dans_la_lune Reviews

American Hot Rod (2004–2007)

I can't believe I'm addicted to this show

[6 September 2005]

It's true however. The personalities, at first, did not really appeal to me, rather I enjoyed watching the division of labor among the skilled tradesmen. I always felt that the world has no use for a man without experience, and some of these guys have a lot of experience through their years of specialization.

Since I'll never be accused of socialism, the appearance of wealth is also magnetic on some level unaffected by social criticism.

What kind of took me by surprise is the undiminished enthusiasm with which the guys transfer their shop squabbles into an international sphere (TV). Dwayne and Mike, especially, project strong personalities. Boyd just seems abrasive.

Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica (2003–2005)

"That is so punk rock..."

[20 December 2004]

One of the guys from Blink-182, Mark or Biff or something, once said that listening to pop music was punk because everyone hates it. He was probably referring to his own crowd, because someone is obviously buying pop records. Nevertheless, he raises an interesting point.

Our novels and films are filled with the neurotic, intelligent observations of the socially inept, as these protagonists struggle to accomplish the most basic functions of everyday life. {Talking to someone at a bar, having fun over the holidays}.

Jessica, on the other hand, displays many social behaviors, has a healthy bodyweight, loves the media, and kisses people on the lips by way of greeting. She is the opposite of the massively popular Zellweger/Bridget Jones character type, and still turns a brisk business in spite of it.

Her 500-word vocabulary is probably false. John Wayne had that one figured out in the forties.

Shark Tale (2004)

Nemoid

[15 October 2004]

Congratulations are due to Hollywood: in the past, studio spies found out about rival productions and rushed to make films with identical synopses in order to undercut the competition. [See Volcano, Dante's Peak - Kundun, Seven Years In Tibet - The Sopranos, Analyze This]. It's remarkably easy to do - you approach studios with a completed spec script, get rejected at x, get accepted at y, and then x has still got your old screenplay when it's finally put into production at y.

In this case Dreemwerks simply copied Pixar. So for people with a whetted appetite for CGI fish movies, 'Shark Tale' has all the right stuff to succeed; strong writers, animators, a big budget. And it still fails.

-Fish moving through water encounter resistance and must use muscle power to move forward. Shark Tale's fish drift in whichever direction they choose, without wagging their fins, in a seemingly friction-less environment. They don't look like fish.

-Constant screaming. Can we have some introverts sprinkled among the extroverts? I suppose anything worth saying is equally worth blasting at full volume.

-Blatant hypocrisy. Oscar's initial elation with his celebrity is dampened by the commercialization and media saturation of his image. This doesn't stop the producers from shoving a box of Krispy Kreme donuts in our face [twice].

I'll give ST a couple points for converging Oscar's story with Lenny's skillfully, great overall story structure, and some funny jokes [not including the Jerry Maguire reference].

5/10

The Last Samurai (2003)

The Empire Never Ended

[23 August 2004]

Spoilers. Read only if you've already seen the film.

My summary line was a favorite expression of the late sci-fi writer, Philip K. Dick. He used it in reference to the late Roman Empire, which instituted a materialistic Christianity from the Apostle Peter. Before that, there were numerous Christianities that rejected materialism, such as the Gnostics. The Romans prevailed, and their legacy to us is materialistic philosophy, hence "the Empire never ended".

This has considerable bearing on Last Samurai. The climactic scene involves dozens of samurai in traditional armour being mowed down by a Gatling gun, manned by westernized Japanese artillerymen. It was quite an amazing spectacle of the impotence of the meta-physical samurai, with their trust in spiritual tradition and virtue, to compete with progressively minded Government forces in the Age of Progress.

On another note, the Americans are miscast here. It was the Prussians who initiated the academic study of war, and thereafter consulted on the modernization of Japan's army. Germans and the Japanese are two peoples of the same soul - give them their movie! Who wants to see Tom Cruise anyway? He gives you his own [somewhat interesting] personality, not the character.

7/10

Bumfights: Cause for Concern (2002 Video)

L.A. Cold

[28 July 2004]

Spoilers...

I'm reasonably sure there wasn't a single fight between two homeless people throughout the whole film. In that light, the producers claims to expose the nature of conflict resolution amongst the homeless are hubris. The producers further claim to report on growing homelessness and global hypocrisy and other topics cadged from university seminars. How? By subjecting said homeless to humiliation and physical injury.

