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In Reply to: Re: My nomination for the most revolting film of the year posted by Jeff Lessard on June 08, 2001 at 09:43:14:
Jeff wrote:"Revolting doesn't mean bad (in french anyway...)"
Jeff, if one is using the word "revolting" to describe "The cook, the thief his wife and her lover" then revolting means bad!!!!! :-)
I have a strong stomach (long time horror/sci-fi fan), but that movie was simply loathsome! It produced tortuous boredom and moments of sheer disgust. I almost walked out (never done that before). And I'm a film buff - very inclusive in my tastes. It's not just the misanthanthropic bent of the characters; that I'm fine with. Rather, it seemed the entire film - the intent - was sick and misanthropic. I've never felt such anger at a filmmaker.
As everyone raved about Peter Greenaway I thought "Well, that was perhaps the worst movie I've ever seen, but being a film buff I'll give his films another chance." So I rented "Drowning By Numbers." AAgh. Utterly impossible to connect with anything in that film. Did I stop there? Nope. I actually went to see "Prospero's Books" too. Cripes - THE most turgid, stale, mean, cold, pretentious, booooooring film I have ever seen. I finally said f-ck this! And I walked out before the end.
I can't think of any filmmaker I'd say this about, but if I actually met Mr. Greenaway I don't know if I could resist tackling him, dumping the money from his pockets, and thanking him for remunerating me for three of the worst movie experiences I've ever had.
End of Rant.
Rich H.
Follow Ups:
So it sounds like you see no redeaming values in his work. I do, however, I too have to struggle to get to them through the moutains of often gratuitous and seemingly unnecessary stuff that obscures rather than emphasizes the beauty of his films.There is no question that he is a master and an artist. The question is whether his agenda is sometimes stronger than his artistic taste. Whether or not he is governed by the desire to shock more than the sheer drive to create art. Perhaps Pasolini was another example of such struggle, where his enormous talent was simply directed towards the open war with the stale Italian public.
Many artists wage such wars at one time or another, and it is often distracting to be caught in the crossfire, but even then I can't overlook these two guys tremendous abilities to achive the deep emotional impact - one of the main purposes of art.
Disassociating the means from the subject is often hard, but must be done in order to enjoy many a work of art. Otherwise we are bound to dismiss many works simply because we do not find the subject matter to our taste, and many different tastes we do have...
This is easy to say, but in reality we all fall into this trap, and usually not when dealing with a "trully and purely artistic" endevours, which are most commonly simply branded "boring", but rather when facing the works that contain extreme cases of subject overload. Often this would contain the subject with great shock value (just look at the "Salo"... one of the all-time prime examples of such overload, as much as I LOVE that film), making it all too easy to get up and leave.
It IS a balancing act and we randomly fall on one side or another at different times, often depending upon our present moods. Art is ALWAYS personal...
In case of Greenaway I tend to fall on the side of cutting him slack, even though certain parts of the "Cook..." are nothing but cheap shockers in my view, albeit artistically done. Is that attitude of mine going to change at some point in time? That is entirely possible. I just might say: "OK, Peter, enough is enough, you are now getting just boring" and move onto Cameron's next "masterpiece" or simply start watching NBA games. That time has not arrived yet - for me, anyway, as my wife is much closer to that outburst and I would have to twist her arm gently to make her see his next work.
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