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Originally Posted by Richard B
I agree 100%. I own Ice Storm on DVD and it is quite an exceptional film in many ways. My fave Ang Lee film.
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Some of my favourite bits are when the mother is at a book sale talking to that preacher and her daughter cycles by and just in the middle of the conversation she says something like "....my daughter". Where some films will go into a big monologue, just a few words (and that's just one specific example, the whole film is like that) successfully conveying the sense of.....I guess getting lost on the road to somewhere that never really existed anyway. And then at the end when Kevin Kline's character just breaks down and then that's it, it's so perfect, says so much more than words. I guess it assumes the audience has a brain and doesn't need all that expository, glossy language explaining what's going on, they can see for themselves. And the fact that in real life that's how it happens, people don't go into long speeches. Enough of that film though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard B
I have tried and tried and tried to get into Psycho (I love horror), but I can't do it. I just end up laughing.
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Yeah it's not for everyone and I can see if you were coming into it with even slight cynicism then it could make you laugh, the mother bit in particular. Actually that did make me laugh. But for me it's the mise en scene (sp?) that's so clever and hinting at what's to come just by placing a stuffed preying bird above her head in the parlour scene. I love the shower scene for the at the time completely new to maintstream cinema techniques. There's so much crossing the line, you don't know where you are and where the knife is coming from 'cause it's not staged in the traditional sense like the girl is on that side and the killer is coming from the other side. It crosses the line so much that I felt like I was being stabbed at cause I had no sense of direction. Not just crossing the line but the continuously quick cutting in all directions, up at the shower head, down at the drain, it was all over the place and that's obviously why it was such a shock to viewers who've seen murder scenes before but had no experienced it like that. And lastly the bit I love is right at the end. He's so good, I forget the actor's name but when he's sitting in the cell, placed somewhat small in the frame but his eyes leaping out at you. And then jusst before they cut back to the hotel where the lift her car up, while still framed on his face, there's a subliminal dissolve to a skull over his face. It's really quick and often people don't realise that they're seen it but walk out feeling extra creeped out because of it. If you pause it on that frame it's kind of freaky. I just think it was a really clever way of him to leave the audience (of that time, perhaps not now as much) chilled and cheeky of him to have them not entirely sure why they feel extra chilled.