[HN Gopher] The Unexpected Heaviosity of Ferris Bueller's Day Of...
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The Unexpected Heaviosity of Ferris Bueller's Day Off (2006)
Author : hyperific
Score : 212 points
Date : 2023-01-11 07:14 UTC (15 hours ago)
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| [deleted]
| TradingPlaces wrote:
| It is Cameron's Day Off; he is the protagonist.
| greenhearth wrote:
| It's not a bad a piece, but too much exposition and not enough
| analysis. I think it is a psycho-analytical lens, because the
| most interesting observation to me is when the author assigns
| Ferris Bueller's id to Cameron's ego. This should've been the
| main thesis. And this bit: "By definition, the adults in a Hughes
| film are beyond hope of transformation" obviously doesn't apply
| to Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
| daltont wrote:
| It is fascinating when someone does a deep dive into movies and
| flesh out potentially deeper meaning. For example this YouTube
| video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MALVhzMcJ1k) does
| something similar for the Vader-Luke duel in "The Empire Strikes
| Back" albeit on more emotional interpersonal level than
| philosophical.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| I often wonder how many people didn't get the throwback at the
| end of deadpool.
|
| https://youtu.be/ZDcOQGM_Z30
|
| My wife didn't get it but it prompted us to watch Ferris
| Bueller's Day Off which she ended up loving.
| skee8383 wrote:
| This is funny for me to read today. i just decided to call out of
| work and take my own day off. i told them i was sick. i feel
| fine. just don't feel like working.
| threads2 wrote:
| "How can I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like
| this."
|
| https://open.spotify.com/track/1iOHLlEsMbgJfYBFWy4TjG?si=QnT...
| dabedee wrote:
| I just spent 5min looking for usage of the word "heaviosity",
| which appealingly sounds and seems likes a real word, but in fact
| doesn't seem to be one. Perhaps the author used a seemingly deep,
| but incorrect, word as a way to poke fun at literary critics.
| Perhaps the word doesn't exist and the author just made a
| mistake. Or, perhaps the word is used by certain groups of of
| people, but it hasn't shown up on the web.
| antod wrote:
| According to Bill and Ted, "heaviosity" is a most excellent
| word and the usage here is totally non heinous.
| projektfu wrote:
| Heaviosity is how much the depth of the film has been
| embiggened.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| It appears to show up in 2007 on Urbandictionary [1] for what
| it's worth.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=heaviosity
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| I despise this idea that a word can't be "real" unless it is
| accepted in some "official" form (which has now spread to
| include websites of slang, etc...)
|
| Even if "heaviosity" is totally made up on the spot and never
| before uttered, its meaning is clear - and conveying meaning
| with utterances is the point of language.
| blacksqr wrote:
| It's funny that the linked article doesn't mention the
| heaviousest thing about the film, which is the surprise reveal
| toward the end that the day was not a lark, but specifically
| engineered by Ferris because he was afraid that Cameron was
| contemplating suicide, and he wanted to give his friend a glimpse
| of the value of life.
| chadash wrote:
| It touches on this:
|
| > Which is precisely the point: Ferris has staged this
| adolescent fantasy of omnipotence expressly for his best
| friend.
|
| > Ferris himself is, for the most part, a fabulous cartoon--
| half James Bond, half Holden Caulfield. But he understands the
| very real crisis Cameron is facing and takes it as his role to
| push his friend into emotional danger.
| blacksqr wrote:
| Fair points, but dances around the main thing rather than
| expressing it.
|
| > he understands the very real crisis Cameron is facing and
| takes it as his role to push his friend into emotional
| danger.
|
| I would disagree with this. I think Ferris didn't really know
| what to do or what he was doing. He was like the little
| drummer boy -- he only had one thing to offer (his joie de
| vivre), and tried to do so no matter how inadequate or
| inappropriate it might be.
|
| In the end nothing Ferris actually did made a difference. It
| was simply the fact that he reached out with compassion and
| care that produced the circumstances that led to Cameron's
| emotional crisis, and empowered him get through it to a
| catharsis.
| havblue wrote:
| Not to be pedantic, but it was the fact that Ferris
| convinced Cameron to steal his father's beloved car that
| led to the emotional crisis. Ironically, the destruction of
| the car led to Cameron cathartically accepting
| responsibility and emerging from the crisis. As much as I
| enjoy the movie this is where my skepticism kicks in.
|
| No, Cameron should not be fine at this point and him having
| a chat with his father, conveniently off-screen, will not
| fix things. But hey, it's a movie and the other subplots
| have to get resolved.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| Am I the only one here who thinks that this movie is bland, very
| shallow, not really funny and immensely overrated? Maybe because
| most people watched it as a child and still feel attached to it
| emotionally somehow?
| klyrs wrote:
| I watched it as a child and it was up there with PeeWee Herman
| as a cheap titillating story. I was too young to really grok
| the ending; it was boring and totally broke the character.
| Looking back, the ending fits in well with the tendency for TV
| and movies of the 80s and 90s to paste over an otherwise
| shameless action/comedy with a bit of moralizing to appease the
| puritanical censors of the day (GI Joe being a stark example).
|
| But, taking it at face value, ignoring the man behind the
| curtain, I kinda get how people are interpreting it here.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| You are responding in a discussion about a lengthy article
| about the unexpected deepness of a movie, written by a
| professional author. Your response is that the movie is "bland,
| very shallow" etc, without evidence, and without discussing or
| refuting any of the points of the article.
|
| I wonder if:
|
| 1. You simply didn't read the article. Your decision to comment
| in a discussion about this article without even reading it
| suggests that you might be someone who finds things boring and
| shallow because you simply don't engage with the material
| deeply (in this case _not at all_ ). So the problem might be
| you.
|
| 2. You did read the article fully, but yet don't have any
| counter points, or couldn't be bothered to share them. The
| article provides significant and convincing arguments that the
| movie is rich, deep and funny, yet you have no rebuttals. It
| may be that things seem shallow to you simply because you are
| incapable of deep thought. So the problem might be you.
|
| 3. You are just a troll.
|
| 4. Some other reason.
| danbolt wrote:
| You're not alone, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. Like
| the writer of the article, it never clicked with me on first
| viewing. Unlike the writer, the second viewing didn't help
| either. I don't think themes in Hughes' movies are necessarily
| universal.
|
| Other commenters here have connected the film with _Fight Club_
| , and I think it's because they both explore some of the
| anxieties around masculinity young men might experience in
| postwar America. There's a dynamic between these two
| caricatures of a confident, desirable, strong man and gloomy,
| ineffective, downtrodden one. I think the films attract a lot
| of attention because men can often feel the weight of these
| concepts press against them in their day-to-day lives.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| John Hughes captured the 80s. If you want to know what the 80s
| were like as a teenager, watch The Breakfast Club (1985). His
| best work, in my opinion. Unlike Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast
| Club is close to the reality of teenage life in the 80s.
|
| Disclaimer: American, middle class, suburban teenagers in the
| 1980s.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| I had more than one friend in the 80's who loathed FBDO because
| he was the prototypical popular spoilt rich kid who got away
| with everything in High School and all the other parents loved.
| jahnu wrote:
| Growing up in rural Ireland in the late 70s and 80s The
| Breakfast Club seemed so damn cool to us. Life for these kids
| seemed impossibly great and it was hard to understand why they
| were so jaded. At least the more privileged ones. But then I
| grew up and saw Ireland go from fairly poor to rich and
| understood that when you solve one set of more basic problems
| then new higher level problems emerge.
| le-mark wrote:
| It was really alien to a lot of poor rural and inner city
| American teens as well.
| projektfu wrote:
| As a suburban white kid a few years younger than the
| characters, my first watch through the Breakfast Club saw it
| as a subversive film about cool, rebellious teens making
| space for themselves. Later, it seemed like a time capsule of
| the oddity of our society trapping kids in a liminal space
| between childhood and adulthood and punishing them for their
| reactions. They're all helpless, even the "bad one" who makes
| his escape attempt.
|
| The light read is that we are not merely our cliques and
| labels.
| FearNotDaniel wrote:
| I remember that feeling, watching John Hughes films as a
| teenager in northern England. Though sometimes part of his
| gift was that the sense of adolescent angst was so universal,
| I could identify with some of the characters despite the
| exotic setting. And in some cases (e.g. Pretty in Pink)
| Hughes managed to show us this world of spoilt rich kids
| through the eyes of someone less privileged.
|
| Tangential, but I think part of the genius of the more recent
| Sex Education (Netflix) is that the setting is definitely
| British (accents, landscape) and contemporary (smartphones,
| fashions) and yet brilliantly evokes a British kid's
| fantasies of what a High School _should_ be like after
| watching too many 80s American movies.
| anthomtb wrote:
| The Sex Education aesthetic is explicitly inspired by John
| Hughes films: https://www.popbuzz.com/tv-film/sex-
| education/what-year-set-...
|
| I had to go down that rabbit hole after watching Sex
| Education and thinking "this high school atmosphere feels
| very American."
