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In Reply to: Re: "American Beauty": Initial Impression and Final Verdict. posted by caa on May 17, 2001 at 11:59:36:
"Maybe a bit exagerated, but only because of the theatratical elements of it."
Bingo, caa, quite brilliant!!! It is a FARCE, with all it's attributes - a somewhat unbelievable story line, unexpected ending, satire, even the title is reminscent of grander things in American literature, like An American Tragedy by Dreiser, etc. Some folks may not like it because it reminds them of themselves, some don't like it as a film, but to dismiss it as a usual Holywood crap is a mistake.
Not the best film on the subject, yet not the worst one, that's for sure. I liked it. Casting was great.
Follow Ups:
But I think your allusion to Dreiser is well, undeserved.I'd say "American Grafity" would be more appropriate.
"But I think your allusion to Dreiser is well, undeserved."
When did you pick up the old Theo last time, Victor?
Give him a read, you'd be surpised at the number of things that changed in the last 70 years, but what will surprise you even more is the number of things that stayed the same.
Good point on the American Graffiti. It too has it's presense in the American Beauty.
***When did you pick up the old Theo last time, Victor?Oh, that's not a fair question! I know your approximate age - are you trying to make me feel old?
Those teenagers...
But the reason I kind of jumped at this comparisson was that Dreiser's book has the depth and profundity that was obvioulsy not present in the film.
***Give him a read, you'd be surpised at the number of things that changed in the last 70 years, but what will surprise you even more is the number of things that stayed the same.Again, the book is a significant work, and as such timeless, even if it is in my view not at the level of the best world has to offer, but then in the field of fine art what American thing is? America, being late to the party, could never match the finesse of the old world, that takes centuries to develop, so its unmatched avhievemnts lie elsewhere.
I still have a very strong flavor of that book... I think...
Anyway, we are beating an already long-dead horse, we had this film discussed before and to me it remains completely insignificant and what's worse, rather offensive. And I react to the offensive nature far stronger than I do to the lack of imagination, call is a reaction to a horrible sin of commission if you will.
I am perfectly willing to accept many weak movies for what they are, and enjoy them actually.
For instance, "My Cousin Vinny" is a far, far, far better movie than the "Beauty". An unpretensious work with tons of fun...
*** but then in the field of fine art what American thing is? America, being late to the party, could never match the finesse of the old world, that takes centuries to develop, so its unmatched avhievemnts lie elsewhere.Victor, I think I could go along with you regarding music and painting - the best Americans are a cut below history's best. However, in literature I believe there are some American works that can hold their own at the top levels. "Gatsby" would be one of my nominations - not just for the story but also for the beautiful writing. I doubt that a film will ever be able to capture the greatness of this book.
You are certainly right Rick when it comes to modern literature, where the American literature is unique enough to stand on its great own.In the field of movie art unfortunately it appears that the American movie makers used to enjoy early lead, only to let the Hollywood mentality to take over shortly after the WWII. At that time the Great Bifurcation took place, whereupon our guys here concentrated on making more and more obsenely ridiculous Cleopatra's, while overseas the gentle folks like De Sica and Bergman continued they endless study of the human nature.
This of course is somewhat simplystic and only covers the main trends, as there has been overlap on both sides.
When I was replying to your earlier post I started to think about my favorite films. Surely some of them must be American? Well... kind of, but not really. "Vertigo" is an American film made by a native of England. "2001" is a British film made by an American native. "Lawrence of Arabia?" Well, made with American financing but not really an 'American Film.' "M"? Nope. "Metropolis"? Nope. "Anatomy of a Murder"? Well, Preminger wasn't exactly from Iowa. Not that that's what's required for someone to be 'American.' Far from it. But you'd think that there would be a batch of truly great films (insights into human nature, with maybe even a message, cautionary or otherwise) made by American born filmakers financed by American money, produced in America. It really doesn't seem to be the case. We can ride along with 'Citizen Kane,' 'Patton,' and some Bogart film noir for only so long.
If you are going to move on the "born-in-America is THE Amercian and the ones who came here aren't" horse, it's not going to take you far.
I wonder if BAT is an American company and V.Khomenko is an American?:))
I would never argue that you have to be born in America to be 'American.' It's unsupportable. 9.999999999 percent of us (or our parents or their parents etc.) are from somewhere else. I was just pointing out that you'd think there would be more great stuff from the natives. Victor's earlier point was that it takes hundreds of years to develop a truly great culture and I'm agreeing with him.
1.I was just screwing around with ya.
2.This arguement is valid, BUT film these days is more and more universal, or is becoming such, like it or not. There are distinguishing characteristics, of course, but soon enough they will brew down to the subtitles, for the most part. Imho, it's not French Cinema or Mongolian Cinema as an institution, but a handful of visionary directors that make it. I certainly hope these(or coming) directors will always be making good films.
