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For some strange reason it was on two channels simultaneously a couple of nights back, I doubt Fellini would ever get such exposure.He spoke in front of large student audiences, and watching him trying to be witty, funny and profound was a torture.
Depressing it was to see student after student declare themselves being "huge fans of his films"... one can only have so much room in his head to be a "huge fan" of things, so being one of Smith' surely takes away from something else, and I was straining to understand what exactly in his films was so much worthy of that status?
Be it as it may, the most unfortunate part of his "presentation" was his constant use of profanities... well, maybe I should take it back... maybe the most depressing part of that whole ordeal was the audience's reaction to them - to see young girls laugh at every "motherfucker" dropped from the podium was truly sad.
Just a couple months back I had a chance to watch the documentary on Marchello Mastroianni... what a sharp contrast. And one doesn't have to go that far back to find true wit, insight and eloquence... so how come someone like Kevin gathers such a huge audience? Is bad taste an attraction in itself?
On profanities... as you undoubetly know, at the end of each Inside the Actor's Studio the host asks his guests name their favorite profanity. They all seem so proud of dropping those words, they giggle and smile, and the audience gives them cheers. There must be something incredibly titillating in seeing Jodie Foster mumble "Fuck!"
How refreshing was it to see Richard Gere simply say "I do not curse...". The host simply sat there dumbfounded, unsure how to proceed - the whole rotten structure he spent years building was suddently shaking...
Follow Ups:
Victor,I saw some of the Kevin Smith college talks on the television machine. I can see the attraction Smith has for a certain group of people- he's a lapsed Catholic who has a quiet but determined personality to dissect and shrivel by the blinding light of his insights the powers that be.
He is also very confident, and I think a smart guy. I have to say I enjoyed a lot of his talk as his dry humour anecdotes about getting miveies made- the stupid excutives, idiotic producers, financing, cast, problems, etc. are fun "inside" stuff to me. He seems to automatically oppose arrogance, greed, and power grabbing- did you hear his description of making signs and going to protest his own movie "Dogma" with a band of marching religious zealots? And since Smith appears to have no inner monologue socially- an amoral person, he will say anything on any subject including deprecating himself. Plus the young, angry aimless crowd he attracts love hearing people talk about drug use, spitting in the eye of powerful people and religion, and graphic sexual openness with simultaneous sexual insecurity in that dry humour. There was another film maker who uses a lot of the same techniques (less farts and feces)- ol' W. Allen.
Smith became famous for the $30,000 "Clerks" which struck all the chords I mention and he apparently has a kind of cult following among people whose salinet feature is that they just don't care. I saw "Clerks" and "Dogma" and these were extremely interesting movies for about 20 minutes and then I suddenly snapped out of the hypnotic stasis of these films and to remove the spell go listen to come Bach.
Victor, we're just way out of the Smith demographic- we have businesses, sense of public responsibility, steady relationships, and goals. Plus extra years make different cultural experiences. Kevin Smith grew up with an entirely different set of prime time sit-coms than you or I. I watched "Super 5 lossen Dijk, kaas, en Windmolenproblemen op" on Channel B1 every Thursdays and I believe you once mentioned as a tot liking "трактор продукция эро ур" .
Youth today- the young don't deserve it! Now, I only trust people between the ages of 42 and 46- experienced enough to understand but not too experienced as to be tired.
Cheers,
Bam
PS: Say, Victor are you coming to the high end show in Los Angeles in June? I'd like to demonstrate my new invention "Tube Steaks"- an entirely new beef composite material damping device.
June... June... June is soooo far away! Is there life between now and June? If so, I must discover it!Damping your beef sounds like a good idea!
Here's what I tried to put there:"трактор продукция эро ур" -- Whatta piece'a... Victor I'm ashamed of you!
