Another nice one. I love the way you analytically dissect the films, Descartes would be pleased. But I must admit that "revealed entirely through montage, using the editing to build a sensory gestalt that transcends dialogue" left me a bit perplexed. That's a bit gen X intellectually over-the-top don't you think? Which of course nicely exemplifies what "OK, boomer" is about (at least to our kids, if ever they read it :).
I mean, you could argue that I was mimicking Roeg's style, by slinging together a bunch of words to create a sense of meaning without any sensible meaning, but yeah, you have a point. Sometimes I just need to edit myself: be more Hitchock than Roeg and think and spell it out properly.
I just meant that the whole movie is a sort of collage or - to steal a metaphor from the movie itself - a mosaic of bits and pieces that goes together to make a mood - a sense of a story without ever quite revealing what that story is until the last moment when everything jells together and you can see the whole thing in retrospect.
Also I was, I guess, politely saying that the actual spoken script isn't great, but the film-making around it means that that doesn't quite matter as much as it ordinarily might.
It was made in the 1970s, and is set in the 1970s, so it’s very hard to see how it could have avoided the ‘attitudes of its time’, regrettable or otherwise.
Which brings me to ask what ‘regrettable attitudes’? What misogyny? What sexual prurience? What else?
Daphne du Maurier wrote the short story in 1971, which is the film’s source material, and again, it’s hard to see how both she and Roeg could have avoided the attitudes of the times.
Is this perhaps a regrettable reflection of a current-day trend to apply today’s standards to yesterday’s? Which, it seems to me, is bound to result in both flawed and unfair criticism.
It’s a terrific film. That’s all, apart from your excellent technical summarising, which I have no quibble with, that should be said.
But then, I did grow up in the 1970s, when there were far more regrettable attitudes prevailing than appear in Don’t Look Now.
"Donald Nether-lands" is KILLING me 😂
Another nice one. I love the way you analytically dissect the films, Descartes would be pleased. But I must admit that "revealed entirely through montage, using the editing to build a sensory gestalt that transcends dialogue" left me a bit perplexed. That's a bit gen X intellectually over-the-top don't you think? Which of course nicely exemplifies what "OK, boomer" is about (at least to our kids, if ever they read it :).
I mean, you could argue that I was mimicking Roeg's style, by slinging together a bunch of words to create a sense of meaning without any sensible meaning, but yeah, you have a point. Sometimes I just need to edit myself: be more Hitchock than Roeg and think and spell it out properly.
I just meant that the whole movie is a sort of collage or - to steal a metaphor from the movie itself - a mosaic of bits and pieces that goes together to make a mood - a sense of a story without ever quite revealing what that story is until the last moment when everything jells together and you can see the whole thing in retrospect.
Also I was, I guess, politely saying that the actual spoken script isn't great, but the film-making around it means that that doesn't quite matter as much as it ordinarily might.
In other words: "OK, Xer"
‘Regrettable attitudes of its time’?
It was made in the 1970s, and is set in the 1970s, so it’s very hard to see how it could have avoided the ‘attitudes of its time’, regrettable or otherwise.
Which brings me to ask what ‘regrettable attitudes’? What misogyny? What sexual prurience? What else?
Daphne du Maurier wrote the short story in 1971, which is the film’s source material, and again, it’s hard to see how both she and Roeg could have avoided the attitudes of the times.
Is this perhaps a regrettable reflection of a current-day trend to apply today’s standards to yesterday’s? Which, it seems to me, is bound to result in both flawed and unfair criticism.
It’s a terrific film. That’s all, apart from your excellent technical summarising, which I have no quibble with, that should be said.
But then, I did grow up in the 1970s, when there were far more regrettable attitudes prevailing than appear in Don’t Look Now.