ol' eddy wrecks

Or this weekend at the rate my brain and schedule is going. After everyone else has moved onto discussing Rocky. Be careful, you're walking into a semantic minefield here. Akin to how in German (at least to my understanding), The Trial doesn't refer to just the trial, but all the processes and proceedings that lead up to it. Though in the case of the author's wife, before we cut away, had reaction shots, that I interpreted as the beginning of the... I don't know of a way to say this other than, "penetration". I'd have to double-check if it was slowed down for stylized-dramatic effect (I'm not getting to the blood post in this movie, but the short version is, ultimately it doesn't seem like there is much blood in this movie, even for when Alex is injured. Violence as a whole is conveyed through other means. Which is relevant here because we get an emphasized reaction shot). I know you're responding directly to a comparison to seeing a knife go into a body... but, this feels like having to go into uncomfortable detail of what would be considered "showing a rape" (and my memory is inconveniently going sketchy on the details of whatever scenes I've seen in other movies). I've typed and deleted the start of this thought enough times to come to the conclusion, this is not a good direction for this conversation to be steering in.

I'm going to throw this out there, I feel we've been talking a lot about the role and appropriateness of violence in this movie are for its themes. And we keep referencing its themes a lot, but I think I've only seen one or two posts attempt to spell out its themes. I think I saw @sycasey 2.0 and one other poster actually try to express what they felt the overall theme/thesis/point of the movie is. It might not hurt to take a moment to actually articulate something, just to make sure we're actually talking around each other. Other people first of course ;). Because it's midnight here and I have work tomorrow. I've also forgotten to do the list comparisons for both this and Sophie's Choice. I'll try to get to that tomorrow night. I might also try to do some of the comparisons of how the different Kubrick films rank compared to this on the different lists (partially because it seems like a lot of us wish a different Kubrick film was here instead of ACO, and partially because I knew off the top of my head, that happens to be more of the case for the BFI list). If time permits tomorrow, I'll also finish that bullet point list of blood in the movie (for reference) and give some thoughts on it besides just a factual account, but these things do start to eat up time.

This is something I also wished to express, and can't think of a better way to say it, so I'll just quote it here.

That could also be a generational thing. How much violence was in films when they were younger. I was also expecting a larger gender divide, but there might be self selection going on as well. The people most likely to hate it know of its reputation and just don't watch (and then don't rate it).

My condolences always come out poorly, ether feeling wordy or sounding possibly trite. But I am sorry that you have experienced this personally. I would not disagree with this statement. Regardless of whatever further discussion I have of it still, of which, I imagine there will be some barring time constraints, I do want to at least acknowledge this.

There's more meaty stuff I should be replying to, but I did want to throw this out there (but I have a lot of movie-watching to do tonight when I get home. hopefully). On the topic of the unreliable narrator, I don't think Alex is supposed to be Rashomon-type unreliable. It seems like everything he describes happened, does in fact happen. Just the tone and the take-away is sociopathic and wrong. And in that sense, he's unreliable as the moral voice of the story. It's been about two decades, but that's how I also remember the book. However, of interesting note, Kubrick also adapted Lolita, which I can't remember if Humbert Humbert was also unreliable in the book, Rashomon style, or "only" unreliable in the sense of what I described above (and also unreliable in terms of events happening of large importance that get a small comment in passing as if it weren't important. So unreliable of scope as well). And the movie Kubrick did right after Clockwork was Barry Lyndon, which is an adaptation of a Thackeray novel, which had an unreliable narrator (IIRC, of the Rashomon variety). I think I read somewhere it was supposed to the first literary case of an unreliable narrator, but I'm trying to fact check that, because statements like that always seem to turn out false when I try to verify them later. I recall an interview with Kubrick saying he couldn't keep it as unreliable in the film, for reasons I can't remember how he articulated the problems of. But the 3rd person narrator in the movie, is bitingly ironic as hell. I think the one thing we can all agree on, unfortunately there is no part of any of part of ACO, that could, in any way, possibly be a Jacob's Ladder scenario, what-so-ever.

