Kirk Douglas Is The (Old) Man
When All Is Said And Done...
...the only question weighing on my mind at the end of the break is: why does it seem easier to hear my iPod coming home on the bus than when travelling to uni on it? Yes, I can turn it up REALLY loud and drown the bus out but when I get off at the end it SOUNDS REALLY EXCESSIVELY LOUD and I realise I've probably been damaging my ears. But then, going home, I can have it on a volume that while waiting at the bus stop sounds normal and not too loud, AND which doesn't have to be adjusted to hear the music when on the bus on the way back home.
To summarise, because those sentences were messy and confusing:
Morning = Waiting for bus, volume is at x. On the bus, volume must be turned up from x for music to be heard.
Afternoon = Waiting for bus, volume is at y. y "seems" as though it is as loud as x. On the bus, volume can stay at y and I can hear it fine.
I think maybe it's like how you can turn the TV on first thing in the morning and listen to it at the minimum non-silent volume and hear it, whereas later in the day after hearing all sorts of louder sounds you can't hear it well at all when (and this is where my theory is pure speculation) your ears have maybe adjusted to take in things at a louder volume? That could be bull, but it fits in with the summary above. The volume of the bus is constant. That volume is loud enough to drown out volume x. But later in the day, in order to hear the music at the same perceived loudness as I do at volume x in the morning, I must turn the music's volume up to "y", a much louder setting (although it is not perceivably louder) and a volume which is able to drown out the sound of the bus. In the morning, volume y would seem way too loud, leaving me with a lower volume of music which is then drowned out by the bus. Mystery solved?
Damn it, I knew these holidays wouldn't be a break from thinking :(
Editing
Went back for the first time in... who knows how many weeks, and edited together all the footage I've uploaded for my ambiguously titled short My Eyes Were Clearer On Sunday. I still need to find something I can delete in order to upload the rest of the footage though. It's been fun so far. It would be more fun if I'd ended the day with an opinion on the likely finished product which wasn't "this will be awful." Oh well. Like I said, it's fun, I'll get that and a few lessons out of the experience. I just won't get a good movie. Something to work towards.
Paths Of Glory
This is the best movie I've seen since Coppola's incredible The Conversation. It's a film which paints a picture of absurdity in the midst of the second world war as three scape-goat soldiers are made examples of and court-marshalled for retreating in alleged cowardice when a division of the French army fails to fulfill unrealistic orders from a bafoon of a commanding officer.
Oh, did I mention that this film was by Stanley Kubrick? Kubrick is a genius and this is demonstrated here in his overall success in shaping a film that looks and feels much like a(n extremeley competently handled) Hollywood movie of the era but which goes entirely against the grain of typical Hollywood war and drama films in the way that it plays out and in what it accomplishes. It's a "non-Hollywood" kind of movie that, unlike most contemporary examples, doesn't try to be artsy-fartsy and/or experimental. It's a mainstream film that breaks free from mainstream constraints through some genuine ingenuity on Kubrick's part. He does such small things to great effect.
One thing I'll mention as being particularly impressive is Kubrick's portrayal of lines of soldiers falling like flies (in the least dramatised of representations you'll ever see, because Kubrick doesn't NEED that melodrama so many directors rely on in some attempt to manipulate emotion: he just needs to tell a strong story and you react because of that) while attempting to advance in the middle of bombings and gunfire towards an elusive German target. Forget all the Saving Private Ryan-esque bullshit showing all the established lovable characters helping each other and pushing each other to keep going and breaking down mid-battle to have their whingey personal crises: what Kubrick does, in not treating the scene at that individual-solider-level but rather detaching from individuals and giving us a horrific picture through the numbers that keep falling and the way in which each death is treated as just another and as something typical and disturbingly "normal" because of context, is FAR more effective. He paints a big picture over the whole scene and keeps his distance, and I was just watching it and thinking about how cinema has declined from days when they made movies like this that didn't need to rely on all that stupid over-dramatised bullshit that every war movie today is full of.
Paths Of Glory is a film that doesn't force anything. It doesn't feel the need to. And as testament to this, Kubrick tells his story in a brisk 84 minutes.
It gets an A or 5 out of 5. Superb movie, and easily one of Kubrick's best. I'd rate it higher than his other (more blatant) madness-of-war flick, Full Metal Jacket, and might even go so far as to say it's his second or third best effort (behind 2001, and at least on par with Dr. Strangelove).
Need I say this? SEE IT. NOW.
Oh and Kirk Douglas is in this movie, hence his being mentioned in the post title.
Edit: I just found out that this movie received zero Oscar nominations. I post this as a reminder that the Oscars are shit.
