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Minor nitpick: most people killed in Stalin's purges weren't chosen randomly. Stalin's decision to kill an x number if people was arbitrary. But most were purged because they either pissed someone off or had something others wanted (including a choice of spouses). That's to say it was human nature at its most unencumbered.
There's a Finnish author, who is famous in our small land but not really outside of it, who made a big "sensation" in the 70's by writing a satirical biography of Hitler. Before that book, he had written a couple of takes on folksy life in rural Finland, the sort, nothing really out of the ordinary. But, and this was the post-war 70's of Finland, it was highly controversial, to say the least, to write a fiction book about Hitler. That he had written it so that Hitler was an even more ridiculous character than he was in reality (that Hitler could be perceived as a comical figure!) was a bit of an outrage.
In the opening statement of the book, the author (who was a child during WW2) asks, "Why in the Hell did you listen to Hitler?"
I think that's a fucking great question.
I don't really know how to put together the life experiences of Victor Kemplerer and Solzhenitzyn. Just as an example. Solzhenitsyn makes a point of underlining how near he was to becoming an oppressor rather than the oppressed, how easily that role could have befallen him instead. He laments that he could not, for obvious reasons, really question his oppressors while they were doing it. Kemplerer essentially tells a story of how society falls into ruin around him. And especially how society around him begins to treat him as a non-human entity. It is a very unabashed story from a victim's point of view.
You can tell people narratives about how they become monstrous, and you can tell narratives about what it is like to fall into monstrous hands. A movie like Django is more entertaining to watch than 12 Years a Slave. The narrative about how you, in whatever scenario, would be the oppressor, is fundamentally a power fantasy. It can be made seem terrifying, but ultimately the emotional pay-out will have to, at least partly, lie on the satisfaction of destruction on others.
That we all potentially have the agency to oppress others is evident, but the narrative about being put "in the other guy's seat" isn't so silly. We all remember the fascist that Orwell didn't shoot because he was holding up his trousers, don't we?
There's no meaning or resolution to be had from the gulags, or the Shoah. There's just a lot of people's lives ruined. I think making people remember that, yes, indeed, those were people who came and went, can offer something to the societal discourse today. As you point out, there's a lot of affluent kids these days who victimize themselves over feeling bad about frog memes, but that isn't really the same thing. Is it more instructive for them (let alone the frog meme people) to see Schindler's List or Conspiracy? Both parties need to understand how they can turn into monstrosities, but also why exactly monstrous things are so abhorrent.
The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not with out your help. But you're not helping.
Sure, but that's the point Solzhenitsyn makes repeatedly, you could get picked up for having a hot wife, a nice violin or a good apartment. There was no sensible feedback loop between what your actions did and what the system did to you. Whereas with the Shoah, it was kinda clear what the criteria was. You had no control over it there, either, but it was plain to see.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I assign the first chapter in one of my classes. Some great anecdotes in there.
As some dead dude once said: "the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
Want to shoehorn in this before I get back to serious stuff. ;) I actually haven't seen much of Wes Anderson, but I didn't love The Royal Tenenbaums anywhere near as much as I loved Moonrise Kingdom. What really set it apart for me was the parallel world that the kids lived in, with its own logic and rules - most of the adults just brushed past it, engrossed in their own priorities, but a few of the adults - notably Ed Norton's character, and to an extent Bruce Willis' - became fully immersed. In this manner it reminded me a little bit of To Kill A Mockingbird. Really strong stuff, and beautifully done.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
I think perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes here, Nessus. I don't think we should avoid humanizing victims; far from it. I just think that we can tell more stories than just the stories about the victims, and that seeing ourselves as victims is not a particularly constructive way to approach these issues. (Also, remember that my big issue that started this digression is that 'white savior' storylines are added to already remarkable stories to give the audience someone to identify with who isn't a racist/etc., and they also turn the disadvantaged into victims when they are actually self-empowered individuals with great strength of character.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Nessus
I reject the argument that to see ourselves as potential oppressors - in media or otherwise - is a power fantasy. Django is hardly my idea of a good film in this genre; perhaps a better one would be the chunk I saw of a German miniseries 'Our Mothers, Our Fathers' - while at times deeply flawed and ahistorical, it also addressed the issue of perpetrators head on rather than making them all caricatures of evil Nazis (or slaveowners, or whatever). I'm not a huge fan of the 'shooting and crying' genre in that it can easily veer into justification rather than identification and humanization, but it's at least a start. (I'm not familiar enough with Conspiracy to give a cogent discussion of it, I'm afraid.)
