All right, then--apparently, Roger Ebert made an offhandedly dismissive remark about horror fans in his review of the Last House on the Left remake, and it's got some horror bloggers talking.
CRwM from And Now the Screaming Starts pulls another quote from the review to refocus the discussion onto the stupidly pointless extremes that too many fans excuse, defend, and cheer on in horror movies. He concludes:
Ultimately, Ebert's correct. He has over-generalized, but he gets the basic dynamic down. Too many horror producers are willing to take the free pass. The rebirth of the slasher subgenre, perhaps the purist expression of the "ugly, nihilistic and cruel" filmmaking Ebert decries (though here Ebert's wrong; these filmmakers very strongly believe in something: they believe they'll make some money), is it most recent example. Uninspired and phoned-in pastiches that are the color-by-numbers paintings of the horror film world, these flicks are the very definition of "free pass." And it’s the fans that are handing the passes out. When fans explain to critics that bad dialogue, lack of characterization, predictable plotting, barely competent camera work, and atrocious acting are part of the point of the subgenre, they're giving these talentless hacks carte blanche to turn in crap work.CRwM and I have been discussing the standards (or lack thereof) of horror fans for a while now. This is sort of reminiscent of the time he complained about horror bloggers being "cultists" with idiosyncratic, even nonsensical criteria that allow them to celebrate even the crappiest movies imaginable. I responded to that here. I'm actually glad he's pushing for higher standards and more coherent criteria when it comes to horror, because we fans really do need those for all the reasons he mentions. At the same time, fans take the positions they do for reasons of their own, and CRwM is usually candid enough to admit those reasons are unknown or incomprehensible to him.
I think it's high time for a little elitist disdain up in here and I'm glad Ebert brought some.
Imagine how different the genre would be if fans told filmmakers that every time they were going to kill a bunch of people, they should have a dramatically and intellectually convincing reason to do so.
Though I definitely don't share their taste in this particular case, I can easily imagine what fans might have in mind when they "explain to critics that bad dialogue, lack of characterization, predictable plotting, barely competent camera work, and atrocious acting are part of the point of the subgenre." In the following clip from Kill Bill, Vol. 2, there's a deliberately inept, wobbly zoom-shot at the 3 minute mark:
That was probably the single most effective touch in plunging me instantly and viscerally into the world of all the Black Belt Theaters I watched with friends years ago, because every movie had at least a couple such dodgy attempts at dramatic zooms, to the point that that sort of thing became indelibly associated in my mind with those sorts of movies. Hell, the digital distressing of Planet Terror has exactly the same rationale. Movies weren't even made like that, as in the case of the chop-socky zooms, but because that was often the condition in which those movies were experienced, that look not only became powerfully associated with them, but became part of their appeal--no differently, really, than the way the black-and-white look is part of the appeal of Universal monster movies or film noir, or the way the rich look imparted by good old fashioned Technicolor film stock has taken on its own distinctive charm now that not all movies look that way.
The point is, anything distinctive like that shapes and defines the experience of a movie no matter what the cause, and the effect is reinforced all the more to the extent that the distinctive aspect, element, or feature is repeated over multiple movies in a series, a period, a genre, a particular studio's output, etc. When these things are real flaws, some fans of course will regard them as such, and will probably in fact regard them as pet peeves--the inevitable fly in the ointment--but fans who have received their impressions at an impressionable moment are as likely to simply view them as one more thing that sets the movies apart as quirkily appealing.
17 comments:
I'm a moderate conservative and I agree with Ebert's views of Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly is a pompous hypocrite and idiot.
And, of course, Charles Krauthammer is the MAN. He's intelligent and not at all a pompous hypocrite.
Are you screening comments now, Curt?
I'm only screening spam, John, because yesterday I got hit twice with huge comment spam attacks that somehow bypassed word verification (I ended up having to weed about two dozen spamments out of posts spread all throughout the archives). I hope blogger finds a way to resecure comments so I can turn off moderation, but in any case, rest assured I'm not screening dissenting opinions.
Regarding Ebert's review of "Last House on the Left" He didn't mention "The Night Train Murders (aka "The Last House on the Left"), probably because it was a rip-off of "Last House on the Right." It did have one redeeming quality, however, it had an Ennio Morricone score.
I thought as much. I was just ribbing you. Do what you've got to do to keep the barbarians at bay.
Curt,
I got hit with the same spam storm, though more than 10 posts got splattered.
