On Tue, 11 Jun 2013, Andy Deemer wrote: > Agreed re. the copyright issues. Should the US Oscar org actively > ignore one challenge to their trademark, it'd quickly weaken their > claims in other areas.
Exactly. The same happens when thugs pick the weakest guy and teach him a lesson in front of a crowd, so they don't have to teach it to someone who would be less obedient pupil. > But this comment rubs me the wrong way: > > > One thing I dislike about US movies is their cavaliere > > attitude towards historical facts (as I know them, at least). > > What is it about *US* movies and their attitude towards historical > facts that rubs you the wrong way? Ouch. This thread started with my rant against thugs. Later it somehow slipped into movie critique - however, I think I wrote it with the whole industry in mind. If Hollywood deserves more critique than average, this is because they happen to be much more omnipresent than "average filmmaking conglomerate". Does it rub me in any way, however? No, not really. It used to, but I have learned to skip it. I've explained to myself, this is how humanity goes. Only idiot or saint would try to change it and the outcome in both cases would've been the same. But since you asked (aaargh! never ask me! I will have to reply!)... > That they don't tell your version? Version? I believe there really is the only One Version. Its fragments being constantly erased, rewritten, mangled or ommitted by different people, claiming their goal to be some "greater good" - even if they do this in the name of better storytelling. My version, as you worded it, is not the OV. I believe I can get closer to it, which is why I became history buff. It is possible I won't be huge enough to accept OV even if I find it eventually. So for this reason or because it's impossible to find OV (at least for a human), I will probably stay with some kind of imperfect approximation. However, I am learning, man. "My version", or maybe rather "Tomek' Version" or TV :-) is not static, is not going to be static as long as I am willing to learn. > That they tell good stories? That, like mainstream movies from every > filmmaking nation around the world, they're sacrificing hard facts for > the sake of stories? Or telling their versions of history? I'd rather watch a real story than a "good" story, if they are not the same. But I only blame filmmakers if I suspect they made their story slacky because of mental laziness. If a film has multimillion budget and they fail to buy few hours of consultant's time, I blame them. I also blame them if I (believe to) have reason to suspect their scenario optimization process was like "who were those guys? who cares? screw them" line of thinking. It is even more nasty if the "guys" so treated are no longer alive, so chances are, nobody cares about them any longer - so they are free to be exploited by whatever vision a so called artist has. There are limits to licentia poetica beyond which a lie begins. Whether it was done out of ignorance or laziness or with some pervert goal in mind, is rather not important to me. However, I don't blame them if they couldn't do better for reasons other than stupidity or mischief. > How about Chinese movies from the Cultural Revolution, which present a > completely imagined history as ironclad truth? Or today's Chinese > blockbusters, which again do exactly the same (see the recent > government-sponsored star-studded historical epics for five or six > very recent examples.) Do those bother you less? They take the > proactive starvation of hundreds of millions, and present it > (respectively) as a rosy dance through the fields and a skipped meal > around lunchtime. > > How about Japanese movies celebrating their atrocities during the war? Those examples bother me as much as some Hollywood productions. Overally, I am always bothered when I smell Information Distorting Event. I really do not like IDEs. I would be wary of people who cannot honestly talk about their deeds, be them successes or not or bads. > And here in India -- while my Hindi historical fiction experience is > slim -- how authentic is Lagaan, or the historical flashbacks of Rang > De Basanti? I really don't know. Never heard of it - but I promise to google in free time. > By "US" did you actually mean "Popular Film"? Or is it just that the > historical blockbusters you watch are predominantly American? Is it > that American films take on an American textbook response to history? > (And American historical textbooks, much like those from Japan, China, > and, yes, India, are notoriously unreliable.) Heh. Believe me or not but I don't have the list of things and films. So I cannot paste it here. If we limit ourselves to WW2, which is where I can claim any kind of surplus knowledge (other than usual computer related stuff, and not very big), the list would have probably started with some small aberrations, something like T-34 tanks playing role of German Panzer IVs (if I recall, some Polish war movie). For example of something bigger, I don't think I've seen a mention that a shot from certain German gun (like, an 88mm one) could penetrate through both sides of US Sherman tank (not sure if all versions or just some). Doesn't sound too good. Would sound even worse if they mentioned Pentagon strategists' advice to deploy at least four Shermans against every Tiger tank - the first three to keep German attention in forward direction (at least two of them destroyed in the act) and forth to go around and shot Tiger in the back from close distance, because this was the only way to end such fight. At the same time, Japanese tanks were inferior to Shermans and Tigers were similarly outmatched by Soviet IS-122 heavy tanks. I guess this kind of stuff is mostly uninteresting to so called public, which imagines war as some kind of heroic olympic games. So, we have movies like "Kelly's heroes" on the bad side, about some US soldiers going through enemy lines to rob the bank full of gold bars. On the good side, I'd