This is where you admit that you didn't understand [film x], and someone else explains it for you (LIKELY SPOILERS)

Date: 30 August 1999
Summary: Haste war du cinema

Godard scholarship, lined along the axes of variants of French post-structuralism, would appear to have gotten it all wrong: a Godard movie can't be assimilated into a coherent and non-self-contradictory statement about work, gender, representation, or whatever academically approved topic you might name; it can't even be assimilated into a coherent process. What has to be confronted is that the work is essentially diaristic and subjective; these films are the more or less uncensored insides of Godard's head, not a white paper on a topic (no matter how "challenging" or "frustrating to expectations").

It also must be acknowledged that for Godard, even ideation is essentially sensuous, aestheticisable; ideas, like a piece of irruptive slapstick staging, a stale aphorism, a blast of the Mozart Requiem, are objects of delectation and desire, and finally repositories of aesthetic emotion--handwrapped presents. To say that the ideology of Godard's Maoist period was finally another aesthetic object for him is not to condescend to him as a radical-chicster. Very simply, Godard is an artist for whom the gland that produces aesthetic feeling works ten times more overtime than anyone else.

This produces the jarring and sometimes tonic feeling that we are overhearing the disordered and associative thoughts of God as He falls asleep. In a late, lyric work like HELAS POUR MOI, this quality becomes transcendent: the film is like a communication from a higher alien intelligence. In PASSION, that desire to aestheticize everything in sight, to wave a wand marked "excruciating beauty," in essence to make like a cinematic Goldfinger, is tripped up by the story Godard was required to tell in order to receive funding.

The necessity of telling a story is one of the (many) subjects that flit by in this production, which followed Godard's minorly popular comeback, EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF. And the story Godard tells is so halfheartedly offered it disrupts the all-pervasive atmosphere of heightened lyricism he generates elsewhere. In essence, it's the same old movie about the making of a movie: the director (Jerzy Radzilowicz) is an idiot caught between a virginal proletarian (Isabelle Huppert!) and a slatternly hanger-on (Hanna Schygulla). The director pontificates, the producer (Michel Piccoli) avoids paying checks, and the inevitable phone calls for completion funds are delivered in dirty rooms.

If this reminds you of everything from BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE to LIVING IN OBLIVION you're right; but nothing in those movies compared to Godard's strategy of contempt-uously making his stars Huppert and Piccoli stutter and cough, respectively. Or to the moment when a grip tells a child extra out of nowhere, "O those who will come after us--do not harden your hearts against us."

PASSION reminded me of John Simon's review of LE GAI SAVOIR, which began in the manner of, "I have seen no movie more illucid, arbitrary, and, yes, insane as..." PASSION genuinely is insane--it raises every line, every gesture, every landscape to a plane of unbearable intensity, and refuses to draw any lines between them. The cumulative effect suggests the personality of a slightly depressed but highly stimulated schizophrenic. Godard's late work is so beyond the prison of our narrative and identificational expectations that we may have to wait several lifetimes for its voice to be genuinely, not just indulgingly, heard.

(my friend and i have a running joke about susan sontag's hyperbolic praise of certain movies)

Haven't seen TLADILA since it played in theaters! Gotta see that again.

Stuff and things.

That's it.

There's really not much to it, you're probably confusing yourself by overthinking it. Friedkin has already shown throughout the movie that he's fond of using cut-backs to earlier footage in order to establish something like thematic unity (remember the brief shot of Chance bungee jumping during the car chase scene that was there to drive home the point that he was constantly tempting fate?), and this is just a cut-back to Chance's earlier arrival at the chick's house. I interpreted it as further hammering home what we've already seen (through Vukovich adopting Chance's swagger and sartorial sense, beside the fact that he explicitly states that he's "in charge now", or whatever that last line in the movie was), which is that Vukovich is completely taking over Chance's role. Now he is the corrupt "bad cop", and has had that same thanatic compulsion that got Chance killed kindled in himself. In a way it's almost as if Vukovich's upright character is the one that dies, while Chance lives on in an utterly transformed Vukovich.

