CHUD.com Community › Forums › THE MAIN SEWER › Movie Miscellany › When they are wrong about their own work
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

When they are wrong about their own work

post #1 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:10am
Thread Starter 
I just got this link from Ebbert's twitter.

Woody Allen selects his 6 best films.

What the fuck? I admit to not being the most erudite Allen fan, but I've seen Annie Hall.
Reply
post #2 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:14am
I thought this was going to be about filmmakers who miss the point of their own movies, the whole "Ridley Scott saying Deckard is a replicant" thing being a big one, and there's one that I bitch about all the time but can't think of right now.
Reply
post #3 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:15am
Thread Starter 
That could apply as well. That link spawned the idea. But not getting their own work is included!
Reply
post #4 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:15am
In a few interviews I've seen with Allen discussing his work, he often talks about what he tried to do with a movie and how he "screwed it up." I think he's pretty self-critical, even of what most would consider his best work.

Despite that, he's also a bit of an ego-maniac and he'd never be able to admit that he's lost touch, which is why the list includes a couple movies from the last couple of years that probably don't belong there.
Reply
post #5 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:15am
Given that he devotes a full third of his list to films featuring Scarlett Johansson, the only thing this list tells me is that Woody Allen really, really likes tits.
Reply
post #6 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:19am
...and step-daughters. Lets not forget them.
Reply
post #7 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:21am
Purple Rose of Cairo and Zelig are all kinds of awesome tho.
Reply
post #8 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:22am
A lot of artists aren't very fond of their older work. Some are downright dismissive of it, which tends to piss fans off.
Reply
post #9 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers View Post
A lot of artists aren't very fond of their older work. Some are downright dismissive of it, which tends to piss fans off.
Well there are those three "rough drafts" many of us grew up with for example.
Reply
post #10 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:34am
Spielberg dislikes Temple of Doom, and Gilliam despises Baron Munchausen.
Reply
post #11 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd View Post
and Gilliam despises Baron Munchausen.
...this news makes me terribly sad for some reason.
Reply
post #12 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd View Post
Spielberg dislikes Temple of Doom, and Gilliam despises Baron Munchausen.
Yeah, Spielberg shitting all over Temple is the big disconnect for me. By the same token, and while it's a little more understandable, I kind of hate how he also throws 1941 under the bus. Even if you dislike the content, there's no denying the impressive technical achievements in that one.

As for Allen, it's baffling how he would rate Match Point over the similar, and far superior, Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Reply
post #13 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:51am
Christ Manhattan and Annie Hall didn't make the list? WTF Woody?

George Lucas comment HERE:


I'm not sure Spielberg really got why Close Encounters of the Third Kind is so powerful. The whole movie builds to the point where Roy Neary can give up everything to go off with the aliens, and we cheer him.

Now The Beard seems to feel the movie is somehow immoral or unethical, 'cause parents should never leave their kid yo! Actually he said in an interview that he could never make CE3K now because he's a parent. Thank God he doesn't believe in re-dos like Lucas.
Reply
post #14 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cylon Baby View Post
Thank God he doesn't believe in re-dos like Lucas.
Eh-hem.

Reply
post #15 of 156
6/28/10 at 2:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ratty View Post
Yeah, Spielberg shitting all over Temple is the big disconnect for me. .
From what I've gathered he finds it mean spirited and "dark" based upon nothing more than the fact that Lucas was going through a divorce and he was having his own problems with Irving before they got hitched. He seems to want to make this point about how it's beneath him or something and pound it into our brains. Just like how he seems to make his films jump through hoops at times to show the audience that he's resolved his daddy issues.

I'm actually coming around to Temple being the best of the series. I'm not totally there yet but I'm close.
Reply
post #16 of 156
6/28/10 at 2:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bancroft Agee View Post
From what I've gathered he finds it mean spirited and "dark" based upon nothing more than the fact that Lucas was going through a divorce and he was having his own problems with Irving before they got hitched
Or the fact that it's filled with misogynistic subtext.

C'mon, besides the contrast between Marian and Willie, it's about a cult that worships an evil goddess and rips men's hearts from their chests, and features stolen children and the loss of sacred "stones". It's a veritable wimmin hatin' manifesto.
Reply
post #17 of 156
6/28/10 at 2:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bailey View Post
Or the fact that it's filled with misogynistic subtext.

C'mon, besides the contrast between Marian and Willie, it's about a cult that worships an evil goddess and rips men's hearts from their chests, and features stolen children and the loss of sacred "stones".
I'm all for reading subtext, but besides the Marion-Willie comparison I think you're epically stretching.
Reply
post #18 of 156
6/28/10 at 2:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bailey View Post
Or the fact that it's filled with misogynistic subtext.

