Movies Serious Movie Discussion

[Highway99]

Do you have sources for those quotes, because I've never seen/heard him say that. In fact, I've only heard him speak enthusiastically on the prospect of making a horror movie.
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It was from a Q&A on youtube somewhere, I will try to find it and will post it here if I do.
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Found it, clip ends at 30:45, but the whole thing is worth listening to:

 

[Bullitt68]

Found it, clip ends at 30:45, but the whole thing is worth listening to:

Cool. Thanks for posting. Weird for such a huge De Palma fan to think that he doesn't have what it takes to do horror. I'd think with how much he loves De Palma that horror shit is as much in his writing blood as Western shit. But you can't argue someone into having inspiration. As an artist, you either want it or you don't and if you don't then you shouldn't even bother, because as he says, he's not thinking in terms of "Can I make a horror movie?" but rather "Can I make a horror movie that would be one of the GOATs?" and if he doesn't think he can then he for sure won't.

 

[Yotsuya]

Now, hold onto your... Austrian hotel chair because I'm about to go all conspiratorial, tin-foil hat on this story.

Watching Barry Lyndon... I've grown kind of obsessed with the idea that the narrator is lying about Barry Lyndon's own thoughts and desires.

Now I can't quote the movie verbatim but I would like to present these two instantes of examples of my well-funded, non-crazy paranoia.

The first is the time where Barry stays the night with the German widow. As soon as he rides away, the narrator dismisses the occurance between the two as a tawdry little thing. Something disreputable, a fulfillment of base desires.

But... looking at Barry and the German widow's interactions... honestly, up until that point in the movie, Barry had never looked happier! And the widow seem to really dug him too! I don't think at all it's a coincidence that she's cresting a baby as they have their moment of intimacy since a son is what Barry desires the most and spending this night with her and the kid only enforced the fact that what he really wants is fatherly bliss.

Basically, the voice-over guy completely misread the emotional profoundness of the situation. He looked at it through the lens of a genteel, upper-crust aristocrat where non-marital one-night-stands are by definition disreputable and tawdry.

The second example is when Barry meets the Chevalier. The voice-over guy claims that Barry starts crying due to the "splendor of his appearance, the nobleness of his manner, and the friendliness of his voice."

View attachment 806799

But... the Chevalier doesn't display any of those qualities! He's just some pudgy guy whose sitting these eating his lunch! And he's not especially friendly with Barry either until Barry starts to weep and he embraces him.

Basically... the voice-over guy highlights the Chevalier's "aristocratic" aspects as to why Barry reacts so strongly to him. When, in fact, it's the opposite, he's just some unpretentious Irishman who Barry instantly recognizes as another father-figure. Not an aristocrat, but a card-cheating rouge just like himself.

Again... the voice-over guy takes the viewpoint of the 1800's century genteel culture. He's judging Barry after those cultural mores and therefor often impart the wrong message about Barry's nature!

In conclusion: I would like to say that I'm not crazy. In fact, I'm the only one whose not crazy!

Just revisited Barry Lyndon and I think you are 100% right. The movie is based on 19th century social satire novel by the English writer William Makepeace Thackeray. The novel is unreliably narrated by the Irish protagonist. Kubrick shifts the narration on third person and doing so kind of reveals the bias: The actual, true narrator is Thackeray who's approach makes fun of the opportunist upstart Irishman, while Kubrick shows the actual complexities of such a character contrasting snobby narrator and the actual sentiments brilliantly shown by his direction. Having read only a summary of the book I naturally can't be sure of this, but it would explain the shift of narration and the contrast to what is shown. I think the movie might give similar treatment also to some 18th century paintings it uses are reference. (I watched a documentary about art influences.)

Barry Lyndon is one of the true, flawless masterpieces of cinema for sure.

 

[moreorless87]

Cool. Thanks for posting. Weird for such a huge De Palma fan to think that he doesn't have what it takes to do horror. I'd think with how much he loves De Palma that horror shit is as much in his writing blood as Western shit. But you can't argue someone into having inspiration. As an artist, you either want it or you don't and if you don't then you shouldn't even bother, because as he says, he's not thinking in terms of "Can I make a horror movie?" but rather "Can I make a horror movie that would be one of the GOATs?" and if he doesn't think he can then he for sure won't.

Whilst he loves De Palma I'm not sure I would say he's an especially close film maker too him, De Palma really I think builds up tension in his situations physicality a lot of the time were as with Taratino it tends to be more in the character interactions, tension filled conversations. After the 90's he did definitely start to include more physicality and atmosphere in his films but he's never been willing to leave behind is love for conversational dialog, not to say thats arguebly a bad thing as I do think thats a lot of what makes him unique in modern cinema.

