About Chocolate Parfaits

Providence

I think I have been trying too hard to like this film, somehow. Perhaps I should have watched another Resnais first, or I should have tried to get into the film more. Or I should have immediately started to get french or even german dub of this film, because I simply could not stand the “english”ness of these characters. And that’s supposed to play in Rhode Island? Anyways, la bourgeoisie should die.

What is interesting however, was that there were tidbits of the movie that were incredibly funny – and there were other tidbits where I thought “my gosh, this dialogue is actually really great!”, but on the other hand, I have been forcing myself through the majority of this film. I suppose I should put this film onto the re-watch list – and I will watch it with french dubs. After all, Gérard Depardieu is dubbing Kevin, which is just such an incredibly good fit. Just look at them and you’ll understand <3

From the “list that started it all”, this is the first film that I have kind of disliked. Perhaps this even is the worst of all of them, because I believe most or all of the others would be actually good and enjoyable films.

Modern Times

I have had this film on my computer for some ages and finally decided to watch it. If you ask yourself why I have never watched this film for so long – it’s an old silent classic. Personally, I’m not a big fan of silent films exactly because I dislike the fast frame rate. It makes all those stories seem blatantly unnatural for me (the same happens with most musicals, by the way). If you also ask yourself how I got the idea to watch this: Right after I went to the museum of the Cinemathèque last year, I saw the scene in which Chaplin falls into the machinery and then slips back again. Somehow I found that utterly hilarious and it intrigued me so much that I decided to watch the film at that time, but never came around to do it.

Now, after getting very interested in the repeated discussion in “The Dreamers” whether Keaton or Chaplin is funnier, I decided to finally check it out myself. (Oi oi, “The Dreamers” is going to become the “Unbearable Lightness of Being” of film for me… not really. “The Unbearable Lightness” is just THE work of fiction in my young life.) When I was younger, I remember that my parents have liked watching Chaplin’s films a lot, and so I still remember having watched one involving Chaplin in a circus – and I especially remember the last scenes in which the tramp always turns his back to us and goes away. I wonder which film that was?

Anyways, this is the list of Chaplin films I want to start with (in this order):
– A King in New York
– City Lights
– The Great Dictator
– Gold Rush
– The Kid
I have no idea what Keaton’s major works are… the Wikipedia article on him is too long!

Recently, I have also realized something horrible: even though I like films much more than I used to and put much more thoughts into watching them, but when I look at the box-office-top-1 films from 2003, I actually have watched much more back then, and I even spent loads of money on the cinemas. O.o

WordPress is evil, because it has killed a part of my posting again. Oh well, here I go onto the review of the actual film (as you can see, I am much less committed to write this now, but I still had to write about it): What I realized very quickly is that Charlie Chaplin’s is blatantly funny, but not in the way of making me laugh. It’s more like I feel like smiling throughout the whole film, maybe because comedic situations just don’t make me laugh as much, I was just amused at seeing the tramp’s delightful clumsiness and hilarious pantomime. My favourite was how he was waving the red flag, I think, hahaha. But, there is not much more to say about it – comedic films are just better watched.
Speaking of the red flag, I do think that this film has some pseudo-communistic touches, but I think that’s way not enough to rise such a political controversy as it happened back then. I really love how Charlie Chaplin was hated in Hollywood, hehe.

Finally, I think that I still don’t like silent films as much – and this one actually isn’t even a “real” one, it’s just that Charlie Chaplin prefers to remain, well, silent. However, I find the beginnings of film quite intriguing, and definitely will be watching more of ‘the old times’.

Ohoho, I finally managed to create a little poll. Considering that I have been blogging for such a long time, it’s quite strange to me that this actually is a first O.o

So, after buying so many DVDs recently (and there is more to come), I have been thinking about the no.1 question of all collectors: how to sort my DVDs on my shelf. This kind of reminded me of the protagonist of “High Fidelity” who re-ordered his whole vinyl collection every time something dramatic happens in his life. Finally, I decided to sort them alphabetically by the original title.

What about you? You can find the poll (and possible future polls) on the sidebar. :3

Annie Hall

How should I put it – I have been watching Annie Hall with nothing but the thought of Manhattan in my head. Surely I have been comparing both films the whole time, and their relation to New York.

