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pan & scam is high comedy: seen "The Graduate'?

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Sometimes the guy who "reformated to fit your scream" , who removes 40% of the film so you can see it 3:4 must be laughing in his beer at the things he does. Example: that crucial scene when Dustin Hoffman is in the hotel room with ? Anne Bancroft? anyway: he wants it but knows it's bad, she's stitting on the edge of the bed removing her socks. In the film, you see Bengie with his back on the door, ready to bolt either forwards or backwards, it's not clear what he's going to do. Mrs. Robinson is totaly in control, on the opposite side of the screen, waiting for what she knows has to be (the ultimate triumph of evil over innocence), and in between the two is a huge gulf of empty movie screen, symbolic of the generation gap, Vietman, virginity and barreness, promise and disappointment, hope and bitterness, everything. On TV what you see it the very end of Dustin Hoffman's nose and a piece of Anne Bancroft's knee: symbolizing what? that Dustin Hoffman has a really big nose? the low comedy of trying to do art on TV? Not quite what the director had in mind. It would have made more sense just to remove the scene entirely.
Except that it's the best in the film.
I've seen worse: I dont' remember the film but it was on a train in the dining car. the camera was set in the ailse shooting out the window at the passing landscape. In the film two actors were having a long dialoge. There was no movement of the camera or the actors, the only movement comming from the window. A wonderful effect on the screen. With pan & scam all you saw was the rushing landscape and a salt & pepper set with napkins and some disembodied voices. It went on and on, the movement seen only emphasised how long the scene was without any people for the voices. It was as if the dinner plates were talking. It has to be the funniest editing I've ever seen. But what could the poor guy do? Think about it. Are you going to jump back and forth to the faces each time? The scene was perhaps 10 or 15 minutes! You'ld get vertigo. Should you do a slow pan back and forth? Silly. He did the best he could do with the format, sort of like CD sound, right? Yea!

anyone top that?





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  • pan & scam is high comedy: seen "The Graduate'? - petew 13:14:27 03/24/99 (0)


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