On behalf of all clumsy people who lose their shit all the time, I am mega grateful for the actions of folks like Simmo.

Salut, Simmo!

Ekkssvvppllott wrote:I believe Edvard Munch is a very worthwhile cinematic experience. Having seen a fair number of films thus far, I feel entirely confident in calling it nothing less than exceptional.

It's also exceptional in its depiction of the act of painting, which is never very convincing in films (also in the scenes with the lithography). When you go and look at the paintings again you see how well matched they are to the film and the actors. I saw a portait of Hans Jaeger the other day and was struck by the movies accuracy. The costume and whole turn of the century Norwegian social milleu was painstakingly detailed. I thought Watkin's contemporary style did really well to reassert just how radical an artist Munch was. It's interesting that in the Bohemian circles, that Munch asscociated with, you see a burgeoning modern radicality, positive and negative, that overtakes even him. There are even shades of proto-fascism emerging in their thoughts and ideas.

Ekkssvvppllott wrote:I believe Edvard Munch is a very worthwhile cinematic experience. Having seen a fair number of films thus far, I feel entirely confident in calling it nothing less than exceptional.

Have you ever seen The Mirror by Andrei Tarkovsky? Well, it's one of his very best films, and yet, when I first saw it I was pretty nonplussed, not to mention considerably underwhelmed. Then, I watched it again, and it made a bit more sense. During the third pass I started to genuinely enjoy it, and the fourth time around everything fell into place all of a sudden and I could finally see it for the masterpiece that it is.

Munch is a lot less abstruse, so I'd say watch it one more time and see if that does the trick.

Weird. I had similar feelings about Mirror... I really love Andrei Rublev, but so far I have been reserved about Tarkovsky's other films. I know this is pretty much heresy, but I thought Solaris was awful, the rest of his work just so-so. I don't know, maybe i just can't watch movies.
I do remember that the person who played Munch in the movie looked eerily like the painter. EXACTLY like the painter.

Check out Stalker. It's probably my favorie by him, though Rublev is a strong contender. This movie he did in film school called The Steamroller and the Violin is often overlooked and I'd recommend that as well. It's closer to an "entertainment film" but still uncompromising, and the film stock and exposures look spectacular.

Ekkssvvppllott wrote:Check out Stalker. It's probably my favorie by him, though Rublev is a strong contender. This movie he did in film school called The Steamroller and the Violin is often overlooked and I'd recommend that as well. It's closer to an "entertainment film" but still uncompromising, and the film stock and exposures look spectacular.

Seen Stalker - again, thought it was interesting. I really like the actor who played Andrei Rublev, he was quite good in Stalker as well. I'll check out the Steamroller movie.

Cranius wrote:I saw a portait of Hans Jaeger the other day and was struck by the movie's accuracy.

Yeah, I saw that too. Quite the likeness.

It's also worth noting that Watkins' attention to detail in this film is vastly different from that of your average period piece--- a movie like, say, That Thing You Do, which has all the right props and sets and haircuts and whatnot, but none of the real substance of the era that it attempts to depict. There are many, many examples of such limp-dicked studio period pieces.

Edvard Munch is a triumph because, as you say, it captures the social milleu in which Munch existed, and you can see how it shaped him. But more importantly you can FEEL the exhilaration and uneasinesss of the time. (Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz is another great example of a film that does this.)

And yes, the act of him painting is pretty convincing. I also like how Watkins filmed some of the real paintings very closely so that you can see their texture. This is especially relevant here due to the fact that Munch's style was "three dimensional" what with him often "scratching" the paintings and applying multiple layers of paint.

The cover of my copy of Knut Hamsun's Mysteries has a nice Munch woodcut.

I am selling a drum machine on Craigs, some dude writes me saying he has 600 bucks worth of gift certificates for Subway. Will I take those instead of cash?

Please tell him you only accept cash and cans of Manwich as tender.

wtf.

itchy mcgoo wrote:Manwich as tender

Not bad, I'd probbaly check them out

itchy mcgoo wrote:Manwich as tender.

I would not go see this band.