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In Reply to: City of God posted by Victor Khomenko on May 22, 2005 at 17:06:32:
Yet another recent example of too much slickness and total lack of depth. The MO of trendy po-mo filmmakers, it seems. The film tackles an engaging subject, but ultimately has little to say about it, and intentionally or not glorifies the grisly violence.
Follow Ups:
glorified violence and the Mafia: the protagonist triumphs through murder, as did his father.
"Natural Born Killers" glorifies violence, using many directorial tricks to trivialize death and torture. Not the case with C of G, at all.
Movies change, technology is used in different ways, and jump cuts, hand-held, slow-mo, speeded up scenes, etc. necessarily don't dilute the impact. To me, the deaths of the characters in C of G were tragic, not heroic.
leading to it that's made to look glamourous. Of course the filmmakers are saying this is all horrible, but they can't stop themselves from simultaneously making it look hip and appealing. And apart from the film's portrayal of violence, it just isn't very good. The writing's pretty pedestrian.
How? Please remember that most of the dialog was spoken by children, who were generally uneducated. Should they have been quoting Shakespeare? Had they spoken more intelligent dialog I suspect your other complaint may have been "hardly realistic, children do not speak like that."
I had no particular problem with the dialogue, but rather with story's writing, which was anemic.
Well, I had to assume because you did not write what was pedestrian. And now "anemic." If not the dialog, then the "story's writing?" What exactly is that? I assume the dialog was written. So that would qualify. How was the writing anemic? Or the story? My understanding is that the story was based very closely upon the real life events. Should they have re-written the historial events to make it "non-anemic?" Again, what was "anemic" or pedestrian about the story? It was no more pedestrian than every John Wayne war and western film, every love story, and every sports story ever made. Please be specific so that there is something to respond to.
this film, if anything, sugar-coated a lot, in the interests of not being too shocking or unwatchable. Killing kids for organ-donations, child prostitution and lots of other common facts of favela life were not included.
This movie was based on a true story.
I am not sure what you mean by the film glorifies violence. Surely, showing and glorifying are two different things. The film clearly shows violence, but those that live by the sword end up dying by the sword. That the violence can be gruesome does not mean the film glorifies violence. Glorify means putting the violence is a positive light. After all, the root of the word is "glory." By showing those that live by violence also dying by violence is not to glorify violence. Rather, the clear message is that violence is ugly, and ultimately, leads nowhere but to the perpetrator's death. No glory there. Indeed, the main non-violent character survives, and leads a productive life. Contrast that with his violent friends. The violence is in service to the story, and an essential component. As essential to the story as the O.K. Corral was in Tombstone. Can you film Tombstone without the O.K. Corral? An example of glorified violence would be the by the numbers cop on the street film in which the criminal needlessly shoot bystanders, smashes up cars and city streets, then escaped to kill and maim another day.
Yes, and this is exactly what the filmmakers have done. They've made the violence cool and attractive, rather than horrible. The style of the undermines its message.
I am not sure we saw the same picture. I have seen many westerns. In my youth, and in my weaker moments as an adult, I have wanted to be Clint Eastwood. Free. No responsibility. And of course, being the fast draw and accurate shot. Killing the other guy before he kills you. And there is never a body to clean up. There is never any grieving mother, wives, or children. There is never any blood. Kill em' and move on.Can't say I wanted to be any of the characters in City of God. Can't say that I would have enjoyed growing up in a place like that. The former is a clear glorification of violence because there are no consequences, but because it happens in another time and place, we give it a pass.
What positive spin does City of God make on violence? What benefit does the film tell us that violence accomplishes? Who are the bad guys that are portrayed as good guys? I see City of God, and I see despair, and violent people getting their just rewards, and getting it rather unpleasantly, not merely a quick shot, then keel over. Hardly a sales pitch to join that fraternity.
Surely, you feel that it glorifies violence, you must have some scenes in mind, or what or how, specifically, it glorifies violence.
The violence is filmed in a seductive, attractive, hyper-stylized fashion that lends it an aura of hipness. The absurd, gigantic fight at the film's climax is a perfect example, as is the scene with the postal worker (I think he was a postal worker) giving the gang members they're come-uppance.The filmmakers surely intend to say the violence is nothing but tragic, but again, the stylized gloss they use to frame it simply obscures the point.
I must say that I saw through the "gloss." I liked the style, but it did not obscure the message, for me. One could argue that the message of anti-violence is lost if told in the same tried and true formulas of cinema past. Why go to see another film in a style that has been done to death. Hard to get the message when no one wants to see the film. See bad guy shoot. See bad guy get shot. The style, I think, is designed to upgrade the film for the modern audience. I have seen many James Cagney films, and am not sure that the style would play well here. Or even a seventies style. Perhaps the modern audience is still smart enough the get the message underlying the style.Certainly, I have not heard from groups whose job it is to protect us from ourselves complaining that the film was glorifying violence. The photography on an album cover does not change the music inside, for me. I suspect that the demographic for this film, and say, The Fast and the Furious, for whom style is everything, was a little different.
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