The (Now-Overrated) ILX Top 100 Films of the 2000s Poll Results

All fine, but maybe you shouldn't have said "heavy-handed", which is considerably stronger than saying, y'know, it reminds you of stuff. It made me think of the manger too, but not in a remotely overstated way.

youre not saying why the dirty apartments apparent reference to the manger is heavy-handed, youre just saying that there are some other tenuous parallels to the christ story

It felt heavy-handed to me probably due to the fact that it was the climax of the film and where all the suspense led up to, maybe if it were some trivial plot point, it might have felt less so.

I had the same problem with the TWBB argument. Sure, Citizen Kane is a famous lonely megalomaniac archetype, and you can see that in there, but it doesn't mean the whole film is ho ho Citizen Kane, do you see?

jesus etc a somewhat more ubiquitous fiction than charlie kane

All fine, but maybe you shouldn't have said "heavy-handed", which is considerably stronger than saying, y'know, it reminds you of stuff. It made me think of the manger too, but not in a remotely overstated way.

― gotanynewsstory? (Dorianlynskey), Friday, February 12, 2010 8:09 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^ this is what im saying

i agree that:

• there are references to the christ story

• those references amount to propaganda or parable
• those references are heavy-handed

as a a secular jew i picked up on what i tht were p obv and intentional echoes of the christ story - not just the stable, or the mother but i thought some of the soldiers hunting them was on some king herod shit - but really had no problem w/that. i mean it doesnt even really have anything to do w/christianity its just appropriation but i think those echoes are p necessary in putting the story on a lvl where the birth scene is possible - it signals to the audience that the movie is in some working on the lvl of myth. it gives the birth scene (which is amazing and the reason why the movie is my #1) its power and its context

I had the same problem with the TWBB argument. Sure, Citizen Kane is a famous lonely megalomaniac archetype, and you can see that in there, but it doesn't mean the whole film is ho ho Citizen Kane, do you see?

I didn't intend to imply that the whole film "is" or "is not" anything - I was merely posting about how I viewed it, and just like when Mordy and I were discussing Almost Famous, I thoroughly understand and expect that different people will see films different ways and pay attention to different things or see different things in them. Maybe it's because quite a few people on these threads are so vehement in their assertions that they are right and other people are wrong if they disagree with them that you are assuming that the things I said are meant as a "correct" reading of the film. Maybe I should have been more explicit in putting "I think" or "I saw it as" in my posts, as opposed to just implying it. I dunno.

I think the way that the editing seemed jumpy and the movie seemed to skip around a lot made me think of it as more "po-mo wink wink" than something with slower pacing.

xp max/dorian - fine, heavy-handed wasn't the best choice of words.

Fair enough

thanks

as a a secular jew i picked up on what i tht were p obv and intentional echoes of the christ story - not just the stable, or the mother but i thought some of the soldiers hunting them was on some king herod shit - but really had no problem w/that. i mean it doesnt even really have anything to do w/christianity its just appropriation but i think those echoes are p necessary in putting the story on a lvl where the birth scene is possible - it signals to the audience that the movie is in some working on the lvl of myth. it gives the birth scene (which is amazing and the reason why the movie is my #1) its power and its context

― Lamp, Friday, February 12, 2010 8:18 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

booming post btw

it'd actually be interesting, imo, to figure out what it means to have the pregnancy revealed in a manger, but that the birth doesn't happen until later. the Christ-story reverses this; Jesus is born first and then the revelation occurs in the manger. and the figures to whom the child is revealed -- the wise men in the Christ narrative, the Owen figure in CoM -- obv differ substantially as well. it might be interesting to look at it in the context of the annunciation too -- which it fulfills a similar narrative function as (the discovery of the conception as opposed to discovering the birth). which is to say, it's clearly different enough from the original Christ narrative that the parallels, in my mind, make CoM more interesting, not less.

more importantly? than that- any christ allegories didn't get in the way

yeah, that's for sure. i barely thought about them before this conversation. the most powerful parts of the film for me were the driving scene, the scene with the art-collecting cousin, some of the Caine scenes, that whole scene in the refugee camp (holy shit that scene)...

that's interesting to think about - honestly, I had mixed reactions to the birth part. It was definitely powerful and exciting, but I also found myself questioning why, and thinking about the whole born again Christian movement and the different ways Christianity was sold to the counterculture in the late 60s/early 70s, and what type(s) of narratives contemporary evangelical Christianity would use to appeal to today's equivalent of the counterculture. Again, this is just what the movie led me to think about.

yeah, i definitely don't see any relationship between American born again Christianity and CoM -- that strikes me as a pretty huge hang-up

like, what do you do when looking at / reading the vast amount of Western culture that deals with Christianity? do you think about Jerry Falwell when you're looking at michelangelo's annunciation? cause that's super depressing if true

a genuinely nasty modern film w. a fundie christian message is 'evan almighty'. this is not that.

forgot to think about christianity during the CoM birth scene cos that crazy animatronic/cgi baby was so rad

How is it a hang-up? I'm not saying the movie was bad because it made me think about it. I probably started thinking about that history because of Michael Caine's character, as well as the presumably leftist activists/radicals led by the Julianne Moore character.

