Films/DVD Asylum

• You have understood...nothing at all. - orejones 05:32:37 02/06/04 (0)
  In Reply to: Well, now you are changing your words... and more than once posted by Victor Khomenko on February 05, 2004 at 11:27:08:

  "First you said there was no change in character, then that the character is not important... which is it?" Both: he doesn´t change, he only develops an ability for social climbing, and then he is defeated , loses one leg, and is thrown back to his earlier way of living; but he is no wiser, nor has he matured and transformed into a better man. And his character is just the name (wrongly acquired, never really his) he got in his best days, which is wiped away once he loses his cheated wife´s favor.

  "Barry Lyndon" is Kubrick´s most beautifully told portrait of that immoral, selfish, soulless society, and it is a masterwork on every count. But it is not about that man´s soul: he is just a pawn in a game of power, and as such he is mercilessly used, and then spent when the ones he emulates, and who never accept him as their peer, find him inconvenient.

  "So... no change in character means something is not done right?" Where did I say that? I never said anything was done wrongly in this excellent film: Kubrick did exactly what he wanted to do, in his usually masterly way..., but he didn´t want to show us the true soul of this poor rascal, but an accurate picture of that society, with its flaws and its immorality, and that he did in spades.

  "OK... what about the hero of WIld Stawberries? How much does HE change in the course of the film?" Here you are stepping in waters too deep for a superficial look to fathom them: The whole film is about how Itzak (Victor Sjöström) is forced, when at the pinnacle of his achievements (he is travelling to be named "Doctor Honoris Causa")by his inner self, to relive, through dreams and recurrent memories of his own past, some significant, crucial points in his own life, and how he failed..., and about how that makes his persona, that mask he´s been building and hiding behind through his life, stumble, then shatter into pieces, and finally melt down under the heat of his emotions, leaving his soul finally free and allowing him to become a true human being undergoing a deep process of transformation leading to his individuation. If you can´t see how the man at the end of this wonderful film is so different from the one he was when it started, better look at it again, this time with your eyes wide open, for everything is there to be seen.

  And now, please don´t even try to patronize me on these matters: I grew up looking at Bergman´s, and many others, films, both good and bad, and I can assure you that I have developed a keen eye to detect pretenders, and to keep them separate from true achievers, even when these last ones not always succeed in full -what is not the case with Kubrick, much less in "Barry Lyndon", which I have repeatedly said to be without peer (while you seem to think I said it´s bad...)

  We both agree at considering "Barry Lyndon" a wonderful film. But for different reasons, what simply points to its greatness.

  Now I´d ask you to do me a favor: as we simply don´t agree, and it seems none of us is able to convince the other, I´d be happy to have an impartial, sensible, intelligent judge mediating and, on that effect, would you be so kind to show this whole thread to Anya, and ask her if she´d like to state her own opinion here? I am sure both of us would learn something...

  Thanks. Regards

  BF

  
  
  

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