I'd have to listen to the episode again, but I would guess, truthfully, I think Amy just hates Taxi Driver (I can't remember her ranking of it), and that was her attempt to differentiate the two. It's quite possible that she really just hates the gritty 70s movies, and while ACO is dark and violent like the 70s, it's stylized and not gritty. Or (more closely to her literal answer), ACO seems more overt, at least on some level, you should dislike the protagonist. Or maybe she just ran into more people for a longer time that live Taxi Driver, and she's effectively experienced backlash against them both, but more strongly with Taxi Driver (or it has calcified more strongly). Or maybe my entire attempt to spitball psycho-analyze is pure folly. I do think the uncomfortable line about art, though phrased such that it sounds like it applies to art universally, isn't intended that way literally. It's just a common trait if something challenges pre-conceived notions.

I also want to point out based on @AlmostAGhost's post, gifs on twitter agree with Pauline Kael. You can't picture Meryl Streep from the neck down.

Lost in Translation could conceivably make the next list (and then spend the subsequent decades falling off of it), but that would be one for Scarlett Johansson. After that, I really liked Under the Skin, but that's my sensibilities, and probably not the AFI's sensibilities (though I'm also trying to think of answers for my own sensibilities for myself since my sensibilities matter more to me than the AFI's tastes). And Her is more of a Joaquin Phoenix centered movie though she does play a lead role. So that's potentially a stretch for three. I'd have to look, but maybe Nichole Kidman had multiple great movies? I mean, there was a stretch where she was in a lot of movies. I'm assuming for this we can count non-American movies, e.g. Lars von Trier movies, if we need to stretch/reach. ETA: Charlize Theron has both Monster and Fury Road (which lots of people felt like she was the real lead in that movie, though people love it more for its world and caricatures). Those are both movies I could conceive as showing up in some version of the AFI list (disclaimer: I haven't seen Monster. I just know it had a lot of praise, though I don't remember if it was standard Oscar-fare type of praise).

"Part of me wonders if films where a female is top billed are just less likely to be considered great." I was going to ask if you meant lead actress or actress in a lead role? I think actresses can be considered the lead actress even of their role isn't the primary part of the movie. That's relevant for considering movies like Her or The Master as being counted for this (ignoring for now whether people would count them as great movies). As of right now, I think Michelle Williams might work because of her movies with Kelly Reichardt. Though, that's my sensibilities of great movies (Meek's Cutoff and Wendy & Lucy) and I don't know if my opinions will age well, even for me.

Oh snap! After referencing Hiroshima mon Amour so much in the thread, I was trying to avoid recreating its structure completely and decided, for coping with grief you didn't need to define her existence post Holocaust purely in terms of her relationship with Nathan, that maybe push the beginning to before she met Nathan. Though I was also thinking of flashbacks being handled non-linearly (because that's not how memory works). Though, we did get them linearly in SC, didn't we? We just got lies first and the flashback of how she met Nathan first, IIRC. So maybe that would have been That said, I think the narrative structure isn't necessarily what made a movie Oscar bait (though following the same formulas probably wouldn't help). Though, trying to identify what makes Oscar bait actually Oscar bait is probably hard to actually identify in a way that doesn't also pull in movies that one wouldn't think of as being Oscar bait.

Tinto Brass was originally going to do Clockwork at one point, but then he went off and did The Howl (his only movie that I've seen) and Kubrick grabbed the rights to the book or something. This was after Brass' phase of doing softcore porn and before his later phase of doing softcore porn. What I'm saying is, yeah, this was a genre film. Though that doesn't make it mutually exclusive from being an art film. Kubrick's my favorite director, like Sycasey, I don't think this is a top 5 Kubrick. Like everyone else, I liked it a lot more when I was young. It's one of the few Kubrick's that actually got weaker for me over time. That said as I was rewatching it, I still enjoy the hell out of it (well, not the main rape scene. That is... uncomfortable). That said, I enjoy The Warriors, but if you were to strip all the weird characters out of The Warriors, I'd enjoy that movie a lot less. I would not place The Warriors on the AFI top 100 list. At least, I don't think. It seems like "in the bottom 50" anything goes with people. I think I had a point there, but then lost it. Oh well.

