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Joker Wins Best Film At Venice
- Thread starter Yams
- Start date
Seeing those clips well ... this certainly doesn't look like the next Clockwork Orange. That movie delivered its themes and commentary with beautiful subtlety. This ... doesn't look subtle.
yeah, the subtlely of a woman getting bludgeoned to death by a giant cock statue.
what lmao
The reviews that came out around the Venice Film Festival were mostly positive. The reviews coming out now are basically saying what a lot of people have been saying around here and because of that it's getting rotten scores.
It's honestly annoying. We're going to see these type of reviews for all kinds of movies moving forward because the USA has a violence/gun problem.
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Sure, there are scenes shown from Alex's point of view that are not subtle. And that's because Alex is a psychopath and not the least bit subtle. But I'm not talking about that stuff. I'm talking about the central idea of the film, which is about the removal of Alex's choice and free will. The Ludovicho technique sought to basically deprogram the humanity out of him (choice) in order to tame him and civilize him. And the movie poses to the audience if we do this, if we basically reprogram violent criminals aren't we then just denying this part of our nature. This evil cannot be removed by society. And if it needs to be conditioned out of people then aren't we just turning ourselves into something else?
I think the idea is subtle because I don't think a lot of people came away from A Clockwork Orange understanding that underneath the non-subtle scenes were very difficult question about human nature and the role of society in maintaining order.
The controversy of the movie was the surface violent content. The shock value. But the subject matter underneath it was complex, difficult and didn't offer any easy answers. And it was mostly not SPELLED out for the audience in the same way that some of this movies seems to be
"We live in a society" etc
Because they don't like a movie you've already made up your mind about, without having seen it?
It's a controversial film. It's that simple. I mean just look at Dave Chappelle's latest special:
I know, right? They go out and commit all these acts of random violence and then criticize a movie that depicts that behavior? Rank hypocrisy.
In 1972, Roger Ebert had this to say in regards to A Clockwork Orange:
And these passages could be minorly edited and sound very much like a review for Joker:
Critics understood the film perfectly fine at time. Plenty of them loved the film, plenty of them hated it, and they all knew it would be a heavily discussed film because of its shock value and how it presented its themes.
Ebert's review was famous for its negativity and I think completely misunderstanding the ideas in the movie.
Like his final line in that blurb is absolutely not the theme of the movie.
Rottentomatoes is hardly the best source to get review from Series and Shows.It's a controversial film. It's that simple. I mean just look at Dave Chappelle's latest special:
He showed he understood the movie in the review. Everything you mention in your post is what he mentions in his review. He just didn't think it worked.
I mean this is just confirmation bias. You're choosing to believe the reviews which align with your view on the movie. It would be better to look at the actual content of the reviews and judge based on that. I was pretty skeptical of the movie before the reviews hit and I still am but seeing some positive reviews from reviewers I know has given me enough interest to watch the film, while at the same time some other reviews kind of hint at problems I was concerned about. I think at such a point it's best to judge the film by watching it than using positive reviews to champion the film or dismissing negative ones based on some larger imagined narrative.
This is also true of his Fight Club review I think.
I think he's wrong about the movie wanting us to have sympathy for Alex. And I think he's wrong that the violence is appealing rather than disturbing. Kubrick shared some of his thoughts/intent with the movie with Michale Ciment.
How do you explain the kind of fascination that Alex exercises on the audience?
KUBRICK: I think that it's probably because we can identify with Alex on the unconscious level. The psychiatrists tell us the unconscious has no conscience -- and perhaps in our unconscious we are all potential Alexes. It may be that only as a result of morality, the law and sometimes our own innate character that we do not become like him. Perhaps this makes some people feel uncomfortable and partly explains some of the controversy which has arisen over the film. Perhaps they are unable to accept this view of human nature. But I think you find much the same psychological phenomena at work in Shakespeare's Richard III. You should feel nothing but dislike towards Richard, and yet when the role is well played, with a bit of humour and charm, you find yourself gradually making a similar kind of identification with him. Not because you sympathize with Richard's ambition or his actions, or that you like him or think people should behave like him but, as you watch the play, because he gradually works himself into your unconscious, and recognition occurs in the recesses of the mind. At the same time, I don't believe anyone leaves the theatre thinking Richard III or Alex are the sort of people one admires and would wish to be like.
Some people have criticized the possible dangers of such an admiration.
KUBRICK:
But it's not an admiration one feels, and I think that anyone who says so is completely wrong. I think this view tends to come from people who, however well-meaning and intelligent, hold committed positions in favour of broader and stricter censorship. No one is corrupted watching A Clockwork Orange any more than they are by watching Richard III. A Clockwork Orange has received world-wide acclaim as an important work of art. It was chosen by the New York Film Critics as the Best Film of the year, and I received the Best Director award. It won the Italian David Donatello award. The Belgian film critics gave it their award. It won the German Spotlight award. It received four USA Oscar nominations and seven British Academy Award nominations. It won the Hugo award for the Best Science-Fiction movie.
