comment #1

JD says ...

Interesting. But isn't the award failure of movies like Children of Men and The Good Shepherd so far, an indication that these are visions people don't want to let in. Whether you ulrtimately read COM as optimistic or pessimistic -- I haven't seen it yet -- if the Golden Globes can dismiss it, in spite of what everyone is calling cinematic virtuosity, it must be saying something pretty unpleasant... to them, anyway.

comment #2

Thrudvangar says ...

Yeah, that's why Dances With Wolves beat out Goodfellas, Shakespeare won over Private Ryan and why Babel will win the Oscar instead of The Departed and COM, even though COM is the best picture of the year.

comment #3

jeffreywells says ...

Wells to JD: COM is obviously, indisputably optimistic -- it's about the re-birth of hope in a world almost entirely consumed by despair and futility -- but the degenerated furturistic milieu it portrays is very convincing, which, I suppose, is what older people are finding so unappealing about it. When I say "older" I mean the audience looking for some kind of positivism or uplift in the texture and minutae of a film. The beauty of COM is not just in the re-birth of hope theme, but, of course, how remakrably authentic the world of 2027 seems.

comment #4

Argen says ...

I don't see why RYAN is considered pessimistic. There are horros in first half hour, but by the time you reach the end of the film you're so awash in syrup it's hard to breathe. In other words, I don't think that was the reason it lost.

Wish I could say something about COM. Cannot wait to see it.

I tend to pick on you, Jeffrey, but this post is very nicely written and quite inspiring. Thank you for that.

comment #5

jeffmcm says ...

There is no syrup in Saving Private Ryan. It lost because of the Harvey Weinstein Onslaught (which is also the name of my new punk band).
But Babel won't win Best Picture this year - it's certainly a heavier movie than The Departed.

comment #6

Me says ...

jeffmcm, did you show up five minutes late to Ryan and leave five minutes early, because those bookends were nothing but syrup. Ryan's a great movie, but to suggest that it is a perfect film is to overlook a lot of its weaknesses. Whether it's better than SIL is really a matter of individual taste.

That said, I'd rather United 93 win, as The Departed is a pretty shallow take on both the duplicitous world of crime and the Boston crime scene in general. Reward Scorses with director if we must, but let the best picture actually be something interesting and deserving.

comment #7

Geoff says ...

The older generations seem to respond well to the Ryan bookend crap. It's the same kind of thing in Flags, where the guy's son just wants to understand his troubled father. The younger audience can always do without that stuff.

comment #8

jeffmcm says ...

The bookends were essential to the movie's narrative, and were actually very subversively dark - they ask the question 'did Ryan earn it?' without answering it. SPR's only real flaw is that Spielberg was too subtle for his own good in those scenes.
The Flags finale, though, was dragged out for no good reason.

comment #9

Argen says ...

I wholly disagree that they are in any way subversive. You have an old man with a wife and kids who obviously care about him enough to be worried and teary eyed as they pursue him through the cemetray. Okay, that proves (without belaboring it too much) that he was a good husband and father. He's an American with no notable accent and his family seems to be squarely upper middle class, if not lower high. So, he clearly didn't chuck his life on irresponsibility and dead ends. To ask after that "Am I a good man?" is over-fucking-kill.

I think there's a lot of good in SPR. I also think there's a lot of flab that could be cut without losing sleep. But it also has severe script-level problems that screw the ending unfortunately.

The ending, in general is the typical Spielberg error of not leaving well enough alone. If he's trying to make the point that no life is worth that amount of sacrifice then he doesn't make it well (subtly or not). All in all, it's the usual emotional overkill that Spielberg, for some reason, can't resist anymore. You can say any number of things about SPR- good and bad- that I wouldn't argue with you about, but saying it isn't syrupy isn't one of them.

And, boy, do I hope BABEL doesn't even get the nom. What a wasted opportunity. Unless they want to give it a new "Best Film That Appears Deeper Than It Really Is" Oscar.

comment #10

Argen says ...

The end of that first paragraph reads badly. My point being he has enough money to travel with his family to France. Wasn't playing the Americans Rule card.

comment #11

jeffmcm says ...

