Random Thoughts — Page 49

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100818/od_afp/lifestyleuschildrenoffbeat

*sigh*

xhonzi said: 

The other one is just about Nazis!

that is not how I would describe Schindler's List. 

Most young Americans entering university this year can't write in cursive, think email is too slow, that Beethoven's a dog and Michelangelo a computer virus, according to an annual list compiled by two academics at a US college.

oh good god. : (

I thought Schindler's List was all about Spielberg not getting a single 'Oscar' for The Color Purple.

wrong again.

xhonzi said:

The commentator was enraged!  One movie was a beautiful love poem to life, its meaning, its sometimes lack of meaning, and what it means to be human!  The other one is just about Nazis!

That is indeed very funny, and this is coming from someone who gets easily offended by Nazi jokes.

I do need to watch The Color Purple.

Bingowings said:

I thought Schindler's List was all about Spielberg not getting a single 'Oscar' for The Color Purple.

care to go into some detail about how you think its about that?

You don't see any connection between Spielberg getting 11 nominations and not a single prize and his choice to make a film about the holocaust with as near as possible to an up-beat ending for his next dip into 'serious' cinema?

The general consensus about Spielberg back then was he was the master of the blockbuster (juvenile/family centred films) but as well crafted as the film was (hence the nominations) it was too sentimental (in the Spielberg idiom) it took 'safe' liberties with the source material and he was too light weight to deal with the Racial, Historical and Gender issues of the book.

He then adapted a text about the Holocaust, as a Jewish film maker no-one dare question his qualifications to make a film on that subject but by picking that story he could keep within his idiom and successfully break into more experimental (for himself) areas of style and subject.

Naturally he swept the board at the Oscars (to snub him twice would be political suicide for the Academy).

Bingowings said:

You don't see any connection between Spielberg getting 11 nominations and not a single prize and his choice to make a film about the holocaust with as near as possible to an up-beat ending for his next dip into 'serious' cinema?

1. if you don't think Schindler's List is serious cinema, I don't know what to tell you.

2. There could well be a connection and could well be why he decided to make that movie, but that doesn't mean that that is what the film itself is about. 

Qualify point 1 and who else would have made Schindler's Ark into Schindler's List?

It's an important film for Spielberg and may have been the point of entry for a generation of people who may not have yet engaged with that period of history but the film is as much about the film maker as it was about that first hideous moment when industrial mechanisation turned murder into a conveyor belt concern.

Bingowings said:

Qualify point 1 and who else would have made Schindler's Ark into Schindler's List?

ok:

Bingowings said:

 for his next dip into 'serious' cinema?

the way you said 'serious' seemed imply that you did not think Schindler's List was serious cinema.

Bingowings said:

It's an important film for Spielberg and may have been the point of entry for a generation of people who may not have yet engaged with that period of history but the film is as much about the film maker as it was about that first hideous moment when industrial mechanisation turned murder into a conveyor belt concern.

1. I never got the idea that Schindler's List was about Spielberg

2.  when you say "that first hideous moment when industrial mechanisation turned murder into a conveyor belt concern."  are referring to Schindler's List or the holocaust?

Bingowings said:

Qualify point 1 and who else would have made Schindler's Ark into Schindler's List?

are you saying you have a problem with the change in name?

are you saying Schindler's List wasn't accurate to the book?

Jedi Temple34 said:

 

I think those times in WWII where deeply depressing and the film and short documentaries images are burnt into my memory it was atrocious how one man can be panicked by a people who couldn’t care less about him would want them, all executed from existence is sheer murder anyway you slice it.

huh?   perhaps proper grammar would make this post easier to understand. 

Jedi Temple34 said:

 

Hitler chose the easy way out otherwise he and his family would be hanging out to dry like his buddy Mussolini. There are some shocking videos on youtube too sickening to watch, but that his how Hitler would have ended up.

 

 

this I understand precisely and agree with.  Hitler would have undoubtedly been executed if he had be caught alive.  If you ask me, it would have been a well deserved execution.

deleted.

deleted.

Jedi Temple34 said:]Sometimes they just go too far, deviating away from article historical facts or even the science physics. Like in "Apollo 13" (1995) “the clock is running”.   

it is my understanding that Apollo 13 is rather accurate.

See what happens when you complain about too many joke pictures?  You get a serious discussion...

...in the random thoughts thread!

[ice cream picture]

Any specific area of confusion or am I generally being generally inarticulate?

I ask only to direct any further responses.

The Holocaust is a very complex subject, layered with understandable emotional and political implications, it's effect will ripple down through future history for centuries to come (if humanity makes it that far) in ways that similar horrors will not.

Spielberg does what he does well better than anyone else (when he is on form).

As pieces of cinema Jaws, CE3K, Raiders, ET, are up there with the rest of the greats, any of those four films deserved to get as many nominations as The Color Purple (which is far from his best film but at least as good though different as Schindler's List) and much more in the way of awards.

The Academy has always treated popular/popularist cinema as a bit of a joke LOTR was clearly an exception to prove the rule.

The Oscars have always been more about politics (see it's that word again) than actual artistic merit.

There was a genuine sense of outrage about how The Color Purple was treated by the Academy as it was seen not only as a chance to pat Spielberg on the back for that film but as a back-door route for rewarding him for all he had done before.

To get 11 nominations and not one award was seen not only as a snub but a very pointed one and it would be a while before he would attempt to break away from the blockbuster arena again.

When he did he chose another bestseller, Schindler's Ark and while the final film does break ground for Spielberg (even if one of it most memorable sequences was lifted frame by frame from Zastiha ne noc) it have much more melodrama than the book (I don't object to the name change even if it was done for the most insanely stupid of reasons) and as a picture of that particular black mark on history it's shamefully simplistic.

It did however win Spielberg seven Oscars and yes it made money which went to a very good cause but sadly for many people it's the only view of the Holocaust they are going to see and it's ending is open to a certain political reading (intended or not) which has a rather unfortunate effect on people of the region today.

Personally I'd make viewing of the nine hours of Shoah (1985) mandatory in all schools throughout the world rather than encouraging people to watch Spielberg's film a few times.

There you get the real horror of ordinary people being forced to face up to their part in this sadly not unique moment of human evil.

No symbols, no ambiguities, no melodrama just the plain unvarnished banality of how low we can go and you can apply that to everywhere and everytime.