tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925395536023721138.post5195563564600854572..comments2024-03-23T05:56:23.585+00:00Comments on Film Studies For Free: CINEPHILE on Contemporary Realism: Post-Classical Hollywood, Mumblecore, Neo-Neorealism,Tonacci, Reichardt, Greengrass, Van SantCatherine Granthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15844538902594202591noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925395536023721138.post-14242229815498082962012-09-03T11:22:48.851+01:002012-09-03T11:22:48.851+01:00Thanks for both your comments.
I hope you like R...Thanks for both your comments. <br /><br />I hope you like ROSETTA, Joel. Zonka's THE DREAMLIFE OF ANGELS may be another great film to watch to help change your view. <br /><br />And Anonymous, my apologies! I've rectified my error and used a new framegrab in the correct ratio. <br /><br />Thanks to both of you for dropping by and leaving comments. Catherine Granthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15844538902594202591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925395536023721138.post-47801135922847017322012-09-03T09:35:39.654+01:002012-09-03T09:35:39.654+01:00Meek's Cutoff is a great film, but one of the ...Meek's Cutoff is a great film, but one of the most distinctive things about it (and something mentioned numerous times by Reichardt in interviews) was that it was shot in 4:3, so it's a bit dismaying to see a frame grab in the wrong aspect ratio!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-925395536023721138.post-639130486045365572012-08-28T19:34:39.831+01:002012-08-28T19:34:39.831+01:00Boy, am I ambivalent tilting hostile toward "...Boy, am I ambivalent tilting hostile toward "contemporary realism" in all its forms: I find the neo-neorealism too often high-minded slumming, the Bourne approach to action movies almost unwatchable, the mumblecore intriguing in its lo-fi aesthetic yet rather exasperating in the narrowness of its narcissistic worldivew, and the misguided notion that fantasy franchises need to be made "gritty" detracting from the entire attraction to popcorn movies. Even the Dardennes, whom I know I'm supposed to worship, leave me rather cold - at least what I've seen (the new Criterion of Rosetta is next on my Netflix queue).<br /><br />At the same time, I'm dismayed by the contrary trend toward complete fabrication in big-budget movies - not only the increasing dependence on CGI, but the excessive use of close-ups, fast-cutting, and generic set design to flatten even "realistic" scenes or movies (so that everything is surface).<br /><br />What I think has been lost, or is being lost, is the ability for the Melies and Lumiere schools to coexist in the same film. As Godard said, Melies was a great documentarian (all of those fantastic sets and props were photographed same as the actors) and the Lumieres were great fantasists (since, among other reasons, they convinced us we were watching reality unfold in front of us, rather than its reproduction).<br /><br />Great movies are a dance between the natural and the illusionistic. Now there's too much of a divorce. In my humble opinion anyway.<br /><br />"traverse the epistemic fissure of a positivist approach"<br />Ha, this is one of those sentences were I understand each word individually but really can't quite figure out where the writer is going by slamming them all together!Joel Bockohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11238338958380683893noreply@blogger.com