Kino
Published writer
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Post by Kino on Oct 30, 2008 17:08:17 GMT
Has anyone seen it yet?
There's a 20-minute long take or something like that made possible by special film stock. Interesting to see if there'll be more directors asking for or wanting to use such stock. Mmmm, the possibilities.
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Post by bobbyreed on Oct 30, 2008 17:45:19 GMT
I'd like to see this but I don't know when/if it's playing here. Or if I missed it... Trailer here.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Oct 30, 2008 17:50:20 GMT
I might see this on Saturday.
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Post by svsg on Oct 30, 2008 19:34:44 GMT
Has anyone seen it yet? There's a 20-minute long take or something like that made possible by special film stock. Interesting to see if there'll be more directors asking for or wanting to use such stock. Mmmm, the possibilities. What is the maximum length allowed in a standard film medium? I didn't even know that there was a limitation. Actually, no. I knww that Bela Tarr mentioned in one of his interviews that Kodak film limited his length to 11 minutes at most and that it was a censorship in some sense. I had forgotten about it until you brought it up. BTW, please jump into the "education" thread, if you know about these things. Please
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Oct 30, 2008 19:48:03 GMT
Yeah, it's roughly 11 minutes. Apparently this shot (which I believe is a static full shot of two characters talking) is over 17 minutes long.
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Post by Anasazie on Nov 1, 2008 23:10:02 GMT
I actually thought the shot was 21 minutes. I've seen the film and this shot/scene really is the centrepiece. Quite an astonshing film aesthetically for a debut. I did find it a little superficial though, a little too obsessed with it's admittedly impressive style and doesn't transcend the physical in the way it wants to IMO. Still very much worth seeing though and a director to watch for sure.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 2, 2008 21:53:46 GMT
I saw this yesterday. I didn't time the shot, but it being the first 17 minutes of a 23-minute scene seems about right. Remember it cuts to a close-up when he starts telling the story about the foal.
I liked the film, and its quiet minimalism. It has some wonderful moments and some indelible images, but yeah, it is a little insubstantial. All this "it's not a political film, it's not a historical film, it's not it's not damn it it's not" is self-deception.
Of course, the film isn't called "The Last Days of Bobby Sands", it's called "Hunger", so it's supposed to transcend the historical-political. But if it's meant to be about the elemental-universal, about "when the body becomes the last resource for protest" (which is a great theme, I think), then why take on the inherently politically inflammatory story of Bobby Sands? Why bother if all you're going to do is denydenydeny, and insist that the act itself transcends the objective conditions that compelled the individual to action? Having your cake and eating it too, no?
Think about it, you could lose the context altogether and do like Last Days, where the film wouldn't really be about Sands. That'd involve losing that central scene. If you lost that and the Maggie Thatcher soundbites there wouldn't be much left to ground the plot in time and place. Except the prison warden's side-plot, I suppose, which was really just blunt and perfunctory (his murder is shown--and shown the way it's shown--just to combat allegations of IRA sympathy, don't you think?).
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 3, 2008 2:07:27 GMT
That shot of the guard sweeping up the urine was very Tsai-esque, wasn't it?
I'd like to see some more British cinema taking aesthetic cues from South-East Asia.
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Post by Anasazie on Nov 3, 2008 6:38:41 GMT
Absolutely!! Articulated in a more thorough way than i have, but it's quite hilarious how often we agree these days!
Again i couldn;t agree more. This section in particular was extremely contrived and only bogs the film down in its attempt create some kind of physically charged transcendence through using self as the ultimate protest. I found the film a little confused at times.
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Post by Anasazie on Nov 3, 2008 6:39:24 GMT
p.s. nothing is Tsai-esque, but Tsai!
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Feb 19, 2009 16:08:53 GMT
This frustrated me. I wanted to like it far more than I did; I seem to share both of your thoughts.
I thought it was a typical debut film from an artist; strong visually, but no rhythmic balance, and too loose and lacking focus in terms of narrative momentum. It feels fatally casual, as if the script was still in its "ideas" phase when production began. There's a fascinating epic in this that never materialises. Those early shots, for instance, of the warden's bloody knuckles, soothing and quiet going into tranquil water, didn't become the motif I thought they might, nor did anything else for that matter. His sectarian murder came as a surprise, but in the whole had little purpose.
What did you guys make of Sands's delayed entrance to the story? What was that sideplot with the other prisoner(s) early on all about? In fact, it's not even a sideplot; it's more of a main narrative thread that just hits a dead-end. It goes nowhere, and so cue Bobby Sands - let's follow him from now on.