C'mon, besides the contrast between Marian and Willie, it's about a cult that worships an evil goddess and rips men's hearts from their chests, and features stolen children and the loss of sacred "stones". It's a veritable wimmin hatin' manifesto.
I love this post so fucking much.
Reply
post #19 of 156
6/28/10 at 2:24am
It's not exactly subtle, RD. Temple of Doom, indeed.
Reply
post #20 of 156
6/28/10 at 2:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Rain Dog View Post
I'm all for reading subtext, but besides the Marion-Willie comparison I think you're epically stretching.
I don't know about that, man. I've always been interested in "Divorce Movies" that is, films made by folks who were going through one and how it effects the end product and this is a perfect example of that.
As stated, Indy is fighting against a cult who worships a hateful, evil female diety and he, literally, gets his heart torn right out of his chest and presented to him while he is battling to save some children.
Not really that big of a stretch, I don't think.
Reply
post #21 of 156
6/28/10 at 2:55am
To be fair to Woody, it does say favorite as opposed to best. There's often a disparity there.
Reply
post #22 of 156
6/28/10 at 3:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCallaghan View Post
I don't know about that, man. I've always been interested in "Divorce Movies" that is, films made by folks who were going through one and how it effects the end product and this is a perfect example of that.
As stated, Indy is fighting against a cult who worships a hateful, evil female diety and he, literally, gets his heart torn right out of his chest and presented to him while he is battling to save some children.
Not really that big of a stretch, I don't think.
Hmmmm - yeah maybe. It never really occurred to me before.
Reply
post #23 of 156
6/28/10 at 3:24am
You guys are ruining the childhood joy that ToD brought me. Evil bastards.
Reply
post #24 of 156
6/28/10 at 3:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Rain Dog View Post
I'm all for reading subtext, but besides the Marion-Willie comparison I think you're epically stretching.
No, he's got a valid point. There's a lot of stuff there and he pointed out the highlights. Where I'll disagree is calling it full blown misogyny. I think a more accurate description is definitely as a "divorce" movie from the male perspective.
Reply
post #25 of 156
6/28/10 at 3:27am
Vicky Cristina Barcelona? No, just no. Not acceptable.
Reply
post #26 of 156
6/28/10 at 3:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Myers View Post
Vicky Cristina Barcelona? No, just no. Not acceptable.
Yeah I think it was the 'm' word that made me reject the idea like I did. Thats a touch harsh really. The rest of the points tho, I can see yeah.
Reply
post #27 of 156
6/28/10 at 4:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers View Post
A lot of artists aren't very fond of their older work. Some are downright dismissive of it, which tends to piss fans off.
Yeah, that's certainly true of me. Apart from the bit about having fans.
Reply
post #28 of 156
6/28/10 at 9:05am
Spike Lee doesn't like She's Gotta Have It, which I find a fun debut despite the unavoidable limitations of the budget. Similarly, John Carpenter has been dismissive of Assault on Precinct 13. These two of course go back to Gabe's example of directors disliking their early stuff.
Reply
post #29 of 156
6/28/10 at 9:39am
They all have a right to their opinions, of course. They might have more of a right to voice it than we do, since they made the movies and probably have personal reasons tied into everything.

But we also have a right to disagree. It's how it goes. I don't think it's anything that people should get worked up about, really.
Reply
post #30 of 156
6/28/10 at 9:47am
Temple Of Doom is also the most outright pastiche part of the triology, I mean just look at its racial politics. The relationship between Indy and Willie is straight out of 1930's screwball; even though those movies were often more progressive than they might at first seem, harking back to that era does give Spielberg an excuse to let loose more than would be acceptable in a contemporary movie.
Reply
post #31 of 156
6/28/10 at 9:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr_Cellophane View Post
To be fair to Woody, it does say favorite as opposed to best. There's often a disparity there.
This is the best statement of the thread. I don't understand why people (especially media geeks) equate "favorite" with "best." Favorite is purely subjective. Bobby Flay may say that his favorite hamburger comes from McDonalds and he'd be completely right. People may question his taste, but it doesn't make it any less accurate.

But this is even worse, to try to to analyze why an artist's work is favored over another piece of his work is mind-boggling. There are so many intrinsic aspects to an artist's work, especially when mixed with the business elements, it's virtually pointless to go beyond just knowing which one's he favors and which ones he disfavors.

