Yeah it’s definitely not. While the narrative Plays with time we don’t see a whole lot of playing around with the perspective, let alone the reliability of different perspectives based on the characters. He’s just not there yet as a director. He certainly was inspired by Rashomon however. Sterling Hayden confirms that in interviews.
At the risk of inviting an absolute Qt3 nerd-implosion in a Kubrick-fest thread, I’ll state that I actually prefer Blade Runner with the narration. It kind of increases the Marlowe/Hammett/Noir effect for me.
Well the library is still closed since the smoke is still incredibly thick. Glad I went ahead and reserved next weeks movie too.
I’ll loop back around once we get some rain that clears the air some.
I’ve heard others who feel the same way. I certainly don’t think it’s disastrous.
Yeah I think it works for me in a way that it doesn’t in this film because it’s first person narration by the protagonist. In a science-fiction film it adds to and accentuates the Noir homage aspects of it
Citizen Kane time-jumps all over the map without voiceover, and it’s not confusing. Great care is taken, however, to present the frames around the various sections.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to say I prefer Blade Runner with the VO, I certainly don’t think it ruins the film. Honestly there are so many damn cuts of that film now that I don’t even know what I like. I just know the opening shots are amazing and it’s cool when Rutger Hauer talks about attack ships on fire.
True, but you are guided vis a vis chronology via the interviewees (or the diary of his guardian). And sometimes they provide voice-over.
Keeps things sorted.
Yes, as soon as I heard the VO, I thought of how archaic and heavy-handed a disembodied narrator sounds compared to a character’s voice.
Sometimes it works nicely in limited quantities, e.g. the opening of Fellowship of the Ring (IMO).
Also, I have no problem with the omniscient 3rd person narrator in The Age of Innocence.
I love how Kubrick uses first-person narration in Clockwork Orange, which gives a good deal of perspective into the warped way Alex sees himself, and the very dry omniscient VO in Barry Lyndon made me laugh so many times, especially after a certain rendezvous.
Oh yeah, Barry Lyndon is definitely another case of a third-person omniscient narration in a movie working well.
Yeah, and that 3rd Party VO has a definite perspective. And is cuttingly witty in a subtle way. And is marvelously voiced by Michael Horndon.
Hey hey, my library is open again and I am picking up my copy tomorrow.
Got awfully quiet though, what about the third film?
Gonna post today - I took a week off from heavy internet-ing.writing due to my hand/arm thingee.
Most excellent. And yeah, take care of that arm, getting RSI would suck.
It’s actually a stinger, funnily. Its the arm position that hurts.
So I have finally been able to watch this. Some scattered thoughts as I watch.
The VO definitely puts this in a very specific place and time. Very, for lack of better comparison due to my age, Dragnet-esque. The tone, flow, word choice all have that very distinctly 40s-early 60’s police procedural feel. It moves you from feeling like watching events unfold as the occur, to rather seeing the story laid out after the fact. As if the narrator himself already knows the outcome, and is laying the pieces together one at a time, like Sherlock or Columbo explaining the crime to the local constable.
There is definitely a more confident hand at shot direction. Early on there is one shot I really like, when you first meet Johnny you get a multi room pan, where you can tell the objects and scene is carefully constructed to give clear view and centered shot on the actor as he talks, while at the same time objects flow across the screen giving the sense of an actual room. It is a small touch, many movies or shows have omitted the plants, chairs, and other items out of focus partially obscuring the foreground. But careful selection and placement gives the room a more physical sense of presence.
Ah the girlfriend, I can see a few ways for her to play into the story. She might either fade out completely, only to be referenced in passing, she could be the indirect cause of whatever Johnny is scheming to fail, she could be shown at the meeting place at the end, waiting for her man who never shows. In any case I am calling it, whatever Johnny is planning goes very wrong for him. The dialogue was too clearly setting the stakes for him to fail at, and I don’t think this very clearly noir story has a happy ending in mind for him.
