{"id":82372,"date":"2015-12-16T08:01:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T16:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=82372"},"modified":"2015-12-16T16:20:50","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T00:20:50","slug":"lost-in-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=82372","title":{"rendered":"Lost in Translation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.unz.com\/isteve\/the-secret-history-of-hollywood\/\">Comments to Steve Sailer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>* I\u2019ll never forget the well-earned farewell moment when Murray whispers into Johansson\u2019s ears.<\/p>\n<p>Perfect encapsulation of wistful.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone has that moment twice in a lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>She is dawn, he is twilight.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s uncertain as she\u2019s just beginning to live, he\u2019s certain that he\u2019s lived and it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n<p>Their paths cross, their lives are at the opposite sides of the horizon, and they \u2018get\u2019 each other.<\/p>\n<p>Last Tango is a darker twist on this theme.<\/p>\n<p>LIT mostly seems episodic and accidental, but when all that had happened crystallize in that penultimate scene, it\u2019s one of the most quietly stirring moments in cinema.<\/p>\n<p>Chance turns into fate, fleeting though it may be.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lpOdAHwRnXY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When John is waiting on the next business trip, you go up to that man, and you tell him the truth. Okay?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>* \u201cLost in Translation\u201d captures very well the feelings of a world traveler or an expat: the sense of wonder, the lure of the strange and the exotic, the sense of alienation, and the longing for and kinship with someone from home. And the ever present fatigue.<\/p>\n<p>* Lost in Translation is one of those blurry films that come into focus in a single magic moment.<\/p>\n<p>In mystery stories, there is the moment that ties everything together logically.<br \/>\nThe final piece of the puzzle clarifies what really happened and puts it altogether.<\/p>\n<p>But there are stories where the tie-in is emotional than logical. LIT doesn\u2019t have to solve or explain anything. In fact, much of the movie seems rather ordinary and pointless. Two expats just passing time in Japan. And even without that special scene at the end, it would still be a nice movie but then nothing more.<br \/>\nThat single moment changes all else, which take on a different hue and angle.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s like going on a meandering hike where you go through interesting places but it just looks like more of the same \u2014 trees, bushes, weeds \u2014 but then you come upon a spot where you get an overview of the entire area through which you\u2019d hiked. It\u2019d be just a small part of the hike but it changes your view of the whole experience.<\/p>\n<p>The ring scene in SIXTH SENSE had the same effect on me. I didn\u2019t much care as I watching it movie but that moment just pulled everything together and made me reevaluate all that had gone before.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s funny how a single keystone or linchpin scene can change everything. It\u2019s like the right note in a song.<\/p>\n<p>* Women in all walks of life seem to have problems understanding the following points:<\/p>\n<p>1.) You don\u2019t demand power, you take it; and<br \/>\n2.) You don\u2019t demand respect, you earn it.<\/p>\n<p>Go to the female financiers, (Larry Ellison\u2019s daughter is sitting on a nice pile all dedicated to financing films) and get them to buy scripts from women and then hire women to direct.<\/p>\n<p>Put the film into the marketplace and earn that respect that you think you deserve and all you need to do to earn that respect is to make good films which earn investors good returns. That\u2019s how men do it.<\/p>\n<p>* Milius is an interesting case. A decent enough film-maker but hardly great. I think he had more interesting ideas and possibly higher intellect than Lucas or Spielberg, but he was simply not a natural film-maker.<\/p>\n<p>His most special and personal film is no doubt THE BIG WEDNESDAY. I think he should have let someone else direct. His direction is shapeless and clumsy, all over the place. The movie does have its moment, and people hoped it would be another AMERICAN GRAFFITI. Handled properly, it could have been a more: a West Coast MEAN STREETS. But Milius just didn\u2019t have movie magic in his fingers. (I still love the ending. And the three fellas look fabulous.) https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9MBZ1jl94Cc<\/p>\n<p>His DILLINGER is pretty entertaining but lacks the dash of Penn\u2019s BONNIE AND CLYDE and the kick of Peckinpah.<br \/>\nKael was sort of right about Milius. He\u2019s too self-satisfied. He\u2019s too much at home with his myth of manhood. Now, if others were to handle the material, they could add some irony and tension. But when Milius directs his own material, it\u2019s too much a macho-smug manual on what it-means-to-be-a-man. It\u2019s like comic book Hemingway. It\u2019s teddy bear than real bear. He\u2019s too cuddly with himself. His material has to be treated by others with some distance.<br \/>\nMilius was so much into himself that when he was asked about Kael(who regularly bashed him), he would say that she really loves him.