I was held back in grade 5. Opened my report card on the school bus full of kids waiting to see if I failed or passed. I still remember the horror of failure as they laughed. I still have nightmares that I need one last math credit to graduate. I sense Chuck is going to be my Freddy Krueger.
I remember years ago when you did an early reading of 'Choke' at KGB in NYC. It was late afternoon and the audience was a bit punchy, smudgy day-drunk and awash with that grubby, stained light that filtered past gummy windows. You had a couple of giggle fits while reading, were awash with people post, and then as it slowly died down you asked what the piece of paper I was holding was. I told you it was my Movies To See list, you immediately snatched it, and scrawled both this flick and 'The Haunting of Hill House' right at the bottom...
I carved out time and watched this film for the first time last night. Holy shit I wasn’t prepared for that. Resonants with me on so many levels. And I bet I’m not alone. Thanks for introducing me to this masterpiece. Can’t wait to hear you discuss this within the context of the class.
I'd never seen this. I can't stop thinking about it. The tension (which i have trouble with in my writing) was unbearable sometimes, I needed to get up and walk away from the screen! Thank you for introducing this to me. I'm looking for more like it.
I've had this on my watch list for awhile so thanks for the excuse to finally watch it. I love Dancer in the Dark and Breaking the Waves, there is just something so sickly beautiful about martyrdom but I'm having trouble constructing a character that the audience sees as a genuine martyr and not as naive or weak.
Wow. How did I not know about this movie before? Like a comment below, I wasn't prepared for that, thank you so much for this! There is so many great things in it, it's hard to process...
Thank you for the introduction to this film, Chuck (Mr. Palahniuk). I thought it was great and I'm interested in seeing what people have to say in response to the quiz questions, as there's a lot to dissect and discuss. I also gotta ask - although I might be extrapolating a lil our of left field here - did this film have any influence on your book "Haunted"? I thought, whilst watching the film, that, although the people and circumstances are quite different, a bunch of desperate, exhausted, anaemic looking characters stuck in a remote location with increasingly drastic rising tensions and dangerous/absurd scenario's culminating in a tragic ending seemed a little reminiscent of a certain collection of short stories that I quite enjoy.
Despite the title, I was still totally unprepared for how tragic this was, and also, how it's weirdly like a depression era Battle Royale. I did not expect some sadomasochistic spectacle from the slow burn start.
I love the idea of a faith healer playing second fiddle to the faith, like they're just there to point it out and the audience does all the work. That the audience is the one with all the power.
1. The clock/days/couples left scoreboard in the back is the perfect foil for the couples. As the time goes up and couples go down, there's that descent. The movie star loses her looks, the Sailor's uniform is no longer white, the redhead dancing with the Sailor hallucinates things crawling on her, and so on. Rocky the emcee is an antagonist but to me, the main villain is the scoreboard (and I'll explain why later).
2. There's a scene in the movie Midsommar where the people are dancing around the pole and eventually all collapse. This is as tense as that scene but nearly two hours long. It's macabre how people would go to watch what is basically sponsored torture. A prelude to current reality tv where people will go naked in the African desert for 21 days for a few hundred thousand dollars. This brilliant movie has now come to life in the form of Survivor, Alone, Naked and Afraid and Big Brother.
3. I went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole and saw Jane Fonda lost the Oscar to Maggie Smith in 1969. I need to see The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie because Jane Fonda was a BEAST in this. She embodied cynicism. "Got it rigged before you even show up" which I'm sure a lot of us can relate to nowadays.
4. I looked it up and $1,500 in 1932 is $29,952.59 now. Put more perspective on how awful the Depression was. To go through that torture for other's amusement for $30k and more perspective on our earnings now. Imagine doing that...dancing for 60+ days for $30k. F that, amiright?
5. The second derby was amazing. Yeah, Sailor died but the camera cuts from person to person to person? The upbeat music over the misery of the contestants? People in formal wear were cheering? It was the best scene in my opinion.
6. Gig Young's 'Rocky' character is sleazy just like Richard Dawson's in the Running Man. A total corrupt showman/promoter/torture pimp.
7. Hole. E. Shit. The brief flash-forwards built up to that? They were subtle, not overdone. You could guess any which ways on what was going to happen. I love love LOVE the way Sydney Pollack juxtaposed Jane Fonda falling in the field the way the horse did at the beginning.
8. In the end, there were 6 couples left after 62 days. This is why I think the scoreboard is the main villain. No matter how much you push and sacrifice and struggle; you're just a number to a businessman. The businessman (Rocky) is a corrupt piece of shit, yeah but there's always a business to run no matter what field of work (or economic event like the Great Depression) to keep score of us all.
9. After that, I need to watch something more lighthearted. I think the film version of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" or "A Serbian Film" will cheer me up after that.
I found it enjoyable, the scenes were too long for my delicate attention span but none of them were wasted. Each offered insight into who characters were and/or their motives.
It's always nice to see actors act in older movies.
There is an enormous amount of doom and gloom around the couples, all of it is projected from someone whose inevitable doom wasn't noticeable.
The setting being decades before the movie makes me see the whole movie as a critique on society as a whole. Everyone having bills, the people sitting back and enjoying suffering with their free time while more poor people suffer incessantly.
I like that Eric Foreman made a mistake and went for the wrong woman and paid for it.
I liked the depth to Jane Fonda's characters past as opposed to someone who just wants to be outside and observe.
Thank you for the suggestion it's a movie, that I will always remember.
This is exactly like college. I have no idea what time class starts and I can never seem to find my pencil.
The last time I was in college it took me 4 years to get a 2-year art degree. I'm not foreshadowing or anything.
