Why the need?

I found Dogtooth to be one of the most thought provoking pieces of media I've saw in recent memory. It deals with complex issues by allowing the viewer to use their own nuance and intellect to construct the reasons why characters behave the way they do and why scenes play out in seemingly strange ways. There's so much character development already established pre-scene which the film drip-feeds the viewer in realistic ways also mirroring the characters childlike personalities. It's disturbing and hilarious. The Lobster is up next, looking forward to it.

Maybe I'll give Dogtooth another shake. I've been wrong before

It's fine: I mean ms. d didn't like it at all. Mainly due to the awkward and cringey sex scenes amid the every girl looking like a man in drag gender confusion.

what does the killing of property (how white folks treat their slaves and how pimps treat their prostitutes) have to do with the scene in question where the little brown men must defer as if a god walked in?

The prostitute isn't Doc Holliday's property. He isn't her pimp. They're a couple. Her suffering and eventual death affect him. Yes the moving aside of the Mexican in the tavern, if looked at in isolation, seems racist, but there are numerous other scenes in that film where other people, white people, "must defer to him as if a god walked in."

Beyond that I suggest you take this argument up with someone else because, frankly, i'm not that interested in it.

the argument is a legitimate one and you can’t win it by disconnect though.

if he was spewing nonsense i understand walking away, but he makes good points.

besides, ford did have a funny way of portraying hispanic women too.

im looking for a youtube (can’t find one) of that ridiculousness with the girl with the castanettes in the searchers. wtf is that about lmao.


again, i acknowledge the flaw and forgive the artist, but how can one pretend that shit is not there?

I'm not interested in winning anything. I'm not denying there's a racist element to My Darling Clementine or pretty much any Western made then - and even to some degree now. It's hardly a revelation, and I like to think there are more interesting things to talk about than something I think anyone with even a fleeting interest in the genre would consider pretty obvious. I'm not disconnecting out of denial, just boredom.

yeah... and i get much more bored of racism getting a pass everywhere because “that’s just how it was/is and who has time”

there are are a lot of people interested in the genre precisely because it shows that kind of world where they would be most comfortable owning it all and not having to worry about minorities. just look at the youtube comments and you’ll see.

we would like to think that we live in a postracial world but clearly that’s not the case.

and so to pretend that it doesn’t matter is a huge disconnect from what cultural materials mean to the culture.

as for winning, i mean i thought you were trying to prove a point in opposition to rob’s denunciations.

there is a way in which his complaints matter but we don’t just get caught up in them as the only dimension of a film. but turning away from them does not accomplish that. it just lets them sit there at the tip of the fork...

it’s kinda like dysfunctional families who sit down at the christmas table pretending that all is well and there never was any abuse or fuckups and give each other fake smiles and refuse any “uncomfortable” talk while reenacting the same old drunken brutalities.

i don’t know if “american society”

did you ever watch the dogme 95 flick “festen”? best birthday party ever hahahaha

it was danish? vinterberg i think?

anyway it’s not about “scratching wounds.”

it’s... therapy!

gotta hash it out to move past it

—

eta: thomas vinterberg, the celebration

—

and yeah it’s curently a bit of an intifada

needs to be dealt like this:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/m...acism-history/

A few pages ago I made what I thought was a pretty good point about Halloween II and how it reminded me more of Argento than it did Carpenter. And yet it's a slasher film and slasher films are generally recognised as being very misogynistic. If I'd posted instead to say hey, look at how this slasher film degrades women I wouldn't expect much of a reply, not because nobody here has an issue with misogyny but because I'd be stating the obvious. All I've been saying all along is that MDC is a great film. That doesn't stop it being racist (although I have to say, by Western standards, its racism is really very mild) nor do I think it stops it being not just an exceptional Western but an exceptional film. Showing me examples of its racism. I know those scenes. I could even point to ones in it you haven't mentioned. But we could find those scenes and far worse in every Western from that era. So what interests me isn't what makes MDC like every other Western but what makes it stand out. It's interesting to me that TheDom and I have both said it's our favourite film. Why that? Why not Liberty Valance or Shane or The Unforgiven?

i’ve started on a negroni for the evening and i dont wanna fight so lemme say: before the next course your french waiter comes over and scrapes the bread crumbs off the table.

scrape the goddamn breadcrumbs! the meal will be more enjoyable than pretending theykre not there.

i am not a maoist nor about to become one. but shit needs to be dealt with to get to the good parts.

ok... if i find the darling clementine i will go throgh it with a flea comb for you

but wait... is this the one with the drunken indian? haaaa haaaa haaaaa haaaaaaaa

the drunken indian...

alright, later, good night

Mama mia!

I wrote a long post and lost it. Fuck!