The use of Kill Bill is interesting in that the same movie (duo) came up in the comments. The camera work in Kill Bill has a justification in that, in my opinion, it's meant to be part of the directors very close dissection of nearly a dozen different genre styles. Not only is it visually similar to older flicks, but it reveals that even in the original film the zoom wasn't an accident. It was a visual intensifier meant to communication an intensification in the emotional content of the scene.
Kill Bill was an adaptation of several genres in a way that intensified a deeper understanding of all them – finding parallels and "rhymes" in all these different forms.
I actually see it as the opposite of Planet Terror, which was trying to imitate blunders and errors.
The former has some heft. Tarantino wasn't just goofing or taking the free pass that the films he was alluding to had clumsy camera work. The latter suffers from "the Byrne Problem" – a perfect imitation of crap is, essentially, crap.
To me, there's a difference.
But, as always, it's a matter of taste.
I think we should remember that Kill Bill of Planet Horror were well-thought-out, well-made movies that consciously imitated a specific look. It is not by far the same thing as having that sort of look just because the filmmakers didn't try to make a good movie. IMHO, of course ;)
While I thought CRwM's Expert/Cultist distinction was way too simplistic (which side does he think he falls on?) I have to applaud his defense of Ebert, who I don't always agree with, but who has usually showed intelligence in his writing, and who has never dismissed genre films out of hand (even extreme ones), even though he has regularly been accused of it by thin-skinned twits who don't know what they're talking about.
It's interesting that we're talking about "elitist disdain" here, because this has been very much on my mind the past week.
"Elitist" is one of those words that has been abused beyond all meaning, and the culprits are the same ones who managed to redefine "conservatism" to somehow mean extremism, economic irresponsibility, hysteria mongering, expensive, sloppily conceived and executed protectionism, etc. It is significant that the word "elitism" was redefined by actual elites, powerful ruling members of our upper class (we do have one, but part of the idea is to create the illusion that we don't), for the purpose of ingratiating themselves with poorly educated (television educated) members of the lower classes whom they seek to manipulate. (And we now have the absurd spectacle of some of our richest and most powerful elites passing themselves off as good 'ol boys, but, trust me, they don't live in the same world as you or I.) This little distortion is no small thing. The 'elitist' tag no longer applies to people with lofty standards. If you have any standards at all you will almost certainly be branded "elitist."
Furthermore, a lot of people have gotten leery of dissing anything, for fear of being labeled, or of actually being, elitist. Meanwhile, America sinks into an ever deepening state of cultural, intellectual and moral decadence. (And by "moral decadence" I am specifically referring to moral laziness - sucking easy validation of whatever set of values from the boob tube rather than questioning them in any way.) Americans have all but lost the ability to make critical judgments, and this is not a good thing. It's not, I think, an accident, either.
What this has meant to movies in general and horror films specifically is plain to see: a painful tide of repetitive, creatively bankrupt, simple-minded, ultra-lowbrow crap, with a heavy emphasis on imitation.
And while I like a shot of good crap once in a while, we've been getting a steady diet of that, and pretty much nothing else - and most of it isn't bad enough to be interesting, but depressing in its crushing mediocrity.
Unfortunately, this decline in standards isn't limited to horror movies, but extends to all things, including those that a reasonable person might attach some importance to - like the news we get, the quality of our political discourse, education, etc.
I am not the first person to note that Americans are reaching emotional and intellectual maturity later and later in life. The rise of fandom has been concurrent with our cultural decline, which began in the 80's, as the infantilization of Americans began in earnest. A lot could be said about the post-'Star Wars' generation's obsessive clinging to artifacts of childhood and adolescent fantasy life (significantly centered around media fantasy - as opposed to organic fantasy), and the irrational emotional intensity of those attachments to what would have been largely disposable to previous generations once they entered adulthood.
My bottom line is that I'm good and ready for elitism to make a big, proud comeback - only let's be clear that it's not actually "elitism" in the true sense of the word that I'm referring to. There is absolutely nothing wrong, and a lot right, with having standards, with valuing quality and intelligence, and with being able to express it openly. If people want to be uneducated trash, they should be allowed, but they should no longer get a free pass to be allowed to think that they are just as good as anyone else (if not better, as the glorification of "ordinary" exhibitionist idiots on reality TV, and the denigration of the critically minded as "elitists" seems to have taught us) - because they're not as good. I don't think ignorance in and of itself is necessarily anything to be ashamed of, but taking pride in one's ignorance is vile stupidity - and it needs to be called out as such. It's fine to be able to appreciate trash, but if you haven't had (or even wanted) the exposure to quality to be able to tell the difference, your opinions aren't as good as anyone else's - and such bozos need to be thoroughly smacked down when they presume to speak authoritatively.
