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Re: Straw dogs, anyone? I did not

Posted by jamesgarvin (A) on May 31, 2005 at 10:28:28

In Reply to: Straw dogs, anyone? I did not posted by tinear on May 31, 2005 at 09:07:27:

The question is whether you paint with a broad brush. If a subject is not to your liking, do you judge the work based upon whether YOU like the subject matter? Which is what I think you are suggesting. YOU do not like Scorscese's subject matter, and critique what his films are about rather than how they are about the subject. There is no difference in that analysis than someone who is aghast at public nudity concluding that David is vile and without merit. I believe that would be the position of our former United States Attorney General. Such a opinion would render a fair number of paintings at the Met as being mediocre.

Too many people on this forum, I feel, spend too time discussing the qualities of a film on the basis of there being too much violence, sex, dialog, etc., as though a violent, sexy, comedy, etc., cannot be good.

My own take is that Scorscese is one of the best filmmakers making films in the last thirty years. That is my opinion. There is no right or wrong answer. There have been a few times that I have not enjoyed a film, gone to rotten tomatoes, seen that 80% of the professional critics enjoyed the film. I am not arrogant enough to think that those others got it wrong, and I got it right. I am grounded enough to think that maybe the problem is with me, rather than the film. Maybe I did not see something I should have. Maybe I did not appreciate either the culture, the history, something that would have snapped the film into focus for me.

Unfortunately, our society has decayed into this me first mentality, where the weak links are with something or somehere else. If I did not like the film, it was because it was not good. Not because I did not understand it. If I do not make enough money, it is because society held me back. Well, have you ever thought that maybe the problem, for lack of a better word, is with you?

Scorscese grew up in Hell's kitchen, at a time when Hell's kitchen was every bit of the word. He says that his films come from the types of people that he knew, and saw on a daily basis. I was not there. I could not imagine living there. Have you lived there? Was your existence violent, having either lived it or seen it on a daily basis? If there was no humanity in that life, and those characters, why should Scorscese put them there in his film.

Some have this misguided impression that, while art can take you to a better place, it can also show you a place that you would not otherwise have knownn. In other words, educate you. If Scorscese is showing us the characters he knew, and the places he knew, than I want to see it, warts in all. If I want humanity, then there are other videos on the shelf.

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