I have certain favorite movies that i consider to be very thought provoking and interesting or realistic, and they are few and far between given the vacuity of the action and theatrical animations that are monopolizing cinema as the years pass.
Like books, movies may serve as intellectual stimulus as long as the substance is there. It's all about substance when it comes to finding worth in such forms of entertainment as movies.
In any case, i'd like to share some of my favorite movies that i find valuable for their realism and connotations of the human condition or society.
You may post links from the scenes of your favorite movies or other depictions of them and offer your views about them, or you may just simply discuss them and what they are about.
I'll start with one of my favorite movies: "American Beauty".
American Beauty is a wonderful drama of the post-modern lifestyle of automated behavior and instinct suppression. In a manufactured world, the family structure is affected by the goal-oriented alliance with success, as success is virtually the equivalent to independence and freedom by the standard of western capitalist constitution. family members become strangers to one another and become detached by this medium of thoughtlessness and disregard for personal love of one another.
The tragedy is that they wish to love but have become disabled in their ability to express it by these environments of "self independence", therefore, it becomes the product of hostile or violent conflict in order to keep the bond of love or familial stability together.
In other words, comfort breeds conflict for balance.
This scene is particularly good to display the need for their own humanity underneath the well manicured mannerisms and the toleration of belittlement from one another.
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 36824 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
This is more of a documentary, But I find it very appealing.
Solitude, self-sufficiency, an environment uncluttered by human detritus.
_________________ "I do not exhort you to work but to battle; I do not exhort you to peace but to victory. May your work be a battle; may your peace be a victory." -TSZ
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 36824 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
Fight Club has to be one of my top three favorites. I love it.
It is a stark movie about anarcho-primitive destruction through what i would call "natural politics". Tyler Durden, whom is Jack's alter ego, exploits the emotive sedation of modern men through the outlet of combat.
This cathartic stimulation of the "Fight Club" works by providing a sense of worth and belonging for something higher than themselves and this is the key for assembling a revolutionary army. Give them a purpose.
Not to mention the interesting psychological aspect of creating an alternate identity as a result of extreme loneliness and deep discontent. And than making it into a strength.
The mindless yet omnipotent force of capitalism. Human determination as an absolute.
More than that: a weakness adapting to circusmtnaces, taking advantage of the stronger ones creativity, and exploiting his work. Parasitical.
Ascetic wrote:
Not to mention the interesting psychological aspect of creating an alternate identity as a result of extreme loneliness and deep discontent. And than making it into a strength.
Yes, but also an underlying irony, related to Nietzsche Wander metaphor:
The men "freed" essentially become his minions. They simply change allegiance.
Meaning: There can only be one male entity, all others fall behind as followers or challengers in waiting. The herd is never dissolved it only changes leadership or ideals or values.
The loneliness of freedom and of power - synonyms - and also its unusual production of indifference.
_________________ γνῶθι σεαυτόν μηδέν άγαν
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 36824 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
Another movie i like a lot is "No Country for Old Men".
Although it doesn't have much dialogue, it is one of the most realistic movies i have had the fortune to find. It is a drama of cold reality and circumstances.
In this scene this man named Chigurh, is a menacing and dangerous personification of death. he has no emotion, Only principles and a need to achieve his goals.
I enjoy how he attempts to integrate some sense of worth in people that he find beneath him, like he does in this scene:
And this next one is very realistic.
No intervention, no Gods, No happy endings, no feel good anything.... Just the battle of two men trying to kill one another and strive for different goals.
The universe cares nothing.
They way their instinctual feelings and reactions are portrayed and captured are incredible. they are amazing actors.
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 36824 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
Human spirit, so weak and still so strong in its purity, soaring over these bleak landscapes, turning them into fields of alabaster gold.
What magical powers you posses; your imagination finding crevices to creep through this prosaic world; turning the moment into a testament of your parting pains.
This next scene is a personal experience of my own. I have worked in phone sales and done exactly what he is doing. It is some of the most degrading and mindless work you can do aside from possibly working as a janitor.
apaosha Daeva
Gender : Posts : 1837 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 37 Location : Ireland
_________________ "I do not exhort you to work but to battle; I do not exhort you to peace but to victory. May your work be a battle; may your peace be a victory." -TSZ
I've been meaning to return to this one. The Matrix of course being one of the greatest of all time.
aside from its meanings of mind control, there is one other interesting idea about consciousness it alludes to.
This scene is when the architect explains the purpose of the system and the construction of the oracle as a balancing opposite to implement choice into the human psyche for a more harmonious simulation of the human world.
Agent smith was also described by the oracle to Neo as being his opposite, his "negative" in the need for absolution and for Neo as its counter-balance.
The consciousness of a sentient artificial machine echos the consequences of it in the same way as the human machine.
