Post by: K Frame on July 30, 2007, 07:43:44 AM
It is an incredible movie.
Max von Sydow played the main character.
Post by: The Viking on July 30, 2007, 09:06:24 AM
I've only seen one or two of his films.
Post by: K Frame on July 30, 2007, 09:07:45 AM
Post by: The Viking on July 30, 2007, 09:28:17 AM
Sucks to be you, then.
Which part? Only seeing one or two of his films, or not having a TV? The first part, perhaps, the second, no chance. I decided not to bring my little TV with me when I got my own place. Before I moved out from my parents, I hadn't followed anything seriously for a few years. Computer and going to shows takes up to much time. Which reminds me...I gotta buy a sleeping bag tomorrow
, and check on my tent to see if its up to another festival...
Post by: Cromlech on July 30, 2007, 03:18:18 PM
Oh yeah, and Anything With Max von Sydow in it is off to a good start.
Post by: Standing Wolf on July 30, 2007, 03:30:16 PM
Post by: The Viking on July 30, 2007, 03:47:37 PM
My computer is also my DVD player (I don't watch TV, unless Top Gear i on).
Oh yeah, and Anything With Max von Sydow in it is off to a good start.
Same here, if it weren't for the fact that my computer makes a lot of noise, behaves strangely etc. Watching DVD's on it is a pain.
Oh yeah, and Anything With Max von Sydow in it is off to a good start.
Post by: K Frame on July 30, 2007, 05:09:18 PM
I haven't seen one of his "films" since I was in college. Without exception, they were boring, overwrought, and plodding.
Ah.
A member of the "how good a movie is is dictated solely by how many bodies hit the floor" club.
Post by: Standing Wolf on July 30, 2007, 05:39:58 PM
Quote
A member of the "how good a movie is is dictated solely by how many bodies hit the floor" club.
Nope. Bergman's movies always impressed me as girl friend movies: the kind of movies they read about in the student paper, and just had to see, then discuss, then discuss some more, then go see again.
Post by: Monkeyleg on July 30, 2007, 06:38:36 PM
I had to watch, and write papers about, everything from Fellini's "8 1/2" to pretty much Ingmar Bergman directed.
For the life of me, I couldn't tell you then or now what the "films" (not movies, these were "films") were about.
I guess some of us are just too low-brow to appreciate such things.
As I've mentioned in other threads, I got back at the intellectuals at the college when I was waived up to a phd level course in literature. For my term paper, I wrote a story that referenced every single member of the class, including the professor. And I called every one of them the most vile names you can imagine.
My paper was declared by the professor to be "it," and I aced the course.
I have no idea what constitutes art and, frankly, at this point in my life, I don't care.
If you understand Bergman films, more power to you. I barely understand "Rambo" movies.
Post by: Perd Hapley on July 30, 2007, 06:47:35 PM
Post by: K Frame on July 30, 2007, 07:05:09 PM
Well, see, there's this guy named John Rambo, and he just came back from the Viet Nam war, and...
Ingmar Bergman cast him in a movie where he has to hunt down death with Fanny and Alexander, two members of an elite team of...
All I can say is sad. Very very sad.
Post by: Monkeyleg on July 30, 2007, 07:40:47 PM
Mike, can you recall a single Bergman film that made you laugh?
Even Woody Allen--a huge fan of Bergman's films--made fun of them.
Everytime I came out of a theatre after watching a Bergman film, I felt like slitting my wrists.
Post by: K Frame on July 30, 2007, 07:45:51 PM
A movie's only great if it makes you laugh?
Curious, and sad at the same time.
Post by: Monkeyleg on July 30, 2007, 08:21:18 PM
Bergman's films, though, just brought me to the edge of sleep.
Sorry, Mike, but, for all of my education, I'm not cultured. Maybe you've noticed that.
Post by: HankB on July 31, 2007, 03:41:35 AM
(Scene from some Bergman film. B&W, subtitled, an old couple sitting at a small table by a window.)
Sven: I think I will go feed the horses.
Olga: Yah, it is good you go feed the horses.
Sven: I like the horses.
Olga: Then it is right that you go feed them.
Sven: Then I will go feed them now.
Olga: The horses will not feed themselves.
And on . . . and on . . . and on, in the same vein.
(OK, so I took a few minor liberties with the dialog . . . but what Bergman scripted was no better!)
Post by: K Frame on July 31, 2007, 03:45:13 AM
And yes, Fanny and Alexander has some chuckle moments. As does Seventh Seal.
But, I guess since it's not a howling, knee-slapping, rolling in the aisles kind of laughter....
