Hmmm. Let me take a guess. Critisising Return Of The Sith for not being deep enough or a huge pretentious movie of the sort they like?aldo wrote:what a bunch of f#####g over-verbose, self-satisfied TWATS!!!
I just turned on 2 for a sec, and they had this sleekly gelled bloke (80s yuppie wannabe) spouting some shite or other. Don't know his name; greasboy or something - he was talking to the one that looks like a potato with glasses.karajorma wrote:Hmmm. Let me take a guess. Critisising Return Of The Sith for not being deep enough or a huge pretentious movie of the sort they like?aldo wrote:what a bunch of f#####g over-verbose, self-satisfied TWATS!!!
Just taking a wild stab in the dark at it which incidently is what I'd like to do them too.
Hardly anyone, nay (:p), nobody speaks like that. Not unless they're the annoying blonde child from the Simpsons. And you know how they treat him You've never seen Newsnight Review, that's why.Raa wrote:Don't worry. Even though the British do already use wordings that seem strange to us on this side 'o the lake (I refuse to call it a pond), those are surely from a thesaurus.
KIRSTY WARK:
Mark Kermode, Mel Gibson wants us to believe it is the historical truth. Does that wash?
MARK KERMODE:
Well, I don't think of it as historical truth. I think the best way of understanding this film, and I don't say this is a criticism, is that it's a horror film. It is a horror film with Christian themes, in the same way as Ken Russell's The Devils, or, dare I say, The Exorcist, or maybe Bad Lieutenant. But it is a horror film. Despite the fact that it is in Latin and Aramaic and people have talked about historical accuracy, it is very much a phantasmagorical film. The rest of the film is fantastically violent. I don't mean that as a bad thing. I think it aims to do what exploitation horror cinema should do, which is to kind of batter the audience into a sense of almost transcendent experience. I think to some extent it does that. I think there are great problems with it politically. As a visceral, cinematic experience, it works.
WARK:
Do you think it is what Mel Gibson set out to do, to make a horror film.
TIM LOTT:
No, I don't think it is a horror film, I disagree with Mark. The suspense is missing. You know what will take place, you are not going to be shocked by anything in the sense that you are going to be surprised. It is a spiritual film, to me. It touched me. It feels like a pretentious thing to say, but it touched me in the spirit in a way. I mean I felt very moved by it. Not in the way a horror film would move me. In a different way. It made me actually want to go and read the gospels again. I'm an atheist. I'm not interested in literal or even mythical truth of the Bible. But it is an incredibly powerful story, one that has informed, obviously, my childhood. And it brought it all back to me in a very powerful way, that it was visceral. I think he achieved exactly what he wanted to achieve. I liked the fact that I didn't recognise any of the actors. I liked the fact that it was Aramaic, so I had no sense of it being an artifice. I was there. I believed it. And the reactions in the cinema I was watching it, the rest of the people were crying, people were shocked, people were angry. It is one of the most powerful pieces of film making I've seen for quite a while.
JULIE MYERSON:
Well yeah, I'm amazed with what Tim is saying actually. I agree with elements of what both of you are saying, I think it is a horror film with no plot, which is the worst sort of horror film. It is a horror. There is no plot because you're only seeing those last 12 hours. You know at the very beginning of the film exactly what will happen. That is all that happens. And actually, yes, I know it is a big thing that happens, but that is all that happens. It is very slow. Although it is very violent, it shoots itself in the foot in a way. Because the initial beating is terribly upsetting and disturbing, but I got used to the sight of his flesh being covered in blood. By the time the nails went in, I wasn't really very moved.
WARK:
Did you get used to the renting of the flesh with the cat and nine tails.
KERMODE:
No, not at all. To answer two points, firstly, when I say it is a horror film, I don't think that means it is not spiritual. I think for example that the Exorcist is the most spiritual of films. And I am a church-goer. I don't say it is a horror film meaning it is not a spiritual experience. As far as the plot and no tension is concerned, I think the ominous dread of what is coming, which actually is what - I mean, if you go and see a film like Last House on the Left, you know what it is going to end in. In the same way as with this, you know it's going to end there. As far as the actual depiction of the renting of the flesh is concerned, it is extraordinarily well carried out, you have to turn away from the screen, because it is like it is being inflicted upon you.
LOTT:
It feels true.
WARK:
Now the thrust of the objection to this film is that it is anti-Semitic. Do you think that is true?
KERMODE:
I don't think the film itself is anti-Semitic, but I absolutely understand why anyone watching it could read anti-Semitism into it. I mean basically I think Gibson works in blacks and white. He has good guys and bad guys. The good guy for him in this is Jesus.
LOTT:
So does the Bible.
WARK:
Yeah. But is that dangerous in the hands of someone like Mel Gibson?
KERMODE:
What I think is dangerous is that he absolutely sort of overlooks all the kind of regulations laid down by Vatican too, about the way in which one should proceed with caution. There is no caution in this film whatsoever. But I don't think that means the film itself is anti-Semitic.
WARK:
What about the look of the film, because Mel Gibson said to the cinematographer: "I want it to look like a Caravaggio painting". What about that, and the fact that it's in Aramaic?
LOTT:
Well, as I said before, I think the idea of it being in Aramaic is - the point is to try to distance yourself from all ... - I mean, is there a more clichéd subject, in a way, than the gospels, in the sense that it is a story more retold than any other story? And to try and take us to a place where it feels fresh again is a very very difficult thing to do.
MYERSON:
What I find odd, I would like to know what Mark thinks, is, if you want to make a piece of film which is I suppose propaganda for Christianity, why pick those last twelve hours? I thought the bits of the film that were fantastic and worked but we didn't get enough of them, were the bits where we saw him doing his teaching, we saw him being alive and happy, and spiritual, and quite exciting. And also his mother ...
WARK:
Apparently Mel Gibson even shot some of these after he shot the bulk of the film to leaven as it were.
MYERSON:
I think that shows actually, because they are not there enough.
KERMODE:
But the answer there is I don't think the film actually works as a piece of propaganda for Christianity. Like I said, I think it works as a visceral horror experience. I think there is more Christianity in the Shawshank Redemption or The Night of Configuration, or talkie films like that.
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