As for Grimes and Masters' girlfriend, I think it was just more material to establish that Masters wasn't just a common criminal; we're supposed to think that he was a really deep guy (as if him being an artist who hung out all the time with modern dancers wasn't enough). There's nothing between Grimes and the girl other than that they'd both been relatively close to Masters and they both (despite Grimes' assertion that it was "all business") recognized how special he was, or whatever.

Yeah, so what didn't you get? I think your description is probably the most insightful commentary on it I've ever read.....though you neglected to mention the supporting role of "Son-of-Man-Flesh-on-Bone".

Wether thats a copout or what I dont know, but thats what he's said. If I could find a link to a quote I would...

But maybe that's still a copout.

Music. An imitative polyphonic composition in which a theme or themes are stated successively in all of the voices of the contrapuntal structure.
Psychiatry. A pathological amnesiac condition during which one is apparently conscious of one's actions but has no recollection of them after returning to a normal state. This condition, usually resulting from severe mental stress, may persist for as long as several months.

That sums the film up quite nicely I think.

Still doesnt explain what the hell it was about though.

Lost Highway has basically the same plot as Mulholland Drive, but in reverse order. Fred Madison is suspicious that his wife is cheating him, though he has no real proof. His wife wasn't home when he rang her, and may have seen her with another man, but that may just be his imagination. However, he can't get over his growing suspicions and jealousy. The guy with the white make-up represents his jealousy, that's why he's "at your [Fred's] house" in the scene where he telephones the guy. The house represents Fred's mind, and the videotapes symbolize his growing madness/jealousy. Dick Laurent, mentioned at the beginning of the film, is the object of his suspicions, the one he thinks his wife is cheating him with. Fred's jealousy finally results in him killing her. He's caught, but suffers from amnesia - his psyche can't cope with the fact that he killed his wife.

In one interview, Lynch mentions a real, existing psychological phenomenon, in which the psyche of a person who suffers from overbearing guilt and mental stress can make him to forget his past and invent a new presonality, one which doesn't carry the guilt of the former. This is exactly what happens to Fred in prison; he turns into another person. The realist approach to the second half of the film is that happens inside Fred's mind, the surrealist option is that Fred's mind actually changes the world around him. You can take your pick. After Fred changes into Pete Dayton he wants to relive his romance with his wife, but in a purer form, free of jealousy. Because the second half of the film is basically Fred dreaming, it half steers away from realism, resembling a pulp novel or a cheap crime flick. Pete falls in love with Alice/Renee, a gangster's girlfriend who's afraid of her abusive boyfriend. The boyfriend is of course Dick Laurent in the guise of "Mr. Eddy". But even in his dream Fred/Pete can't escape his jealousy, which is why he again begins to suspect Alice's/Renee's relationship to Dick Laurent isn't as simple as she claims. The white make-up guy (Fred's jealousy) makes a reappearance, and because the dream didn't work as it was supposed to, Pete turns back to Fred and kills Dick Laurent, the object of his suspicions.

Realizing what he's done, Fred tries to warn his past self, using the door phone. "Dick Laurent is dead", he says to his former self - there's no need for jealousy. But because the film is structured as it is, this is only the beginning of the story, and he ends up killing his wife again and again. He's caught in a forever loop of jealousy and madness, the Lost Highway.

I know there are some pieces that don't exactly fit this puzzle (Pete's parents references to "that night", the detectives the photograph at the end of the film etc.) but Lynch himself has said that doesn't want his mysteries thoroughly solved. Mystery stories like Lost Highway are far more effective if they elude a final resolution, if they're left at least partially unexplained.

as for lost highway i always figured that bill pullman actually did turn into balthazar getty, i don't see why there is this ardent need to "explain" it in terms of psychological phenomena when it's a movie, after all. i guess the film does establish a certain rapport with psychological themes so it's not completely off base but still...

mulholland drive always seemed to lack the excitement and rigor and much of the mystery of lost highway to me.

