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/lit/ - Literature

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1376779 No.1376779 [Reply] [Original]

the problem with books is that they dont have jimmy stewart in them

(BITCH)

>> No.1376784

Neither do most films

>> No.1376799

I love "Hawvey." One of the best actors of all time.

Got a general recommended watching list, Cooltop?

>> No.1376804

ugh. worst actor of all time, easily. american films are the half-finished abortions of the artform. There are NO great american films, period

>> No.1376818

>>1376804
i am amused by how pretty much every great european or asian director you want to talk about was deeply influenced by some american filmmaker, whether an artistic or a popular one

>> No.1376835

>>1376804

>implying happy films can't be good films

Oh yeah, and Vertigo is awesome.

>> No.1376842
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1376842

>>1376835
>Vertigo

one of my favorite movies, bro.

>> No.1376845

>>1376818
Name one great american film or director. Seriously, france had a film industry that emerged at the same time as the american and developed in its own right. Asian directors are pretty forgettable, except maybe Kurosawa (who was he influenced by? I know he influenced many of the supposedly "great" american auteurs.) Seriously, american films are not great, they can be entertaining but for the most part they are inferior to directors from france, for instance and russia. Latin american directors are great, but not nearly as numerous (but when I said american, i meant the US, which was wrong of me but w/e)

>> No.1376846

>>1376835
>implying vertigo was made by an american director
ya dun goofed

>> No.1376855

>>1376845

Orson Welles, Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock, just to name some of the older ones. (Yeah, I know Hitchcock was British, but his best movies were made in the U.S. and after he got U.S. citizenship.)

>> No.1376858

>>1376845
>>1376845

>Francis Ford Coppola (pronounced /ˈkoʊpələ/ KOH-pə-lə; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most influential film directors.[1] One of America's most celebrated filmmakers, he epitomized the group of filmmakers known as the New Hollywood, which included George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Woody Allen and William Friedkin, who emerged in the early 1970s with unconventional ideas that challenged contemporary filmmaking.[2][3]

>> No.1376861

>>1376846

No, I was implying that Jimmy Stewart was in Vertigo. Which he was. And he was good in it. Although I would also argue for Hitchcock being an American director.

>> No.1376870

>>1376845

'Bringing Up Baby'?

Hell, 'It's A Wonderful Life' is pretty fantastic. I mean I was expecting it to be schmaltzy nonsense. It decidedly isn't.

>> No.1376868

>>1376855
I will give you Welles (although, seriously, most of his films are totally trite and you know it. "f is for fake'" ? "touch of evil"? ugh...seriously) but, Hitchcock is a fucking BRITISH director. Capra? Seriously? No. His movies are standard, maybe the work of an artisan but totally uninspired. >>1376858
uh, no. Coppola is a hack. I kind of like Appocalypse Now, but just for its entertainment value--it isn't a great movie--it's kind of a bore at points and mostly it was way cool for me as a teenage boy.
>>1376861
eh, fair enough, but jimmy stewart really annoys the fuck out of me. I don't know why he was even in that movie.

>> No.1376874

>>1376870
I really don't have the taste for capra films, to me they really are sentimental crap and I can't stand them.

>> No.1376877

>>1376868

who are ur fav directors?

>> No.1376885

>>1376874

I haven't seen any other Capra, but after watching IAWL I very much want to. Part of its class is that it really earns that sentimental ending; everything that leads up to it is after all characterised by a thick vein of barely-repressed anger and frustration. But it's also a slightly unhinged movie. What about the shot where all the action is in the middle/background, with people walking in and out of a static shot, and the foreground is dominated by a tiny house and a giant raven fussing over it? I can't explain what the hell it's doing in there, but its slightly jarring presence warns against a simple assessment of the movie.

>> No.1376895

>>1376877
Chris Marker, Bergman, Truffaut, Malle, Renoir, Herzog, Fassbinder, Kubrick, Lars Von Trier, Haneke (and oh shit I really love Wes Anderson so shoot me)

>> No.1376901

>>1376885
I don't want to judge, but maybe you are a bit unhinged and you're reading your own madness into IAWL. Anyway, I never noticed it because old Jimmy Stewart is like the 50's version of will ferrell to me (he annoys me so goddamn much)

>> No.1376934

>>1376861
If the Brits get T.S. Eliot, then we should get Hitchcock.