I know of plenty of people who are married with children who aren't good husbands and fathers. Duh.
The larger point is that Ryan is questioning whether his family and everything he's enjoyed was worth the enormous sacrifices that all the other soldiers made - this is the film's major theme, it runs throughout. It doesn't matter what his wife and kids think, this is a deep, penetrating question within his own mind, a case of survivor's guilt writ society-wide.

Spielberg has managed to become both the most successful filmmaker of his generation, and one of the most underrated, because people don't see what he's saying, right on the screen in front of them.

Maybe it is a little syrupy. But the movie earns it.

comment #12

MovieBob says ...

The movie that makes Oscar "feel" the most always has an instant edge, but it's a mistake to take the politics 100% out of the question because that has a great deal to do with the feeling. Example: The "innevitability" of SPR's win, touted in the media and by even casual fans before the movie even came out, for example, probably made The Academy "feel" not-taken-seriously as a source of film-critique, which helped contribute to the "Shakespeare" win.

BTW, the ONLY good thing to come of that particular travesty was that it took some of the edge off of the instinctive hatred for "Dances With Wolves," as it's no longer the most bullshit Oscar "surprise" ever.

comment #13

insidah says ...

Just finished watching CHILDREN OF MEN screener. I'm still trying to process the film in terms of its merit. The ending was very moving. The production values were mesmirizing. Its a story of hope in a bleak world - which is relatable and yet...a bit abstract. Almost Star Wars-ian (and therefore Joseph Campbell-ian) with Clive as Luke, Michael Caine as Obi Wan, the mother as Princess Leia - it was just so bleak. Suspenseful, yet bleak - invested in a realism that eliminates the possibilty of fun. I just don't know. I really don't know. It exists in a category of its own, one it's hard to see Oscar rewarding.

comment #14

Bandersnatch says ...

Yes, it's certainly a travesty that a beautifully-rendered film with an erudite, intellectual screenplay written by a brilliant playwright about a brilliant playwright and featuring fine performances from actors like Geoffrey Rush, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson and Imelda Staunton won the Oscar for Best Picture. Clearly the Academy has its head up its ass.

Argen's right: Saving Private Ryan is a fine film, but it amounts to little more than a pat on the back for the men who fought in World War II and, by extension, a pat on the back for Spielberg for being sensitive and patriotic enough to honor those men. And it's certainly not subversive: Johnny Got His Gun is subversive. Paths of Glory is subversive. Ambrose Bierce is subversive. SPR doesn't even come close.

comment #15

Argen says ...

Hey, it's been a while since I got a good old "you're obviously too thick to understand it" from you, jeffmcm. I'm feeling all nostalgic.

The point was not that he was simply married. It was the way his family attended to him and acted towards him. (See, film is mainly a visual medium and actual information is given through action more than words.) That was the key indicator to me that he had been a good family man. (But then I'm too stupid to see things right on the screen.)

I agree that the point you are stating was the reason for the bookends. But I will also say that the bookends are poor ways to make that point, that it doesn't successfully make that point, and that it plays as treacle on top of something that tried to be more.

I don't argue that Spielberg is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I just think he dropped the ball on that one (though his writer dropped it first).

I'll agree to disagree with you and keep myself from casting aspersions on your intelligence as I do so. Prick.

comment #16

Min says ...

So where does last year's "Crash" and Paul Haggis fit into this grand "certain visions, themes, philosophies and capturings contained in these films" meme? Even us leftie dirty hippies hated that film. And we're still bitching about it.

comment #17

MovieBob says ...

"Yes, it's certainly a travesty that a beautifully-rendered film with an erudite, intellectual screenplay written by a brilliant playwright about a brilliant playwright and featuring fine performances from actors like Geoffrey Rush, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson and Imelda Staunton won the Oscar for Best Picture. Clearly the Academy has its head up its ass."

That's the thing, though. "Shakespeare in Love" wasn't even THAT good. It's just faux-intellectual fluff, not even slightly above the mark of the average romance novel, pretending to be high-culture by virtue that it's full of English stage actors and involves Shakespeare in it's "plot." It's a shallow, surface-only work of cinematic cotton candy designed to let it's target audience (economically-comfortable middle-aged women) feel like they're watching something important and brainy.

comment #18

jeffmcm says ...

Argen, congratulations on being a bigger, thicker man :) By our arguments we can judge each other.

