It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Dave
very well written piece.
but i totally disagree.
Happens.
Every day.
Thanks for the civility.
What he said 🙂
It sounds like a very interesting book. It also doesnt sound like it would make a terribly interesting film.
For one, thats just way too much story to do justice to in 2 hours. For another, that kind of ‘first-half’/’second-half’ storytelling rarely works properly when translated to film, IMO.
Your second-to-last paragraph I feel 99% sums up the film version of Children of Men, and either you can accept that (or even embrace it as I did) or, as you felt, its simply not enough. Different strokes….
One thing I would disagree with is that I dont feel Cuaron chose to disconnect the audience simply in order to appreciate the ‘pretty pictures’. Rather, I belieive he chose to disconnect the audience in order for them to spend more time contemplating the surroundings & ‘texture’ of the film.
Moving this from the other thread…
A couple things in his column stood out to me:
“But the film offers no evidence of that horrible, controlling beast of government, except as the apparent results of it swim by in visual images.”
Oh my! God forbid a film deliver information through “visual images”! For shame! By all means, telegraph everything to us in lengthy expository dialogue, or perhaps even voiceover. That’s the ticket…
“But what I got from the book that I never got from the film is the power of people making choices about their lives.”
How is Theo not making a choice when he risks his own life, repeatedly, to get Kee to the boat? The hope she represents become his mission. We see Fishes who have made the choice to fight the power by all means necessary. We see Jasper make the ultimate choice about his life and his wife’s. We see the midwife making the same choice as Theo with equally dire results. And every one of them was powerful.
Honestly, from your write-up, the book sounds pretty lame. I’m glad Cuaron just plucked the basic premise and some character names and discarded the rest. What an ordinary film he would have made otherwise.
The book and the movie sound fairly different.
I notice there’s no comment on the apparent embrace the right wing has given the book – anyone?
Anyway, it’s nice that DP feels a need to constantly revisit and re-revisit the titles that other people love and he doesn’t. But if it were me, I would recognize that there are certain modes of filmmaking and storytelling that just don’t appeal to me on a very basic level and move on.
I kind of appreciate David’s revisiting the titles where he’s in the minority, except it often seems he’s just trying to convince everybody why he’s right.
I can’t tell from the brief recap if a version more faithful to the book would have made a better movie. But I agree that the movie had a fatalism that minimized its dramatic potential. The creators were so intent on making us see and feel their vision of dystopia–a sort of cross between Baghdad today and London tomorrow–that between the explosions and the attacks, the characters, with the one possible exception of Jasper, never really had a chance to breath, grow, and make moves. (Except to flee.) Impressive as all hell to look at, but hobbled dramatically.
Wow, Kit. I would say that the movie was anti-fatalistic. In fact, I would say that the entire point of the movie was that even when things appear direst, there can still be hope, and we need to recognize that hope and act in a way such that the hope’s promise can be fulfilled.
Colin-
Which is why I don’t see this as much more than a typical studio picture in design, simply directed in an unconventional manner.
Kit, I do not believe this was intended to be a heavily ‘dramatic’ film in which multiple characters interact in a complex, literary way, which seems to be one of Poland’s primary objections. This is a film in which we watch a single character navigate through a world and learn alongside him through the act of watching.
I’m curious: is there anyone out there who loved this movie and hated United 93, or vice versa? I suspect sympathies would be fairly linked.
Also, I think you could draw some interesting parallels between CoM and Borat; They have a similar basis except that Borat has laughs and feels a need to tack on a sentimental ‘not a jerk’ ending.
Hmm, not sure if I agree with that. For sure, hope is the central theme of the film. But I think it was more ‘see, this is what happens when you lose hope’. In other words, a cautionary tale.
There is very little hope to be seen in the film until the point where the baby is discovered by the squatters in the seiged apartment complex. Even Theo does not really display any hope until that point. Sure, he’s going through the motions of some theoretical best-case-scenario, but you dont see he really believes its going to amount to anything until that moment.
mutinyco, here’s the way I’d see a typical studio version:
1.
a. There’s an opening narration explaining how x (let’s say bioterrorism) led to worldwide terrorism and threw the world into chaos; or
b. Theo visits Jasper, who provides the same narration.
2. When Julian and co. kidnap Theo, she gives him a complete history of the Fish and the Human Project.
3. When Theo visits his cousin, he gives a complete explanation of the government’s position.
4. When Theo finds out about the Fish’s duplicity, he kicks some Fish ass throughout the movie, finally taking down the leader near the end (by the way, I loved the final scene between Theo and Luke).
5.
a. At the end, after the boat arrives, we see the Human Project solving the infertility project and making things great.
b. We have narration doing the same.
etc., etc.
