|
Yeah, Altered States is tonally weird because the lean doesn't earn his ending. The whole film feels like its headed towards his hubris destroying him and then it doesn't and instead he's saved by the power of love. Which I don't inherently hate as a storytelling device when you have something like Poltergeist that really works that angle, but AS was going the exact opposite way until the ending. At one point of this tournament I actually accidently counted Altered States as a Cronenberg film just because it appeared to put the value of scientific discovery and transforming humanity into something greater as the most important thing over general emotions or sensibilities. But it also weirdly tries to have that in the end too. I suppose Russell's point was the opposite of Cronenberg's and that the scientist learned his lesson in the end. But it didn't feel like he did.
|
# ? Oct 7, 2020 21:55 |
|
|
# ? May 21, 2024 16:22 |
|
I went 2x Russell, 1x Miike
|
# ? Oct 7, 2020 22:14 |
|
I'm gonna try and watch Altered States tonight and see if I have been swayed by Ichi and this discussion. I'll have you know you guys are cutting into my Friday the 13th Box Set time.
|
# ? Oct 7, 2020 22:26 |
|
STAC Goat posted:. I like this observation a lot, and it shows how important it is to the overall feel of a movie like The Fly that the scientist should eat poo poo in the end. You can't just say that your narcissistic shithead has learned the error of his ways and expect the audience to believe it, you've got to show it. It would have felt more appropriate for it to end with Eddie trapped in his own mind or permanently physically transformed. e: I voted Devils, Ichi, Over Your Dead Body
|
# ? Oct 7, 2020 23:04 |
|
STAC Goat posted:Yeah, Altered States is tonally weird because the lean doesn't earn his ending. The whole film feels like its headed towards his hubris destroying him and then it doesn't and instead he's saved by the power of love. Which I don't inherently hate as a storytelling device when you have something like Poltergeist that really works that angle, but AS was going the exact opposite way until the ending. i think it's less that he learned a lesson and more that people don't actually suffer for being assholes. usually they just keep being assholes and people keep giving them more chances
|
# ? Oct 7, 2020 23:14 |
|
I finally finished deliberating and went 1x Miike and 2x Russell. It was really down to Altered States vs. Ichi for me, and I had to end up going with my gut.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 02:04 |
|
As The Gods Will vs. The Devils: This one went to Miike for me. I actually rather like silly teen death battle movies, and it was competently done and entertaining. Even if I don't think it's Miike's finest work, it was visually engaging enough and has some fun 'monster' design. There's a lot of The Devils that just doesn't appeal to me, and what does I feel I can turn to better films for. Ichi the Killer vs. Altered States: I don't really like either of these films that much. But Ichi is in many ways repulsive and not something I really care to watch. Whether that's intentional or not, it still isn't going to make me any more invested in watching it. Both of them have something interesting to say, but Altered States I think does it a little better, even if in my opinion the direction is a bit at odds with the screenplay. But Russell doesn't seem to mind having a muddled message, and even if I don't really agree with what Altered States seems to be saying, I can appreciate how it goes about conveying it. So Altered States wins 'less bad' this time. Over Your Dead Body vs. Gothic: This is the closest match for me, as I find them both to be very interesting films I don't quite get, but nevertheless are ones that I kind of wouldn't mind understanding better. I wanted to give Gothic another shot so I re-watched it today. About halfway through I was on its side, but the tumble toward the ending feels just a bit turgid. I think Russell sometimes overstates himself. On the one hand, there's a lusty energy to this and Miike is relatively restrained, even to the point of feeling constricted in Over Your Dead Body. Ultimately, though, I'm not really on board with Russell. He's not my cup of tea, and while I'm not a big fan of Miike, I think that this film shows some real attention to detail in its construction. There's an intricacy to it even if I find a bit emotionally opaque. I probably should have given it a re-watch to be totally fair, but I actually think it would only confirm my choice. Vote to Miike.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 06:14 |
|
3-0 Russell, because he made movies. Miike just shits in his hand, throws it at the wall and sees what sticks.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 09:55 |
|
I’ve got one more post in me before the votes are counted.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 13:16 |
|
Just a heads up, I'm helping my moms handyman hang some sheetrock this AM so you have until at least noonish EST to campaign and share the vote link with your friends