>> No.1376939

>>1376934
In that case, the french get hemingway

>> No.1376947

>>1376939
But Hemingway came back from Paris. I'd be much more inclined to give the French Gertrude Stein.

>> No.1376957

>>1376934

Actually, if that is the trade, we get Auden.

>> No.1376959

>>1376947
Yeah, she's buried in Paris after all.

>> No.1376961

>>1376861
I think "Rope" is Hitchcock's best film that also has Jimmy Stewart.

>> No.1376974

>>1376901

I'm telling you man. Giant raven. There's also the long conversation scene between Stewart and the angel where there are washing lines obscuring half the picture. It really is rather odd.

And if Hitchcock can't necessarily be considered an American director, the pictures he made in America, at American studios under American producers with American actors, can probably be called American films.

>>1376961

I don't know if it's better than Vertigo, but it's definitely too often dismissed (following HItchcock's own opinion) as a failed experiment in style. Lovely film.

>> No.1377001

>>1376974
I'll give it a second look. I guess when I said American films are bad, I meant that they were really un-ambitious (psychologically and stylistically) but really I should give them a try. I will have to look at it's a wonderful life again (it shouldn't be hard this time of year) You make it sound kind of creepy.

>> No.1377006

>>1376974
Also, I guess Hitchcock's films can kind of be considered american, but Hitchcock was the ultimate "auteur" so if any films can be attributed highly to the director they are his.

>> No.1377040

>>1376845
lol @ you... not even knowing who Ozu or Mizoguchi

also, kurosawa himself was somewhat influenced by american movies, but more significantly, there was a huge influence of american cinema on european, particularly on the french. truffaut was hugely influenced by people like john ford and howard hawks, and more generally the entire french new wave was hugely influenced by hollywood films. it's just that the films they were influenced by weren't explicitly art films - they were genre films, noir and westerns. noir in particular had a huge impact on french film.

the genius of the american film industry is NOT embedded in its avant film. it's in the pop film - where someone like John Ford is universally regarded as one of the greatest directors of all time, and he made Westerns. They're incredibly well-shot westerns, stunning in their cinematography and well-acted, but they're westerns. you said in a later post that american films are unambitious stylistically and psychologically. you may have a point as regards psychology - the films are not artistically ambitious. but you're dead wrong as regards style - american films used to be beautiful. watch The Searchers and tell me that it's not a great movie - but it's a cowboy movie. or They Live By Night or The Night of the Hunter. And in terms of comedy, America is simply outstanding in terms of comedy... or was in the 30s and the 40s and the 50s.

>> No.1377044

>>1377001

It's definitely an interesting film. Watch what happens to the knob on his bannister throughout the movie, and his reaction each time. Or just lovely little touches like the hat-play upon entering the shitty old house his friends have fixed up for him (just after wedding). Or broad but effective strokes like the accentuated chiaroscuro lighting when everything plunges into evil-film-noir-world. I also really like the bit where Jimmy Stewart slams his fist on the table and says "well anyway my FATHER didn't think so!!!" and just as he does so he leans down towards the camera to accentuate his point and reveals a portrait of his father behind him. It's kind of cheesy but done with such ease and bravado that it works. The weird camera angles that I mentioned are things that can slip completely under your radar if you're not careful: you focus your attention on the characters and their speech and you don't notice that there's a bloody great washing line in front of the camera.

>> No.1377048

>>1377044

to continue, I can see why you'd characterise American film as 'unambitious', because the golden age of Hollywood has no avant-garde/counter-cultural tradition. But films apparently churned out by a highly commercial studio system for highly commercial purposes are very often quite intensely artistic. American film isn't crap. It just likes to put on a show. Its complexities fit in 'plausibly', sometimes seamlessly, with the 'entertainment', so that speaking of these two halves of the coin as actually seperate makes no real sense. This to my mind is both an artistic achievement in its own right and one that calls to some of the strengths of cinema - an art which I think almost everybody is very capable of analysing if they really put their mind to it.

Another really, really good film of that place and time is 'Letter from an Unknown Woman'. It is fantastically directed. I like 'In A Lonely Place' as well. And if you haven't seen 'Bringing Up Baby' (wot I mentioned earlier) I would highly recommend doing so.

A good book on good American films is 'Film As Film' by V.F. Perkins. It cites a lot of examples that I, not having seen the films in question, don't feel warranted to mention.

>> No.1377055

>>1376804
>>1376845
>>1376868

Question 1: Who is John Galt?