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| /agree
|
| >But Hughes made only one film I would consider true art, only
| one that reaches toward the ecstatic power of teendom and, at
| the same time, exposes the true, piercing woe of that age.
|
| While I really appreciate the author's examination of FBDO, TBC
| achieves what he states here in a far more poignant way.
|
| /80's suburban teen
| agumonkey wrote:
| I wasn't a teen in the 80s (and European) but TBC still had
| echoes in my generation. Although I grew up many Hughes movies,
| I only heard about it way way later (early 2000s) and it left
| me speechless to feel that again.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > It featured a number of techniques that I recognized from
| other, later films: direct addresses to the camera, on-screen
| graphics, the prominent use of background songs to create de
| facto music videos, the sudden exhilarating blur of fantasy and
| reality.
|
| That would be any Hughes film and lots of films from the 80s, the
| MTV decade.
|
| Breaking the 4th wall was not close to a Hughes invention:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/list/ls050751793/
|
| > Matthew Broderick, unbearably young
|
| Weird. I always thought he seemed too old to be Ferris in high
| school. He seemed like a fairly mature but more believable high
| school kid in Wargames a few years earlier.
| Eleison23 wrote:
| This film resonated with 14-year-old me so profoundly that I
| became obsessed with it in every way. I managed to go see it in
| the theater at least 9 times, Mrs. Bueller. I was absolutely
| enthralled by Ferris' audacity and the overall thrill ride Hughes
| took me on. I had no particular love for any Hughes films before
| or after that; I was absolutely a Ferris Bueller boy and that's
| how it was for years. This favorite movie status was finally
| supplanted by Steve Martin in LA Story.
| godshatter wrote:
| I remember liking this movie so much when I saw it in the
| theater when it came out that it became the first and only
| movie I ever snuck back in to watch a second time.
| tfandango wrote:
| We rented this movie when I was a kid (probably the Beta
| version). It's one of 2 movies that me and my brother watched
| twice in 2 days. The other was Bill and Ted's Excellent
| Adventure. We watched that one the second time with my uncle
| who sat and watched the entire movie with us and then said it
| was the stupidest movie he's ever seen. We were so
| disappointed.
| LeonB wrote:
| Ah - now from the title i thought this would refer to that famous
| recut trailer of Ferris Bueller's Day Off that makes it look like
| a poignant coming of age indie film.
|
| It's now 11 years old and most people alive today have never seen
| it - so here it is:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MAe5P_xYoKg
| jsvaughan wrote:
| Great post, I hadn't seen this before
| slfnflctd wrote:
| Unrelated, but this finally prompted me to add
| "youtube.com##.ytp-ce-element" to My Filters in Ublock Origin.
| I am very glad not to have to see those cards pop up and
| obscure the last 10 seconds of a video any longer.
| neontomo wrote:
| I actually watch this regularly for the feels! Glad someone
| else loves it.
| highwaylights wrote:
| I remember watching the Ferrari scene as a kid in tears. That was
| my relationship with my old man too (minus expensive Italian
| sports cars, and sending them through windows).
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVqqVlW1a34
|
| Honestly though every time I see the close up at the end of the
| video I'm waiting for it to fade to black and show:
|
| Cameron Frye 1970-1986
| dools wrote:
| "I needn't labor the basic plot"
|
| _proceeds with complete retelling of entire film_
| [deleted]
| Karellen wrote:
| > [Alan] Ruck is tall, blue-eyed, big-jawed, movie-star handsome.
|
| Took me by surprise. Ruck isn't bad-looking, but he's not what I
| think of as "movie-star handsome".
|
| At least, not in FBDO. I think he's grown more into his face as
| he's got older, but back then that's not how I'd have described
| him.
|
| ...or maybe the make-up department just did a really great job of
| making look a little bit goofy for the role.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I read this, too, and was confused. He repulsed me in that
| film. Maybe it was his character bleeding into his looks,
| though.
| LeonB wrote:
| The article is such a love poem to his performance, I'm
| surprised he didn't mention Ruck's fantastic voice acting,
| which shows up in a few places - as Sloane's dad (fooling
| Rooney on the phone) and as "Sgt Peterson" - fooling the
| Maitre D.
|
| Oh wait - also his "swing batter batter" at the ball game,
| and that incredible "bloop" sonar sound he does by flicking
| his cheek.
|
| Amazing voice talent.
|
| (Having said that... I still just... can't believe he left
| spacedock without a tractor beam.
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111280/characters/nm0000638)
| pwr22 wrote:
| Tuesday.
| predictsoft wrote:
| Reference of course from Star Trek: Generations.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| He was 29 when they filmed FBDO. He definitely looks handsome
| in his more recent roles. I think it's a combination of
| makeup/wardrobe/acting. A lot of what was less-movie-star about
| him in FBDO was his awkwardness.
| kleiba wrote:
| A nice analysis but not much that goes beyond the obvious.
| Perhaps it's actually more an interpretation than an analysis, if
| the former term were to allow for more of a personal stance /
| opinion. There's certainly a couple of things where I would
| disagree with Almond's view but then again, it's a film from the
| 80s that I haven't seen in over a decade if not two. Perhaps
| because there's more important things to life. Still, Ferris
| Bueller's Day Off certainly holds a nice and cozy place in my
| memory.
| parenthesis wrote:
| My favourite thing about Ferris Bueller's Day Off is that Alan
| Ruck was 29 when it was made.
| ilovecurl wrote:
| "Cut to Cameron, at the wheel of a white junker, his long,
| rubbery face cast in a morbid posture." Cameron's car was a 1982
| Alfa Romeo Alfetta which is far from a junker.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I thought it was a Giulietta, which were notoriously lemon-y?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| (2006)
|
| Kinda good article, but why write 'heavyosity' when 'gravity' was
| already available?
| Doches wrote:
| Probably not the OP's intent, but the choice of 'heaviosity'
| (over 'gravity', 'profundity', or whatever) invokes another
| surprisingly weighty movie from this same period-and-genre:
| Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
|
| Maybe I'm just a child of the late 80s, but I didn't see either
| Ferris Bueller or Bill and Ted until late in my twenties, long
| after I'd ceased to be in the stated target audience. But both
| are hiding amazingly thoughtful reflections on adolescence,
| existence, and friendship underneath the guise of frothy 80s
| teen movies, and I love them for that.
|
| (And I kind of love the OP for sending me down a moment's
| rabbithole of reflection by reminding me of both. Time to call
| some an high school friend and have a catch up!)
| hyperific wrote:
| Yeah not the best title but an insightful analysis of the film.
| praptak wrote:
| It embiggens the meaning.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| pvg wrote:
| _why write 'heavyosity'_
|
| https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/11133f30-f458-4903-8e20-177...
