Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Victor Khomenko (M) on March 15, 2004 at 04:21:14

In Reply to: Re: The point of having no point posted by RGA on March 14, 2004 at 20:32:46:

I don't get it. You said there was no story... then you provided somethng that looked like a pretty substantial story to me - a far more a story than many the movies are based on - he-he... what's the foundation of the Lost in Translation, if you need the War and Peace size story in every film?... and then you said that was not story enough.

Like many other such stories, the Fellini's one was not too deep perhaps, but PERSONAL. To say it was irrelevant is to say Fellini himself is irrelevant, which is something someone here already said once. OK as a one person's opinion, not light enough to float.

Fellini is one of the pilars of the modern movie, and as such all his stories are relevant to the viewer.

However, all that is simply a response to your demand for something behind the beautiful acting and presentation - sort fo playing along with you, without agreeing. As I said, I don't *really* need a story - I watch the mastery of expressive means. There were tons of it in that film.

You avoided my analogy of the simple Chardin painting, apparently because you couldn't answer it properly. Does Chardin keep you riveted for 2 hours? It sure does me. Does it keep you coming back? It does that to me.

The world of art is full of the "pointless" works you seem so critical about. Most opera is based on something that would seem like a rather silly small story if taken all by itself. Much of classical music falls into the same category. Is it the theme that makes the Beethoven's 3rd a great symphony? Or his Pastoral one? By no means.

Fellini is a master painter. Like paintings by Corot or Hobbema some of his works might *seemingly* lack the plots, but his works are NOT "films about nothing" - far from it, they are films about people, to whom love and suffering are not really "nothing". So a story of a prostitute who lost her illusions might be "nothing" to you, to me it is a deep human tragedy, masterfully told.