<\/p>\n<p>Another interesting figure who was more interesting as writer than director was Paul Schrader. Rosenbaum called Schrader a \u2018right-winger\u2019. But then, according to Rosenbaum, everyone right of Trotsky is a \u2018right-winger\u2019.<br \/>\nBut I see what he meant. Even though Schrader became more liberalish as he rebelled against his strict religious upbringing, his hangups and obsessions have SEARCHERS-like rightwing, conservative, and \u2018racist\u2019 roots. He did write TAXI DRIVER and direct MISHIMA.<br \/>\n(Rosenbaum\u2019s interview with Mekas in FILM THE FRONTLINE is pretty over the top. Rosen goes on and on about Schrader\u2019s \u2018rightwingerism\u2019 until even a lib like Mekas says he\u2019s not interested in that stuff)<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3697045?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents<\/p>\n<p>But Schrader, like Milius, just didn\u2019t have the movie magic.<\/p>\n<p>People just have different talents, and they know their limitations. Scorsese is a great director but probably not much of a writer.<br \/>\nThe negative impact of \u2018auteur theory\u2019 was encouraging directors to take fuller charge when it would have been better to work well with others.<\/p>\n<p>And some artists should just stick to what they are naturally good at. Norman Mailer, a great writer, has no film sense. His films are awful. Dylan, great composer, should leave other arts alone. His RENALDO AND CLARA is not film-making. He did become decent at painting though. McCartney\u2019s MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR is a total embarrassment.<\/p>\n<p>Milius and Schrader were good directors but nothing more. But then, film is the sort of artform where one doesn\u2019t have to be really good. If the material is good, and if the directing is proficient enough, it can be a good movie. Eastwood made his name that way. He never was the magician like Spielberg or the master like Scorsese, but he worked hard at it and became very good. Very honest.<br \/>\nOf course, the French like him for that reason. Their praise of Eastwood is really a kind of putdown of Americans. It\u2019s as if to say, \u2018you Americans make good honest hardy movies but leave the real Art Films to us.\u2019 It\u2019s like a French chef over-praising hamburger and Apple Pie as authentic American cooking. As for real artful cooking, leave it up to the French.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s interesting that a bunch of key directors had \u2018right-wing\u2019-ish tendencies even if they weren\u2019t politically rightist, and their films cast a long shadow.<\/p>\n<p>Peckinpah\u2019s STRAW DOGS was called \u2018fascist\u2019. Bergman, though no \u2018rightist\u2019, made the left \u2018queasy\u2019 with some of his films. Boorman\u2019s DELIVERANCE and ZARDOZ are quasi-fascist. So, is EXCALIBUR. Kubrick\u2019s films may not be conservative, but they certainly aren\u2019t leftist either. Scorsese usually says the proper things veiled somewhat PC-like, but his films tend to be very un-PC. Then, there was Schrader and Milius. Walter Hill made some movies that made Libs happy, but he also made LONG RIDERS and others that might make Libs wince. Though I heard the studio made GERONIMO\u2013Hill\u2019s adaptation of Milius script\u2013more PC, I still think it\u2019s a powerful piece of work.<br \/>\nLucas talks like a PC-tard but he was inspired by crypto-fascist Joseph Campbell, and he is obsessed with fascist aesthetics. Stone\u2019s mind is leftist, his gut instincts are rightist. Mann is sort of like the same way. Friedkin\u2019s movies are mostly unapologetic celebration of machismo. THE EXORCIST is possibly the most \u2018conservative\u2019 movie of the 70s, a porny moral tale against the porny devil. Lynch is a sort of deviant conservative who plays at being Lib. According to BLADE RUNNER FUTURE NOIR, Scott was a \u2018conservative\u2019 when he made the film. Probably just a mainstream Brit con, but the Wagnerianism of BLADE RUNNER has some dark subtexts about racial matters.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps, the reason why directors with right-wing tendencies(even if not politically rightist) strike a deeper chord is because they touch on the darker themes of human nature. They are more empathetic with what lies beneath.<br \/>\nThe liberal view is there is the Good, and we should be goody-goody, and then, there is the bad, and the bad is bad. Too simple. John Sayles is a good director but his films are morally so simple and lifeless. His one special movie is BABY IT\u2019S YOU and largely because it\u2019s not about politics.<br \/>\nRobert Redford is another good director, but most of his films are forgettable\u2026 but THE CONSPIRATOR was really good cuz it eschewed the easy moralism of his earlier films.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comments to Steve Sailer: * I\u2019ll never forget the well-earned farewell moment when Murray whispers into Johansson\u2019s ears. Perfect encapsulation of wistful. Everyone has that moment twice in a lifetime. She is dawn, he is twilight. She\u2019s uncertain as she\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=82372\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hollywood"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82372"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82452,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82372\/revisions\/82452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}