A Meta-Post and a Mega-Mess
When I don't post over the next few weeks, I'm not ignoring you. Or my precious blog. Or movies. Promise.
I'm away until the end of May on a book tour-- my first. I hope you'll think of me: I'll be reading poetry to the three grannies in the book store who actually came in to (finally!) get a paperback copy of The DaVinci Code. That whippersnapper Dan Brown is so dreamy.
But lest you think your visit here is all for naught, I will leave you with this discussion topic: why was The Aviator so very terrible? I will get the ball rolling: in biopics, it's not wise to suggest that everything about a person can be somehow explained by one single back story incident (in this case, Mommy compulsively washing little Howard to keep him safe and clean). That's just silly.
Your turn, legions of fans.
When I don't post over the next few weeks, I'm not ignoring you. Or my precious blog. Or movies. Promise.
I'm away until the end of May on a book tour-- my first. I hope you'll think of me: I'll be reading poetry to the three grannies in the book store who actually came in to (finally!) get a paperback copy of The DaVinci Code. That whippersnapper Dan Brown is so dreamy.
But lest you think your visit here is all for naught, I will leave you with this discussion topic: why was The Aviator so very terrible? I will get the ball rolling: in biopics, it's not wise to suggest that everything about a person can be somehow explained by one single back story incident (in this case, Mommy compulsively washing little Howard to keep him safe and clean). That's just silly.
Your turn, legions of fans.
posted by Jennica at 3:27 p.m.
4 Comments:
Oh, great question J! Like you, I'm not a biopic fan myself. There are some that I quite like, though -- Iris, Shine, Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould. And I completely agree with you that a person's life cannot be reduced to a single childhood incident. I do, however, appreciate when a biopic tries to cover *one* thread, or one aspect of someone's life (no one can represent an entire biography in two measly hours).
No, I didn't like The Aviator either, but I did admire that the filmmakers at least tried to include a premise in their film -- so many biopics treat every incident as something that's important and the film winds up being about nothing. With The Aviator it seemed like Scorsese/Logan were theorizing that Hughes was so intent on the future because he was outrunning his past. (I also thought that Hughes's mother wasn't just cleaning her boy, but that there was something else happening in that bathtub -- anyone else?)
But after that bathtub scene, and then a few scenes showing how wacko he was about 'building the future', their premise was complete and there really wasn't any more story progression. (Did we really need to see that many jars of pee?)
Walk the Line is similar to this film -- one childhood experience... and yet I thought this movie was much more successful. Each scene has a clear direction and works to further the premise/theme. And I know that M, you hated this movie, so please, tell me where I'm wrong!
Enjoy your tour, J!
Gah! I liked The Aviator! But I haven't seen it since its theatrical run, so I can't effectively defend it. I will say that I agree with the above post that Walk the Line was a successful bio pic because it focused on one thing -- the love story. Lack of that kind of focus is what doomed the previous year's bio pic, Ray.
ALL these biopics are shackled to the lower case "t" of truth, which doesn't let them find the capital, big TRUTH behind the events, the meaning, and what we can take from this life.
Plus, Scorsese's SO Oscar hungry, everything has to be "important" and at least 3 hours long. Get OVER it...having a lame story doesn't let us focus on your brilliant camera work, it just spoils everything.
Good tour, enjoy, bask!
Wave of the future,
chris
yep, that opening scene didn't get us off to a good start. But for me, now I like Leonardo DiCaprio, but he wouldn't have been my first choice for Howard Hughes. Hughes looked more like a big, strappin' Ernest Hemingway, not the smarmy distance runner DiCaprio. I couldn't get over that.
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