To repeat myself, it's irrelevant that Old Ryan's family was supportive and loving. The movie is about the question raging within himself, one that could never honestly be answered: why did he survive the war when so many other good men died? Did he deserve to in some way? Are his smiling grandchildren a sufficient trade-off for Adam Goldberg feeling a slow blade penetrating his chest, or Giovanni Ribisi feeling his guts spilling out of his abdomen?

Maybe 'subversive' isn't the right word for Saving Private Ryan, but 'challenging' is - it's not just a 'soldiers are great' movie, it's a movie positing certain ideas about the nature of sacrifice in wartime and the numbers game - that the few fight for the many. What _is_ subversive is that Spielberg put these tough, unsentimental ideas out in public view for all to see, yet did it so skillfully that people watch the movie for the explosions and allow the ideas to stream by.

comment #19

LYTrules says ...

Min - CRASH has an almost perfect sentiment for limousine liberals, in that it says we're all tolerant in a larger sense despite having nasty personal prejudices when we actually encounter other races, and we'll mostly overcome. It smacks of the sentiments of those who live up in the hills and only occasionally descend into the city.

As a lib without a limo who lives among many other races, I'm a wee bit less fond of the notion. I agree that everyone has prejudices, but not to the same extent, and I can't imagine that in real life similar characters to those in the movie wouldn't lose their jobs over vocalizing them so blatantly.

comment #20

jeffmcm says ...

The other problem with Crash, beyond the sentiments it fosters, is how poorly made it is. The cinematography is bad, there are several really horrible performances (Thandie Newton), the dialogue is stridently artificial, and the plotting is heavy-handed and made my eyes roll several more times than I typically want in a movie.

comment #21

christian says ...

i can't wait for oscar season to be over.

comment #22

NYCBusybody says ...

i vote 4 "click"

comment #23

le corbeau says ...

Re Private Ryan (which a friend of mine described perfectly as "a stunning opening and closing, separated by a pretty good episode of Combat"): read Band of Brothers, in particular the part about the guy who trained them but wound up being so hated that he was relieved before they went overseas and basically spent the rest of his life as a bitter screwup estranged from his kids-- a casualty not even of war but of the military, yet with one real success in life to his credit which he could never enjoy-- training that unit to perfection.

That's the subject of Saving Private Ryan-- what it means to be a survivor of war-- minus the sugar. (It's also the best part of the otherwise weirdly bland TV miniseries of Band of Brothers.)

comment #24

Me says ...

Huh... that's funny. I actually found Band of Brothers (the miniseries) to be so much more interesting than SPR (and even the too-dry book it was based on), because we got to follow the characters for the length of the war, with so much interesting material that Spielberg never would have been able to fit in a two-hour movie. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

comment #25

christian says ...

in a world where beyonce is pushed as an oscar worthy actor...the oscars have no meaning.

comment #26

Dave Polands Gut says ...

Saving Private Ryan was a good 25 minute movie. A daring 25 minutes. Shocking. But once they hit the beach and the movie actually started it was shite. It wasnt even in the same league as Thin Red Line that year.

comment #27

le corbeau says ...

Dear Me,

I agree that Band of Brothers is more interesting thanks to the more detailed and realistic picture of the events of the invasion... but once David Schwimmer's unlikable character is out of the picture, it's weirdly undramatic on a personal level. The characters are oddly well-mannered and decent toward one another for being in the giant shitstorm of World War II, and the actors are kind of square-jawedly bland, like guys running for Congress. Maybe it's because I grew up on snarling, cynical WWII movies with guys like Lee Marvin or Jack Palance in them, but I found it hard to stay with it on a personal level even when it was historically impressive.

comment #28

Me says ...

Hah... that really is funny, we're on completely opposite sides. I couldn't stand Schwimmer's performance, and once he was out of the way, I really loved the rest. But I was raised on war movies of the Vietnam variety, like Platoon, where everyone was snarling and hating one another, so it was cool to see how the WWII guys could claim to feel a brotherhood, without all the woodeness of the 40s war movies.

I can definitely see how you can call the characters bland, but I more felt like they were honest, simple people thrown into a horrible situation. So, when everyone got torn apart by the war, even the tough guys like Buck, it just felt so human in a way that I hadn't seen from many war movies before.

And I thought the battle scenes were so amazing, that I can watch it over and over again.

comment #29

NYCBusybody says ...