Actually, when I look at Michelangelo's annunciation I think mostly about art history.

Jesus, you guys are disingenuous and mean for no reason sometimes. The funny thing is, I totally remember the Christ-born-in-manger thing as being heavy-handed too, but I can't remember why. Were there animals standing around or something? I think there might have been.

the kid is not born in a manger iirc, but in a grotty room in bexhill?

She was talking about Jesus for real.

THE KID IS NOT BORN IN A FUCKING MANGER

xpost Evan Almighty is a sinister piece of shit. Jawdropping in all the wrong ways.

a genuinely nasty modern film w. a fundie christian message is 'evan almighty'. this is not that.

thanks for sharing that truly brilliant insight with us.

i mean the last thing i want to be is disingenuous and mean but if we are going to have a discussion about a film lets get the specifics of that film right

I'm not saying it was, the 'thing' in question is the parallel. And I'm asking for help remembering exactly what it was that brought about the memory of it being somewhat ham-fisted. So... anyone who has actually seen the film recently want to add anything?

i have seen the film recently and i am adding: the christ parallels are not heavy-handed unless you are insanely sensitive to anything that even resembles a biblical story

please someone explain for me why my subjective opinion of the film is grounded in fact?

I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS, NOT AN OPINION.

FFS.

the kid is born in an apartment in the refugee camp as has been said a thousand times

the girls pregnancy is revealed in a cow barn with cows standing around

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gylKAvCa_c

these two events--both of which are clear but not ham-fisted echoes of the christ story--are being conflated in ppls minds

the girls pregnancy is revealed in a cow barn with cows standing around

― max, Friday, February 12, 2010 1:55 PM (27 seconds ago) Bookmark

JUST LIKE IN THE BIBLE

the girls pregnancy is revealed in a cow barn with cows standing around
― max

Okay, thanks. This is what you could have said straight away in answer to my 'were there animals' question. But no, this is fucking ilx, we have to go through a fucking rigmarole. Well done, chaps.

oh yeah, we're being the disingenuous ones

Jesus, you guys are disingenuous and mean for no reason sometimes. The funny thing is, I totally remember the Christ-born-in-manger thing as being heavy-handed too, but I can't remember why. Were there animals standing around or something? I think there might have been.

― emil.y, Friday, February 12, 2010 1:48 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the kid is not born in a manger iirc, but in a grotty room in bexhill?

― V-E-R-Y (history mayne), Friday, February 12, 2010 1:49 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

READ YR BLOGS

i sometimes think that ppl who are trained to spend time digging deeply into subtexts of art tend to write off purposefully clear uses of allegory/reference/imagery as more obv than they are because their senses for these things are already really heightened. like if u spend all your time trying to parse nabokovian acrostics and only watch art films i guess i can see why the references to the christ story seem "heavy-handed" in com. but i mean - its popular film? i think the echo is clear (as i sd) but for me it was in no way heavy-handed. ymmv.

and emil.y i mentioned some of the reasons why i noticed the parallels to the christ story but im not super familiar w/ it

Okay, thanks. This is what you could have said straight away in answer to my 'were there animals' question. But no, this is fucking ilx, we have to go through a fucking rigmarole. Well done, chaps.

― emil.y, Friday, February 12, 2010 8:57 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hi emil.y seriously no offense but we talked about the girls pregnancy being revealed in the manger upthread--not like 100 posts upthread but like 15

Yeah, but I asked a specific question about animals, and it took a bloody hoopla to get that question answered. Anyway, now that is answered, I'm backing slowly away from you people.

the girls pregnancy is revealed in a cow barn with cows standing around
― max

Okay, thanks. This is what you could have said straight away in answer to my 'were there animals' question. But no, this is fucking ilx, we have to go through a fucking rigmarole. Well done, chaps.

― emil.y, Friday, 12 February 2010 13:57 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

more prominent than the cows are the milking machines fwiw

yeah another way the film 'subverts' the christ parallels

can imagine ilx reaction if the kid was born in a palace how heavy handed would that symbolism be for you?

Should've been Pret a Manger for extra lols.

i sometimes think that ppl who are trained to spend time digging deeply into subtexts of art tend to write off purposefully clear uses of allegory/reference/imagery as more obv than they are because their senses for these things are already really heightened.

this is probably true of me.

im with lamp that some ppl may be more sensitive than others--but i think also ppl are willfully ignoring the way the movie destabilizes and distances itself from the references & creates meaning in those gaps

this is probably true of me.

― sarahel, Friday, February 12, 2010 2:02 PM (29 seconds ago) Bookmark

yes, you are clearly a uniquely gifted and sensitive close reader

haha i mean - probably repeating myself here - but i think the actual concerns of the movie have a lot more to do w/mans relationship to nature/the environment/'physicality' than the christ story or religion. the movie just appropriates some of those symbols for added weight and to echo the stories mythic nature