As for boycotting crappy remakes, sequels, etc. - I already started doing that a long time ago. If something is really good, I'll hear about it - but it's not worth wasting my time or money supporting an industry that wants to play me for a sucker when I can be doing just about anything else. The genre has a long history - and a lot of it's available on DVD. Not only that, but there have been a lot of great films that aren't horror. Or better yet, read a book. Not 'Twilight,' either. There are a lot of books that have managed to stay in print for over a century - that indicates to me that they might actually have something worthwhile in them. I have nothing against comics, but if someone wants to tell me that comic (oh, excuse me, graphic novel) 'X' is the greatest piece of literature written in the last century they'd better have actually read some actual fucking literature. (This fool is legion on the internets.)
It is time to make brains, and taste, and standards cool again, before the nation becomes one big trailer park. This is a call to sanity.
Gryphon,
For the record, the cultist/expert model includes a third group that's been ignored in most of this talk. The model supposes a larger non-expert/non-cultist audience – one that looks for information to help guide their time and treasure expenditures in the realm and, through their repeated patronage of selected individuals, "creates" experts.
I suspect I'm somewhere in that great mass of undifferentiated folk. I have neither the expert's status and popularity nor the cultist's passion and depth of knowledge.
CRwM and Doruk--here's another example: the art, animation, and voice acting of the original Vampire Hunter D are often criticized as crude and subpar, but to me they've always accentuated the movie's weird vision of a monster-haunted, post-apocalyptic world. It really doesn't matter to me whether they result from deliberate artistic choices or simple low production values; I think they lend the original a powerful oneiric quality missing from the sequel, which is much more sophisticated on all three of those points.
My argument here is, sometimes flaws and problems have a stylizing effect that actually enhances someone's viewing experience, even if lots of other people recognize them as flaws and problems. I really think that's what's going on when fans defend--sometimes passionately--the flaws of a franchise, genre, period, studio output, etc. as integral to the appeal of a particular kind of movie. If a filmmaker uses gel lighting and unusual camera angles for effect, but relies on a stable of fairly incompetent, unemotive actors, a certain percentage of the audience will absorb the stiff acting as being of one piece with the stylizing effect of the lighting and angles. Those among that portion who become fans of the movies will appreciate and defend the acting as part of the appeal of the movies of that filmmaker.
Gryphon--I'm certainly not against standards and quality, but I still think this kind of discussion is worthwhile.
Curt,
I think you're mistaking my point about deliberate lameness.
I don't deny that the flaws of a work can become part of its power. As John Ruskin pointed out, it's often the imperfect works that touch us most deeply because it is in them that we see the handprint of human makers.
I haven't seen the anime film you describe, but I have several personal examples of my own experience that would fit what you're describing.
The distinction between what you're describing and what I'm describing is that, presumably, Vamp D's low production values were not the simply the lazy use of received patterns recycled because it was just easier to feed people crap than try to work out something new.
I feel it is one thing to do the best with what you've got and quite another to just hit your marks and go through your "Making [whatever product] for Dummies" checklist.
As I think my reviewing record shows, I'm pretty generous to works that make me feel like the creators are giving 100%, even if they aren't flawless in their execution. In fact, I'll forgive almost anything if I think an artist failed, but they failed trying something new and interesting.
What I think is soul-killing is the hamster-wheel mentality that just keeps making the same crap over and over again. Not only is it artistically lazy, but it seems to dig ruts in the mind of the audience.
That's a good clarifying distinction. My friend, I do believe we've reached consensus here!
For the record, I enjoy Roger Ebert's reviews (and I love him even more with that take-down of O'Reilly), but I get twitchy when we talk about standards in regards to horror, as I tend to wonder: whose standards do we mean, and what agenda should they serve? To be clear, I haven't seen the new LAST HOUSE, and I feel ambivalent at best to the latest crop of American horror movies, but I'm leery about where these implications might ultimately lead us. Horror often works best when it's transgressive and in defiance of conventional standards, and sometimes that even means resisting the codes of what conventionally passes as "good" film-making. Horror is often the ugly mutt in the pound. It sometimes doesn't wipe the slobber off. It scratches itself in public. The real problem for me lies in the way Hollywood insists on cannibalizing itself right now, recycling tropes that once reflected a society in unheaval but now just seem indicative of mean-spiritedness.