Here's an observation - if anyone's thinking about making a video similar to this, watch the last 'Bumhunter' episode again. A hypodermic needle is plainly visible on the ground amongst the homeless guy's effects. During the ensuing scuffle between the 'Bumhunters' and the target, the Bumhunter in black will charge right over top of the needle, while the Bumhunter in khaki is bitten by the homeless guy. I wouldn't be surprised if one or both of them made the biggest mistake of their lives.

The real reason it was made was to raise their profile and make money for feature films. I hear van der Beek's available; put him in plastic restraints and leave the street people alone.

2/10

Billy Madison (1995)

Buscemi's character

[13 June 2004]

I thought that Buscemi, the erstwhile abused schoolkid in 'Billy Madison' had a fascinating cameo. If the characterization is deliberate, then Sandler and Herlihy make a brilliant team. If it's accidental, then it's of the happy sort.

Buscemi receives a phone call from Sandler to the effect that Sandler apologizes for past behavior and asks for forgiveness. Buscemi acquiesces, and everything is in order before the camera pulls out to reveal 'The List' of targeted persons, to be punished for past transgressions. Buscemi thoughtfully crosses out Sandler's name, and then reclines on his sofa, applying lipstick with a sigh.

It's funny, and sort of postmodern in its discontinuity from what Buscemi was previously doing. But what's really interesting is that Buscemi shows that female behaviours are at the root of his anti-sociality. The lipstick conveys not so much an accessory effect of some unseen mental disorder, but the disorder itself. An effeminate man who can no more connect with women than two positive magnets can.

As for the rest of the movie: see it for Wilson. 5/10

The Pornographer (2001)

Go porn!

[2 June 2004]

This film marks the first time I saw a penetration scene on a basic cable channel. It's significant, if not technically or artistically amazing.

It was in medium shot, and at first I thought it was more simulated softcore nonsense since the gentleman appeared to be positioned too far away during coitus. Turns out he was just impressively endowed.

'Pornographe' turns in good performances from the actors, especially Leaud. He has the kind of homeopathic presence that made Sarah Polley famous. From a distance, the French national character appears understated, and quite reserved. Contrast that with the classic German, who is full of bluster, extroverted positivity, and usually neat as a pin. The English, finally, appear perpetually drunk and flooding the sidewalk with urine.

The long meditative shots of trees were meant to convey atmosphere, but kind of made me feel like I was waiting at a bus-stop. A minor complaint - it's worth seeing.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Agent Neo

[30 May 2004]

Warning: spoilers. Read only if you've seen the film.

If there were no such thing as the Matrix, or Reloaded, it's entirely probable that the following would be a positive review of the Matrix Revolutions. 'Dark City', tepid mediocrity that it is, would have been slammed in the same way 'Revolutions' got slammed if it had two awesome prequels.

As it stands, 'Revolutions' limped through the gate and couldn't finish fast enough. The initially much-loved story of the Matrix got old and my attention drifted further with every knowing speech earnestly delivered by the wise, urban minorities in Zion.

The ending. It mercifully delivers the SFX goods and brings an end to Neo's Quixotic voyage to triumph over the Machine, a menacing historical figure since the early 19C for the Luddites, communists, and clergy. Yet no machine, now matter how great its abstract computational abilities, will ever triumph over the best machine [Man] when it lacks intuition. How did Agent Smith get that bit of source code written in? Nebulous philosophy didn't accomplish it, which is what everyone in this movie is so adept at.

Notice how, in the glorious climax, when Neo plants his fist into Agent Smith to convert him, that the Wachowskis immediately cut to extreme long shot over the city for a short light show of all the Agent Smiths turning into Neo. This is necessary to complete Neo's status as a Christ figure; referencing the conversion of the pagan Roman emperor Constantine to Christianity and subsequent dissemination of that religion to the world.

However, the Wachowskis realized that mass conformity is unsightly no matter who the leader figure is, and skip the spectacle of showing a million Agent Neos looking on from the sidelines.

5/10

Dead Man (1995)

Twilight of the gods

[10/10 · 27 May 2004]

Read this comment only if you've already seen the film.

A recent Jim Jarmusch interview shed some interesting light on this production. He labeled his film a "black and white, psychedelic western" and mentioned a fight with studio bosses, when Jarmusch wouldn't accept the creative input of test audiences.

Perhaps the test audience didn't like caustic existentialism, preferring the mild pathos of something like "Cast-Away".