Thing is, Mel, you’ve been reading me long enough to know that stuff like, “Oh my! God forbid a film deliver information through “visual images”! For shame! By all means, telegraph everything to us in lengthy expository dialogue, or perhaps even voiceover. That’s the ticket…” is not what or how I think.
I don’t have problem with you disagreeing, but it feels like you really aren’t even bothering to read what I wrote… which is not like you.
No book can be translated in whole. And COM certainly has a hundred pages of boredom for me. What I was trying to express was the caramel center of the story, which is key for me. And the feeling that all the movie offered was some really good chocolate… one flavor… becautifully rendered… and not very demanding on any other level.
But clearly, you disagree.
And J-Mc… always futile to engage you, it seems, but exactly what kind of film is Children of Men that “don’t appeal to me on a very basic level?”
bobbob911, I’m not sure how much we’re disagreeing. As I said before, “there can still be hope, and we need to recognize that hope and act in a way such that the hope’s promise can be fulfilled.”
As you say, before the baby is discovered, the hope really isn’t recognized. After that scene, it is. In either case, though, I see the film as anti-fatalistic. There will always be hope, and we can choose to fulfill that hope’s promise or destroy it. Our destiny is not set in stone.
Maybe not, colin. I got the impression that you were saying the film was full of reasons to be hopeful, when really most of the film was showing the consequences of losing hope.
Here’s a hypothetical question which maybe makes what I’m trying to say a little clearer. If the ending was significantly less hopeful or more ambiguous (the boat is not shown arriving, the soldiers only pause for a moment before resuming fighting or possibly start chasing Theo), would that still be an artistically valid film? In this case the film would only be showing the consequences of losing hope, and not the redemption of regaining it.
I submit it would still be an artistically successful film. A little more depressing, sure 🙂
Seems like a lot of handwaving Dave! If you don;t like the movie or it didn;t do it for you, that’s ok.
I read the novel too, and not after the movie to make a point, but long before, about 5 times, and what I saw when I read it was a 6 part miniseries, not a reasonable length feature.
Many similar complaints came out about Blade Runner with reference to DO Androids dream…etc
Blade Runner was a better movie for NOT being literal and Not developing Deckard the way the novel did (and other characters). It was hated by Philip K afficionados when it came out, for the same reasons you are saying CoM is failing to satisfy (it was also hated for the riding-off-into-the-sunset end).
But it has shown itself to be a movie that collected many fans over the 25 years. WIll CoM have the lasting power that Blade Runner has had? Time will tell.
If it does achieve ‘importance’ a la Blade Runner, then I think will think you were wrong*&*stubborn in retrospect, until then I will just politely disagree with your analysis of the book and comparison with the movie that resulted.
Dave,
Thanks for giving Children of Men more thought, but given how widely it departs from the source material, how is comparing the two a useful way of understanding the movie? A re-viewing or two with an attempt to understand what the attraction is to the movie’s fans (most of whom, I’d imagine, are not intimately familiar with plot points of the book) could be more a helpful.
For instance, I don’t think Theo’s character in the film is supposed to have much depth. He’s a picaresque everyman who is reacting to much greater forces surrounding him. In this way he reflects both the powerlessness of individuals in the face of a fascist state as well as the disconnect between today’s citizens and the violence and hate that goes on in the world. He is not really a primary agent of activity, as how could he be?
I do, on the other hand, agree with your criticism that the fascist state of the world in the movie is just sort of presumed and never really explained–meaning while it’s perfectly clear what state the world is in, you don’t understand why unless you make the (logical?) jump from infertility to anarchy and fascism. But I do have to take issue with your claim “the fear of not being, as a species, becomes cross talk, a reason to move the story along, but nothing of any emotional weight.” I think this was the entire purpose of the Nigel scene with Michelangelo’s David and Guernica, which was extremely powerful. “I just don’t think about it.” But I would agree the movie could have used some more of this.
Keep up the good work.
bobbob911, while this is generalizing, I saw Theo as the representative of the everyman. Based upon the infertility and everything, he’s become desensitized. The key, therefore, is that he recognizes hope and recognizes that the right things must be done with that hope. The key is not that the boat come at the end.
Therefore, the ending could have been more ambiguous or downbeat, and the film still would have been artistically valid. Heck, the film could have ended before Theo made this realization, and the film would have been artistically valid; it just would have been more limited in scope.
on the subject of the facist regime thing:
do you prefer something like V for Vendetta where they give you a moustache twirling Hitler-lite who spews bile?
Children of Men was great because the government was represented with endless lines of Police with their riot sheilds up, Police holding dogs and machine guns at every corner. Did you even notice how many backgrounds were flooded with gun toting police officers and cages of illegal immigrants?
