Nikal Saval has an admittedly cranky but masterful takedown of I’m Not There at N + 1. Calling Todd Haynes’ pastiche the Worst Movie of 2007, Saval scratches particularly aggressively at Haynes’ habitual referencing and naked larceny: “Haynes is drowning in his film school education, just as his audience is drowning in allusions, and not a single original idea floats by to rescue him or us.”
Erin at Steady Diet of Film has a helpful translation of what Jason Reitman, John Sayles, Adam Shankman and Joe Wright were REALLY saying on a recent episode of Sunday Morning Shootout. Useful information gleaned: Reitman, who “hates going to awards shows because he has to stop dressing like he’s homeless,” has a masterful death stare, but Sayles is not impressed.
Lots to report today on the Berlinale front, including the news that Martin Scorsese’s long-delayed Rolling Stones doc Shine A Light will finally make its premiere at the festival–and on opening night, no less. David Hudson has tworoundups.
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Thanks so much for linking to me, Karina. The Criterion Alexanderplatz set is a dream, hopefully it comes through for you soon. Oddly enough, I also got my copy for Christmas, and it also got lost in the mail and had to be resent from Amazon. Some kinda UPS conspiracy against Fassbinder, obviously, or else someone hoarding the box sets for themselves.
That Nikil link is interesting, to read an extreme negative reaction to a film that I absolutely loved, and would call one of the year’s best. I think the review spends way too much verbiage on simply pointing out the multitude of references to Fellini, Godard, and Pennebaker in the film, as though Haynes ever intended to slip these glaringly obvious “plagiaries” past us. I also think that criticizing the film for not saying anything new about Dylan is kinda missing the point. Haynes doesn’t want to tell Dylan’s life story or say anything about Dylan himself. He’s only using Dylan’s persona and music to get at deeper issues that concern him — like the many different ways an artist can be political and engage with his society — and the film succeeds quite well on those terms, rather than as a Dylan biopic. I recently saw somebody compare this film to the way David Cronenberg simply uses William Burroughs’ life story and art as raw material in Naked Lunch, rather than making a straightforward literary adaptation or a biopic. Haynes is up to something similar in regard to Dylan, though I think his film is much more successful at it than Cronenberg’s flawed but intriguing Burroughs movie.
And can I just say, the day after I posted that I got a bunch of hits from 20th Century Fox-networked computers. Jason Reitman soo googles himself after his television appearances, hee!
Nikal Saval has an admittedly cranky but masterful takedown of I’m Not There at N + 1. Calling Todd Haynes’ pastiche the Worst Movie of 2007, Saval scratches particularly aggressively at Haynes’ habitual referencing and naked larceny: “Haynes is drowning in his film school education, just as his audience is drowning in allusions, and not a single original idea floats by to rescue him or us.”
2 Comments
Thanks so much for linking to me, Karina. The Criterion Alexanderplatz set is a dream, hopefully it comes through for you soon. Oddly enough, I also got my copy for Christmas, and it also got lost in the mail and had to be resent from Amazon. Some kinda UPS conspiracy against Fassbinder, obviously, or else someone hoarding the box sets for themselves.
That Nikil link is interesting, to read an extreme negative reaction to a film that I absolutely loved, and would call one of the year’s best. I think the review spends way too much verbiage on simply pointing out the multitude of references to Fellini, Godard, and Pennebaker in the film, as though Haynes ever intended to slip these glaringly obvious “plagiaries” past us. I also think that criticizing the film for not saying anything new about Dylan is kinda missing the point. Haynes doesn’t want to tell Dylan’s life story or say anything about Dylan himself. He’s only using Dylan’s persona and music to get at deeper issues that concern him — like the many different ways an artist can be political and engage with his society — and the film succeeds quite well on those terms, rather than as a Dylan biopic. I recently saw somebody compare this film to the way David Cronenberg simply uses William Burroughs’ life story and art as raw material in Naked Lunch, rather than making a straightforward literary adaptation or a biopic. Haynes is up to something similar in regard to Dylan, though I think his film is much more successful at it than Cronenberg’s flawed but intriguing Burroughs movie.
Thanks for the link, Karina.
And can I just say, the day after I posted that I got a bunch of hits from 20th Century Fox-networked computers. Jason Reitman soo googles himself after his television appearances, hee!