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 13:31 |
|
Some thoughts, before voting is over, about Altered States Altered States slowly becomes great until it drops off in its final moments. I believe there's a simple fix for the film, but it changes the narrative completely. The Final Moments of the Film: Eddie is home, in bed, seemingly catatonic. Emily is having a nervous breakdown and is going in shock. Parrish tries to keep her grounded, Arthur storms in with his mind blown. They leave. Eddie comes out and tells Emily that the great epiphany he has learned in all his experimentation, is that there actually is nothing; there is no real great epiphany, there is no greater truth, the universe is basically cold and callous, the true beauty in existence is human connection. Emily tells Eddie if he actually loved her, he could find the cosmic degradation his body is experiencing. He starts to distort in agony. Emily reaches out to him, screaming about Love. They touch, and Emily is consumed by the energy as well. They are both in agony. Eddie starts slamming himself into the walls while Emily is pulled backwards across the floor. Eddie hits himself to his normal corporeal form. He runs over and embraces Emily. There is a burst of energy; they disintegrate into orbs of light. The orbs of light pull together and Eddie and Emily are embracing in the nude, on the floor. "I love you, Emily", Eddie says. Credits. Here's My Fix: [...]Eddie comes out and tells Emily that the great epiphany he has learned in all his experimentation, is that there actually is nothing; there is no real great epiphany, there is no greater truth, the universe is basically cold and callous, the true beauty in existence is human connection. Emily tells Eddie if he actually loved her, he could find the cosmic degradation his body is experiencing. He starts to distort in agony. Emily reaches out to him, screaming about Love. They touch, and Emily is consumed by the energy as well. They are both in agony. Eddie starts slamming himself into the walls while Emily is pulled backwards across the floor. Eddie hits himself to his normal corporeal form. He runs over and embraces Emily. There is a burst of energy; they disintegrate into orbs of light. The hallway is empty. Credits. Why This Works for the Audience: Eddie has been selfish the entire time. He puts himself at danger because it's "safe", seemingly ignoring the fact that his testing can and will affect those around him. He becomes a literal monster, something like a Morlock mixed with a 2001 ape. He almost kills a man. He spent years shirking the responsibility of father and husband and friend, put himself and others at risk, and ruined his body and mind in the process. At the end of the movie, he is saved by a hand and a hug. It's very silly for Emily to say she loves Eddie. While we have no reason to question it, we don't have any reason to understand it. They can't even have sex without Eddie saying some weird poo poo about his religious fanaticism as a child. Mood killer. So, if at the end, Emily tries to save Eddie with Love, they embrace, and are both destroyed, it works. Their unhealthy relationship cycle leads to both of their destruction. Eddie's conclusion that human connection comes too late, as the existential damage has been done, and he drags Emily into doom as well. It's tragic, but it makes sense, because it is a worthy price to pay for Eddie's mistakes. Why This Changes the Entire Narrative of Altered States: Altered States is a film about addiction. Eddie's self-destructive actions, his selfish behavior, his abuse towards family, colleagues, and friends, his dangerous mood swings, his tenuous grasp of reality, his craving to continue his experimentations, they are all symptoms of hard abuse, like alcoholism or opioid use. Emily believes that love can break his addiction; that underneath Eddie's flaws is a brilliant man she believes is capable of a meaningful connection and relationship, of being a father and a husband. Altered States posits an interesting alternative with it's story of addiction. Eddie is not chasing a mental high, exactly; euphoria isn't the main goal. Nor is forgetting, or salving a pain, or numbing himself from his outward life. Eddie's addiction, his insane craving to continue his experiments, stems from the emptiness that is left with the death of a spiritual life. Eddie's experiments are an attempt to find a belief in God or a higher power again. Eddie is a man of lapsed faith. His faith died with his Father's painful death to cancer. The comfort of predestination, of a Heaven for the Good and a Hell for the Bad, of a God that has a plan and that is capable of loving his creatures; all of that is gone. Being a husband does not feed that hunger, being a father doesn't feed that hunger. The only thing that does is his experiments. This leads him to an academic spiritual journey, of sorts, to a tribe of indigenous people that use hallucinogens for spiritual