Did the guards on the busses calling them filth, placing bags over people’s heads, beating the shit out of them…. that didn’t give you a good glimpse into the kind of daily presence the Government was?
I suppose some people prefer moustache twirling facist character actors….
DP, it’s never futile to engage me and I’m disappointed that you feel this way. I don’t think you actually do it as often as you think you do, perhaps.
Anyway, I think your favorite movies are of the ‘twisty-thriller-Rubik’s Cube variety (Fight Club, Munich, The Matrix series). I asked if there was anyone who loved one of Children of Men or United and disliked the other, because I see the way they operate as essentially similar – refusing to have the characters ‘act’ or ‘choose’ in standard literary or dramatic ways and preferring a different approach in which mise-en-scene and action are foregrounded over plot and character to reveal something about human behavior en masse instead of individually. That’s the kind of film that I suspect that, based on your criticism of both films, you will never be partial to. Basically, I think you watch movies more as a screenwriter than as a visual director, and there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just how you are. Everyone’s different.
Now you’ll probably be insulted by my presumption to analyze your tastes, so sorry in advance. But it’s what I think.
I can’t believe you took the time to write what you did Colin. When I say studio design, I’m talking about humanity finding hope in the darkest of hours, the triumph of the human spirit. Shit like that.
People have compared this thing to Kubrick. It ain’t Kubrick by a Czar’s Bomb shot.
Hey, theres nothing wrong with a little moustache twirling either 🙂 I liked CoM much more than V but I still liked V personally speaking.
Wait, so any movie that is about the ‘triumph of the human spirit’, regardless of quality, is ‘studio shit’?
Just to clarify, please.
Jeff, I think visually not literary. And I don’t like either film.
Oh, okay, mutinyco, I thought by design you meant structure, not philosophy.
That said, I think that you’re simplifying my simplification of the film’s philosophy (which, let’s face it, would be difficult to fully explain on this board).
I’m not saying that the film is about finding hope. I’m saying that the film is about the world now, what the world can become (for the worse), and what we choose to do both when there is no hope and when we are presented with hope.
The film is indeed about Theo (and the world) finding hope, but, on a deeper level, it is about him finding hope based upon the way that the Fish, etc. have misinterpreted that hope.
Anyway, got to get back to work. I’ll check back in tomorrow to add some more thoughts.
Colin: Interesting that you see the ending as fully hopeful. To me that last image of the boat with its huge idealistic label was over-the-top just enough so you couldn’t trust it. We could hope it was serious, but…fully believe in it? Not so easy. Which sets up a nice ambiguity, but resolves nothing. Which is I suspect what the creators wanted.
Regarding the interesting comparison with United 93…I couldn’t get through “United 93” at home. I tried, but I couldn’t take it. Call me a wuss.
I said studio picture in design. You threw the word ‘shit’ into the picture. I didn’t say that.
My point is that studio pictures are essentially human spirit stories of people overcoming some level of adversity. And, to me, that’s all this was — simply dressed up in an unconventional directorial approach.
You sure about that, Mutiny?
Anyway, it doesn’t matter – My thesis is that people who don’t like one don’t like either of them because they operate in the same manner.
Regarding the apparent right-wing embrace of the book, I must admit I was confused when the religious right review site Movieguide took COM to task for ignoring the “Christian” book. To me, the book is way more fatalistic and cynical, while the film makes even more explicit the Nativity allegory angle.
David, did you notice that in the book it’s men who are infertile, and in the movie, it’s women? Each auteur chose to blame their opposite gender, which strikes me as interesting.
I want to add to Colin’s brilliant assessment of what the studio version would be…
Theo would team up with a rogue group of American special ops marines from the human project, who all call each other by last name only, to help Kee get away, and over the course of the movie each one would die nobly sacrificing themselves.
The human project would be revealed to be a group from the last flourishing parts of the US who are actually doing ok… Isolated parts of the midwest are alive and well and “the last pockets of freedom on earth”.
As in the book, there’d be a facist overlord named Xan who decides he must go and get the child himself because his henchman just aren’t trustworthy enough.
Theo must fight Xan in the final scene to get Kee to safety, and in their fight he accidentally kills Xan in a gruesome fashion but not of his absolute doing thereby absolving himself of cold blooded murder (i.e. he punches Xan who rolls into a threshing machine).
Theo would’ve been played by Paul Walker.
In the end, Theo is saved by Kee’s love and the cries of the child as he starts to die… Kee realizes his love for her saved her and she begs him to stay alive, and he does just long enough to get medical attention from the Human Project.
The Human Project reveal Xan created the virus that led to infertitlty himself in order to take over the world.
It turns out the key to restoring the human race is… Love! If you have sex while in love you can have babies again. Thus we cut to an epilogue ten years later, in deep Minnesota, where the tranquil human project with clean clothes and technology are surrounded by babies, such as Kee and Theo’s newborn, Julia.