Post by: K Frame on July 31, 2007, 03:49:34 AM
I had expected a bit more from this group than what you'd get from a bunch of slack-jawed yokels...
Post by: HankB on July 31, 2007, 03:56:04 AM
Post by: Iain on July 31, 2007, 03:56:51 AM
Post by: K Frame on July 31, 2007, 05:24:57 AM
Ah thought it wuz da slack-jawed yokels who pertended to like Bergman films - just so theys could walk around tellin' each other how cultured & classy they wuz . . .
Henceforth, you shall be known as Toothless Cousin Cleetus.
As for the quality of the dialog, I have but two words for you...
YO ADRIANE!
Jesus.
Post by: K Frame on July 31, 2007, 05:28:29 AM
Quick, someone get a banjo.
It's getting way too high falutin' for some in here...
Post by: roo_ster on July 31, 2007, 07:58:27 AM
They were the celluloid equivalent of self-flagellation. Back when I was in college, I had time to indulge such. Nowadays, I have more experience, less time, and no place for IB films.
But, one really ought to check out an IB flick or two, on general principle. It will make parodies of his films so much more enjoyable and is some of the better "art" cinema to be had. After IB, no need to ever see another art flick.
The Death of Ingmar Bergman [John Podhoretz]
The passing of the film director Ingmar Bergman is already leading to tributes not only to his supposed greatness one critic today calls him "the greatest artist of the 20th century" but also to the nobility of his efforts to grapple with the most painful aspects of the human condition. I call these judgments into question in this column. Bergman's death put me in mind of one of the great film shorts, a parody of his work in brilliant pidgin Swedish called "Die Duva (The Dove)" that was nominated for an Oscar in 1968. If you have 14 minutes, you can watch it here it's genius.
07/31 08:49 AM
Here is The Dove link:The passing of the film director Ingmar Bergman is already leading to tributes not only to his supposed greatness one critic today calls him "the greatest artist of the 20th century" but also to the nobility of his efforts to grapple with the most painful aspects of the human condition. I call these judgments into question in this column. Bergman's death put me in mind of one of the great film shorts, a parody of his work in brilliant pidgin Swedish called "Die Duva (The Dove)" that was nominated for an Oscar in 1968. If you have 14 minutes, you can watch it here it's genius.
07/31 08:49 AM
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3803584387889303730 "You forget, my bedroom window overlooks the barn."
I saw that MST3000 did one of his films. That's gotta be a hoot.
Column JP references:
DEATH & THE DIRECTOR
By JOHN PODHORETZ
July 31, 2007 -- NOT so long ago, Ingmar Bergman was one of the most celebrated and famous men in the world - the recipient of universal praise for having transformed the corrupt young medium of the movies into a vehicle for difficult, punishing, sobering, existentialist high art.
He was so renowned that some trifling income-tax troubles in his native Sweden made headlines across the globe - on the grounds that it was an outrage for Sweden to be treating its greatest artist so shoddily.
And yet, when word came yesterday of Ingmar Bergman's death at the age of 89, it seemed like a bulletin from the past - as though the man who had once been the foremost writer-director in all of cinema had been gone from this earth not just a day but for an entire era.
Bergman had been the key figure in a painstaking effort, by him and by critics worldwide, to elevate the cinema into an art form equivalent to novels, poetry or classical music.
These were not the kinds of critics who wanted people to believe that westerns or gangster movies or musicals could be great art on the order of Tolstoy and Dickens. These critics wanted the movies instead to mimic the forbidding demands and even more forbidding themes of high modern art - from the difficult poetry of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound to the assaultive aesthetic of Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp.
Bergman was their man. In a relentless series of films - one or two a year - made between 1950 and 1982, he punished his audiences with a view of life so dark and foreboding that he made his fellow existentialist artist, Samuel Beckett, seem as upbeat as Oprah.
The darkness of Bergman's vision of the world and his uncompromisingly bleak expression of that vision resonated with those who viewed art not as a form of the most sublime entertainment - entertainment that transcends the merely pleasurable to offer a transformative experience - but rather as the secular version of a stern sermon.
Art, in this view, wasn't supposed to be easy to take or pleasurable to take in. It was supposed to punish you, assault you, scrub you clean of impurities.
Bergman used motion pictures to explore grand and grandiloquent themes - the fear of death, the horrors of old age, the mysteries of womanhood, the disasters of marriage, the trauma of living without God. Happiness, contentment, even momentary good feeling are all but absent from a Bergman movie, which is a portrait of a traumatized species.
He stopped making motion pictures in 1982, though he wrote and directed several small films for television. And the truth is, he quit just in time. His day had passed. After decades of declaring modern life worthless and offering only suicide as a way out of the nightmarish tangle of human existence, Bergman had nothing more to say.