First, New York. “Manhattan” showed the beauty of New York through Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and a certain poetry of the life in New York (yes, going to art exhibitions surely is one of the greatest and important things you can do in New York) while “Annie Hall” shows a clear attachment of the protagonist to the city by making fun of the horrid life in Los Angeles. Woody Allen’s neurotic characters reflects on New York as much as New York reflects on him, and that is shown in a much stronger and nicer way in “Annie Hall”. Unlike “Manhattan” however, this makes me feel a little a bit scared of New York though, haha.
I still want to live there one day, but before I turn 35 and not for longer than 2 years please :3

Next, Annie herself is the most outstanding and interesting character in this film. The whole film stands and falls with her eccentric character who, in my eyes, was horrible and brilliant at the same time. La-dee-dah. With her and Alvy’s relationships being the main topic of the film, a lot is spent on characterizing her – and that is brilliantly done in my opinion. Why Annie is horrible actually does not necessite any explanation: She’s similarily neurotic as him, she is extremely weird and full of complexes of not being good enough for him. She puts on horrible voices and is quite egoistic in the way she only really cares about herself and mostly doesn’t want to be lonely. On the other hand, she also is shown as an interesting, multi-faceted woman whose personality is inherently hilarious. You immediately understand why a man would be attracted to her, because she seems to be somebody special that you can have lots of fun with. Reality shows that being happy with such a woman probably is an impossible thing to do.

The character of Woody Allen himself is not all too novel now that I have watched Manhattan. The only thing that is added were the jokes about jews which were utterly hilarious of course. Allen is still a beautifully sarcastic, funnily neurotic person who makes me think of Schnitzler‘s Anatol. That guy, unfortunately, is much more of an asshole and totally not funny but some character traits in their inability of having a proper relationship is somewhat similar.
Also, “Manhattan” shines through the character of the 17-year-old girlfriend as the antipole to the somewhat childish and incapable characters of the rest of the supposedly more mature cast. Basically, I have enjoyed Manhattan more because it shows the dynamics of relationships between several people. I guess I just enjoy stories about interpersonal relationships more when more factors (i.e. people *hrr*) are involved. It touches me more and adds lots of (melo-)drama.

Similar to Schnitzler’s plays, Woody Allen’s films make me think about relationships (on top of making me laugh a lot ;) ). Basically I feel so reminded of the realities of relationships and how I definitely don’t want them to be. In films and in books, these relationships are greatest enjoyment and hilarity, of course.

Well, I love character-driven films like this that make me laugh many times. But really, Woody Allen is a genius for having produced films such as “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall”, although I admit that I preferred the former, mainly because the main characters made me facepalm a few times while “Manhattan” was just funny from the start to the end.

PS. I’m listening to “Kiss Me” on repeat now. How silly. I wish Truffaut’s grave would look as beautiful as in the music video. Unfortunately it’s full of metro tickets in reality.

Ah ah. I want this posting re-written but as long as I haven’t, feel free to read this draft.

This is a meta post, which means that I won’t be talking about a specific film, but films and my perception about it in general. For starters, as you all can imagine, I am quite opposed to seeing films from a purely academic perspective, and studying film would be the last thing I would be willing to do in my life, although it’s probably one of my most important interests outside of university. The german Wikipedia gives a quite interesting definition on cineast and the english one only says “movie enthusiast”. Now this is probably a little bit too broad, because you can watch movies excessively without digging deeper at all. Most anime viewers who watch more series than me don’t seem to care about what anime is, the financial state of the studios and their artistic development, names of people besides Anno, Miyazaki and Shinkai, or cross-references and trivia. Still, these people are quite some anime enthusiast like a lot of others are movie enthusiasts without knowing one single author or director’s name. There are other movie enthusiasts like me who haven’t watched all that many films, but know about more titles and names than they ever could watch.
On the other hand, it would not surprise me if there are students of film who are less of a movie lover than the people you find at the AwardsDaily forums, have watched less and are less knowledgeable (same for music, by the way). Studying just teaches you much less and in a very different way than when you actually enjoy it in your free time. (I see that with electrical engineers too, my my.)

