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RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

MacheteZombie posted:

i think you should use this as your next horror short. taking selfies by a volcano and the unthinkable happens... ICE DEMONS

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Gripweed
Nov 8, 2018

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What's that song from the end of movies? I've never heard of it outside a movie and I'm pretty sure I've heard it in several movies. The guy doesn't enunciate very well but the word "never" is pretty prominent. It goes like, Nehh-vurh dah dah dadada

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Gripweed posted:

What's that song from the end of movies? I've never heard of it outside a movie and I'm pretty sure I've heard it in several movies. The guy doesn't enunciate very well but the word "never" is pretty prominent. It goes like, Nehh-vurh dah dah dadada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7ZGRQiIdms

Gripweed
Nov 8, 2018

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No, that's not it. That's not it at all.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Came up in another thread, this feels very CineD.

CPL593H
Oct 28, 2009

I know what you did last summer, and frankly I am displeased.

I'm starting to worry about you.

Gatts
Jan 2, 2001

Goodnight Moon

Nap Ghost
I need to be working on a presentation but I’m somewhat burned out and procrastinating. Ugh.

Hand Knit
Oct 24, 2005

Beer Loses more than a game Sunday ...
We lost our Captain, our Teammate, our Friend Kelly Calabro...
Rest in Peace my friend you will be greatly missed..
Has anyone else seen Promising Young Woman? I thought the visuals were quite good, but the story didn't quite pull together and it seemed to kinda get stuck at affirming the righteousness of the viewer. Like the point of the story became to affirm the badness of people whose badness wasn't in doubt, and instead of offering insight into that badness, or a new way of understanding it, the film just kinda keeps restating the same point.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Hand Knit posted:

Has anyone else seen Promising Young Woman? I thought the visuals were quite good, but the story didn't quite pull together and it seemed to kinda get stuck at affirming the righteousness of the viewer. Like the point of the story became to affirm the badness of people whose badness wasn't in doubt, and instead of offering insight into that badness, or a new way of understanding it, the film just kinda keeps restating the same point.

I don't think the film is about re-affirming that the bad people are bad. I took it to be more about how Cassandra is wrecked by the injustice of her friend's rape and suicide. Her friend is irreversibly dead, and Cassandra is no longer living. She's wracked with androphobia, PTSD, which has basically crippled her into arrested development. Her revenge up until the finale is partially a condescension towards predatory nice guys, and seems more about her want to have control while doing what she thinks is a "good thing". Her vigilantism is pretty misguided, cuz even friends of guys she has confronted, who heard the story and were freaked out by it, are STILL going to the bars and open to taking home drunk girls in order to rape them.

Two of the biggest scenes that frame Cassandra's struggle is her conversation with her friend's mother who has managed to move on without losing her melancholy or sense of loss, which Cassandra can't accomplish, and the scene with her and Alfred Molina, where she is confronted with what she was looking for (someone repentant for their enabling rape culture), but it disappoints her, leaves her empty.

That's why the film ends the way it does. The only thing that will release Cassandra from her pain is her own demise, which she ultimately plans and has some control over. It's a suicide mission. Her feeling betrayed by Ryan after realizing he was at the (gang)rape is her going past the point of no return. She's been moving on and living her own life and feeling a sense of happiness with a man who was at her friend's rape. That destroys all the positive growth she's had up until that point, and kinda proves her original idea correct.

So, it's moreso about how rape revenge is a flawed concept, because it doesn't directly address rape culture and the people that enable it, and that rape (and suicide) hurt more than just the victim, but the family and friends around them, and leaves them also feeling different forms of guilt: I couldn't prevent it; I'm here and they're not; I wish I could prevent this from happening to someone else. Cassandra's goal of confronting would-be-rapists, while "good", still shows she's not really growing, or doing the right thing, and is consumed with survivor's guilt.

There's a lot more to talk about with it, cuz it leaves a lot of room for discussion, but I was taken more by the deep sadness inherent with the flaws with Cassandra and her plans, and didn't even bother with thinking that the obviously lovely men she confronts are obviously lovely.

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

Forth wave 🌊
Volcanic erruption 🌋
And also I slipped on some sneaky ice on my way to work and very slightly hurt my hand.

