NEWS: Hotel Chevalier is a Good Film

I'm sorry, but you haven't created a catch phrase there, and it's not very clever, no matter what you may think. Mainly because it doesn't make much sense.

A) Cut the shit with the ellipses. That's by far my biggest pet peeve of all time. Trying to make yourself mysterious in a discussion about a film's significance? Give me a break.

B) There is no emotion. None. They are deadpan. They have no vocal inflection, a constant vocal tone, and no facial expression. It's probably the point, to void the characters of emotion and make them distant. And that obviously doesn't succeed, considering here you are, trying to make them seem emotional when they're intentionally vapid in order to assign importance to Anderson that isn't there.

Apparently, you've never been to the theater, because theater actors intentionally exaggerate emotion so that people can see it. That's why when someone overacts we call it "theatrics." There's nothing theatrical about the film.

Also, postmodern is a very leigitimate term. But please provide evidence of it.

He wasn't quirky. He was boring. The entire point of a quirky character is to inject some excitement into an otherwise undeveloped personality. And I don't have any problem with his personality being undeveloped, since this is only a lead-in to a larger film. All the same, he was boring as hell. I don't give a shit about him.

i really don't like when discussions turn into personal assaults so i'll stop. (if you were offended by the jock zinger..it has a little face winking after it meaning that i was joking)

I'm sorry if use ellipses it allows me to pause and think as i type.

and, i guess i'll forget about ever going to the theater because i don't understand it or have never seen a play. i guess i might have misused the term "theatrical." I meant that the viewer should be aware that it is a stage or set and the actors are limited by the stage and their roles.

good bye..........and stop being so aggro...I'm sure you have great taste in postmodern films where the viewer is aware of the character being simply that: here's a quote by some dude:

"Postmodernist fiction is defined by its temporal disorder, its disregard of linear narrative, its mingling of fictional forms and its experiments with language." - Barry Lewis, Kazuo Ishiguro

"experiments with language" hmmmm, strange....

or this other dude:

"[postmodernism is] Weird for the sake of weird." Moe Szyslak, The Simpsons

oh, and i read a previous post of yours where you had said that you hated when people used the term quirky to describe a character..so i used it thinking you might recognize it as me being snotty...

and here's my catch phrase (warning: it might not be clever or memorable):

"Sublty Claaaaptastic!"

goodnight!

You can't simply take your fingers off the keyboard? Freud would have a field day.

Here, it's important to make the distinction between language and speech. How you say something and what you're saying are different. There's nothing abnormal or experientational about the language in the short. There's no temporal disorder. There's no mingling of fictional forms. There's nothing postmodern about the film. You didn't know what "postmodern" meant, you had to look it up, you just threw it out as a buzz word to try to sound knowledgeable about something of which you're not, and that's irritating as hell.

Jesus Christ, that's embarrassing to read.

...

I dislike this question because it reeks of the elitism that says "You can't possibly make a critical or intelligent statement about X artistic medium unless you are an artist in X artistic medium." But since you asked: Yes, I made many short films through four years of film school in various capacities. After that, I Executive Produced last year's Paris je t'aime, which featured short films by directors like the Coen Bros., Cuaron, Alexander Payne, Van Sant, etc. At the moment, I'm co-producing a documentary short 'Carissa' that is currently in post-production.

In any case, I don't believe that's any more relevant than your short filmmaking experience because I don't presume the entirety of filmmakers should share my own specific reasons for producing a short. Just as an example, beyond the reasons you listed, we are making 'Carissa' not just as an artistic endeavor (although it certainly is that) but also with hopes of enacting social change - opening dialogue about the failures of the American juvenile justice system and encouraging changes to public policy.

There are many more reasons why people make short movies, of course - to create a 'calling card film' for themselves, to create the kernel of an imagined longer project, etc. But to me, stating 'short films aren't really meant to be commercially successful.' is reminiscent of the hollow criticism that such and such band has "totally sold out" by virtue of the fact that they're actuallly making their music available to more than eight people.

You obviously disagree, but I find this a perfectly acceptable and refreshing approach. I think it's absolutely desirable an effect that while his characters feel specific to me, the treatment of their situations require that a viewer brings something of himself into his reading.

And you know what? He's not by any stretch of the imagination the first filmmaker to utilize this technique. Ozu did it, as did Carl Th. Dreyer. So does Kiarastami. What a bunch of hacks!

The impression you mention that he denies his actors any leeway to express emtion? That's exactly the technique the French master Robert Bresson used with his actors. From Roger Ebert's Great Movies essay on Pickpocket: "Bresson, one of the most thoughtful and philosophical of directors, was fearful of ``performances'' by his actors. He famously forced the star of ``A Man Escaped'' (1956) to repeat the same scene some 50 times, until it was stripped of all emotion and inflection. All Bresson wanted was physical movement. No emotion, no style, no striving for effect. What we see in the pickpocket's face is what we bring to it." Anderson is not Bresson in stylistic terms, not by a longshot, but in the sense of what he sometimes requires of a viewer he's not so different. Don't be so opposed to taking something from yourself and investing it into your reading of a film.

All that is nice, and at least you're knowledgeable, but Paris Je'Taime was a feature-length movie. It may have comprised of smaller shorts, but it was still a feature. Which is actually how I'd market short films, by putting them in a larger whole. The downside of this is that such movies wouldn't be very marketable, and Paris proved it, but it all depends on what you're looking for.

That's a good example, but one that doesn't pertain to Chevalier. And I guess my definition was a bit narrow, but I still feel the same about a short film like Hotel Chevalier. Just out of curiosity, how long is Carissa?

Wes Anderson has made himself incredibly "available, so that example is sort of moot. Short films are a good vehicle to fame for young unknowns, but Wes Anderson is neither, and he's still trying to use the medium as a vehicle to fame. It's weird, like I said.

I don't think that style works. In a visual medium, what we see drives what we think, not what we hear. And besides, it's impossible to completely suck performance out. You can suck emotion out, but you cannot suck performance out. So I think Bresson is fundamentally wrong. But at the very least he was a philosopher making a statement through experiment, whereas Anderson is a mainstream filmmaker trying to make a personal imprint on his characters to seem like he has more style than he does.

In the hands of any other director, sucking all the emotion out of a sexual and/or romantic encounter could really be a good device to use, and could make a fantastic statement out of a scene. But Anderson, try as he might, just succeeds in warping it. Partly because this is his style in general, and I know that there's nothing introspective or brilliant about its use in this particular situation. It's just like all his films.

I like that style in particular situations. But not in all situations. If I had never seen a Wes Anderson film, I would probably have liked Chevalier because I'd find its lack of emotion in the particular instance to be well-used. And as long as I'd never again see a Wes Anderson film, I'd still like Chevalier until I die. But because I've seen his films, and because I know he makes every one of them exactly like this, it cheapens the use of the style. Any originality or introspection that's generated by its use in a particular situation is sucked out by its use in every other scene in every other film. As soon as I'd see Lfe Aquatic, any revisiting I'd do to Chevalier would be essentially tainted by my realization that the style is not situational, it's just how Anderson plays all his characters out to make up for the fact that he can't really think of any other way to play them.

I just got around to watching it, and I enjoyed it. I did feel like Natalie Portman was playing Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot Tennenbaum, but that was only a little distracting.
It motivated me to get out and see Darjeeling Limited this weekend.

JohnHaverchuck said:
I just got around to watching it, and I enjoyed it. I did feel like Natalie Portman was playing Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot Tennenbaum,/QUOTE]

It seems like that to me too, even from her initial phone call.
But Margot Tennenbaum, with a bit more positive outlook on life?