Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts

Sunday, 23 May 2010

Film: Judgement at Nuremberg


Jeg er frustreret over. Judgement at Nuremberg. Eller mere præcist: Jeg kan ikke anbefale nogen at se den, men jeg ville virkelig, virkelig ønske jeg kunne.

De vigtigste grunde til, at jeg gerne ville kunne anbefale fimen:
  • Skuespillet er rigtig godt. Som i virkelig godt. Som i "Ethan Hawke tag notater og læs dem grundigt" godt.
  • Billederne er flotte, kameraføringen er meget skiftende og zoomer, og drejer, så det føles som at gå rundt inde i et fotografi. Nogen er måske ikke til det, men jeg synes det var genialt. Når kameraet drejede rundt om nogen så man pludselig så tingene fra deres perspektiv er det oplagt manipulation, men man går med på den villigt. Alle vinkler er gennemtænkte og selve sort/hvid farvevalget føles som det eneste rigtige i en film, der diskuterer om nogetsomhelst kan være sort/hvidt. Manipulationen filmen igennem, passer også godt til temaet.
  • Come on: Historien med en dommer, der skal dømme 4 andre dommere. Cool tænkt.
  • Den mest elegante måde jeg nogensinde har set en film forholde sig til problemet, at det skal fremgå, at der tales et andet sprog, selvom alle skuespillerne taler engelsk. (Løses normalt med fede accenter). Det er lidt svært at beskrive, men involverer brugen af høretelefoner og tolke.
  • Figurerne: Den aldrende dommer fra landet, der tvivler på demokratiet efter at vælgerne ikke længere stemmer på ham(Spencer Tracy); den kultiverede adelige enke efter en tysk general, der mener tilgivelse er den eneste vej frem(Marlene Dietrich); den unge forsvarer med lækkert hår, beundring for den dommer han skal forsvare, og absolut ingen lyst til at skulle forsvare ham (Maximillian Schell- fik en Oskar for rollen); dommeren, der ikke vil forsvares og som derfor forholder sig tavs(Burt Lancaster); anklageren, som aldrig er kommet over de ting han oplevede i krigen; den unge kaptajn med den tyske kæreste, som han ikke vil opgive på trods af modstand(William Shatner), for at nævne nogle af dem.


Grunden til at jeg ikke anbefaler filmen: Midt i filmen optræder dokumentaroptagelser fra koncentracionslejre, og det får hele filmen til at blegne og være fuldstændig ligegyldig. Jeg mener: Hvem er interesseret i skuespil og kameravinkler efter 10 min. med de mest chokerende billeder jeg nogensinde har set på en skærm? (Jeg kunne ikke se scenen færdig, men det var uendeligt mange gange værre end de WWII udsendelser DR2 sender på repeat). De nøje opstillede spørgsmål om placering af skyld og pointer om at domme er proforma for ikke at tale om filmens form i sig selv falder til jorden, og man efterlades med mareridt. Filmen vil på overfladen gerne en masse ting, men ender med stort set kun opnå at traumatisere dem der ser den. Men faktisk viser det sig i slutscenen helt klart, at hovedmålet for filmen ER at være chokerende og ubehagelig og "hvordan kan I lade de skyldige slippe fra det her"-agtig, og at få nogle folk til at se den kritik af dommene, som filmen reelt er. Nogle folk der ikke ville have hørt på kritikken hvis ikke den var blevet pakket ind i en film, der er så flot, at jeg går ud fra det var en must-see i 1961.



Tuesday, 23 October 2007

My film preferences these days



versus


Hot:


  • Long movies ( Lawrence of Arabia etc) where you can go away for a while and when you come back the hero is still stuck in the desert/Atlanta is still burning.

  • Biblical movies that only use the "biblical" theme as an excuse to show lots of action and oneliners in an exotic scenery. The plot makes you wonder when J.R. and Alexis will join the fun (think Charlton Heston).

  • Historical (often Roman) movies that only use the "roman" theme as an excuse to show lots of action and oneliners in an exotic scenery. The plot makes you wonder when J.R. and Alexis will join the fun (think Richard Burton).

  • Movies where the talk is limmited to quoting-friendly oneliners ("we deal in lead, friend", "make my day") and to explanations about the plot ("yes, Atlanta is still burning").

Thanks, but no thanks:



  • Tv-series. If you get to the couch 10 min. late you have already missed the vital part of the action and will be lost for the remaining 15 min. And has anyone EVER seen friends on dvd?

  • Biblical movies trying to be the real deal- and therefore you wil get no charriot-races, no oneliners 'no made up for the ocasion' evil enemies. In other words: no fun.

  • Movies about the romans trying to be the real thing... luckily enough I don't think there has ever been such a movie.

  • Movies where the caracters talk about what they feel, how they feel, their doubts about what they may feel. Then they decide something. And talk about that. The action is limmited to a guy running a few blocks and the oneliners are more like tenliners that you can only quote if you have a photographic memory (think Woody Allen).

Monday, 22 October 2007

The Magnificent Seven. Spoilers!!!

I just finished watching "The magnificent seven" and I think I noticed more things than last time I saw it (some 5-10 years ago). For example I hadn't noticed before how the scene in which Chris (Yul Brynner) and Vin (Steve McQueen) are introduced really tells everything:



Two guys get hired to ride a corpse to the graveyard- the whole town is trying to stop them because of racist motives as the dead is an indian they don't want burried in the graveyard. They succeed with the task because they are brilliant gunmen and a man comes over to them all impressed of what they have acomplished, talking about how his wife won't believe it when she hears about it. Here Brynner and McQueen look at each other and we understand that this is the closest to a caring wife they have ever come (and probably ever will).



I think this is a great scene- the two men driving a hearse down the hill laughing. Almost like Django carrying his coffin around.



The rest of the film is more or less just the two gunmen realizing bit by bit that they are too old to settle down and have a family-they have missed every chance they have ever had to do that. In a crucial scene (just after the one where a young girl totaly ignores Vin and only has eyes for the youngest gunman) they discuss what their choice has meant to them: no home, no wife, no children but on the other side: not having to stand aside for anyone, and no one holding you down. And no enemies -alive. But this is only talk and some scenes later some of the other gunmen show the kids in the village that the real heroes are their fathers who have had the courage to bring up a family. In the end even Chris admits that the only losers in the fight have been him and Vin.

All of this is backed up by the young man who wants to be a gunman but whom Chris and Vin send back to his girlfriend to be a farmer while he still has the option and by their visit to the old man on the mountain. Chris and Vin (although very busy preparing the village for the expected assault) go to a very old man who lives on the mountain to bring him down to the village. The old man tells them that when you get to his age you are not interested in neither fertilizers nor women so he has nothing to do in the village, thus telling them that if they want to settle down they should do it before they get too old.



So: a sad story but full of oneliners and much more entertaining than I remembered.