I'm not sure I see him making something like Alien or The Shining, not just because he tends to include more humour naturally but because he isnt willing to focus so strongly on building up atmosphere, really the essence of horror often tends to be a lone individual in physical danger and thats obviously not ideal for dialog heavy scenes. I could imagine him doing a noir like horror similar to Angel Heart(but larger than life obviously) or maybe a Zombie film were a lot of the plot is characters cooped up together.

Just revisited Barry Lyndon and I think you are 100% right. The movie is based on 19th century social satire novel by the English writer William Makepeace Thackeray. The novel is unreliably narrated by the Irish protagonist. Kubrick shifts the narration on third person and doing so kind of reveals the bias: The actual, true narrator is Thackeray who's approach makes fun of the opportunist upstart Irishman, while Kubrick shows the actual complexities of such a character contrasting snobby narrator and the actual sentiments brilliantly shown by his direction. Having read only a summary of the book I naturally can't be sure of this, but it would explain the shift of narration and the contrast to what is shown. I think the movie might give similar treatment also to some 18th century paintings it uses are reference. (I watched a documentary about art influences.)

Barry Lyndon is one of the true, flawless masterpieces of cinema for sure.

That came up in the film club thread and yeah I do think there is likely truth to it, I don't think Kubrick was ever really content to make a straight genre film, he always seemed to want to comment on a genre or even the specific book he was adapting.

I do think if you view it that way it becomes a much more interesting film as theres a tension between how Barry is presented by the narration and how he's actually protrayed by Ryan O'Neil which if not perfect morally is generally far more likeble. You can look at a lot of the other characters as well like Quin and Bullingdon who represent the English establishment much more and there portrayed as foolish dishonourable cowards, I can imagine the book being very different with the latter espeically with Bullingdons character being viewed as heroic.

 

[BisexualMMA]

I'm not sure I see him making something like Alien or The Shining, not just because he tends to include more humour naturally but because he isnt willing to focus so strongly on building up atmosphere, really the essence of horror often tends to be a lone individual in physical danger and thats obviously not ideal for dialog heavy scenes. I could imagine him doing a noir like horror similar to Angel Heart(but larger than life obviously) or maybe a Zombie film were a lot of the plot is characters cooped up together.

Hateful Eight heads down that path to a reasonable degree. Cooped up in the diner and cooped up in the wagon on the way there and as is well known it's largely The Thing without a monster. Even the bar in Death Proof was fairly atmospheric.

 

[moreorless87]

Hateful Eight heads down that path to a reasonable degree. Cooped up in the diner and cooped up in the wagon on the way there and as is well known it's largely The Thing without a monster. Even the bar in Death Proof was fairly atmospheric.

Yep I was going to mention that, its almost a zombie film without the zombies, you could argue that might actually be a good idea for a Tarantino horror film, a zombie western.

 

[BisexualMMA]

Yep I was going to mention that, its almost a zombie film without the zombies, you could argue that might actually be a good idea for a Tarantino horror film, a zombie western.

I think he'd do a good job of that. He'd do a good job a Nightmare on Elm Street remake as well, I think. Freddy kind of lends himself to Tarantino dialogue and interactions. I think he could do a pretty good animal as villain horror as well...and given his propensity to take crappy old movies and up the quality, maybe something like Grizzly or Piranha.

I have said before though that what I would like to see him do is take on Rolling Thunder. He seems to have an odd interest in Linda Haynes anyway.

 

[Yotsuya]

That came up in the film club thread and yeah I do think there is likely truth to it, I don't think Kubrick was ever really content to make a straight genre film, he always seemed to want to comment on a genre or even the specific book he was adapting.

I do think if you view it that way it becomes a much more interesting film as theres a tension between how Barry is presented by the narration and how he's actually protrayed by Ryan O'Neil which if not perfect morally is generally far more likeble. You can look at a lot of the other characters as well like Quin and Bullingdon who represent the English establishment much more and there portrayed as foolish dishonourable cowards, I can imagine the book being very different with the latter espeically with Bullingdons character being viewed as heroic.

Bullingdon is by no means presented as dishonourable and in the end not even as a coward, because he goes through the duel even if he's scared out of his mind. His story arc is pretty touching in similar vein as Barry's. Both do their best growing up to address the romantic expectations of their era. Barry as a gentleman and Bullingdon as a noble.

Quin seems bit of a poser for sure.