How do I know this really is real
I was held back in grade 5. Opened my report card on the school bus full of kids waiting to see if I failed or passed. I still remember the horror of failure as they laughed. I still have nightmares that I need one last math credit to graduate. I sense Chuck is going to be my Freddy Krueger.
Highly recommend everyone check the Wikipedia after watching this depression era black mirror...wow
Yowza.
I remember years ago when you did an early reading of 'Choke' at KGB in NYC. It was late afternoon and the audience was a bit punchy, smudgy day-drunk and awash with that grubby, stained light that filtered past gummy windows. You had a couple of giggle fits while reading, were awash with people post, and then as it slowly died down you asked what the piece of paper I was holding was. I told you it was my Movies To See list, you immediately snatched it, and scrawled both this flick and 'The Haunting of Hill House' right at the bottom...
I carved out time and watched this film for the first time last night. Holy shit I wasn’t prepared for that. Resonants with me on so many levels. And I bet I’m not alone. Thanks for introducing me to this masterpiece. Can’t wait to hear you discuss this within the context of the class.
I'd never seen this. I can't stop thinking about it. The tension (which i have trouble with in my writing) was unbearable sometimes, I needed to get up and walk away from the screen! Thank you for introducing this to me. I'm looking for more like it.
I've had this on my watch list for awhile so thanks for the excuse to finally watch it. I love Dancer in the Dark and Breaking the Waves, there is just something so sickly beautiful about martyrdom but I'm having trouble constructing a character that the audience sees as a genuine martyr and not as naive or weak.
Wow. How did I not know about this movie before? Like a comment below, I wasn't prepared for that, thank you so much for this! There is so many great things in it, it's hard to process...
Thank you for the introduction to this film, Chuck (Mr. Palahniuk). I thought it was great and I'm interested in seeing what people have to say in response to the quiz questions, as there's a lot to dissect and discuss. I also gotta ask - although I might be extrapolating a lil our of left field here - did this film have any influence on your book "Haunted"? I thought, whilst watching the film, that, although the people and circumstances are quite different, a bunch of desperate, exhausted, anaemic looking characters stuck in a remote location with increasingly drastic rising tensions and dangerous/absurd scenario's culminating in a tragic ending seemed a little reminiscent of a certain collection of short stories that I quite enjoy.
Despite the title, I was still totally unprepared for how tragic this was, and also, how it's weirdly like a depression era Battle Royale. I did not expect some sadomasochistic spectacle from the slow burn start.
I love the idea of a faith healer playing second fiddle to the faith, like they're just there to point it out and the audience does all the work. That the audience is the one with all the power.
My thoughts on the assignment:
1. The clock/days/couples left scoreboard in the back is the perfect foil for the couples. As the time goes up and couples go down, there's that descent. The movie star loses her looks, the Sailor's uniform is no longer white, the redhead dancing with the Sailor hallucinates things crawling on her, and so on. Rocky the emcee is an antagonist but to me, the main villain is the scoreboard (and I'll explain why later).
2. There's a scene in the movie Midsommar where the people are dancing around the pole and eventually all collapse. This is as tense as that scene but nearly two hours long. It's macabre how people would go to watch what is basically sponsored torture. A prelude to current reality tv where people will go naked in the African desert for 21 days for a few hundred thousand dollars. This brilliant movie has now come to life in the form of Survivor, Alone, Naked and Afraid and Big Brother.
3. I went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole and saw Jane Fonda lost the Oscar to Maggie Smith in 1969. I need to see The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie because Jane Fonda was a BEAST in this. She embodied cynicism. "Got it rigged before you even show up" which I'm sure a lot of us can relate to nowadays.
4. I looked it up and $1,500 in 1932 is $29,952.59 now. Put more perspective on how awful the Depression was. To go through that torture for other's amusement for $30k and more perspective on our earnings now. Imagine doing that...dancing for 60+ days for $30k. F that, amiright?
5. The second derby was amazing. Yeah, Sailor died but the camera cuts from person to person to person? The upbeat music over the misery of the contestants? People in formal wear were cheering? It was the best scene in my opinion.
6. Gig Young's 'Rocky' character is sleazy just like Richard Dawson's in the Running Man. A total corrupt showman/promoter/torture pimp.
7. Hole. E. Shit. The brief flash-forwards built up to that? They were subtle, not overdone. You could guess any which ways on what was going to happen. I love love LOVE the way Sydney Pollack juxtaposed Jane Fonda falling in the field the way the horse did at the beginning.
8. In the end, there were 6 couples left after 62 days. This is why I think the scoreboard is the main villain. No matter how much you push and sacrifice and struggle; you're just a number to a businessman. The businessman (Rocky) is a corrupt piece of shit, yeah but there's always a business to run no matter what field of work (or economic event like the Great Depression) to keep score of us all.
9. After that, I need to watch something more lighthearted. I think the film version of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" or "A Serbian Film" will cheer me up after that.
I found it enjoyable, the scenes were too long for my delicate attention span but none of them were wasted. Each offered insight into who characters were and/or their motives.
It's always nice to see actors act in older movies.
There is an enormous amount of doom and gloom around the couples, all of it is projected from someone whose inevitable doom wasn't noticeable.
The setting being decades before the movie makes me see the whole movie as a critique on society as a whole. Everyone having bills, the people sitting back and enjoying suffering with their free time while more poor people suffer incessantly.
I like that Eric Foreman made a mistake and went for the wrong woman and paid for it.
I liked the depth to Jane Fonda's characters past as opposed to someone who just wants to be outside and observe.
Thank you for the suggestion it's a movie, that I will always remember.