I think geeks have such a fear of being viewed as having bad taste in something that they devote a bulk of their free time, that they'd would rather make a best of list rather than favorite list that has a few clunkers.
Reply
post #32 of 156
6/28/10 at 9:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd View Post
, and Gilliam despises Baron Munchausen.
Can you explain that a little more?

In what fashion? As a creative work or because it cast an everlasting shadow on his reputation? (the guy who can't stick to a budget/Mr Disaster)

Never heard or read anything about him having a problem with it creatively.

Loving the Temple of Doom = Divorce Movie reading. That's brilliant.
Reply
post #33 of 156
6/28/10 at 10:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tati View Post
I just got this link from Ebbert's twitter.

Woody Allen selects his 6 best films.

What the fuck? I admit to not being the most erudite Allen fan, but I've seen Annie Hall.
That quote from Allen sounds like he's being his usual self-deprecating self, not offering an actual assessment of his body of work. And has been mentioned, these are his favorites, which could have that status for a variety of reasons beyond the actual quality of the films (enjoyable shoot, great cast, etc).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cylon Baby View Post
Now The Beard seems to feel the movie is somehow immoral or unethical, 'cause parents should never leave their kid yo! Actually he said in an interview that he could never make CE3K now because he's a parent. Thank God he doesn't believe in re-dos like Lucas.
I don't think Spielberg has said he thinks the film is immoral now, just that, as a parent, he could never make the film the way he did when he was a young man, and write a character who leaves his children behind. His kids changed his outlook and put him in a place where he could never conceive of a hero doing that.

And I wonder if Gilliam hates Munchausen because of the turmoil of financing and shooting the thing. How he kept making movies after that is an act of sheer stubborn love.
Reply
post #34 of 156
6/28/10 at 11:48am
I recall Hitchcock being rather shocked that people took PSYCHO so seriously. He may have been just as obsessive in his pursuit of perfection with that film as he was with any other, but from what I understand he considered it not much more than a bit of fun (a bit of sex, a bit of violence, you know...for kids). Doesn't make him "wrong" per se, not like he could forsee the effect the film would have, but it shows that he wasn't really processing the effect after the fact.

Oh, and Hitchcock didn't like the psychiatrist's explanation, but he allowed Stefano to convince him that audiences would need it.
Reply
post #35 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:09pm
Scorsese famously told Cronenberg that Cronenberg didn't understand his own movies.
Reply
post #36 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JacknifeJohnny View Post
I recall Hitchcock being rather shocked that people took PSYCHO so seriously. He may have been just as obsessive in his pursuit of perfection with that film as he was with any other, but from what I understand he considered it not much more than a bit of fun (a bit of sex, a bit of violence, you know...for kids). Doesn't make him "wrong" per se, not like he could forsee the effect the film would have, but it shows that he wasn't really processing the effect after the fact.

Oh, and Hitchcock didn't like the psychiatrist's explanation, but he allowed Stefano to convince him that audiences would need it.
That makes sense to me, actually. It's a lot more overt than some of his others. It may seem subtle after decades of its far more overt offspring, but Psycho is more of a visceral thrill ride affair than Rear Window or Vertigo, even if it has its share of subtext (and who's to say whether Hitchcock, himself, perceived all or any of this subtext, himself?).

Spielberg has already come up a number of times, but, in my opinion, his most "incorrect" opinion about any of his films is his assertion that A.I. ends on a "happy" note.
Reply
post #37 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveB View Post

Spielberg has already come up a number of times, but, in my opinion, his most "incorrect" opinion about any of his films is his assertion that A.I. ends on a "happy" note.
Absolutely. He couldn't be more wrong about it being happy, and the film is better for it.
Reply
post #38 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
Scorsese famously told Cronenberg that Cronenberg didn't understand his own movies.
Interesting. In what way?
Reply
post #39 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveB View Post
Interesting. In what way?
As a fan! Cheerfully. Looking for the quote (it might have been on video), but speaking of "divorce films", read this until I get back.

Quote:
Scorsese first encountered Cronenberg's work at the 1975 Edinburgh Film Festival, which had opened with The Parasite Murders (Shivers). "I thought I didn't like it," said Scorsese. "But a year later, I found myself thinking about it and talking about it to anyone who would listen. To be blunt, there were a lot of people who wouldn't listen. Cronenberg was a strange name, and my friends were dubious about Canadian cinema anyway. Still, I kept talking, maybe as a way of exorcising Cronenberg's images. Well, I've never exorcised any of them. The last scene of The Parasite Murders, with the cast going out to infect the entire world with sexual dementia, is something I've never been able to shake. It's an ending that is genuinely shocking, subversive, surrealistic and probably something we all deserve."