Among the people who like movies, there seem to be large differences to me when it comes to their motivation of watching films. Basically what I can observe is this:
a) Social reasons: For example, when I was younger, I have seen quite a lot of horror flicks because I was dragged into those girl’s evenings that always comprised a silly comedy and then a horror movie. Comparably mainstream and social movies would be “American Pie”, “A Beautiful Mind”, “Pirates of the Carribean” and “Lord of the Rings”.
b) Pure entertainment: Some people like to watch a lot and actively research what could be interesting. However, they don’t read secondary literature all that much or research about the background of the films. They just enjoy talking about films and the film itself, not the background or the history of film, is what matters. This kind of movie enthusiast would never watch “Citizen Kane” because it’s horribly boring. Or “Casablanca” just because it’s a classic. They have a little bit of a l’art pour l’art approach to films (although it’s not exactly a good comparison as these people don’t necessarily seek “art”). They most probably watch screwball comedies like “Some like it hot”, suspenseful thrillers like “Infernal Affairs” and witty films like “Harold and Maude”. Also, these are the people who would come to watch extremely obscure things that I could never possibly name.
c) Small talk: People who only care about big names to be able to small talk. They obviously also have a bit of a background information for those small talk purposes. Entertainment is less important. Now I have never encountered such a person, but I suppose they exist. After all, I am like that with books – honestly my interest in books is much less of an entertaining nature, but it is a mix of the wish to brag about being well-read and genuine interest in culture, society and history. Most of the books I have read were a drag to read, but they were insightful. (“Citizen Kane” is particularily insightful to film history, by the way, but a drag to watch, imho.) These people only watch the necessary classics or influential films to brag with names like Godard (“Le Mépris”) and Monty Python (“The Meaning of Life”).
d) Academia: People who mainly are interested in films from an academic standpoint which actually stems from a genuine interest from what films are, and how they came to be. I suppose there isn’t all that much to explain about this.
e) “Lessons” for life: Similar to the discussion to whether a piece of literature should necessarily have a message, I am sure a major motivation for people to watch films is its closeness to real life. They transport us to situations that we will never encounter ourselves in a closer way than books or photographs would, or they reflect our own life, relationships and the likes. Or they show something about our society or political situation. Not only enjoyment, but a certain ‘depth’ is sought by people who prefer socio-critical films such as “Tropa de Elite” or “Dancer in the Dark”.

The kind of movie person I think I am, and always want to be, would a mix of all four with a proportion of 1:3:2:2:3. I can only describe it with the term cineast, even though the word is associated with the abominable elitism *cough cough* and I’d actually prefer to call it something else. Basically, I want to know a lot about the background of films (and therefore watch “Citizen Kane”, “2001” and films of the Nouvelle Vague mainly for understanding the history of film), and at the same time, the main purpose is still to enjoy and watch them. Also, I would feel horrible if there was nobody I could talk about them and surely I hope to be able to bring these things up in a business conversation. *harr harr*
Which means that these 4 types of motivation definitely are not mutually exclusive: I am the kind of person who finds parodies and cross-references particularily enjoyable, like in Je t’aime John Wayne and the music video for Kiss Me which accumulates all those great scenes of the film. The background therefore contributes to the enjoyment of film itself. (Hm, I wonder if it’s a bad thing that “Je t’aime John Wayne” isn’t really a good film when it stands for itself taken out of context, but only when related to its references.)
However, I don’t really want to define myself by having watched a lot of movies, so maybe there is a certain elitist aspect to it.

Another aspect I want to bring in is “The Dreamers”, a film that I have been thinking back of a lot while writing this post. Now I know that “The Dreamers” wasn’t exactly well-received among critics (maybe they just hate Bertolucci’s steoretypically freudian father complex personality too much), but personally, I just found it extremely well-reflecting on myself. Just like with “Before Sunrise” (a silly other example) that makes me dream of experiencing such an unusual romantic encounter, I admit that I would have loved to live in a time in which being a film enthusiast actually also has a political meaning and reflects a lifestyle which is intriguingly unconventional and rebellian. Besides my particular attachment to closely intertwined triangle relationships (recommendations are very welcomed although I seriously doubt that something could impress as much as “Jules et Jim” did), I loved the way the three have incorporated films into their life. On top of that, when I watched the film, I was at the museum of the “Cinémathèque francaise” shortly before and learnt a bit about the affair around Henri Langlois which is mentioned in “The Dreamers”. Of course that contributed to my high esteem of this film.
I feel like I am 40 years too late for that crap though (see “The Edukators/Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei”) and having a ménage à trois just doesn’t mean all that much anymore.

Just like in literature or music, there also are different kinds of “mainstream” in film. The ones would call all the Hollywood crap mainstream, then again, among film enthusiasts, Jarmusch is pretty mainstream because everybody knows him. There seems always be another layer of obscurity, especially when you consider regional differences. I would love to talk about this more, but first that is slightly off-topic, and second, I feel that I don’t know enough about the “film scene” in the world to be able to say much about this.

Finally, this brings me to the question: What kind of movie enthusiast are you (if you consider yourself one)? What do you guys think, how would you define your own approach to films?

PS. This commercial is somewhat good XD
PPS. I really should stop writing these kinds of meta postings, because they always leave me with this horrible feeling of being a bad writer and ranting too much. However, I already prepared another meta post which hopefully is going to be better than this one, haha.
PPPS. I could immediately write 2000 words on triangle relationships, how society soils them and how fiction makes them more interesting than real life ever could. (The model of man, wife and “amant” is an affront to the woman in society while the model of a woman with two men is suicidal.)