Post by klep on Jul 11, 2016 7:11:24 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 7/11: Holy Motors
Holy Motors starts with director Leos Carax waking in the middle of the night, opening a secret door with a key grown from his finger, and walking into a movie theater balcony. "Here is a film," he seems to be telling us, daring us to forget the artifice in what we are about to watch. He is reminding us that what we see will be artifice, make-believe, and opening us to questioning the "reality" of what we see.
We then follow one Mr. Oscar - Oscar is Carax's true middle name - as he goes about his day. A day which consists of adopting different guises and playing different roles seemingly in the public square. He plays a beggar, a flower-munching lunatic, a motion-capture actor, and many more for no one's obvious benefit. But eventually we learn that he is playing these roles for cameras - ones we cannot see - as he is visited by a superior of some kind asking after his mental state. It is in this scene that I think we reach one of the cores of the film:
L'Homme à la tache de vin: What makes you carry on, Oscar?
Mr. Oscar: What made me start, the beauty of the act.
L'Homme à la tache de vin: Beauty? They say it's in the eye, the eye of the beholder.
Mr. Oscar: And if there's no more beholder?
Mr. Oscar is no longer certain anyone is watching him, because he cannot see the cameras anymore - he longs for the days when they were bigger than a man's head. He carries on with his art for its own sake, but he no longer is sure if anyone is watching, and wonders if his work still has merit. Such thoughts must have occurred to Carax himself as he spent 13 years between films - if he created anything in that time, no one saw it. Would it still be worth anything? Would it be beautiful?
Meanwhile Mr. Oscar goes about blurring the lines between reality and fiction. It becomes apparent that at least some of the people he interacts with are, loosely speaking, coworkers, but it's never entirely clear how many are playing parts and how many are an unwitting audience. Just when you think you're going to get an idea of who Mr. Oscar is and what is truth, Carax throws another curveball at you right up until the end... and then the other end, and then one more time for good measure.
So my question for you is this. After the murder, who gets back in the car?
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 7/18: The Godfather
Next week we'll be covering the first installment in Francis Ford Coppola's legendary trilogy. I'll be watching it for the first time, so I'm pretty excited to finally get to cross this one off my list. The Godfather is available for rent on Amazon Instant Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 7/12: Suspiria
Dario Argento's classic giallo starts off next week's podcast which pairs it with Nicholas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon. We'll have a day to discuss Suspiria on Wednesday. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be available on any streaming services currently.
Holy Motors starts with director Leos Carax waking in the middle of the night, opening a secret door with a key grown from his finger, and walking into a movie theater balcony. "Here is a film," he seems to be telling us, daring us to forget the artifice in what we are about to watch. He is reminding us that what we see will be artifice, make-believe, and opening us to questioning the "reality" of what we see.
We then follow one Mr. Oscar - Oscar is Carax's true middle name - as he goes about his day. A day which consists of adopting different guises and playing different roles seemingly in the public square. He plays a beggar, a flower-munching lunatic, a motion-capture actor, and many more for no one's obvious benefit. But eventually we learn that he is playing these roles for cameras - ones we cannot see - as he is visited by a superior of some kind asking after his mental state. It is in this scene that I think we reach one of the cores of the film:
L'Homme à la tache de vin: What makes you carry on, Oscar?
Mr. Oscar: What made me start, the beauty of the act.
L'Homme à la tache de vin: Beauty? They say it's in the eye, the eye of the beholder.
Mr. Oscar: And if there's no more beholder?
Mr. Oscar is no longer certain anyone is watching him, because he cannot see the cameras anymore - he longs for the days when they were bigger than a man's head. He carries on with his art for its own sake, but he no longer is sure if anyone is watching, and wonders if his work still has merit. Such thoughts must have occurred to Carax himself as he spent 13 years between films - if he created anything in that time, no one saw it. Would it still be worth anything? Would it be beautiful?
Meanwhile Mr. Oscar goes about blurring the lines between reality and fiction. It becomes apparent that at least some of the people he interacts with are, loosely speaking, coworkers, but it's never entirely clear how many are playing parts and how many are an unwitting audience. Just when you think you're going to get an idea of who Mr. Oscar is and what is truth, Carax throws another curveball at you right up until the end... and then the other end, and then one more time for good measure.
So my question for you is this. After the murder, who gets back in the car?
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 7/18: The Godfather
Next week we'll be covering the first installment in Francis Ford Coppola's legendary trilogy. I'll be watching it for the first time, so I'm pretty excited to finally get to cross this one off my list. The Godfather is available for rent on Amazon Instant Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 7/12: Suspiria
Dario Argento's classic giallo starts off next week's podcast which pairs it with Nicholas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon. We'll have a day to discuss Suspiria on Wednesday. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be available on any streaming services currently.