Anyhow I'm halfway through my rewatch for the podcast and at some point in it, I started making notes of where there is blood (and a couple where there is not). Blood on Vampire Alex's teeth in the beginning while he's daydreaming to music Blood on Dim's hand when Alex pushes Dim into the waterway, and pretends he's going to help him up, he pulls out a knife and slices Dim's hand. There's a streak of blood. The movie draws out/slows down this scene. I'm guessing that's a timing/editing issue for the music than necessarily dramatic emphasis. At least purely dramatic emphasis. This is one the few instances where you see blood come out of someone from a wound onscreen, and it's a streak. No Blood on head wound to Alex. When Alex breaks into cat lady's place, she strikes him on the head with a statue of Beethoven. There is no blood. No Blood on Alex when a milk bottle is broken on his face - scene after cat lady break in where he's betrayed by his droogs Dried blood on gauze on Alex's broken nose in police station No Blood comes out when the officer presses down on Alex's broken nose Blood on Alex's face and interrogation room's wall when parole officer comes in, after the police "interrogate" him. Note, the blood is present/static in the scene as it's revealed. In jail, during Alex's fantasy about being a Roman, he slits a man's throat. You briefly see blood. Like Dim's wound, it is a thin line of blood. During treatment, starting video of a gang beating up a man. There is blood on his face as he comes onto screen. Comparable to the amount to Alex in jail/"interrogation" scene I'll also note that there are a lot of close ups on the author's face and the wife as she's being raped. Right before Alex bludgeons the cat lady, there is a zoom in of her face screaming in terror (well zooming in and zooming out). At first when I started taking these notes, I thought it was going to be, well, blood is judiciously used because a lot of yaddy, yaddy, yaddy, various craft and/or dramatic-stylistic reasons. But looking closely, I think they just had technical challenges getting the blood to look right (it was 70s, bleeding red, not blood, type of blood, in case it's relevant), so they had to limit the usage not to draw attention to it. The only scenes where blood is drawn from a wound are the two knife slit wounds, and there's a lot of delay in them, and you only get a thin line. Amy's take that the movie empathizes with Alex is one worth considering, but I think the blood, or the lack there-of, is not the evidence Amy is looking for. Though I'm really wondering exactly how Amy meant the, "well, his victims deserved it." In terms of, did she actually feel they were bad people or just that the movie unfairly treated them as bad people. Because it sounded like the former when she said it.

That quote, at least as it was presented, did make him sound really defensive. Though, I think he probably didn't like the banned Video Nasties (not that ACO was banned as a Video Nasty since it was withdrawn voluntarily) in the UK in principle and remember the talk of restricting video game violence growing up, I guess I could get into that headspace. Granted, I was a teenager when I was growing up. Kubrick was roughly 40 when he made ACO, so who knows.

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/31/books/publishing-clockwork-orange-regains-chapter-21.html On the 21st chapter, I was going to say, Paul had it backwards. Burgess wanted the 21st chapter happy ending (it goes with his view of the importance of choice, though following a belief that as a child grows into adulthood, he will become a man (get it? Chapter 21. Yeah, Burgess said that was an explicit choice too) and start choosing more... human/humane decisions. And that can't be programmed by God or, increasingly, the state (related to the title A Clockwork Orange). At least that was my recollection from my copy of the book. And so, from Burgess' point of view, the 21st chapter was wanted, but he was convinced to drop it for the American audience. According to the article, the American publisher suggested it and Burgess said his British publisher convinced him to add it on in Britain. Either way, Kubrick made his movie from the American version, to my understanding, not being aware there was a 21st chapter (which is weird to think about, because I think he was living in England at the time and everyone else in the movie is British, aren't they?) Anyhow, I'll have lots to say about this one later. For now though, I'll also leave you with the following video I found. Since it came up in the top 25 questions poll, what movie I'd like people to see, I chose what I feel is the underseen movie, A Funeral Parade of Roses, and my av is a screenshot from the movie, this seems like an appropriate time to bring this comparison up: (NSFW warning: since the comparison scenes includes the sped up sex scene from ACO) https://vimeo.com/132935332 I've heard that it is apocryphal that FPoR was a favorite of Kubrick and have never been able to find any first person evidence indicating he has ever seen it. Though some of the scenes between the two seem stylistically very similar. (Though putting them side by side, it actually seems less obvious. e.g. The sped up scene in FPoR isn't sped up as much as ACO, so seeing them side-by-side doesn't make it seem like it's going fast). Though, it isn't like FPoR wasn't influenced by other movies (and other people working on ACO may have seen it and contributed ideas, who knows), though, boy the shopping scenes always stick out in my head as the most similar. The possibility of them both (ACO and FPoR) being influenced by similar movies though, does make me think, while we do start to see the formation of certain styles and techniques in ACO that we see again in later Kubrick movies (the close-up to zoom out that feels like we're going from a close-up portrait to a larger social scene containing a society in which the original individual is only a part of, or in the case of Barry Lyndon, going from a portrait to a landscape, though with also the same possible thematic implications), we see things in this movie that I don't think we see in his other films. There's much more of a frenetic pace. E.g. (I need to rewatch, but I'm trusting my memory here) When he bludgeons the cat women with the penis statue, I believe that's when there's a quick cut to and from her mouth to a piece art of a cartoon mouth screaming. And you have what I refer to as the dancing Christ scene (still statues of multiple Christs that look like they're dancing due to the cuts between his hands and feet). So, if he didn't take FPoR, or maybe another Japanese New Wave film, is it possible, given the time when he made this movie, that those differences in this film was him being influenced by the French New Wave? But yeah, I'll probably have more to say on this one later.