If you mean trying to put Cyrillic text into the header - it doesn't work here. Or at least did not work for me.But... what the hell are you talking about? Whose tractor?
s
I am not a big fan of his movies but having met him I would say that he is a nice fellow in person. I did see one interview with him in which he related a story about Dogma that struck me as quite funny and inteligent. In his story he saw a group of protesters picketing a theater that was playing Dogma. So he jumped in his car and joined the protesters. He was actually interviewed on TV as a protester against his own movie. The thing that I found most funny was according to him he admitted to not having seen the movie he was protesting. He then told that his mom saw the interview and called him to tell him that some gy who looked just like him was protesting his movie. The way he told the story was quite entertaining and smart.
s
My cheeks may burn at the language, but it's a thoroughly comic romp. Just one scene: He finds Affleck, Damon and van Sant engaged in the making of Good Will Hunting II. Hilarious!clark
That's the only moment of comedy in that film.Well, that and Carrie Fisher in a nun costume.
Tom §.
The first time I hear this name.
...is probably his best known work... not much...
The name tell me something, but I can not even remember if I saw it...
When is Tony coming? Can't wait to get your reaction...
Tony? Well Caiman told me it is on its way, I think in the next 10 days.
I will look as soon I get it.
I always enjoyed Kevin Smith and respected his work until I caught his cable special... he's got a lot in common with Howard Stern in that he's good when he's providing commentary on various subjects but get him talking about himself and things just go right into the toilet. His friend Jason Meews (sp?) is pretty repulsive too IMO. But I suppose I can now walk into a college bar and announce that "I've smoked a few cocks in my life" and have a pretty good chance of getting laid by one of the babes... at least judging by the reaction Smith continually got from the girls in his audience.
Be thankful you do not get it... personally, I like Smith's films and I have a real distaste for pompous or bloated or artificial films (I find Spielberg horrible... and films like Crash seem to be so cliched I would prefer 90 mins of Smith's d*ck and f*rt jokes). I would also say Gere has made films far more offensive than hours of Smith's expletive filled monolog (that "bad cop" film of his was without any redeeming qualities... I am pretty sure he cursed in that one :-).While I applaud any return to "wit, insight, and eloquence", your own insight of "the whole rotten structure he spent years building was suddenly shaking" is at best melodrama... profanity has its place... as does gutter humour... no doubt they worked for Shakespeare.
w
You obviously latched on the obsenity part of my post - missing the one about attempts at wit and humor. Put simply - he did not appear to be an interesting speaker, all his "motherfuckers" notwithstanding. My post was broader than just his cursing. I listened to him like I would to a film maker, and found precious little in that department.I think I know the Gere film you are referring to, and that is of course different... that role is brutal and quite unpleasant. His personal life is apparently different - he behaved like an intelligent and basically good man during that interview - a stark contrast with some clowns that get there.
As far as my insight... I wish you could witness that moment... the host was indeed shaken.
Personally I am not against the profanities - but everything should have time and place. I do not, and shall not consider speaking in front of a college audience such a place.
I had been to some public speaches where speakers intentionally kept using profanities to "shock" the public, to elicit cheap laughters - that is never pleasant or stimulating.
So all in all, in Smith's case it was the combination of his dress, demeanor, profundity of his stories, eloquence of his speech and his use of obsenities all united in a rather unpleasant portrait of a modern populist pseudo-intellectual, having easy time recruiting followers.
All that did not bother me nearly as much as the fact the audience obviously enjoyed the evening.
All those "huge fans"...
I think I caught the profanity and the bit about wit (I mentioned both)... I think Smith is low brow, a bit of a slob, heavily influenced by pop culture, and a good film maker. I watched the monolog and enjoyed it...If I may be so bold.. I think there are two problems:
i) the performer. Smith does his thing... and is pretty willing to admit he has made a fortune off d*ck and f*rt jokes. For me, I was not offended by the content or delivery. It was not offensive given his ouevre... and certainly not unexpected by the audience.
ii) fandom. People do not always get the message. Personally, I do not worry about people not being able to cram something into their brain because they spend time listening to Smith, as much as what do they think he is telling them?I am not a big fan of film makers or actors talking about their craft (even Gere, with all his earnest causes, never rises above dull). As soon as they start throwing around the word "genius", it becomes even more ridiculous. However, Smith has pretty much made it... based on the strength of his writing... and I think any film maker who builds his career on writing (whether you like what he produces or not) is of major importance in an age where writing has decayed so much. Profanity and all, I would argue Smith is a far more direct path to wit and humour than any of the actor's you list (who, well, just act).
