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28 October 2009 03:05![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrryblssmninjaYvonne Strahovski interview about The Canyon and Chuck
I just saw a small feature about The Canyon in SF Chronicle's Sunday Datebook. They filmed with real wolves! Who, according to the director, hit their mark but are otherwise kind of unpredictable. cool. ack. cool. Yay Yvonne.
and now, two rants.
the good thing about print?
you can slam a book or newspaper or article on a hard surface if the author annoys you. There's only so much you can do with keysmashing.
- prompted by research in which I stumbled upon a person who said that Murasaki Shikibu cared much more about beautiful language than plot in The Tale of Genji. First, you're reading a translation, so you can't truly judge that, especially if you're reading the flowery Waley translalation. Second, it's not whether you liked the story or not, but if you actually read the book well the plot's pretty evident and all about relationships and cycles and retribution and punishments and loss. One person in class even said it helped her to read it like she'd watch a Korean soap opera. Soap operas are plot-focused (sometimes at the expense of character, depending on the story). You have to read the entire novel -or at least the 2/3rds Hikaru Genji is alive in- to get the full story and emotional development. Yet even within chapters you get story episodes that are part of the main story. Take the early "Evening Faces" chapter: boy meets girl, boy likes girl a lot and starts visiting/supporting her household, girl gets killed by the furious spirit of the lover he didn't treat with appropriate respect in the previous chapter. There's also the overarching plot for much of Genji's story about the Kokiden lady's family machinations against the threat of Genji taking the throne. It's not like they just sit there and talk about the rain.
GGRRRRRRR THERE IS PLOT HDU
but I do have to take points like this into account into the hypothetical film version I'm "creating" via research paper research for class. How to make Genji's story accessible but faithful. Yeah, I've found the comms here and the anime/manga versions and even some Yoshitaka Amano drawings. And an opera. wooh.
rant 2:
Over a drink at Le Select, in Paris, Anderson admitted that he was troubled by the reception of Darjeeling, especially in light of the success, the following year, of Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. "Why did this India movie become a big hit and mine didn't?" he said. He answered his own question: "With my style, I can take a subject that you'd think would be commercial and turn it into something that not a lot of people want to see."
source
"this India movie"
yeah.
Yeah, you did answer your own question, Mr. Anderson. Popular appeal.
Whether a person ended up liking Slumdog Millionaire or hating it, I think most everyday, non-cinephile people would be drawn more to what looked like a fast-paced rags-to-riches story with young characters.
I've only seen Rushmore out of his work, and it's one of my favorite movies, and I still want to see Bottle Rocket, but even then I know the Wes Anderson look and type of movie. Good or bad, it's not the type of movie that would get chatted about in offices and schools.
Seriously, though, "this India movie?"
ETA: thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hellopinkie: Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia in Agora? whoa cool casting. Pinkie saw it and said the film was good overall but not convincing in a few arguments and parts. But Weisz is awesome. Apparently other reviews say that the acting and production is good, but the script is unfocused. Another complaint I saw is that it focuses too much on lecturing about religion problems -which do play a part in her history, but apparently they go on and on about it at the expense of cinematic story and flow- while cutting out scenes where Hypatia is actually doing her other work in astronomy and such.
sorry for long sentences.
I just saw a small feature about The Canyon in SF Chronicle's Sunday Datebook. They filmed with real wolves! Who, according to the director, hit their mark but are otherwise kind of unpredictable. cool. ack. cool. Yay Yvonne.
and now, two rants.
the good thing about print?
you can slam a book or newspaper or article on a hard surface if the author annoys you. There's only so much you can do with keysmashing.
- prompted by research in which I stumbled upon a person who said that Murasaki Shikibu cared much more about beautiful language than plot in The Tale of Genji. First, you're reading a translation, so you can't truly judge that, especially if you're reading the flowery Waley translalation. Second, it's not whether you liked the story or not, but if you actually read the book well the plot's pretty evident and all about relationships and cycles and retribution and punishments and loss. One person in class even said it helped her to read it like she'd watch a Korean soap opera. Soap operas are plot-focused (sometimes at the expense of character, depending on the story). You have to read the entire novel -or at least the 2/3rds Hikaru Genji is alive in- to get the full story and emotional development. Yet even within chapters you get story episodes that are part of the main story. Take the early "Evening Faces" chapter: boy meets girl, boy likes girl a lot and starts visiting/supporting her household, girl gets killed by the furious spirit of the lover he didn't treat with appropriate respect in the previous chapter. There's also the overarching plot for much of Genji's story about the Kokiden lady's family machinations against the threat of Genji taking the throne. It's not like they just sit there and talk about the rain.
