Sight and Sound 2022: The Final Showdown

I agree

Goodfellas. Basic problem here is, all the imagery that mirrors the viewer's wish-fulfillment fantasies of glamor, wealth and power are far stronger and more memorable than the eventual images of their loss. The unintended takeaway is that most of the audience has never had any glamor, wealth or power at any point in their lives, so those high-flying gangster lives are still powerful images for the audience's envy.

hmm idk, The Public Enemy has the character of Tom's brother Mike, scolding him for a life of crime throughout. I'd say this is NOT a detriment to the story though, those scenes are pretty great. in Goodfellas it's more about who we see on the sidelines and in the background, watching. Scorsese does this in The Irishman too, with Anna Paquin, more obviously but really effectively i think.

Aimless, you said it exactly

Just as grim are the sequences where schmuck fry sausages and collect the morning paper in bathrobes.

What Aimless describes is truer about Warner Bros gangter flicks.

i think what Scorsese does do that the WB films don't is make the downfall not precipitous but gradual, they still think they're living the high life but all around them are the signs that will lead to their doom, but they're too self-absorbed to notice them. Too dumb to make the types of decisions that would right the ship. and thank god for the story imo, they're completely lacking in self-reflection.

Let's change the subject. Can we discuss Goodbye, Dragon Inn or Pickpocket?

Goodbye Dragon Inn is such a mesmerizing film.

I'm sort of afraid to rewatch Goodbye, Dragon Inn because I loved it so much the first time I saw it and I've kind of mythologized it in my mind. But I expect it will hold up to repeat viewing. There's a ghostliness about it.

Goodfellas is supposedly one of the more simplistic movies here yet people continue to not get what the director is doing.

Crash was really good, and that last scene by the side of the road after the accident was all-time great

No matter how alluring Cronenberg makes it look, I implore no-one to seek erotic vehicular death heading southbound on Bayview Ave.

but that ruin, with Scorsese's magic, is also portrayed as alluring and attractive, which is my problem with it

I see this, a little; somebody may be hanging on a meathook, but Derek and the Dominoes make it seem a little grand.

Casino does a better job of making an even grander and more moneyed world look even more unappealing and hellish

I prefer Casino to Goodfellas because it lowers the temperature.

Can we discuss Goodbye, Dragon Inn

One reason I haven't seen this is because I was eagerly following Tsai's films in the 90s, where he seemed to be raising the stakes with each film, until he ended up at the end of the world with The Hole. Then came What Time Is It There? which struck me as so trivial in comparison, I lost interest for a long time.

Goodfellas sucks and is maybe the worst movie ever made

Happy treat some see nuance in it but I think it’s the apotheosis of what makes men awful, and not in a constructive way

Goodfellas is told from Henry's, and occasionally Karen's, perspective, and it wouldn't make sense if a life of crime wasn't portrayed as alluring and something they want to be part of. For a dumb kid with no money or imagination whose dad beats his ass, he's naturally going to want what he sees from his window, which is a bunch of guys who nobody fucks with doing what they want. That's all any of the crew want: what's immediate and flashy and tacky. Their problem is their worldview never expands, and they all run up against the limits of what a life of smash-and-grab can bring you. This is a very common theme in crime movies but it's a testament to Scorsese's genius that it's only with his movies where people do this annoying hand-wringing like they're going to get in trouble for watching them.

The other side to that is that these men are a tiny subset of society who embody the whole suite of toxic masculine traits, and are vastly over-represented in movies. Showing them from early on in their careers does give us an overview of how these traits start out - the aggression, combative banter, one-upmanship, sexism, etc. - and how they develop over time, but that starting point isn't an everyman thing, maybe it's mainstream male culture, but I just don't identify with that at all, I don’t find any of them charming or even interesting, except Joe Pesci maybe in that he's an out-and-out villain who gets his comeuppance. For the rest of them, it's just that I'm spending a couple of hours with people I wouldn't want to spend any time with in real life, and their downfalls just don't hold any emotional weight for me.

most things that appear frequently in movies are vastly overrepresented in movies

And that's bad

its fine

it's no crime, it's just boring

The argument that they’re not relatable sounds like a studio boss giving notes to me. The most interesting movies are very often ones that document some particular subculture or niche aspect of life in depth. As to why that has to be criminals so often, well, this same director has made impassioned movies about Tibetan monks and Jesuit priests and look how those fared with the public. Gangsters are over-represented for the same reason cowboys and vampires have been: it’s a popular genre. It matters how the filmmaker contextualizes and/or subverts the material with their own personal expression.