-A marshal dies with his head resting on top of a fan of splayed sticks, resembling a halo from religious paintings. Cole comes along and malignantly stomps on it after noticing the religious imagery. Immediate gore ensues, along with a more disturbing thought. I think Jarmusch implied that those "saints" that religious people consider holy were once just regular people who take on a divinity in the imagery and mythology we use to represent them.

-At the end of the film, when Nobody seeks to send the dying Blake to heaven, the ceremony goes horribly wrong. Nobody kills and is killed by the pursuing Cole Wilson; a helpless Blake can only lay in his sea-canoe and watch. The scene is psychedelic but nowhere near spiritual. I don't think Jarmusch thought his protagonist was going anywhere at all.

10/10

Bruce Almighty (2003)

Atheistic

[24 May 2004]

This movie doesn't have a god. Morgan Freeman is there, and his benign countenance is as welcome as it's ever been.

But Freeman is absent from the theme. Movies written by slapstick industry figures are modest enough that they still come with a message, a theme. They aren't collapsed in existential heaps, wailing about post-modern meaninglessness.

It hardly matters that Freeman is a bit player: he isn't the funny bone in this movie's skeleton, nor the spine holding it up. Rubberface handles the laughs, and the spine is Yankee individualism. For e.g., Carrey answers "Yes" to the massive backlog of prayers on his C drive, and immediate chaos ensues. When he ignores the prayers and forces everyone to sort things out on their own, good things prevail. What is the message to the viewer, pray to God [who can't help you anyway] or fix it yourself. Hein?

Think about it.

The Age of Innocence (1993)

Cue Beethoven's Grande Sonate Pathetique

[19 May 2004]

at the van der Luyden's {Vanderbilt in real life}, as Newland Archer works the drawing room in New York polite society. His voice-over in that scene, as in many others, uses strange vowels that are probably the product of the adoption of a different accent for the role. While not exactly wrong, it is certainly striking. His voice-overs often tell us of his desire for societal change. Although most people have at some point felt iconoclastic emotion, Scorsese's 19C New York is sufficiently exotic and charming to me that I felt no desire to see any of it change.

The string sections of the background score's leitmotif are gorgeous melodies, as are the waltzes at the numerous balls. It struck me that the history of popular Western dance is a trajectory from the structured dance, with mandated bodily contact {waltz}, to the completely unstructured, with no bodily contact {rave}.

I also thought it was beautifully photographed. Like David Lynch, Martin Scorsese can equate architecture with character traits. In one instance, Olenska's house stands about six stories, in long shot and in stark relief to the snowy grid of empty lots that box it in. I thought that might have reflected her individualistic stance that gave her problems in conformist society.

7/10

Lost in Translation (2003)

Tokyo And Kyoto

[14 May 2004]

I consider this film to be an effective expression of narrative realism, made possible by the abandonment of the three-act structure and that which it generally includes. Sub-plots stay unraveled. The inciting incident is a mere parody of its use in a conventional film, it exists strictly for appearances, not to set up a Robert McKee-style plot. Why not go with McKee? Impossible for the purposes of realism; that's not how it goes down in real life.

Coppola seems reasonably good at writing for men too: while her male leads are both horndogs who will be the death of their mates, they have enough good qualities to form a contradiction that convinced me of their reality.

The charges of racism being leveled against this movie are hubris. They stem from a hysterical reaction against any white filmmaker who dares to write an unsympathetic role for someone with a different ethnicity than their own. So what Coppola sneers at the rape-fantasy prostitute in Bob Harris' hotel room? Does she not show her delight with the traditional Japanese wedding in the garden at Kyoto? Indeed, the dominant tone of this movie struck me as the amazement of a rural colonial, touring her capital for the first time.

This in a city [Tokyo] that some journalists consider to be tourist-unfriendly. Coppola is an obvious urbanophile, (unusual in women) and found plenty to catch her fancy: from mag-lev trains, to silly karaoke bars and digital brachiosauri. I should rent it again, Scarlett Johansson's mercurial hotness probably deflected my attention from a lot of it.

8/10

Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)

Mexican't

[11 May 2004]

Let me tell you why Desperado was such a successful movie: it was a rich, violent, funny, swashbuckling character study. Rodriguez drops that angle here; there's no barmaid to pour whiskey on Desperado's wounds after the knife fight. Hell, in this one Banderas is stuck in a bit part grinding his teeth next to a preening European pop singer.