I was just repeating what Lynch said on the interview. Actually, if I remember correctly, him and Barry Gifford had already scripted the film when they heard of the phenomenon, and were only delighted that their fiction matched something that can actually happen.

mulholland drive always seemed to lack the excitement and rigor and much of the mystery of lost highway to me.

My problem with Mulholland Drive is that it has the exact same the story as Lost Highway. Here's how it goes:

The main character gets jealous of his/her wife/girlfriend.
-> S/he kills her / gets her killed.
-> S/he can't bear the guilt, and escapes into a fantasy world, where their love story is purer, resembling Hollywood fiction. Also, s/he losts his/her memory of what has happened, but glimpses of the past are still coming through.
-> Ultimately, his/her fantasy won't last, and s/he returns to the the real world.
-> S/he kills herself / goes mad / is executed because of his/her sin.

The fact that the "dream" part of the film is the first half in Mulholland Drive, and the second half in Lost Highway, doesn't change the fact that the plot is very similar.

i think one can be dreary and pedantic about it though, if one tries for an "explication" that doesn't allow for the fact that the film is a FILM, or overclaims the importance/salience of "subliminal" or other such hidden themes just waiting for excavation by academia.

Tuomas: I direct you once again to my post, in which I do not say what you say I say. I compare some films to dreams, and the random blast is only a part of the dream experience -- there is also the attempt by the mind to order the random blast into something like a story or understandable event.

Re: Pulp Fiction, what the fuck was in that suitcase?

Re: Blow-Up, what the fuck happened to the body in the park? And doesn't David Hemmings know that the Mimes were only kidding about that tennis ball?

Re: 9 1/2 Weeks, what the fuck was Richie Stotts of the Plasmatics doing at that art opening?

Re: Red Dawn, why the fuck did Patrick Swayze screw the pooch by saying "You Lose!" to the Cuban commando, prompting him to turn around, when he could've just shot him in the back and be done with it?

Re: After Hours, why the fuck didn't Paul just goto an ATM? (I know, I know...they didn't have them in 1985)

Re: Mystic Pizza, where the fuck does Kat get off asserting such moral high ground over married-with-daughter guy after she'd tried to hard to seduce him in the first place? And how about that nose-job on Julia Roberts, eh?

Re: Love Actually, why the fuck was it ever made?

Because Mr. Orange had become friends with Mr. White, and Mr. White had risked his life because of him, Mr. Orange thought it would be a decent thing no to lie to him anymore. Yeah, it's kinda stupid, but honour can be stupid sometimes.

Re: Pulp Fiction, what the fuck was in that suitcase?

You aren't supposed to know. Here's a quote from Roger Avary, the co-writer of Pulp Fiction:

"Originally the briefcase contained diamonds. But that just seemed too boring and predictable. So it was decided that the contents of the briefcase were never to be seen. This way each audience member would fill in the blank with their own ultimate contents. All you were supposed to know was that it was "so beautiful." No prop master can come up with something better than each individual's imagination. At least that was the original idea. Then somebody had the bright idea (which I think was a mistake) of putting an orange lightbulb in there. Suddenly what could have been anything became anything supernatural. Didn't need to push the effect. People would have debated it for years anyway, and it would have been much more subtle. I can't believe I'm actually talking about being subtle."

Not all of his films, no, but I think Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway are. According to the interview book he doesn't want you to completely "get" Lost Highway; that's why there are those loose ends, some of which I mentioned before. But that doesn't mean there isn't any underlying story LH; I think there is (the book supports this view), and I challenge you to come up with a better interpretation. As for Mulholland Drive, that film is a lot easier to understand; I got it the first time I saw it. Also, there seems to be a general consensus of what happens in the film, which proves that it does have sort of an internal logic. I can explain it to you in detail, if you want to.

his is something of a popular theory at least, but it's one I definitely ascribe to. Others may disagree, but certainly this is one approach to use if you need some "sense" from the film...