Worse still, the earnestness of his vision was beginning to wear pretty heavily. It is impossible these days to watch his most famous film, "The Seventh Seal," without laughing - because its famous scene of Death playing chess has been so frequently and devastatingly parodied over the years that it has become one of the great images of cinematic pretentiousness.
As for the society of people who needed Ingmar Bergman to stand as the greatest example of what the cinema should do, they too had had their day by 1982. For the basic truth is that the critics who described Bergman as the greatest of film artists were people embarrassed by the movies.
They didn't admire the medium. They were offended by its unseriousness, by its capacity to entertain without offering anything elevating at the same time. They believed the movies were a low and disreputable art form and that its only salvation lay in offering moral and aesthetic instruction to its audiences about the worthlessness of existence.
Such views held sway over the opinions of an educated elite in this country and in Europe for a long time. But you can only tell people to sit down and eat their spinach for so long.
jpodhoretz@gmail.com
By JOHN PODHORETZ
July 31, 2007 -- NOT so long ago, Ingmar Bergman was one of the most celebrated and famous men in the world - the recipient of universal praise for having transformed the corrupt young medium of the movies into a vehicle for difficult, punishing, sobering, existentialist high art.
He was so renowned that some trifling income-tax troubles in his native Sweden made headlines across the globe - on the grounds that it was an outrage for Sweden to be treating its greatest artist so shoddily.
And yet, when word came yesterday of Ingmar Bergman's death at the age of 89, it seemed like a bulletin from the past - as though the man who had once been the foremost writer-director in all of cinema had been gone from this earth not just a day but for an entire era.
Bergman had been the key figure in a painstaking effort, by him and by critics worldwide, to elevate the cinema into an art form equivalent to novels, poetry or classical music.
These were not the kinds of critics who wanted people to believe that westerns or gangster movies or musicals could be great art on the order of Tolstoy and Dickens. These critics wanted the movies instead to mimic the forbidding demands and even more forbidding themes of high modern art - from the difficult poetry of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound to the assaultive aesthetic of Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp.
Bergman was their man. In a relentless series of films - one or two a year - made between 1950 and 1982, he punished his audiences with a view of life so dark and foreboding that he made his fellow existentialist artist, Samuel Beckett, seem as upbeat as Oprah.
The darkness of Bergman's vision of the world and his uncompromisingly bleak expression of that vision resonated with those who viewed art not as a form of the most sublime entertainment - entertainment that transcends the merely pleasurable to offer a transformative experience - but rather as the secular version of a stern sermon.
Art, in this view, wasn't supposed to be easy to take or pleasurable to take in. It was supposed to punish you, assault you, scrub you clean of impurities.
Bergman used motion pictures to explore grand and grandiloquent themes - the fear of death, the horrors of old age, the mysteries of womanhood, the disasters of marriage, the trauma of living without God. Happiness, contentment, even momentary good feeling are all but absent from a Bergman movie, which is a portrait of a traumatized species.
He stopped making motion pictures in 1982, though he wrote and directed several small films for television. And the truth is, he quit just in time. His day had passed. After decades of declaring modern life worthless and offering only suicide as a way out of the nightmarish tangle of human existence, Bergman had nothing more to say.
Worse still, the earnestness of his vision was beginning to wear pretty heavily. It is impossible these days to watch his most famous film, "The Seventh Seal," without laughing - because its famous scene of Death playing chess has been so frequently and devastatingly parodied over the years that it has become one of the great images of cinematic pretentiousness.
As for the society of people who needed Ingmar Bergman to stand as the greatest example of what the cinema should do, they too had had their day by 1982. For the basic truth is that the critics who described Bergman as the greatest of film artists were people embarrassed by the movies.
They didn't admire the medium. They were offended by its unseriousness, by its capacity to entertain without offering anything elevating at the same time. They believed the movies were a low and disreputable art form and that its only salvation lay in offering moral and aesthetic instruction to its audiences about the worthlessness of existence.
Such views held sway over the opinions of an educated elite in this country and in Europe for a long time. But you can only tell people to sit down and eat their spinach for so long.
jpodhoretz@gmail.com
Post by: K Frame on July 31, 2007, 08:19:03 AM
Critics.
There's a reason they're critics.
They've failed at everything else because they lack vision and judgement.
But god knows they can get jobs with any major media outlet.
Oh, and let's not forget who John Podhoretz is...
A former presidential speechwriter and ultraconservative commentator. He's not even really a critic. Just someone who thinks people are interested in what he has to say because he was a presidential speechwriter and is an ultraconservative commentator.
