Monday, February 16, 2009
My thoughts on Blue Velvet
First of all, sorry this is about an hour and a half late, but I got stuck at work later than I thought I would. I tutor middle/high school kids, so when someone comes in desperate for help it's pretty hard to say no. But anyway, after doing a quick read through of what my fellow classmates thought about Blue Velvet, I'm actually kind of surprised. I really, really, really didn't like Funny Games, and it basically shocked me that so many other people did. Now I'm shocked that it doesn't seem like many people liked Blue Velvet. Although I had never seen the movie before, I am pretty familiar with Davin Lynch. My dad actually loves BV, and he has been trying to get me to watch it for a while. Also, my mom and sister are both big fans of the old show Twin Peaks. Lastly, I went to the Austin premiere of Lynch's movie Inland Empire, which was one of the strangest things I've ever seen. I am familiar with Lynch, but I'm not necessarily a fan. I was expecting BV to be something just as weird as Inland Empire, but it really wasn't. I found it to be pretty entertaining. The style was unusual yet interesting, and the acting was not over- or underdone. I thought the plot line was relatively easy to follow. Overall, it was strange but still likable. I'm interested to hear what other people have to say tomorrow, bright and early.
...Blue Velvet
So along with most everyone else, I did not "get" Blue Velvet, yet. And I definitely did not enjoy it. I am one of te biggest chickens you'll ever meet, and I know the movie was somewhat corny and not realistic, but I promise you, I will be scared of it for a while. The song at the beginning was what got me and I knew I'd get freaked out from this movie. The way the people talked, was a combination of bad acting and just plain creepiness (sp?). I couldn't wrap my mind around the actual reasoning for this movie being made. I could just be biased because I absolutely HATE scary/creepy/horror films, I always have, therefore, I will always be against these movies.. haha This just shows that everyone definitely has different opinions of literature, obviously many are the same as mine when it comes to Blue Velvet, but I know there has to be someone out there who thoroughly enjoyed this, it just wasn't me.
Chewing Ideas over Blue Velvet
Like many others, I profess that I do not understand what Blue Velvet was about most of the time. I know Krzys wanted to us to have no idea what Blue Velvet was over probably because he wanted us to have a viewing experience untainted by expectations. After watching it, I feel like I should have known what I was getting into since I found myself waiting for the movie to end rather than just taking it in.
Maybe a warning would have done though someone did say the movie was a 'mindfuck.' I didnt really find it to be a mindfuck but I guess that may be because I have watched weirder things (thank you neon genesis evangelion and other crazy as fuck anime shows!) and even more vulgar things. It was neither the violence or the surrealism that threw me off.
By the way, I caved in and looked at the wikipedia entry for Blue Velvet. I feel like the movie was trying to prove something to me I already knew at points. Almost like someone coming up to me and telling me all about how Bush sucks like no one else knew about it. Well, yeah. I kept on waiting for some big reveal that would put a new view on what I had seen but it never happened. Maybe that will happen after multiple viewings but I don't actually care for what Ill probably discover.
Maybe this will be something that grows on me but I wasn't really impressed by it like I was by something like A Clockwork Orange which hasn't lost its bite. Sorry for this unfocused post but I'm just gonna say I'm influenced by Blue Velvet's storytelling.
Maybe a warning would have done though someone did say the movie was a 'mindfuck.' I didnt really find it to be a mindfuck but I guess that may be because I have watched weirder things (thank you neon genesis evangelion and other crazy as fuck anime shows!) and even more vulgar things. It was neither the violence or the surrealism that threw me off.
By the way, I caved in and looked at the wikipedia entry for Blue Velvet. I feel like the movie was trying to prove something to me I already knew at points. Almost like someone coming up to me and telling me all about how Bush sucks like no one else knew about it. Well, yeah. I kept on waiting for some big reveal that would put a new view on what I had seen but it never happened. Maybe that will happen after multiple viewings but I don't actually care for what Ill probably discover.
Maybe this will be something that grows on me but I wasn't really impressed by it like I was by something like A Clockwork Orange which hasn't lost its bite. Sorry for this unfocused post but I'm just gonna say I'm influenced by Blue Velvet's storytelling.