It was highly praised by Fellini, Bunuel and Kurosawa. It has also received favourable comment from educational, scientific, political, religious and even law-enforcement groups. I could go on. But the point I want to make is that the film has been accepted as a work of art, and no work of art has ever done social harm, though a great deal of social harm has been done by those who have sought to protect society against works of art which they regarded as dangerous.
There is. You could already see this in Venice. Most non-US critics loved the film while there were some US voices which panned the film for its themes.
Quite a few non-US critics even said that they suspected this film will not review well in the US due to the social climate and that some people would be hyperfocused on a certain narrative. Not saying that you should not review a film within circumstances specific to your culture but it is certainly something one should keep in mind when reading both positive and negative reviews.
Had to laugh that one review talks about "young men like Phoenix". The man is 44 years old, lol
More good info with Kubrick
Alex seems a far more pleasant person in the film than in the book...
Alex makes no attempt to deceive himself or the audience as to his total corruption and wickedness. He is the very personification of evil. On the other hand, he has winning qualities: his total candor, his wit, his intelligence and his energy; these are attractive qualities and ones, I might add, which he shares with Richard III.
The violence done to Alex in the brain-washing sequence is in fact more horrifying than anything he does himself....
It was absolutely necessary to give weight to Alex's brutality, otherwise I think there would be moral confusion with respect to what the government does to him. If he were a lesser villain, then one could say: 'Oh, yes, of course, he should not be given this psychological conditioning; it's all too horrible and he really wasn't that bad after all.' On the other hand, when you have shown him committing such atrocious acts, and you still realise the immense evil on the part of the government in turning him into something less than human in order to make him good, then I think the essential moral idea of the book is clear. It is necessary for man to have choice to be good or evil, even if he chooses evil. To deprive him of this choice is to make him something less than human -- a clockwork orange.
But aren't you inviting a sort of identification with Alex?
I think, in addition to the personal qualities I mentioned, there is the basic psychological, unconscious identification with Alex. If you look at the story not on the social and moral level, but on the psychological dream content level, you can regard Alex as a creature of the id. He is within all of us. In most cases, this recognition seems to bring a kind of empathy from the audience, but it makes some people very angry and uncomfortable. They are unable to accept this view of themselves and, therefore, they become angry at the film. It's a bit like the King who kills the messenger who brings him bad news and rewards the one who brings him good news.
The comparison with Richard III makes a striking defence against accusations that the film encourages violence, delinquency, and so on. But as Richard is a safely distant historical figure, does it meet them completely?
There is no positive evidence that violence in films or television causes social violence. To focus one's interest on this aspect of violence is to ignore the principal causes, which I would list as:
Is there any kind of violence in films which you might regard as socially dangerous?
Well, I don't accept that there is a connection, but let us hypothetically say that there might be one. If there were one, I should say that the kind of violence that might cause some impulse to emulate it is the 'fun' kind of violence: the kind of violence we see in the Bond films, or in Tom and Jerry cartoons. Unrealistic violence, sanitized violence, violence presented as a joke. This is the only kind of violence that could conceivably cause anyone to wish to copy it, but I am quite convinced that not even this has any effect.
There may even be an argument in support of saying that any kind of violence in films, in fact, serves a useful social purpose by allowing people a means of vicariously freeing themselves from the pent up, aggressive, aggressive emotions which are better expressed in dreams, or in the dreamlike state of watching a film, than in any form of reality or sublimation.
Isn't the assumption of your audience in the case of Clockwork Orange likely to be that you support Alex's point of view and in some way assume responsibility for it?
I don't think that any work of art has a responsibility to be anything but a work of art. There obviously is a considerable controversy, just as there always has been, about what is a work of art, and I should be the last to try to define that. I was amused by Cocteau's Orpheé when the poet is given the advice: 'Astonish me'. The Johnsonian definition of a work of art is also meaningful to me, and that is that a work of art must either make life more enjoyable or more endurable. Another quality, which I think forms part of the definition, is that a work of art is always exhilarating and never depressing, whatever its subject matter may be.
Alex seems a far more pleasant person in the film than in the book...
Alex makes no attempt to deceive himself or the audience as to his total corruption and wickedness. He is the very personification of evil. On the other hand, he has winning qualities: his total candor, his wit, his intelligence and his energy; these are attractive qualities and ones, I might add, which he shares with Richard III.
The violence done to Alex in the brain-washing sequence is in fact more horrifying than anything he does himself....