Instead, we have the studio machine orchestrating a big stupid narrative that I don't care about. Why? 'Cause none of it really happened. So why go to movies? Human interest, which is hard to intrigue in the dearth of a protagonist. Depp has a commanding presence, but lacks the screen-time to make us a proper voyeur on his mission, which is to kill good pulled pork cooks in the name of the C.I.A.

-Audiences are past masters at extrapolating the future sequence of events when the fisticuffs get started in the movie. A woman who turns her head to face the camera in close-up is going to see something that frightens her. Yawn.

A fight in real life is unpredictable, and usually one-sided. Spielberg recognized the need for paradoxical direction in 'Saving Private Ryan' and did the opposite of what a lot of fight sequences did in past movies. He stayed unpredictable, almost absurdist, and thereby filmed a number of [vicious] fights for exactly what they are.

3/10 - Depp blows a mean smoke-ring, that's worth 3 points

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Loss of humanity

[11 May 2004]

One spoiler in my review.

Kubrick was said to have once instructed his actors to watch Lynch's 'Eraserhead' in order to be in the right mood for their performances in 'The Shining'. Aside from appropriately subdued actors, there is a more important directorial parallel between the late Kubrick and the present Lynch, that which the French call mise-en-scene.

The central accomplishment of this film is probably composition. It is unexpressed in the script; writers, producers and D.O.P.s aren't responsible for it. The 'putting-into-scene' involves the organization of props, people, music, light, and whatever the hell else you are imaginative enough to know is needed or superfluous.

I'm thinking in particular about the Camilla Rhodes audition: floor lights reflected off her cheekbones and missed the hollow of her eyes, deepening them as she swayed a little, singing a fifties pop ditty. In another instance, Watts' character, jealous lover that she is, watches Adam Kesher move in on her Latin girlfriend. The camera zooms in slowly, in a darkened studio, on a tiny light reflected in a pool of tears in her eye. 9/10

Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)

No bricklayers were harmed in the making of this film

[7 May 2004]

Spoiler warning.

A couple points:

-The Freudian sexuality sequences were florid, but ultimately empty. I felt like I was reading an exceptionally well-illustrated List of Chapters from one of Freud's books. I noticed the Oedipal Complex when Pink equates his girlfriend with his mother, I noticed the Vagina Dentata in several cartoons-from-the-void. But they were lacked depth and were unconnected to the Wall. What was the point?

-I am not sure what ten-year olds should be doing if not sitting behind desks at school: bleeding heart liberals decided that children are not quite ready for the coal mines, to the dismay of conservatives who recognized the ability of children to squeeze into small spaces and get the really good coal.

If schools are such dungeons, perhaps Waters would like to submit a paper to Pedagogy Today and suggest some improvements, such as requiring twelve credits of Poetry in order to graduate. That would be more productive that yelling "TEACHER! LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE" into a microphone. Somehow, I don't think educators were challenged, and replied "no" to the screaming idiot on the radio before returning their attention to their coffee.

The kids in Waters' movie throw their books into a bonfire and dance like Germans in 1936. But 'Pink' would dress up as a neo-Nazi later on, so it works. Or not.

-I am suspicious of anyone who comes across as excessively cheerful or negative. It smacks of self-indulgence and obstinacy. A really foul outlook can be a wall too, let's blow that one up first. 4/10

The MatchMaker (1997)

A Janeane Garofalo joint

[6 May 2004]

"The power of accurate observation is called cynicism by those who don't have it". - George Bernard Shaw

I like cynics, because when they're happy about something, you know it's something you should check out, as opposed to Wal-Mart door greeters who can work themselves into a lather about a 30 cent discount on toilet scrubbers.

So Janeane Garofalo gives us a solid film about a Boston political campaign worker flown to Ireland to drum up proof of a candidate's Oirish background, for the Paddy ethnic vote back in Boston. A few remarks:

-The singing contest on the Outer Islands was painful. I listened to my brother play "Peter and the Wolf" on the upstairs piano during that whole scene.

-Occasional flavourings of atheism in a town awash with Christological symbolism. That introduced a strange tension. One barfly announces "God be with you" in Irish to Janeane, who replies "no thanks". My other example is a spoiler, I'll keep it to myself.

-Excellent humour. Janeane's presence makes it moreso language based, instead of the more reliable choice of physical humour, but they both work throughout.

-Wide angle shots of Irish seaside orogeny are going to completely distract the attention of a Geology student from the romantic foibles of the leads.