In 1978, when The Last Waltz screened in Toronto, Scorsese tried to connect with this bizarre Canadian. He said, "I told my friend Robbie Robertson, who was at the Canadian Film Awards as a juror (a pretty amusing concept in itself), to invite Cronenberg." After Cronenberg didn't show up, Robertson told Scorsese "they couldn't find him." Now, as Cronenberg recalls, "I do remember Scorsese being in town and there was some deliberate sleight of hand so that I wouldn't get to meet him. I'm actually not paranoid, despite my movies. But there was a moment when they didn't want me out there representing Canada ... I was too disreputable." (They? It's hard to imagine now. But at the end of the 1970s, Cronenberg had not won the respect of the Canadian film establishment; his reputation still hadn't recovered from the infamous broadside by Saturday Night's Marshall Delaney--a.k.a. Robert Fulford--depicting him as the B-movie pariah of public film financing.) Eventually, however, Cronenberg looked up Scorsese in New York and they became friends. "The man who showed up at my apartment looked like a gynecologist from Beverly Hills," recalls Scorsese (in an oddly prescient reference to the man who would make Dead Ringers, featuring a twin gynecologist named Beverly). "We had a pleasant dinner, even though there was a certain tension on my part, probably originating in my expectation that David's veins would run open and his head would explode. Later, as a birthday gift, David sent me a copy of the uncut Brood. He said it was his version of Kramer vs. Kramer."
Reply
post #40 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:19pm
It's been brought up a hundred times here, but boy howdy, did Richard Kelly not understand why DONNIE DARKO's theatrical release worked.
Reply
post #41 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Count Floyd View Post
It's been brought up a hundred times here, but boy howdy, did Richard Kelly not understand why DONNIE DARKO's theatrical release worked.
I think there's still some debate on whether it worked at all.
Reply
post #42 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bailey View Post
C'mon, besides the contrast between Marian and Willie, it's about a cult that worships an evil goddess and rips men's hearts from their chests, and features stolen children and the loss of sacred "stones". It's a veritable wimmin hatin' manifesto.
I think since I first watched it at an early age, it never bothered me that way. I identified more with Shorty than with Willie, and let's be honest, Kate Capshaw is one of the least pleasent screen presences of all time. I quite literally hate her character. She is the film's largest problem. We, as the auidence, should identify with her even if she still gets on the character's nerves. Instead, she's just plain obnoxious. I also kind of resent how she got the role. I feel like there were most likely better, more talented actresses who could have done a great job but instead Speilberg went with the one he had a personal attachment to. It seems like a betrayal of the film, in a way, to cast a bad actress just because of the fact you like her on a personal level.

As for filmmakers who are wrong about their own work: Oliver Stone, his two alternate cuts of ALEXANDER both show a lack of faith in his original vision, in large ways and small.
Reply
post #43 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:35pm
My reading: Willie Scott is another Belloq, not another Marion. So are Elsa Schneider and Irina Spalko. Willie isn't Indy's explicit antagonist in terms of wanting to keep him from getting the treasure, but she is "a shadowy reflection" of Indy. Both are gold-diggers, after "fortune and glory." She's like his cracked mirror image, but both are out for themselves, until Indy sees the kids in bondage.

Plus Willie is just a burlesque cartoon of the classic damsel in distress. She's a joke. I don't get the hate for her. She serves a parodic purpose.

But Lucasfilms are long on, well I wouldn't say misogyny, more like fear of women. The Indy and Star Wars movies are full of vagina dentata traps. It doesn't get more explicit than the one in Temple of Doom. Except maybe the one in Jedi.
Reply
post #44 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Blank View Post
My reading: Willie Scott is another Belloq, not another Marion. So are Elsa Schneider and Irina Spalko. Willie isn't Indy's explicit antagonist in terms of wanting to keep him from getting the treasure, but she is "a shadowy reflection" of Indy. Both are gold-diggers, after "fortune and glory." She's like his cracked mirror image, but both are out for themselves, until Indy sees the kids in bondage.

Plus Willie is just a burlesque cartoon of the classic damsel in distress. She's a joke. I don't get the hate for her. She serves a parodic purpose.
The hate arises from the fact that she's unpleasent to watch. She's loud, shrill and screams constantly. Beloc and Isla are both fun characters who have great chemistry with Indy. Willie is not. Her character might make sense in the context of the story, on paper at least. Another better actress could have done great work in the part perhaps. Kate Capshaw is not a great actress.
Reply
post #45 of 156
6/28/10 at 12:56pm
Lee Ermey claimed that Kubrick said Eyes Wide Shut was "a piece of shit." I don't know how seriously to take that.

