thread for Sean Baker since he allegedly doesn't belong in "ten greatest living American filmmakers" thread

yeah i didn't put two and two together about any of the sex worker stuff until it all came to a head, and only after reading thoughts on here did i realize how much stuff (like the photo shoot) i missed. otm about the motel... idk though this movie just didn't stick with me

continuing the spatial thing, i think one reason the final sixty seconds don't work is that they jerk us around spatially. if what we're seeing is real, it breaks the geography of the movie, where the magic kingdom is emphatically NOT a jogging distance away (previously one had to hitchhike to get within good viewing distance for fireworks; the hotel community can walk only far enough to watch house fires.). if it's fantasy, it's weird: access to this space, for the kids, has not been thematized for the preceding two hours. they don't seem to want to go there - they barely seem aware that it exists actually. they seem satisfied with cows as the climax of a "safari," they don't even play with disney toys (or off-brand knockoffs) and the only children's entertainment mentioned is spongebob....

Yeah, but it's all done so ineptly. This thing was a fucking chore to sit through.

Nah

The ending did turn what was an ok enough film into something that I wouldn't want to revisit.

I think "not a jogging distance away" was fine, as was the them not caring about Disney and simply going there as an escape from the badness that you'd think Disneyland protects you from. You it won't.

The problem was actually doing realism throughout, not playing with any fantasy and all of a sudden pulling that up on you. I am very much for seeing the process through when you started already (which casino is otm around not feeling like one). Although, having said that, I was re-watching De Sica's Umberto D. the other night and I wonder if the ending was a similar fantasy that I took for granted (my housemate had issues with it) whereas for Umberto the late late re-discovery of his desire to carry on living, the knowledge that he had his dog and that could be enough till the bitter end...somehow that got through to me whereas what Baker is pulling here shuts the door. So its a problem, but for now I think the scripting of the ending of Umberto D. is by turns inspired and nasty whereas Baker wasn't, and whatever it was happened to be badly executed.

clearly at some level the movie is suggesting that given the economic constraints on the characters' spatial lives, a conventional interior life is impossible for halley. she cannot have, as it were, a room of one's own. the closest she has is sharing the pool with ashley near the beginning and when that bond is cut her world shrinks down to just her and moonee versus everyone else. whereas bobby (whose room we don't see, but clearly his situation's not that much better off since he also lives here and has this exhausting thankless job) at least has his crappy little back office as some kind of sanctum. i dunno this is kind of an architecty take on the movie but given how much time we spend in this hotel and running along its access galleries and up and down its stairs, and then going up and down this crappy strip of nearby retail, i do think space is important here.

This is true, but the exteriors  – the interstate, the other hotels, the restaurant – are shot so anonymously. If this was indeed shot in Kissimmee, the movie doesn't pinpoint the odd randomness of stuff on I-4: a Ponderosa steakhouse next to a five-star Hilton, for instance. Some of this anonymity, I suppose, we can excuse because the film in part is told from the POV of the children. Geography fascinates me most in film, and TFP's failure to reckon with it was one of its disappointments. American Honey comes up a lot because it covers much the same ground (hardscrabble lives in fleabag hotels), but every one of its locations is precisely observed, even from the woozy POV of the drugged-out kids.

As someone who's never been to Orlando, i thought the 'travelogue' elements were OK. It's not his responsibility to scrupulously convey real-world geography in his film.

If the primary mode is (neo)realism, it's a very mannered sort, starting with watchful-angel hotel manager.

It's not his responsibility to scrupulously convey real-world geography in his film.

for the hundredth time, I'm not looking for a director to document reality: it's to get the texture, the weirdness, of reality, most of which this film misses. And, yes, Dafoe is out of De Sica.

The idea that the exteriors are shot anonymously is the stupidest thing you've said about the film so far, Alfred, and that's saying a lot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsbeXz4Chag

Anonymously? Those buildings are such a big part of the film, the phantasmagory, the way everything is a fake fairy tale, especially the shops. Yeah, the geography is off, probably in reality you don't go from the wizard to the ice cream cone and past the rocket ship (which is also shown a lot), but the film isn't a realistic depiction of the geography in of I-4.

It's not his responsibility to convey the texture and weirdness of reality as well, btw, that's just as dumb. Baker creates his own texture, and that you can't get past that it's not the I-4 you know is you're own problem.

Yes, Sean Baker, super-genius creating and inhabiting his own world.

The idea that the exteriors are shot anonymously is the stupidest thing you've said about the film so far, Alfred, and that's saying a lot:

The thread hadn't gotten personal yet, Frederik, and here you are.

fred! this is shaping up to be a reasonable and grownup thread where people work ideas out with each other. maybe you intend your tone to be that of a friendly joshing over a beer, but even if that's the case such joshing usually derails rather than enhances the conversation ime. and if you're just calling names to call names, grow up.