Hand Knit
Oct 24, 2005

Beer Loses more than a game Sunday ...
We lost our Captain, our Teammate, our Friend Kelly Calabro...
Rest in Peace my friend you will be greatly missed..

Franchescanado posted:

I don't think the film is about re-affirming that the bad people are bad. I took it to be more about how Cassandra is wrecked by the injustice of her friend's rape and suicide. Her friend is irreversibly dead, and Cassandra is no longer living. She's wracked with androphobia, PTSD, which has basically crippled her into arrested development. Her revenge up until the finale is partially a condescension towards predatory nice guys, and seems more about her want to have control while doing what she thinks is a "good thing". Her vigilantism is pretty misguided, cuz even friends of guys she has confronted, who heard the story and were freaked out by it, are STILL going to the bars and open to taking home drunk girls in order to rape them.

Two of the biggest scenes that frame Cassandra's struggle is her conversation with her friend's mother who has managed to move on without losing her melancholy or sense of loss, which Cassandra can't accomplish, and the scene with her and Alfred Molina, where she is confronted with what she was looking for (someone repentant for their enabling rape culture), but it disappoints her, leaves her empty.

That's why the film ends the way it does. The only thing that will release Cassandra from her pain is her own demise, which she ultimately plans and has some control over. It's a suicide mission. Her feeling betrayed by Ryan after realizing he was at the (gang)rape is her going past the point of no return. She's been moving on and living her own life and feeling a sense of happiness with a man who was at her friend's rape. That destroys all the positive growth she's had up until that point, and kinda proves her original idea correct.

So, it's moreso about how rape revenge is a flawed concept, because it doesn't directly address rape culture and the people that enable it, and that rape (and suicide) hurt more than just the victim, but the family and friends around them, and leaves them also feeling different forms of guilt: I couldn't prevent it; I'm here and they're not; I wish I could prevent this from happening to someone else. Cassandra's goal of confronting would-be-rapists, while "good", still shows she's not really growing, or doing the right thing, and is consumed with survivor's guilt.

There's a lot more to talk about with it, cuz it leaves a lot of room for discussion, but I was taken more by the deep sadness inherent with the flaws with Cassandra and her plans, and didn't even bother with thinking that the obviously lovely men she confronts are obviously lovely.

I feel like I agree with your description of the movie, but see it as supporting my evaluation. Take Cassandra's characterization, and the character arc. She begins as a figure of righteous vengeance, specifically targeting 'nice guys' laden with 'nice guy' signifiers. The revenge narrative is confronted with the movie's rom-com narrative, and the movie transitions fully to the rom-com part with the two meetings that you identify. But then the rom-com is undone not just through Ryan's badness, but through his involvement in the defining event that looms over the full movie. At this point the movie fully reverts to the revenge narrative. The romantic comedy has been proven false, and the hope that the rom-com presents has been proven false.

So how does this support what I say? I think it doesn't so much undo the growth shown over the 2nd act, but it suggests that the growth wasn't really growth at all. Her beliefs of the first act aren't just proven right, but the movie completely reverts to the dynamics of the first act where we have the righteous avenger against the whole bad world. But the reversion to those battle lines aren't brought about by any insight or thematic development, it's simply revealed that the guy who seemed to be good was bad all along. I think this also informs the climax. It's not just that she has to die to escape her pain, she has to die because there's nowhere (intellectually) for the movie to take her character. She was righteous, she was right all along, so she dies to the badness that affirms her righteousness. The bad guys stay bad, and their badness concretizes even further as the rapist turns into a murderer.

In this sense, I don't think there's any lack of character growth per se. She started righteous and she ended righteous. She's righteous because of her relationship to the bad people, and the nature of the badness of the bad people never really changes. She dies because her righteousness is defined entirely by being subject to the bad people's badness. There's no "lack" of character growth because, in the most importance sense, the character began morally fully formed.

Or something like that.

Pirate Jet
May 2, 2010
I’m mostly confused by a film that indicts the police for their complacency and apathy of rape culture but also depends on them to be victorious at the end.

CPL593H
Oct 28, 2009

I know what you did last summer, and frankly I am displeased.