Cut to Nickelback song!
Children of Men makes V for Vendetta look like a junior high school play.
Interesting note on fertility, Luke.
In PD James’ book its obviously ripped from the headlines regarded stories around the time about sperm fertility rates in Europe dropping at an alarming rate (along with a low birthrate). And thus she examines male libido and conscience in regards to its failings in a world where it has no power.
In the film by isolating it to female fertility it becomes more creepy; like some failing of the species in general of one its best qualities. Likewise its why the one take shot of childbirth is so mind blowing. The film is reverential in regards to feminine power and the world it depicts seem to be the result of a world where we’ve lost it.
That is interesting, Luke… didn’t frankly realize that the movie was clear on that. It
SPOILER
They had to kill Julian because she was dead-set on taking the baby to the Human Project, while the others were insistent on using the baby as a political tool.
I didn’t think the movie had specifically stated that it was women’s infertility that was the problem – I thought they kept it very vague, but I could be wrong.
DP, again, I hate to presume your tastes, but I do feel that I have a sense of what you will and won’t like based on reading your for seven years. However, I must disagree with your characterization of this movie (or United 93) as ‘drama that hangs the action on fate’ as opposed to responsibility, again because I think you’re imposing dramatic terms on both movies that neither one is intending upon.
Out of curiosity, do you like or not like Barry Lyndon? I notice that Kubrick has been coming up a lot in regard to this movie, strangely.
The only reference to the problem being with women (that I can recall) came in the midwife’s dialogue about women suddenly having miscarriages. But then, the babies they were carrying might not have been viable because of the genetic material provided by their fathers.
Dave, I think Theo starts out help Julian because of their history, and for the money, but that changes when Kee reveals that she is pregnant. That’s when the journey becomes important to him on a deeper level.
Some posters above mentioned that “hope” didn’t really enter the picture until the baby was born. That’s exactly right, and it’s what made that scene so powerful. Anybody who has kids will tell you the birth moment is the most profound moment of his/her life. And yet it happens every minute all over the world.
That birth was the first and only birth (that we know of) in the entire world in the past 18 years. Somehow the filmmakers were able to convey exactly how profound that moment was for humanity as a whole.
Dave, my problem with that in regards to V for Vendetta is that the comic itself is not emblematic or typical as a comic book and is one of those seminal works that got that form out of the ghetto. I’d argue that the actual comic book of that work is far less Manichean and much more subtle – I came away from the comic book without thinking that V was heroic in any sense whatsoever, a much more enigmatic figure who has his own brand of facism he’s dispensing. The movie reduced him to iconic and heroic, which muddles the message and makes it far too simplistic and naive.
The comic book of V for Vendetta doesn’t aim for accessibility. It was rightly challenging, and felt like it was written by a madman, and the movie should’ve been more so. The movie felt like the philosophical ponderings of a smart 15 year old who wears a trenchcoat and just got done reading Nietzche. But he’s still 15 and sees things wayyyy too over the top and really has a lot of angst going on cause he can’t get a date.
I think CoM is a great movie. I think it is even better because of all the disussion it has created on The Hot Blog. What more can we ask for than something that entertains us and makes us think about the film itself and our differing interpretations of it.
I think Cuaron would be extremely pleased if we were reading this thread and all the others that have addressed his film.
You just hit on why you think the movie is deep and I don’t. I’m already resigned to the inevitibilty of human extinction. For whatever reason — bombs, viruses, asteroids, environment, etc. I’m past that.
JeffMCM
Loved United 93..in my view it is the best film of the year. Totally blew me away.
I wouldn’t say I strongly disliked COM, but it didn’t have any type of emotional impact on me what so ever. I thought it was amazing camera work, direction, set design, and several great action sequences, plus I love me some Clive Owen and Michael Caine. But overall I wasn’t wowed by COM and just left the theatre kind of tired, devoid of any type of eneregy, and thinking well the film looked amazing.
Out of weird morbid curiosity…in the book do they even bring up the whole idea of cloning? I mean we are duplicating sheep in 2000…why not babies in 2007?
And if, in the book, it says that it’s sperm that’s not working anymore, why not use what’s left in sperm banks from before?
Hey Mutiny, I don’t believe you. If you were as nihilistic as your above posting claims, you wouldn’t be posting. Or making films, for that matter.
Charlie: Fair enough. I’ll have to revise my thesis, but I still think the two movies have similar goals and methods.
There’s a difference between waiting for and seeking the end of the world — which won’t happen in my lifetime, I don’t think — and simply being accepting of it. That’s why I do my filmmaking and put so much effort into it — if I’m gonna be here, I might as well do the best I can.
since i’m coming to the party late… has anyone else pointed out that Clive Owen is going to be appearing in a really cheesy movie about him protecting an infant from great harm against all odds this year?
i see a trailer mashup inevitably… Children of Real Men or something.