i don't actually think the 'real' main character (diane, is it?) is actually dead. she's dead in the 'fantasy' reality, but then she isn't required in that reality (i think the fantasy is supposed to be perceived as a possible reality, despite the fact that its really a fiction - i hope that makes some sense but i might not have explained what i mean very well). diane isn't needed, because she's someone better this time.
the first time i watched it i thought it was, basically, diane's wank-fantasy (partly because it all comes together in the scene where she masturbates). the second time i came up with a brilliant plot, explaining everything including the man in the cafe at the start that doesn't appear again for the rest of the film.
sadly, it obviously wasn't that brilliant because i can't remember what it was.

that said, though, i didn't think she killed herself. at least, she only killed herself in fantasy to be born anew as betty.

i think colin meeder has it right - there is a plot, and you're directed to understand it a certain way, but the stories you make up are as important as the direction in which you're pushed.

Hudsucker Proxy- How does he put the poster back?

This is a nice line, but is it actually true?

However, I guess it's a result of Lynch's popularity that people try and "excavate" any meaning from his films. Nobody really tries that stuff on Matthew Barney (whose films I haven't seen) or Roy Andersson.

y'know... just to bring the whole damn thing full circle.

my life is becoming a david lynch pilot cast-off.

I like movies that have multiple explanations to them.

Betty is Diane, Rita is Diane's Lover (who's name escapes me). This
is why these four characters are played by two actors; they're the
same people. This is why both Diane and Betty have the same home
town.

Diane always lived in the shadow of her lover. She is utterly
infatuated with her lover. Her lover steals her dream role, her lover
leaves her, her lover marries someone else.

Diane has her lover killed. The blue key on the table means that her
lover is now dead (the masturbation scene).

Guilt consumes Diane (the two old people, probably her parents and
sense of decency, symbolise this).

Diane is driven to suicide by her guilt.

...

Like I've always said, play the last 25 minutes (the Naomi Watts as
Diane section) first. This is what really happened. End it when
Diane blows her brains out. Fade to white. Fade in on the jitterbug
imagery (remember, it was Diane - not Betty - that won a jitterbug
contest in order to pay her way to LA) and then you get the fantasy of
how she wished it had played out.

The Silencio theatre is where she finally realises it's not real, it's
a fantasy, she's deluding herself, she really did pay to have her
lover killed. That's why she finds the box there. She opens it with
the blue key (the blue key being the piece of evidence that confirms
she is a killer), and inside the box is What Really Happened. The
truth. The end of the fantasy. The key is the proof that dispels the
fantasy. [1]

'Crying' in that context is just totally symbolic, which is why it's
so moving for them. It's all about grief and regret centred around
one person.

The pool man sequence is again just wish fulfilment. IRL Adam (the
director) stole her lover. She wants to believe he's an unloved and
unloveable loser, she wants to see him beaten crapless in his own
home. She wants bad things to happen to him. Billy Ray Cyrus was
just a very dreamlike touch. Surreal.

And that black moster/guy behind the diner _is_ Naomi Watts. It's the
monster her act of murder has reduced her to. Look at the eyes at the
end, it's her. It's why she has the box.

The guy that sees her and has a heart attack is her sense of common
decency, her morality, the nice person she used to be. He comes face
to face with the horror she's become and dies of the absolute shock if
it.

It's a fucking brilliant film.

Cam
[1]: This is why the blue key in real life looks so mundane to the
other blue key. The overdesigned scifi-looking key is an exaggerated
dream version of the death key from real life. It's why they're both
the same distinct colour. It's why it gets a close-up when the hit
man hands it to Diane.

(this is from a thread on aus.culture.gothic should anyone care to reference it)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0007491/

You mean Shawshank Redemption? I always figured he just attached it at the top and let it fall when he crawled through.*

(*clearly I have no idea)

I'm not sure if Cam meant it was literally the actor Naomi Watts, but I suspect he more meant it is her in the "I've been reduced to a monster" sense.

