Premier Rock Forum

Dougal666 wrote: Thu Apr 13, 2023 12:20 pm

losthighway wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 3:20 pm

Dougal666 wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 3:02 pm Lynn Shelton's My Effortless Brilliance (2008) was Mouchette-level torment, the epitome of the we-have-no-script-and-are-making-up-crap-as-we-go-along jeanre.

Lynne Shelton was working with improvised acting so making it up as they went along was kind of the concept. It's a feature, not a bug. But whether the feature works to the films advantage is obviously in the eye of the viewer. I've never seen My Effortless Brilliance, but I thought Sword of Trust was decent.

Yeah, I know that's what she was doing... and improvised acting is a feature which 99% of the time (for any director) ends up in disaster.
That's what I mean by "lazy filmmaking", like Altman not using a storyboard (which shows).

Yeah, it could be a way to avoid stressful work and narrative responsibility shielded by "that's just what happened in the moment". This leads to a whole interesting conversation about artistic intention, effort and happy accidents that I don't currently have the brain power to tee up but you probably know where I'm going.

More on topic: Altman. I need to explore him more. I wonder if he's influential to this set of filmmakers we're exploring. His layered dialogue always seemed to take some adjustment for me to follow, but I didn't know he was anti storyboard.

tallchris wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 11:28 pm Just caught up with this last night and it might be one of the biggest bummer films ever made, but maybe it hits even harder as a dog person.

Yes. that film is a real downer. It's a good little low-budget film to sad yourself out with though.

I haven't kept up with her later work but I thought Old Gold was just great. So small, simple and understated, exploring emotional territory that I think most people of a certain age could relate to but which is rarely ever touched on in films. Her early work is exceptional, I figure her later work is probably exceptional too but I haven't been one for watching films much lately.

I think I only ever saw the dog and girl movie and it was boring crap, and I never thought to try again.