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| Marc |
 Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2010 2:22 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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| Joe, in a two hour movie, a director does not have to represent the full range of human experience or emotion. Is Carl Dreyer's The Passion Of Joan Of Arc any less of a movie because it has no humor in it? |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 12:59 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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There are several serious movies that do very well without any humor. Schindler's List is a good example.
There are other serious movies that should have and could have used comic relief, but did not. I think Amreeka is one of them. Several Russian movies that I have seen recently also fall in this category.
There are still others which should not have used humor but did, e.g. Life is Beautiful. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 6:06 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Then there are the "comedies" that are really about serious subjects and all the more effective for dealing with the seriousness through laughter. A prime example is The Odd Couple, which beneath its "laff riot" style is the story of two flawed human beings who will probably never fit into any lasting relationship, be it marital or platonic. It's Neil Simon's most truly serious play, far more touching at the core than his more deliberately "serious" works. (The Gingerbread Lady, anyone? God's Favorite?)
Woody Allen's Manhattan, which is largely hilarious, is likewise his most successful serious movie IMO. If it were being released today it would probably be dubbed a "dramedy," but its tone is comic in general and it's more disturbing and profound than any number of Allen's deadly serious fiascos (September, Another Woman, Interiors, etc., etc., yecch-cetera.
Not to mention the obvious progenitors of the "dramedy" style--Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, The Tempest, All's Well That End's Well--and even the more "comic" A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It, which have profoundly serious moments. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 6:12 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Speaking of the term "dramedy," is it the same as the old "comedy-drama" or is it something new? Discuss. (If you wanna.) |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 2:05 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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| I had never thought of The Odd Couple as you described it, Billy. But now that you described it as a truly dysfunctional pair of men, I can see what you mean and its obvious serious over or for that matter, undertones. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 6:10 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Marc wrote: How about Night And Fog with a laugh track. Or Schindler's List with some comic relief, you know, Jews doing pratfalls.
It does have tiny bits of comic relief, just not a lot of it, and appropriate for the movie. |
Last edited by Syd on Sun Apr 25, 2010 8:11 pm; edited 1 time in total
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 6:14 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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billyweeds wrote:
Not to mention the obvious progenitors of the "dramedy" style--Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, The Tempest, All's Well That End's Well--and even the more "comic" A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It, which have profoundly serious moments.
This from Twelfth Night, for instance:
VIOLA
Too well what love women to men may owe:
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
DUKE ORSINO
And what's her history?
VIOLA
A blank my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more: but indeed
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:49 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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Quote: Broken Embraces was definitely a very rich film......I especially liked the humor.....the proposed vampire film called Give Blood about donation centers supplying their employee vampires with their daily drink. And the director changing his name after going blind to Harry Caine.
Betsy wrote the above quote last January. I just saw the movie and I almost shot out of my seat when this subject came up. Back in 1973, I had mono and had to give blood every three days. Naturally I was also white as a ghost. So I came up with this idea about an epidemic of mono where all the blood that's given actually goes to vampires.
I kid you not. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:14 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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billyweeds wrote: ....Woody Allen's Manhattan, which is largely hilarious, is likewise his most successful serious movie IMO..... |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 6:19 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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yambu wrote: billyweeds wrote: ....Woody Allen's Manhattan, which is largely hilarious, is likewise his most successful serious movie IMO..... It is my favorite of his. Manhattan never looked better, with Raphsody literally trumpeting its proud cityscape. What an opening.
My favorite Woody Allen too, by quite a huge margin. My other favorite Allens are nowhere near my top 20, but Manhattan easily makes that cut. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 12:17 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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Watched Andrzej Wajda's Oscar nominated Katyn the other day, about the massacre of 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia by the Soviets in the Spring of 1940 - the plane carrying the Polish president crashed on the way to a 60th anniversary commemoration of the massacre. Those who recall the travelogues I occasionally posted on the old NYT forums (not in movies) will recall that my late father in law tried on several occasions to tell me the story of the massacre despite he being very drunk and my not understanding a word he was saying, only to collapse into tears each time well before he could finish.
Katyn opens at the moment in mid-September, 1939, when any Pole with the leisure to think about the matter would realize the country was fucked for decades to come: Poles fleeing from the Nazis invading from the west collide with Poles fleeing from the Soviets, who have just invaded from the West. One person heading West, Anna, is looking for her husband, a Polish cavalry officer, who she locates just in time to see him taken away, by train, to a prisoner of war camp.
The story focuses on Anna and her extended family and contacts in their attempts, first to find out what happened to their husbands and brothers and sons, and second, to keep alive some memory of the truth. The movie's central point is about the lie: the Soviet attempt to cover up the truth and the Poles' attempts to adjust to a life in which acquiescing to that lie was a necessary part of life in the new Poland. Some make the adjustment, more or less willingly. Some will not and wind up silenced - dead, killed, imprisoned. We see the cynical use of Katyn by the Nazis (who of course had the blood of millions of Poles on their hands among the blood of so many others) as propaganda, along with the equally cynical Soviet denial - in actual era propaganda films almost sickeningly similar to each other.
Anna clings to the possibility that her husband - not identified in the initial Katyn lists read publicly by the Nazis for propaganda purposes - is alive despite being informed by someone who knew the truth all too well that the was not. It is only at the end of the movie that she learns with clarity what happens - as do we, as her husband and thousands of others are carted off to the Katyn forest and with a brutality that seems even more monstrous for its lack of inhuman efficiency shot in assembly line fashion. The final scenes of the movie are brutal, violent, gut wrenching and heartbreaking.
There were some weaknesses in the movie; a few characters whose presence seemed to detract rather than underline the story. But it is still an excellent film.
Feel free to not comment. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 1:04 pm |
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Of course that was when Germany and the USSR were allies and had an agreement to split Poland between them. I think that a number of Poles were Nazi sympathizers, but very few sided with the Ruskies. I could be wrong.
Whiskey, I would think that you'd have seen Ashes and Diamonds. One of my all time favourite films. If you haven't, you must. Tragically, the star of the film, Zbigniew Cybulski, who gave a magnificent performance and was a huge star in Poland at the time, was killed in a car accident (I believe) at a young age. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 1:07 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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marantzo wrote: Of course that was when Germany and the USSR were allies and had an agreement to split Poland between them. I think that a number of Poles were Nazi sympathizers, but very few sided with the Ruskies. I could be wrong.
Whiskey, I would think that you'd have seen Ashes and Diamonds. One of my all time favourite films. If you haven't, you must. Tragically, the star of the film, Zbigniew Cybulski, who gave a magnificent performance and was a huge star in Poland at the time, was killed in a car accident (I believe) at a young age.
Cybulski - aka the Polish Horst Buchholtz - fell under a train. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 1:18 pm |
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I saw Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds both while I was living in Paris. I saw Kanal first and thought it was great so of course I decided to see Ashes and Diamonds, which I saw a short time later. I liked Ashes and Diamonds even better.
I once read that Zbigniew Cybulski was the James Dean of Poland. I think that's a better analogy than Buchholst. Looks wise anyway. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 1:31 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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marantzo wrote: I saw Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds both while I was living in Paris. I saw Kanal first and thought it was great so of course I decided to see Ashes and Diamonds, which I saw a short time later. I liked Ashes and Diamonds even better.
I once read that Zbigniew Cybulski was the James Dean of Poland. I think that's a better analogy than Buchholst. Looks wise anyway. |
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