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After a brisk nap · 08-22-2005, 04:36 PM

Sometimes I feel that I've become too jaded. I've seen so many of the movies people list here, and almost invariably I'm far less enthusiastic about them. Then I remember how thrilled I was with Batman Begins. Easily the best movie I've seen in cinemas this year (though admittedly I've mostly been going to dreck: Episode III, THHGTTG, Sin City, Constantine...).

I watched The Machinist on DVD over the weekend. Quite good, though any merit it has as a film is destined to be forever overshadowed by the weightloss Christian Bale went through for the part. That guy is one dedicated method actor. It has often been compared to Fight Club, but to my mind it plays much closer to a cross of Jacob's Ladder and Memento. It's not in the least bit scary or tense, mind you. Just rather sad. (The true cineast connoiseurs among you should note that Jennifer Jason Leigh has several topless scenes.)

Like SJH, I first thought that the film was rather less clever than it fancied itself to be. But then I listened to the audio commentary, and discovered that the director fully expected viewers to figure out the twists long before they were revealed:

Spoiler:
Specifically, he acknowledged that many viewers will immediately suspect that Ivan is a figment of Trevor's imagination (which implies that everything else is also paranoid delusions), and guess at once that the solution for the hangman game is KILLER. Also, that the scenes with Marie and Nicolas were at least partly delusional. He even seemed to assume that the shift from Marie's apartment to Trevor's would be a giveaway, which I admit I completely missed. He didn't talk about the hit-and-run specifically, but there are so many clues that I don't see how he could expect people not to figure it out.

The most interesting thing about this, I thought, was that by de-emphasizing the twist, The Machinist made me see movies like Angel Heart, Jacob's Ladder, Fight Club, and Memento (just to mention a few well-known examples) as defined not so much by their surprise endings, but by the (unconscious) search for buried memories that makes up their plots. You could see it as a genre that stretches back, ultimately, to Oedipus Rex.

I also watched Hitch. It inspired no such ruminations in me. It's an OK rom-com, though.

08-22-2005, 04:36 PM	#164
After a brisk nap Elegantly copy+pasted Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 1,773	Sometimes I feel that I've become too jaded. I've seen so many of the movies people list here, and almost invariably I'm far less enthusiastic about them. Then I remember how thrilled I was with Batman Begins. Easily the best movie I've seen in cinemas this year (though admittedly I've mostly been going to dreck: Episode III, THHGTTG, Sin City, Constantine...). I watched The Machinist on DVD over the weekend. Quite good, though any merit it has as a film is destined to be forever overshadowed by the weightloss Christian Bale went through for the part. That guy is one dedicated method actor. It has often been compared to Fight Club, but to my mind it plays much closer to a cross of Jacob's Ladder and Memento. It's not in the least bit scary or tense, mind you. Just rather sad. (The true cineast connoiseurs among you should note that Jennifer Jason Leigh has several topless scenes.) Like SJH, I first thought that the film was rather less clever than it fancied itself to be. But then I listened to the audio commentary, and discovered that the director fully expected viewers to figure out the twists long before they were revealed: Spoiler: Specifically, he acknowledged that many viewers will immediately suspect that Ivan is a figment of Trevor's imagination (which implies that everything else is also paranoid delusions), and guess at once that the solution for the hangman game is KILLER. Also, that the scenes with Marie and Nicolas were at least partly delusional. He even seemed to assume that the shift from Marie's apartment to Trevor's would be a giveaway, which I admit I completely missed. He didn't talk about the hit-and-run specifically, but there are so many clues that I don't see how he could expect people not to figure it out. The most interesting thing about this, I thought, was that by de-emphasizing the twist, The Machinist made me see movies like Angel Heart, Jacob's Ladder, Fight Club, and Memento (just to mention a few well-known examples) as defined not so much by their surprise endings, but by the (unconscious) search for buried memories that makes up their plots. You could see it as a genre that stretches back, ultimately, to Oedipus Rex. I also watched Hitch. It inspired no such ruminations in me. It's an OK rom-com, though. __________________ Please excuse me. I've got to see a man about a dog.