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Ah, that explains a lot. Thanks.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| 'heaviosity' is a perfectly cromulent word:
| https://youtu.be/1eTXG8FReno?t=45
| criddell wrote:
| At least they didn't write about their _learnings_ from the
| film.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| heavyosity seems to me to fit Ferris Bueller better than
| gravity.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| The was clearly some kind of problem with the Earth's
| gravitational pull in the mid 80s...
| compiler-guy wrote:
| True, and this trouble with gravity was news to the
| scientists of the fifties.
| Dwedit wrote:
| I had to get out a dictionary for this one... "Dishy" means
| attractive.
| [deleted]
| nayroclade wrote:
| There's a moment in the car scene that I always remembered: When
| Cameron first starts kicking the Ferrari, Sloane instinctively
| steps forward to stop him, and Ferris holds her back. Ferris has
| been exulting about how incredible this car is all throughout the
| movie, but he doesn't hesitate to let his friend trash it if
| that's what he needs to do.
|
| It's a nice character moment, but it also speaks to what is, to
| me, the fundamental message of the film: Objects, like sports
| cars, no matter how beautiful and rare, are there to be used and
| enjoyed, not hoarded and held in pristine captivity in fear of
| negative consequences. And the single most beautiful and rare
| object you have is your own life. Don't waste it paralysed by
| fear of what might go wrong, or stuck in a boring classroom or
| job.
| fm2606 wrote:
| I genuinely wish I could read deeper into movies and book like
| this. Is this an inherent trait or one that can be learned? I
| wouldn't even know how to begin to learn to do this.
|
| I've always read books and watched movies for the simplistic
| entertainment value. Now as I grow older I'd like to get a
| deeper meaning / inspection to enhance the entertainment value
| (if that makes sense).
| Akronymus wrote:
| TVTropes may do that for you.
|
| Or turn you off of movies completely, depending on whether
| you appreciate the tropes.
|
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/FerrisBuellersDa.
| ..
| mariodiana wrote:
| Was it on Slashdot that the custom began of posting a
| warning along with links to TV Tropes--a warning that you
| risked losing anywhere between 2 and 5 hours of hour life,
| clicking your way down the rabbit hole?
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| This is the skill that is taught in literature classes. If
| you've never taken one (or only under duress as an
| undergraduate requirement), it might be worth trying one at
| your local community college or similar.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Is this an inherent trait or one that can be learned?
|
| I'm sure there's some element of in-born talent involved, as
| with almost anything, but nobody's purely a natural at it.
| It's kinda like people who can tell you all kinds of stuff
| about some Beethoven piece that you, a non-classical-music
| fan with little or no knowledge of musical history or theory,
| didn't notice--they don't come out of the womb being able to
| do that, they trained and they spent a lot of time not just
| listening to music, but _thoughtfully_ listening to music, to
| get to the point that they seem to be able to do such
| analysis effortlessly, and even on a first listen. Maybe they
| had some natural talent, too, but it 's largely a trained
| skill.
|
| > I wouldn't even know how to begin to learn to do this.
|
| Read, watch, and listen to criticism. Maybe try Every Frame a
| Painting on Youtube (sadly not making any more videos, but
| the existing ones are excellent). It covers, especially,
| visual storytelling. They're nice and short and fairly
| content-dense. Pick some for movies or directors you're
| familiar with, first, I'd suggest.
|
| If you can handle the affected narrator-character, some
| little meta-narrative horror-tinged digressions, and a
| longer-form work, try Red Letter Media's reviews of the Star
| Wars prequel trilogy. It's basically hours and hours of
| someone asking the sorts of questions one asks to understand
| a narrative (and mostly coming up with unsatisfactory
| answers, because the scripts of those movies are _bad_ ).
| This especially covers story structure, suspension of
| disbelief, and character motivation.
|
| There are tons of other Youtubers doing this kind of thing,
| many of them good at it, and others here have already
| suggested some of them.
|
| Basically, seek out and read or watch analyses of films by
| people who already at least _kinda_ know what they 're
| talking about. It'll help you get a sense of how to approach
| media, and to tell when you're headed down a productive path
| versus when you're looking for something where there's not
| much to find. Then, watch movies and try to apply what you've
| learned.
|
| The main habit to get into is asking questions. Why is this
| character included? Why is this scene included? Why is this
| scene so _red_? Why is the camera tilted in this shot? Why is
| the camera moving in this shot? What does this sequences of
| shots make me feel and how does it achieve that effect? Is
| there an overall mood to this piece (or scene) and what is
| it? How does it convey that? Are there elements in common
| across this film? Do those constitute or contribute to some
| kind of message or theme(s), and if so, what are they?
|
| Past that, you might start to become aware of things like
| rising and falling tension at various levels--a scene, an
| act, the entire work. Those often play into the answers to
| the _why_ questions.
|
| Beware, when you get good at this and it becomes second-
| nature so it's not even something you can really turn off, a
| lot of minor reveals (that guy was a bad guy all along!)
| become so obvious that you figure them out tens of minutes
| before most viewers--sometimes within seconds of the
| introduction of the element you figure out :-)
|
| Also, you may find bad or lazily-made movies worse than you
| did before, largely because they tend not to have much to
| say, and have lots of missed opportunities for better use of
| their medium, which can be grating when you learn to spot
| those--but you might, oddly enough, find _very_ bad movies to
| be better! Marveling at how much they get wrong, and how
| _very_ wrong they get it, can become its own kind of fun.
|
| Much of this (except the stuff that's very tied,
| specifically, to cinematography) carries over to other media,
| like books and even (to some extent) video games, so you can
| practice a lot of the same skills there.
| mc32 wrote:
| Watch some Red Letter Media reviews. Specially mr Plinkett.
| Interestingly though, at the time Siskel did not like it,
| though Ebert did.
|
| That said, sometimes people are fond of over examination and
| place more meaning into something than the director intended.
| Like music, often lyricists will not disclose the meaning of
| a song because people will give it their own meaning and may
| diverge significantly from the lyricists intent.
|
| For one example of a director who candidly will admit to not
| knowingly adding specific meaning to a scene, see David
| Lynch. He'll say, I don't know, it felt right, or words to
| that effect.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > For one example of a director who candidly will admit to
| not knowingly adding specific meaning to a scene, see David
| Lynch. He'll say, I don't know, it felt right, or words to
| that effect.
|
| Yeah, you gotta treat Lynch like an abstract painter, at
| times: sometimes, something's there not because it's part
| of some coherent subject, but just because it _seemed
| right_. It contributed to a mood, perhaps. Or he just
| thought it was funny, or it made him feel something (maybe
| not even related to the narrative!) when he looked at it.
| Or he liked the way it juxtaposed with something else, just
| aesthetically, even if together they don 't really mean
| anything. You can ask "what effect does this have on the
| viewer?" with his works, and usually that bears fruit, but
| you have to accept that sometimes even very basic narrative
| questions simply don't have a fixed answer, for _anyone_ ,
| including Lynch, or that things like "why is this scene
| included?" may have plausible answers, but none that
| strongly connect to the rest of the work (at least, on a
| narrative level--theme and mood, often, they do).
|
| It's the kind of thing only someone very special can pull
| off. Anyone with worse taste or judgement or a worse _gut_
| couldn 't do what he does, and produce anything worth
| watching (except to laugh at). Plus he has to be good at
| the basic mechanics of film-making, for it to work at all.
| schrectacular wrote:
| Remember that movies are HIGHLY produced works, each item in
| a scene, the color and angle of the lighting, the angle and
| perspective of the camera, the editing (types of cuts, speed
| of cuts), any sound you hear, etc, those were ALL
| specifically chosen, if not outright preplanned by the
| director and his team.
|
| Since each is a choice, you can ask yourself, "why did they
| choose it this way?" Or next level, "How do these choices
| contribute to the story and/or emotionally manipulate me as a
| viewer?"
|
| The suggestions for classes/essays are great because you will
| see people's responses to these questions and also teach you
| a bit of the "language" of how these elements are commonly
| used to evoke certain effects. But the ultimate analysis is
| up to you and asking yourself questions about what you are
| watching is the way to get there.
|
| I also find that watching a first time attempting NOT to look
| for these things and then watching again very closely is my
| preferred path. I just be the hoi paloi on the first pass,
| then put on my critic hat (if I think it's worth it).
|
| Good luck!
| gernb wrote:
| > Remember that movies are HIGHLY produced works, each item
| in a scene, the color and angle of the lighting, the angle
| and perspective of the camera, the editing (types of cuts,
| speed of cuts), any sound you hear, etc, those were ALL
| specifically chosen, if not outright preplanned by the
| director and his team.