3.The fact that you like non-American cinema doesn't mean anything beyond that; certainly it doesn't mean that American films are worse than the other ones that you do like watching. :)))
Elder Victor isn't discovering any Americas when he talks about decline of Hollywood films after the war. I think that the best American films were made after WWII.
***Elder Victor isn't discovering any Americas when he talks about decline of Hollywood films after the war. I think that the best American films were made after WWII.Isn't there a contradiction between your two sentences?
But anyway, I love good films no matter where they come from. So help me with the list of the best American films made after the WWII - no teasing here.
And as far as having world movies come out of some homogeneous blob of matter, that is simply not true. It would not be possible for something like the "Mozart Brothers" or "Life as a Fatal STD" to be made here, not anymore than the Kurosawa's "Dreams" to be made in Germany.
So you line about French Cinema vs. Mongolian Cinema (shivers and cold down the spine....... ) may be funny but it is dead wrong. It shall remain wrong for the next few hundred years, I am afraid.
But returning to the serious subject, let's build a good American film list.
***Elder Victor isn't discovering any Americas when he talks about decline of Hollywood films after the war. I think that the best American films were made after WWII.
Isn't there a contradiction between your two sentences?
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Arrgh. Come on,Victor, drop the semantics:)))You know perfectly well what I was talking about.
What I meant to say was that indeed, Hollywood took some turns after the WWII, some of them right, some of them u-turns and some of them bad.
Now, my favorite post-WWII American films would be(before 1980s)
A Gentlemen's Agreement
North by Northwest
Chinatown
A Hatful Of Rain
The Hustler
The French Connection
Carmen Jones
The Godfather
The Young Lions
Some like it hot
Easy Rider
Pinky
Spartacus
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
The Taxi Driver
Dr.Strangelove
Three days of the Condor
The Graduate
Raging Bull
On The Waterfront
The Big Heat
Apocalypse Now
Midnight express
Young Frankenstein
Jaws
All The King's Men
Close encounters of the third kind
All That Jazz
Human desire
To kill the mockingbird
and that film with Charleton Heston where he plays a Mexican.These are just the ones that came to my mind while I was typing. I'm sure there are more.
All the other stuff about my being wrong for the next 100 years - I wish you all the health in the world, o sagacious Solomon. :)
...ever so gently slide the "Paths of Glory" in place of Spartacus?Anyway, intersting. I am actually scanning it for holes I need to plug im my education.
On the ones I know I agree with you about 60% - I would never consider the "Condor" anything but another piece of kaka from Redford-the-kaka-man.
And I am eternally grateful to you that there was no Stalag 17 on your list...
I haven't seen the Paths of Glory...but I like Spartacus.
Wow, Victor, don't get too worked up about the caca-man. I liked the Condor, saw it perhaps 3 times since I saw it first when I was about 12 or 13, still like it.
He is an OK guy, Redford. Why dislike him so much? It's the horse film, isn't it? Or his political affiliations maybe? There's got to be something beside the acting...
Stalag 17:))))Time to go home now.
You are lucky man, Dmitry, watching Paths of Glory for the first time - you will not forget it. Simply put - one of five best films ever made, and you know - I don't drop that sort of claims idly.Redford - Mr. Hollywood. A facade man, a Potemkin village, with no substance. I don't think is was the horse movie, I think my dislike of him started with the first his film that I saw - the Bruebaker. That was right as I came here, and I thought highly of American films. Bruebaker struck me as something utterly fake, although it toom me several years to understand what it was.
Victor, you have missed or misinterpreted the point of my first post to caa.
I didn't equate American Beauty with the American Tragedy in any way, but merely stated that its title was a pun of many titles containing the name of our beautiful(!) country...
In my opinion American Beauty is far from being as weak a film as you repeatedly call it. How exactly did it offend you? Do tell, I am really curious.
***Victor, you have missed or misinterpreted the point of my first post to caa.
I didn't equate American Beauty with the American Tragedy in any way, but merely stated that its title was a pun of many titles containing the name of our beautiful(!) country...Yes, I understand.
***In my opinion American Beauty is far from being as weak a film as you repeatedly call it. How exactly did it offend you? Do tell, I am really curious.This is not all that easy to explain. There are things that we feel immediately, but it takes long time to explain clearly.
Perhaps here I shall borrow from Nabokov. In his lectures on Russian literature he tried once to explain to the American students the meaning of the word "poshlost'". There is no equivalent word in English, and it is a VERY important word, as I am sure you know (although due to your rather short term in Russia you perhaps have not had enough chance to trully absorb it - I am guessing here...). That word has many flavors, and the most pedestrian translation would be perhaps just "poor taste", but it is much more than that, of course.
