Babel

[modage]

they cancelled it so that people will be forced to buy the barebones version so they can release the 2 disc version 6 months or a year from now.  they're probably hoping they can slap a BEST PICTURE COLLECTION type header on there too.

[Pozer]

i hate they.

[elpablo]

I enjoyed this. I haven't had a chance to see Amores Perros. I've seen 21 Grams which I didn't like too much and read some of the negative comments here. So my expectations were fairly low going in. That said, I enjoyed the story and the ideas in the story and I don't think it's fair to compare this to Crash.

[MacGuffin]

Mexican film duo goes public in row over credit
Source: Guardian Unlimited
 
A long-running private squabble over who deserves most credit for the film Babel has escalated into a public row between one of the most important cinematic duos of recent years.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu, and writer Guillermo Arriaga spearheaded the Mexican assault on international cinema seven years ago with their first film, Amores Perros. They went on to secure access to A-list Hollywood stars with 21 Grams, before going global thematically, geographically and linguistically with Babel.

The collaboration was breaking down when González Iñárritu banned Arriaga from Babel's sets around the world. Later the director told the writer to stay away from the film's premier in Cannes. But it wasn't until the pressure cranked up ahead of the Oscars - where Babel picked up seven nominations, including best director, best screenplay and best film - that the pair began airing their grievances in print.

It had died by the time the director told the writer to stay away from the film's premier in Cannes. But it was not until the pressure cranked up on the road to the Oscars - where Babel picked up seven nominations, including best director, best screenplay and best film - that they threw discretion to the wind and began airing their mutual grievances in print.

The spat became particularly acrimonious this week with an open letter from González Iñárritu to Arriaga dated five days before last Sunday's ceremony and published this week in the Mexican magazine Chilango, accusing Arriaga of harbouring an "unjustified obsession with claiming the sole authorship of a film".

The letter follows a series of interviews in which Arriaga complained that González Iñárritu had always hogged the glory for the cinematic trilogy he claims is rooted in ideas he had "long before I met Alejandro". "You were not - and you have never allowed yourself to feel - part of this team," González Iñárritu's letter says. "Your declarations are a sad and very reductive end to this wonderful collective process that we have lived and are now celebrating."

The letter is signed by 12 other collaborators on Babel, as well as the director. These include Mexico's most successful film actor Gael García Bernal, as well as Adriana Barraza (nominated for an Oscar for her performance), Gustavo Santaolalla (winner for the soundtrack), and renowned cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto.

A less glamorous figure who still lives in Mexico, while his former colleague moved to Los Angeles long ago, Arriaga has not yet received such open shows of support, although he claims private phone calls offering solidarity. In a radio interview the writer said his earlier complaints about González Iñárritu were merely meant to defend the rights and dignity of all screen writers and that the letter "manipulated my position".

Suggesting, once again, that the real egomaniac in the affair is not him, he added: "Alejandro never says 'our trilogy', he says 'my trilogy'."

The end of their professional association has left many wondering what they will produce on their own. Arriaga has already been successful with the film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which won him best the screenplay award at Cannes in 2005. His latest, The Night Buffalo, starring Diego Luna, premiered to a mixed reception at the Sundance festival earlier this year.

González Iñárritu has never made a feature without an Arriaga script. For the moment all the director is publicly saying about the future is that he needs a rest.

[Kal]

I finally got to see this. I had the DVD for over a month until tonight I decided it was time to see if this was Crash or not. It didnt win the awards, so it had to be better than Crash... and it is.

However, I did not love it. I think the stories on their own were good, but the connection between them was not as strong as in Amores Perros and 21 Grams. I did not care about the global story as much as I did with the other two movies.

The Mexican story was by far the best one, but I do feel it ended very quickly. Not sure how to explain.

I liked the music a lot too.

I had the feeling many times how this is viewed by someone from outside the US, and many things were stereotypes of how people from outside (especially Latin America) see the Americans. Like the tourists of the bus, or the police officers in border patrol, or the way it was covered in the news all over the world and nobody had a fucking clue of who fired the shot and were speculating like it always happens.

Overall, it was better than what I expected so I'm glad I finally saw this. Nowhere close to Pan's Labyrinth and I have not seen it yet but I think Children of Men is also a better film.

[MacGuffin]

Hollywood's 'Babel' too steamy for China's censors

The acclaimed Hollywood film "Babel" has made its debut in China, but five minutes shorter than its original length after censors cut nude scenes.

Censors removed scenes involving a troubled Japanese teenager who bares all as she attempts to seduce an older man, the Beijing Morning Post reported.

The actress portraying the teen, Rinko Kikuchi, earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for her work in the film.

Staff at the China Film Association, which handles film censorship, declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

The film, which stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and received seven Oscar nominations, is a complex tale about cultural clashes in today's globalised world shot in several countries and five languages.

The newspaper did not say whether other scenes potentially offensive to censors in authoritarian China -- such as depictions of police brutality in Morocco -- had survived the scissors.

China allows only 20 foreign films to be screened domestically each year.

It has no movie-rating system but authorities often order producers to cut scenes that are deemed too violent, sexually explicit or politically sensitive.