 

[moreorless87]

Bullingdon is by no means presented as dishonourable and in the end not even as a coward, because he goes through the duel even if he's scared out of his mind. His story arc is pretty touching in similar vein as Barry's. Both do their best growing up to address the romantic expectations of their era. Barry as a gentleman and Bullingdon as a noble.

Quin seems bit of a poser for sure.

I would say that carrying on the duel is pretty clearly considered dishonourable as his own seconds basically tell him that it should stop after Barry has spared him, you could argue instigating the argument with Barry at the party falls under that as well plus as you say he does obviously fail the standard of "noble" expectations of courage(although as you say does still show genuine courage to take part at all)

Thats not the same as their characters being shown to be "evil" though or ones you can't feel sympathy I'd agree, moreso that there undermining expectations of what such characters should be like in your typical romantic drama of the era.

I wonder actually how much of Quin ended up as Ridgsy in Rising Damp, they really are quite similar(cowardly posers but not entirely dislikeable) and the latter started just months after Barry Lyndon was filmed.

 

[Yotsuya]

I would say that carrying on the duel is pretty clearly considered dishonourable as his own seconds basically tell him that it should stop after Barry has spared him, you could argue instigating the argument with Barry at the party falls under that as well plus as you say he does obviously fail the standard of "noble" expectations of courage.

I was speaking about how Kubrick portrays the characters. Bullingdon is not courageous so it takes a lot out of him not to be cowardly and forfeit. His seconds probably didn't think much of him, but were possibly offering him a friendly advice as it seemed very clear he was not up to the challenge. Barry's possible death wish might have made him look more noble than he really was. Btw Barry was also told by his seconds to give up the duel agains Quin given an honourable exit and he was tempted because he was scared, but Quin's demand of apology seemed to be too much for his pride.

Before the party Bullingdon had already privately stood up for himself and told he'd kill Barry if he ever laid a hand on him again. I need to watch the scene again, but my recollection is that the incident at the party was not about instigating an argument, but about making a public announcement to denounce his stepfather, though staged very childishly. My understanding is that Bullingdon was still a teenager at that point.

 

[moreorless87]

I was speaking about how Kubrick portrays the characters. Bullingdon is not courageous so it takes a lot out of him not to be cowardly and forfeit. His seconds probably didn't think much of him, but were possibly offering him a friendly advice as it seemed very clear he was not up to the challenge. Barry's possible death wish might have made him look more noble than he really was. Btw Barry was also told by his seconds to give up the duel agains Quin given an honourable exit and he was tempted because he was scared, but Quin's demand of apology seemed to be too much for his pride.

Before the party Bullingdon had already privately stood up for himself and told he'd kill Barry if he ever laid a hand on him again. I need to watch the scene again, but my recollection is that the incident at the party was not about instigating an argument, but about making a public announcement to denounce his stepfather, though staged very childishly. My understanding is that Bullingdon was still a teenager at that point.

Barrys intensions in the duel really didnt seem clear, whether it was a death wish or simply not being able to go though with killing his wife's son but I think after that point were he's spared Bullingdon's life shooting into the ground the "hourable" thing would be to back out which is why Bullingdons seconds ask him if he is going to.

Bullingdon certainly had reason to dislike him but ultimately I think it showed that he and his backers were just as ruthless us as they claimed Barry to be in search of power, there wasn't any moral high ground there.

 

[Yotsuya]

Bullingdon certainly had reason to dislike him but ultimately I think it showed that he and his backers were just as ruthless us as they claimed Barry to be in search of power, there wasn't any moral high ground there.

 

[HHJ]

I liked Death Proof alot,but Its not really a serious movie,in the same way Tarantino's other films are. Its more laid back and doesnt take itself that seriously. Its just good fun.

 

[BisexualMMA]

I liked Death Proof alot,but Its not really a serious movie,in the same way Tarantino's other films are. Its more laid back and doesnt take itself that seriously. Its just good fun.

Are any of Tarantino's movies really that serious? Which ones?

 

[HHJ]

Are any of Tarantino's movies really that serious? Which ones?

Im just sayin,that even in a silly movie like Kill Bill,the final showdown with her and Bill,the issue between them,was really serious and complicated.

 

[BisexualMMA]

Im just sayin,that even in a silly movie like Kill Bill,the final showdown with her and Bill,the issue between them,was really serious and complicated.

Even with his heavier material, he always kind of makes the ending into something where you shouldn't and can't take it all that seriously.