There was a long-winded and somewhat controversial piece a while back that touched on the question of how memorials for the Holocaust should be done; he similarly had issues with the culture of victimhood. He suggests that an appropriate memorial might be the Stolperstein that are cropping up in some parts of Europe - not an overwhelming exercise in communal victimhood but a concrete, localized, personal connection to the victims. Perhaps that might indeed be an appropriate way to identify with victims, in the same way that modest monuments explaining the local history of slavery are valuable throughout the Southern US.
I have my doubts that most people who saw Schindler's List needed reminding that genocide was bad, or that the actions of a few can save thousands. But I think that their experience was at once a 'celebration' of victimhood while being oddly depersonalized - yes, we realize that those people could have been us, but the victims are always 'over there'. To me, Schindler's List was obviously deeply personal; I grew up around people who were only alive because their grandparents were on that list (or got out on a Kindertransport, or the Leica Freedom Train, or whatever) - as well as those who had not 'gotten out' but rather survived the hard way, typically losing every single relative in the process. But that is not the typical encounter; instead, one has a moment of identification (this could have been me!) followed, largely, by nothing.
Yes, let us continue to humanize victims and the Other, but let's also spend time showing how people seem so willing to go down this path, how societies descend into chaos and murder, and how deeply ordinary people are capable of extraordinary evil. Just wanting to avoid the horrors of the past is not enough - but that's all you'll get if you only spend your time teaching people how victims were mistreated and that it was Bad. Much better to focus on how it came to pass, and why - and how to strengthen our society to prevent it in the future. Putting ourselves in the shoes of victims is meaningful, but that shouldn't come at the expense of understanding that we're far more likely to be perpetrators and collaborators.
I suppose I am being Hannah Arendt to your Saul Friedländer :)
What I would like to remind everyone, when they are faced with these senseless monstrosities, is that the victim does not have agency but they do have cogency. You know? While the tragedy is senseless, it is a tragedy because those people were there to experience it.
I disagree with the Marxist reading of the Shoah, but I found meaning in their memorial of it; even I am not a monster enough not to be moved by a statue of children's discarded (not voluntarily) footwear.
What I meant with the power fantasy aspect, fundamentally, is that you wish to always perceive yourself as one in full faculty over your life. What Alexandr repeatedly pounds over the reader's head is that we cannot control the horrors visited upon us.
It is not some Lovecraftian terror that comes from beyond, you are right there. It is a terror that comes from us, the people. What I would like everyone to remember is that we are all people, whereby the stories of victimhood serve as reminder that this has happened and can happen.
That we, today, deny health care to our fellow people, or compute death scenarios whereby hundreds of millions die in atomic fire, we are being evil and monstrous, but it makes sense as part of the parcel. The stories of people acting sensibly, accepting that this or that action I perpetrate, today, results in someone dying tomorrow, those are not instructive. Not really. We all do what we are told, don't we?
But to have the story of completely unreasonable, monstrous evil being perpetrated thrown at our faces, is that not a wake-up call?
Also, Conspiracy is a somewhat a-historical view of what happened and why, but it's a movie about old white dudes sitting around and discussing the fine points of mass murder for an hour and a half, so there's that.
I think I understand and respect your position, and certainly it has some merit. Yet I think that the balance has shifted too far in the 'identify with the victim' direction, which is important but not IMO as helpful in preventing future atrocities. Perhaps we'll have to agree to sorta-disagree?