Question 2: Of what nationality is Stanley Kubrick, you motherfucking pathetic rambling piece of failtrolling shit ?

>>1377040
If I may add, Kobayashi for the sixties and Miike for the modern era. Not even counting the anime directors like Oshii, Kon and Shinkai.

>> No.1377056

>>1377040
>>1377044
>>1377048
so on point

I think another way to put this is that American film historically excelled in terms of technique - as a nation America was just really good at making movies, there was a lot of expertise in the craft of movie-making built up. And the American studio system was also very good at coopting people, at getting artistes and geniuses to make studio films and work within the system instead of making art films. Think of what a Billy Wilder might have done in a different country.

>> No.1377057

...also, Charlie Chaplin films?

>> No.1377061

>>1377055
>Question 1: Who is John Galt?

wtf is this shit?

>inb4 2deep4u

>> No.1377062

>>1377055
Ehhhhh, I'm not that into Miike as a serious director. But you have a good point, I was really just going after the absolute most well-known Japanese directors - to my mind Kurosawa, Ozu, and Mizoguchi are the big 3. Also, I have mad respect of Kinji Fukasaku, even though he works in a somewhat-pulp style - a lot of his earlier work is really impressive.

>> No.1377080

american arthouse exists too and it is fantastic. Nothing gets near Godard in his new wave prime or a timeless Bergman, granted.. If that is the matter at hand then yes, European directors make much more selective, intellectual and inaccessible cinema.

You can't ignore, though, david lynch, the style of the cohen brothers, the recent there will be blood, the early works of scorsese-pesci-deniro, blade runner, and the wave of independant cinema. Pi ! That movie has a brilliance that hasn't been attained yet in science fiction - maybe, somehow, in Moon.

Also, ironically, the land where television has the most stunningly important part in the daily life of people is where it takes a whole new artistic dimension. I'm looking at you, HBO. And yes, this counts as art filming. Watch the boardwalk empire pilot, watch entirely the wire, and you will understand what I'm talking about.

>> No.1377083

>>1377062
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0462030/

watch the human condition trilogy, kwaidan & hara kiri

>> No.1377084

>>1377055
Kubrick is english
>>1377057
Chaplin is english

I am an unapologetic advocate of the avant-garde, but I understand what you have said about the style or technical acheivements of american films (but I still think that the technical skill has always been used to unimpressive ends--the kind of elegance you must look at as though it were perfectly matching a diagram--this is not the kind of film I love and I am no real fan of Hitchcock, either.) At any rate, I made the first statement strong to get a strong response, and it hasn't been too bad, actually.

>> No.1377091

>>1377080
Those american film-makers are worth commending, but honestly I never saw Lynch being nearly as outstanding as Maya Deren (for surrealism) or Herzog (for absurd/grotesque)..Scorcese I really don't appreciate--his ideas about violence are really boring to me and while Taxi Driver is a fun film (it is at least "patient", which is something american films rarely are) I can't stand any of his other movies.
>>1377044
Yeah, you definitely convinced me to enjoy it.

I'll admit I never give american films much of a chance, but whenever I have watched the "great" american directors (except perhaps Cassavetes in his first movie) I was mostly disappointed--whereas whenever I discover a new European arthouse film I fall in love all over again. I don't know about how influential John Ford was on french film-makers, I just don't see it.

>> No.1377093

>>1377084
Oh, I see. So if they were born outside of America but lived and worked in America, they're not American. And if they were born in America but lived and worked outside America, they're not American. This makes perfect sense.

Your insane troll logic aside, your commitment to the avant and to artistry blinds you, I think, to the beauty of film. Artistry isn't important for its own sake - artistry is important because, we hope, it leads us to make better films. It's an insane mistake (one that I don't believe many great directors or film critics make) to disregard great cinema because of its commercial origins. It's still great cinema. American filmmakers exist who have made incredibly movies from a stylistic and technical standpoint; they've made movies with great heart. The American film industry is perhaps not as strong as other nations when it comes to film which consciously positions itself as avant, as artistic and intelligent and above. But this is by far the least important criterion on which to judge film - judge the movie itself.

>> No.1377095

>>1377084
>>1377091
Can I ask you a question? What nationality are you? I mean, what's your country of origin?