The irony is very great: The ability to make a choice and to reap the consequences of that choice resulted in the machines evolving into the same destructive pattern of human civilization. Agent Smith given his sentient capacity, made the choice to function away from his intended purpose of his program and to envelop with need and without regard sowing devastation that harmed the Matrix. And this is how the machines discover their own folly for consciousness. They become their own enemy through the desire for self-actualization.
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 36824 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
Another movie i like a lot is "No Country for Old Men".
Although it doesn't have much dialogue, it is one of the most realistic movies i have had the fortune to find. It is a drama of cold reality and circumstances.
In this scene this man named Chigurh, is a menacing and dangerous personification of death. he has no emotion, Only principles and a need to achieve his goals.
I enjoy how he attempts to integrate some sense of worth in people that he find beneath him, like he does in this scene:
I love that movie and I love that scene, all scene's with Javier Bardem's character in them. He does have emotions, however. You can see he gets pissed off by the guys curiousity combined with his noting of his plates. This kind of busybodiness is a threat to the character - people with this trait are better witnesses, in fact may be active witnesses not just people who respond better when the police come around. But it is also the kind of busybodiness that is a threat to creative or different people. This watching from porches and through windows what neighbors are doing. The noting this down and passing it around coupled often with clucking tongues and whispers to police or preachers.
Here a psychopath - albeit a very interesting one - is the recipient of this pathetic curiosity - so it is not a bad trait here. But we get to watch it dismantled by this death like figure in a way that is pleasurable and also horrifying. This creature would find fault in all of us, mortal fault.
I was really glad the Coen Brothers toned down their silly irony in this movie. There is irony of course, but not so much in a kind of charicatures they often use.
I think it is their best film.
Don't get me wrong. I loved Burn after Reading for example and the characters are very silly and utterly swimming in irony all the time. I just think this would have ruined McCarthy's novel into film.
I have no scenes from it available (aside from trailers and reviews), but "The Grey", which came out this year, has some key aspects I'd like to touch on:
Spoiler:
1. All-male cast
There are no female characters, at least none performed live by actresses. Just a bunch of oilmen stranded in a cold wilderness after their plane crashed.
2. Nature as a brutal yet impartial obstacle
Regardless of their depiction in the film, the bloodthirsty wolves defending their turf are mostly a plot device, and not the central focus of the movie.
3. Human nature outside societal context
"Once more into the fray... Into the last good fight I'll ever know. Live and die on this day... Live and die on this day..." -poem of John Ottway (played by Liam Neeson)
I could've done with a little less idolizing of Neeson's character, but nonetheless, none of the characters are portrayed as flawless. All rank & status disappear outside the limits of human society. Material possessions such as currency have no value in the wilderness; Ottway reprimands a subordinate for trying to steal cash from a dead man's wallet and almost gets into a fight with him: "You're going to swallow a lot of blood over a fucking billfold." He also questions another member's hyper-masculine posturing ("What's wrong with admitting you're afraid?" or something to that effect).
There's also the shattering of comforting illusions such as religious faith. After one of the men talks about heaven, and another ridicules them for such beliefs, Ottway admits that, although he believes no such superstition, he wishes their was. Later in the film, he even challenges 'God' to prove 'his' existence, shouting at the sky.
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There's way more that I haven't included, but I believe I've summarized the highlights as best as I could.
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 36824 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
Moral of the story: No matter how genetically superior you are, you will be defeated and frozen....because mediocrity wins, with sheer numbers and moral force.
That would explain why the movie "Arlington Road" was so underrated and unpopular with hollywood. It premiered in theaters, but ended up on the video store shelf fairly quickly. I'm not sure if you have seen it, so i will refrain from commenting on it. When I saw this, I thought of what baudrillard wrote on terrorism - an excess of signs and commodities blinds people from symbolic acts, such as terrorism.
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 36824 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
Popular culture is all about diffusion internal pressures: repressed, self, sex, masculinity. Once in a while it makes a "smart movie" for the more select crowd, the ones not so easy dealt with by making them watch explosions, gratuitous sex scenes, machismo hyper-masculine exhibitions and so on.
With these movies they air the doubts and concerns of the more sophisticated type. But they do it so that the individual feels like some kind of resolution did occur by the time he exists the movie - this is why we get the Hollywood ending, such as the one in Shawshank Redemption and Hannibal and The Matrix, and Fight Club - and the movie, if it is crafty, begins with the skepticism, the challenge, and then slowly returns the audience back to the shared, common cultural themes: unconditional love, unity, tolerance, compassion, goodness always wins, equality, etc.
Star trek was just simplistic eye-candy; two hours of escapism into a future, Utopian Federation, still confronted by those nasty evil-doers, the terrorists. They just happen to be superior, genetically engineered, individuals, but always lose the fight.