I hope this doesn't sound like a "frog man" argument, but I would agree that the idea of who actually is a victim has undergone substantial inflation. If someone calls me fat, or a faggot, it's nowhere near the actual persecutions that have transpired in the past. If we dilute the idea of victimhood, we do a disservice to our ability to perceive the egresses that lead to out-right mass murder. Is this the compromise?Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
On the other side of the argument, and as I already evoked Hannah Arendt, the people who actually perpetrated the most "media-sexy" crimes of the previous century were kinda boring. I mean, Himmler was weird, but camp inmates tended to describe him as reminiscent of a school teacher. Berija was a crude and brutish man, but that's not very interesting either. Conspiracy is a terrifying movie in that you have these old dudes spend an hour and a half discussing what actually constitutes Jewishness to the extent that it warrants gassing, but it's not exactly as visceral as Amon Göth shooting randomly at people in Schindler's List. This is more of discussion on what's more digestible media, I admit!
And for what it's worth, I suppose we live in a very blessed age insofar that people have the luxury of getting genuinely outraged about being called fat, or a fag. The idea of actual mass murder is so distant to us (if you and I share enough of a parameter space to be an 'us') that we can worry about the smaller details.
Despicable Me 3...
Best Villan Ever.
Alien Covenant
Dumbest Crew Ever.
Honestly, the story is about making every wrong decision, violating every protocol, and not acting like rational people.
Baby Driver. Mostly entertaining, i liked the style and the flow with the music, and could get past the terrible stereotypical criminals for the first 1,5 hours. But the final job just sucks, there's no way Kevin Spacey's character would ever have gone through with it (and his later u turn towards baby doesn't make sense) and the whole thing keeps going too long.
No Country for Old Men. I really need to read more Cormac McCarthy, but I thought this was very refreshing, albeit violent. I liked that it didn't tie things up neatly and some of the performances were stellar. It was a nice reimagination of the Western genre, stripped of most of the recognizable motifs.
Bokeh - a postapocalyptic film set in Iceland. This was a film with a lot of flaws - a relatively pointless plot, some challenges in character development, etc. - but I didn't really care because they used the backdrop of Iceland to such ridiculously good effect. The basic themes weren't really anything new, but overall it was competently executed. Worth it for the scenery but probably not otherwise.
Saw Spider-Man: Homecoming
Yeah, they kinda nailed this one. Everyone in the audience had a great time. Holland delivered on the promise from Civil War and Keaton's Vulture/Toomes made for pretty much the only compelling villain in the current MCU, combining the best aspects of Norman Osborne and Otto Octavius from the first trilogy, avoiding their flaws and adding a unique flair all his own that made this version of his character more interesting than most of his comic-book and cartoon incarnations. The supporting cast was solid and made the most of their few lines of dialogue.
Unlike the previous Spidey-movies, which were all fatally flawed in one way or another (with the possible exception of Spider-Man 2), Homecoming had, IMO, no major deal-breakers. There were a few rough edges--kinda lame theme track, two-dimensional supporting characters, painfully bad Gargan, etc--but nothing that really risked ruining the movie as a whole. Excellent pacing and use of tension throughout. Only a little melodrama that was almost always reined in at just the right moment. Fight sequences were decent and the CGI actually added to the experience without being distracting (much like it was in Winter Soldier).
Forgoing another retelling of the origin story was a very good decision, except in one respect: the movie doesn't really do justice to Peter's constant struggle with his own sense of duty and the conflicting demands that places on him in his various roles as student, friend, kin, hero etc.
The only major criticisms I have are that there was too much slapstick comedy in the first act (given Parker's performance in Civil War) and that we didn't really get a feel for what a huge mega-brainy nerd Parker really is. That said, this movie captures the essence of Spidey's formative years--the dorky, hopeless, teen-aged friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man coming into his own in a huge and terrifying universe full of seemingly insurmountable obstacles and villains with unimaginable power--in a way no other movie has done, so far. I'm very satisfied and looking forward to the sequel, although I hope said sequel won't feature Gargan too heavily. It wasn't a cinematic masterpiece but it was a very enjoyable movie, esp. for people who love Spidey :o
There are two extra scenes and I recommend staying for both. They've also posted an extra scene that didn't make it into the final cut:
Not really a spoiler, don't worry:
Is it just me or is the opening musical score in Spider-Man almost exactly like "Spider Pig"?