Okay, I'll calm down, but come on! Look at that clip. That is not 'anonymous', that's a very particular way to depict buildings.

I think the rest of Alfred's post elaborates a particular idea of anonymity different from what you're reacting to. I don't agree with him that it's a problem for the film but I do think he's right descriptively - a lot of this landscape would be true for huge swaths of exurban American. Indeed, that may be part of why I responded to the movie... the ugliness of the swaths of highway-side grass and drainage ditches and the feeling of being a kid hiking across parking lots between strip shopping resonated with this Atlanta-raised tot. See also my connection with the geography of The Lonesome Crowded West, an album which like this film announces in its title that it's about a particular place but ends up mapping out a more widely-experienced sprawl lifestyle. Back in film land, Over The Edge might be another good comparison, looking at a different economic tier entirely. Based on specific events in Colorado but the under-construction 70s version of suburbia looked familiar enough to me...

Well, ok, but as I tried to say earlier, that is kinda just not a legitimate critique. The film isn't obliged to actually depict Florida in any way, even despite the title. It's a mirage, a phantasm, it's a fake. And that is Baker's prerogative.

The idea that the exteriors are shot anonymously is the stupidest thing you've said about the film so far, Alfred, and that's saying a lot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsbeXz4Chag

I've seen people do more with a corridor. I really wouldn't lose my shit over this? And, given the way the last min was shot, I wouldn't say he has much of a feeling for these things..

imo legitimate critique is that which makes the conversation more interesting. alfred more than passes the test; proclaiming flatly that he doesn't, doesn't.

I've seen people do more with a corridor.

https://theredlist.com/media/database/films/cinema/1960/shock-corridor/019-shock-corridor-theredlist.jpg

Geography fascinates me most in film

I don't think even Manny Farber would've said this.

I don't remember what Farber said about Antonioni.

I meant "the use of geography." I'm not fascinated by shots of, I dunno, hills for their own sake.

That's just it. Unless you're balls deep for spatial a-g cinema above all else, which cool if you are , that's an oddball thing to say you cherish most.

Shots of hills for their own sake = Straub-Huillet's Sicilia!

It all varies for me, I mean there are prob films where I didn't give a shit about the characters or plot but walked away satisfied that it'd given me something to think about in terms of space. Or color, or politics or whatever. I found That Thing You Do basically enjoyable but mainly appreciated it, and think of it, as a study in how the addition of a good drummer turns a mediocre band into a great one. Good rock crit insight, well-told in a filmic way.

imo legitimate critique is that which makes the conversation more interesting. alfred more than passes the test; proclaiming flatly that he doesn't, doesn't.

― the pleather of pleather paul (Doctor Casino), 18. december 2017 16:17 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's this idea that kinda... infuriates me. Film critique shouldn't be 'interesting' if it means it fails to be accurate. Which is not to say anything about Alfred, but it's an idea I see a lot. Taibbi also wrote recently that the worst thing an intellectual could do would be to fail to be 'interesting', and I disagree so much. It's much worse being wrong. And I'd say the idea that The Florida Project isn't doing anything with space and geography is simply wrong. So much of the film is told through architecture and buildings and space and weird angles.

While posting on here is not a test to be passed or failed (lol) in that shot there are no 'weird' angles. When I saw the youtube it seemed lazily framed (Straubs are a good ref ponint for this), like they are pleasant static shots but they are never held for long (the very first shot) and Baker doesn't repeat the trick after the kids buy ice-cream as the camera just follows what the kids are doing. Seems bored and yet the buildings have that character and grotesquery by which concentration on them could reveal more of their character. We are left not knowing. I don't think much is ever done with light or shadow either.

The best thing is the choice made to film the buildings in the first place but he isn't doing anything much at all with them.

Look at the curve of the pavement. He uses a wideangle lens and lets it distort the buildings. That is quite unusual. Look at the balloon to the right of the shot, while he shoots the shop straight on that still leaves the composition off kilter.

Fair enough, I saw the cut balloon to the right not the pavement so much - the problem, still, is he doesn't hold it for long enough. I really didn't see enough of these moments to build anything like a comment on what he was looking at.

Its not bad - just wouldn't go ape over it, in terms of its look.

Different strokes, but I very much go ape :) I love it, and I love that he just does it and then leaves it, if he held it too long it wouldn't work the same. It's not Ulrich Seidl, and I don't need it to be Ulrich Seidl. It's not about getting the character of the space, really letting it live, it's about creating a new space, a distorted, off kilter, unstable space. It's kinda ugly by design. Just like the final sequence wouldn't be so good if it wasn't done on ugly iPhone. One of the things I've noticed trying to write about Baker is that I can never find screenshots for my articles that are actually from the film, because the press office clearly 'cleans them up', so to speak.