Time spent in this warm Irish village is well spent. 7/10

King Kong (1933)

The Apologists of Segregation

[2 May 2004]

Warning: spoilers in this comment

Recently, the R'n'B singer Missy Elliott sang in a music video with a lot of Black revivalist lyrics/imagery. It was a good song, and culminated in Missy Elliot climbing a miniature Empire State Building, swatting at aircraft in the same manner as Kong.

I would have to agree with her that Kong is an archetype for Black people, more accurately, the desegregated urban Black populace coming into increasing contact with White communities in the inter-war and postwar period.

Of course, that theme is only a foundation, on top of which humour, romance, action, and explosive brass instrument music are layered. And the completely apolitical individual (children come to mind) could still enjoy King Kong.

However, the politics are disturbing: Kong, while a physical marvel and a noble creature, is incapable of behaving peacefully once he's released from his bondage in the theatre (symbolizing slavery). Quite on the contrary, he embarks on a violent rampage which is high in destructive quality but much too short.

Throughout the film, the biggest dramatic tension comes from the precarious position of 'Fay Wray', which goes a long way toward explaining why people like Strom Thurmond got so negative about desegregation in the first place. Any buckwheat, tobacco-slobbering farmer knows his biggest resource isn't his seed, livestock, or International Harvester, but his little old lady.'

'King Kong' suffers from racist politics and artificial dialogue. It's virtues are humour, Capt. Englehorn, and good fighting sequences. If you want to enjoy it, watch it with your fingers poised over your nostrils, because occasionally, King Kong stinks.

6/10

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

The Vampire's Reflection

[30 April 2004]

One spoiler in this review.

"We're not so different, you and I..."

When Max Schreck says the above quote to Murnau, he hints at my best interpretation of the success of the vampire, as a character in Western arts. Max Schreck reflects the unconscious desire of the socially disengaged male (vampire), who is useless in society (daylight), and can only plunge the fangs (penis) into an unwilling person. Schreck's attack scenes, and those of Dracula in other films, are stylized rape scenarios.

Continuing the dualism between Vampire and Man (in this case Murnau), it was interesting to note that when Murnau was faced with an uncooperative female, he used a pointed instrument (a hypodermic needle) to placate Greta, in the same fashion as a vampire who renders a resisting victim unconscious with his fangs.

More generally, I absolutely adore this film. Every time I watch it, the eye is drawn to a new and interesting detail in the frame, previously unnoticed. Great performances by all actors, a haunting background score, and a script to top them all makes this film a 10/10.

The Punisher (2004)

The new exploitation

[23 April 2004]

Exploitation is a funny genre of film. It seeks to exploit the desire of some audiences to see sex/violence/whatever, and loads as much as possible into the film. This can be contrasted with the Japanese attack in 'Pearl Harbor', which depicts violence as a function of imperialism.

Tarantino is a huge fan of 70s kung-fu exploitation films (Kill Bill Vol 1 + 2) as well as blaxploitation (Jackie Brown). I also enjoy them. Here we see the booming market of comic book movies used along these lines.

I don't consider this to be a proper comic book movie, because it lacks the sensibilities of a film like 'Hulk'. Ang Lee used an innovative style of framing, that imitated the multiple frames per page seen in comic books, by placing multiple frames per screen in 'Hulk'. I didn't see anything like that in 'Punisher'.

Another missed opportunity in 'Punisher' happens when Frank Castle meets his flatmates (MetalFace and FatMan). We see that M and F are both dorks who have covered their walls with original comic book illustrations. Frank Castle was a comic book character before he was ever a character in a live-action movie, played by Thomas Jane. I saw a major chance for some intelligent self-referencing.

If only MetalFace and FatMan could have somehow given shape to Castle's revenge plans, but instead they are just comic relief and the illustrations remain useless wallpaper.

On a positive note, 'The Punisher' is worth seeing, I liked:

-The abstraction of violence I saw when Castle's car is flipped over, while being chased by the Latin guitar player. Abstraction is about limiting your analysis of an event to a single component, and the image of spinning pavement from Castle's vantage point was good.

-Kevin Nash's cameo

-An unapologetically old-fashioned romance between Castle and his g/f

7/10

Seinfeld (1989–1998)

A show about something

[23 April 2004]

On air and off the air, the cast of Seinfeld affectionately referred to their show as "the show about nothing". This isn't true. Seinfeld was a show about observational humour. Indeed, even when he says that his show was about nothing, Jerry Seinfeld is using observational humour.

