To be... or not to be... the seventh art! What about your favourite films?

[King Chaos]

The funny thing about AHX is, I found that the arguments against aliens heard in the speech's norton gives earlier in the film have more push and persuasion than the over all message.

Someone said to me after watching it - "Boy was Norton's character wrong about my pals". He said it jokingly but He actually thought having the film end with a coloured person murdering Norton's brother was intended to be read in a way suggesting there will be no unity, and those who think there will be will suffer.

He's wrong in his reading, but still it's fine that he has an oppositional reading. Thats what this comes down to - Different peoples readings. After watching 'Do The Right Thing" I was confused as to why Spike Lee would make a movie about Black people fucking everybodies shit up. It turns out the film wasn't about that - though I really cannot see anything else in it.

 

[hyena]

@kc: as the biggest spike lee fan on this forum (or at least i think so), let me try to crack the code. his movies normally have at least three different levels of possible interpretation - think the traditionalist family subtheme and the nihilistic punk culture subtheme in "summer of sam", which was a movie about a serial killer only in the most superficial sense. in the final part of "do the right thing", where you see black people rioting, i think that you have to read the political subtext - the lead character smashes a window in order to create a riot, although he has no interest whatsoever in rioting (he appears pretty resigned to having to "do the right thing", there's no enthusiasm). this happens right after a black thug is murdered by a cop who is no less of a thug. my impression is that he was trying to say: 1) the police abuses blacks; 2) blacks respond to this in a suboptimal way, because they act criminally and a vicious circle is created;
3) in order to avoid very high violence, such as murder, widespread lighter violence has to be created, because you can't rein the tension in with good words and speeches. 4) in general, social conflict is about releasing excess aggression; that's a look at the human side of the equation instead of the ideological one; that is why the thoughtful, non-thug black lead throws the bin in the window and smashes it; and that is why spike lee is teh cool.

 

[King Chaos]

@kc: as the biggest spike lee fan on this forum (or at least i think so), let me try to crack the code. his movies normally have at least three different levels of possible interpretation - think the traditionalist family subtheme and the nihilistic punk culture subtheme in "summer of sam", which was a movie about a serial killer only in the most superficial sense. in the final part of "do the right thing", where you see black people rioting, i think that you have to read the political subtext - the lead character smashes a window in order to create a riot, although he has no interest whatsoever in rioting (he appears pretty resigned to having to "do the right thing", there's no enthusiasm). this happens right after a black thug is murdered by a cop who is no less of a thug. my impression is that he was trying to say: 1) the police abuses blacks; 2) blacks respond to this in a suboptimal way, because they act criminally and a vicious circle is created;
3) in order to avoid very high violence, such as murder, widespread lighter violence has to be created, because you can't rein the tension in with good words and speeches. 4) in general, social conflict is about releasing excess aggression; that's a look at the human side of the equation instead of the ideological one; that is why the thoughtful, non-thug black lead throws the bin in the window and smashes it; and that is why spike lee is teh cool.

I think the film deals with almost every issue of racism, and I respect that so much. I understand all the points you made and I have discussed a few of them with my buddies, although not articulately. Still, I think the black members of the community are ultimately the problem, at least the generation-X seem to be the source of all the conflicts. The older members of the comunity are far more chilled out. Either way, I really don't think a white director could have made that film without being called a racist. I really felt that it implied the New generation of black kids were being brought up wrong and had nothing to offer but violence to any community. The message being, Black people won't be happy unless they are surrounded by only black people.

 

[|ngenius]

Whoa!

Whoa to you too, my friend.

Very well, first about the movies: Princess Mononoke I can easily recommend to you - I'm pretty damn sure you, of all people, will enjoy and appreciate it. Requiem for a Dream is a bit more risky - you might either love it or hate it.

I'm on the side of hate, but let's define it a little bit: I found it rather disgusting. Not because of the drug related subject, the boys get predictably in trouble, so there was no surprise about the consequences. The parallel story about the lonely mother, who after a fake call from a TV show finds a new reason to live, and becomes (with some dose of bad luck, I daresay) addicted to suspectful pills which make her suffer hallucinations... I don't know, it was the way of putting it into images what made me feel really sick, the whole situation introducing the watcher into the hallucination was scary and touching.

Spectacular on the whole, but really, really disgusting. I think it was part of the purpose, right?

Princess Mononoke is here and I'll watch it soon. Or I'll ask her out, whatever.

Thus, we decided to do something about it. I came up with the idea of showing "American History X" to them - I thought it was a great movie with a deep and well-thought anti-racist theme, and characters that were easy to empathise with.

Yeah, Edward Norton never performed better. Edward Furlong is not bad either, although one expects a T-1000 running after him at some point of the movie.

The moral of the story: To some people, some stories don't appear in the same way they do to you, no matter what kind of moral you perceive in them.

Well, yeah, you said it: to some people, some stories. The moral is usually at sight, or almost the efforts are focused on that goal. It isn't easy to agree with the "bad-racist" Edward Norton and label him like "good-hero-my pals-killer", but as you tell us, it is possible. From my point of view, that was useful, since it revealed an unsuspected somber side of that "good girl".

So, you work with youngsters as a practical part of your studies, you say?



|ng.