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Jake Gyllenhaal's Source Code: BUMP THREAD for Amanda's Bowie Info (2011)
Front-Ranger:
All this is really getting me psyched to see the movie!
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Ok, one more comment in re these other borrowings that make up the source code of Source Code:
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on April 01, 2011, 09:43:07 pm ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/source-code,1173314/critic-review.html
"...screenwriter Ben Ripley has filched from the best, delivering a taut, mostly well-crafted race against the clock that combines the time-loop conceit of 'Groundhog Day' and the postwar paranoia of 'The Manchurian Candidate.'"
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on March 31, 2011, 09:40:58 pm ---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/31/source-code-review
"Source Code is glitzy and hi-tech in a 21st-century way, but also has something from an earlier age: it is a story from the Twilight Zone, with hints of Philip K Dick, and traces of the television world of The Prisoner and The Fugitive. With its weird deployment of playing cards in one scene, Jones has channelled The Manchurian Candidate – perhaps specifically through Jonathan Demme 's Iraq-themed remake – and the overall effect is smart and to the point.
"In its own way, Source Code also aspires slightly to the status of comedy, and Colter's increasingly wan and desperate conversations with Goodwin from his mysterious pod reminded me a little of David Niven's radio conversations with Kim Hunter's June in A Matter of Life and Death – as he plummets to his certain death, Niven's character exploits his prerogative as a dying man to flirt with this radio operator...."
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on April 01, 2011, 12:25:15 am ---
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/our_picks/index.html?story=/ent/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/03/31/source_code
"...I suspect it will play well on repeat viewings despite (or possibly because of) its unsolvable plot koans. Gyllenhaal begins the movie playing Stevens as a clean, controlled, masculine Hitchcock-type hero, engaged in an individual struggle against the cruel machineries of God. By the end of "Source Code" he's become a different kind of hero, one who has stepped out of time for a moment and gotten a glimpse behind the curtain of existence, Ã la, I don't know, Dave Bowman in "2001: A Space Odyssey" or a Zen master or something. He has learned what we all already know but have trouble remembering, that all we ever have is right now: Someone spilling Coke on our shoe, a girl to kiss on a train, the sight and sound of geese taking off from water."
--- End quote ---
My final comment at present: I think Duncan must have seen Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun (1971).
Must.
delalluvia:
Movie was good. I guess compared to BBM, almost everything I see Jake in, I think Jake-Lite. ;D
Plothole and paradoxes, but enjoyable.
Brown Eyes:
I just saw it again this afternoon.
I think Jake's acting was really very good... Actually, I thought all the acting was good.
I also agree that there were plot-holes. Sci-fi is not one of my favorite movie genres because, it seems to me that in even the best and most iconic sci-fi films there are almost always plot-holes. The ideas often get so complex and nuanced that the plots get confused or mixed up along the way.
*perhaps some Spoilers ahead, so beware*
The extreme, almost overstated optimism of the ending was interesting to me. Duncan borrows so much from his Dad's symbolic world (which is extremely well-developed and nuanced after all these decades... Bowie almost has his own language of symbols that recur in his lyrics, performance and imagery). But, this very insistent optimism is something a bit different. And, good for Duncan for that.
The scene at the Glenbrook train station in the middle of the film still has me very shaken. Honestly, it's a very brave thing to confront the train subject at all, IMO. Certainly Duncan has taken on a huge family tragedy in not even close to subtle terms, and then blended it again with something like "Major Tom"-esque episodes (stuck in a capsule, etc.). Also, at some point during that scene someone literally yells something like "are you insane." Wow. There's clearly a lot, especially at the beginning of the film with Jake's profound confusion, seeming to think he's someone else, etc. that suggests a kind of mental instability or loss of control. But, it all seems to become so literal in that train station scene.
To have Jake act out almost exactly the scenario of Duncan's uncle's suicide in that one particular Glenbrook scene... is beyond remarkable. I can't imagine what Duncan would have had to go through emotionally to actively direct such a scene. And, beyond the train aspect, the clock tower at the train station seems to make the analogy with Terry even more pointed. I can't find a picture of that Glenbrook train station clock tower... but, it's something that really struck me today during my viewing.
Terry lived at a hospital called Cane Hill (which is now closed down). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_Hill And, the most famous architectural detail of that building was its clock tower. Bowie even featured a drawing of Cane Hill with its clock tower on the alternative version of the cover for the album The Man Who Sold the World, 1970 (this alternative cover was used when the official cover, showing David in a dress, was censored briefly. These days the drawing is usually used in interior cover art work in re-issues).
And, this is an old picture of Terry from before his illness really struck.
delalluvia:
SPOILERS SPOILERS SERIOUS SPOILERS SPOILERS
--- Quote ---The extreme, almost overstated optimism of the ending was interesting to me.
--- End quote ---
I thought the ending was the most "Hollywood-ized" part. Obviously, the movie was not supposed to have a happy ending, hence the captain's closure to parts of his life and the countdown to the cut-off of life support. The whole ending looks like something tacked on because some focus group preview audience somewhere didn't like the original downer ending. This 'happier' ending IMO weakens the entire movie by introducing the paradox. i.e. did he just hijack poor Sean's body? What happened to the teacher? The teacher is the guy Christina fell for. It makes it kinda creepy that you could be just living your life somewhere then someone else takes over your body.
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