And besides, there’s a reason Goodfellas is one of the most quoted movies of the last half-century or so: it IS funny as hell while also being clear-eyed about who we’re watching. The movie’s most famous scene is about this dichotomy.

I hate to use the word "relatable" but when I find every character in a film to be an irredeemable asshole then I just find it harder to appreciate.

These movies are not for everyone but irredeemable people can still be entertaining and even capable of insight. This is just an uncomfortable truth and can be the subject of great art.

Cowboys represent the exploration of a new space, the building of a new society, I can get that, as problematic as it obviously is. Vampires are all about sex, youth and conquering death, I can get that too. But what are gangsters about?

Should say here, I don't hate Goodfellas, the "funny like a clown" scene is a highlight, sure, but great art?

I would say cowboys and vampires can also be about more than that and gangsters are no different. Crime movies and shows quite famously mirror power structures in more so-called legitimate industries or aspects of society. The best ones are honest about vice and the temptation of taking a shortcut to get ahead when it feels like you have few options. And Italian-Americans are not the only cinematic subjects of this treatment.

I would say to deny Goodfellas is art is pure elitism and, in a few people, resentment that some Catholic who’s not an intellectual per se could come up with something so good. It’s been so widely imitated (with diminishing results) because it’s such a deliriously effective work by craftspeople who know cinema inside and out.

It is pretty funny that the anti-Goodfellas feeling here has lead to it being the only movie anyone talks about for the second time in a row.

How do we feel about Double Indemnity? Prettt irredeemable protagonists iirc.

Harry Lime also pretty charming.

couldn't accuse holly of it tho

in order to ensure the moral safety of the audience double indemnity carefully inoculates its protagonist against seeming glamorous or attractive by casting fred macmurray

it's no crime, it's just boring

― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, 11 September 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Leave crime to toxic bros

be gay do crimes iirc

You got me

what fools we are, talking this way. as if i'd do anything to you: or you to me!

The discussion is basically "there is no anti-war film" again - I'd agree that Goodfellas is short for the Copa far more than Paulie in a bathrobe (though bathrobes are of course great)

in order to ensure the moral safety of the audience double indemnity carefully inoculates its protagonist against seeming glamorous or attractive by casting fred macmurray

― difficult listening hour, Monday, 11 September 2023 08:53 (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

agree with this, i found it a major problem. he has a head like a fridge.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uBI_C4PMrtw/U_kAdyVzQ5I/AAAAAAAAuJ0/Vs38Q9sCITE/s1600/Comb17082014071057.jpg

ILX polls have their five-year plan, and so have I!

It is pretty funny that the anti-Goodfellas feeling here has lead to it being the only movie anyone talks about for the second time in a row

I'm fully aware of my role in sealing Goodfellas' inevitable win here

Tell us if it's hurting, we'll replace with a YouTube AI generator. Pack you off to a quiet life.

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 10 September 2023 16:28 (yesterday) link

But what are gangsters about?

power, money, institutions, the state and its shadow, civilization iirc

good clothes and bad nightclub acts

Yeah, no more bathrobe slander

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/studio-ghibli/images/f/f0/Ushioni.png

https://i.imgur.com/8rROrY0.gif

It only requires chipcore-level computing strength to predict your BS, to model your "intelligence."
― The Thin, Wild Mercury Rising (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 11 September 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Stop trying to form thoughts, that will give you migraine. Where are the YTs? Flood this thread up so we can stop this Goodfellas discourse.

How's about we all make a pledge to always allow xyzzzz to have the last word in any exchange? If he's awake, he's going to insist on having it anyway and it's quicker just to concede it ahead of time.

fellas

Aimless otm

At least NRK had the decency to leave us and write some proper articles and publish a book or two, this parasite just sticks around like a tapeworm.

'Aimless otm' lol. Brain rot is set deep already. Too late.