The Frame - Latest Comments

Re: The Spirit of the Beehive

Jandy — Tue, 10 May 2011 11:45:05 -0000

Really good analysis of Ana's gradual awakening to the concept of death, thanks for the comment!

Why bees, though, for the metaphorical purpose? Are bees less aware of death than other animals? Thinking more about the father's comments about beehives, perhaps part of her understanding of death is realizing that even though the circumstances are different (a child in a river, a monster in a fire, a soldier in a barn), these are all deaths and share a common bond - variety and repetition. And that, like, a beehive, death itself holds both fascination and horror.

Re: The Spirit of the Beehive

snap-e-tom — Tue, 10 May 2011 09:04:08 -0000

Anna has a series of traumatic experiences in the span of a few days. First, the movie. Then, the father shows them a mushroom that if eaten, will cause death (death is at arm's length). Then, her sister plays a cruel joke on Anna, who believes for a short time that her sister is dead. Finally, the young man in the abandoned farmhouse. The film depicts a child learning about death. As children, we start off like bees, unaware of death. To most of us, this realization comes slowly. For Anna, an unusually sensitive child, it comes in a barrage that overwhelms her, and therein lies the film's central drama. Outside the beehive lies the void, the unknown. The imagination is the gateway to that invisible world. To me, the most important and moving shot of the film is when Anna, unable to sleep because of the recent traumas, leaves the warm, anber light of the house and walks into the dark blues and blacks of the night. The child experiencing the void for the first time. This is repeated later. When she discovers the blood of the dead soldier, she turns to see her father (It is established earlier that he is distant, with his "head in the clouds"). At the sight of him, she turns and runs, once more into the void. The final shot is pure film-as-art: little Anna is standing in the doorway of her house, framed by the night.

Re: 42nd Street

Danielle — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:35:29 -0000

How can I put this? I love FORTY-SECOND STREET. It is my favorite musical that featured Busby Berkeley's work. And I love the "42nd Street" musical number . . . except for the final scene with the dancers. Honestly. That final little dance number seemed so crude and clumsy. The only thing that made it work was the energy behind it.

Re: I Walked With a Zombie: A Liminal (Post)colonial Text

Edward Copeland — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:35:05 -0000

As I have become the recipient of the Versatile Blogger Award, I'm now passing that honor onto you.

Re: Poetry Explication – William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 55

polomaic — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:35:43 -0000

hi i want help
am student at college of arts english dept.
am bad in poetry

Re: Hippie Hippie Shake (preview screening)

Name — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:30:26 -0000

thats good to hear as well! I have followed the process of the filming and post-production of this film very closely and it is just ridiculous how long it is taking to premiere. I mean I would have hoped a film festival may have picked up, but so far all there is on the internet about it is your review and some other two positive ones that I found. Now I read it will get released May 21st? I do not know, I liked the february release, because it's oscar season? Though it does not seem like an Oscar-worthy type of movie. I am a big fan of sienna miller. How was she in Hippie?

Re: Hippie Hippie Shake (preview screening)

Jandy — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:32:14 -0000

Thanks for the comment! That's good to know; there's a lot to like about the film.

Re: Hippie Hippie Shake (preview screening)

Name — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:15:36 -0000

no though the director and screenwriter have left the production over creative differences with working title, a spokesperson assured us that the film would get a 100-print release on February 5th, 2010. Hopefully there is a trailer soon!

Re: The New World

Jandy — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:30:03 -0000

Glad to hear it! I still like Mulholland Drive the best, but INLAND EMPIRE is an easy second. Interesting that you mention Bordwell - he's one of my favorite academic film writers, and while he's very good at nailing down traditional film structure, I never thought of him as limiting film to the rational and analytical. He brings that approach to bear, certainly, but do you think he does so to the exclusion of poetry? I'll have to think about that some more. Plus, I'm not sure that Bordwell sets out how film "should" work but just how it "does" work in the majority of cases. He had to create a whole separate chapter for Godard in Narrative in the Fiction Film simply because Godard's films don't work the same way as most films. (I think he went a little far in that chapter at times in trying to nail Godard down to some structure, which could be what you're talking about as well.) In The Way Hollywood Tells It Bordwell almost specifically excludes Lynch from discussion, again because he doesn't follow traditional Hollywood storytelling, but he doesn't seem to judge that in any way. And we've now exhausted my reading in Bordwell. :)

It does seem to be very true that the people who fail to appreciate INLAND EMPIRE (and to a lesser degree Mulholland Drive) do so because they can't stop trying to make it fit into a very rational, left-brained sort of narrative logic. But I think INLAND EMPIRE does have narrative logic - it's just far more abstract than we're used to. It's thematic and spatial rather than temporal and event-driven. I surveyed dozens (maybe hundreds) of reviews of INLAND EMPIRE soon after the DVD came out, planning to write about it as a right-brain film - I never got that post finished, but every review (from major critics to casual moviegoing bloggers) bore out the idea that enjoyment of the film depended almost entirely on whether the viewer tried to make it fit into some existing understanding of narrative structure or allowed the film to create its own.