It is, and everyone was singing that on the way out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
How are there no internet stories about this? :confused:
Spoiler:
Spiderman was good! A bit more humorous than Wonder Woman but I liked the setting a bit more in WW. Marvel's doing a really good job with this one and even slightly moved the story forward a bit. CA bits were gold. :0
2.22 If you watch movies the way I do, the plot is sort of given away at the beginning. From there on it's not torture to watch it, but you may as well wait till it hits Neflix.
The Promise; Every reviewer seems to feel obliged that it takes historical liberties, but they're not so big as to entirely distort the story of the Armenian Genocide. Of course it comes with a love story attached which is well done and not too schematic. Not a happy movie; there were times I felt tears welling up.
Baby Driver; loved everything about it, absolutely everything. I may even go and watch it again.
@Flixy; not stereotypes, archetypes. This is not an action movie or a love story, it's a movie that exquisitly mashes up those genres just for the fun of it. Even La La Land made a cameo appearance in the laundromat.
So apparently both are based on this: :oQuote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Of course, I thought you knew :o I used to watch dubbed episodes of that when I was a kid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-qMBS1frkM
I watched the 90s variant. Different theme song.
Def. the best animated version of the comic :up:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Yeah, I skimmed some of the earlier versions and they were terrible. The newer ones are just weird.
The crucifiction; a low-budget horror movie. Entertaining but you may was well simply wait for its Netflix release.
War for the planet of the Apes; good solid movie, a bit on the long side, but the apes keep you interested. Leaving the place I was wondering if Woody Harrelson never gets angry of always playing the same role.
Spiderman; homecoming. Because of this forum I knew that the old spiderman tune was in the opening sequence and I recognized it despite never having heard it. Overal I liked the movie, even though the spiderman cgi really didn't look all that convincing. The part with the ferry was outright silly. Could have done with 30 minutes shorter. And of course in the end it made me chuckle. Oh, and horror of horrors, I saw it in IMAX 3d.
Machete
Still a remarkably satisfying movie, but it's deeply disturbing to discover that the Trump campaign was basically lifted straight from this movie and took him all the way to the White House.
Dunkirk, despite initial misgivings I decided to give it a go; it's a good movie about a horrible episode in WW2. It was clear though they were not going to take risks with the soundtrack; it ticked all the patriotic (British) boxes. Interesting trivia; a lot of the scenes on sea were actually filmed in a dammed off sea arm in The Netherlands. Appearantly the North Sea/Channel wasn't fotogenetic enough. Only thing that I would point out as a flaw was the number of civil craft; it doesn't quite work as the saving of the army it's supposed to be if the viewer can't stop himself thinking; how the hell are they going to fit all those men on the odd ten boats they came over with.
Not about photogenic or not, that way they can use dutch tax rebates (plus I imagine the water being calmer than open sea).Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Saw the Blade Runner teaser trailer before Baby Driver and I'm still very upset. Why the fuck does Ryan fucking Gosling have to be in every damn' movie ever? He's getting to be like an annoying American Benedict Cumberbatch.
Baby Driver was decent. Good supporting cast, especially the antagonists. Baby himself was deliberately written as a pretty two-dimensional and thin character at first, which no doubt helped a certain kind of viewer imagine themselves being him. Those of us who reflexively sync our actions to music can't help but click with Baby. The story was ultimately a little hollow, but the movie had heaps of style and a dope soundtrack that really leveraged the whirlwind emotions of teen drama to maximum effect. It felt like being in highschool :o
Unfortunately, there was also one very long sequence that evoked Evil Toby Maguire, which I couldn't unsee for a very long time.
Spacey kinda felt like he was just phoning it in, but Spacey on a bad day is still pretty cool.