Red Velvet Cake Sounds Good Right Now
I'd rather not blog about Blue Velvet right now, and I'm studying for my psych exam, so I thought I'd just post something interesting (although I bet some of you have taken this course):
"Damage to any one of several cortical areas can cause aphasia, an impaired use of language. Even more curious, some people with aphasia can speak fluently but cannot read (despite good vision), while others can comprehend what they read but cannot speak. Still others can write but not read, read but not write, read numbers but not letters, or sing but not speak. This is puzzling, because we think of speaking and reading, or writing and reading, or singing and speaking as merely different examples of the same general ability."
--David G. Meyers, Exploring Psychology, 7th Edition
Here is where I would tie this in with different forms of "literature," etc. but I have exams, and although it's my fault, it's going to be a looong night. Besides, each of you have perfectly functioning association areas in your darling cerebral cortexes, and you get it/can figure it out. Oh lovely, lovely brains...
"Damage to any one of several cortical areas can cause aphasia, an impaired use of language. Even more curious, some people with aphasia can speak fluently but cannot read (despite good vision), while others can comprehend what they read but cannot speak. Still others can write but not read, read but not write, read numbers but not letters, or sing but not speak. This is puzzling, because we think of speaking and reading, or writing and reading, or singing and speaking as merely different examples of the same general ability."
--David G. Meyers, Exploring Psychology, 7th Edition
Here is where I would tie this in with different forms of "literature," etc. but I have exams, and although it's my fault, it's going to be a looong night. Besides, each of you have perfectly functioning association areas in your darling cerebral cortexes, and you get it/can figure it out. Oh lovely, lovely brains...
Blue Velvet
I will have to say that my favorite part of this movie was at the very beginning when the camera zoomed in on the grass and then the bugs. That was awesome because everything felt so disproportional, and just generally strange. I am not sure if this was part of what we were supposed to be paying attention to or not, but that was the part that really got my attention. I just loved how the camera would focused on the weirdest and seemly meaningless things, like the water hose at the beginning. I am glad that we get to watch the movie over and over again, because I know I had to be missing something. I know we are not supposed to have any background information on the movie, but I could not stop my roommate from telling me the movie was a big failure. I am not quite sure, I guess I just didn't get it. I am still trying to put together my thoughts on it.
more blue velvet
After reading Emily's post I looked up the lyrics to the song Blue Velvet to try to answer some questions. The only thing I could come up with is this part where it talks about the "flame glowing brightly" or something. There is that frequent sequence that shows in crazy moments of the candle blowing out. I thought Jeffery and Sandy were really awkwardly underdeveloped in this movie. I, like everyone else, am looking forward to tomorrow's discussion.
What Would John Milton Think of Funny Games?
Much like Kevin, I feel unable to formulate half a thought about Blue Velvet (other than that I did not know I could dislike a movie that much; it made Funny Games seem really awesomely entertaining), so I will address a question brought up in class: What would John Milton think of Funny Games?
Questions like this have always interested me--what people would feel about time periods different from their own. Aside from the question of censorship, I'm sure he'd be repulsed at the visually explicit violence and sex (I think that for his time, a woman in her underwear is sex enough). I don't doubt that worse things were written in his own time, but I imagine the idea of it being presented visually would be really unsettling.
Moving onto censorship (or lack thereof), the impression I got from Areopagitica is that while he does generally support free speech, he also assumes that the writings of men that are apt to be censored will carry some sort of meaning and worthwhile point of view, even if it is wrong: "And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading schismatics, what withholds us but our sloth, our self-will, and distrust in the right cause, that we do not give them gentle meetings and gentle dismissions, that we debate not and examine the matter thoroughly with liberal and frequent audience; if not for their sakes, yet for our own?" I feel like he's saying here that of course with free press, some wrong ideas will emerge, but all ideas deserve careful thought and all will benefit from it.
My first thought regarding Milton and Funny Games was that he would approve of, if not the movie, its right to exist in the public sphere--that he would think it had something valuable to teach, even if the lesson was unsavory or downright wrong and the prize to be gleaned was in analyzing its mistake. Perhaps if he had a lot of time to really ingest the movie and the types of movies we watch today, he might come to this conclusion. However, the more I think about it, the more I feel like he wouldn't be able to get past a handful of things: a movie as literature, gratuitous violence and some sex, and the message he would perceive in the idea of such detatched killers.