Kill Bill - five finger death punch with the heart exploding.
Inglourious Basterds - none of this really happened or could have happened.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - none of this really happened or could have happened plus over the top violent farce to finish things off.
Hateful Eight - guy with no balls cackling as he hangs an evil woman.

etc...

 

[ufcfan4]

Even with his heavier material, he always kind of makes the ending into something where you shouldn't and can't take it all that seriously.

Kill Bill - five finger death punch with the heart exploding.
Inglourious Basterds - none of this really happened or could have happened.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - none of this really happened or could have happened plus over the top violent farce to finish things off.
Hateful Eight - guy with no balls cackling as he hangs an evil woman.

etc...

I am a huge fan of most of his work. Jackie Brown has to be his most grounded film, though, no?

Gave it a rewatch the other day. I love that movie and my opinion of it grows each time I watch it. It was probably on the lower end of my Tarantino film rankings initially (above Kill Bill 1 and 2 which I know people swear by but never really resonated with me and above Death Proof for sure but below everything else).

Now I’d easily put it in the top 5.
For me it’s probably:

Pulp Fiction
Django Unchained
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Jackie Brown
Inglorious Basterds
Reservoir Dogs
The Hateful Eight
Kill bill 1
Kill Bill 2
Death Proof

 

[BisexualMMA]

I am a huge fan of most of his work. Jackie Brown has to be his most grounded film, though, no?

Gave it a rewatch the other day. I love that movie and my opinion of it grows each time I watch it. It was probably on the lower end of my Tarantino film rankings initially (above Kill Bill 1 and 2 which I know people swear by but never really resonated with me and above Death Proof for sure but below everything else).

Now I’d easily put it in the top 5.
For me it’s probably:

Pulp Fiction
Django Unchained
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Jackie Brown
Inglorious Basterds
Reservoir Dogs
The Hateful Eight
Kill bill 1
Kill Bill 2
Death Proof

I have to rewatch Jackie Brown. I watched it many years ago now and had a similar first impression to you. I wouldn't be surprised if it grew on me with a rewatch.

I like Inglourious and Once Upon a Time the best of his movies...due largely to the look of the films. I am not very nostalgic for 90s filmmaking or its appearance, and with his more recent movies he has the look and feel of 1970s movies with a bit of 1960s worked in as well.

Django would be up there if the last third or quarter of the movie didn't drag it down. It was in the same class up until then.

Pulp Fiction...always liked it but didn't love it. It's one of a handful of movies like that for me which I liked but which the world holds in much more elevated regard.

 

[BisexualMMA]

I am a huge fan of most of his work. Jackie Brown has to be his most grounded film, though, no?

Gave it a rewatch the other day. I love that movie and my opinion of it grows each time I watch it. It was probably on the lower end of my Tarantino film rankings initially (above Kill Bill 1 and 2 which I know people swear by but never really resonated with me and above Death Proof for sure but below everything else).

Now I’d easily put it in the top 5.

So...what are the virtues of Jackie Brown that I missed the first time around.

 

[ufcfan4]

I am a huge fan of most of his work. Jackie Brown has to be his most grounded film, though, no?

Gave it a rewatch the other day. I love that movie and my opinion of it grows each time I watch it. It was probably on the lower end of my Tarantino film rankings initially (above Kill Bill 1 and 2 which I know people swear by but never really resonated with me and above Death Proof for sure but below everything else).

Now I’d easily put it in the top 5.
For me it’s probably:

Pulp Fiction
Django Unchained
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Jackie Brown
Inglorious Basterds
Reservoir Dogs
The Hateful Eight
Kill bill 1
Kill Bill 2
Death Proof

So...what are the virtues of Jackie Brown that I missed the first time around.

First off, I think the dynamic between Pam Grier and Robert Forster is so damn good. Probably my favorite Tarantino duo other than Cliff and Rick Dalton lol.

second, there are scenes that are just so effectively done but that are still a bit restrained. Don’t get me wrong, there is no sequence as masterfully effective as, say, the two best sequences in Inglorious, but there’s one scene where Sam goes to feel out whether Jackie will fink on him to avoid jail time/potentially silence her that is just visually really well done and tense. The culminates in Grier going full-on 70s style badass but, again, not over the top like say when Rosario Dawson and co. start ax kicking Stuntman Mike lol.

I’m just fully on board with the storyline and the performances are great. Quintessential Sam Jackson performance as the villain, Grier and Forster are great. DeNiro makes his mark in a rare supporting role. Fonda is memorable and the way we see the deterioration between her relationship with DeNiro over the course of the film is really done well, too.

great use of music, too.