Podhoretz's main problems with Bergman's film seems to be not Bergman's dark vision, but that he didn't extol the absolute virtue of the American way of life. He could have maintained a dark vision, that sin is forgivable, but that the ignored the American ethos and didn't kow tow to the superiority of American film, society, economy, and democracy. That's a sin that can't be forgiven.
Podhoretz's great sin is believing that for something to have value, it has to compare positively to the "It's Morning in America" campaign. If it in any way detracts from or contradicts the rosy glow that that Reagan ad campaign attempted to create for the American people, it has no value, or it is bereft of any value that it once had. That's tragically transparent when Podhoretz says that Bergman's 1982 retirement came just in time because Bergman had nothing more to say. In Pohoret'z brave new iconoclastic world only the positive has value, only shallow messages of the underdog always triumphing have merit. It's a personal vision that, in its own way, is also now bereft of an tenancy in the current world.
Just so we don't think that John Podhoretz is the absolute vox populi, let's take a look at the words of those whose visions aren't quite as.... clouded... by personal ghosts of religion and Republicanism... a life based in definitive black/evil and white/good.
Quote
By Bill Gibron
POPMATTERS.COM
Article Launched: 07/31/2007 03:01:11 AM PDT
Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman, right, during the shooting of "Fanny... (Associated Press)«1»HE HADN'T made a theatrical motion picture since 1982's "Fanny and Alexander," vowing to retire after completing the highly autobiographical project. He spent his later years dabbling in theater and working in television in his native Sweden. He even penned a few screenplays, some directed by his son Daniel, others directed by friends and former lovers.
Yet it's clear that, even in his absence, the influence and importance of Ernst Ingmar Bergman, who died Monday, to the language and art of cinema remains as solid today as it did when he first splashed onto the international stage some six decades ago. With a creative canon that spans considered masterworks such as "Wild Strawberries" (1957), "The Seventh Seal" (1957), and "Scenes from a Marriage" (1973), he almost single-handedly defined the whole foreign film/art-house genre. While many others can also claim part of this title, Bergman remains the consummate example of personal and professional philosophies folded into one another and presented -- openhanded and openhearted -- for the world to witness.
Like a select few famous names -- Kurosawa, Fellini, Hitchcock -- that actually helped to evolve and develop the technical and aesthetic merits of film, Bergman was a true motion picture visionary. Some might argue with that determination, viewing his stark, darkness-driven efforts as generic and plain, or worse, gloomy and dull. But with his reliance on extreme close-up, static tableaux, and monochromatic contrasts,
He captured perfectly both the bitter cold of his numb Nordic home as well as the often hidden yet simmering emotions of its people.
Some considered him the consummate actor's director. Others viewed his work in far more metaphysical, even ephemeral, terms. In true contrast to the pictures coming out of other countries -- Hollywood's sensationalized pulp fictions, Italy's earthy neo-realism, France's deconstructing new wave -- Bergman boiled down his awful early childhood (his Lutheran minister father was a haughty and strict taskmaster) into melancholy expressions of man's place within God and nature's overall design. In doing so, he elevated ennui into something close to epic.
The battle between religion and reality was essential to his creative concerns. He mused on faith, the power of personal belief, the notion of mortality versus the promise of an afterlife, and the distinct tug of war between living, dying, and dealing with both. He could be arcane and obtuse, making his points with symbols and noticeably non-sequitur imagery, yet he considered himself a rather forthright presenter of existence's larger mysteries.
Whatever the case, few directors can claim influence over modern-day moviemakers as diverse as Wes Craven (who based his 1972 breakthrough "The Last House on the Left" on Bergman's 1960 "The Virgin Spring") and Woody Allen, and yet such was this director's strength that even the most divergent of artists could experience his work and take away something very personal, and very purposeful, from his oeuvre. Names as significant as Robert Altman and Andrei Tarkovsky more or less based their careers on his influence.
For some, his seminal effort remains 1957's existential masterwork "The Seventh Seal." An unusual narrative focusing on a medieval knight, fresh from the Crusades, traveling back to his home only to discover a country ravaged by plague, it offered the allegorical imagery of the hero -- a golden Max Von Sydow -- playing chess with a white-faced, ghoulish Death. The stakes? The champion's life. The motive? The meaning of life. In between, Bergman used clever iconography and fresh perspectives (a traveling caravan of circus performers, the ceremonial burning of a witch) to express the ongoing struggle between existence and the end, the significance of survival and the promised bliss in shrugging off this mortal coil.
Very theatrical, almost Shakespearean in his approach, Bergman often stated that it was his belief in the intuitive relationship between actor and director, one where both worked together to achieve a greater, grander end, that marked the success of his films, not the ideas or issues they raised. "Seal" certainly celebrates both.
