bringing out the dead
just went back in time to watch a paul schrader flick that i didn't watch back in the day.
bringing out the dead
(and i, too, like some of you, can't help but use a princess bride voice in my head when i say the title.)
but in general i liked this movie much more than I expected to. i remember that it got uneven reviews back in the day, but ultimately i really liked the story.
schrader seems to be always writing these stories which are straight up redemption stories with a very sort of clear grammar of fall and redemption -- but never so on the nose that you walk away from the movie feeling preached at.
in fact, what i think i like MOST about his movies is that often, his *very flawed* hero is weary and desperate, but in some way recovering or doing better than he has been doing -- and then he gets faced with this temptation which is very clearly the point of entry *back* into the darkness that he was starting to emerge from -- and here's where the stroke of genius (for me) is -- Schrader has made the character's self / longings / motivations so *real* to me -- that I want it too. For the character. Even while I don't want it. While I hate it. I, the viewer, can enter pretty fully into the magnitude of the moral choice. Understand the stakes, and then choose the *wrong* road.
I don't feel like writers are able to make us feel so much consonance with the characters very often.
Light Sleeper & Auto Focus really have this same thing going on, too. And so if and when the characters make it out of the slough of despondence that they choose (different outcomes in each of these movies) - it feels *so much more* hard won / lost -- so much more MOVING to me as a viewer.
(some of bringing out the dead *is* uneven. use of voice over, jarring camera work which isn't evenly utilized throughout the film. some bits that seem tonally wrong -- BUT ultimately, i'd argue that the story (all the plot points) and the characters *work* really well.)
Reminds me of Pedro The Lion's work. Beautiful depiction of the darkness ends up alluding to the beauty of hope and light, too...
peace~
bringing out the dead
(and i, too, like some of you, can't help but use a princess bride voice in my head when i say the title.)
but in general i liked this movie much more than I expected to. i remember that it got uneven reviews back in the day, but ultimately i really liked the story.
schrader seems to be always writing these stories which are straight up redemption stories with a very sort of clear grammar of fall and redemption -- but never so on the nose that you walk away from the movie feeling preached at.
in fact, what i think i like MOST about his movies is that often, his *very flawed* hero is weary and desperate, but in some way recovering or doing better than he has been doing -- and then he gets faced with this temptation which is very clearly the point of entry *back* into the darkness that he was starting to emerge from -- and here's where the stroke of genius (for me) is -- Schrader has made the character's self / longings / motivations so *real* to me -- that I want it too. For the character. Even while I don't want it. While I hate it. I, the viewer, can enter pretty fully into the magnitude of the moral choice. Understand the stakes, and then choose the *wrong* road.
I don't feel like writers are able to make us feel so much consonance with the characters very often.
Light Sleeper & Auto Focus really have this same thing going on, too. And so if and when the characters make it out of the slough of despondence that they choose (different outcomes in each of these movies) - it feels *so much more* hard won / lost -- so much more MOVING to me as a viewer.
(some of bringing out the dead *is* uneven. use of voice over, jarring camera work which isn't evenly utilized throughout the film. some bits that seem tonally wrong -- BUT ultimately, i'd argue that the story (all the plot points) and the characters *work* really well.)
Reminds me of Pedro The Lion's work. Beautiful depiction of the darkness ends up alluding to the beauty of hope and light, too...
peace~
posted by Redbaerd at 11:31 AM
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