place "Saving private Ryan" - beach landing sequence was truly terrific, but overally, well made (even though Tigers were, again, played by T-34s with some fake chassis on top and the closer to the end, the more magic entered, starting maybe when they took over dug-in MG nest with 8 people and no mortar, uh-hummm, yeah possible but...). I'd like to find time and watch Clint Eastwood WW2 movies, I suspect them to be good. Another thing is that this _World_ War seems to be fought by White gentlemen all the time. Sometimes they fight the Japanese, sometimes they shoot each other. Strange, isn't it? There were units of colored soldiers, of course, but I guess they were segregated just like all-Black units in US army. To talk about this subject is apparently a big no-no in movie industry. Yeah, who knows, maybe it would have showed the whole war in very different light, since apparently both sides were oriented around race. For the record, I can't recall much mentioning about Polish soldiers in western war movies, despite us being forth military power in this conflict - however this is kind of more complicated, because according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_contribution_to_World_War_II we were second allied army on September 1939 (and fourth in Europe), later as events unfolded and various interested parties joined, we slipped, and if we are to count Chinese in, we become fifth - still not bad. Out the top of my head, I recall "A bridge too far" about operation "Market Garden", which I would say could serve as a disaster case study. It would have been briliant victory but with failed radios and other such blunders, not much could be done. According to one piece of history, which I am yet to include into TV, after it all finished Polish gen Sosabowski, who actually voiced doubts about feasibility of this plan, was made a scapegoat (along with his parachuters from 1st Polish Para), few days after he was sent a letter praising his attitude during operation, by the same person. After the war, Sosabowski had to do menial jobs to support himself, his wife and his son who lost sight in fight. He died from heart attack, some years after the war. "The person" got knighted. About this, I don't expect to watch anything in cinema, however it should be noted Sosabowski and 1st Para were recognised by the Dutch in the documentary they made. The subject of cavaliere attitude is really broad, you know. Take, for example, filming books. - "The name of the rose" - a book is really interesting and gives detailed description of various trends and life at the time of action. It would have been hard to make a film so complicated, because it would almost certainly be too long to make, too long to watch. I think a director and others involved made the right thing, a film looks quite good despite being very much shaved version of the book. Applause! - "Twierdza szyfrow" ("Cipher's stronghold") - interesting idea, most probably fictional, set up and played in realistic historic decorations. It deals with idea of German machine which could decipher soviet one-time ciphers. A film was made from the book - well, I can say Polish actors look quite well in German uniforms. Overally, seems very authentic, perhaps because many history reconstruction groups had been brought in. So it felt and showed, at least to me, Germans, Russians and Americans (plus some Poles) were well presented (equipment, unit drill, vehicles, really nice looking). And licentia poetica was limited. Applause! - "The time machine" - I've seen two films and read a book. The older film was about English gentleman rescuing bunch of beautiful nazis incapacitated and helpless in the face of hungry grey apes. The newer film was about some romantic idiot doing mostly the same, only nazis had been replaced by equally or more beautiful people of mixed ratial background. The book, however, was about gentleman who just wanted to satiate his curiosity and landed in a future peopled by rather pitiful if not somewhat disgusting creatures. My disgust comes from suspition they have done this degeneration to themselves, rather than being overwhelmed by external factors, which is what films suggest. Weena from the book could hardly outmatch today's 7 years old in about anything but procreation and she looked like fat-overgrown 12-years old, if I understood correctly. Their predators were equally abberated. In other words, future folk was to be disgusting in mind of HG Wells, and for some reason. There was a message in the book. But for better story telling, it was all contorted into whole different story and message. Abomination! Hope I made my points more clear. > And not sure what connection there is to the downfall of US cinema, > either. Appears to me that they're thriving. More of my coworkers > thrilled to see the release of Fast & Furious 6 (7?) and Iron Man 3 > than any specific Hindi or Kannada film. In China the only thing > keeping the audiences from the US films is the mandatory limit on the > number released. > > Frankly, I'm worried about the rise of US film... To me, they thrive, bloom and make money all right, but they become more and more irrelevant. I claim their growth is in their belly, they are increasingly unable to take on important issues we may have ahead of us. I couldn't care less about whether Iron Man takes Potts for a date (did he? I stopped watching after IM-1 - truth be told, I wouldn't mind taking Potts for a date, and this guy is... girlish). And F&F, is this about teens driving like mad and never killing anybody? Oh really. Maybe I'd believed this if they took amphetamine or something like this. But they were clean, right? And perfect. With them (movies), the audience becomes immersed into irrelevant creation, having less and less in common with reality. My reasoning is, this is bad. I don't want to be disconnected from reality. If I am wrong, I really wonder in what way. Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:[email protected] **