FreudianSlippers posted:

Forth wave 🌊
Volcanic erruption 🌋
And also I slipped on some sneaky ice on my way to work and very slightly hurt my hand.

At least you didn't slip on lava.

Hand Knit
Oct 24, 2005

Beer Loses more than a game Sunday ...
We lost our Captain, our Teammate, our Friend Kelly Calabro...
Rest in Peace my friend you will be greatly missed..

Pirate Jet posted:

I’m mostly confused by a film that indicts the police for their complacency and apathy of rape culture but also depends on them to be victorious at the end.

I feel like that part is deliberately unrealistic to the point of being fantastical. It's a 'wouldn't it be nice' that serves to underline just how much the legal system is part of the problem.

Uncle Boogeyman
Jul 22, 2007

I have not seen Promising Young Woman but it was described to me as a rape revenge film where instead of killing rapists she gives them a stern talking to, which sounded... weird. I have no idea if that’s accurate though.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer
I just don't think I see her as "righteous", though. She sociopathically attacks people that enabled rape culture because they were sympathetic towards the rapists and forces them into empathy with a victim, because it's righting injustices. So, it's very easy to side with Cassandra and say that she's justified, because we feel like she is, because while she's attacking individuals, she's really trying to take down the status quo of the systematic enabling of rape culture. Except she's still being a sociopath! She is trying to feed a hunger (of injustice) that can't be satiated, as shown by Molina.

As some popular reviews that condemned the film pointing out, there's no way for Cassandra to know what her friend would have wanted. Her friend's mom, who thinks of Cassandra as a daughter, wants Cassandra to live her life, because she can, and her daughter can't. So the real question, and why I put an asterisk next to "Righteous" or "Good", is because Cassandra is ultimately doing this for herself. While all her actions can be read as good for society, or good for women, or railing against the systematic abuse towards women that saturates our culture and forgives rapists, ultimately Cassandra seems to be doing this for herself, and to make her mark on a world she no longer has interest in being a part of.

I do think it's interesting that the movie gives us three men that we can like and then takes one away. Clancy Brown as Cassandra's father is warm and patient towards his daughter but unable to comprehend the depth of her grief and depression, Ryan the nice guy boyfriend who is revealed isn't so nice, and Alfred Molina's ex-cop that helped get rape charges dropped. Two of the three have pasts that can't be forgiven despite the good they do in the world; Ryan is "good" in his world view because he helps kids and seems genuine about that passion, and the ex-cop who by the end is using his connections to actually put away men that should have been punished a long time ago.

I root for Cassandra, and I find her character arc ultimately a sad one of self-destruction in the name of a positive higher cause, and I guess my point is that I think that is what's more important to the story than the various men in the story, since they're really a means to an end. There's a lot of room to infer that if she survived the confrontation with her friend's rapist(s), that she would have just continued to confront/kill men and not finally found solace. I don't think she could ever find solace, especially when she realized Ryan was complicit to the event that broke her and took away her friend.


Really good movie!


Hand Knit posted:

I feel like that part is deliberately unrealistic to the point of being fantastical. It's a 'wouldn't it be nice' that serves to underline just how much the legal system is part of the problem.

Pirate Jet posted:

I’m mostly confused by a film that indicts the police for their complacency and apathy of rape culture but also depends on them to be victorious at the end.

I think part of that is to emphasize a few things: the cop had a nervous breakdown after an epiphany that made him realize what he was doing was wrong. In the end, he uses his power as a police officer to actually do the right thing and bring rapists/murderers to justice. It's an optimistic idea that there is hope that the system can be abolished and that justice can happen. It feels fantastical in this climate, for sure, but I think it's a more interesting and grander statement to have the rapist not just murdered, but acknowledged by the system, his peers, and the people in power that were complicit to his crimes, that he is in fact a rapist and now a murderer. It's optimistic, but I think that I kinda like that more? We already have good examples of the other two sides of rape revenge films with Ms. 45 and The Nightingale, so I appreciate the not-as-cynical ending Promising Young Woman provides.

Uncle Boogeyman posted:

I have not seen Promising Young Woman but it was described to me as a rape revenge film where instead of killing rapists she gives them a stern talking to, which sounded... weird. I have no idea if that’s accurate though.