Co-creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, a failed comic and a not-so-failed comic, brought their stand-up acts to the standard three-camera, laugh-track sitcom. No structural innovation, no revolution for T.V. Just good comedy.

There are a lot of ways to analyse Seinfeld's humour. The nucleus of a joke is generally recognizing an implied contradiction, a paradox, and then mentioning it to everyone in a clear, unconfused fashion. For example, when Jerry talks about "rhinoplasty", plastic surgery of the nose, he mentions that this is cruel name. Here you have doctors, who are supposed to help people (Jews), but for some reason decided to call their patients rhinos.

I loved that joke. Why? Well, some psychologists think that the highest order thinkers think about concepts as the aggregate of what they are and what they are not. That's similar to a paradox, so... humour must be a sign of intelligence, which is rewarded with a laugh.

Just a hypothesis.

Matchstick Men (2003)

A good role for Cage

[12 April 2004]

This reviewer is not the biggest Cage fan. I don't have a beef with him per se, rather I get annoyed when casting agents give him a role as a coldcocked gangster, when Cage looks and acts like a dysfunctional uncle who won't come out of his room for Thanksgiving.

Ridley Scott directs him well in this comedy caper about a conman united with a long-lost youngin'. To say more about the casting, Lohman is very appropriately casted in relation to Cage and Rockwell. I have to be careful, but her face struck me as quite similar to Rockwell's, which lends itself well to the story.

Cage's character has a fear of the outdoors and a placebic need for pills, which leads to some interesting montages/frames.

The second act drags quite a bit, presumably to set up the third, but that's not much of a reason.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

The first movie of the nine-dees arrives in 1971

[28 March 2004]

As with 'The Exorcist', 'A Clockwork Orange' hits its present-day audience with somewhat of a pulled punch. On the topics of violence, sex, profanity, and all that other stuff that makes life worth living (just kidding), today's movie audiences are a little more desensitized than the wider-eyed filmgoers of the seventies.

I can see why it caused such a stir upon its release in 71: it belongs to another decade. The ironic use of violence/rape by the Droogs is not seen in such other films of the day as: Easy Rider, Alien, The Conversation et al. A couple people didn't 'get it', and treated Kubrick's film as an endorsement of crime.

All that aside: I thought it was pretty good. Kubrick's visuals set the industry standard, as per usuals. Wendy Carlos' neo-classical, techno-synth harmonics are a great way to replay the musical giants of Europe's past. Her contribution to the film was good enough that 'Tron' is now on my must-see list.

I didn't like Beethoven's music being used as decoration to destruction, since the nature of composition is creation. Maybe that was intended as a means to create tension, I don't know. I also hate it when eyes get mutilated in movies (Stir of Echoes, Minority Report, Jackass: The Movie). The sympathy pains are enough to make me turn aside.

Not Kubrick's best, but a good picture: 7/10.

Immortal Beloved (1994)

The Overman

[18 March 2004]

Spoilers in this review.

Friedrich Nietzche, a man who lived a torturous existence due to gastro-intestinal problems, once said that without music, life would be a mistake. Not theatre, or literature, bucolic paintings, or sculpture. Music. As far as film is concerned, one might predict that nothing could match the emotional resonance that Beethoven sonatas and opera inspire. That directors/writers should be unable to rise to the awesomeness of Beethoven's melody and harmonics, if it weren't for one thing.

Images. Bernard Rose is a very good writer, and when his climax plays out to the soaring accompaniment of the 'Ode to Joy' sopranos, I felt as though one of Beethoven's equals had made a legitimate comment on that galaxy of sound. I won't describe it, 'cause I'm using language, which wouldn't do it justice.

Great cinema has rarely been distinguished on the basis of dialogue, which could never be juxtaposed to the work of a great composer, because it is too narrowly defined, too political. Dialogue is useful for advancing plot, images are about theme. Dialogue was essential in the halcyon days of the theatre when the narrative was limited to a stage in a theatre, with the inherent boundaries on visual storytelling. The difference in expounding a theme through dialogue, or through image is the same as explaining something through principle or example. Postulate or proof.

Anyway, if I've been too glowing, then I would like to suggest something. Anyone who watches Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon' and Rose's 'Immortal Beloved' in rough proximity to one another is going to learn a lot about composition. Kubrick's movie isn't about the 18th century, it IS the 18th century. However, the great adapter (Kubrick) was remixing somebody else's dream (Thackeray) in Barry Lyndon, whereas Bernard Rose has given us something else again.

10/10