I think I would have prefered it to be longer with more of a political edge; to have gone all the way with a complex, objective depiction of the IRA prisoners as well as the brutality they faced in prison. I didn't mind any of the political stuff in the film, but agree with RNL that as it stands in the finished film, it's perfunctory and self-defeating. It doesn't give any (f)actual context to proceedings and so unless you know of the history, it'll come across as muddled.
It's woefully imbalanced: that the hunger strike itself takes up so little of the film made me wonder why it was even called Hunger. Said strike is effective though, in how quick Sands seems to deteriorate physically. Fassbender's great, too.
Didn't like the turn into subjectivity towards the end, though; it became mournful and sentimentalist - though the musical drone accompanying Sands's final flashback was lovely, the flashback itself was clichéd and disruptive (if it was going to tackle Sands's emotional state alongside his physical deterioration, then it needed to go all the way, from the off, instead of attempting it towards the end).
Some powerful scenes, though. The gauntlet of armed guards beating the naked prisoners was extremely well done, with the obstinate camera floating through the chaos. I liked the penultimate shot too.
As it is though, though I liked its styles in themselves, they seemed to be competing against each other. On the one hand there was that quiet and disquieting static camera and then the roaming Steadicam; in between we've got jump-cuts lending momentum to a multiple-cell riot. It came off as a bit gimmicky when all thrown in together, as if McQueen has little hope in making another film. Maybe his next one will be more confident.
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Post by arkadyrenko on Feb 20, 2009 13:04:18 GMT
So, i take this is not about THE HUNGER, the only movie Tony Scott made which really is a pretty good movie and which he can get full credit for it, instead of sharing it with Quentin Tarantino.
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Post by ronnierocketago on Feb 20, 2009 18:35:14 GMT
I was gonna mention the decent CRIMSON TIDE, but I guess QT script doctored that too. Damn.
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Post by arkadyrenko on Feb 21, 2009 12:27:13 GMT
William goldman also script-doctored CRIMESON TIDE, and that's a fellow who in his good days is jsut oneof the ebst there is. So, as you can see, Tony's credit on CRIMSON TIDE got even more dilluted.
And we shall have to mention that CRIMESON TIDE also had one hell of a cast, all made of very talented actors who were, many of them, at the height of their powers, and that helps a hell of a lot.
And you can never go wrong with submarines.
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Pherdy
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Post by Pherdy on Feb 25, 2009 12:28:49 GMT
I saw this yesterday. I didn't time the shot, but it being the first 17 minutes of a 23-minute scene seems about right. Remember it cuts to a close-up when he starts telling the story about the foal. correct. I checked it on the dvd. the longtake is 16 and little over half a minute, but then there two cuts for additional takes that make the entire scene over 20 minutes long, ending with a medium close on Fassbender. remarkable contrast between the almost dialogue-free, haptic visuals of the first 45 and last 15 minutes and this long, static shot involving an obviously well rehearsed conversation. a little stage-play-within-a-film or something. great film by the way. I will see a more conventional biography about Bobby Sands, called " Some Mother's Son" (1996, Terry George), soon.
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Pherdy
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Post by Pherdy on Feb 25, 2009 12:42:25 GMT
If you lost that and the Maggie Thatcher soundbites there wouldn't be much left to ground the plot in time and place. Except the prison warden's side-plot, I suppose, which was really just blunt and perfunctory (his murder is shown--and shown the way it's shown--just to combat allegations of IRA sympathy, don't you think?). both prisoners and guards are the victims here, of the Thatcher-era "system". that's why there's a dual perspective (or triple, if you think of the first two prisoners and Sands as two separate perspectives). the film opens with the guard checking his car for bombs, watching out in the street for possible attackers, while his wife watches behind the curtains to see if his car ignites properly without blowing up. such was, apparently/possibly, the life of the guard. another character is shown crying when his colleagues beat up prisoners. they have no choice, unless they have the willpower of Bobby Sands, sacrificing his life for it. you can find it superficial, but it's not perfunctory - I found it essential for the film's message(s). What did you guys make of Sands's delayed entrance to the story? What was that sideplot with the other prisoner(s) early on all about? In fact, it's not even a sideplot; it's more of a main narrative thread that just hits a dead-end. It goes nowhere, and so cue Bobby Sands - let's follow him from now on. I found this structure confusing the first time, but refreshing the second time I saw it. it sort of fits in with what most of you recognized as this film not being too focused on politics/history/perspective. the lack of a central character, and even more so, the even greater lack of expositional and explanatory dialogue (except for the radio soundbites indeed, and the caption titles at the opening of the film) gives the specator full possibility to interpret the scenes as they wish, without commentary or obvious bias. this does changes a bit when, indeed very late, Sands makes his official entrance and his motivations and future hungerstrike become clear.
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