Drop Stingo almost altogether. Sophie's choice between life and death doesn't need to be represented between two men. And I don't know if Stingo is really life, but rather going with him means leaving Nathan (and the act of leaving Nathan means choosing life.) The question would be where do you start the movie. Just spitballing an idea, maybe start with her romance with Nathan, but I'll say start earlier. Start with Sophie as she's adjusting to life in America. Nathan is introduced. Nathan himself is actually both life and death in the survivor guilt theme. His manic moments takes Sophie's brings life into her... life. And his abusive moments triggers flashbacks (actually, lots of things can trigger flashbacks. Either moments where she gets emotional setbacks and becomes depressed, or just sees things that make her think of that time - Nathan's wall of Nazi news articles certainly seems like it would be a trigger/transition), which will lose voice-over explaining things, and you'll have to have more represented on screen (since we've lost Stingo as a character, that's plenty of time added). This feels like it would actually give the film more time to focus more on moving on with one's life and the survivor's guilt she has to deal with. Sorry, this feels abbreviated on my part, yet at the same time, I'm not sure what I'd add to expand on it. Well, that is asking "was the writer good enough to write a better movie about something he doesn't have direct personal experience with," to which I don't know how to answer that hypothetical. Granted, I think I'm the person who's the most down on the movie here, so it's kind of a, if he failed, there's less of a loss from my perspective.

The hiding part was partially in response to seeing people discuss whether she's deceptive and machiavellian. I hadn't listened to the episode yet and assumed the issue of lying (possibly by omission) about her father being in support of the Final Solution was brought up (and the perceived general shifting of support of him changed as she changed the story), and not just the notion of strategic fainting and trying to seduce a gestapo officer at the request of another inmate... Boy, I'll just say, I don't think it's uncommon to have your eyes open after you faint (reference to the podcast), but are still too light-headed and weak to get up. Though I think I'm more befuddled by Amy thinking Sophie and Nathan having a "passionate, tumultuous" romance, well, in a positive way. Because I guess Nathan was passionate and tumultuous. I was just fully expecting Sophie to end up with bruises and possibly a black eye during the movie. But maybe more on that later.

Adult diapers. I heard that from interviews with Senators once about the possibility of a filibuster.

I don't think it's supposed to be viewed as two different halves, but that's how it feels (and actually, more like 2/3rds and 1/3rd, but still discrete). And my guess is it comes from so much time being spent on Stingo and his perspective. I can understand the idea of having a naive person coming to terms with realizing how emotionally complex another person's life is (or two, if we count Nathan), but something in the execution of it all just really doesn't seem to work. Currently I'm attributing it to Stingo's point of view, which due to his sexual inexperience takes up and feels like it frames too much of the film. (for example of how the movie is focused on his love interests; apart just from him being a narrator, we get the whole story of the one woman "who was really horny after she got into analysis." If his point of view wasn't supposed to be a focal point or lens of the movie, then that scene becomes superfluous. Stuff like that). This is really starting to contrast in my mind to Hiroshima, mon Amour*, which is a movie I really need to rewatch, because that's one of those, "I watched it much longer ago than I now realize, only once, but really liked it" movies. I would watch it on filmstruck, but I think I actually bought it on iTunes at some point, and I want to focus on the filmstruck movies I'm likely to not be buying before it goes dark for some months. *: Just for the people who haven't seen it, it's about two people who have just become lovers in Japan, a French woman and a Japanese man. They have both lost someone in the war (here's a hint, for the man, the movie is called Hiroshima, mon Amour. The woman's case is more complicated), and the movie is about how and if they can move on from their losses and dealing with the memory of them.