|
| Movies are no different than anything else. Tons of choices
| have no meaning as people rush to get their jobs done on
| schedule and under budget. Sure, sometimes they were
| consciously decided but not even close to 100%
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| +1 for the two-passes approach. Get lost in it, enjoy that,
| then again with an eye for craftsmanship.
| omershapira wrote:
| > Remember that movies are HIGHLY produced works
|
| True, but also John Hughes was notoriously fast at
| producing works. There are independent rumors [1] that he
| wrote first drafts for both Ferris Bueller's Day Off and
| The Breakfast Club in a day.
|
| That's not to say he couldn't invest in explaining his
| motivations to the production designers, but sometimes a
| personality and idea is clear enough in your head, you can
| spill its' dialogue out without filters.
|
| [1] https://www.slashfilm.com/910399/john-hughes-took-the-
| brute-...
| abakker wrote:
| Definitely true, but also doesn't negate the fact that he
| may have "understood" the choices he made and their
| impact even while working fast. After all, improvising
| musicians, Bob Ross, and comedians often make great
| choices "in the moment". put more succinctly, the speed
| of a decision doesn't necessarily mean it was not well
| considered, at least in art.
| whartung wrote:
| > Remember that movies are HIGHLY produced works
|
| This is one of the reasons I have respect for those
| involved in the filmmaking process. It's a LOT of blinkin'
| work.
|
| We had a videographer come through to do a video on one of
| our software products. Kind of a "here's how it could be
| used" type a video.
|
| At one point, I watched him record someone opening a cell
| phone 10 times in a row. Just a hand, and a cell phone,
| flipping it open. A cheap shot to be sure, 10 times is no
| big deal.
|
| But that's get extrapolated to the entire production. The
| set up, the tear down, the repetition. Consider that,
| especially on TV, if you see a conversation between two
| people, cutting back and forth to their faces, odds are
| that scene was simply shot twice and edited together. You
| hear stories about how family scenes at a dinner table take
| all day to shoot because they have a single camera, so they
| shoot it over and over and over and over again, to capture
| all of the characters.
|
| Then there's the waiting for the light, and other aspects
| of filmmaking that we, as consumers, get to take for
| granted.
| naasking wrote:
| > any sound you hear, etc, those were ALL specifically
| chosen, if not outright preplanned by the director and his
| team.
|
| Not ALL. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| Just be careful if you go down the rabbit hole.
|
| One of my friends, once he found out about cue marks, he
| could never UNSEE them.
|
| You've been warned - but I expect digital projectors make
| cue marks obsolete.
|
| see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_mark
| isleyaardvark wrote:
| Unless it's a deliberate choice by the director, like how
| "Werewolf By Night" added cue marks even though it was
| shot digitally for a streaming service.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| They do choose to include them. Not always for some
| greater Purpose, but nothing (more or less) gets in the
| film without the say-so of, usually, several people.
|
| Exception for location filming without extensive
| preparation of the location, I suppose, but anything
| captured there is still included by choice, the location
| was selected on purpose, shot angles were selected to
| capture a certain background rather than another one for
| a reason, et c--even within the confines of natural-light
| outdoor shooting, there are usually still several options
| available that would look more-or-less equally good from
| a lighting perspective, but the one on screen is the one
| that was selected.
|
| The point isn't that everything _means something_ , but
| that the entire experience (in like 99.9% of films,
| anyway--close enough, and covering so much of mainstream
| cinema, that we may as well say "all of them") is crafted
| and curated. Not much makes it on the screen unless it's
| on purpose, barring mistakes like a boom mic dropping
| into frame or nobody noticing a Starbucks cup on a table
| in a Star Wars shoot. The character doesn't say something
| because they just happened to say it, but because one or
| more creative people crafted that statement (even if it's
| improv! That's still not _actually_ the character coming
| up with it, because the character doesn 't exist! And on
| top of it, the film doesn't necessarily include every
| improv'd line, so they're still curated).
|
| Out of all the shirts in the world, someone selected
| _that_ shirt for the character--they thought about it,
| and they picked it, probably _at least_ for some combo of
| simple visual effect and fitting one or more people 's
| idea of what the character might wear on this particular
| day. That sort of thing.
|
| This means that it's rarely outright nonsensical to ask
| _why_ something 's in a film. That doesn't mean there's
| always some deep answer behind it, or that it's knowable
| or something that can reasonably be deduced or
| productively guessed-at from available evidence, but it
| means the question's always relevant.
| msla wrote:
| > Remember that movies are HIGHLY produced works, each item
| in a scene, the color and angle of the lighting, the angle
| and perspective of the camera, the editing (types of cuts,
| speed of cuts), any sound you hear, etc, those were ALL
| specifically chosen, if not outright preplanned by the
| director and his team.
|
| This is true of good films, certainly, but films like the
| ones Roger Corman made, or Ed Wood, well, neither of those
| directors were friendly to the concept of second takes or
| wasting time in general. (Corman because he was immensely
| proud of how none of his films ever lost money, Wood
| because he simply wasn't that good of a filmmaker.)
| Similarly, _cinema verite_ projects are more friendly to
| things that just happen, and Dogme 95 leans into this as
| well: Naturalistic film, film without artifice, film
| without props brought in from elsewhere or lighting
| effects... it all reduces the number of choices the
| director can make and, therefore, the number of things
| which can be said to be the director 's choice.
|
| But, yes, the average mainstream
| (Bollywood/Tollywood/Hollywood) production is very highly
| managed and _someone_ (possibly the director, possibly not)
| actually is in complete control over what ends up on
| screen, even if the film goes through multiple writers and
| directors and the editor is the only one who leaves a
| consistent mark.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I disagree. One of the things I think makes a good movie
| is the subtlety in which metaphor is used. It can't be
| too subtle or bash the viewer over the head. There's
| still a lot of metaphor going on in bad movies, but it's
| usually on the "bash the viewer over the head" end of the
| spectrum. And that makes it easier to recognize.
|
| To me, bad movies lay bare the bones of how movies are
| made. You can much more clearly see what people were
| trying (and failing) to do with the film.
| msla wrote:
| I think we're talking at cross-purposes, here, because I
| agree with everything you said.
|
| Let's take _Plan 9 From Outer Space_ as an example: Ed
| Wood had a very unsubtle anti-war (particularly anti-
| nuclear-war) message and he pounded it into our stupid
| minds (Stupid! Stupid!) but that isn 't what I was
| saying. I'm saying that his gravestones were cardboard
| and obviously moved like cardboard. Was that intentional?
| No, it was incompetence and not recognizing the need to
| do another take when a special effect failure is obvious
| onscreen. You can't read anything textual into the flimsy
| gravestones because Wood didn't intend for them to do
| that; it's all paratext, of the "This is a badly-made
| movie" variety.
|
| Sometimes, it's a bit ambiguous: The characters in the
| film use their handguns in ways that would cause any
| range safety officer to disembowel them for the good of
| the species. Is that intentional on Wood's part, to show
| how stupid (Stupid! Stupid!) they are, or is it just bad
| actors treating props like props? I'm inclined to think
| it's the latter; in a better film, I'd be more apt to
| give it the benefit of the doubt, but in a better film,
| it would be reinforced through other means.
|
| In a good film, everything is intentional and serves some
| purpose in the story. In a great film, there's multiple
| stories and themes going on, so there's layered meaning
| and the film rewards re-watching and debate. In a poor
| film, the only symbols are the obvious ones, pointless
| and accidental stuff happens, and the film contradicts
| its themes without intending to.
| freddref wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoi_polloi
|
| Lot of great reading to do :)
| Danieru wrote:
| Watch lots and lots of YouTube video essays. Soon you too can
| find meaning in small director decisions.
|
| Be warned, it is a super power those watching movies with you
| may regret.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| And may cause you to react to moments in a movie which
| others would consider uneventful.
|
| Like laughing about the setup of a scene that is about to
| unfold.
|
| Or getting frustrated about a movie breaking (or lacking)
| consistency in the underlying mechanics of the world its
| drawing.
|
| I'm constantly in this situation, starting to laugh about
| something that is building up below the surface of a scene,
| just to frame something (entirely else) that is then
| presented directly to the viewer in that scene. While
| people sitting next to me look bewildered at my face and
| back at the screen...
| rickdeckard wrote:
| > Interesting! Can you share an example or two of such an
| observation?
|
| It's really nothing as elaborately intelligent as it may
| sound.
|
| Just that the experience of a movie or series can be
| good/bad for entirely different reasons for me.
|
| A really serious scene like Joe Pesci getting upset in
| Goodfellas [1] makes me smile because of how the tension
| of the scene keeps building, despite being a very serious
| scene (and not being funny at all although actors in the
| scene are laughing).
|
| Watching Anthony Hopkins in the Restaurant scene of
| Westworld [2] deliver so much more than just the content
| of his dialogue is just stunning for me to watch, while
| for others it might just be a scene like many others.
|
| Or even more basic, I already have to laugh just watching
| Gavin Belson in the series Silicon Valley, just because
| the character is crafted to be such an awful tone-deaf
| person...
