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CLOUD ATLAS: Lana Wachowsky & Tom Tykwer & Andy Wachowsky: OCT 26

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Front-Ranger:
Congratulations to the Wachowskys and Tykwer for the Golden Globe nomination for Best Score!

Front-Ranger:

--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on November 17, 2012, 06:01:17 pm ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnossiennes_(Satie)

Gnossiennes (Satie)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Gnossienne" is the name given to several piano pieces by the French composer Erik Satie in the late 19th century.


Characteristics

Satie's coining of the word "gnossienne" was one of the rare occasions when a composer used a new term to indicate a new "type" of composition. Satie had and would use many novel names for his compositions ("vexations", "croquis et agaceries" and so on). "Ogive," for example, had been the name of an architectural element until Satie used it as the name for a composition, the Ogives.  "Gnossienne," however, was a word that did not exist before Satie used it as a title for a composition. The word appears to be derived from "gnosis"; Satie was involved in gnostic sects and movements at the time that he began to compose the Gnossiennes. However, some published versions claim that the word derives from Cretan "knossos" or "gnossus" and link the Gnossiennes to Theseus, Ariadne and the Minotaur myth. Several archeological sites relating to that theme were famously excavated around the time that Satie composed the Gnossiennes.

The Gnossiennes were composed by Satie in the decade following the composition of the Trois Sarabandes  (1887) and the Trois Gymnopédies  (1888). Like these Sarabandes and Gymnopédies, the Gnossiennes are often considered dances. It is not certain that this qualification comes from Satie himself – the sarabande and the Gymnopaedia were at least historically known as dances.

The musical vocabulary of the Gnossiennes is a continuation of that of the Gymnopédies  (a development that had started with the 1886 Ogives → Sarabandes → Gymnopédies → Gnossiennes ) later leading to more harmonic experimentation in compositions like the Danses Gothiques.  These series of compositions are all at the core of Satie's characteristic 19th century style, and in this sense differ from his early salon compositions (like the 1885 "Waltz" compositions published in 1887), his turn-of-the-century cabaret compositions (like the Je te Veux  Waltz), and his post-Schola Cantorum piano solo compositions, starting with the Préludes flasques in 1912.
(and etc.)


--- End quote ---

This should have been included in the infographic Emotions For Which There is no word in English.

Front-Ranger:
Wow, I thought this would be sure to get some Oscar nominations, for Best Makeup if nothing else. What happened?  :-\

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 11, 2013, 06:55:22 pm ---Wow, I thought this would be sure to get some Oscar nominations, for Best Makeup if nothing else. What happened?  :-\

--- End quote ---

You're not alone!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/01/11/oscars_nominations_2013_the_true_true_snub_is_cloud_atlas.html


Slate
This Year’s Real Oscars Snub? Cloud Atlas.
By Chris Wade
Posted Friday, Jan. 11, 2013, at 11:12 AM ET

Following the announcement of the 2013 Academy Award nominations yesterday morning, Oscars pundits rushed to round up the year’s biggest snubs. Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow wasn’t nominated for Best Director. Neither were predicted nominees Ben Affleck and Tom Hooper. Matthew McConaughey wasn’t honored for giving the performance of his career in Magic Mike. But no one is talking about what I think is this year’s biggest omission: Cloud Atlas got screwed.

What makes this especially frustrating is that no one, not even the people who financed the film or those who put it in theaters, appears to be fighting for this movie, which is easily one of the most ambitious and arguably one of the most cinematic films of the year. At this point it seems to exist purely in some fever dream; it was unceremoniously shuffled in and out of cineplexes by an apparently embarrassed distributor dealing with one of the year’s biggest box office flops. It was largely derided by critics who, save for some notable exceptions, seemed unwilling to engage with this mesmerizing film, at best finding it a goofily endearing “big weird mess,” as Slate’s own Dan Kois argued in our Spoiler Special.

Though it is impractical-bordering-on-impossible to summarize the plot, the film weaves together six stories across 500 years, elliptically connecting them through themes of bondage, freedom, passion, and jealousy. It features a diverse collection of characters played across race and gender by Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, and others, often so heavily transformed by makeup it’s hard to tell who’s who. It asks how our actions resonate across time, and many segments transition through clever thematic juxtapositions that seek to comment on the cyclical nature of human suffering and joy. If it sounds heady, it is—and also thrilling, romantic, frustrating, funny, enigmatic, and, most of all, sincere.

That sincerity is, as I argued with regard to the Wachowskis’ previous work, one of the things that turns people off most about this movie. The three directors adapted David Mitchell’s incredibly elaborate novel with an earnest dedication to its questions. That those questsions are not then answered might be easy to interpret as artistic failure.

It’s true that the Oscars often ignore the most artistically challenging films. The Master was only nominated in the acting categories; Holy Motors was shut out altogether. There’s an irony in seeing the Academy celebrate the dreamlike power of the movies at every one of their ceremonies and then pass over the films that actually draw on that power most brilliantly. But it’s particularly disappointing when they ignore directors, like the Wachowskis, who do so in the language of Hollywood, with Oscar-friendly stars and terrific action sequences along with heartfelt emotional storylines. What I suspect is unforgivably missing, as far as the Academy is concerned, is the thematic hand-holding that will make sure every audience member knows “what it all means.”

If there’s one thing the Academy hates, it’s mystery. Films that underline every emotional payoff and moral truth get recognition, but movies that indulge at all in the weird and the sublime get snubbed, even when they have Oscar pedigrees, even when they try to do everything the Academy otherwise celebrates. It makes Oscar Nominations Day a frustrating affair every year. But clearly I’m just one little Old Un, yibberin’ and yarnin’, sivvyin’ for the true true.

Shakesthecoffecan:
Yes, they certainly have been snubbed, but then again it is the "Academy" so they should take that as a badge of honor.

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