Wow, the layout of the book was even more convoluted than the wikipedia summary, which struck me as a typical exercise in modern science fiction. “Xan”?! Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?
Vendetta had a depth of characterization and a triumph in editing beyond what one expects from a genre play, and for that it was one of my favorites. That said, Children of Men tops it on every factor, with ease to boot. It simply speaks less, yet says more.
To me, the reason Julian was killed off was simply Cuaron’s way of telling those viewers who knew the book that they’re in very uncharted territory…it certainly knocked me right out of analytical-comparison mode. It’s akin to Sam Jackson’s death in Deep Blue Sea.
Besides, to keep it a nativity allegory, it has to end up being only mother, child, and adoptive father. No room for additional protagonists by the end.
And if, in the book, it says that it’s sperm that’s not working anymore, why not use what’s left in sperm banks from before?
Though I don’t recall it specifically addressing that point, those supplies would be as finite as anything else.
mutinyco seems to be coming at this from the very typical high school angsty place of a film that has hope is a sell-out studio movie. Bet he’s a bunch of laughs to hang out with.
Devin-
And you criticized me for saying United 93 didn’t have enough humor in it…
I don’t see the contradiction.
Hey Devin, Bud Cort’s name is spelled wrong on your website.
I think it’s safe to say that everyone seeked out source material for films that they liked, or thought there could have been more potential at one point or another; but you can’t compare apples with oranges at the end of the day.
The book sounds interesting from your synopsis, but it definitely is not the movie, which is fine by me. I don’t think anyone needs a lesson about literary vs visual storytelling here. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with disliking a movie and reading the book after and liking the source material more.
If the movie had been more reviled across the board, then talking about its faults as an adaptation would probably be a more valid argument. But since many people find the film to be a success in storytelling, then I’d venture that it’s not a failed adaptation. Any one of us may have made different choices in adapting the book but what’s done is done. It was pared down, changed deliberately and now discussed with passion.
But he thinks War of the Worlds is so different. A movie which dares to say that the entire invasion of our planet and near genocide of our species by an alien race was worth it… So Tom Cruise could learn to be a better father. That’s the ultimately incredibly Hollywood thing about that movie – it’s total self absorption in which the heroic journey is self centered. The character is the center of the universe and redeemed by an alien invasion. So much so that his son improbably survives so that he can have a happy ending. And thereby cause 90% of the audience to mutter “goddamn this Spielberg guy doesn’t know how to end a movie anymore”.
(I think Empire of the Sun is an underrated masterpiece)
Children of Men says that the best we can hope for is giving ourselves selflessly to something greater, bigger than us. Even if it means our demise and sacrifice.
I apologize for how rude i’ve been to D Poland though he needs to get over his J. Wells obsession cause it brings out the worst in him.
But mutinyco, you legitimately creep me out.
I think the point of (one of, anyhow) War of the Worlds is that humanity is ultimately humbled. It’s our pride that blinds us to what’s actually going on. And in the end, humanity doesn’t even defeat the aliens — they’re undone by their own pride.
Is Ray a better father at the end? I don’t think that’s been determined. He fights to protect his children, yes. But does that mean he’s going to be a better day to day parent? That’s not implied. What I do know, is that by technical definition he becomes a murderer in order to protect his daughter. So, all things said and done, I’m not sure it’s as B&W as you’re suggesting.
Anyhow, glad to creep you out. I try my best.
You are an immensely successful person.
otaku,
i agree with you on several points.
Empire of the Sun is underrated.
War of the Worlds is great until the end where the son lives. Speilberg, almost to a fault, rewards his protagonists and gives them what they want. There are a handful of examples, but Speilberg seems almost incapable of denying his main characters every happy ending he can dish out.
Minority Report and AI are two examples where logic and narrative sense are abandoned to give the main characters what they want. A.I. should have ended with David underneath the water, Minority Report didn’t require Anderton getting back with his ex wife and her being pregnant.
The Minority Report story ends with the precogs going away and a wonderful little pinprick of an ending where it says that the next year, 52 people were murdered. That’s a great ending, but Speilberg can’t do anything but end it all on a high note. As i said, there are examples, but it’s what prevents Speilberg from being truly remarkable. Great, sure. Saving Private Ryan would be another one.
“Did i lead a good life?”… CUE THE WAVING AMERICAN FLAG.
Jesus tapdancing christ, that scene was so fucking pointless. Bullshit Speilberg button pushing at the end of the movie. Fucking ridiculous. It’s like he’s afraid to let his characters feel the impact of the bad because he washes over the last 10 minutes with improbable and stupid endings.
