Match Cut Madness 3: Best of the 00s

[Skitch]

Life experience is irrelevant.

But saying the characters are not credible is invalidating them, as you don't/can't associate with them. I do.

... but the characters' behaviour seemed dictated more by the demands of the plot than any internal necessity. In other words, one can feel the gears turning, whereas the far more audacious plot developments of Labute's films seem to emerge naturally from the characters' personalities and the logic of the situation.

Who has said anything about Labute except you? Like the writers actors director are sitting around saying "Yeah we're really gonna bring this Labute shit in like a boss!" Maybe they were trying to make their own film?

And if one accepts my premise that the characters in Closer are neither creditable nor interesting (which I readily grant is just my opinion),

thats fine

then it follows logically that the film's project of mainstreaming Labute is a pointless one

and theres the weird baby doll leap that no one is making

Labute did it first and he did it better.

Oh here we go with this shit again...everything has been done before. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried again and it can't have a positive effect on someone.

[baby doll]

But saying the characters are not credible is invalidating them, as you don't/can't associate with them. I do.

Who has said anything about Labute except you? Like the writers actors director are sitting around saying "Yeah we're really gonna bring this Labute shit in like a boss!" Maybe they were trying to make their own film?

thats fine

and theres the weird baby doll leap that no one is making

Oh here we go with this shit again...everything has been done before. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried again and it can't have a positive effect on someone.

There may be people in the world like the characters in Closer but that doesn't mean the characters' behaviour is convincing on the screen. Recognition ("I know people like this") is not the same thing as believability ("I believe that, under these specific circumstances, this character would do that"). As Aristotle puts it in the Poetics, "Things probable though impossible should be preferred to the possible but improbable." Everything that happens in Closer is possible but none of it seemed to me very probable.

As for the claim that everything has been done before, assuming this is true (and I don't think it is; Labute has cited Restoration comedy as an influence on In the Company of Men but the film's themes are too contemporary to dismiss it as a simple retread), what justification would there be--other than commerce--for people to go to all the trouble of making new movies? It seems like a waste of time and effort.

Incidentally, while it's conceivable that Nichols and co. weren't thinking of Labute while making the film (although given his extensive work in the theatre, it's hard to believe that Nichols wasn't at least aware of his work), the important thing is that I was thinking of Labute while watching it. Whether coincidental or not, the enormous overlap in subject matter, structure, and style makes a comparison between Closer and Your Friends and Neighbors all but inescapable, and it's not a comparison that favours the former.

[Skitch]

There may be people in the world like the characters in Closer but that doesn't mean the characters' behaviour is convincing on the screen.

The important thing is that it was to me.*

Recognition ("I know people like this") is not the same thing as believability ("I believe that, under these specific circumstances, this character would do that"). As Aristotle puts it in the Poetics, "Things probable though impossible should be preferred to the possible but improbable." Everything that happens in Closer is possible but none of it seemed to me very probable.

Not only probable, but I've seen it, beat for beat.

As for the claim that everything has been done before, assuming this is true (and I don't think it is; Labute has cited Restoration comedy as an influence on In the Company of Men but the film's themes are too contemporary to dismiss it as a simple retread), what justification would there be--other than commerce--for people to go to all the trouble of making new movies? It seems like a waste of time and effort.

Because sometimes (not necessarily this time for this deviation of conversation) a story can be told better, or updated for newer thought, or improved upon. Progress.

Incidentally, while it's conceivable that Nichols and co. weren't thinking of Labute while making the film (although given his extensive work in the theatre, it's hard to believe that Nichols wasn't at least aware of his work), the important thing is that I was thinking of Labute while watching it. Whether coincidental or not, the enormous overlap in subject matter, structure, and style makes a comparison between Closer and Your Friends and Neighbors all but inescapable, and it's not a comparison that favours the former.

Its seems like you feel like your knowledge and experience are relative to your interaction with certain pieces of art?