Again, I like Ebert a great deal, and if a horror movie resonates with him, great, but I'm not sure if horror criticism should take its cues from him.
The wobbly zoom reminds me of my favorite moment in DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT. Rosie Holotik is trying to reason with someone (Sarge?) near the end of the film, then hears a noise and turns around abrubtly. The camera operator pulls focus to compensate for Holotik's face's closer proximity to the camera. There is a brief lag where she is momentarily out of focus, creating a very "verite" documentary feel. Whether this was intentional or a happy accident is arguable.
CRwM,
I accept your explanation. I tend to get uppity about either/or polarities, as I find them irksomely limiting and excluding, and, when it comes to issues of political and social values, potentially destructive - so I really needed clarification on that. (I feel strongly that this tendency is a big contributor to the cultural decline I go on at length about above.) I looked at the original post, but forgive me if it was already there, and I somehow missed it.
As for the intentional imitation of flaws or outright crappiness - I am pretty sick of imitation period.
It bothered me in 'Kill Bill' where a lot of care obviously went into it - but to what purpose? I've seen all of those movies, and if I want to see them again, I'll watch them again. The things Tarantino was imitating weren't well served by being crammed into a narrative that was obviously created to accommodate a list of scenes and elements that he wanted to recreate. Those things were far more impressive when they were done by really inventive filmmakers with limited resources, and within the structure of a cohesive film. 'Kill Bill' just seemed lumbering, unnecessary and embarrassingly masturbatory - and it was ultimately dull. (Strangely enough, though, I rather enjoyed 'Planet Terror' - not for the imitative elements so much as the briskness and humor, and some fun performances - it was a pleasant enough time-killer.)
It's just as bad when crap elements get imitated because crap filmmakers find it easy to do, and pass off as "homage" - but at least it makes some practical sense, if you're too lazy to make a good movie.
Personally, I think we need to start coming down hard on "homage," and rejecting it. It has become an irritant through overuse. Its viability shows a lack of imagination and originality not only on the part of filmmakers, but of audiences, as well. Again, decadence - and I think it goes back to this tendency I've noted in fandom to cling, and to reject growth and development in favor of a steady diet of "comfort food" fantasy material.
Whence came this fear of the new, anyway? As much as I love my cheesy Italian relics, and the familiar elements, I can't imagine wanting to recreate that. It doesn't bother me that it's over with as long as I can return to what's been preserved. But to try to transplant it and keep it alive seems pathetic, unnatural, unnecessary and doomed to fail. It spoils the essence of the original works in a way that is depressing to see - these movies are effectively zombies. Enough of films that feed on the past and regurgitate what today can only be banalities. Doesn't anyone want a future? And when it gets down to slavish imitation of films that were universally agreed to be wretched retreads to begin with... this isn't even arrested development - it's arrested underdevelopment.
Are we that desperate to escape the demands of the now? Is there some perceived safety in material that announces that it won't even burden viewers with the demands a measure of quality might place on them? I wonder if the audience for some of these films is even capable of appreciating work that might challenge them in any way. The violent rejection of any treatment of the object of fandom that deviates from the personalized fantasy of the fan suggests not.
Werewolf--I generally like Ebert too, and didn't take this thing he said personally at all. I think CRwM speaks well to the question of standards with his point about filmmakers phoning it in vs. filmmakers struggling to achieve something within their limits. When filmmakers don't care to a degree that's plain on the screen, they really should be called on it.
Marshall--great point and example!
Gryphon--homage is getting tired, I admit, but at least it aims to be a sort of creative synthesis, rather than an outright retread as in all these remakes and clones.
Curt,
I think you may have hit closer to the bone than you realize:
"...but at least it aims to be a sort of creative synthesis, rather than an outright retread..."
Yes, homage aims to be something more than an outright retread. 'Kill Bill', for instance, aims very hard. But the end result is still (if we're really going to be honest) an outright retread, despite the intent.
The difference is the huge gap between learning how to reproduce other movies, and actually learning from them. In the latter case only is a filmmaker actually building creatively on work they admire.
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