Not one of Spielberg’s recent sci-fi triptych had a true happy ending. Spielberg has purposely played off people’s expectations.
David is dead at the end of A.I. The supermachines dig him up, realize he was the last link to humanity. David, programmed to love his mommy to enternity will never change and will always wish to be human. So they program him to “experience” seeing his mommy again and being human — since for him (and us?) a programmed experience is no less real than any other experience. And then he’s terminated. And just like all humans he is now dead. This was KUBRICK’S ENDING.
In Minority Report, the moment Anderton is imprisoned the movie switches gears. It’s left to the audience, depending on their POV, to decide whether they accept the happy ending or whether this is all going on inside Anderton’s head. I choose the latter. But this is intentionally unresolved — an audience litmus test.
And as War was a juxtaposition between real world fears and the movies, the ending is really just a punchline. It’s a running joke throughout the movie how Ray and his family manage to survive EVERY situation even though the other people all perish. Because this is what we expect from the hero in our movies. Obviously this would not happen in real life. And ultimately, yes, even the son has survived (and found his way to Boston!). The final image suggests that it isn’t humans or our weapons or space aliens that are our greatest threat — it’s those things we can’t see, micro organisms and viruses.
And yes, Empire of the Sun is a neglected masterpiece.
Mutinyco, much of your analysis is thought-provoking. I’ve considered those same points as I read them in other places. However, in the case of Minority Report and War of the Worlds, those explanations have always struck me as wishful thinking, as fans reading more into a movie because their fondness for Spielberg blinds them from the possibility that he screwed things up. I don’t think the what’s actually on screen supports the things you’re suggesting.
The last thing in MR before the third act is Anderton being put away, halo glowing, with Gideon telling him that he’ll see “visions”… But like I said, I think in this case it’s left to the viewer to make up their own mind.
War of the Worlds is more arguable. Some people like the movie, but see the ending as a cop-out. For me, I look at it in the context of it being a commentary on movies (complete with visual puns on The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind), in relation to the real world. So I see the earnestness, and its inherent distancing effect as being intentional.
Either or, they’re ambiguous. And I rather enjoy that.
Lucky for Cuaron and his collaborators that USC Scripter nominated COM as a finalist for best achievement in adaptation before Dave’s latest HButton effort to chop the film down to size came out. They would have seen the error of their ways, stripped COM of the nomination, and prostrated themselves in wretched supplication to a more worthy mind.
Is COM a student film?
Whatever. I’m signing out of the CoM discussion. It’s been a fun couple of days keeping my brain going while working on a writing project. But this whole thing has run itself into the ground. Not learning anything new.
‘Night.
Good cause you were starting to creep me out.
Wow, knowing now that mutinyco is a Spielberg apologist makes me wish I hadn’t wasted my time reading all this bullshit.
A.I. was a great film despite its awful coda; I don’t give a shit who’s idea it was. It was like having sex with a beautiful and spry woman who farts loudly right before she leaves your apartment. I prefer to remember the good parts, but I sure wish I had gone to sleep 5 minutes earlier.
Minority Report was such a plot driven film, however, that its audience-insulting “Oh wait, it’s the surprise bad guy!” and the contrived way he’s discovered (a hidden microphone? really?) is just as bad as the real-or-not-real ending. Again, I don’t care if that last shot was supposed to be a dream–it rang totally false, and going by Spielberg’s track record of ending his films, he shouldn’t be getting the benefit of the doubt.
I can’t even believe we’re discussing War of the Worlds. People shit all over Tarantino’s exercises in style (and now Cuaron’s), yet give this empty, contrived popcorn fodder a pass? Whatever. Oh, the son’s still alive! How about that. Spielberg was going for irony there? Right. Mutinyco says it’s a punch line. No, that’s the rat at the end of The Departed. The ending of War of the Worlds was a cop out, from someone who excels at tacking them onto almost every one of his films.
“If I only could have saved one more!”
The movie is an adaptation. Things change. The movie is 109 unwasted (in my mind) minutes. I think an extra 40 minutes of the alpha story would have just been superfluous. As a film, I think it works better to not have so many subplots and to have everything spelled out.
But, you’re entitled to your opinion.
Ah ha, and now the irony is that I will join Mutinyco in agreeing that A.I. is exactly perfect as is, ending and all. It’s a very good film until its final section, and then it becomes a masterpiece and the movie I’ve had the strongest emotional reaction to in the last five years. WOTW and MR are strong despite their odd endings.
Meanwhile, Anghus is thoroughly wrong about the ending of Saving Private Ryan but I think we’ve had that discussion before. I feel like I try and explain why it’s a strong and appropriate ending to that movie once every two months or so here.
