Reviewing The Movie Or Your Life?
Transference
Pronunciation: tran(t)s-‘f&r-&n(t)s, ‘tran(t)s-(“)
Function: noun
1 : an act, process, or instance of transferring : CONVEYANCE, TRANSFER
2 : the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object (as a psychoanalyst conducting therapy)
How much of film criticism is transference rather than analysis?
This thought occured to me after reading one particularly odd pair of conflicting commentaries on similar pictures. How could these opinions be so at odds? It finally occured to me… one film features guys who are “winners” who thrn think they are losers, but end up wining even more… the other film features losers who even after having ups and downs, still end up losing, the lead suffering the pain of ending up with a woman appropriate to his age, attractive, but not a Maxim-esque trophy.
Trying to comprehend why some critics seem to be willing to roll along with Proof… a movie about a disconnected, but brilliant father, who creates such a shadow that no one can believe that his child is his equal…
If you had a parent in whose shadow you felt stuck, this might be the movie of the year for you.
My most often thought of disconnect in this regard is Roger Ebert’s love of Kill Bill, Vol 1 and hatred of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, two highly violent movies released in the same month. What separated them into four star and zero star reviews?
What strikes me is that Uma Thurman’s character in KBV1 is a clear hero, her past as a murderer never touched on, and her disposal of the villains who thought they had killed her was, in its way, moral and completely lacking in ambiguity.
On the flip side, all but one of the teens who confronts Leatherface & Family in TCM survives… and most of them go through grueling torture before finally being put out of their misery.
I recently saw Wolf Creek, which gave me some of the same feelings that seemed to mark R.E.’s pov on TCM. There was no reason for me to be watching the movie. It was fairly cleverly made and extremely coarse and unpleasant. And my line that got crossed was that it really had nothing to say or offer in structure that engaged me. It was – and look away if you think this movie can be spoiled for you…. if you like this kind of film, it can’t – a simple case of drug ’em, torture ’em, kill ’em. Boring and unpleasant.
For me, TCM offered more intrigue. I was more creeped out by R Lee Ermey than by Leatherface. For me, the girls, thinking that a killer is on the loose, are face down in the dirt, slowly figuring out that the Sheriff is as dangerous as the guy with the chainsaw, was the most harsh and compelling scene in the movie. And I will admit, a camera moving through the hole in the suicide girl’s head amused me in much the same way as I assume Lucy Liu on a boardroom table amused Roger. The family was more interesting to me. The back story on Leatherface interested me. And the idea of characters being put through a maze that they don’t quite realize they can’t escape intrigues me. Hope… loss of hope… hope…loss of hope… drama.
I might also add that I really like movies that believe in the power of people to dig deep within to overcome adversity. And I guess that is my admission of transference for the day.
In a critical world where personalities are less and less strong, those who do have the freedom to emote… Armond White being the most personally driven of all film critics, it seems to me… walk an interesting line.
What are the two similar movies that you mention at the top?
I can’t see how you could like Kill Bill and not Texas. What is the difference besides the QT love?
I liked KB but not TCM2003. One was fun, the other was singlemindedly nasty. Completely based on personal tastes of the beholder.
Thanks, Ebert.
Feel free to explain your position with something more than an “I can’t see how…” statement.
Thanks again Ebert.
If you don’t like Texas I don’t see how my listing reasons would change your opinion. Since they’re both good, well directed thrillers. Violent thrillers at that. Why don’t you state why you liked one over the other? Is it your QT infatuation, Chester?
Chester’s not here.
You said you liked Kill Bill so I won’t bother talking about it.
TCM had good cinematography, acting, and production design. But it also had no interesting characters and halfway through the movie I paused and realized I knew what was going to happen for the rest of the movie: lots of noisy running and gore and the movie was going to try as hard as possible to make me feel awful. So I didn’t care anymore.
I loved all the violence. Kill Bill was more cartoony. You never felt like Uma was in any danger.
Biel on the other hand I had my doubts would make it out alive. Just flat out creepy as heck. A good reimagining of the original.
I never really understood the flat-out worship that Kill Bill received from so many people upon its release. I enjoyed it for what it was and don’t care if I ever see it again. It’s well-made, Thurman is excellent and I certainly respect QT, but I didn’t love it. I much prefer his earlier work to the Kill Bill movies. The TCM remake is OK, but for me it didn’t come close to the original, which is one of my all-time favorite horror movies.
The Kill Bill/TCM comparison really isn’t the best; the two films are such polar opposites in terms of tone. But I see where you’re going.
Using Ebert as an example again, what seperates ‘Last House on the Left’ from, say, ‘I Spit on Your Grave’? To me, they are nearly the same film, yet Ebert gives one 3 & 1/2 stars and the other zero. What makes the difference? Under ‘transference’, one could theorize that Ebert somehow accepts the revenge taken by parents as opposed to the revenge taken by a single woman. But I’m not sure that’s right. I am fairly sure that even Ebert would admit there is little difference in ‘quality’ between the two films. Both are unpleasant experiences, but ‘value’ is found in one of them. Why? To me, the ‘value’ is reversed, and ‘Last House’ is worthless while ‘Grave’ has some merit. I’ve often wondered how my feelings on the films could be so opposite from Ebert’s, a reviewer who I find myself generally in line with.
