tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post7747950129814134116..comments2024-03-27T07:18:39.229-05:00Comments on In Medias Res: Good Communitarian MoviesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-62054096425048205582010-03-06T10:04:45.154-06:002010-03-06T10:04:45.154-06:00What, no Waking Ned Devine? What could be more co...What, no Waking Ned Devine? What could be more communitarian than that?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-77853248990324511132009-04-04T01:37:00.000-05:002009-04-04T01:37:00.000-05:00Surely the archetypal communitarian movie would be...Surely the archetypal communitarian movie would be <I>Entertaining angels</I> on the life of Dorothy Day, one of the founders of communitarianism.<BR/><BR/>And a liberal movie would surely be one in which the bad guy is an oppressive dicator. One that springs to mind is <I>Z</I>.Steve Hayeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11283123400540587033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-91793926936373400052009-03-04T08:43:00.000-06:002009-03-04T08:43:00.000-06:00Another western that "forthrightly" presents the i...Another western that "forthrightly" presents the intersection of community and individual has to be <I>The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance</I>. I would have thought that it would rise to the top of your list, what with John Wayne deliberately denying himself credit for the triumph so that the community has a better myth with which to prosper in the future.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-11623068601028663982009-03-03T10:38:00.000-06:002009-03-03T10:38:00.000-06:00Anonymous #1,Pale Rider may actually be my favorit...Anonymous #1,<BR/><BR/>Pale Rider may actually be my favorite Eastwood western; I recognize that The Outlaw Josey Wales and his early spaghetti westerns are, in some ways, really superior films, but I've just always liked P.R. And your communitarian reading of it just makes me like it all the more. (Several critics have noted the paralles between P.R. and Shane before, but for myself, I've always seen the primary comparison between P.R. and one of Eastwood's earlier westerns, High Plains Drifter. Some people like Drifter, but I find it somewhat despicable; I consider P.R., in a sense, Eastwood's repentance for that film, taking the same basic idea of a stranger who may or may not be the reincarnation of a lost member of the community, returning from the dead to finish tasks that remained behind.)<BR/><BR/>Anonymous #2,<BR/><BR/>You actually need me to provide a list? I mean, man, pretty much any of the great paranoid thrillers of the 60s and 70s, or any action-adventure flick starring Sylvester Stallone.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-53304617982059066152009-03-03T10:19:00.000-06:002009-03-03T10:19:00.000-06:00Now how about a list of good anti-communitarian mo...Now how about a list of good <I>anti-communitarian</I> movies?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-91031573630150324632009-02-28T13:18:00.000-06:002009-02-28T13:18:00.000-06:00A friendly disagreement… I think Eastwood’s Pale R...A friendly disagreement… I think Eastwood’s Pale Rider the better movie. P. R. explains the questions folks have after seeing Shane, which was gummed up by triteness. If Eastwood’s drifter hero is inaccurate, then I believe so is Shane the frontiersman dressed passive-aggressive doting stranger ride off into the sunset hero. Both films do seem to be a critique on community and interestingly both films juxtapose two communities without law enforcement. Justice being upheld is the problem. As usual in communities, most don’t “participate” or half are quick to leave when to going gets tough. It is the community that failed to do justice, both in dealing it out and living it out. The movie makes clear that the community, and thereby justice, will fail without Shane, they are dependent. Hollywood made Shane the idealist hero. From this perspective I believe we can arrive at your interpretations. <BR/>In P. R. the Preacher is more a catalyst for the community, a trickster, and like the latest Batman is what we need him to be, which I believe to be different then the idealist hero Shane. In Shane the characters don’t really develop. Joey is the same kid in the end unwilling to say goodbye, whereas Megan becomes a women and does say good bye. In both movies there is the relationship of the “hero” with the wife. In Shane the tension is always there and in the end we can only ideally hope the husband and wife relationship reconnects. P. R. makes this relationship clearer. In P.R. the villain recognizes the futility of going up against a community with spirit and in Shane the villain is cocksure till the end. It would have been trite if the whole camp in P.R. turned up to help the Preacher in the end; however, I think Hull making a show at the end represents that change in the community. In Shane and by Shane only, the community’s problem is solved and they can idyllically live on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-53239646296351459902009-02-25T12:16:00.000-06:002009-02-25T12:16:00.000-06:00Camassia--Jaws, huh? That's an interesting reading...Camassia--<BR/><BR/>Jaws, huh? That's an interesting reading of the film. I think your impressions are correct, though. It really <I>is</I> a much humbler, much more domesticated kind of thriller-blockbuster than what we've become accustomed to. The shark is threatening the community: how do people respond? Some with bravery, some with desperation, some with foolishness...just like in real towns.