William Goldman once said that old-school moviemakers would routinely, self-deprecatingly refer to their current projects as "this piece of shit I'm working on," so as not to sound like they were putting on airs, I guess. If what Ermey says is true, Kubrick most likely said it while shooting was still going on, and I get the sense that shooting wasn't really his favorite part of the process.
Reply
post #46 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Blank View Post
Lee Ermey claimed that Kubrick said Eyes Wide Shut was "a piece of shit." I don't know how seriously to take that.

William Goldman once said that old-school moviemakers would routinely, self-deprecatingly refer to their current projects as "this piece of shit I'm working on," so as not to sound like they were putting on airs, I guess. If what Ermey says is true, Kubrick most likely said it while shooting was still going on, and I get the sense that shooting wasn't really his favorite part of the process.
From the Wikipedia article on EYES WIDE SHUT:
R. Lee Ermey, an actor in Kubrick's film Full Metal Jacket, claimed that Kubrick phoned him two weeks before his death to express his despondency over Eyes Wide Shut. "He told me it was a piece of shit", Ermey said in Radar magazine, "and that he was disgusted with it and that the critics were going to "have him for lunch". He said Cruise and Kidman had their way with him — exactly the words he used."

According to Todd Field, Kubrick's friend and an actor in Eyes Wide Shut, Ermey's claims are slanderous. Field's response appeared in a 26 October 2006 interview with Slashfilm.com:

"The polite thing would be to say 'No comment'. But the truth is that... let's put it this way, you've never seen two actors more completely subservient and prostrate themselves at the feet of a director. Stanley was absolutely thrilled with the film. He was still working on the film when he died. And he probably died because he finally relaxed. It was one of the happiest weekends of his life, right before he died, after he had shown the first cut to Terry, Tom and Nicole. He would have kept working on it, like he did on all of his films. But I know that from people around him personally, my partner who was his assistant for thirty years. And I thought about R. Lee Ermey for In the Bedroom. And I talked to Stanley a lot about that film, and all I can say is Stanley was adamant that I shouldn't work with him for all kinds of reasons that I won't get into because there is no reason to do that to anyone, even if they are saying slanderous things that I know are completely untrue."
Reply
post #47 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:17pm
It's very possible that both those points of view are entirely true.
Reply
post #48 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Parker View Post
Absolutely. He couldn't be more wrong about it being happy, and the film is better for it.
At the risk of sounding dense or inhuman, I confess I don't quite get this interpretation. If, at the end of my life, I get to spend my final hours with the person I love most, I'm gonna have to consider that a relatively "happy" ending.

What kind of ending would you have called a happy one?

I don't want to derail this thread, so if there's some great analysis elsewhere that proves your point, kindly direct me there.
Reply
post #49 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nekkerbee View Post
At the risk of sounding dense or inhuman, I confess I don't quite get this interpretation. If, at the end of my life, I get to spend my final hours with the person I love most, I'm gonna have to consider that a relatively "happy" ending.
Wasn't it a clone of the person he loved most? It could be viewed as tragic that David was never able to let go and chose to live his final hours with a Xerox of the woman he was programmed to love.

Quote:
What kind of ending would you have called a happy one?
One that ended with the credit "Directed by Stanley Kubrick."

Sorry, I don't mean to be snarky about this. I've just never cottoned to A.I., or MINORITY REPORT, for that matter. Even though I generally love Spielberg's work, I've never been a fan of his futuristic films. He seems embarrassed to be making them, avoiding a full embrace of the genre, at least on the most comfortable levels. Perhaps he thinks his working in deeper, more sophisticated ways, disregarding style in favor of substance. But I never really felt connected the cold, distanced way he approached his sci-fi characters, A.I.'s David most of all. To me, A.I.'s ending depicts a hopeless drug addict at his lowest point going out with his most mind-blowing overdose ever. That's not a particularly happy ending to me.
Reply
post #50 of 156
6/28/10 at 1:49pm
It's been a long time since I've seen A.I., but to me the ending was sad and creepy. It seemed to me a companion to the ending of 2001, both which I read as being about how, despite all the technological progress we make, we are always going to be slaves to our psyches (as well as the other, more primitive functions of our brains.)

David never progressed, he was still stuck on the desire to gain his mother's love and acceptance.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Movie Miscellany
CHUD.com Community › Forums › THE MAIN SEWER › Movie Miscellany › When they are wrong about their own work