Film Awards Talk - 2018

[baby doll]

I can't remember it ever being addressed. Since she didn't update her accent, I assumed Alma was from the same place as Krieps: Luxembourg. It wasn't ever identified, I guess, because it didn't really matter. I'm not convinced that Persona is especially a thing here.

Perhaps not but Rebecca certainly is a thing here, so I believe my larger point stands.

[Kirby Avondale]

Perhaps not but Rebecca certainly is a thing here, so I believe my larger point stands.

I don't feel its pull so much. I get the allusions and all that, but they added more flavor than content for me. I don't see them filling in some hole where dialogue expositing character history is supposed to go or anything, and I'm not convinced we need much more of the latter. We get Alma through Alma, learning about her through her actions, how she pictures herself, what her expectations and delusions are, what she's willing to stomach, where she's willing to go. Anderson doesn't seem as fascinated with a person's history than with in-the-moment illuminations of character, suggestive idiosyncrasies and weird co-dependencies. It's easy to toss some line in where Alma says she fled her home country to escape an abusive father (Gotcha! says our inner Freuds), but not so easy to take a relationship that strains credibility at the level of description and make it feel organic and strangely tenable in action. Pretty good case of show besting tell in that respect.

[Milky Joe]

I can't remember it ever being addressed. Since she didn't update her accent, I assumed Alma was from the same place as Krieps: Luxembourg. It wasn't ever identified, I guess, because it didn't really matter. I'm not convinced that Persona is especially a thing here.

The issue of Alma's backstory is addressed by PTA in this very interesting discussion with Alan Parker, somewhere towards the end.

[Kirby Avondale]

The issue of Alma's backstory is addressed by PTA in this very interesting discussion with Alan Parker, somewhere towards the end.

Nice. Thanks for that.

[baby doll]

I don't feel its pull so much. I get the allusions and all that, but they added more flavor than content for me. I don't see them filling in some hole where dialogue expositing character history is supposed to go or anything, and I'm not convinced we need much more of the latter. We get Alma through Alma, learning about her through her actions, how she pictures herself, what her expectations and delusions are, what she's willing to stomach, where she's willing to go. Anderson doesn't seem as fascinated with a person's history than with in-the-moment illuminations of character, suggestive idiosyncrasies and weird co-dependencies. It's easy to toss some line in where Alma says she fled her home country to escape an abusive father (Gotcha! says our inner Freuds), but not so easy to take a relationship that strains credibility at the level of description and make it feel organic and strangely tenable in action. Pretty good case of show besting tell in that respect.

I'm not asking for reams of expository dialogue accounting for every moment of the characters' lives preceding the film's opening scene; rather, it seems to me that the film relies on cinephile references to justify the characters' in-the-moment behaviour in the absence of any internal motivation. Thus, the characters are never anything more than the sum of their various traits, which often seem arbitrarily glued on.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I posted this in the film thread, but I suspected Alma as a name was meant to evoke Alma Hitchcock, Alfred's wife. I mean, Hitchcock/Woodcock. And all the Hitch connections.

Obviously that would never be a substitute for character clarity and development.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kirby Avondale]

I'm not asking for reams of expository dialogue accounting for every moment of the characters' lives preceding the film's opening scene;

I didn't figure. I doubted even the necessity of a line. In his interview with Parker, Anderson said he had some dialogue mentioning her wartime experience but ultimately felt it redundant when set against the performance. I share his sensibility on this point. I'm good with her reaction to talk of Jewish visas followed-up by a subsequent stripping of the drunken heiress. I think that gave me a better feel for her than a quick memory or (I dunno) a spin-off comic-book that flashes us back to her childhood.

rather, it seems to me that the film relies on cinephile references to justify the characters' in-the-moment behaviour in the absence of any internal motivation. Thus, the characters are never anything more than the sum of their various traits, which often seem arbitrarily glued on.

I'm just not particularly eat up with the movie references and they played little in my experience of the characters. As for them being an arbitrary assemblage of traits, I didn't get that impression obviously. Not sure which ones you consider spatchcocked onto them.

[baby doll]

I'm just not particularly eat up with the movie references and they played little in my experience of the characters. As for them being an arbitrary assemblage of traits, I didn't get that impression obviously. Not sure which ones you consider spatchcocked onto them.

All the stuff with the ghost, for a start, which seems to have been grafted on to Woodcock's character simply to remind us of the story about Daniel Day-Lewis supposedly seeing the ghost of his own father during a performance of Hamlet.

[Lazlo]

All the stuff with the ghost, for a start, which seems to have been grafted on to Woodcock's character simply to remind us of the story about Daniel Day-Lewis supposedly seeing the ghost of his own father during a performance of Hamlet.

You bring this us as though it's a universal piece of knowledge. Thanks for enlightening us, but the percentage of moviegoers who hit upon that connection is probably whatever percentage you personally represent.

[Kirby Avondale]

All the stuff with the ghost, for a start, which seems to have been grafted on to Woodcock's character simply to remind us of the story about Daniel Day-Lewis supposedly seeing the ghost of his own father during a performance of Hamlet.

Was that meant as a reference? Day-Lewis says that's a myth; he was just exhausted after a protracted run.

The ghost mom seemed in keeping with his momma's boy background (warning signal number one: guy talking passionately about this mother on the first date). It's also in keeping with the undertones of the movie, which is narrated almost like a ghost story (phantom thread, hur?) complete with bookends by the fireside. Add to that little flourishes like "don't turn her into a ghost" and the kind of cloistered Victorian settings, and you've got a real Turn of the Screw vibe going, or The Innocents if we're supposed to stick to the cinephile track. That was my takeaway.

[baby doll]

You bring this us as though it's a universal piece of knowledge. Thanks for enlightening us, but the percentage of moviegoers who hit upon that connection is probably whatever percentage you personally represent.

Whether or not it's common knowledge is beside the point (though it's widely enough known that Day-Lewis had to clarify in an interview that he hadn't "literally" seen the ghost of his father); the issue is whether or not there is any internal justification for its inclusion in the film.

[baby doll]

Was that meant as a reference? Day-Lewis says that's a myth; he was just exhausted after a protracted run.

The ghost mom seemed in keeping with his momma's boy background (warning signal number one: guy talking passionately about this mother on the first date). It's also in keeping with the undertones of the movie, which is narrated almost like a ghost story (phantom thread, hur?) complete with bookends by the fireside. Add to that little flourishes like "don't turn her into a ghost" and the kind of cloistered Victorian settings, and you've got a real Turn of the Screw vibe going, or The Innocents if we're supposed to stick to the cinephile track. That was my takeaway.

Perhaps I'll have to watch it again, but all the stuff you just mentioned never really seemed to gel (at least for me) with the central relationship or the stuff about the world of haute couture. In other words, it seemed to me more like window dressing than an artistic necessity.