...the only question weighing on my mind at the end of the break is: why does it seem easier to hear my iPod coming home on the bus than when travelling to uni on it? Yes, I can turn it up REALLY loud and drown the bus out but when I get off at the end it SOUNDS REALLY EXCESSIVELY LOUD and I realise I've probably been damaging my ears. But then, going home, I can have it on a volume that while waiting at the bus stop sounds normal and not too loud, AND which doesn't have to be adjusted to hear the music when on the bus on the way back home.
To summarise, because those sentences were messy and confusing:
Morning = Waiting for bus, volume is at x. On the bus, volume must be turned up from x for music to be heard.
Afternoon = Waiting for bus, volume is at y. y "seems" as though it is as loud as x. On the bus, volume can stay at y and I can hear it fine.
I think maybe it's like how you can turn the TV on first thing in the morning and listen to it at the minimum non-silent volume and hear it, whereas later in the day after hearing all sorts of louder sounds you can't hear it well at all when (and this is where my theory is pure speculation) your ears have maybe adjusted to take in things at a louder volume? That could be bull, but it fits in with the summary above. The volume of the bus is constant. That volume is loud enough to drown out volume x. But later in the day, in order to hear the music at the same perceived loudness as I do at volume x in the morning, I must turn the music's volume up to "y", a much louder setting (although it is not perceivably louder) and a volume which is able to drown out the sound of the bus. In the morning, volume y would seem way too loud, leaving me with a lower volume of music which is then drowned out by the bus. Mystery solved?
Damn it, I knew these holidays wouldn't be a break from thinking :(
Editing
Went back for the first time in... who knows how many weeks, and edited together all the footage I've uploaded for my ambiguously titled short My Eyes Were Clearer On Sunday. I still need to find something I can delete in order to upload the rest of the footage though. It's been fun so far. It would be more fun if I'd ended the day with an opinion on the likely finished product which wasn't "this will be awful." Oh well. Like I said, it's fun, I'll get that and a few lessons out of the experience. I just won't get a good movie. Something to work towards.
Paths Of Glory
This is the best movie I've seen since Coppola's incredible The Conversation. It's a film which paints a picture of absurdity in the midst of the second world war as three scape-goat soldiers are made examples of and court-marshalled for retreating in alleged cowardice when a division of the French army fails to fulfill unrealistic orders from a bafoon of a commanding officer.
Oh, did I mention that this film was by Stanley Kubrick? Kubrick is a genius and this is demonstrated here in his overall success in shaping a film that looks and feels much like a(n extremeley competently handled) Hollywood movie of the era but which goes entirely against the grain of typical Hollywood war and drama films in the way that it plays out and in what it accomplishes. It's a "non-Hollywood" kind of movie that, unlike most contemporary examples, doesn't try to be artsy-fartsy and/or experimental. It's a mainstream film that breaks free from mainstream constraints through some genuine ingenuity on Kubrick's part. He does such small things to great effect.
One thing I'll mention as being particularly impressive is Kubrick's portrayal of lines of soldiers falling like flies (in the least dramatised of representations you'll ever see, because Kubrick doesn't NEED that melodrama so many directors rely on in some attempt to manipulate emotion: he just needs to tell a strong story and you react because of that) while attempting to advance in the middle of bombings and gunfire towards an elusive German target. Forget all the Saving Private Ryan-esque bullshit showing all the established lovable characters helping each other and pushing each other to keep going and breaking down mid-battle to have their whingey personal crises: what Kubrick does, in not treating the scene at that individual-solider-level but rather detaching from individuals and giving us a horrific picture through the numbers that keep falling and the way in which each death is treated as just another and as something typical and disturbingly "normal" because of context, is FAR more effective. He paints a big picture over the whole scene and keeps his distance, and I was just watching it and thinking about how cinema has declined from days when they made movies like this that didn't need to rely on all that stupid over-dramatised bullshit that every war movie today is full of.
Paths Of Glory is a film that doesn't force anything. It doesn't feel the need to. And as testament to this, Kubrick tells his story in a brisk 84 minutes.
It gets an A or 5 out of 5. Superb movie, and easily one of Kubrick's best. I'd rate it higher than his other (more blatant) madness-of-war flick, Full Metal Jacket, and might even go so far as to say it's his second or third best effort (behind 2001, and at least on par with Dr. Strangelove).
Need I say this? SEE IT. NOW.
Oh and Kirk Douglas is in this movie, hence his being mentioned in the post title.
Edit: I just found out that this movie received zero Oscar nominations. I post this as a reminder that the Oscars are shit.
posted by Steve @ 9:19 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home