Not survivor of the Holocaust story, but Hiroshima, mon Amour came to mind in terms of comparable movies of what does do when what they cared for is lost. It doesn't have the guilt-ridden, and I'd say self-destructive qualities of Sophie for hating herself for actively choosing her daughter to die. (I haven't listened to the episode yet, but Sophie's relationship is an abusive one, and her return to it seems driven by self hatred). I wish I remembered Jules et Jim better (or at all, beyond just not clicking with it/was just expecting something else. It's been a few years since I've seen it and it just didn't stick in my mind) for a weird (emotional) throuple-like situation. Since I noticed Sophie's Choice is on filmstruck, I noticed it listed Au Revour, Les Enfants as a related movie. So I'm trying to get through that as well, before filmstruck goes away, just for another point of comparison. Because, also, I didn't actually like this movie. Amongst other things, I don't really care for 80's melodrama, so I'm kinda of wondering if 80's French drama plays differently to me. What I'm saying is, this movie is starting to seem like an almagan of other movies I've seen and I felt like the various parts might have been underserved because of it. I also think all the lying Sophie does is as much for emotional coping with herself (not having to face the past) as much as it is to be considered acceptable to Kevin Kline's character. I'm not sure how well the movie would play a second time with that knowledge. Since I didn't enjoy the movie overall, it probably wouldn't help too much, but it might enrich repear viewings for people who did.

I haven't listened to the episode yet due to Thanksgiving, but if someone could also get the Rick & Morty clip that's referencing Sophie's Choice, that'd be great. I'm pretty sure it was from the Morty Mindbender's episode.

Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, All The President's Men, and The Princess Bride would all work now as in memoriam of William Goldman. ACO, if it wasn't coming up now would also work for July 4th (or July 14th). But I don't know if either is strong enough to warrant overriding a die roll. Though Jaws for shark week is pretty undeniable since Jaws is probably indirectly responsible for Shark Week.

Well, that and I think they said he was on his feet for 23 hours talking. Which in retrospect, did I hear or remember that number wrong? Because just staying awake for 23 hours straight can be taxing on the body. While, yes, you get the the sense that that was what knocked his knees out from him and caused him to finally collapse, IIRC, in response to them, wasn't that when he went over to Paine and said, I guess this was just another lost cause. It gave me the impression he was saying he was still going to fight for it (though, I guess that could have been taken as acceptance and summary as he collapsed). i.e. It might be a lost cause, but it was one worth fighting for (callback to earlier in the movie). Just from an execution standpoint dramatic beat point, there isn't really anything for him to do at that point except collapse (as opposed to keep fighting for another 5 hours and then collapsing).

I never did the list comparison stuff: BP Status: nominated, winner -> Gone With the Wind (#7 on the list) AFI Ranking (2007): 26 AFI Ranking (1997): 29 BFI - Critics Vote Count: 0 BFI - Critics Ranking: N/A BFI - Crictics Ranking (US Filtered): N/A BFI - Director Vote Count: 0 BFI - Director Ranking: N/A BFI - Director Ranking (US Filtered): N/A IMDB Ranking: 164 IMDB Rating: 8.2 Metascore: 73 They Shoot Films: 653 The Shoot Films (US Filtered): TBD BP Status: nominated, did not win. winner was Gone With the Wind (#7 on the list) The BFI results kind of stand out there, in that I think it's the first that didn't get any votes in either poll. And Americans are in the poll. Given the contrast with its AFI ranking, the two things that it makes me think is, lots of people like this movie, but it's just not a top 10 movie for most people*. Granted, I did come down kinda hard on this movie, so that's skewing how I'm interpreting those numbers. *: or at least people who vote in these polls. Unless the people selected for these two polls just have radically different tastes.

I'm not seeing any obvious ones that should override a die roll (though I don't know if I would have picked It's a Wonderful Life out of the list). Anniversary showings where a movie returns to the big screen would make sense, like 2001 was. Only one I know of right now that's slated to do that is Schindler's List.