And I feel like only a person with a heart made of stone couldn’t be affected by ‘if only I could have saved one more’. Jesus, do you people actually like movies?
Wow. I feel like I haven’t been in a war over A.I. in years!!!
And with the blog, I don’t have to do any of the editing… if that’s a good thing…
But seriously, it is interesting for me, who used to run a lot of reader mail on Hot Button to see how a discussion that I already experienced as a wave of hundreds and hundreds of e-mails is now this… niche evolution.
To hold the source material (the novel) up as a comparative mirror to the film is simply unfair to the film in every way.
As we have seen, over and over and over again in film history, the auteur will take what he/she wants/needs, and will create their vision regardless of the source material. To hold up an adapted work and declare disappointment because it’s not as good or is different from the book is in no way, shape, or form a valid criticism of the adaptation. It would be like saying The Departed sucks because it doesn’t have the same ending as Infernal Affairs, or that the characters are different from that film, etc. It’s just not a valid argument when considering the work itself.
I thought Dave’s argument about the lack of choice by the characters was interesting because while I was watching the story unfold I felt exactly the opposite: there are an infinite number of possibilities for these characters, yet the story is so well told that the action seems inevitable. Everyone is making decisions, as people in the real world do, based on the limited amount of information available to them, and they’re making them with both heart and mind. It’s that human element that struck a solid chord in me regarding this film.
I found it to be a wonderful piece of work, far more inventive and engrossing than nearly any of the other films I saw this year, with the possible exceptions of Departed and United 93.
Regarding the “personal” aspect of CofM, I found Theo to be one of the characters I sympathized with, cared about, and thought about more than nearly any other character in a movie this year. In fact, the only other character in any work of art that hit me deeper is the father in Cormac McCarthy’s masterful The Road, a novel which, at the end of the day, parallels CofM in many fascinating ways.
Both of these works spoke directly to me in as strong a way as I can imagine. After the screening I saw of Children I discussed the film at great length in a coffee shop with my 2 stepsons. As they were truly bowled over by this potentially bleak vision of the future, and were awed by the action sequences and the drama of the story, I told them that what I took away from the film, and what affected me so deeply, was simply this: As you go through your day to day life, you will not always be aware of it, but the fact is this: There is more in the world that could be lost than you can barely imagine. Everything is at stake and there’s a great deal to lose. Remember this, and live your life in a manner that shows you understand this, and you’ll have hopefully done your best. And that’s it.
I have no illusions that the Academy will show the love for this film. But I will continue to hold out hope until nomination morning.
Can I just say how pleasant it is to finally, at long last, read/hear/experience a conversation about AI that doesn’t have one or more people insisting that the advanced robots at the end were in fact aliens?
I’m with those who thing the endings of A.I., Minority Report, War of the Worlds and Saving Private Ryan SUCK.
Jesus, when the teddy bear pulls out a lock of the mother’s hair… the audience I was with laughed. And the SPR bookends were dreadful… starting with the old Private Ryan flashing back to a battle he wasn’t even in.
Spielberg has ended some movies perfectly (Raiders of the Lost Ark comes to mind) but he has botched so many more.
The ending of War of the Worlds wasn’t botched. The entire movie was botched. From start to finish. Ridiculous, really.
jeff,
you say i’m wrong about the ending of Saving Private Ryan, i say that the bookends are what cost the movie the best picture Oscar.
…or, voters could have just decided they liked the entertaining Shakespeare romcom over another Spielberg WWII movie? Just perhaps.
Wow, I simply could not agree with lazarus more about AI, MR, and WOTW. AI was, for me, an excellent film even with the ending (yes I know this ending was in Kubrick’s notes but I have to assume he would have editted it out at some point. Either that or he wrote it as his interpretation of a ‘Spielburgian’ ending. Either way its simply hideous)
Minority Report was, essentially, Mission Impossible 2.5 (in the future!). Completely empty.
War of the Worlds was laughable nonsense, from start to finish. The ending was probably the *best* thing about it 🙂 (Actually, the best thing about WOTW is that the DVD has some Huge bass sound effects that make my room shake, big time!)
Felt like DP when I first saw COM, but saw it again last night and saw a completely different movie. I picked up many things I hadn’t seen before and now I appreciate it for being so spare on the dramatic details because it is more of a mystery that way. And more interesting, layered and ultimately full of meaning. It’s really quite wonderful.
Maybe he has already answered this, but that makes me wonder how many times DP has seen COM, especially since he saw Rocky Balboa three times.
Another thing about the A.I. ending: It’s not so much the idea of it, but when the robot sits down on the bed next to me and starts explaining everything, I literally heard the audience groan in the theatre. Kubrick may have included this coda, as bobbob911 mentioned, but he never would have done it so ham-fisted. It reminded me of the spirit of Obi-Wan sitting down on a Dagobah log in Return of the Jedi to explain to Luke why he lied about Leia. So awkward.