This is and isn't what happens. Like that describes the first 15 minutes or so.

Gripweed
Nov 8, 2018

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I've heard it described as a stone cold bummer.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Gripweed posted:

I've heard it described as a stone cold bummer.

It's not a happy movie, but I'd describe it as a subversive thriller with a lot of comedy that turns pitch-black by the end.

Hand Knit
Oct 24, 2005

Beer Loses more than a game Sunday ...
We lost our Captain, our Teammate, our Friend Kelly Calabro...
Rest in Peace my friend you will be greatly missed..
I genuinely didn't clock Cassandra as selfish. Rather, her character is defined by telling the truth (most specifically about Nina) but having nobody believe her. After all, her name is Cassandra. Consequently, she's not doing what she's doing for herself, rather she's doing what she's doing as a way of confronting people with the truth. On this read, then, the conversations that lead to the second act — Nina's mother and the cop — become not a source of character growth but rather delusion. They lead her away from righteousness and towards selfishness. But the selfishness ultimately comes apart because, in the end, rape culture is still ubiquitous and righteousness within rape culture — as represented by Ryan's embarrassed passivity in the video — is nothing but righteousness in complicity. This leads us to the third act where righteousness can only operate through confrontation.

CPL593H
Oct 28, 2009

I know what you did last summer, and frankly I am displeased.
So this might be the dumbest hot take I've ever heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAKS3rdYTpI

Proving once again that some artists should make their art and shut the gently caress up when they're not.

CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

Terry Gilliam can choke on my poo poo tbh

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink
I don't think that's really a hot take? Terry Gilliam is basically echoing Miriam Bratu Hansen from 1996:

"The first and obvious argument is that Schindler's List is and remains a Hollywood product. As such it is circumscribed by the economic and ideological tenets of the culture industry, with its unquestioned and supreme values of entertainment and spectacle; its fetishism of style and glamour; its penchant for superlatives and historicist grasp at any and all experience (the "ultimate statement on" or "the greatest Holocaust film ever made"); and its reifying, levelling, and trivializing effect on everything it touches. In this argument, Schindler's List is usually aligned with Spielberg's previous megaspectacles, especially Jurassic Park, and accused of having turned the Holocaust into a theme park." - Schindler's List Is Not Shoah

It's not at all an uncommon critique of the film.

Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Mar 25, 2021

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe
Spielberg himself felt an immense responsibility in taking on Schindler's List because I think he was aware of what his name attached to it would mean. It would become THE film about the Holocaust, and that's sort of an unfair burden to put on a filmmaker but it was a reality that he knew about going in. And it totally did happen, Schindler's List is the only movie any of my teachers ever wanted to show about the Holocaust, and to this day it's the first movie people tend to bring up about the subject.

To Spielberg's credit, he used the making and release of the film as a launching point for a lot of other Holocaust awareness stuff so I do think all in all it's a good thing that Schindler's List was made.

CPL593H
Oct 28, 2009

I know what you did last summer, and frankly I am displeased.
I just find it kind of weird that someone would describe the ending of that movie as happy. But Gilliam is famously an annoying edgelord.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

CPL593H posted:

I just find it kind of weird that someone would describe the ending of that movie as happy. But Gilliam is famously an annoying edgelord.

It's not happy but it is emotionally satisfying and provides a sort of closure to the story that you typically expect from a Hollywood film.

CPL593H
Oct 28, 2009

I know what you did last summer, and frankly I am displeased.

Basebf555 posted:

It's not happy but it is emotionally satisfying and provides a sort of closure to the story that you typically expect from a Hollywood film.

I get that much but he outright calls it a happy ending. I guess mainly I'm just tried of Terry Gilliam being a dickhead. I'm pretty sure he's also a terf.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe
Yea I mean I think I understand what he's referring to but at the same time I agree that Gilliam is not the guy I'd ever want on my side in a debate. He can't say anything without coming off as an arrogant prick.

Air Skwirl
May 13, 2007

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

CPL593H posted:

I get that much but he outright calls it a happy ending. I guess mainly I'm just tried of Terry Gilliam being a dickhead. I'm pretty sure he's also a terf.

