David Fincher -- c/d?

zodiac was kind of his first 'serious' movie, maybe a precursor to benjamin button

but the things i remember most strongly from zodiac, & what appeals most to me in benjamin button (based on the trailer) are the cinematic set-pieces & images - like the end of fight club - & i think that & not character development is finchers strength & always has been, tho i salute him for branching out

if youre looking for movies to make your political points for you youre an idiot

thinking about the politics of a movie is not "looking for a movie to make political points for you"

ok, but realistically, the supposed politics of a movie dont mean jack shit

do you have any sympathy for glenn beck et al when they mock pixar movies like happy feet (!!!!!!) & wall-e for pursuing a liberal agenda??

its political paranoia, basically

happy feet is not a pixar movie

i have to imagine of the political incoherence has to be due to studio pressure. tyler has break eggs to make an omelet attitude most of the time, but then takes care to make sure no one is in those buildings....or maybe that is in the book?

ok, but realistically, the supposed politics of a movie dont mean jack shit

don't take this the wrong way but what the fuck could you possibly mean by this

i don't have any sympathy for glen beck et al but they are seeing something that's there. not that it's hard, i heard the environmentalism of happy feet was pretty overt.

thinking about politics in movies is not a matter of strict messaging, "omg how will film x make people believe about issue y?!" it's about how ideas & conflicts resident out there in society are used both dramatically and politically.

nice backtrack tho

guys you have to realize we are all now engaging with deeznuts

j0hn d do you seriously think, like, dirty harry, or pulp fiction, or fight club truly had a massive effect on the american consciousness?

how about farenheit 9/11, which was 100% intended to do so? how about the west wing? whatd that do for democratic politics? what did 'wall street' do for democrats?

people go to movies for fun, recognize that they were made for their pleasure; when movies come across as didactic theyre dismissed as propoganda

I think the political incoherence was a choice by Palahniuk - there's no real change from the book (which I haven't read since 1999, so maybe I'm misremembering) on that count. And at each step, the cult tries to avoid deaths (its own, or of others) in their actions, not just the finale.

I guess you could read it as a fantasy terrorist outfit that accomplishes its goals without the cost of life (having your cake and eating it too), but then it/Tyler/Jack are all insane at the end.

i think one problem is in the current climate, it almost doesn't matter if a movie is overt or not. i wonder what some right wing talking head would have to say now about blade runner or, shit, waterworld!

you're right milo. thanks.

j0hn d do you seriously think, like, dirty harry, or pulp fiction, or fight club truly had a massive effect on the american consciousness?

how about farenheit 9/11, which was 100% intended to do so?

Do you seriously think that popular culture cannot have an effect on the American consciousness (alternately, that it doesn't reflect what's happening)?

There's also a difference in a political message found in popular entertainment (seen by people of all stripes, seen as innocuous) and F911, which was seen almost entirely by people who already agreed with the message of the movie.

Are deeznuts and burt stanton the same person?

thinking about politics in movies is not a matter of strict messaging, "omg how will film x make people believe about issue y?!" it's about how ideas & conflicts resident out there in society are used both dramatically and politically.

'seeing something thats there & loudly criticizing it' vs 'seeing something thats there but realizing that its goal is not to brainwash us, like every fucking one else is'

xp

what are you even trying to say?

I guess you could read it as a fantasy terrorist outfit that accomplishes its goals without the cost of life (having your cake and eating it too), but then it/Tyler/Jack are all insane at the end.

I find this kind of incoherence and pretzel-logic justification of stupid shit ("let's blow stuff up!") irritating

So does Palahniuk. That's why it's presented as a fantasy terrorist outfit run by a guy with multiple personalities, whose minions try to cut off his balls.

goole & shakey do you guys seriously think buildings being blow up to the pixies is meant to be some kind of grandiose political statement

jesus

hmmm actually yes I kinda do. certainly there are politics embedded in that imagery.

or have you not noticed that sometimes buildings blow up in real life.

There are "politics embedded" in all imagery. Do you believe that all presentation amounts to endorsement?

holy shit dude im sorry for forgetting 9/11

are you fucking serious xp

I hear Mohammad Atta was rocking Surfer Rosa on his first-generation iPod.