Here is to "wit and humour" though... I hope it makes a comeback :-)
As last time, your post is somewhat orthogonal to mine.My post had nothing to do with whether or not he "made it". Personally I think he "made" very little, but apparently there are many who think otherwise - that is fine with me.
My post was not about his acting or writing style... I will leave it up to his "huge fans" to comment on those. It was far broader, but also much more narrow at the same time.
Perhaps you feel differently, but I do expect certain level of social skills from the directors I am inclined to respect. Notice - I am not talking about actors here (another mistake of yours...) but those who actually create, not just play something.
His "performance" that night was pitiful when considered in that context, all the things that he apparently "made" could not compensate for lack of intellectual thrust in his delivery. That is what my post was about.
You apparently like what he writes... but that makes his appearance so much more unfortunate.
I mentioned "I Remember" which features Mastroianni for good reason. As Stanislavsky used to say: "Love art in yourself, not yourself in art". Mastroianni is a marvelous pupil of that school, while Smith is an almost exact opposite.
"Perhaps you feel differently, but I do expect certain level of social skills from the directors I am inclined to respect."(A) I am not sure what "social skills" have to do with talent.
(B) I suspect that most of the directors you admire crafted their art before the development of the fishbowl that we live in today. With the litany of interview shows, entertainment shows, news programs, magazines, and television, directors, actors, and their acts and words are far more visible today than even thirty years ago.I suspect that many directors of bygone days lacked social skills. You never knew about it. Who knew of Kennedy's exploits when they were taking place?
(C) "Notice - I am not talking about actors here (another mistake of yours...) but those who actually create, not just play something." Actors do not create? Just play something? And I guess singers just read the printed word off the page. Ever see a broadway play in which two different actors play the same role? Ever see the same charachter played by two different actors? For reference, see Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter, then Anthony Hopkins in the same role.
> > > "...everything should have time and place. I do not, and shall not consider speaking in front of a college audience such a place." < < <It's ironic that you find the use of obscenities in a speech given before a group of relatively mature college students familiar with Kevin Smith's work and hip counterculture standing inappropriate and more offensive than the use of salty invective to describe films you dislike in a forum that can be easily accessed by unsupervised minors!
See anything wrong with this picture? No offense, but you should at least be aware of how hypocritical this rationalization looks. The fact is, written language requires even MORE care than spoken because in print deciphering the context is a much more difficult needle to thread unless you know the person.
FTR, I have no problem with profanity in the broader context of a speech OR a film review calling for it, but expletives issued in a jejune fashion are antoher matter entirely. I presume that Kevin Smith's use of colorful language in a college setting was entirely appropriate. I'm not even critical of the moderate use of colorful invective HERE, given the full context of a film review or an in-depth analysis that fully validates the use of strong language.
I think you need to do a bit more reflecting on this Victor, if you don't mind my saying so.
Respectfully,
AuPh
My list of why Smiths' films are popular ('cause I like making lists of things)1. His films are funny
2. His films are also dramatic without sucking out the fun
3. His characters talk more like real people than in most films, even if the actors don't deliver them convincingly
4. His films are, mostly, continuous, with many of the same characters popping up, and people like familiarity
5. Like Tarantino, he makes movies that he'd like to see. He doesn't care about them being important, or socially relavant, or groundbreaking, he just wants to make good movies... and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You can't eat filet mignon all the time, once and a while it's good to have a hamburger.
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/
I have to admit i didn't know who he was when i surfed in but figured anyone who'd gotten a show for themselves has to have done something from which someone made money... so i watched for a few seconds till the F-Bomb fell and figured he was short on good ideas and surfed away.I know i could look up what he directed but for those to come, what did he direct?
x
I've never understood the fascination with Smith---and it doesn't seem to end...
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