Are you sure you aren't confusing with John Cleese, or him just saying something nice about John Cleese after Cleese said something terfy?

CPL593H
Oct 28, 2009

I know what you did last summer, and frankly I am displeased.

Skwirl posted:

Are you sure you aren't confusing with John Cleese, or him just saying something nice about John Cleese after Cleese said something terfy?

Nope: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/07/05/monty-pythons-terry-gilliam-im-a-black-transgender-lesbian/

He was on this dumb bullshit a few years before Cleese was standing up for JK Rowling.

Air Skwirl
May 13, 2007

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

CPL593H posted:

Nope: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/07/05/monty-pythons-terry-gilliam-im-a-black-transgender-lesbian/

He was on this dumb bullshit a few years before Cleese was standing up for JK Rowling.

Well poo poo.

LesterGroans
Jun 9, 2009

It's funny...

You were so scary at night.

CPL593H posted:

I get that much but he outright calls it a happy ending. I guess mainly I'm just tried of Terry Gilliam being a dickhead. I'm pretty sure he's also a terf.

Didn't Ellen Barkin call him out as a creep too? Like he tried to grope her in an elevator or something?

Simiain
Dec 13, 2005

"BAM! The ole fork in the eye!!"

Terry Gilliam posted:

I'd sure like a nice house like Steven Spielberg, ho-ho-ho-ho

Fucker has a net worth of 50 odd million.

CPL593H
Oct 28, 2009

I know what you did last summer, and frankly I am displeased.

LesterGroans posted:

Didn't Ellen Barkin call him out as a creep too? Like he tried to grope her in an elevator or something?

I haven't heard that but I wouldn't be shocked considering how he won't stop yelling about Me Too and how hard it is to be a white man in the entertainment industry.

Simiain posted:

Fucker has a net worth of 50 odd million.

Even aside from his comments on Schindler's List in that clip he's bashing Spielberg like he's some kind of hack who just makes pedestrian garbage that has no artistic value and even more so next to Kubrick. I can't help but wonder if there's some jealousy there especially since Kubrick and Spielberg knew each other and spoke often. And then of course there's the history behind AI.

Lurdiak
Feb 26, 2006

I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.


CPL593H posted:

Even aside from his comments on Schindler's List in that clip he's bashing Spielberg like he's some kind of hack who just makes pedestrian garbage that has no artistic value and even more so next to Kubrick. I can't help but wonder if there's some jealousy there especially since Kubrick and Spielberg knew each other and spoke often. And then of course there's the history behind AI.

That's not that uncommon an opinion for some older folks. Spielberg was very much seen as the Roland Emmerich of his day by a lot of movie snobs when he burst onto the scene. Most of us grew up in a world that had long accepted him as a genius film-maker (read: his movies made money), but to some olds he's still "that hack who made Jaws and Hook".

Terry Gilliam can still gently caress right off though.

Simiain
Dec 13, 2005

"BAM! The ole fork in the eye!!"

CPL593H posted:

I haven't heard that but I wouldn't be shocked considering how he won't stop yelling about Me Too and how hard it is to be a white man in the entertainment industry.


Even aside from his comments on Schindler's List in that clip he's bashing Spielberg like he's some kind of hack who just makes pedestrian garbage that has no artistic value and even more so next to Kubrick. I can't help but wonder if there's some jealousy there especially since Kubrick and Spielberg knew each other and spoke often. And then of course there's the history behind AI.

He's talking about Spielberg the same way that some acid-burnout would talk about the band mates who kicked him out of the band just before they 'sold out' and made it big. There is absolutely a healthy dose of jealousy at Spielberg's critical and financial success, and all Gilliam can do is whine condescendingly about what a hack Spielberg is. In reality neither of them are hacks, just a pair of boomers whose genius ended up being channelled by the different crowds they ended up in - Spielberg got to hang out with the cool kids like George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola and Stanley Kubrick while Gilliam ended up with the weird British toffs.

EDIT: I love Spielberg's movies, and I think its testament to his genius that we can talk of a set of tropes and styles that contribute to a 'spielbergian' resonance in movies - but I just made the mistake of googling how much money he has and its utterly depressing to me that he's apparently worth 3.7 billion loving dollars, maybe he is a loving hack after all.