And I doubt that the bookends are what cost Saving Private Ryan. Those geriatrics probably ate that shit up, not even realizing that it was totally fraudulent to change characters from a seemingly POV flashback. The reason it lost was because it had a generic script with cardboard characters. After the first 20 minutes, which are only impressive from a technical standpoint, it was pretty unoriginal for the last 2 hours. Shakespeare had a bunch of memorable perfs, and a crackling script that hit highbrow and lowbrow marks. It was funny, and had a moving love story in it as well. Doesn’t surprise me at all that it won.
As for jeffmcm claiming I have a heart of stone, I admired the filmmaking in Schindler’s List, but that ending rang false to me. Sure enough, I discovered afterward that Schindler dropping to his knees weeping is a bit of a fabrication. As if a complacent German deciding to help save Jews, for not wholly unselfish reasons, isn’t enough of a story or character arc, Spielberg has to give the Academy Jews the biggest hanky moment imaginable. Ham-fisted and unnecessary, as is the docu-coda of all the survivors walking to the grave. Okay, we get it. With all that guilt dished out you’d think he was Catholic. Marty chooses to blend it with his art instead of hammering away and can’t catch a taxi in this town.
He’s not Catholic, he’s Jewish.
so if I didn’t like AI do I have a heart of stone? I only liked Jude Law which is odd since I usually dislike him.
COM chances for oscar anything, in the categories most people care about seem slim, too bad. I don;t dislike most of the other nominees for announced awards thus far but they do seem pretty pedestrian.
I saw COM twice and I didn;t like it any less on second viewing, but it doesn’t seem the sort of movie that older academy viewers would warm to.
Was HAVEN released officially in 2006 in the US? I liked that one too. I made Stella’s girl go see it (and he liked it).
Empire of the Sun is my favourite Spielberg. Maybe the only film of his in the last twenty years with a sentimental ending that doesn’t seem too obvious.
Surprised no one’s derided Munich yet…and did I miss how the conversation turned from CoM to Spielberg?
What I’m surprised by is that nobody has mentioned the Spielberg films that are actually worthy of deriding: 1941, Always, Hook, and to a certain extent, The Terminal, which is the most frustrating ending to any modern (post-Schindler) Spielberg movie, in my opinion.
Wow, Jeff, you just named three of my favorite Spielbergs–HOOK is just okay–and all comedies to boot. I wonder what this means…
Well, I actually like 1941, while recognizing that to most people it’s like nails on a chalkboard. I would not bother to defend it from any criticism. On the other hand, I can not imagine any possible defense of Always or Hook. If anyone can explain how the ending of The Terminal makes sense based on the movie up to that point, I’d be interested to hear it.
God The Terminal was bad. Well, it was more a weak little baby not willing to do anything for 2 hours. Pathetic.
Did anyone catch the Pink Floyd reference in CoM?
The allusion was to the cover of “Animals.”
Do a quick Google image search and I’m sure you’ll remember.
Some interesting lyrics:
“If you didn’t care what happened to me,
And I didn’t care for you,
We would zig zag our way through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain.
Wondering which of the buggars to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing.”
http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/animals-lyrics.html
I’m late to this party. Bottom line is, I agree with David. I didn’t feel there was any sense of consequence to what was going on. The weight of what was going on–humanity can no longer recreate itself and will therefore die–was oddly absent from the proceedings. As David said, the Danny Huston character is the only one who acknowledges it, but having taken its breath it dives back under the water, never to resurface.
Humanity is dying, so people are blowing stuff up to demand rights for illegal aliens? What? Michael Caine has retreated from the world to smoke pot. People weep over “Baby Diego” in what surely must be a send-up of our vapid fixation on celebrity death. You’d think that in such an extreme situation people would behave extremely. Well, more extremely.
Julianne Moore gets plugged early, so has no character development. The Luke character is straight out of central casting, the thuggish terrorist leader who’ll kill everyone to get his way, and by gum he’s gonna start by offing his cronies. Did he have a thought in his head? What a stupid character. Clive Owen is tolerable, but he doesn’t present any genuine self-conflict. He gets to his destination and then he dies. Who does he think he is, Moses?
The world of the film wasn’t fully realized. The visual cues were interesting, but not always connected to the narrative. And the cinematography everyone raved about left me flat. It felt like being in an FPS, except less fun and less interesting.
There’s probably a great movie to be made out of this story. This wasn’t it. I couldn’t help comparing it to “V for Vendetta,” with which it shares many themes. “V” is absolutely mindless. Yet compared to “Children of Men,” it’s an exemplar of logic. That’s no mean feat. It’s not a very proud one, either.