>> No.1377098

>>1376845
remember how john ford, francis coppola, martin scorcese, howard hawks, woody allen, john huston and many other directors are considered to be some of the greatest of all time regardless of whether you like them or not
remeber how french cinema is only known for the 1960s new wave movement which is full of psuedo-intellctual bullshit that people who post on 4chan that pretend to read books and watch movies like

>> No.1377100

>>1377084
>Kubrick is english
........

Fucking moron check your facts he is born and grew up in America, only to go live in the UK in his thirties, but still work with american studios, actors, teams, etc.

The same idea can be applied - not to the same extent, although this is arguable - to Hitchcock and Nolan who work with Americans. Seriously, get off your failtroll cloud and realize that directing isn't everything in a movie. It needs a script, actors, producers, makeup artists, etc.

And btw, Kubrick generally did all of that at once, even when he was adapting novels, and he's as American as one can be - in a cultural sense of the word (refering to cinematic identity rather than his nationality or origins).

>> No.1377109

>>1377093
I don't know if I would call it "blindness", just very close-minded (in a sense), really I am more idealogical about art than anything (like Breton) It may be a flaw, but I think it can also be a virtue. Either way, I just don't see much artistic courage in the american film industry for much of its history--this of course is due to the commercial nature and you can't deny that. >>1377098
You've named 2 imitators of the nouvelle vague and some directors of Westerns--I really am not convinced and your attempts to denigrate my opinion by an ad hominem makes me even less inclined to care.
>>1377095
I'm from the USA

>> No.1377110

>>1377100
>*cinematographic

Also, I have no motherfucking idea why I read supposedly knowledgeable aficionados when none of them commented on or mentioned Bergman when it came to depth, or Argento when it came to art-for-art. It's funny how you talk about European art cinema when you don't seem to know its most important feats.

>> No.1377113

>>1377100
y u so mad? y do you think Kubrick left to work in the UK?

>> No.1377118

>>1377110
I talked about Bergman, said he was one of my faves. Argento for art-for-art's sake? I...don't think so..Pasolini maybe but Argento is really a b-movie queen.

>> No.1377120

>>1377109
>>1377109
Yeah, like I suspected, just another American with avante garde penis envy. Also, just because films are Westerns does not mean that they can be dismissed, you ignorant slut. I don't see much virtue about being ideological about art, or caring deeply about being avant for the sake of being avant, or displaying 'artistic courage' - or at least i think that all of those things are less important than making good film.

>> No.1377126

>>1377120
>don't see much virtue about being ideological about art, or caring deeply about being avant for the sake of being avant, or displaying 'artistic courage' -
This is why you have bad taste. Also, stop being an internet tough guy, I don't call you names, but you think cussing at me will make your opinions more valid. Lrn2getoutofhighschool

>> No.1377129

>>1377126
Oh, come on, that's just punctuation, this is the internet. The fact of the matter is that I can't take you all that seriously - I rather suspect that you're one of those people who looks down on anything American as unspeakably vulgar just for being American. Oh, it's from France, it MUST be much more worthwhile and artistic! Oh, WHY can't there be an intellegentsia - avant garde culture in America! I do SO want to sip espresso while lounging in a coffeeshop discussing cinema! It's because of people like you, dipshit. You give intellectuals a bad name. Go away.

>> No.1377133

>>1376845
>Name one great american film or director.

Billy Wilder
Charlie Chaplin
Buster Keaton
Stanley Kubrick
John Ford
Howard Hawks
Orson Welles
Martin Scorsese
Francis Ford Coppola
Nicholas Ray
Samuel Fuller
John Huston
Preston Sturges
Robert Altman
Sidney Lumet
Douglas Sirk
William Wyler
Elia Kazan
Otto Preminger
Woody Allen
David Lynch
Errol Morris
The Coen Brothers

Just to name a few.

>Seriously, france had a film industry that emerged at the same time as the american and developed in its own right.

You're either an idiot or a troll. Do you have any idea how influential American films were on the French New Wave? Do you have any idea how indebted Truffaut, Godard, and Jacques Becker are to film noir, gangster films, and classic Hollywood directors like John Ford and Howard Hawks? Please tell me that you're not that much of an idiot.

>Asian directors are pretty forgettable, except maybe Kurosawa

What about Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, Mikio Naruse, Kim Ki-young, Shohei Imamura, Seijun Suzuki, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Takeshi Kitano, Takashi Miike, or Park Chan-wook? Are THEY forgettable?