Simiain fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Mar 25, 2021

Uncle Boogeyman
Jul 22, 2007

Kubrick also famously kinda poo poo on Schindler's List, which Spielberg is said to have been pretty upset about.

PeterCat
Apr 8, 2020

Believe women.

Terry Gilliam makes more interesting films than Spielberg, regardless of anything else.

Segue
May 23, 2007

I mean yeah they're completely different filmmakers. Spielberg makes entertainment which has its place as spectacle and awe and plain old fun but Gilliam is more a cerebral mood.

I still loved that Tintin movie in theatres.

TrixRabbi
Aug 20, 2010

Time for a little robot chauvinism!

I wish Kubrick was still alive for a number of reasons, but perhaps one of the nicest benefits would be people could stop using him as a cudgel to baselessly attack Spielberg (or justify their distaste).

So, look, the take that Schindler's List is too satisfactory in its conclusion and doesn't adequately capture the scope of devastation left by the Holocaust is a common complaint. I personally am a fan and find it to be an immensely moving film (in particular, the epilogue with the survivors putting stones on Schindler's grave and the note about how they have over 6,000 descendants among them -- 6,000 people who would never have been born if not for Schindler). I also don't think it's a bad thing to make a movie about the Holocaust that captures that element of it, if anything that epilogue makes me think more about how much was lost and how many people never were born because of the senseless murder.

Like, I think there's a place for Come and See and for Schindler's List. Rather, I think it's just an aversion to Spielberg and his particular populist, inspirational style being applied to the Holocaust is too much for them. I don't really mind the argument or stance so much as I just think they need to be more upfront and specific about their issues with the movie instead of falling back on that Kubrick quote.

So, for what its worth, that Kubrick quote as Gilliam mentions in the clip comes from the book Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick by Frederic Raphael, who co-wrote the Eyes Wide Shut screenplay with Kubrick. The book has been broadly criticized as self-serving and opportunistic. It was rushed out in the wake of his death and most of it is really about Raphael with Kubrick being teased out as the hook. Anyway, a lot of the controversy around it is people who knew Kubrick who just straight up think it's B.S., including Spielberg:

From 1999: https://variety.com/1999/voices/columns/kubrick-memoir-shocks-spielberg-1117503222/

quote:

Steven Spielberg is among those shocked by screenwriter Frederic Raphael’s description of Stanley Kubrick in his upcoming book, “Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick.” Spielberg reminds that he knew Kubrick far longer and better than Raphael (who gets second position to Kubrick on the screenplay of “Eyes”). “Stanley Kubrick, Self-hating Jew,” blared the N.Y. Post Wednesday on Rod Dreier’s story of Raphael and his book. Spielberg, after reading the piece, said, “I didn’t recognize the voice of Stanley in that article” which also said Kubrick trashed “Schindler’s List.” Spielberg had long (three-hour) telephone conversations regularly with Kubrick over the years and they confided in each other. And when Spielberg was in London he and Kubrick would always get together. His death was a tremendous to blow to Spielberg who flew over to attend his funeral … Further, the remarks of Raphael are in the hands of an attorney in London. And L.A. attorney Louis Blau, counselor and friend to Kubrick from 1958 until the day he died — he spoke to him that morning — says, “Raphael’s remarks about (Kubrick’s) anti-Semitism and the holocaust are beyond contempt. His relationship with his mother, father, sister and close friends belie that (anti-Semitic) remark. Kubrick believed the Holocaust was the greatest disaster in history.” Blau further says, “Stanley’s family, friends at WB and elsewhere in England and the United States are incensed over Raphael’s inaccurate, vicious and self-serving article in the June 14 New Yorker and subsequent remarks in the Post. One can only conclude Raphael’s recent actions are the result of his realization that he lacked the vision to recognize the universality of Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut.’ ”

So, make of it what you will.

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Uncle Boogeyman
Jul 22, 2007

For the record I wasn't mentioning the (possibly apocryphal) Kubrick complaint because I agree with it - I think Schindler's List is pretty good, and I've always found the common complaints about "why this movie, telling this Holocaust story?" to be kind of off base. There are lots of stories to be told about the Holocaust, and Schindler's is one worth telling.

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