Yet the 1960s and '70s remain Bergman's main decades of artist triumph and acclaim. He won two Oscars (out of a total of three) for best foreign film -- for "The Virgin Spring" and 1961's "Through a Glass Darkly" -- and would go on to receive nine more nominations over the course of his time behind the camera. His name became synonymous with the growing movement toward the incorporation of world cinema in the discussion, and along with other noted names mentioned before, formed the basis for much of the film scholarship of the era.
For all the considered and/or perceived perfectionism onscreen, Bergman remained a decidedly incomplete and flawed figure in his personal life. Married five times -- four ended in divorce, the last with the death of his wife from stomach cancer -- he fathered nine children. A man of complicated political views, he waged a rather public battle with the Swedish government over charges of tax evasion (he eventually left the country for Munich until 1982, when he returned to make "Fanny and Alexander").
While some considered him warm and kind, others noted a tendency toward high-strung behavior and a quick temper. Often, his interpersonal problems were blamed on an early life overloaded with discussions of sin and confession, allegiance and conformity. As much as he fictionalized his life through his films, Bergman truly remained forever linked to the emotional complexity and mental malaise found in his characters.
And now, with his passing at the age of 89, the last legitimate old-school cinematic giant has fallen. He follows other luminaries into the realm of legend, and eventually through time, into the epiphany of myth.
POPMATTERS.COM
Article Launched: 07/31/2007 03:01:11 AM PDT
Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman, right, during the shooting of "Fanny... (Associated Press)«1»HE HADN'T made a theatrical motion picture since 1982's "Fanny and Alexander," vowing to retire after completing the highly autobiographical project. He spent his later years dabbling in theater and working in television in his native Sweden. He even penned a few screenplays, some directed by his son Daniel, others directed by friends and former lovers.
Yet it's clear that, even in his absence, the influence and importance of Ernst Ingmar Bergman, who died Monday, to the language and art of cinema remains as solid today as it did when he first splashed onto the international stage some six decades ago. With a creative canon that spans considered masterworks such as "Wild Strawberries" (1957), "The Seventh Seal" (1957), and "Scenes from a Marriage" (1973), he almost single-handedly defined the whole foreign film/art-house genre. While many others can also claim part of this title, Bergman remains the consummate example of personal and professional philosophies folded into one another and presented -- openhanded and openhearted -- for the world to witness.
Like a select few famous names -- Kurosawa, Fellini, Hitchcock -- that actually helped to evolve and develop the technical and aesthetic merits of film, Bergman was a true motion picture visionary. Some might argue with that determination, viewing his stark, darkness-driven efforts as generic and plain, or worse, gloomy and dull. But with his reliance on extreme close-up, static tableaux, and monochromatic contrasts,
He captured perfectly both the bitter cold of his numb Nordic home as well as the often hidden yet simmering emotions of its people.
Some considered him the consummate actor's director. Others viewed his work in far more metaphysical, even ephemeral, terms. In true contrast to the pictures coming out of other countries -- Hollywood's sensationalized pulp fictions, Italy's earthy neo-realism, France's deconstructing new wave -- Bergman boiled down his awful early childhood (his Lutheran minister father was a haughty and strict taskmaster) into melancholy expressions of man's place within God and nature's overall design. In doing so, he elevated ennui into something close to epic.
The battle between religion and reality was essential to his creative concerns. He mused on faith, the power of personal belief, the notion of mortality versus the promise of an afterlife, and the distinct tug of war between living, dying, and dealing with both. He could be arcane and obtuse, making his points with symbols and noticeably non-sequitur imagery, yet he considered himself a rather forthright presenter of existence's larger mysteries.
Whatever the case, few directors can claim influence over modern-day moviemakers as diverse as Wes Craven (who based his 1972 breakthrough "The Last House on the Left" on Bergman's 1960 "The Virgin Spring") and Woody Allen, and yet such was this director's strength that even the most divergent of artists could experience his work and take away something very personal, and very purposeful, from his oeuvre. Names as significant as Robert Altman and Andrei Tarkovsky more or less based their careers on his influence.
For some, his seminal effort remains 1957's existential masterwork "The Seventh Seal." An unusual narrative focusing on a medieval knight, fresh from the Crusades, traveling back to his home only to discover a country ravaged by plague, it offered the allegorical imagery of the hero -- a golden Max Von Sydow -- playing chess with a white-faced, ghoulish Death. The stakes? The champion's life. The motive? The meaning of life. In between, Bergman used clever iconography and fresh perspectives (a traveling caravan of circus performers, the ceremonial burning of a witch) to express the ongoing struggle between existence and the end, the significance of survival and the promised bliss in shrugging off this mortal coil.