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9rSwrsMHw
|
| [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dagzaFjHU4
| tucosan wrote:
| Interesting! Can you share an example or two of such an
| observation?
| Jenk wrote:
| Not OP but one I cannot look past anymore is when the
| movie has dialogue that is only there to spell out the
| plot to the audience.
|
| Usually it's very small things - some background
| character gleefully shouting out the obvious in the only
| line they have in the production.
|
| "Maverick's re-engaging, Sir!" From the radar operator in
| Top Gun.
|
| "It's gonna blow!" In every bomb scene ever.
|
| Etc.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| I experienced what seemed to be a variation of this in
| Amsterdam, a David Russel film no less. Everything is
| revealed at the end but a character is tasked with
| verbally and lengthily repeating everything that just
| happened as if the audienced hadn't just witnessed it
| themselves. I was taken aback by sheer idiocy of the
| segment that it seemed like a caricature of a studio exec
| finding a very basic plot confusing and taking the final
| cut from the director and adding a ELI5 scene at the end.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| Or my least favorite, able to destroy everything in an
| instance just by connecting the movie to reality: "Ah,
| they search for a killer? It's that guy, because there is
| no other reason to cast that role and pay the premium to
| have this person also talk!"
|
| Most blatant example: "The Bone Collector"
|
| I don't even remember the turns of the story in that
| movie, as it was clear within the first 10 minutes...
| slater- wrote:
| i always appreciate a bone collector reference. what a
| ridiculous silly amazing movie.
|
| for me the quintessential example is "Phone Booth."
| starring Kiefer Sutherland, you say? i wonder what role
| he plays.
|
| i think the movie "Seven" (Se7en) managed to keep the
| surprise bad guy out of the trailer and unbilled until
| the end credits. that was badass.
| themadturk wrote:
| That would be almost every movie and tv show ever for me.
| My wife is much better than me at figuring out whodunnit,
| but I can see stuff like this easily. Fortunately it
| rarely gets in the way of enjoying things.
| jrm4 wrote:
| If someone coughs, they are terminally ill.
| Danieru wrote:
| Examples are hard to remember. Often modern movies are
| attempting to subvert the tropes. Thus as parent comment
| mentions you might notice the structure of the film is
| doing X only to subvert that expectation.
|
| For me the most memorable time was "Captive State".
| Namely in how the film subverted the heist tropes. The
| film did poor in the box office, but personally I found
| it the best film in recent memory. Exactly because I
| noticed how the film raised tension never relieving said
| tension. I'd say more, but I truly think you, the person
| reading this comment, should watch it.
|
| Adam Sandler films are another good example. In that his
| films do not subvert tropes. Which in part makes watching
| easy for mainstream audiences. Which will cause you to
| laugh at his jokes a scene early.
| nemo44x wrote:
| This goes for many things in regards to being able discern
| quality from average. A friend of mine who does fashion
| (something I'm not interested in) taught me a few things
| about clothing assembly and it's amazing. But you just
| can't stop seeing it and everyone is wearing poorly crafted
| shirts from all the big name stores selling them and hardly
| anyone notices.
|
| For a fashion person, going out can be frustrating.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I don't think OP is really unearthing a hidden message/theme
| deliberately buried in the movie as much as they may be
| simply interpreting it through their own unique lens. We all
| look at entertainment through our own lenses and there's the
| tendency to project a lot of ourselves and our own thoughts
| onto it--stuff the media's creator may not have even thought
| about. Different people have different lenses and might see
| vastly different things in the same movie.
|
| I have to admit, I never read that deeply into Ferris
| Bueller. I thought the character was just kind of a
| charismatic bully and that he spent the movie pushing his own
| ideas of fun onto his introverted friend, ultimately at that
| friend's expense. Wildly different take-away than OP's, and
| neither of us are "correct".
| [deleted]
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Try this: every page, come up with a question to ask. Even if
| it's shallow nonsense: "why was his shirt blue?" and write it
| down.
|
| It doesn't matter if you only end up with a few good ones,
| the point is to make a habit of asking questions in the first
| place.
|
| Eventually you'll get bored with the shallow questions and
| start asking ones that begin to expose what your author is up
| to, like why write this story in particular?
|
| If you notice an answer to one of your previous questions,
| write that down too. You're also developing the habit of
| looking for answers.
|
| I learned this from my wife who is a highschool English
| teacher. I reread several books after picking up these habits
| from her and definitely got a lot more out of them the second
| time.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Until I read your post I didn't even realize that I have
| been doing this subconsciously for years. My favorite book,
| while a bit childish, is the omnibus edition of the first
| three novels in the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane.
|
| I like it for the world building, the characters are simple
| but evolve over time, the settings are banal but made
| intriguing by the characters' presence in them, the basic
| idea that absolute truth is literally magic, that the
| fundamental language of the universe is truth and that by
| speaking it you can cause the universe itself to change,
| and that some people are given that power, and that you the
| reader is essentially the Wizard of Oz, peeking into the
| grand events from behind your curtain.
|
| But I never stopped to wonder why did Diane Duane write
| these novels? What was her motivation to write these
| stories?
|
| Mayhaps it is wish fulfillment. Wanting something to be
| true enough to imagine a story about it and how it would
| play out is likely the essence of sci-fi and fantasy
| writing. Taking that wish, the ability to change the
| universe with words alone, and finding a milieu to fit it
| into, a viewpoint character, and a series of events that
| would justify that character being trusted to hold onto
| such a power and use it as they saw fit would be a tall
| order for anyone, but if you can do it you should, right?
|
| This theme of being given power and having to show that you
| are worthy of keeping it also appears in some of her other
| stories. The Door Into Fire has essentially the same
| thematic concept but in a different universe full of
| strange and wonderful things.
|
| I just realized this is a full rant so I will stop here,
| but I'll keep in mind to think of asking Why the events in
| the stories that I consume in the future.
| nielsbot wrote:
| One thing: I think it gets easier with age. Because what you
| "see" in movies is a reflection of your life experiences. And
| don't forget, reviews like this are mainly from professional
| reviewers.. So their careers are dedicated to this type of
| work and they will have more experience and education in this
| area.
|
| I think it also helps to just read a lot of books and watch a
| lot of movies. Then by contrast you'll start to notice things
| that are special and/or meaningful in certain works. You
| could try reading reviews of movies you've watched and those
| can serve as a kind of guide to the interesting and important
| features/aspects of a movie...
|
| In any case, try to just enjoy the watching and reading.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| A fun option to get more into this might be to start
| listening to the "Blank Check" podcast. They go through
| individual director's filmographies and help to place them in
| context of both the director's life and the surrounding
| culture happenings (and they're hilarious).
| wonder_er wrote:
| Oooh! I sometimes have felt criticized for my interest in
| "reading deeper" into movies and books, so I'm thrilled to
| share some of my process, as far as "learning the skills".