practice. There is a literal substance he can take, where the high lets him shake the shackles of society, of being a sinful Man, of being constrained by morality. The simple act of eating and drinking is euphoric. So, in our final moments, Eddie has hit his rock bottom. He understands now that the addiction he has been embracing is a dangerous lie; there is no great answer out there, there isn't a switch to turn on his spirituality again; the emptiness he feels, he believes, can be satiated with what he already has: a person who loves him (instead of a God), colleagues who admire him, friends that will risk their careers and lives for him. And so when he starts to relapse, when the side effects of his addiction manifest yet again, it is Emily's love that grounds him, but it is his love for Emily, which he is willing to admit for the first time for himself, that saves them both. It is optimistic as hell. Eddie doesn't deserve a second chance, but he is given one anyway. Reasons We Probably Got the Ending We Got: First, the screenwriter/novelist Paddy Chayefsky was a huge pain in the rear end, and was adamant that nothing should be changed from his script. quote:"I couldn’t work with someone else judging everything I did," said the director. "Chayefsky told me, ‘I’ll just be on the set as a benign influence.’ The producer said, ‘How do you spell benign, Paddy?’ He answered, ‘W-I-C-K-E-D’. He was joking but he wasn't joking’."[16] From imdb, so take it with a grain of salt: quote:Ken Russell hated Paddy Chayefsky's script, calling it ponderous, pretentious and labored. However, he was in a situation where, if he changed so much as one word of the script, he would have been sued. He resolved this by having the actors mumble their lines, or give speeches in between mouthfuls of food or wine. There are also rumors, which I can't really substantiate, that Ken Russell had drinking problems while making this film. It makes me wonder if this contributes to the overly optimistic, clean ending, forgiving ending towards Eddie's addiction. Conclusions I went to sleep last night ready to vote for Ichi The Killer. Ignoring it's grotesque sensibilities, it's flippancy with rape, it's exploration of toxic masculinity through a Yakuza thriller, it's a little easier to objectively point at it and think it justifies itself. It's also just Louder. It's gorier, it's frantic, it's ridiculous, it's unhinged, it's perverted, it's nihilistic, and everyone in it is guilty, so their demise is fine. However, there's something about Altered States that I think is more interesting. Because it's a little lethargic (I think you can shave off anywhere from 5-15 minutes off the run-time in the first half of the film), verbose, and confused, it seem like the weaker film. But there's something fascinating about a film that mixes Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with 2001 A Space Odyssey. The Ape segment was also wonderful, because it basically is a twist on a werewolf movie; instead of Larry Talbot forced to become a werewolf that terrorizes the village because of his poor luck, he is now a scientist addicted to the power of becoming a werewolf, and isn't shackled to moon cycles. I think what's unsatisfying with the films ending is kinda true about most stories of addiction. It's hard to fit in a come-uppance that isn't overtly cruel. We are culturally at a sea change where we are trying to understand addiction and grow a compassion towards someone who's existence is tied to a destructive substance. Eddie's explicitly says he doesn't know what he's searching for, he just knows that he's searching. And so he chases the high, in this case a scientific experiment with hallucinogens and isolation chambers. We've been so quick to say that an alcoholic deserves their ruined liver and their body being destroyed, that the opioid addict earns their OD, but when it's someone we know, when we think about the human life behind it, then the callous answer is cruel. So how do we forgive Eddie? Does Eddie deserve forgiveness? The film does not really end with a feeling of ambiguity, somehow. The embrace and credits rolling seem to bring about a feeling of finality. "That's it?" But with any consideration of the story, it can't be. Eddie will still have his body distorted; while he may fight off his transformations, that does not stave them off. Eddie acknowledges that what he was looking for was in front of him the whole time: human connection. Eddie does not have emotional intelligence for this. He does not know how to be a father or husband yet. He now has the opportunity to learn these roles, but it will take a lot of pain and failures before he is anywhere close to the man Emily imagines him to be. There is still a history of abuse between Eddie and Emily; that doesn't get washed away now, and it sadly has room to be repeated. There is also a pathway of destruction in his career; I don't know if academia or his peers will recover from this. Arthur seems electrified by the results of the experiments. Will