Archive for the ‘film’ Category
“Kill Your Darlings”
William Faulkner’s famous phrase “kill your darlings” was on display in last night’s episode of Downton Abbey, the latest British phenomenon to cross the Atlantic to wide acclaim. Faulkner (and those who attributed the quote to him and repeated it, including Stephen King) insisted that authors must be ruthless with their characters. Authors should be [...]
In: film, nineteenth-century novel, servants · Tagged with: 19th century literature, Crawley, Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes, William Faulkner, writing
Could Be
Meek’s Cutoff begins demurely. Three wagons, and several oxen, horses, and people forge a river, the women carrying baskets on their heads to keep them dry. They move without speaking or interacting with each other — or with us. The camera presents them quietly. We don’t know who they are, where they are, or where they [...]
In: film · Tagged with: Bruce Greenwood, Kelly Reichardt, Meek's Cutoff, Michelle Williams, Oregon trail, Western films
It’s a Metaphor
My students are writing their first papers of the semester now and struggling with Mark Doty’s essay “Souls on Ice,” in which Doty describes metaphors as “containers” for emotion, or tangible vessels for intangible ideas. This definition functions much like metaphors themselves: making the complex simpler, if not simple. Baseball, of course, is a game [...]
In: contemporary, film, photography · Tagged with: Bennett Miller, Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Mark Doty, metaphors, Michael Lewis, Moneyball, postaweek2011
Eden, Texas
I enjoyed The Tree of Life (2011) more than the people I saw it with. I agreed with them that Terrence Malick’s latest film, which won the Cannes d’Or, didn’t succeed in fully integrating its parts. The beginning and ending were surreal or abstract representations of cosmic states, whereas the middle was a relatively realistic portrayal [...]
In: childhood, contemporary, film, pastoral · Tagged with: Eden, postaweek2011, Terrence Malick, Tree of Life
Waaaay Beautiful
The title of Peter Weir’s last film, The Way Back (2010), is misleading. It suggests that the extraordinary journey of a handful of escaped prisoners from Siberia to India is all about returning home to something. And “way” is a wishy washy noun that is easily confused here with its jocular adjective: WAAAAY back! It’s unfortunate. The [...]
In: contemporary, endings, film, landscape, photography · Tagged with: Peter Weir, postaweek2011, The Way Back