The more I think about it, especially in light of Nordic's Jungian comment up above, the more I do see it as a series of Jungian dream-symbolist representations of betrayal, jealousy, revenge and guilt, all seen through Diane's eyes in her moments before death, all re-lived as a "better version" out of wishful thinking, but even that falls to pieces in the end (by the "silencio" scene) because she can never escape what she has done.

The only thing which is left unexplained is the guy in the caféteria who first sees the monster, he doesn't seem to have any importance to the plot. But you'll have to remember that Mulholland Drive was originally a pilot episode for a TV series that never happened, and that guy would've probably played a bigger role in the series. When Lynch extended the pilot to it's current form, he probably liked the caféteria scene so much he didn't want to cut it, but couldn't find a role for the guy in the main plot. The same applies to the cop, who you think would reappear because he's played by a big-name actor (Robert Forster), but he doesn't.

Also, I think Hobart is wrong; if you view the film carefully, you notice that the dream does take place before Diane dies. She isn't "reborn" in the dream after she shoots herself; when the blue box is opened, she returns to reality. It is true that Diane sees her dead body in the dream. That, however, might be a portent of things to come, if the dream takes place before Diane shoots herself, or reality glimpsing through, if the dream actually occurs in Diane's brain after she's shot herself but before she's dead. However, the story ends by Diane dying, period.

Satisfied?

This REALLY helps me know where you're at. Thanks.

I can't recall... What the did the cowboy actually say in the film? It might be that he was another character who would've reappeared in the Mulholland Drive TV series, but for whom Lynch found no further use in the film. The same applies to the scene with the dwarf.

Not everything Lynch does necessarily makes sense, however; I guess he often films scenes because they're scary and weird (like the cowboy scene), not because they make perfect sense with the overall plot. It's worth noticing, however, that the cowboy pays resemblance to the giant in Twin Peaks, and the dwarf is obviously played by the same actor as the dwarf in TP.

Ever heard of a thing called humour?

1. You could watch the film again, this time looking hard and critically for huge holes and errors in your literalist reading of it -- and you'd find them. I still don't think you'd be any closer, sadly.

2. We both agree that the theatre scene is the key to the film. But I don't think it's a scene where a major plot point is revealed; rather, it's a scene of unbelievably naked emotional intensity, and then the singer collapses, a cheap fake.

My take on it (and one I've read since in Wrapped In Plastic ) is not unlike Tuomas' idea of the monster being something constructed by Diane's psyche, but the key, for me, is how he's referred to by the guy he appears to frightne to death (Dan?). He calls him "the guy that's doing it all".

See, Diane can't accept that any of this is her own fault. She moved to Hollywood because she won a jitterbug competition and the judges encouraged her to think she had ability (which is why she's tormented by miniature versions of the old couple immediately prior to the suicide - released by "the guy that's doing it all" - and why they appear in the dream version encouraging her. Her lack of success once she got there is also other people's fault; she admits at the dinner party that she didn't get the part "because the director didn't like me so much", not that her audition was rotten. And as for all the rest, like Camilla leaving, well someone has to behind that, don't they?

Also, am I the only one that thinks the woman we see at the condos (she shows Betty & Rita the right one, and returns a box of stuff to Diane) is the lover Diane left to be with Camilla?

You CAN retrieve a plot that exhibits real-world cause-and-effect, but it IS compromised by the recurrence of dream (eg. the reappearance of the woman-from-behind-the-diner, the blue box, and miniaturised versions of "her parents") in Diane's "real world".

Just as Diane's dream is compromised and overtaken by irruptions of "the real world", descriptions of the film tend to be troubled by what they have to omit in order to cohere.

Also woman-from-behind-the-diner = Mystery Man from Lost Highway = Lynch

I never said you could interpret everything in Lynch's films! Yes, there are holes there, and I've mentioned several of them. However, that doesn't lessen the strength of the films. Some scenes are there only because of their dreamlike/surreal quality (the thing you like in Lynch's films, I guess), not because of the literal plot. But that doesn't mean you can't have them both; an interesting mystery plot and surreal imagery. It's like Nick said: the theatre scene is both a key moment of the plot, and a cinematically powerful episode in it's own right.