Very theatrical, almost Shakespearean in his approach, Bergman often stated that it was his belief in the intuitive relationship between actor and director, one where both worked together to achieve a greater, grander end, that marked the success of his films, not the ideas or issues they raised. "Seal" certainly celebrates both.
Yet the 1960s and '70s remain Bergman's main decades of artist triumph and acclaim. He won two Oscars (out of a total of three) for best foreign film -- for "The Virgin Spring" and 1961's "Through a Glass Darkly" -- and would go on to receive nine more nominations over the course of his time behind the camera. His name became synonymous with the growing movement toward the incorporation of world cinema in the discussion, and along with other noted names mentioned before, formed the basis for much of the film scholarship of the era.
For all the considered and/or perceived perfectionism onscreen, Bergman remained a decidedly incomplete and flawed figure in his personal life. Married five times -- four ended in divorce, the last with the death of his wife from stomach cancer -- he fathered nine children. A man of complicated political views, he waged a rather public battle with the Swedish government over charges of tax evasion (he eventually left the country for Munich until 1982, when he returned to make "Fanny and Alexander").
While some considered him warm and kind, others noted a tendency toward high-strung behavior and a quick temper. Often, his interpersonal problems were blamed on an early life overloaded with discussions of sin and confession, allegiance and conformity. As much as he fictionalized his life through his films, Bergman truly remained forever linked to the emotional complexity and mental malaise found in his characters.
And now, with his passing at the age of 89, the last legitimate old-school cinematic giant has fallen. He follows other luminaries into the realm of legend, and eventually through time, into the epiphany of myth.
"
Post by: K Frame on July 31, 2007, 08:46:27 AM
Think, for a moment, just how many cultural icons are routinely parodied...
Edvard Munch's "The Scream"
Michangelo's image of God giving life to Adam from the Sistine Chapel, or his statue of David.
da Vinci's Mona Lisa...
Bertoldi's Statue of Liberty...
Four of the most recognizable images in the world, all dripping with deep cultural signifigance, and all routinely targets of parody and even vicious criticism...
Post by: roo_ster on July 31, 2007, 11:59:42 AM
Quote
Yep.
Critics.
There's a reason they're critics.
They've failed at everything else because they lack vision and judgement.
But god knows they can get jobs with any major media outlet. rolleyes
Oh, and let's not forget who John Podhoretz is...
Nice ad hominem.Critics.
There's a reason they're critics.
They've failed at everything else because they lack vision and judgement.
But god knows they can get jobs with any major media outlet. rolleyes
Oh, and let's not forget who John Podhoretz is...
If you engaged the substance, this might be an interesting thread.
Post by: HankB on July 31, 2007, 12:04:45 PM
Surely this is a harbinger of the End Times . . .
Sometimes people (and their work) are parodied because they're so bad.
Hmmm . . . if being parodied is what it takes to become a cultural icon, then Matt Groening's work stands shoulder to shoulder with Bergman's.
Post by: Angel Eyes on July 31, 2007, 02:04:46 PM
Bill Walsh died the same day as Bergman.
Guess which obit got more attention in the San Francisco area.
-Jack
Post by: Balog on July 31, 2007, 02:22:36 PM
Oh no, my faith in Mike Irwin!
Post by: tyme on July 31, 2007, 02:31:49 PM
I don't particularly like Seventh Seal, but I respect it. It offers significant potential for interpretation and mental exercise, as opposed to, say, Top Gear.
Post by: Tallpine on July 31, 2007, 02:49:47 PM
Post by: Balog on July 31, 2007, 02:54:47 PM
Post by: tyme on July 31, 2007, 06:34:48 PM
I don't like "classical" art much, either. The art and photography and architecture I do like, I like mostly for their (subjective) aesthetics. The few that have more artistic qualities would, as above, rely heavily on interpretation within an externally-provided context. Someone who's never heard of World War 2 would probably regard the Raising of the Flag as obnoxious and jingoistic. Someone unfamiliar with China would probably regard the famous man vs tank picture as the height of stupidity, assuming a more reasonable context for the presence of tanks.
The more self-contained the art, the better the art, IMO.
Quote
Interesting interpretation tyme, but that kinda screws most classical art, doesn't it?
Most classical art is palatable? Is that why guys tend to take art history classes just to meet chicks?
Although I can't explain why chicks like art history.It seems to me that the ascetic philosophy applies to interpretation of art. Substantial popularity of a piece of art distracts from proper artistic interpretation, because would-be critics end up biased by their aesthetic reasons for liking/disliking the piece, and construct their artistic criticism to agree with their personal preferences. If you start with something that everyone finds dull, it's easier to get past aesthetics.
