another Baraka.

I didn't know of Baraka until just now in this thread, so I checked it out.

Being a big fan of the Qatsi series, I immediately netflixed Baraka. Can't wait to see it now.

And reading what was posted above about PTA doing a balls out unapologetic art film makes my member rise. God, how awesome would a PTA Baraka be?

I think it's incredibly refreshing that PTA has said he wants to branch out in so many genres, and I'll try to follow him with whatever type picture he makes.  It's something that I, as a wanna-be filmmaker, would like to be able to do eventually, but it is a daunting task to be able to do one genre well.  PTA, though, could even make some of my more disliked genres palatable, such as westerns or sci-fi pics.  Of course, some say Punch-Drunk Love was part sci-fi, and that Lena is an alien from another planet.

Anywho, I'm curious, GT, about how you could have so much knowledge about Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi when it was earlier this afternoon that you first asked about them.  Did you get to watch one of the two already?  Me, I haven't seen either yet.  One of the few things my university doesn't have, so I'll have to go to a local VisArt or something (this place is like the anti-Blockbuster).

westerns and sci-fi pics rule.  rent these.

http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=2116

http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=992

baraka was my favorite Mortal Kombat character on the SNES.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmortalkombat.metropoliglobal.com%2Ffakebarakajax.jpg&hash=aa46b28442217a6d006e70da673d02ccb60497f6)

i hope he does alienate everyone, to filter out the phonies.. or attract more  :yabbse-sad:

Quote from: rudieobi think he should expand ass an artist. !!

no that will be me, i will bring to cinema a love of Female booty like no other film maker before me


dogma95 had its rules i have mine , its only female ass,  sorry mesh, and the girls must have big butts,  but not big gross celulite butts, that kind of thing is just wrong

im talking j lo, karen mcdougal ,  jenna van oy , even britney spears whos ass is way under rated

now in a vincent gallo esc move i have to talk kelly clarkson into making this movie with me, and please no "this is the real brown bunny" puns thats benith all of us

yes it will be my tribute to the budunka dunk



yes i see the irony of me making fun of anyone elses spellin, but damnit i went for it anyway

Quote from: AlguienEstolamiPantalones

Quote from: rudieobi think he should expand ass an artist. !!

no that will be me, i will bring to cinema a love of Female booty like no other film maker before me


dogma95 had its rules i have mine , its only female ass,  sorry mesh, and the girls must have big butts,  but not big gross celulite butts, that kind of thing is just wrong

im talking j lo, karen mcdougal ,  jenna van oy , even britney spears whos ass is way under rated

now in a vincent gallo esc move i have to talk kelly clarkson into making this movie with me, and please no "this is the real brown bunny" puns thats benith all of us

yes it will be my tribute to the budunka dunk



yes i see the irony of me making fun of anyone elses spellin, but damnit i went for it anyway

i meant "as" not "ass", you asshole!

Quote from: rudieob

Quote from: AlguienEstolamiPantalones

Quote from: rudieobi think he should expand ass an artist. !!

no that will be me, i will bring to cinema a love of Female booty like no other film maker before me


dogma95 had its rules i have mine , its only female ass,  sorry mesh, and the girls must have big butts,  but not big gross celulite butts, that kind of thing is just wrong

im talking j lo, karen mcdougal ,  jenna van oy , even britney spears whos ass is way under rated

now in a vincent gallo esc move i have to talk kelly clarkson into making this movie with me, and please no "this is the real brown bunny" puns thats benith all of us

yes it will be my tribute to the budunka dunk



yes i see the irony of me making fun of anyone elses spellin, but damnit i went for it anyway

i meant "as" not "ass", you asshole!

read the fine print

Quote from: The Gold Trumpetwatching this film, the viewer is blessed with a dazzling barrage of images that transcend language.

This is why he will alienate fans to a certain extent, because people insist on writing stupid comments that pin the concept of language to words. And unfortunately most people believe them.

Quotethe movie draws some surprising connections between various peoples and the spaces they inhabit

I didn't know about Baraka either. This sounds like my kinda concept. I very much hope PTA will do this and take his stuff so far to its natural cinematic... conclusion... oops. What a way to go, though. And it would only be going out of the mainstream, leaving forever the Spielberg dream.

QuotePDL was alienating in some ways with general fans here and generally not as well received as his previous works by people around here.

I find the fans to be the most alienating thing around here, not PDL.  :(

It is his filmmaking that I am a fan of....meaning his look, compisition, tempo, pacing, and over all direction.....all of which is very similar in all 4 of his films...

PDL just had a different story and plot compared to the rest, but the filmmaking was there...to say it alienated anything, well....would only happen if you were just looking at it from a story point of view...

And it is pretty obvious that Paul will rein final cut on all of his projects from this point forward...even though they don't make a lot of money in the theaters I am sure all of his films have come close to breaking even with sales total....and I have a feeling the people putting the money up for the films, well, don't mind breaking even...as long as we have a film to show for it...it seems as if Paul has a pretty tight group, people with actual feelings, and I think they strive on watching Paul do what he does.....which is throw himself into almost every frame we are given.....