Check this image, from his Starlet:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SGkPrwCtpCk/UKeBiqDk1wI/AAAAAAAAD24/4hszoZk9mUs/s1600/starlet+8.jpg
It's the person sitting on the chair in the background, the fact that the electricity towers in fact aren't symmetrical, the interplay between things that are clearly well composed - the bench is placed right in the middle of the frame - and things that don't fit. I love that shit. I just absolutely love the cinematography of Sean Baker ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't need it to be Ulrich Seidl, and yet for that shot to take more of an effect it could be slower. Except that could then fuck up with the rhythm in which the story is told. I never noticed the ugliness except as an aesthetic that is already in the place, but you could just capture it if you shot it straight.

i need to see Starlet

The visual aspect is where I actually do agree with Frederik, who is able to verbalize it better than I am.

Far more so here than in his last one, arguably.

yes and I do admire that composition he selected

lol yeah it looks great obv, maybe play it at 0.5 speed if you're not good at noticing stuff

i also like the exterior view of the motel's balconies and people on them... bcz it recalls Lewis's The Ladies Man.

unforch not as funny

frederik b mostly otm itt and mostly p chill when he gets attacked generally imo (caveat: I don't frequent the US politics threads)

Haters are just jealous at how much time Frederik B gets to dig deep into festival fodder.

lol I'm very unjealous of that myself

I grant some of the haters could just be miserable people.

Actually if I see it this again it will be on fast fwd.

Happy to be bitter.

Board description.

not sure i want to see the kids being MORE hyperactive tbh

i saw this last night. this movie has gone BIG in France; it's playing at pretty much every cinema in Bordeaux, including the big commercial chains. i had something similar to Dr C's response

for the first half hour I'm like huh, this is it? did not think the kids were especially great; who in the world spits like that in a spitting contest (you sniff and hock a loogie as every fule kno); the mother is aggressively stupid and unpleasant (though always loving with her daughter); dafoe too much of an angel; events occur, drift away, shapelessly. is this some kind of tone-poem? and then i guess about an hour or so into it somehow the accumulation starts taking on an awful inertial logic. it's a creeper. by the end i was a mess. halley's mouth filling the whole screen, yelling "fuck you" at the world. dafoe helpless, casting lamely about for some control or authority or ability to make things better ("i'll get those fixed by the end of the week" "...ok?") And you know this is probably not even that unusual for dafoe. it must have happened many times.

the ending maybe wasn't great but I'm not sure what would have constituted a "great" ending. one weird effect of it was that my chest was full of sadness and pain (i thought the crying jag was excellent by the way and totally believable) and suddenly the credits are there. i guess that's what happens when you skip the denouement. i can't stop thinking about it in any case.

by the way for you guys saying these kids have never displayed any interest in going to disneyworld, so the ending felt contrived? i feel like you're.. missing the conceit of the entire movie?? these kids grow up in the shadow of what is bought and sold as every child's ultimate wish. of COURSE they know about disneyworld. of COURSE the have asked to go there. but from the earliest age they have come to learn that they can't. because those wrist bands cost $1700 for four. disneyworld is a foundational aspect of their existence, always looming as something they can't have. so they block it out. pretend it's not there. they know exactly why those fireworks are happening. they know it's not for jancey's birthday. it's this massive unstated thing in the kids' lives that's intimately bound with money and inequality. so that last sequence for me was, yeah, maybe a fantasy sequence (it's the only time we hear non-diegetic music) but whatever it is, it's jancey (that just autocorrected to "hanley" lol) deciding she's had enough of this, she's had enough of not getting what she wants, enough of kids being told what they can't have. so i dunno.. maybe not a "great" ending (again not sure what that would have been) but not untrue to the movie's themes or its characters.

Good shout on the Fireworks scene.

I buy that reading, Tracer, thanks.

Nice post. As I said above, I loved the ending--more than anything else in the movie. I didn't even think for a second about the plausibility (which you make a good case for)--I was just caught up in the look of it, and for the breaking-free aspect of it, a kind of ending that I usually find moving. Too many examples to cite: the ending of The Perks of Being a Wallflower would be a recent favorite.

it's the place where all things are good, where no one is sad. where else to go when everything's closing in? what if the adults are wrong? what if we CAN go there?

i watched tangerine last night. it was only okay. felt like the plot was being stretched out way too long. Could have been about 20 minutes long really. Actors were good, well except for the guy who played the pimp boyfriend. nothing particularly illuminating about its treatment of trans sex work. also the soundtrack was really irritating.

not best review