It was absolutely necessary to give weight to Alex's brutality, otherwise I think there would be moral confusion with respect to what the government does to him. If he were a lesser villain, then one could say: 'Oh, yes, of course, he should not be given this psychological conditioning; it's all too horrible and he really wasn't that bad after all.' On the other hand, when you have shown him committing such atrocious acts, and you still realise the immense evil on the part of the government in turning him into something less than human in order to make him good, then I think the essential moral idea of the book is clear. It is necessary for man to have choice to be good or evil, even if he chooses evil. To deprive him of this choice is to make him something less than human -- a clockwork orange.
But aren't you inviting a sort of identification with Alex?
I think, in addition to the personal qualities I mentioned, there is the basic psychological, unconscious identification with Alex. If you look at the story not on the social and moral level, but on the psychological dream content level, you can regard Alex as a creature of the id. He is within all of us. In most cases, this recognition seems to bring a kind of empathy from the audience, but it makes some people very angry and uncomfortable. They are unable to accept this view of themselves and, therefore, they become angry at the film. It's a bit like the King who kills the messenger who brings him bad news and rewards the one who brings him good news.
The comparison with Richard III makes a striking defence against accusations that the film encourages violence, delinquency, and so on. But as Richard is a safely distant historical figure, does it meet them completely?
There is no positive evidence that violence in films or television causes social violence. To focus one's interest on this aspect of violence is to ignore the principal causes, which I would list as:
To try to fasten any responsibility on art as the cause of life seems to me to put the case the wrong way around. Art consists of reshaping life but it does not create life, nor cause life. Furthermore to attribute powerful suggestive qualities to a film is at odds with the scientifically accepted view that, even after deep hypnosis, in a posthypnotic state, people cannot be made to do things which are at odds with their natures.
Is there any kind of violence in films which you might regard as socially dangerous?
Well, I don't accept that there is a connection, but let us hypothetically say that there might be one. If there were one, I should say that the kind of violence that might cause some impulse to emulate it is the 'fun' kind of violence: the kind of violence we see in the Bond films, or in Tom and Jerry cartoons. Unrealistic violence, sanitized violence, violence presented as a joke. This is the only kind of violence that could conceivably cause anyone to wish to copy it, but I am quite convinced that not even this has any effect.
There may even be an argument in support of saying that any kind of violence in films, in fact, serves a useful social purpose by allowing people a means of vicariously freeing themselves from the pent up, aggressive, aggressive emotions which are better expressed in dreams, or in the dreamlike state of watching a film, than in any form of reality or sublimation.
Isn't the assumption of your audience in the case of Clockwork Orange likely to be that you support Alex's point of view and in some way assume responsibility for it?
I don't think that any work of art has a responsibility to be anything but a work of art. There obviously is a considerable controversy, just as there always has been, about what is a work of art, and I should be the last to try to define that. I was amused by Cocteau's Orpheé when the poet is given the advice: 'Astonish me'. The Johnsonian definition of a work of art is also meaningful to me, and that is that a work of art must either make life more enjoyable or more endurable. Another quality, which I think forms part of the definition, is that a work of art is always exhilarating and never depressing, whatever its subject matter may be.
Ebert's review strikes me as someone too preoccupied with how the movie would affect viewers than grappling seriously with the ideas presented by the movie
Which, again, is something that can be said about many American reviews of Joker and the discourse on the Internet about the film so far, undoubtedly this will get even more polarizing after the film gets wide release
I disagree. mass audiences will eat up this movie more than film twitter like folks who have proven they are unfit to be professional reviewers
Started to watch The King Of Comedy last night before falling asleep a bit over halfway through it. Obviously haven't seen Joker yet but just from the trailer and what I've seen, they look very, very similar. I could envision Joker doing the same things as Pupkin, and I could see Pupkin turning into some maniac. De Niro's performance is amazing in this and I was very unsettled the entire time because I don't know how his character will go. He seems so innocent but the dude is psychotic.
I don't think I'll have a problem with Joker since I'm already familiar with the character. Can't wait though, especially after watching King of Comedy.
I don't think I'll have a problem with Joker since I'm already familiar with the character. Can't wait though, especially after watching King of Comedy.
It's a controversial film. It's that simple. I mean just look at Dave Chappelle's latest special:
Seeing nutty right wingers flip out over these 15 reviews for this has been way more entertaining than Chappelle's actual set.
Oh yeah, no doubt! The Suicide Squad crowd will eat this shit up, no way this movie isn't a box office hit.
I'm surprised at how the RT and MC score look in lieu of the award win
EDIT: Oh this was discussed. The non american / american critic dichotomy is interesting
EDIT: Oh this was discussed. The non american / american critic dichotomy is interesting
So here in Brazil warner did a early showing for the press/critics and...people said that the movie is great but really disturbing (and they said that a lot of times, the movie really have them an impression).
Also, they are saying that is the best DC movie ever.
Also, they are saying that is the best DC movie ever.