The view you're trying to express is an deconstructionist one, I think, meaning that any piece of art can be interpreted in any possible way, depending on the one who's interpreting it. But I don't agree with that. Of course you can make any interpretation you want, but some interpretations are closer to what the artist intended than others. If the opposite would be true, any actual piece of art would have no meaning, because everything would depend on the interpreter - you could get the same kicks out of Sex and the City than out of a Lynch film. And that isn't so, is it? For me, art is about communication; the artist is always trying to convey something through his art. That "something" might be a very clear and well-constructed idea, or it might be something very dim and obscure and not clearly organized even inside the artists head. But that doesn't mean it isn't there.

I am fully aware that "Mulholland Drive" has a plot that can be grasped and understood; I simply deny that it's fully explicable in any meaningful way, or even very important.

If it can be grasped and understood, how is it not explicable? Also, I happen to think that the plot in both MD and LH is very important, but so are their non-narrative qualities. Yes, they are both centered around dreams, but it's important to know why the dreams work as they do. The psychological themes of jealousy/guilt/wish fulfillment are the undercurrent of both of those films, and the plot needs to be grasped in order to understand why the dream images are the way they are. Otherwise it's just pretty pictures.

However, I do agree that in some of the other Lynch films the plot is not so important, and the imagery or single scenes/episodes matter more. Eraserhead and Wild at Heart are good examples.

The dream is ultimately revealed as being parasitic, unable to extricate itself from the "real-world" plot, and the latter "wins out" when Diane kills herself.

It's a good question, isn't it? It's one of the reasons I like movies and music.

My biggest problem with all of the literlaist readings of this film is the idea that there is anything in it that "really" happens, that there is any seperation of dream and reality that you can talk about without doing violence to the film. There is no "And then she woke up" moment in the film.

I just wanted to say that I have never in my entire life encountered anything even as close to as funny as "The Angriest Dog in the World". I'd kill to see that again.

I don't have to kill! It's on the...internet!

Well, no there isn't, because she dies before she can wake up. At least that was how I read it.

He saved her when she was about to drown into a driver as a child. His name was the same as that of the river (that's why I think he's a river spirit).

But Tuomas, why didn't he turn into the RIVER, instead of the same humanoid figure that we'd seen throughout the movie? And why could he still fly? And why didn't he turn back into the river spirit after Chihiro killed the black slug?

Spirits are more or less antropomorphic representations of non-antropomorphic things. Remember the River God in the film? He didn't look like an actual river either... Also, in the movie's mythology at least some spirits can fly, that wasn't taken away from him. Actually, he didn't turn into something else, he just gained back his old identity, and that was only possible when Chihiro told him his true name and he remembered who he was before he entered the castle.

But did he lose his ability/identity as a dragon?

Furthermore, it seemed to me that Zeniba's actions in her first appearance were directly in contrast with the way she acted in her second.

(I did love the movie, btw)

I thought the dragon form was given to him by Yubaba (the witch), it wasn't part of his original identity. But who knows...

Furthermore, it seemed to me that Zeniba's actions in her first appearance were directly in contrast with the way she acted in her second.

That's the funny thing about Miyazaki's films, and Japanese animation in general: there's no clear division between the good guys and the bad guys. The "good" guys can have "bad" qualities (like Zeniba), and vice versa (like Yubaba). I guess it has to do with Shintoism not being about the fight between good and evil, unlike Christianity.

Do you seriously believe that his honor demanded that he commit suicide
in this fashion? Couldn't he have found a way to demonstrate his friendship
and loyalty AFTER the psychotic criminal was in disarmed and in handcuffs?

Re: Mulholland Drive: who is Sylvia North of the Sylvia North Story?

all Tarantino movies - Christian morality plays about getting your shit together in various ways. and, in particular, what 'cool' may or may not have to do with it.

Please.