|
| Two things:
|
| 1. Keep a background process running for things that strike
| you as "interesting". In my mind, "interesting" means
| "improved compression speed/ability", as explained more here:
| https://josh.works/driven-by-compression-progress-novelty-
| hu... 2. Before watching a movie/tv show or reading a book,
| find the entry for it on Wikipedia, and read it. Often you'll
| find ways that the work serves as a mirror for ourselves, or
| some aspect of society. It'll be said explicitly or
| implicitly.
|
| That's the foundation I build the rest of my "reading deeply"
| skillset around. If this helps, cheers! Good luck! I think
| this is a domain worth putting "energy points" into!
| themadturk wrote:
| I just started reading "White Noise" (the book) and found
| the Wikipedia article very helpful in understanding what De
| Lillo is trying to do. I have little experience or patience
| with mainstream or postmodern lit fic, but knowing a little
| bit about what to look for has added to my enjoyment.
| gernb wrote:
| Be careful where you go, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
| and not some subtle representation of a penis.
|
| One of my friends insists that "The Lion King" is a metaphor
| that white people should rule over non-white people. He
| points out that Scar's underlyings are all dark and all have
| "stereotype of inner city low income accents". Whey they get
| in charge the jungle goes to shit. It takes the lighter
| colored, "proper" accented to rule and bring the land back to
| prosperous.
|
| I don't agree with that interpretation but it's hard to un-
| see
| jerf wrote:
| Lots of good suggestions as I write this.
|
| One I'd consider, though I regrettably don't have a
| convenient reference (and it really ought to be for something
| you've seen), is finding the director/author/composer of some
| work you like speaking directly about what they meant to put
| into the piece.
|
| There's the whole "death of the author" concept (that it
| doesn't matter what they put into it, it just matters what
| you see), but I think sometimes that gets taken too far, if
| not _waaaaaay_ too far, because if you squint hard enough,
| you can read anything into anything. But if you can do that,
| there is no point to the reading. There 's a "mirror
| reflecting you back to yourself", and then there's just
| "yourself", squinting so hard that it ceases to matter what
| you are squinting at. I am not a big fan of this myself.
|
| But the authors really _are_ putting additional things into
| their works, and it can help to hear that from them directly.
|
| Also, now that I think about it, the Easy Mode for this sort
| of thing may be sci-fi television, where the superficial
| distance from the viewer's life and issues lets them encode
| things more directly and, well, frankly, at times _clumsily_
| than a more direct handling might be able to (because
| everyone 's psychological defenses would raise). You could
| start with something like the Star Trek Original Series
| episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield":
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708435/ Being a bit removed
| from your cultural milieu may also help. I dunno if I'd call
| this one "clumsy" but it sure is _blatent_. You ought to be
| able to work out the subtext.
| echelon wrote:
| Sometimes stories are just a meaningless jump from one set
| piece to the next. Action movies tend to be this. MacGuffin,
| suspense, adrenaline, Hero's Journey.
|
| When characters have emotional arcs and growth, you see a
| little more depth and humanity. The characters might have
| secret intentions or desires, unresolved internal conflicts,
| and often these are put in opposition with other characters.
| Sometimes the characters will say and do things that don't
| reflect how they feel. Dramas and romcoms tend to have this.
|
| Sometimes pieces of the story contextualize or contrast
| against what a character is experiencing. You can play these
| themes in unison or dissonance as an instrument. It tends to
| shine when it's left unsaid, in the subtext. These stories
| tend to have a "meaning" that the author or director had in
| mind. Look for films with a lot of critical awards or
| accolades to find good examples.
|
| The more a work aspires to be art, the more analogies are
| loaded in. You're meant to subconsciously feel a certain way
| or unpack that meaning with some thought or consideration.
|
| Information can be conveyed in so many ways. Camera
| direction, lighting, tone, composition, pacing, music,
| editing, set and props, unspoken intentions, unpredicted
| actions, and more. And when the director embraces "show,
| don't tell", all of this can add up to a beautifully layered
| composition that transcends what the characters actually say
| and do.
| peepee1982 wrote:
| If you read a lot of good books and watch a lot of good
| movies, and then also read books about psychology,
| philosophy, and art, and music, and read reviews about the
| things you consume ...
|
| What is a good book? If it's older than 30 years and still
| talked about, it'll probably be worth a read. The same goes
| for other forms of media. Once you have developed good taste,
| you'll be able to find good art among contemporary stuff.
|
| Basically, you have to grow as a human being, learn about the
| human condition, have lived through painful, difficult
| experiences yourself and fully experience them instead of
| pushing them away, and maybe seek help with these things from
| more mature people.
|
| Then you'll probably come to this kind of interpretations.
|
| But on some not so conscious level you will understand many
| of those things intuitively, without being able to put your
| finger on any single one. Because that's how art works. The
| artist will do most of the hard stuff for you.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| > "... read books about psychology, philosophy, and art,
| and music..."
|
| But--once you go down that path, forever will it dominate
| your destiny!
|
| Years from now, you'll look back at this moment and say--I
| used to just watch movies for enjoyment.
| peepee1982 wrote:
| Well, anything you learn about changes your perspective.
|
| I'm a musician, so I hear music differently than non
| musicians. But I still get to enjoy it, too. I'm just not
| as _easy_ to be aroused by it, I guess.
|
| I can't always shut off the analyzing part of my brain,
| but usually I can.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The endgame of spending a ton of time analyzing cinema
| (as someone who hangs out with a lot of film buffs) is
| that at some point the expectation of having to analyze a
| good movie burns thin, and you end up spending a
| prolonged period of time only watching bad movies that
| you know will be bad, because making fun of bad movies is
| A) a skill you've incidentally honed by paying a lot of
| attention to movies and B) a hell of lot less effort than
| paying an appropriate amount of attention to a good
| movie.
|
| Most of my friends got over that eventually.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| I'd recommend trying some typical english 101 books, like a
| Norton Reader, or similar. The stories are good, and there
| are questions at the end that help you understand some of the
| more subtle choices that the authors made. It directly
| applies to interpreting movies.
| themadturk wrote:
| This is the kind of thing that we will miss if college
| classes in literature and the humanities are devalued for
| students in STEM specialties. The unique analytical skills
| learned in the humanities are valuable across technical,
| mathematical and scientific disciplines as well.
| nicbou wrote:
| There are many great YouTube channels that show you these
| details. I love Every Frame A Painting, Cinefix and Now You
| See It. Nerdwriter is so-so, but it's there too.
|
| You can also try dating an art student and be around while
| they do their assigned work. I picked up a lot this way.
|
| Learning to look deeper is always worth it. With film it's a
| little easier because so many good video essays are out
| there. You don't have to make a few bad chairs like with
| woodworking.
| baryphonic wrote:
| The key is to remember that everything portrayed is a choice
| by the author or the director, cast & crew. Ask yourself,
| "why are they telling me this?" Make some hypotheses, then
| whittle them down (or add to them) as the story progresses.
| Try to determine the characters' motivations, the necessity
| of the setting, what virtues and vices the characters
| display, how they interact with objects and each other. Try
| to think if any of the characters, settings or objects in a
| story represent anything else or are allusions to other
| stories. For instance, Christ is an extremely common
| allusion, from Walter White in the finale of Breaking Bad to
| Bruce Wayne/Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy. And the One
| Ring to Rule Them All isn't just an ancient, magical object
| from a constructed myth, but has parallels that we should
| recognize in our world and recent history.
|
| Many movies and books don't have a terribly deep meaning, and
| that's okay. I watched John Wick for the first time a week or
| so ago, and it was shallow but good fun.
|
| I find that superb movies, books or shows leave me thinking
| about them long after the end credits or the final page (I
| stopped thinking about John Wick immediately when it was
| over). The best stories leave the interpretation up to you,
| the audience, and they also tend to give you more insight on
| repeat viewings or readings. Once the factual matter in the
| pages is known, it might be easier to see the symbolism (if
| it exists).
| dbspin wrote:
| Left field advice here, but I'd recommend helping out on a
| movie, or even making your own short. If you want to
| understand film literally nothing comes close. This sounds
| intimidating, but it's no more of a bar than attending a
| local Kino Cabaret Event [1] or similar. If you work on a
| film through production - even a simple two day shoot and
| edit, you'll start to build an intuition for how the medium
| works. The more you participate in creating it, the more
| you'll understand film in its native language. There's a
| strong analogy to learning to programme / basic hacking
| projects -> understanding software and hardware.
|
| In as much as film appreciation courses and youtube critical
| videos can be interesting, or draw your attention to things
| you've missed, they're usually from an external interpretive
| lens. An example of where they can miss the point is Noam
| Baumbach's latest film 'White Noise' which is has been
| critically misunderstood [2]. Meanwhile all the filmmakers I
| know are in awe of it technically and structurally.
|
| 1 - http://kinokabaret.org/
|
| 2 - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/white_noise_2022
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| I pay pretty close attention to what movies are coming out
| and I hadn't even heard of White Noise. Wikipedia says they
| spent 100mn on it. Geez...