Post by: Monkeyleg on July 31, 2007, 06:47:36 PM
Maybe that's why became an advertising photographer (read: prostitute) rather than trying to be an artist.
Post by: Perd Hapley on July 31, 2007, 07:39:10 PM
Never seen any of his work yet. Did just watch Citizen Kane for the first time, though. Didn't really like it that much.
Post by: Monkeyleg on July 31, 2007, 08:14:47 PM
Congratulations. Now watch D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation," and tell me why it was so important as a piece of film "art."
Once you've done that, go watch the "films" of other celebrated "art" directors, and tell me what was so special about their "films."
Mike, it looks like you're in the minority on this one, although you're doing a fantastic job of holding your own. If you enjoy Bergman, Felini, and others, who's to criticize? It's your tastes, and your time watching.
I've always had a problem with films/literature/artwork that required me to answer the question "what does it mean?"
IMO, if such works don't at the very least suggest a meaning or a message, then the "artist" hasn't done his job.
But, of course, I'm just a prostitute.
Post by: K Frame on July 31, 2007, 08:26:42 PM
Obviously everyone, apparently.
Can't say I'm surprised.
Disappointed, yes.
Surprised?
No, not really, I guess.
I suppose my great failing here is expecting something of substance from a generation raised by television and weaned on The Simpsons.
"IMO, if such works don't at the very least suggest a meaning or a message, then the "artist" hasn't done his job."
So, in other words, you expect to be spoon fed a message instead of seeking one. I'm sorry, Monkeyleg, but that is anti-intellectualism at its worst. When a society tips over to that side of the balance, it truly is end times.
"But, of course, I'm just a prostitute."
To quote Xavier Hollander, You can lead a whore to culture, but you cannot make her think...
Well, I promise not to trouble any of you with items of cultural significance again. I'll limit "cultural" items to those involving who's dating whom, what rapper is beating his baby's mamma, and who threw a wicked mean pass against the Cowboys.
And another synapse dies.
Post by: Balog on July 31, 2007, 09:11:54 PM
And it's also fairly arrogant, isn't it? "I say this director is great. If you disagree it's prima facie evidence you're an idiot." Rampant fanboyism at it's worst.
I'd just like to point out I've never viewed an IB film, so I have no opinion of the movies in question. At no point have I discounted or disparaged the works. I merely dislike the condescending elitism in Mike's position that his is the penultimate authority on all things cultural.
Post by: K Frame on July 31, 2007, 09:24:05 PM
Hum...
No where have I claimed that rank. You've chosen to assign it to me.
That, in and of itself, is very very telling.
Just curious, though.
Since I've been elevated to the penultimate position, who reigns as the ultimate?
Mr. Podhoretz?
Post by: Monkeyleg on July 31, 2007, 09:26:33 PM
I have no doubt that he was. My only complaint was that he bored me.
But that has nothing to do with your latest post, which in essence says that you're taking your ball and going home.
So what if I'm a photographic prostitute? Does that make you any less of a literary prostitute for writing technical manuals?
Mike, this topic is small-time compared to others. But it's obviously one that you have an interest in.
Rather than bemoan the lack of sophistication on this forum, why not explain why Bergman's films should be seen by everyone? Explain how they can enrich our lives and our minds. And I'm not kidding you, Mike.
It's no secret that I have an attitude about "intellectuals." And this thread is a good segue into an old story.
As I said, I had two years in college of film history courses. I had the same professor, although I'm drawing a blank on her name right now.
Anyway, I ran into her at a supermarket after classes let out. We were in the Campbell's soup aisle. I was looking for one soup, she was looking for another.
I remarked, "you know, Campbell's could probably sell more soup if every can didn't look the same. I've been here fifteen minutes, and I can't tell one flavor from another."
She just looked at me like I was from Mars. I was thinking marketing; she was thinking, oh, I don't know...something else.
And that's the problem I have with ivory tower intellectuals. (Mike, I'm certainly not lumping you into that class).
They have a disconnect with real day-to-day life. The "intellectuals" I've known wouldn't know how to add water to their cars' radiators.
I'm not spoiling for a fight with you, Mike. Just telling you my experience.
Post by: K Frame on July 31, 2007, 09:38:23 PM
Yep. It gets depressing trying to beat life into a dead horse when the horse adamantly refuses to live. At that point you accept that the horse has willed itself dead and move on.
"Does that make you any less of a literary prostitute for writing technical manuals?"
I don't labor under the premise or assumption that what I do for a living is, in any way, shape, or form, literature or art.
What I do doesn't convey concepts, conditions, or deep truths. It's a function.