Anyway, Nabokov struggles with that definition for at least a couple of hours. And he too mentions that it is easier to feel than to relate certain things. Needless to say, I am no Nabokov.
So in the nutshell the film is "poshlyi". Very...
I started watching it actually expecting to love it, because so many good words have been spent on it in the press and by some people whom I actually respect. But very quickly my reaction started being that of severe irritation. It is the same irritation at being taken for a fool that I experience when looking at certain artist's work, the ones done by throwing paint from a balcony on the canvas. We all know the name of that highly respected "artist".
In almost every film there will be scenes where you cringe and say to yourself: "I wish that one was not there!" In this one it was scene after scene that left that sensation in me. All the while being done very professionally. Perhaps the most irritating scene was the one where the hero undresses the young girl. I though it was absolutely tasteless, all the irony and satyre of that film not helping it at all. As you know, I am not a prude.
It is that kind of unique "poshlost'" that I think only exists in certain American films of the later years (decades?). At least I don't recall seeing it in any other country's films - but of course my exposure to those is perhaps restricted. In that respect it is, as I said before, VERY American. Unfortunately so.
PS Those lectures are fantastic, and to me they go hand-in-hand with Chukovsky's "Art of Translation".
Well, I wouldn't apply the term poshlost' here. I can understand what you mean by that, and indeed I have seen and felt some of p...t' both here and back there, but I really don't see that in American Beauty.
Strange...I guess it's something on a more personal level than an objective point of view about a movie. My bs meter is working fine, so I guess poshlost' is a term best applied on a more intuitive position.
***Strange...I guess it's something on a more personal level than an objective point of view about a movieIsn't that ALWAYS the case with art? We are not trying to convert each others, we simply expressed why you and I felt the ways you and I felt.
But I am sure you remember the old joke: "Vasilii Ivanovich, look how dirty your neck is, it is evwen dirtier than mine!" "Of course, Pet'ka, because I am older than you..."
...so I can always claim some life experience superiority.
***Strange...I guess it's something on a more personal level than an objective point of view about a movie
Isn't that ALWAYS the case with art?
------------------------------------
You know, I think the correct answer would be yes and no. Always is such an encompassing word...
After all, even if you don't like films of Chaplin, Tarkovsky or Godard, for example, you can still see their merits. That's why I was/am still thinking of your poshlost' comment. I do know a few films I would call poshlyi(for our non-Russian speaking audience - vulgar in an all-inclusive sense of the word, not just in it's sexual disguise; on a more monumental level, I guess), but I'm sorry, I don't see it in American Beauty.
I will accept your age superiority, but like I told you in NY - give it time, I'll be there too:)) Not that I am rushing it...
***After all, even if you don't like films of Chaplin, Tarkovsky or Godard, for example, you can still see their merits.There is definitely some room for that. I could supply many personal examples (Brahms, Rockwell, etc). But all this still stops at some point - such acceptance is NOT unlimited.
For instance, I would not have any works by Rockwell or Parish anywhere near me, but I can understand his attractiveness to some. But take that snow shovel... the one that used to be on display in Philadelphia Museum of art. It was your average Home Depot model, broken in two. One half suspended on a fishing line from the ceiling.
It is in instances like that one that I say - no more, stop.
***I will accept your age superiority, but like I told you in NY - give it time, I'll be there too:)) Not that I am rushing it...
But you remember that old philosophy proof of why the rabbit shall never overtake the turtle? By the time the rabbit gets to where the turtle is now, it will be already gone. And when he gets to where it is later, it is gone from there too...
So even when you catch up with me I shall remain few years older... that is so nice to know.
Not to be a pest, but "poshlost'" is not really vulgarity, it is far more complicated and subtle. The traditional example of elefants on top of a piano is not vulgar. If you have not read it I am sure you will find Nabokov's explanation wonderfully engaging.
Why did you stray away from the films? I purposefully left the conversation within the film boundary...Or you think it'll be easier for the young rabbit to understand what the wise turtle says if he shows the rabbit some pictures and a halved shovel?:)))""So even when you catch up with me I shall remain few years older... that is so nice to know."'
Well, like I said - all the health to you, Victor. Before the mind starts slipping(or clipping), that is. That's worse than anything. I've seen that happen to some people I'd give my right hand to.
Really.
***Why did you stray away from the films? I purposefully left the conversation within the film boundary...Or you think it'll be easier for the young rabbit to understand what the wise turtle says if he shows the rabbit some pictures and a halved shovel?:)))He-he-he, I have here some posters prepared...
I love jumping between my favorite subjects. Be thankful I didn't bring up the virtues of the model 1811 Blucher sword vs. the British 1796 Infantry Officer's one.