Ono, I never heard of Baraka until you did give me a specific spelling of it and it made me remember what it was and remember hearing about it from years back on top ten lists and such and its form being talked about the most. I've never seen it personally and both films are next on my ordering, but I know how Baraka is like and all. A lot of times someone will say a film which has a unique way of saying it and I completely go blank on what it is but when written out, I know it. Just from not being in an environment where movies like this are talked about.

My own personal feelings is that PDL was alienating somewhat considering when it opened, half of the PTA fans at JoBlo.com hated it when the big controversy before was that Magnolia was too tough. Half of the defenders of those films just gave up with PDL. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Nah, because he does need to grow and all even if I believe his work will continue to get alienating for some, I think most of his fans are willing to watch him expand and want to see him expand.

~rougerum

PTA has made 4 very good films, I will allow him to do a bad one.

idiots.

one: hard eight/sydney- who knows what this person is up to, but it is good, we trust.
two: boogie nights- he hasn't had a happy family, he finds it, he makes a mistake, they forgive, we walk on with him.
three: the family is broken apart from mistakes made before the film, they are brought together and forgiven, we believe jim kurring for sum reason, we just do.
four: punch drunk love- everyone who isn't jim kurring is saved, sure his 7 worlds are telling him he is doomed, one beyond it tells him he is fine, i believe it, it works. we swim in harmony, no more fear.
FIVE: baraka like x5 - so he's in love, purely, forget about u idiots, no more fear no more doubt, he has eaten her alive in the PDL sex scene, she is with him and they create their natural habitat... it may be beastly like a lion, it may be beautiful like an eagle, fuck u if u don't love nature. i'm sorry if u don't appreciate truth.

occasional course language. MPAA SAYS: deal with it.

Quote from: Pbaraka was my favorite Mortal Kombat character on the SNES.
i hope he does alienate everyone, to filter out the phonies.. or attract more  :yabbse-sad:

haha. baraka was sick, esp. when he did that one trick move where he kneels down and just goes ape shit w/ da knives. nasty. i liked kitana cuz she had those fans that could cut ur ass up real good. plus her tits would jiggle when she did jump kicks.

as for this topic at hand- blah. aliennation?? can't even spell it. pta gets more and more fans w/ each movie he does. my predickshawn is that the next one will be good and ppl will like it.

Quote from: PFIVE: baraka like x5 - so he's in love, purely, forget about u idiots, no more fear no more doubt, he has eaten her alive in the PDL sex scene, she is with him and they create their natural habitat... it may be beastly like a lion, it may be beautiful like an eagle, fuck u if u don't love nature. i'm sorry if u don't appreciate truth.

:-D  8)

Quote from: Phe has eaten her alive in the PDL sex scene.

You know what I wanna say.

i like the sound of baraka, i'll have to check it out, but i think that one of the things that really sets pta head and shoulders above other filmmakers of his generation is his writing, and it sounds like a project like baraka wouldn't exactly be a script-intensive film.  i'm not saying there's anything wrong with non-narrative films (i.e. gummo) just that pta is so gifted in terms of writing plot, dialogue and characters that it would be a shame to see him go away from that.

I thought "Couch" was a little alienating.

Unless you watch Mr. Bean on B&W tv's.

(Bean never did weird/cool fake leg things; the weirdest thing is when you saw his butt.)

PTA better do a fuckin' musical.

It's about time he shows the Moulin Rouge fans how it's done.

My one friend said PDL was the film equivalent to installation art, like a stool sitting in the corner of a white room.

I can understand that coming from a 19 year old who has never had a girlfriend.

He should shut up.

As for the PDL sci-fi, I think Barry was the robot at first.

Then he got better.

"99 cents. Pudding."

speaking of aliens.....I saw a little white car yesterday, the exact same make and model of Lena's car.....it had no plates.....I then realized, it's offical ....we are being invaded....

Quote from: AlguienEstolamiPantalones

Quote from: rudieobi think he should expand ass an artist. !!

no that will be me, i will bring to cinema a love of Female booty like no other film maker before me


dogma95 had its rules i have mine , its only female ass,  sorry mesh, and the girls must have big butts,  but not big gross celulite butts, that kind of thing is just wrong

im talking j lo, karen mcdougal ,  jenna van oy , even britney spears whos ass is way under rated

now in a vincent gallo esc move i have to talk kelly clarkson into making this movie with me, and please no "this is the real brown bunny" puns thats benith all of us

yes it will be my tribute to the budunka dunk



yes i see the irony of me making fun of anyone elses spellin, but damnit i went for it anyway

I just read this and must comment: Karen McDougal has the finest ass EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah! So cool that you mentioned her. My horny high school life was haunted with fevered fantasies of her perfect naked ass. Damn! Good call, Pants. Those sound like some good rules for film.

Quote from: SoNowThenKaren McDougal has the finest ass EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!

um. yeah.