>> No.1377138

>>1377109
I like how you keep rambling about la nouvelle vague when we stole a lot from german expressionism and italian realism. Also, the founders of this movement admired Ford, Welles and Hitchcock... The only directors who were influenced by the new wave are the ones who were born during it, and became active after it, like Scorsese. That doesn't make them emulators at all.

tl;dr language & manners can't hide failtrolling, even wikipedia beats you

>> No.1377142

>>1376845
>>1377133
Continued.

>>1376868
>Hitchcock is a fucking BRITISH director.

For all practical intents and purposes, he can be considered an American director. Although he is British, he lived most of his career as a film director in the United States, and directed most of his films in the United States, working within the Hollywood studio system, using mostly American actors and writers. But that's irrelevant. Unless you're arguing that American films are inferior because Americans are GENETICALLY inferior to Europeans, his country of origin doesn't matter. What matters is that he lived in the United States, and made films, GREAT and INFLUENTIAL films, in the United States.

And unless you still insist that foreign born American directors don't count, we can also add Ernst Lubitsch to the list, proven once again that you're massively full of shit.

Like most people who know nothing about film and have recently discovered Bergman and Godard, you are currently unable to judge films based on their own merit, so you're forced to look for traits that respected film critics seem to like, and because of your immense ignorance, you're forced to look only for the most obvious traits: Is it foreign? Is it "challenging"? (Read: Does it confuse me?) Then it must be good!

>> No.1377143

>>1377129
Actually there is an intelligentsia here, and we don't sip espresso we take shots of heroin, you know? Seriously, I don't think films are great JUST because they are french (my favorite film-makers are from Germany and Sweden, actually) or even just because they aren't american. I think specific conditions and ideals have developed the American film-making ethos and Europe has typically enjoyed a less commercially driven film industry (e.g. more freedom for experimentation, also a more well-defined heritage of visual art) I would love to see American films which are this way, but there haven't been many--I already said that when I said there were NONE i was being a little extreme (and forgetting quite a few) but most of the directors you have said are great, I really think suck hard (I mean Woody Allen for chrissakes)--I think you are just a reactionary who can't appreciate art on its own merit and see this as some kind of nationalistic conflict, which you projected on to me.

>> No.1377146

>>1377142
he can actually be considered a british director who made some american films

>> No.1377149

>>1377133
No, you don't understand. You see, if a director was born, lived, made a film, or even traveled for one day outside of the United States, they can't be American. Also, I just don't see how Americans influenced New Wave stuff because I am an oblivious moron who can't give credit to anything American. Also literally don't know anything about Asian cinema b/c I really only fellate French directors because I so dearly want to reside on the Left Bank in the 50s / 60s.

>> No.1377152

>>1377138
I haven't been rambling about the new wave, specifically, so stop trying to create a comfortable locus for your argument--Herzog is the greatest film maker imho and he is nothing like french new-wave. He admires the americans, but this does not mean he owes them anything. HOW IN THE FUCK are new wave films anything like a john ford film? I can admire someones work (in general) and not be influenced by them at all.

>> No.1377157

>>1377133
I really don't like any of those directors, there are a few I don't know.
>>1377149
you are really a mad little child aren't you? u mad because america sells out its artistic integrity for mass appeal? yeah..u mad.

>> No.1377161

guys, if it makes you feel better I think America has the best literature in the world. (eurofilm fag here, btw)

>> No.1377158

>>1377143
lol yes I can't appreciate film on its own merit

You're the one who refuses to appreciate film on its own merit... your appreciation of a film seems to depend as much on how commercial it is, or how aligned with the avant it is, as on the quality of the film itself. You're overly obsessed with the avant garde and you're pretty clearly biased against American film.

>> No.1377164

>>1377158
I am obsessed by avant-garde, I admitted that already.

>> No.1377165

>>1377161
seriously?

i would say that america has seriously incredible film and is rather weak in terms of its literature, compared to other nations in the world. i mean, american literary history has a lot of great authors in it, but i wouldn't say it's better than any other nation

>> No.1377170

C'est très amusant, vous avez tous une idée typiquement américaine de la france... Très romanticisée, absolument pas réelle ! La nouvelle vague doit énormément aux précédentes générations, notemment l'expressionisme allemand, l'italie post-fasciste de la pauvreté, et le film noir, qui lui-même a puisé dans l'expressionisme allemand - qui, nous nous l'accorderons, représente l'ancêtre de tous les films et réalisteurs que vous citez.