Of course there was a moment when Betty/Diane (actually Diane Selwyn from Deep River, Ontario) woke up (only to kill herself a short while later). It was when the (dream) Cowboy (who she originally saw -- in our reality -- for only a second or two, when he walked by in the background at Camilla/Adam's engagement party, after which she embellished his character into the disturbingly implacable being who threatened Adam in her fantasy/dream-version) says "hey pretty girl, time to wake up," and she gets up, makes coffee, starts to hallucinate the tiny old people (probably her parents whose ultimate judgment she could not quite shake even in her earlier fantasy... hence their weird creepy fixed grins after they left her at the airport... ), masturbate, flash back a couple more times (to the hitman in the diner, to a couple disintegrating fantasies involving Camilla, probably to give us some semblance of bearings), then kill herself.

As for The Sylvia North Story -- yeah, Sylvia Plath was a famous suicide, and Diane came from the North, or Canada.

(OK, that last might be a bit of a stretch. The rest is solid gold, though. It's not like Lynch leaves us completely bewildered, after all. He litters this movie with clues: Just to take one fairly unheralded example, remember the audition scene, and when the Bob Brooker character says: "So don't play it for real until it gets real"? That quote's pretty much a Rosetta Stone for the entire film.)

OTM, it really is the greatest idea for a comic strip like ever.

Here are some explanations:

1. You have no gf.
2. You and your gf have been (are being) both educated in the same shitty school system.
3. You saw the same movie and both have the same pathological fear of ambiguity.
3. You

I think the best thing about Donnie Darko was the characters and the mood, and the whole mystery/sci-fi plot almost ruined an otherwise interesting flick. So I don't even want to try to look for some explanations.

it's pretty goddamn difficult.

(i mean it's kind of nuts enough that i wasn't actually anti it at all, but "earlier funny films" totally doesn't apply to "WKW": mid-period of modish pop clarity is more to the point) (in a GOOD WAY obv)

'it shows their separation in space', we were told.

this is all correct. the US general is an actor, and the information he gives the SS is wrong.

the OSS deliberately placed him in a 'crashed' plane as part of the deception.

but this is only the minor half of the op, which is the flushing out of double-agents in britain.

only richard burton, not el clint, is in on it, initially.

and the sole objective is to get the head of the SS (or whatever) confirm the names of the double agents. to get there they go through hella trouble.

i saw a japanese film at the LFF once -- shot on blurry video -- abt some fellows who walked all round north island, whatever it's called... one section was shot through the fron window of the driving cab of the train someone was travelling, and was just of the wipers wiping snow off the window, for TWENTY MINUTES yay! that wz awesome -- i'd like to see that again actually but i can't remember who did it even though they got up and answered questions at the end

-- mark s (mar...), March 1st, 2006.

SILENCIO

so how'd the guy kill jack?

That was a helluva silencer in The Passenger. I always preferred to think the guy crept in and found him already dead of an existential coronary.

http://www.geocities.com/~mikehartmann/papers/wallace.html

Re: Picnic at Hanging Rock, what the fuck happened to those girls?

oh whoops I forgot this was an old thread

rewatches:
Wild at Heart (Lynch, 1991) - 7/10
Lost Highway (Lynch, 1997) - 7/10
The Fog (Carpenter, 1979) - 6/10
Midnight Run (Brest, 1988) - 8/10
Live and Let Die (Hamilton, 1971) - 8/10
Biggles (Hough, 1986) - 4/10
Batman Begins (Nolan, 2005) - 6/10
Interstellar (Nolan, 2014) - 6/10

1st time:
Trainwreck (Apatow, 2015) - 6/10
Foxcatcher (Miller, 2014) - 5/10
A Most Violent Year (Chandor, 2014) - 7/10
The Tale of Princess Kagua (Takahata, 2014) - 5/10
Jupiter Ascending (Wachowskis, 2014) - 7/10
Two-Lane Blacktop (Hellmen,1971) - 7/10
Vanishing Point (Sarafian, 1971) - 7/10
Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr Moreau (Gregory, 2015) - 8/10

?