[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

Metaphor is words used to stand for something else, and I just am very specific and literal minded when it comes to words/language. (why I hate magical realism, blech). symbols are visual. They are open-ended, and change depending on the viewer.

I love The Old Man & The Sea for the gripping tale it is, for the spare language, for the insight intgo the motivations of an old fisherman fighting one last great fight, but I could give a flying fuck about the metaphors that every literary review tries to imply are evident in the tale...



The movie was very good looking, and skillfully directed, but I found the "story" to be light, basic, and unnecessarily padded/long.

right, old man and the sea is very straightforward and has mainly one character-- with the boy being a sort of accessory to the plot. and a single "idea" behind it, the struggle-to-the-death. kill in order to live sort of thing. very straightforward.

mud has lots of characters and layers and it's really two main themes. one is the epic scale of changing river life making its mark upon individuals (hence, not navel gazer, cuz epic is the opposite). the other is the inadequate teenage notion of romantic love (in this case, potential navel-gazing, but the boy wakes up).

if you like literature then mark twain is one of the purported sources here. tom/huck/the river/the fugitive/etc

btw if you liked old man and the sea it looks to me that you might really like "all is lost". i haven't seen it yet but was recommended to me by a friend and it looks right up your alley. one of the main features as i recall described to me is no words spoken in it. so maybe check it out.