As an audience member, I occasionally enjoy being confused. If a film has a "non-linear" structure or information is obviously being withheld, I don't mind going along for the ride. I'm trusting the director to get me to the end of the film safely; you might say that I'm giving him two hours of my time in exchange for a thematically unified and logically coherent movie.
Sometimes (Babel), you get the suspicion halfway through that all the parts don't quite hang together the way they should. Or even if you're being entertained (Pulp Fiction), you know that the film really won't stay with you after it's over.
All this came to mind when I read David Denby's recent piece on non-linear films in The New Yorker followed by Jonathan Rosenbaum's examination of Denby's shifting views on Abbas Kiarostami. Denby seems to me to overrate Tarantino's command of style, and Rosenbaum argues for something more humanistic. I've got to see Taste of Cherry.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment