Films/DVD Asylum

The point of having no point

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Victor Khomenko

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In Reply to: So you don't like posted by RGA on March 13, 2004 at 21:23:33:

The whole point is that the artist needs no point.
The art is not about some point either present or missing, it is not about the subject, the actors, the plot or the budget - it is all about the expressive means, and there Fellini has no equals.
What was the point of many of Chardin's paintings? Of beautiful Dutch landscapes?

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Re: The point of having no point - RGA 20:32:46 03/14/04 (2)
So you like films about nothing? 81/2 has a point it has actors it has a screenplay. It most certainly is about something. A director struggling with creative process and not knowing what to make - feeling that he is a fraud in the movie business. Judging by this film...it is a fraud that suckered a lot of people and reviewers. The commentary on the film business isn't particularly insightful either - maybe he should have made the sci-fi film instead of the self indulgent and pretentious nothingness he presented.
As for paintings, if I don't like one after 1 minute I can look elsewhere, i'm not trapped in for 2 hours while a director prattles on about what is a film version of a writer's block.
The psychic telling sequence is certainly an interesting one because the Fellini certainly pulled the wool over many eyes. If the film had even been noteworthy cinemagraphically I would have been a bit more impressed. The entire, presuambly, sexual fantasy of all the women in his life was amusing, pointless but amusing.
If it's some sort of psuedo existensionalism it doesn't really work...not that existensionalism really ever works in any medium.
Throwing around terms as beautiful or lush without context is meanigless artsy fartsy fluff.
Perhaps Fellini is a master at this type of film-making. However, the master of nothing is of nothing to be proud.
- Re: The point of having no point - Victor Khomenko 04:21:14 03/15/04 (1)
  I don't get it. You said there was no story... then you provided somethng that looked like a pretty substantial story to me - a far more a story than many the movies are based on - he-he... what's the foundation of the Lost in Translation, if you need the War and Peace size story in every film?... and then you said that was not story enough.
  Like many other such stories, the Fellini's one was not too deep perhaps, but PERSONAL. To say it was irrelevant is to say Fellini himself is irrelevant, which is something someone here already said once. OK as a one person's opinion, not light enough to float.
  Fellini is one of the pilars of the modern movie, and as such all his stories are relevant to the viewer.
  However, all that is simply a response to your demand for something behind the beautiful acting and presentation - sort fo playing along with you, without agreeing. As I said, I don't *really* need a story - I watch the mastery of expressive means. There were tons of it in that film.
  You avoided my analogy of the simple Chardin painting, apparently because you couldn't answer it properly. Does Chardin keep you riveted for 2 hours? It sure does me. Does it keep you coming back? It does that to me.
  The world of art is full of the "pointless" works you seem so critical about. Most opera is based on something that would seem like a rather silly small story if taken all by itself. Much of classical music falls into the same category. Is it the theme that makes the Beethoven's 3rd a great symphony? Or his Pastoral one? By no means.
  Fellini is a master painter. Like paintings by Corot or Hobbema some of his works might *seemingly* lack the plots, but his works are NOT "films about nothing" - far from it, they are films about people, to whom love and suffering are not really "nothing". So a story of a prostitute who lost her illusions might be "nothing" to you, to me it is a deep human tragedy, masterfully told.
  - Re: The point of having no point - RGA 10:00:53 03/15/04 (0)
    I'm not saying a film has to be about huge social issues. Lost in Translation was about a middle aged man in a marriage that is SORT of happy. His career is in the dump forcing him to Japan to make adverts. He hates himself for pandering to the dollar. Johanssen is a young girl at the beginning of her road in a marriage she thinks is a mistake - she's probably right.
    Fellini's film is all EGO. His creative block he posts to the screen. I have no problem with the premise if it had been handled competantly with character development.
    There is no relation whatsoever to paintings so I didn't really respond to it. 81/2 didn't move me in any way exceopt make me feel anger toward the Director for being an ego-maniac.
    I'm sure it was personal it was about him. Suffering? Yeah I'm sure he was hurting financially after his career. Suffering because he couldn't think of a fresh story is hardly suffering. To the artist it might be suffering but snort some coke or take Laudinum like all the other artists who have blocks and stop whining to me.
    One person's opinion? Well if people actually saw this movie - if it did remotely anything at the box office and wasn't coveted by a small group of Art film fans this film would have ended up in the dung heap.
    But then there are people who actually think The Great Gatsby was a good book too or theat Leo Tolstoy was more than just a long winded romance novelist.

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