Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Troy (A) on January 21, 2004 at 12:42:42

In Reply to: There are probably websites where you can do that sort of thing posted by J on January 21, 2004 at 12:12:16:

You were the one being literal--'all movies are cosmetic & sugar-coated.' I see yr point, but I see PF being an exception to that rule. There are others. They may be few, but there are certainly more. I mean, it's difficult to say that the Deer Hunter is sugar-coated, to me. Arguing that it's cosmetic because there are some nice scenery touches in the mountains in Pennsylvania don't cut it. I'm just not sure I buy that the conscious aesthetic has to be considered cosmetic in & of itself. If the filmmaker is going for quote-unquote 'reality,' using locations & what passes for a realistic plot with realistic dialogue, then I think it can be argued that either or both of these ingredients are not present.

Please note at the bottom of my original post that I said there are ALWAYS exceptions to the rule. We've discussed this on that other board in teh past. But this time I actually even said it!

I'm of the mind that the conscious esthetic has to be considered cosmetic because it's consciously adding thoughts like put the actors in green clothes to tie into the natural surroundings. Put a red scarf on the actress because it matches her eyes. Shoot into the sun because it adds mystery when the actors faces are lost in shadow. Just how self-consciously ugy and bizarre should the Marbles home and clothing look? Virtually every director (or art director or cinematographer etc.) makes 1000 of these decisions every single day of shooting. It's all about using artificial means to create images that don't look like they created using artificial means. Cosmetic.

>Well, if you don't see that as comic relief

Not the point.

Sure it is. Comic relief ties into the sugar coating as I talked about in the original post.

>you scare the hell outta me

Good.

Yeah, but it's a happy scared.

I don't know that this is his intent. I think he was & is just as much about highlighting what he saw in the twisted decadence of suburban Baltimore as he was/is into turning the notion of conventional filmmaking upside down. I also think that giving Divine & his supporting cast (Mink Stole, Edith Massey, et al) prominent roles in an effort to make cult-level anti-stars out of them figured into it just as much. I could be wrong; I'm not an expert on Waters. But that's my take, and I think I've seen all of his movies (might've missed one here or there). I think there were a lot of strange ideas that he incorporated into his movies, but that one of them might've been to inject an anti-sugar coating, which places the movie into the rest of the bin that says that all movies are sugar-coated & inherently cosmetic, on the basis that he's using a reverse tactic, just doesn't quite wash with me. It seems to me that you're saying that, by virtue of being anti-cosmetic & anti-sugar coating, that the film is, like all others, cosmetic & sugar-coated. I don't really agree with that. It's denying the possibility that there can be a movie that is neither--and if there is a film that is neither, to me, it's this one.

Believe me, Waters (and every film maker worth his salt) factored ALL those things into his motivation for making PF. If there's a recurring theme in all his movies, it's the pokes at Hollywood, the Star System and fame in general.

Yeah, I'm saying that there's satirical sugar coating in PF. So I suppose it really isn't, but taken at face value, it is sugar coating. I'll be happy to give in to you that it's not sugar coated, but it definitely has the artifice and cosmetic qualities of 99% of other movies.