The official version of "Babel" began screening in China on Monday. But illegal pirated DVD versions of the original cut are already freely available.

[Alexandro]

I had the feeling many times how this is viewed by someone from outside the US, and many things were stereotypes of how people from outside (especially Latin America) see the Americans. Like the tourists of the bus, or the police officers in border patrol, or the way it was covered in the news all over the world and nobody had a fucking clue of who fired the shot and were speculating like it always happens.

The border patrol scene is my favorite, the best in the movie i think, and I don't think there's anything steretyped about it. I've crossed the border many times, and the guy that plays the officer in babel is spot on. they alwways treat you with suspicion and make you feel uncomfortable, even though you have nothing to hide or should not have any problems to cross.

the tourists in the bus seemed just like normal people scared and impatient...

i think one of the best qualities of babel, maybe one of the most disturbing things about it, is how people's reactions to what's being shown are reflecting the same issue of misscomunication the picture is trying to portrait. everyone seems to be seeing different things. some people in mexico have called it "anti mexican", because it "depicts our country in a bad light"...others claim that it has "a soft hand with americans cause iñarritu needs his american job"...others seem to compare this to crash out of nowhere...really, nothing to do...reallly...

[MacGuffin]

'Babel' audiences grow ill
Strobe-light scene causes problems
Source: Variety

"Babel" drew an unusual reaction from the aud at Nagoya's Midland Square Cinema during its Saturday bow in Japan -- five became physically ill and complained to theater staff. According to Midland management, the culprit was a blinking strobe light in the pic's club sequence, featuring Rinko Kikuchi as a hearing-impaired high-school student.

Two patrons became ill during Saturday's morning show and three more during the first afternoon screening. All were women, and none went to the hospital. For the evening screening, the theater posted a sign warning auds not to look too long at the screen during the show, but to instead "occasionally avert your gaze as appropriate." Theater staff also explained the problem to auds before the beginning of the show.

Distrib Gaga Communications, however, denied that the pic was to blame, saying no other theaters had complained about a similar problem. In a statement, the distrib also said that individual theaters should devise their own methods for dealing with any problems.

Media flap is not Gaga's first with the Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu film. Prior to release it was criticized by the hearing impaired for not subtitling the Japanese-language scenes, making it hard for them to follow the story. Ruruka Minami, a sign-language translator involved in the casting of the pic, led a petition drive to persuade Gaga to release completely subtitled prints. Gaga later announced that it would subtitle the Japanese scenes in all prints in time for its release.

[MacGuffin]

On 9/25 from Paramount will be a 2-disc Babel: Special Collector's Edition.

[Pubrick]

On 9/25 from Paramount will be a 2-disc Babel: Special Collector's Edition.

cool, i might finally see it.

[MacGuffin]

DVD review:
http://dvd.ign.com/articles/818/818703p1.html


Extras and Packaging
This two-disc release of Babel is a perfect example of less being more. In this case, almost perfectly more. Where the previous DVD featured almost nothing in the way of worthwhile extras, this new version features only one - a single, solitary extra which stands among some of the very best bonus content currently available on DVD today.

The second disc contains the feature-length documentary Common Ground: Under Construction Notes - director Alejandro Inarritu's personal video-diary shot during the production of the film. Oddly, it feels wrong to refer to this as a "making-of" documentary, or a behind-the-scenes offering - despite the fact that these two hours go behind-the-scenes to document the making of the movie. Those terms have historically referred to polite, fifteen-minute, studio-produced pieces which provide the illusion of access by showing a director sitting behind a camera looking fiercely at a monitor - or a handful of interviews with recognizable stars talking well of their fellow cast and crew.

Common Ground, rather, brings to mind more notable (and noble) cinematic documentaries like Lost in La Mancha - which told the tragic tale of Terry Gilliam's collapsed and misbegotten production of the Don Quixote story. This is a truthful, honest tale of the construction of Babel - the struggles, the frustrations, the joys, the logistics, the goals, the aims, the dreams, successes and failures involved with the making of a film scattered across three key locations and languages.

It is both moving and astounding the degree to which the difficulties and miscommunications shared by the characters in the film are so brilliantly mirrored in the production of the very same piece of fiction. Common Ground is a film which clearly illustrates that just as husbands and wives can often miscommunicate in the same language - or just as two people can find themselves unable to speak for lack of a common discourse - filmmakers and actors and non-actors of all races and backgrounds can undergo the same essential troubles.

There is no "PR value" to this film. Inarritu comes across as an artistic visionary in a single moment bravely juxtaposed against another where he appears as little more than a self-obsessed, insecure child. It is an unflinchingly honest snapshot of a man in his best and worst moments and an accurate portrayal of the emotional range of the filmmaking process.

Equally captivating are the vast cultural differences in making this film throughout Morocco, Mexico and Japan. From working with the locals to liaising with governments to making back-door deals with Yakuza or watching children of completely disparate cultures find the simplest of ways to communicate, Common Grounds is among the most moving and meaningful pieces of filmmaking about filmmaking. It elevates this DVD to "must own" status.