Re: The New World

rot — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:01:32 -0000

INLAND EMPIRE is my favorite Lynch film, was my favorite film of 2007 in fact, and it was only after getting that experience that I was able to rewatch Mulholland Dr and everything clicked. I blame it on the fact that when I saw Mulholland Dr. and the Thin Red Line it was about the same time I was taking film courses and I was kind of conditioned to think with preset ideas of how film should work a la Bordwell and it was only after I was out of school that I started to really get out of my rationalist analytical phase of art appreciation and let the poetry seep in.

Re: The New World

Jandy — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:22:50 -0000

I haven't, actually. The New World remains the only Malick film I've seen, though I have a copy of Badlands sitting on my TV stand. I did happen to turn on IFC the other day while they were playing The New World, right at the scene where the ships arrive and the Native Americans are "dancing" at the edges of the woods. That was the moment the film caught me, and it completely mesmerized me again - such an organically beautiful sequence that most filmmakers wouldn't even have thought of.

Interesting that you didn't initially like Mulholland Drive. I loved it almost instantly, and my respect for it has only grown over many rewatches. Easily my favorite Lynch film. Did you see INLAND EMPIRE, and what did you think?

Re: Wit

rot — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:19:21 -0000

Wow I am finding it scary how similar our tastes in film are, seriously check out my top 100 films at http://thepaganagenda.com

I don't know anyone that has even seen Wit, let alone considers it so highly. I am pretty sure I wrote about it on Row Three and I was dying to find a youtube clip from the movie but it doesn't exist, where her professor teaches Emma Thompson's character of the importance of punctuation in the Donne poem... my favorite music number plays in the back, Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Part, and it works so perfectly.

Re: The Double Life of Veronique

rot — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:13:34 -0000

Yeah I was aiming for beauty as something distinct from lust, although wired as I am that is sometimes hard to accomplish. It is an interesting thing to try, I suppose it doesn't need to be limited to any one kind of form, but find the particular images that evoke transcendental beauty for you. That frame of Cabiria makes me cry every single time it happens, thats magic.

Regarding out prettying Veronique, I gotta go with Malick (who I believe uses a different cinematographer on every film he does) and yet every film is gorgeous, the most iconic being perhaps Days of Heaven.

Re: The New World

rot — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:07:36 -0000

Tell me you have remedied your Malick gap since this, for me he's probably, no definitely is, my favorite director, and the only one who has a perfect record. I think with each film he improves upon what was then the standard fo excellence, and New World extended cut is in my top five films of all time, and look forward to his Tree of Life coming out this year. You hit upon the key to enjoying Malick, you need to embrace the poetic, or it is impossible to accept the film. My first encounter with Malick was The Thin Red Line abd I didn't like it, I found the voice-overs pretentious and how nothing connected to what I expect a typical war movie arc film to be bgged me. Only when I revisited it on dvd, it was like a completely different movie. Hench why I did the Crash post, sometimes I need to rewatch films to get them, same happened with Mulholland Dr, which I originally loathed, and last year now deem one of Lynch's best films.

anyways, in sequence of importance watch The Thin Red Line and than Days of Heaven and than Badlands.

Re: The Double Life of Veronique

Jandy — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:06:18 -0000

Thanks, Mike! I'm hopefully going to revisit Veronique soon, and maybe I can come up with something more coherent to say about it this time than "OMG SO PRETTY," but hey. Sometimes that alone is worth saying, and I haven't seen any film since that out-pretties Veronique.

I did see that post, but I didn't click through because I was at work at the time and took note of your nudity warning. Then I forgot to go back and look at it. Great choices. I especially loved that you included Guiletta Masina in Nights of Cabiria - she's the perfect example for me of someone who isn't necessarily traditionally beautiful, but has such a wonderful face and persona that you fall in love with her anyway. I rewatched La Strada recently and thought the same thing.

Re: The Double Life of Veronique

rot — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:01:25 -0000

damn you got taste, Jandy! Not sure if you caught my post on Row Three called 'Captured Beauty' it was a bunch of choice visuals from film that I feel embodies beauty through the female form, and Irene Jacob's face pressed against the glass was included.

Great site by the way, content and design.