October 05, 2004
Alexander Payne wrote an article in Variety the other day in which he marveled at the amount of creativity that the studio systems manage to bankroll; for his explanation/endorsement of this phenomena, he provided this beautiful paragraph:
"Art is all we have to combat the fearsome, awful animal side of man that today controls events. To portray real people with real problems, real joys, real tears will serve as a positive political force, a force for comfort and possibly for change. With the inhumanity forced upon us by governments and terrorists and corporations, to make a purely human film is today a political act. To make a film about disenfranchised people is a political act. To make a film about love is a political act. To make a film about a single human emotion is today a political act. And bad things happen when good people fail to speak up."
Could you put it any better? I feel like I should send that to everyone I know (I can think of a few people who could especially stand to read it). Read the whole article here or, if you're like me and don't have a subscription to Variety, here.
If you want to see the best documentary of the year, go see Tarnation whenever it comes out. The first reel by itself is one of the most heartbreaking professions of love I've ever seen.
And if you want to see the funniest documentary of the year (actually, it's probably the funniest film this year, period), see The Yes Men, . And if you want to see a Swedish artsy/porn/exploitation/thriller from the seventies that includes ocular damage on a level Bunuel or Fulci never dreamed of, rent the newly released DVD of Thriller: A Cruel Picture, which was another big influence on Kill Bill. Yen and I were trying to figure out how they did the eye effect; the most extreme solution we came up with, it turns out, is the correct one.
I was carrying a stack of 10 newly burned Deadroom DVDs to Yen's apartment this evening, (to be dispersed across the globe later this week) and as I did I tried to unstick myself in time, Billy Pilgrim style, and conceptualize their future. It was more a case of wishful thinking, though.
In a recent e-mail exchange, I suggested a new advertising byline for our film:All Across The World, People Are Being Bored By One Movie....
James had a slight alteration:All Across The World, People Are Ignoring The Brilliance Of One Movie...
Posted by David Lowery at October 5, 2004 01:33 AM
Comments
The quote from Alexander Payne is a very important one. For this reason, and others, I intend on writing my "novel" (from NaNoWriMo) on something completely apart from politics. I hope so at least.
Posted by: Adam Donaghey at October 5, 2004 07:36 PM