Is a house painter a prostitute to fine art painting because he works with sash brushes and house paint instead of a Number 8 fine badger and Prussian Blue?
Not all writing is literature, not all literature is art, not all art is writing.
Insert any medium you wish into the previous statement.
Post by: Monkeyleg on July 31, 2007, 09:57:58 PM
Nor do I. I produce photographs of products that my clients want to sell. That's it.
I'm serious, though, Mike, about you explaining to the rest of us what viewing "The Seventh Seal" could do for our minds, bodies, or souls.
I'm not being a wiseass, Mike. I'm asking you a serious question. For the two years that I had film history classes at the university, my professor could not answer that question.
If you can, there's a university position awaiting you.
Post by: Perd Hapley on August 01, 2007, 02:14:24 AM
Since I've been elevated to the penultimate position, who reigns as the ultimate?
See, "penultimate" means really, really ultimate. And "infamous"... Quote
Congratulations. Now watch D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation," and tell me why it was so important as a piece of film "art."
I saw that some months back.
Post by: roo_ster on August 01, 2007, 03:06:03 AM
Tyme, I have no idea what your post meant.
Maybe that's why became an advertising photographer (read: prostitute) rather than trying to be an artist.
ML:Maybe that's why became an advertising photographer (read: prostitute) rather than trying to be an artist.
You became an advertising photog because you have talent folks were willing to pay for. The others became "artists" who try to "challenge their audiences" because they are no-talent hacks who need some shtick as a crutch. The coffee-house equivalents to the velvet Elvis purveyors with audiences ready to give a Pavlovian response.
Post by: tyme on August 01, 2007, 05:35:38 AM
Quote
The others became "artists" who try to "challenge their audiences" because they are no-talent hacks who need some shtick as a crutch. The coffee-house equivalents to the velvet Elvis purveyors with audiences ready to give a Pavlovian response.
The mere fact that they have an audience implies that they are not talentless. They have a knack for getting people -- a few people at least -- to pay attention. Blame that on the general degeneracy of our culture if you want, but it doesn't change anything.
I'm rewatching seventh seal. It's better than I remember. :smirk:
Post by: Iain on August 01, 2007, 05:38:21 AM
Quote
ML:
You became an advertising photog because you have talent folks were willing to pay for. The others became "artists" who try to "challenge their audiences" because they are no-talent hacks who need some shtick as a crutch. The coffee-house equivalents to the velvet Elvis purveyors with audiences ready to give a Pavlovian response.
You became an advertising photog because you have talent folks were willing to pay for. The others became "artists" who try to "challenge their audiences" because they are no-talent hacks who need some shtick as a crutch. The coffee-house equivalents to the velvet Elvis purveyors with audiences ready to give a Pavlovian response.
And that is just bizarre. The value of anything is entirely and directly related to how much money can be made from it. Therefore van Gogh was no good in his lifetime a 'no-talent hack', but is a great artist now?
Post by: roo_ster on August 01, 2007, 09:11:41 AM
Watch out for those straw men. Such as this:
Quote
The value of anything is entirely and directly related to how much money can be made from it.
Remove the absolutist terminology ("entirely") or toss in ("economic") to qualify "value" and you have a fair statement. As it is, it is a straw man.
Post by: Balog on August 01, 2007, 01:26:31 PM
"I merely dislike the condescending elitism in Mike's position that his is the penultimate authority on all things cultural."
Hum...
No where have I claimed that rank. You've chosen to assign it to me.
That, in and of itself, is very very telling.
Just curious, though.
Since I've been elevated to the penultimate position, who reigns as the ultimate?
Mr. Podhoretz?
Hum...
No where have I claimed that rank. You've chosen to assign it to me.
That, in and of itself, is very very telling.
Just curious, though.
Since I've been elevated to the penultimate position, who reigns as the ultimate?
Mr. Podhoretz?
I'd say that making statements that anyone disagreeing with your taste in film is limited in intellect and restricted in interest to television and celebrity scandals does indeed make claims as to your superior taste and mental prowess.
An example. O Fortuna is just about my favorite piece of music, with the possible exception of the Piano Sonata #14. Let's say I posted that anyone who doesn't recognize the beauty and importance of this piece or the unrivaled genius of Carl Orff are ignorant hillbillies who cannot appreciate music which doesn't feature a pop tart "starlet" or rapper whose pants start at around the knees. I would be setting myself up in the position of arbiter of the value of music. I would be claiming, as I've said before, that what I like is so obviously superior that anyone with the temerity to disagree is either borderline retarded or culturally inbred. That's what you are doing with IB's works, and that's why I find it irritating.