Condensed form: My intent wasn't to be flippant or neglect and negate the racist stereotypes (they're there - I don't see anyone trying to deny it) but to highlight other nuances that I believe to be in the film(s) and why they resonate with me. Other then that I don't have much to argue.

"it’s... therapy!

gotta hash it out to move past it" - I hear ya and am with ya on that. I'm definitely not impervious to the stereotypes. My love of the film is not a co-sign on the racism.

Idk - my other response was better but I don't feel like recreating it and I think this one has been combed over. Hope you enjoyed that Negroni!

I liked this one a lot and it is surprisingly very funny. I agree that it is a pretty accurate depiction of dating but I'm not really sure how much I can get down with its nihilism. But I do appreciate it showing how hallow the pressure to find someone can be. Is loneliness so terrible in the face of absurd social norms? Lanthimos is by far my favorite filmmaker around right now and I see him taking from Bresson's playbook a lot but just getting rid of Bresson's moments of grace.

It's strange to me that you can love The Lobster but hate Dogtooth. What did you not like about Dogtooth?

My issue with some of the points made here is that they really refer to Hollywood conventions at that time: be it the "Mammy" character in Gone With the Wind or Rita Hayworth (real name Margarita Carmen Cansino) being forced by her studio to have cosmetic surgery so she'd look less Spanish. The subject matter of the Western obviously made it more visible but essentially a film like MDC was applying the same attitudes towards race that Hollywood applied to all its pictures, Westerns or otherwise. And I maintain it was actually applying them far less rigorously than most Westerns at that time.

yeah man i am not singling out ford for the firing squad. although i read that people like charles burnett have?.

one of the problems i had with academia during grad school and getting a career there was that criticism has become all about fault-finding and ideological witch hunts. they go to the other extreme—there’s no beauty, there’s no art, there’s only politics, and everyone is guilty, or will eventually be found guilty.

some of that has permeated into popular culture these days. “everyone is terrible” etc etc. but in popular culture it’s worse because it’s not just the idea that is bad, it’s the person, wholesale, that suddenly becomes “trash”.

i am not about that. i forgive the artists. everyone has their limitations, whether their limitations are personal or an issue of their time.

what’s your take on casavettes? genius? mysogynyst? alcoholic? messiah?

hahahaha, le tigre. maybe he was all that. sure he had his problems, but i love his movies.

i can even appreciate the art and contributions of the nazi propagandist leni riefenstahl (she claimed she wasn’t, i call bullshit), although her outright nazism is repugnant and military parades have always put me to sleep.

all art is problematic. and that’s okay with me. i can handle the problems without tossing it to the trash bin.

but the thing is, a lot of this goes by unnoticed by most people. it’s not obvious, and can’t be skipped, and should not be the whole extent of the discussion... but needs discussin’.



yep. i love rereading hemingway and man he had some issues lol.

negroni was tasteeeeeeeeeee

Exactly. Linda Darnell's casting was problematic but positively enlightened when you compare it with say Mickey Rooney's Mr Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's. And yet Blake Edwards is rarely called out for that or branded a Right Winger while it seems impossible to even mention Ford's name without it coming up - even though he was considered a Left Wing filmmaker up till the war when, from what I can gather, his service in the navy saw him register as a Republican. But certainly no Right Wing ideologue - he opposed McCarthy and showed regret at his own treatment of Indians in his earlier films and by America generally.

"I've killed more Indians than Custer, Beecher and Chivington put together ... . Let's face it, we've treated them very badly- it's a blot on our shield; we've cheated and robbed, killed, murdered, massacred and everything else, but they kill one white man and, God, out come the troops."

His pro-military beliefs during the Vietnam era saw him eventually endorse Nixon and the image of Ford as a Right Winger was set, even though his career was largely over by then.

hahaha i was laughing earlier remembering my shock the first time i saw the much vaunted breakfast at tiffany’s lololol. it was like a ww2 propaganda cartoon well past the war. disgraceful. but maybe nobody called blake edwards anything because he wasn’t so important? anyway...

did not know about ford supporting nixon. funny that the guy who made grapes of wrath would be pegged as a right winger. but people change, political definitions of lefts and rights change... who knows. hey, even what is a democrat and what is a republican has changed in the last century or two...

in any case i wasn’t going by biography but by the “text” itself. that drunken indian opening lmao (sounds like a chess opening). unlike breakfast at tiffany’s there is a bigger meaning than the cartoon though—“wild indians” must be removed for civilization to proceed. OUCH. i know a lot of people who still to this day live with the trauma. but anyway...

speaking of biography, i suppose spending so much time here must have been an eye opener. familiarity tends to remove stereotypical blinders. people are people everywhere.i understand the navajo community where he worked “adopted” him or something? i have never known the details of that, but that’s the story.