<BR/><BR/>Anonymous--<BR/><BR/>I thought about The Village, but I've never seen it, so I don't know how much of its "message" (assuming it has one which survives Shyamalan's own subverting of it--or does he subvert it?--with the "trick ending") really fits in with my criteria. Obviously its an obstensibly communitarian movie, but what is it really? I guess I need to see it something to find out for myself.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-70608210532291515552009-02-24T21:45:00.000-06:002009-02-24T21:45:00.000-06:00Where would you place the Village? That movie bugs...Where would you place the Village? That movie bugs me and I am not quite sure why.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-3520263987628355812009-02-24T11:44:00.000-06:002009-02-24T11:44:00.000-06:00This may not be quite what you mean, but your list...This may not be quite what you mean, but your list makes me think of Jaws. I rewatched it a couple years ago and it struck me how much more conservative and middle-aged it is than most of the subsequent summer blockbusters than followed it (including a lot of Jaws rip-offs). We have a cop who flees the turmoil of a big city for a small town, which has the classic problems of tribalism, but no one really questions that it's still worth defending. In contrast to many other movies of this ilk, even the sleazy mayor turns out not to be such a bad guy. Our hero's only reward for slaying the monster is that things go back to the way they were, which is just what he wants. (Let's pretend the sequels don't exist, shall we?)Camassiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09183087564923218343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-29518608872809128942009-02-24T10:04:00.000-06:002009-02-24T10:04:00.000-06:00Bob, thanks for the kind words. I agree that Witne...Bob, thanks for the kind words. I agree that Witness was about as good as Harrison Ford ever got as an actor; I consider it, and Mosquito Coast (another Peter Weir film), as his very best work.<BR/><BR/>Matt, I'm happy to hear you liked It's a Wonderful Life; I must confess to being one of those sappy dopes who watch it every single Christmas. Your observation about adult life rings true, of course; being an adult member of a community <I>does</I> mean, unless you are one of the very lucky few (like Sam Wainwright, perhaps?), being innundated with obligations that tend to crowd out much else. (Instead of traveling the world and building bridges over distant rivers, George builds models in his living room.) But the point of the film, I think at least, is that those obligations carry with them a power and a resource which is worth its weight in gold.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the recommendations; I'll put them on my ever-growing list of movies to see someday. I very consciously excluded any non-English language films from this list (though Whale Rider certainly would count as "foreign"), just because I didn't have to make the post even longer by reflecting on historical or cultural differences and divides.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-7611510591205823112009-02-24T09:32:00.000-06:002009-02-24T09:32:00.000-06:00I'm not sure if I'd seen _Wonderful Life_ all the ...I'm not sure if I'd seen _Wonderful Life_ all the way through or not before (if so it had been 20 years or more) but I saw it in a theater in NYC this last winter and really enjoyed it. (I like Donna Reed a lot.) Mostly, though, I thought it showed how being an adult is pretty crappy. If you can put up with fairly abstract movies with subtitles (but not too long of ones) you might like some of the movies by Sergei Parajanov- Color of Pomegranate is great, but abstract. The Legend of the Suram Fortress is also very good, a bit less abstract but still pretty abstract. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is also excellent and much more straight-forward than the others. It might be the place to start. All can plausibly be called "communitarian" in some important sense, I think. Parajanov was put in prison for many years in the Soviet Union on trumped of charges of homosexuality. An interesting and sad figure who was out of favor for making movies about nationalist stories from Ukraine, Georgia, and Azherbijan, in reverse order from how I've listed the movies. Another Russian movie that might plausibly be called communitarian, though in a different way, is _The Return_. An extremely interesting and haunting film from a few years back.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-13627297401144112502009-02-24T06:47:00.000-06:002009-02-24T06:47:00.000-06:00Hi RussellAfter trying to tweak you on U2, I have ...Hi Russell<BR/><BR/>After trying to tweak you on U2, I have to say that your choice of films hits the nail on the head. Have not seen Cars, but remainder are perfect examples.<BR/><BR/>I also agree with your comment about Kelly McGillis in Witness, the love or should that be lust scenes are well played but added nothing to the film. Forget Star Wars and Indiana this was one of Harrison Fords best.<BR/><BR/>Each of them clearly fit your criteria in that they define the fact that we are all shaped by the culture and values of our communities and emphasise that making sure those values are good ones is no bad thing. First class post.Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01521511832426982810noreply@blogger.com