First, Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. I had already seen the movie twice; I saw it when it came out in theaters and then again on the plane home from a trip to Germany in 2008. Why they decided to show it on the plane home, in its full un-edited form with all the blood and guts and all I have no idea. But they did. And I enjoyed as much the 2nd time as I did the first, though it left me just as bewildered. Anton Chigurh as played by Javier Bardem ranks high on my list of best villians -- number one, in case you were wondering, would have to be Jason Isaacs portrayal of British Colonel Tavington, the only thing in my opinion that still makes The Patriot worth a watch.
So the book lacked a bit of suspense because I knew how it all would end up going down. That being said I thought it was very good, but like the movie it sort of had an odd ending. Anton Chigurh just slips away after the car crash. The one thing that is different is that there is much more of the sheriff's thoughts in the book, which explains the sololiloquy that ends the movie and left us all scratching our heads. So THAT makes sense, now, at least. I do have a hard time figuring out what exactly McCarthy is getting at. Is Chigurh a symbol for the evil of drugs and violence and relative morality that American has let out of the bag? Whatever Chigurh is, McCarthy does at least seem to think that America is kind of a messed up place. His writing style (pretty much sans punctuation) is also interesting but maybe too direct for my taste. I'd be interested to read more McCarthy, as long as all of his books aren't written the same way.
Second - Birdman. Won a bunch of Academy Awards, you got everyone saying how awesome everyone is in it, etc. etc., yeah yeah yeah. It's on Amazon Prime as a rental so I figure "eh, what the heck," and I download it, watch it, and....
Okay, honestly, what this movie made me want to do was get on my computer and write a string of swear words, plain and simple. "Fuck fuck shit fuck" or "damn damn double damn damn damn damn damn!" I'm not sure why....I guess it's because maybe I didn't like it.
But it's hard for me to say that, because it seems like this is a movie I SHOULD like. It's artsy. Its bold. It's unsettling. It has some deeper meaning that I can't quite figure out. I'm not sure but I think the movie is picking on Hollywood's propensity to just trot out a bunch of handsome dudes in capes flanked by explosions and a big breasted love interest, which is something I think deserves to be picked at. It's apparently filled with brilliant performances. The people at the Academy are daring me not to like this film, because if I was like them I would "get it".
But I didn't like it. It wasn't fun to watch. I didn't enjoy it. Which makes me wonder about the nexus of art and entertainment, and how movies fall into that. Does art have to be entertaining?
The answer clearly is no. Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamozov isn't exactly fun to read...but its a great work of literature, and it's deeply interesting if at the same time difficult. I wouldn't consider it entertainment, but there is a lot to grab hold of in the book and you can come away with a lot of meaning (and in some parts, surprisingly enough, it can actually be something of a page turner). It may not be the author's intended meaning, but it at least means something to me.
But in Birdman? I can't really make heads or tails of it. It's so abstract, so oddly disconnected even though it's edited to look like it was all made in one shot, so full of smart little snippets that don't seem to add up to anything at all.
So, if that is a "smart" movie, well, I'll reckon I'll take my gravy and my grits and go watch a man fly around in capes, hitting space aliens on the nose while his big breasted love interest zooms around on a motor cycle dodging explosions and Nazi Zombies. It may be dumb, but at least it's something I can understand.
No comments:
Post a Comment