It’s like the ‘Psycho’ remake (something everyone can agree upon): you’re watching, almost literally, the same exact film, but this time it’s shit. And it’s not because of the content, nor is it because the film is badly made. You reject the film, but you don’t quite know why (nor do you care).
I don’t have the answers, but it is likely something subconcious – in the case of Psycho, we feel the film is just ‘wrong’; it can be justified by the belief that the idea of a scene-for-scene remake is inherently wrong, but is that really the case? In a world without Hitchcock’s version, would the Vant Sant film vastly improve?
I wish I knew. In a way, all film criticism is transference; ‘quality’ isn’t so much an issue anymore as the ideas behind a film are. If Birth of a Nation, Triumph the Will, etc., came out today, they likely wouldn’t be praised for their quality, but rejected for their ideals. But this is getting much too long, so I digress……….
I think one of the differences between Last House and Spit is perspective. In I Spit on Your Grave you’re asked to see something horrible happen to somebody, then watch as that person get revenge. Just a simple chain of events. If Last House differs it’s because it suggests a more interesting and complicated world that it’s characters live in, a broader context for the statement of the film. It’s both easier to relate to the characters in the movie and easier to step back and think about the artistic ‘big picture.
Ditto Psycho. Van Sant knew the words but not the music, and boxed himself in by trying to be too literal.
The original version of the TCM is the creepiest thing ever. The family is downright scary. The new one was better directed and shot. But not as creepy.
Well-said Angelus. I completely agree.
I disagree that classic TCM is better directed. It had a larger budget and therefore looks much slicker, more well-produced, but that’s not the same thing as well-directed.
I’m sorry, I was confused. I meant to say Classic TCM is better directed than Remake TCM. Not the other way around.
On the subject of movie reviewing, though, it reminds me of Jonathan Rosenbaum, who reviews every movie through the eyes of a middle-aged old-fashioned liberal who’s interested in global issues. Good for some filmmakers (Jarmusch, Kiarostami) but he doesn’t have much to say about plenty of other filmmakers. And he’s somewhat unapologetic about that.
Jeff, one thing I really admire about Rosenbaum — despite the sometimes relentless focus on global issues — is that he doesn’t seem so vehement or cranky or condescending or furious unless he truly hates a film (that’s also something I like about Ebert, but it’s a quality especially lacking in the alterna-weekly-style critics). Even if he doesn’t much like a movie, he seems open to the possibility of liking it, and is eloquent about shortcomings without getting worked up into a froth.
Compare this to, say, the AP movie critics (Christy Lemire and David Germain, I believe), who seem to challenge movies to meet certain standards required for even three stars (that is, I get the feeling that for them, movies start at one star and have to earn their way up, which is why I’d estimate about half of the movies they review receive one-and-a-half stars). Their reviews are way more pithy and dismissive than I’d expect from an AP writer; I often wonder if they like movies at all.
Or Anthony Lane, who can summon great writing abilities, but often does so to make fun of a movie for even trying.
Rosenbaum, then, strikes me as more honest and open than most, even if his ten-best lists will always include at least one movie released the previous year, at least two movies made several years ago, and at least one foreign film that played at like, one festival.
Rosenbaum (or the Reader; I don’t know who came up with it) also has one of the best rating systems I’ve seen.
**** = masterpiece
*** = must-see
** = worth seeing
* = has redeeming facet
no stars = worthless
A little askew from the traditional four-star model, but those are great categories.
TCM did look great and kept me on the edge of my seat. I don’t see how a reviewer can bash that movie. Not like there was anything wrong with the story. I even liked it better than the original. He has more rewatch value.
Eh, while I don’t share Ebert’s disgust with the TCM remake, I also completely understand how one could dislike it while loving Kill Bill — the same was true for me. I loved the details and the flourishes and the weird humor of Kill Bill; I just had a lot more fun watching it than TCM, which, as someone noted above, got to a point about halfway through where it seems pointless. I cared about The Bride and found her more interesting, even as an action figure, than any characters in TCM.
Since Kill Bill ain’t no horror movie I don’t see the comparison. Violence? What movie doesn’t have violence now?
Kill Bill would have worked better as one 3 hr movie.
There’s an old saying: a film critic is just a movie buff with a printing press. (Well, I said it was old.) It is impossible to be literally objective about any work of art. Our personal feelings absolutely dictate how we will react. (And once in a while, time passes, we re-view the movie through different eyes, and revise our opinion.) In Roger’s case, obviously he believes that KB was a labor of love for Quentin, who poured his favorite genres into a blender and poured out what seemed to be a giant wet kiss to The Grindhouse, whereas TCM was made for no other reason than to rake in tons of dough solely on the strength of a popular and exploitable title that had already been remade and sequeled three times and had nothing left to say.
I certainly didn’t hate the TCM remake. It has its moments and never bored me. However, I didn’t find the characters to be interesting or engaging, and I didn’t find it all that scary or suspenseful or frightening. It was like watching a well-oiled machine do exactly what it’s intended to do, and nothing more. I have no desire to ever watch it again, whereas I revisit the original on a regular basis.