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Yikes, I'm film-nerd-adjacent--I'm semi-serious about it,
| and am close friends with others who are way more into it
| than I am--and I like Noah Baumbach (probably more than
| he deserves--he's the sort I recommend to others only
| with some hedging, but _I_ like him a lot) yet this one
| hadn 't shown up on my radar, either. And, on top of
| that, I have Netflix!
| matwood wrote:
| > An example of where they can miss the point is Noam
| Baumbach's latest film 'White Noise' which is has been
| critically misunderstood [2]
|
| Not to go too far off track, but I blame a huge amount of
| that misunderstanding with how Netflix has marketed the
| movie. Expectations play a big part in appreciation and
| understanding - at least initially.
| snikeris wrote:
| The key is to return to it multiple times. See:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book
| mmcgaha wrote:
| > I genuinely wish I could read deeper into movies and book
| like this. Is this an inherent trait or one that can be
| learned? I wouldn't even know how to begin to learn to do
| this.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun
| otikik wrote:
| Patrick (H) Willems unlocked this in me.
|
| May I suggest starting with Ghostbusters: A Movie About
| Nothing?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OB3279Vt8Y
| lr4444lr wrote:
| A proper course in film appreciation can definitely help here
| IMHO. Certain techniques of the craft, when repeatedly
| brought to your attention, become easier to see and interpret
| as pointing to higher purposes. In conjunction, having a
| favorite movie (that clearly wasn't produced to just ride the
| coattails of some prior movie in a series or solely to
| showcase something mindless like action sequences or a
| heartthrob actor) which you appreciate enough to rewarch
| several times can help sensitized you to detail.
| [deleted]
| kgwxd wrote:
| It can be learned. I didn't "get it" much until I was older.
| Most recently for me, Station Eleven (HBOMax) is so full of
| "deeper meaning" in every scene, I've rewatched it 5 times
| and still get moved by something I didn't catch previously. I
| suggest watching it and the cast/crew talks after each
| episode.
|
| I still have a hard time getting it from books, but I think
| I'm getting better.
| moron4hire wrote:
| The way I came to it started with a basic appreciation of
| film course in college. But that only really gave me the
| vocabulary. It didn't really solidify until I started
| watching movies with the Director Commentary tracks enabled
| on DVDs. You don't _have_ to guess at what the director
| intended. They will just tell you. Do it a few times, and you
| can start to pick out the patterns yourself.
|
| Pick a movie that you have seen at least once, preferably
| recently, get the DVD for it, and watch it with the
| commentary enabled. In particularly good films, it can be a
| whole new way to see a movie. In particularly bad films, it
| can make the choices make sense. Not make them better. But at
| least make some kind of sense.
|
| Speaking of bad movies, getting better at film analysis gave
| me a much better appreciation for them. To me, the rough
| edges and the tortured metaphors and the bad acting lay bare
| the bones of the movie. It makes it easier to see what people
| were trying to do when they made the film. They might have
| failed at it. But the general, ham-fisted lack of subtlety in
| the efforts makes it easier to pick the intentions out.
|
| Unfortunately, Director Commentaries are victim of the
| streamification of modern film distribution. You can get some
| of the same sort of thing with Behind The Scenes featurettes
| that the streaming services provide alongside their big
| releases, but they aren't as direct, candid, or frequent as
| the Director Commentaries were on DVDs.
| wellpast wrote:
| I'd go the other way from some of the replies.
|
| Don't go "meta" trying to read director intent etc.
|
| Instead watch a lot of movies beyond your normal set. Start
| acquiring a taste for films with deeper character and
| emotional complexity.
|
| Do this in life with your experiences and relationships.
|
| What will happen is you'll be deeply moved by something you
| relate to in a film. And that will drive you to ask how'd
| they do that.
|
| If you don't feel anything profound when Ferris holds back
| Cameron in that scene, any kind of meta-analysis is going to
| have an opposite effect to your overall goal.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Some zoomers on my team recently came across Bueller's "isms"
| speech and enjoyed it.
|
| Lot of philosophy there if you look below the surface.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Indeed. And it's exemplified by the working class guys in the
| parking garage that live in the moment. They see their chance
| to do something they normally wouldn't be able to and run with
| it, likely risking their jobs. But it's a worthy trade as it's
| something always they'll always remember.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| That Ferrari belongs to Cameron's father so Ferris really has
| no say in what Cameron does to it and it does not mean anything
| to Ferris.
|
| From the previous scenes we know exactly what that Ferrari is
| and represents from Cameron himself so I think Ferris is just
| telling Sloane that this is Cameron's call and not for them to
| interfere, and perhaps that Cameron actually needs to do it as
| a catharsis.
| once_inc wrote:
| That also ties better into the main theme of the book, which
| heavily emphasises human connection, which is what Cameron
| and his father lack. The eventual complete destruction of the
| car (and part of the garage) would spur Cameron into an
| actual conversation with his father and Cameron's emotions
| regarding the lack of interest in him.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| As someone who struggled against their parent's tragic hoarding
| for decades and now am tasked with clearing it all out, I feel
| this.
|
| My partner and I prefer the gifts of time and experience over
| objects that eventually become clutter and junk.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > Objects, like sports cars, no matter how beautiful and rare,
| are there to be used and enjoyed, not hoarded and held in
| pristine captivity in fear of negative consequences.
|
| I saw it more as, the Ferrari represented Cameron and his
| father's damage relationship. Cameron was the way he was,
| because his father was the way he was, and Cameron knew the
| Ferrari meant a lot to his dad. Him smashing it was basically a
| self-destructive cry for help (in my eyes). I felt like the
| viewer is left knowing Cameron and his dad will "work through
| something big/transformative" given the colossal impact the son
| (who the dad probably doesn't really care for) smashing his
| prized possession (that he really cars for) would have.
|
| Ferris Bueller's Day Off - 1986
|
| Fight Club - 1999
|
| Doesn't Fight Club have the same kind of "life isn't about
| possessions, step out of your comfort zone while you are still
| alive otherwise you're wasting your life chasing Ikea
| furniture" message?
| purpleblue wrote:
| You are right, it was about smashing his relationship between
| his dad. It wasn't about rejecting materialism at all.
| Cameron used the Ferrari as an example of how his father puts
| so much time and effort into things other than his own son,
| and he was kicking it as a way of getting back at his dad but
| also make him notice him as well.
| mattzito wrote:
| I think the message of fight club is that while life isn't
| about possessions, it can be equally empty to chase a
| nihilistic idea of masculinity that doesn't connect you with
| others in a meaningful way.
|
| It's satire - it's making fun of the protagonists as much as
| it's commenting on them. Ferris bueller doesn't strike me as
| satire in the same way.
| gerbilly wrote:
| To me Fight club is a boy meets girl story.
|
| The whole Fight Club and later Project Mayhem id a complex
| digression he invents to avoid facing the fact that he
| wants to get close to Marla.
| slater- wrote:
| i love this interpretation, and i hadn't considered it
| before reading your comment.
|
| the destruction that follows from his desperate avoidance
| of this relationship nearly results in his own
| castration. his last gasp at being an independent man
| threatens his very manhood. damn.
| pstuart wrote:
| I can't find the write up, but there was a compelling
| post that Marta _is_ Jack. So is Robert Paulson.