"endorsement" doesn't matter and is a red herring anyway, if you play with any imagery there is a responsibility that goes along with it, because what else is it supposed to invoke? was ripley falling into a blast furnace with her arms stretched out meant to be value-neutral?

why isnt fincher in jail yet, btw?

There are "politics embedded" in all imagery.

my point exactly.

Do you believe that all presentation amounts to endorsement?

no, of course not.

that's a very tough image to read (uh, pre-911 since it came out in 99 or so)...

that's tyler's moment i think. it's the credit card companies, right? he's setting the clock back to zero, complete freedom from our modern fetters (credit cards i guess). how are we to feel about that image, pre 911?

xxxp - Responsibility for/to what?

that being said, in this particular case making out with g/f while buildings blow up to rapturous strains of popular angst-rock is clearly meant to be a moment of redemption/catharsis and I think that that particular image is total adolescent nihilism wish-fulfillment and as such is stupid and not particularly deep or interesting.

(x-post!)

to not complain when ppl read your text and say "wtf are you doing, no thanks" basically

my point exactly.

Shakey, the redemption is in defeating his (evil) alter-ego (right at the moment of Tyler's triumph) and finding love. The survivor was trying to stop the explosions.

shakey movies are about adolescent nihilism wish-fulfillment deal with it

Yeah you better start learning to like it!

Then it's a meaningless statement. There are politics embedded in all imagery, not just falling buildings - so what actually counts is the way the 'politics' are both intended and read.

right, I agree. deeznuts seemed to be taking the tack that there are no politics and its all just a bunch of projection etc.

great revolutionary movies: antonia's line, topsy turvy

lolz I am not 16 anymore and you won't be 16 forever, deeznuts. learn to live with it.

no, my tack is that there are politics but its when people (or directors) start emphasizing these politics that movies go wrong

good one shakey, very original

sorry, Shakey, I guess I was misreading your argument (not paying attention to deeznuts)

Fight Club's climax ("buildings being blow up to the pixies") is certainly meant to be SOME kind of grandiose statement. And the statement isn't entirely apolitical. Fincher seems more concerned with cinematic/emotional impact than with rhetorical/intellectual coherence, but that doesn't mean that the film isn't communicating a message and a point of view.

Fight Club rails hard against the emptiness of modern life, condemns (while coflictedly celebrating) the masculine cult of the asshole self, and ultimately seems to embrace a revolutionary nihilism as the only escape. But I think it's a mistake to take the film too literally. Those concluding scenes speak more personally than politically, and the apocalyptic destruction has more symbolic than literal significance. It's a love story, at heart. The buildings falling down stand in, half jokingly, for the fireworks we might expect to see behind such an embrace.

By destroying Tyler (and the world), our hero is really just destroying that his own emotional defenses, finally accepting himself as he is and in the process, succumbing to "true love". Cheezy, yeah, but I think that's what's really going on. And the touchy/feely core tends to negate whatever narrowly political read we might try to graft onto the film. It has political aspects, but if you read it as a tract, you're missing most of the point.

do you guys politically analyze james bond films to the same degree you do this one? do you guys think fincher was aiming for great cinema or a starting a new oct 1917? i mean wtf xp

I worked on 'The Game', thought it shallow and annoying even when it was still just the script and generally think Fincher is talented when it comes to cinematography but usually films scripts that somehow lack any real 'heft' to them and isn't very deft with his actors.

(not paying attention to deeznuts)

words to live by

contenderizer, that is exactly right, and you stated it better than i was going to manage.

it doesn't take any heavy analysis to see "politics" coming out of a movie, least of all james bond, christ. are you paying attention to what is happening on the screen? do you read a newspaper? that's all it takes, enjoy.

problem is people like you & goole seem to sincerely think the message of the climactic scene of fight club is 'viewers, blow up buildings like terrists did/will' & not 'damn this shit looks awesome when set to 'where is my mind' xp

"do you guys politically analyze james bond films to the same degree you do this one?"

Of course we do. Don't you?

that isn't at all what i've said, hope you've had fun

Eva Green is the EU
James Bond is the resistant Commonwealth...

no, i dont, thank god xp to alex