And we're supposed to "accept" this shit? Um...no.
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.
Topic: Resurrecting the Movies thread... (Read 1214666 times)