You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. I remember Spielberg being criticized in many quarters for the stereotypical, too-differentiated characters (religious rural (Pepper), sarcastic Brooklyn Irish (Burns), sarcastic Urban Jew (Goldberg), familial and oafish Italian (Diesel), squirrely, jittery intellectual (Davies).

I've now heard Band of Brothers, as above, be criticized for having "bland" characters (usually an elitist term for working/middle-class Middle Americans...you're bland if you're not a gay black urban woman with short hair and glasses and a turban).

Perhaps Spielberg should populate WWII with aliens next time.

comment #30

Argen says ...

Actually the main criticism of the "stereotypical, too-differentiated" members of the SPR group was that it was the usual cliched group from just about any war film you can think of: the joker, the religious one, the sad poetic guy, and so on and so on.

Those criticisms were correct, by the way. Not to mention the fact that they failed to create any characters you really cared about whether they'd survive the war or not. (And considering that they threw their lives away to defend an uncosequential bridge in a non-strategic town, it's no wonder they didn't.)

comment #31

The Movie Man says ...

"i can't wait for oscar season to be over."

Unfortunately, I don't think Oscar season is ever over anymore.

comment #32

MovieBob says ...

SPR was DEFINATELY "subversive," in that it SUBVERTED the default presentation and collective conscious of WWII on film. It simply did it's subverting so quickly, broadly and cleanly all at once that we can barely even see it today.

Before SPR, WWII wasn't just a "good war," it was a "clean war," a "mythic war." Vietnam, and ONLY Vietnam, was where you set your war movie if you wanted it to be about horror, fear, death and moral grays. WWII was for Classics Illustrated heroism, bold brawny men mowing down whole platoons of Germans and Japanese. Fans of comic books need only look to Captain America, feared and revered by exponentially more powerful comrades like Spider-Man or the X-Men; and why not? He's a Fighting Man of The Greatest Generation, practically qualifying him as member of a long-lost superior race in the popular culture.

SPR doesn't cheat or downplay the inherent heroism and granduer of the Last Good War, but it does so by adding in the humanity, the gray and the real horror missing in almost all prior imaginings of the conflict. It's no coincidences that SPR and the "Greatest Generation" cultural-phenomenon occured in the same swirl of activity. Someday, someone is going to write a bestseller about the many members of Generations X and Y (and it's a high number, I'll assure you) who felt they had (or wanted to have) more in common with their grandparents' generation than their Boomer parents, and Saving Private Ryan will figure prominently in the analysis.

comment #33

The Winchester says ...

The thing that bothers the most about Saving Private Ryan is that the old gentleman flashes back to the invasion, and to the journey leading up to finding Private Ryan. Then the old man turns out to BE Ryan, the one man who was not in two thirds of the events of the flashback. It should be Ed Burns character. this has bothered me for 8 years.

That's why I'll always defend the Shakespeare in Love win.

comment #34

The Movie Man says ...

I always thought SAVING PRIVATE RYAN was a sort of sampler tape of Spielberg's strengths and weaknesses. The film has a craftsmanship that rivals Peckinpah and Kubrick, but a thickheaded sentimentality (especially at the end, when Stevie reaches for the second Oscar) that evokes Capra at his cheesiest. Ultimately, I think the good outweighs the bad, and the film is memorable.

The Winchester-I think the old man bookends should have been chucked entirely.

comment #35

christian says ...

i loved the opening battle and certain moments in between of SPR but clearly spielberg is a master at filming disturbing death. but that awful ending... spielberg does not know how to end a film anymore. he must have three endings. everytime.

but i think SPR is subversive in that anybody can read anything into it, but that final shot of the dusty glazed flag is certainly not rah rah jingoism. i think it means the flag still flies, but at what cost?

comment #36

renorambler says ...

Spielberg's endings are a big problem. Even in films that I quite like. For example, if AI had ended with the kid in the water, and Minority Report had ended with Tom C. locked away in the prison, both films would have been better.

comment #37

The Movie Man says ...

The funny thing about A.I. is that Spielberg does Kubrick better than Spielberg does Spielberg. I think there are some wonderful, intense, nearly perverse things in that film, but Lord, portions of it are indulgent and terrible. I agree, renorambler, with you on the ending.