Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by RGA (A) on March 15, 2004 at 17:35:14

In Reply to: Well, that's fine. But... posted by Dalton on March 15, 2004 at 10:25:48:

both the people who don't like American films are obviously not from American or English speaking first countries. So technically Hollywood or English language films are foreign to them and they don't get it.

People bring their own baggage and life to films. To properly understand the black humour of a Fargo, Pulp Fiction, American Beauty it helps if you have a background from the country. Dawn of the Dead's commentary on consumerism would not work on someone who has never seen nor heard of a mall nor knows anything about American Consumerism. American Beauty is precisely about consumerism in American Suburbia. I can relate to Lester in a lot of ways because on onehand I lived and saw it daily. If your background differes you don't get it and seems like a shallow take on a few themes mixed together. Pulp Fiction SHOULD be a laugh riot all the way through...people took it seriously???

I happen to be from Canada. Hero's in a lot of Canadian literary novels are anti-heros - the sort of people who don't really know who they are or where they are int he world who struggle through to find happiness. Totally different than the larger than life heros written in the US where people know their roots even if it's just been drilled into their head.

There is absolutely nothing better about foreign films. In the US and Canada we get the vvery best foreign films provided to our video stores. The top 5% of all the films made outside North America. The odd one is outstanding. We see ALL the Hollywood films and yes 95% of it is dreadful...but we don't get the filtration process.

To say Hollywood doesn't make good movies is just a moronic statement from no nothing dim-bulbs. So you don't need to convince them they are beyond rational thought. So either they are A) stupid or B) anti-American or C) Or they just understand the films from their countries better because they can relate better to the subject matter. I'll give C as the reason for the benefit of doubt. But I'm new on this film foreign so we'll see if it turns out to be A and B.

For instance there are three Canadian films, Margaret's Museum, Maelstrom, and Emporte Moi that I may get a lot more out of being from Canada than even American or Briton would get. Perhaps someone from France would understand or appreciate the magnitude of Germinal.

Then there are films like Run Lola Run which seem to have a good deal of crossover, largely because the story is very simple but effectively told with high energy.

America is in many ways a BIG LOUD country with big loud stories to tell. They are grande stories. How does France make an Apollo 13. What the hell has France ever done on a large scale? you want to tell a compelling story about a historical event like Appollo 13 how are you going to make it?

You're going to go out and have to spend big bucks with a lot of technical proweass and try and re-create what happened. I wasn't the biggest fan of this film but it's awfully difficult to make a film like this to appeal to people outside the US culture(though it did well outside the US). What can France make? Small personal introspective stories. Ditto for Canada. The government has to sponsor films here and help put up the money to get things done. The English Patient had to get several countries involved to get it done.

The film Spider was stalled trying to fincance it. They didn't pay the stars...they had to wait until after it was made before they can take money.

Ralph Fiennes has done that several times with the English Patient, Oscar and Lucinda, Sunshine and now Spider. Films are turned down due to financing problems so he goes out and makes a Red Dragon and Maid in Manhatten so he can use the money to actually get something he really wants to do made.

The one downside Hollywood films tend to have is that they fall into repetitive formulae. You get the same story 9 times a year every year, year in year out. A proven formulae means a proven product and a proven money maker. It's the McDonald's movie - the McMovie I call them.

Nothing wrong with the odd McMovie but a steady diet will give you Diabetes.