Ne surestimez pas la grandeur ou l'importance culturelle du film français. Aussi, le Japon a tout autant excellé dans ce domaine, avec des films pas trop connus, de Hara-Kiri à Audition, en passant par Tetsuo l'homme de fer.

Frenchfag here, lolling hard at all the folks who talk about new wave, art film but seemingly only know warped, tortured idealizations of what these concepts refer to.

PS: Bergman is god

>> No.1377174

>>1377165
American writers like tennessee williams, poe, salinger, melville, burroughs, oates, fitzgerald, Whitman, etc. to me outshine all the Dostoyevskys and Prousts...but then again I only speak english and don't really think I know shit about international literature (I mean, I've read a lot of it, but I don't ultimately "get" it)

>> No.1377194

>>1377165
I totally agree, america's strongest cultural points are the big and small screen - even more so than Rock music.

>> No.1377198

>>1377194
No way. Rock music is america's greatest contributions to the arts. Their writers are outstanding. The films are second-tier.

>> No.1377202

Man, why'd this thread have to get all hostile all of a sudden? I was convincing the OP to rewatch It's a fucking Wonderful every-fucking-Christmas Life and now it's all "slut!" (??) and hipster stereotypes and so on and so forth.

Whoever mentioned Nicholas Ray at least gets props for that. The man was amazing.

I don't agree with the characterisation

>> No.1377204

Europe: Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Holst, Elgar &c
America: men shouting over second-hand drum records.

>> No.1377207

>>1377204
Yeah kind of, and to see classical survived so many centuries sometimes makes me wonder about the future of rock. I think islamic rap will be the standard in the intergalactic battles of 3030.

>> No.1377210

>>1377202
Yeah honestly, I was having a good troll with that guy that called me a slut (how did he know?) but I will definitely watch it's a wonderful life (probably with some eggnog and antidepressants). American films are probably elegant in their own right but, seriously, the avant-garde is everything that is brave and right with the world.

>> No.1377214

>>1377202

oh cool I forgot to finish my post.

I don't agree with the characterisation of american film as stylystically and technically virtuosic but thematically empty or...just no. It is very often increadible, heady stuff with very real artistic ambitions. They're just ambitions that aren't incompatible with mainstream success; it's like a whole industry that managed, for 30 years or so, to have its cake and eat it. Perhaps it has done so for longer. After all, we've got Pixar.

anyone got a problem with pixar quickly becoming one of the most artistically accomplished studios in production

huh? huh?

>> No.1377224

>>1377214
I honestly have never watched a Pixar film, so should I?

>> No.1377239

>>1377224

yeah, I reckon so. Finding Nemo, Wall-E and Up are probably the best, in ascending order. You better be prepared for them to be totally comfortable within the realm of Hollywood sentimentality (I wouldn't call them exactly sentimental, but they certainly brush against it).

I take a lot of joy in movement in films; something that offers some kind of gestural complexity always holds my attention. So no small part of my liking for Wall-E (for instance) is how full it is of things that whirr and unfold and click back and forth.

>> No.1377250

>>1377239

To elaborate on the topic of sentimentality, I think it probably suffices to say that Pixar basically live and breathe "anything you can do, we can do better." You come to a moment that in any other film would be one of forced emotion, of poor schmaltz...and they give everyone a big fuck-you by making it pretty alright. At least it works for me; perhaps it's possible to watch these films callously.

God, I sound so bourgois. I love Harold Pinter, really I do.

>> No.1377258

>>1377214
Nolan fits the bill: uses hollywood format and gives enough depth for public & critics alike to sink into

>> No.1377267

>>1377258

Eh, not a fan. I think Nolan's direction can be extremely dull; in Inception it is clinical without being precise, static without being thoughtful, boring boring boring (and even at times confusing). Otherwise, I dunno. Inception was po-faced in the extreme. It was afraid to dream big. The Dark Knight had some amazing scenes - like when Ledger short-circuits the logic of the whole criminal fraternity by burning their (isotope-infected) money. But it also traded in a sort of pseudo-profundity; it felt like the work of people who'd read Conrad and whatever else in high school and dimly remembered how cool it was. I liked the film, but it didn't cement Nolan in my mind as a director worth watching. His hold there was precarious enough when Inception rubbed grease all over his body and sent him slipping down the pulsating walls of an increasingly confused metaphor.