The idea that a movie can be a valid piece of art with a real message is a relatively recent idea. Documents are probably the only type of moving picture that has always been regarded as valubale. The rise of creative indie movie makers with something to say and less desire for commercialism than, say, Fox Studios, have contributed. Back to Milton, he would have trouble accepting a movie on the same plane as the philosophical tracts of his time. Which brings up the other point that fiction was not widely acceptable as valuable in his time and I feel that his arguments were meant to be applied to non-fictional works.
Funny Games is mild on the violence for our time. We've all seen blood stains and bruises before. The implied violence is pretty bad, but still nothing out of the ordinary. However, Milton would likely find it horrible. A completely accurate depiction of a father, crying, covering up his dead son, who lay beneath his own blood all over the wall? We in our generation can watch a movie and completely realize it's fictional, but I imagine someone like Milton could not, certainly not immediately. This seems really petty, I realize, but I think it's very relevant, and that it says something important about his views.
Finally, the detatched killers sends a chilling message which I feel he could not cope with fully. I cannot pretend to know all the ideas that he was arguing for the freedom of, but I know one thing he was censored over was the support of divorce. A subject like that doesn't even come close to cold, emotionless murder. One might say here that the movie didn't promote that ideal at all, but I think that's one thing he would take away from it, regardless of the movie's intended meaning and the one which we can extract from it.
My point, in short is that, Milton had certain things in mind when he renounced censorship, and Funny Games simply goes beyond the scope of what he would be willing to support.
Questions like this have always interested me--what people would feel about time periods different from their own. Aside from the question of censorship, I'm sure he'd be repulsed at the visually explicit violence and sex (I think that for his time, a woman in her underwear is sex enough). I don't doubt that worse things were written in his own time, but I imagine the idea of it being presented visually would be really unsettling.
Moving onto censorship (or lack thereof), the impression I got from Areopagitica is that while he does generally support free speech, he also assumes that the writings of men that are apt to be censored will carry some sort of meaning and worthwhile point of view, even if it is wrong: "And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading schismatics, what withholds us but our sloth, our self-will, and distrust in the right cause, that we do not give them gentle meetings and gentle dismissions, that we debate not and examine the matter thoroughly with liberal and frequent audience; if not for their sakes, yet for our own?" I feel like he's saying here that of course with free press, some wrong ideas will emerge, but all ideas deserve careful thought and all will benefit from it.
My first thought regarding Milton and Funny Games was that he would approve of, if not the movie, its right to exist in the public sphere--that he would think it had something valuable to teach, even if the lesson was unsavory or downright wrong and the prize to be gleaned was in analyzing its mistake. Perhaps if he had a lot of time to really ingest the movie and the types of movies we watch today, he might come to this conclusion. However, the more I think about it, the more I feel like he wouldn't be able to get past a handful of things: a movie as literature, gratuitous violence and some sex, and the message he would perceive in the idea of such detatched killers.
The idea that a movie can be a valid piece of art with a real message is a relatively recent idea. Documents are probably the only type of moving picture that has always been regarded as valubale. The rise of creative indie movie makers with something to say and less desire for commercialism than, say, Fox Studios, have contributed. Back to Milton, he would have trouble accepting a movie on the same plane as the philosophical tracts of his time. Which brings up the other point that fiction was not widely acceptable as valuable in his time and I feel that his arguments were meant to be applied to non-fictional works.
Funny Games is mild on the violence for our time. We've all seen blood stains and bruises before. The implied violence is pretty bad, but still nothing out of the ordinary. However, Milton would likely find it horrible. A completely accurate depiction of a father, crying, covering up his dead son, who lay beneath his own blood all over the wall? We in our generation can watch a movie and completely realize it's fictional, but I imagine someone like Milton could not, certainly not immediately. This seems really petty, I realize, but I think it's very relevant, and that it says something important about his views.
Finally, the detatched killers sends a chilling message which I feel he could not cope with fully. I cannot pretend to know all the ideas that he was arguing for the freedom of, but I know one thing he was censored over was the support of divorce. A subject like that doesn't even come close to cold, emotionless murder. One might say here that the movie didn't promote that ideal at all, but I think that's one thing he would take away from it, regardless of the movie's intended meaning and the one which we can extract from it.
My point, in short is that, Milton had certain things in mind when he renounced censorship, and Funny Games simply goes beyond the scope of what he would be willing to support.
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