User:TPoole/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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The fight scene gave Mailer “a whole new conception of his movie.” He believed that his filmmaking process had created a “presence” that outlived the conclusion his original storyline and what had only seemed to be the end of the shoot. It was an event that took ''Maidstone'' closer to the “possible real nature of film” (Mailer, “A Course” 238).

And perhaps closer to real the nature of the filmmaking process. After all, those eight tense minutes between Mailer/Kingsley and Rip/Rey include six

edits. Something is there for us to see, whatever it is and whatever it depicts,

but something has been left out as well, removed from our view.

After ''Nixon'', Oliver Stone largely eschewed his work with mixed media and vertical editing, opting instead to return tomore traditional Hollywood

filmmaking in films like ''UTurn'' (1997) and ''Any Given Sunda''y (1999). Stone’s

choice was as inevitable as it was regrettable. Mailer did the same after ''Maidstone''. His only other directorial effort came in ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' (1987) with Ryan O’Neal and Isabella Rossellini. To employ the much overused phrase, the film represents another side of the Mailer coin. And, as a big budget film featuring star performers, it represents the obverse side of that coin. It does not employ direct cinema and does not attempt to convey fiction through any kind of documentary filmform. In appearance, it aesthetically smacks similar to many typical Hollywood films of 1987, including Oliver Stone’s ''Wall Street''.

One brand of film history would tell us that this approach is a bad idea,

at least if a director hopes to be dubbed an auteur. John Huston, notably

overlooked by adherents to auteur orthodoxy, once remarked that he could

find no more similarity between his films than he could between his wives:

they all seemed different to him. Likewise, Tough Guys Don’t Dance bears little

resemblance to Mailer’s earlier films.

Critics have not generally been kind.Mailer’s complicated tale of lust of

murder combines with a style of direction that pushed the actors to a level

of heightened exaggeration. In some ways, Tough Guys Don’t Dance could fit

within David Lynch’s canon, but in his hands it still would have been more

restrained. Perhaps there is a subtle intrusion of film history, as Tough Guys

also smacks similar to a number of exploitation films of the sixties and seventies,

such as those directed by RussMeyer.However,Meyer’s world never

featured storylines as complicated as Mailer’s.

DoesMailer push things to the edge, or does he (and his actors) fall over

the cliff and explode in the canyon below? Viewers will differ on this point,

as well as on whether careening off the cinematic road is necessarily a bad

thing. At any rate, such a conversation drifts into the realm of opinion, and

opinions should not conceal the kind of important experimentation at work

in Tough Guys.

@@ Line 196: / Line 196: @@
 The fight scene gave Mailer “a whole new conception of his movie.” He believed that his filmmaking process had created a “presence” that outlived the conclusion his original storyline and what had only seemed to be the end of the shoot. It was an event that took ''Maidstone'' closer to the “possible real nature of film” (Mailer, “A Course” 238).
+And perhaps closer to real the nature of the filmmaking process. After all, those eight tense minutes between Mailer/Kingsley and Rip/Rey include six
+edits. Something is there for us to see, whatever it is and whatever it depicts,
+but something has been left out as well, removed from our view.
+After ''Nixon'', Oliver Stone largely eschewed his work with mixed media and vertical editing, opting instead to return tomore traditional Hollywood
+filmmaking in films like ''UTurn'' (1997) and ''Any Given Sunda''y (1999). Stone’s
+choice was as inevitable as it was regrettable. Mailer did the same after ''Maidstone''. His only other directorial effort came in ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' (1987) with Ryan O’Neal and Isabella Rossellini. To employ the much overused phrase, the film represents another side of the Mailer coin. And, as a big budget film featuring star performers, it represents the obverse side of that coin. It does not employ direct cinema and does not attempt to convey fiction through any kind of documentary filmform. In appearance, it aesthetically smacks similar to many typical Hollywood films of 1987, including Oliver Stone’s ''Wall Street''.
+One brand of film history would tell us that this approach is a bad idea,
+at least if a director hopes to be dubbed an auteur. John Huston, notably
+overlooked by adherents to auteur orthodoxy, once remarked that he could
+find no more similarity between his films than he could between his wives:
+they all seemed different to him. Likewise, Tough Guys Don’t Dance bears little
+resemblance to Mailer’s earlier films.
+Critics have not generally been kind.Mailer’s complicated tale of lust of
+murder combines with a style of direction that pushed the actors to a level
+of heightened exaggeration. In some ways, Tough Guys Don’t Dance could fit
+within David Lynch’s canon, but in his hands it still would have been more
+restrained. Perhaps there is a subtle intrusion of film history, as Tough Guys
+also smacks similar to a number of exploitation films of the sixties and seventies,
+such as those directed by RussMeyer.However,Meyer’s world never
+featured storylines as complicated as Mailer’s.
+DoesMailer push things to the edge, or does he (and his actors) fall over
+the cliff and explode in the canyon below? Viewers will differ on this point,
+as well as on whether careening off the cinematic road is necessarily a bad
+thing. At any rate, such a conversation drifts into the realm of opinion, and
+opinions should not conceal the kind of important experimentation at work
+in Tough Guys.