GGRRRRRRR THERE IS PLOT HDU
but I do have to take points like this into account into the hypothetical film version I'm "creating" via research paper research for class. How to make Genji's story accessible but faithful. Yeah, I've found the comms here and the anime/manga versions and even some Yoshitaka Amano drawings. And an opera. wooh.
rant 2:
Over a drink at Le Select, in Paris, Anderson admitted that he was troubled by the reception of Darjeeling, especially in light of the success, the following year, of Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. "Why did this India movie become a big hit and mine didn't?" he said. He answered his own question: "With my style, I can take a subject that you'd think would be commercial and turn it into something that not a lot of people want to see."
source
"this India movie"
yeah.
Yeah, you did answer your own question, Mr. Anderson. Popular appeal.
Whether a person ended up liking Slumdog Millionaire or hating it, I think most everyday, non-cinephile people would be drawn more to what looked like a fast-paced rags-to-riches story with young characters.
I've only seen Rushmore out of his work, and it's one of my favorite movies, and I still want to see Bottle Rocket, but even then I know the Wes Anderson look and type of movie. Good or bad, it's not the type of movie that would get chatted about in offices and schools.
Seriously, though, "this India movie?"
ETA: thanks to
hellopinkie: Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia in Agora? whoa cool casting. Pinkie saw it and said the film was good overall but not convincing in a few arguments and parts. But Weisz is awesome. Apparently other reviews say that the acting and production is good, but the script is unfocused. Another complaint I saw is that it focuses too much on lecturing about religion problems -which do play a part in her history, but apparently they go on and on about it at the expense of cinematic story and flow- while cutting out scenes where Hypatia is actually doing her other work in astronomy and such. sorry for long sentences.
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2009-10-28 10:22 (UTC)AWWWWWWW :) I AM so glad I gave you such good news. But, yeah, even though I feel some scenes should've been just off the film, her work is just fantastic. &hearts&hearts&hearts
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2009-10-29 05:05 (UTC)thanks to you for informing me!
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2009-10-28 14:43 (UTC)no subject
2009-10-29 05:09 (UTC)no subject
2009-10-28 19:29 (UTC)One of the reasons Slumdog Millionnaire did so well was that it was marketed as 'The Feel Good Movie of the year'. People went to see a bit of Bollywood Fluff, realised that it was a bit deeper than that and word-of-mouth did the rest.
All I know of The Darjeeling Limited is it's some Indie flick set in India. There might be a train involved.
One day I will find time to write that series of essays on Bollywood and films set in India and why I resent being expect to watch them/like them all just because I am of Indian descent.
no subject
2009-10-29 05:10 (UTC)I'd be glad to read those essays!
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2009-10-29 09:19 (UTC)I'd be glad to read those essays!
Haha I might be tempted to write about Slumdog now. Especially given all the kerfuffle that it generated in India.
no subject
2009-10-28 20:24 (UTC)And um, way to fail, Wes Anderson. To be quite honest, I didn't like Slumdog Millionaire very much (or at least, not as much as the rest of the world seemed to love it), but Darjeeling Limited seemed like such a stereotyped vision of what western countries want out of India, I really could not watch it. My parents did though, and they thought it was boring as hell.
no subject
2009-10-29 05:17 (UTC)yeah, as much as Slumdog Millionaire is an idealized British/Hollywood production, it wasn't like the typical American or British film set in India, which is usually about a white person a) discovering him or herself, and/or b) helping those poor Indian people.
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2009-10-29 05:23 (UTC)no subject
2009-10-29 05:27 (UTC)no subject
2009-10-29 05:32 (UTC)no subject
2009-10-29 05:33 (UTC)no subject
2009-10-29 05:41 (UTC)I've also got tons of anthro stuff I'm typing up right now that's due tomorrow
MUST NOT SLEEP
HELP ME, PEARL TEA AND INTERNET
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2009-10-29 05:58 (UTC)no subject
2009-10-29 06:03 (UTC)I'm falling asleep so bad I also fell off the chair. Must...type...
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2009-10-29 08:30 (UTC)no subject
2009-10-29 08:31 (UTC)no subject
2009-10-29 10:48 (UTC)I haven't seen Darjeeling Limited yet, but that's okay because this issue dealt with outside perceptions of people who would consider watching or not watching a film. I've heard very mixed reviews of the film, leaning towards negative but not overwhemingly so.