So the bartender is a major player, lets see where he goes. Same for the person at the window.
That dialogue exchange between the window man and his wife, already the sense of dialogue and direction. Like much of the movie, it may be dated, but it crackles at times. Sharp, cutting, and double entendres. Already 15 minutes in and I find more to like than the entire run of Fear and Desire.
More to come…EDIT: tomorrow. between dinner and getting kids in bed I didn’t have time to finish tonight.
So I was wrong. Yes, she disappears and only shows up at the end of the movie, waiting at the airport for her man. But he shows up.
However it is the other female cast member, the window mans wife, who causes things to fail. So right trope, right idea for the ending, wrong person picked (because she hadn’t appeared yet when I wrote that).
Sterling Hayden is fantastic. He has the right presence, tone, and appearance for the role. His ending line ‘what does it matter’ is delivered exactly how it should be. There wasn’t what I would call a lot of ‘great’ acting performances in this movie, really. The window man in particular has this perpetual deer in headlights overacting that is a bit too much. But the rest of the cast are decent to good. However what they all do is perfectly capture that hyper reality noir tone. From a plot and character perspective it fits fairly by the numbers. You can see where each character fits into the story, there isn’t a lot of surprises or breaks from what you expect. There is a slight non linear flow that may have been challenging or innovative in its day, but is quite common today. But somehow I suspect audiences in 1956 would have been completely thrown by a plot structure like what we see in Oceans 11.
Perhaps I am wrong though, this movie predates even my parents. And though I watch older films with some frequency, I still don’t watch that many movies. So my knowledge of cinema from this era is pretty limited in scope to select classics. So what I perceive as a perhaps innovative take on plot structure and linearity may have actually been pretty common.
Likewise some of the shots. At a few points we see some POV shots, like one using keys. They are very rare, but present. However the movie, being generally third person omniscient and with a narrator, never really commits to the idea of putting you in the headspace of a character. I think a more modern take on this film might either excise these elements or really lean into them, and removing the third person omniscient aspect. None of this is to say those shots were bad. Like many things in the film Kubrick uses a fairly dynamic camera. For such a budget limited production, there is a lot of careful attention to detail and shots that allow things to feel very fluid. These first person shots are an example of that. They kind of stand out, in that they don’t really fit the framing of the movie, but they do demonstrate a filmmaker who understands how to use the camera.
My overall take is this is a very good film, if one that is a bit limited due to era and genre conventions. The story and characters may be fairly stock and predictable, but they are integrated well into a cohesive and well written story. And even within that fairly trope heavy frame it finds places to be creative and innovative it feels. The craft is particularly evident in shot selection, framing, and lighting which are all executed very well. At the end of the day there is something to be said about simply executing something well. And the scriptwriter and director both nailed the execution.
I give short shrift to Jim Thompson, whom IMDB credits with dialogue, because this is the Kubrick-fest. But suffice to say I feel his contributions to this film are every bit as important as those of Kubrick himself, the dialogue is that sharp.
Now to go back and see what others said.
Arm is ready; Kubrick-fest 03 is coming soon,
Yeah as that scene came on it was definitely one of those things that was deliberate. In some ways I wish they had gone a different route to achieve the same ends, since it almost is the lazy way to deal with such an issue for a setting in the 50’s. However it was also something that both removed sympathy for the character doing it (which makes his shortly after outcome feel more justified), as well as the direct cause of his downfall as it causes the recipient to drop a Checkov’s Gun with immediate payback. Had he perhaps gone a more subtle and polished method to achieve his goal of removing the guard from his presence, then the guard would not have had the reason to throw the horseshoe that destroyed the tire.
And in the film it fits well. Because everything was meticulously planned, and pulled off according to plan. But a few slips of the tongue derail everything. A careless word causes mayhem. So not only is it a deliberate and measured use, it is thematically and narratively appropriate. He chose his words poorly, and it cost him everything.