|
| The vibrator in his suitcase? No accident, just there
| when he was Marta.
|
| Note the ending when they're hand in hand, they look
| identical.
|
| I'm not doing the critique justice, but I found it
| compelling enough to remember it and share it here.
| gweinberg wrote:
| Yeah, I've read that. Why aren't any men upset that there
| is a woman in a testicular cancer survivor group? Because
| the narrator is the only one that can see her, she's not
| really there.
| eternalban wrote:
| Fight Club is a coded (biased) subliminal message about the
| internal (psychological) process of radicalization of the
| modern young man. Thinking about it now, it reminds of the
| "Obey" nonsense that supposedly was designed as an "ironic
| comment on contemporary society" that regrettably served the
| function of having the word "Obey" appear wherever you
| looked.
|
| Now that said, criticism leveled against _regime du jour_ is
| merely the contextualized social barb ("consumerism"), with
| the substance of the intended strike aimed at the confining
| and defining social norms (which are present for any social
| regime whatsoever save pure anarchy). The _process_ of
| destabilization necessary for _revolution_ invariably entails
| undermining and devaluing foundational norms of the ancien
| regime.
|
| As to the sanity of our hero, the reconstructed modern man,
| the message posses the question: did neuroses engender a
| 'shattered social self' or was the neuroses the side-effect
| of a misguided social condition?
| jancsika wrote:
| I don't necessarily agree about what the fundamental message
| of either film is.
|
| That said, Ferris is _using_ middle class objects (and using
| tricks to hijack upper-class objects) to have a good time.
|
| Fight Club Tyler is _rejecting_ middle and upper-class
| objects as fundamentally opposed to some poorly specified and
| wholly imagined idyllic life.
|
| If Bob had joined Ferris for a Cubs game and brought a
| souvenir ball back to the house, he would have been kicked
| out of the cult.
| 31337Logic wrote:
| If I could submit a "Love" symbol for this comment, know that I
| would.
| whartung wrote:
| The question I would have in this case is who made that
| decision for Ferris' character? Was that scripted? Something
| the director added, something Broderick did?
|
| As was mentioned elsewhere, everything seen on film is (mostly)
| intentional. It was either decided to be put there, or decided
| to be left in (even those goofs where the camera is seen,
| someone probably saw it in post and decided "not worth
| fixing").
|
| Sometime actors and have some autonomy with their characters,
| similarly directors can have great flexibility in the rendering
| of the story. So, anyway, when you seem moments like that,
| always curios where they come from.
| hinkley wrote:
| It's a John Hughes film. It is scary how well he understood
| Gen X teenagers.
| rvieira wrote:
| I've always liked the fan theory that Fight Club is the sequel to
| Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
|
| I can see Cameron growing up to live in a "neat" apartment,
| working as an insurance adjustment claims officer. But this time,
| the alter ego that surfaces is Tyler Durden, not Ferris, and it
| goes beyond destroying Ferraris.
| prettyStandard wrote:
| That's pretty good. I'd like to rewatch both back to back
| through that lense.
|
| Does it hold together, even if it wasn't originally intended
| this way?
| rvieira wrote:
| The movies don't really have much in common in almost every
| aspect (obviously).
|
| But it is funny to remind yourself to see The Narrator as a
| darker, adult, worn down, insomniac Cameron throughout Fight
| Club. And that Ferris was his teen split personality, but his
| adult one is much darker.
|
| It helps that Edward Norton kinda looks like a believable
| older Alan Ruck and in that universe, he would probably be
| the right age.
|
| I also find it works best to view FBDO thinking Cameron will
| become The Narrator than the other way around (perhaps
| because FC is such an intense movie). Just picture him saying
| "You are not your father's 1961 red California Spyder
| Ferrari"...
|
| In any case, any excuse will do to a double feature FBDO/FC.
| evan_ wrote:
| > It helps that Edward Norton kinda looks like a believable
| older Alan Ruck
|
| Coincidentally Alan Ruck and Edward Norton were both 29
| when they filmed Ferris Bueller/Fight Club respectively
| sublinear wrote:
| I really must chime in that Ferris Bueller's Day Off is not
| even close to even 1% of all the ways to arrive at Fight Club.
|
| That's why Fight Club relates to way more people and persists
| in a much more significant way.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| _I really must chime in that Ferris Bueller 's Day Off is not
| even close to even 1% of all the ways to arrive at Fight
| Club._
|
| Sure, but:
|
| _That 's why Fight Club relates to way more people and
| persists in a much more significant way._
|
| That doesn't logically follow.
|
| (And besides that, I disagree! Both have their fans. I'd
| guess yourself are more familiar with Fight Club and you're
| projecting from that.)
| rvieira wrote:
| Yes, I'm not comparing the two movies directly. I just find
| it funny and interesting to view both as happening in
| Cameron's universe.
| sammalloy wrote:
| It's always seemed like a Dark Side of the Rainbow fan
| theory to me, attributable to pure chance, timing, and
| coincidence. If Fight Club truly was related, I would be
| the first to champion the idea.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Side_of_the_Rainbow
| gumby wrote:
| The author's "charming manipulator" has always seemed like a
| simply bully to me. I've never liked that film.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Ferris is the archetype of the kid in high school for whom
| absolutely everything always works out. Everyone else is
| painfully jealous and stuck in their own troubles.
|
| He works as a foil to Cameron and all the others.
| projektfu wrote:
| No surprise that it inspired Parker Lewis Can't Lose. I guess
| people like the type.
| notinfuriated wrote:
| I only liked it when I thought of Cameron as the main
| character. Ferris Bueller is very much an unlikable character
| who I assume was supposed to be likable, cool, etc.
| lordfrito wrote:
| The original shooting script is worth a read if you want a
| better sense of what Ferris was supposed to be. [1] There
| were a lot of cut scenes that just paint Ferris as a complete
| d-bag.
|
| There's a scene where he's rifling through his parents closet
| trying to find the savings bonds they've been saving for him
| for college, so he can fund his adventure for the day. He
| calls his dad and manipulates his concern for his health into
| into revealing where the bonds are being kept.
|
| Then followed by a scene with the three of them at the bank
| trying to cash the bonds, and a little old lady teller -
| Ferris introduces Sloan as Madonna and Cameron as ZZ top.
| Just struck me as them making fun of an old lady for no good
| reason. At least the maitre'd deserved the humiliation.
|
| I remember a scene in a strip club as well. I'm sure many of
| these scenes were shot.
|
| If these scenes had been included I would have been a lot
| harder to like Ferris as a character. Knowing what to cut is
| just as important as knowing what to keep. I think they did a
| decent job in the final film of taking Ferris right up to
| that "disrespectful" line, but never letting him cross it.
|
| I liked Ferris because his winning at life was due to him
| always being on the right side of things, not because he was
| a dick. He put Cameron first as a person above the material
| damage to the car, etc. It just felt like he had life
| priorities in order... like that was the point of it. Break
| rules when doing so puts you on the right side of things.
| Wasn't that the lesson he was trying to teach Cameron?
|
| [1] https://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/ferris_bueller_shooti
| ng....
| moloch-hai wrote:
| The movie should be understood as Cameron imagining Ferris and
| Sloane. They are not really there, none of it really happens. The
| whole day is his fantasy, and his epiphany at the end is the only
| real event.
| [deleted]
| xsmasher wrote:
| That only works if you throw away half the movie. Ferris is
| real to his sister, his parents, and the school administration.
|
| Now, what if Cameron isn't real?
| moloch-hai wrote:
| The imaginary Ferris is real to his imaginary sister and
| parents, and in all the imaginary interactions with school
| administration.
|
| If Cameron, too, isn't real, there is no movie: a dream
| requires a dreamer. The whole movie, i.e. Cameron and his
| dream is, of course, John Hughes's dream, and then the
| audience's. If we shadows have offended,
| Think but this, and all is mended-- That you have but
| slumbered here While these visions did appear.
| predictsoft wrote:
| Don't forget the John Hughes commentary track on the original
| DVD.
|
| Separate is the 'Bueller... Bueller...' DVD which has
| documentaries but no commentary track.
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