Go back to previous topic
Forum namePass The Popcorn
Topic subjectI think that's the reason why passion projects (no pun intended)...
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=265191&mesg_id=265418
265418, I think that's the reason why passion projects (no pun intended)...
Posted by Frank Longo, Tue Mar-20-07 02:03 PM
>I think you're making a genre assumption about The Passion
>that's difficult to support. It's a work of devotion, more
>Thomas a Kempis than Spielberg. That might not be a move
>that's permitted or viable in films - which is something I'd
>have to take your word on. Or it might just be a poorly
>executed of devotion, but I think he'd probably admit to
>assuming that viewers already knew and cared about Christ and
>the Passion narrative and that was part of the point.
>
>I don't really have a good movie analogy for the sort of point
>I'm trying to make here. Perhaps I'll come up with one
>eventually.
>

...often don't make good "movies", per se. Those who share the passion of the director love it, hence SPM's comment about crying. But in terms of storytelling? Instead of having a clear conflict-resolution that moves, it's stagnant-- more like a portrait. We begin with him getting beaten, and we aren't really shown or told why until over halfway through the movie, which is why the violence seems all the more fetishized and looks like "the point" rather than the tale of the Ascension.

>>There are several who get better performances out of
>>their actors.
>
>I'm also not sure whether to take this as a criticism or
>simply at face value, the latter meaning that he's simply out
>of "the top five" (which probably isn't a useful construction
>anyhow). I thought the performances he got out of both Monica
>Bellucci and Maia Morgenstern in TPOTC were pretty phenomenal,
>and in an ancient language as well. Apocalypto was full of
>relative newcomers who turned in fine performances. I'm not
>well-versed enough in how this all works, but it seems
>unlikely that he just lucked into an entire cast of hidden
>gems for Apocalypto.

Well, right, it's not a useful construction. I agree that he gets good performances out of actors, especially considering that language barrier. I was MUCH more interested in The Passion when he talked about releasing it without subtitles, like a silent movie of sorts. That really, really fascinated me, the difficulties in storytelling and acting inherent within it. But I think the producers saw the film, saw that the storytelling really wasn't clear without dialogue that an audience could understand, and put it back in.

Also, Mel turns his characters into "types", where the complexity might be sacrificed in order to create a mythological story, something larger than life. Braveheart, Passion, and Apocalypto all do this to a degree (Braveheart to a very large degree, but that's another post).

>Uh... that's pretty much it for what I have to add. I've
>often considered that I'm not a great judge of acting, so I'm
>willing (to a degree) to be corrected on some of these points.
> The objective behind this post (the troublesome "top five"
>thing) seems less interesting here than the possibility that
>Gibson's ambition would be a lot more highly thought of here
>(and elsewhere) if people didn't find him so personally
>problematic. I don't have any particular problem with that -
>voting with your feet is a time-honored tradition, but it
>seems to occasionally result in a rather abrupt discussion of
>some interesting films.

I have no problem with judging directors separately from their personal life-- two of my favorite directors are Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, lol. However, I do think that's why people are quick to dismiss and maybe view these films waiting for something troublesome rather than go in with a blank slate and see what materializes.