The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Resurrecting the Movies thread...
milomorris:
Julie Maroh, 'Blue Is The Warmest Color' Author, Slams Film's Lesbian Sex Scenes As 'Ridiculous'
"...this is all that it brings to my mind: a brutal and surgical display, exuberant and cold, of so-called lesbian sex, which turned into porn..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/29/julie-maroh-blue-warmest-color-slammed_n_3348678.html
And we're supposed to "accept" this shit? Um...no.
serious crayons:
A response to how the American ratings board and/or audiences may or may not receive a film is perfectly on topic for a film thread. So is one's subjective opinion regarding that anticipated response.
Drones are definitely off topic, though a quick one-off crack for the sake of imagined humor (and/or exhibition of hawkish patriotism) is acceptable here and there.
It's when the conversation devolves into, "Well so what, our drones can kill your lesbian films!" "Can not!" "Can so!" etc. that the topic derails.
Monika:
--- Quote from: milomorris on May 30, 2013, 11:08:36 pm ---No, you're missing your point. Your comment was yet another expression of your disdain for Americans. Drones have to plenty to do with people who don't like America.
--- End quote ---
There is no law about having to love the US.
I love being unpatriotic myself
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: milomorris on May 30, 2013, 11:54:14 pm ---And we're supposed to "accept" this shit? Um...no.
--- End quote ---
Where to start with this?
Um ... no, you-plural, whoever it is you're referring to (which, let's hope, given previous comments on this thread, is not "Americans" as a group) you need not "accept" anything. It's a free country.
For those who are considering whether to "accept" it, the opinion of the author of the book on which the film is based is fairly irrelevant. There's a history, going back to D.W. Griffith probably, of writers disapproving of the films made from their books. Sometimes critics and audiences agree, sometimes not. The fact is, a book and a film are two different pieces of art, which should be judged independently of each other. The writer's opinion obviously merits more publicity than that of any random filmgoer, but doesn't necessarily carry more weight.
Example: If Annie Proulx had disliked the sex scenes in Brokeback Mountain -- and it's not inconceivable that she would have, because some are fairly different from what she wrote -- I wouldn't love the movie any less. (To bring the parallel even closer, I have seen gay men on this site say they found Tent Scene 2 unrealistic, and straight women who react to it sort of the way Maroh complains straight men react to the sex scenes in Blue. If Proulx were a gay man who complained about the staging, does that automatically mean "we" shouldn't "accept" the film?)
Regarding the artistic merit of a film I haven't seen, if I am weighing two opinions and one is from an author I've never heard of and the other is from Steven Spielberg, I'll go with Spielberg in a second. I don't like all of his films, but I love some of them. He is a master of the craft.
Throw in the rest of the jury and the audience at Cannes, composed of film-industry professionals and sophisticated film enthusiasts, the majority of whom reportedly liked the film, and you've at least convinced me to view the author's reaction with skepticism.
Still, does the author make a good point when she complains that the sexual orientation of the viewers determined their reactions to the sex scenes, and that those reactions were not what the filmmakers intended? Possibly.
On the other hand, while much has been made about the film's long and graphic sex scenes, I can't imagine they're the entire basis for its receiving a Palme d'Or. If so, expect to see some easy Palmes d'Ors scored in coming years. Filming a graphic sex scene isn't nearly as difficult as making a great film.
Nor does Maroh say anywhere in that HuffPo article that she disliked film as a whole. She just talks about disliking the staging of the sex scenes. She may regard the rest of the film, for all we know, as a masterpiece.
None of this -- whether the sex scenes achieve their storytelling goal or are just prurient and/or ridiculous, whether the author likes the film or not -- has anything to do with whether "we" should "accept" the film, if by "accept" you mean, going back to the previous discussion, screen it in theaters here without edits.
I can't help wondering why you, Milo, are so reflexively attacking the film. If it's because Gil praised it and then used it as the basis for an anti-American remark, then the quality of the film itself in this discussion seems a McGuffin.
milomorris:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on May 31, 2013, 09:51:31 am ---I can't help wondering why you, Milo, are so reflexively attacking the film. If it's because Gil praised it and then used it as the basis for an anti-American remark, then the quality of the film itself in this discussion seems a McGuffin.
--- End quote ---
Then let me put your "wonder" to rest.
The quality of the film is not a point of my discussion. The content is. The author of the opus on which the film is based has evaluated the sex scenes as pornographic. Gil, FrontRanger, and Lord knows who else have assumed that Americans will treat the film "unfavorably" before any action has even been taken by the MPAA. That is plain old prejudice on their part.
Honestly, I really don't care about the film one way or another. What I care about is the fact that people here at Bettermost seem to think its OK to be bigoted against Americans.
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