But going back to the movies, there is line there too. To me, for instance, Spielberg is beyond that line, he is just a highly professional liar. I would much rather watch Cheech and Chong all day long than his white-wash brain-wash garbage. Oliver Stone is another one I have with passion. And Tarrantino... he contributed a lot to this coutnry's moral decay.
And mention Pasolini to my wife and you go without a dinner.
***Well, like I said - all the health to you, Victor. Before the mind starts slipping(or clipping), that is. That's worse than anything. I've seen that happen to some people I'd give my right hand to.
Really.That's one tough call. Is a sharp mind in a completely paralized body any better?
Though I don't exactly understand "poshlyi", I thought much of American Beauty vulgar- coarse and unrefined- but isn't that the point ie exactly how much "beauty" is there in a modern suburban environment?I'd go a bit further- the "resolution" of the film with a homicide, especially a shooting, is vulgar. The portrayal of women in the film was vulgar. The portrayal of a suburban man's fears- the unfaithful wife- the detached children- the lack of fulfilment in work-the psycho neighbour, were all vulgar.
So there was some nice photography- ok, for some mainstream audiences this may have been wonderful, but if I ever had an epiphany and gave up work- and the best I could come up with was to regain my youth, lust after some girl and buy a muscle car- I'd say that was vulgar.
You see, John, some words are hard to translate into other languages. For example, Japanese have a word for a state of mind, while watching the storks come back after a long winter. One word.
Anyway, if we leave vulgar as a kin of poshlost'(i.e. profane, crude,tactless, gross, cheap, cliche, vile, vane, disgustingly crass,etc - you get the idea), let's play.
I will quote you - "I'd go a bit further- the "resolution" of the film with a homicide, especially a shooting, is vulgar. The portrayal of women in the film was vulgar. The portrayal of a suburban man's fears- the unfaithful wife- the detached children- the lack of fulfilment in work-the psycho neighbour, were all vulgar."
This is just what we need - vulgar, as in a FARCE, a FABLIEU perhaps. that's exactly how I saw the film. I think all the things you mentioned were done on purpose, imho. That is why it may elicit some unpleasant reactions from folks, notwithstanding THE Academy which licked the film's boots without realizing that they were covered with shit.""and the best I could come up with was to regain my youth, lust after some girl and buy a muscle car- I'd say that was vulgar.""
Yes it was. Of course!!! And it was meant to be. No mercy for the killed protagonist, no mercy for the wife, it all goes to the vulgar hell.
I really don't know how else to explain this. I hope you understand what I am saying. Read the thread and look at your vision of the film in a different light.
Yes, it was a farce-"notwithstanding THE Academy which licked the film's boots
without realizing that they were covered with shit."Brilliant ! Quite the best summation of the film and The Academy- you should write reviews!
Thanks Dmitry.This movie reminds me of Pulp Fiction. It seems a bit farfetched and surreal. Is it stereotypical? oh, yes. But not in the sense of polical correctness, it's rather like: "this is you or the average person you know, so deal with it".
In some sense, it's like watching an opera with highly textured and colorful characters. But I think it's slightly more than that. Are the colorful characters an artistic element imposed upon us by the film maker, or is it an internal product within the characters themselves?
Why do they all have to be too colorful? Look at the real estate guy with fancy licence plate ("R.E. King", if I remember correctly), who releases his stress by shooting a few rounds of 45. Look at the high school kid who acts like a weirdo and lights candles on someone else's backyard. Look at Lester throwing dishes at dinner. Is that really necessary? Look at the high school girl who flirts with her best friend's father. Look at the cool one-liners. Are they a product of the screen writers or are they a product of the characters? There are more. I think the recurring theme of the movie lies in the Colonel's wife expression, or the swirling plastic bag: emptiness. I mean whatelse could you make an empty box more interesting other than making its cover a bit more textured and colorful?
The movie is not totally dark and without a sense of positiveness, though. As it turns out, the people who are healthiest, happiest, most successful, and have most sex seem to be the openly gay guys who live down the street.
So is it too far-fetched? Where is the line that separates the artistic elements and the realistic elements of the characters themselves? This is what makes it intersting.
Once again, good points. Although your comparison to Pulp Fiction could be desputed on the simple basis that American Beauty is a better film, in my opinion, whereas Tarantino's film I think can be viewed as "second rate" attempt of copying every twisted reality that he liked, American Beauty is a more daring depiction, in a way that it adheres to the average reality(in the first part, anyway), and is viewed as such by people who call it drek, at the same time is an almost perfect satire, the kind that doesn't get detected by the ones it aims at, but clear to the ones around, who, perhaps notice it on everyday basis.
It reminded me of Chekhov's plays, of all things. Widely staged as dramas, they are to my eyes, amazingly sharp satires.
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