his interest make Eddie backslide? Or will he continue the experiments himself? There are many loose ends, many of which point towards a darker ending than the nude embrace implies, but is that enough? So much of Altered States is, again, My poo poo. The hallucinations are beautiful. The experiments are stressful (especially when Eddie is removed from the isolation tank with blood all over his face). The mixing of academia, pseudoscience, spirituality, lapsed faith, addiction, and physical transformations are awesome. Every few minutes the film would posit an idea that left me kind of impressed and thoughtful about its implications. The physical effects are really cool. There's also more room for humor in AS for me. Mason Parrish: [as they examine an X-ray taken of Eddie during a "tank trip"] It looks to me like the architecture is slightly abnormal. Dr. Wissenschaft: Somewhat? This guy's a loving gorilla! I think Cronenberg took many ideas from this film and used them to make The Fly, which I think is the greater cinematic achievement than Altered States, although their themes only slightly overlap with How Far Is Too Far With Science. Altered States vs Ichi The Killer I think I would rather revisit Altered States than Ichi, though. Ichi may bring up a visceral reaction in ways Altered States does not, but I'd rather meditate on what Altered States brings to the table. Ichi begins with a man punching the everloving poo poo out of a sex worker before he rapes her, while our secondary protagonist masturbates and cums the film's title. Part of me may have been more impressed by that a decade ago when I was a younger, edgier dude. I won't say that Miike's film is vapid, because I do think its saying something with what it's showing, but I just don't really like the mental gymnastics I have to work around to understand it, and even then, some things just don't sit right with me. Meanwhile, Altered States may fumble some of its ideas, the behind the scenes drama seems to have made it a compromised films in some ways, but there is still a lot to appreciate. Also, a small consideration: I can happily invite everyone to my house to watch Altered States. I can maybe invite a fraction of my friends to watch Ichi the Killer, and even then, there will be a lot of heavy sighs and awkward beats. It's in the same category as Street Trash and The New York Ripper, in which I would feel embarrassed if I made one of my female friends watch it. I don't feel that way about Miike in general. Blade of the Immortal? 13 Assassins? Audition? All essential viewing, in my book, and would beat Altered States, probably. But I dunno. The existential fears and problems in Altered States is more interesting to explore than Ichi's in-your-face satire(?) of toxic masculinity, our relationship with violence vs pain, and unrequited love. Fun fact: I started this write-up having voted Ichi, but now I think I'm changing my vote back to Altered States.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 14:38 |
|
Franchescanado posted:There's also more room for humor in AS for me. If you're comparing Altered States and Ichi the Killer on the basis of humour, just the fact that Altered States has George Gaynes playing a character called Doctor Science ought to swing it for you.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 14:49 |
|
Jedit posted:If you're comparing Altered States and Ichi the Killer on the basis of humour, just the fact that Altered States has George Gaynes playing a character called Doctor Science ought to swing it for you. Also, it's neither here-nor-there, but John Larroquette is the X-Ray Technician, which is fun. Weird seeing him still do bit parts, 16 years after narrating The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's intro. Night Court was still 4 years away.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 14:53 |
|
The votes are in! It's a clean sweep! Congrats to the winner, Ken Russell Also thanks to all the participants, it's been very exciting to watch people discover directors, dig into their catalogs and really see what different vectors for horror exist. Yay us! I'll leave this thread open for another day or two so ya'll can process, then close it. Looking forward to January when STAC tries to take on this madness.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 16:08 |
|
Hell Yes.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 16:09 |
|
Makes sense to me. The final round was the same as the rest of the tournament - it really relied on the luck of the draw for the directors involved. Thanks for wrangling this whole mess Shrecknet and to everyone else for the thoughtful write-ups and so on. I had a good time and saw some cool movies!
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 16:17 |
|
Yes. Thank you so much, Shrecknet, for putting all of this together. It's been weird and it's been fun, thanks to your hard work.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 16:20 |
|
I said before that I'd be happy with either result, and while I voted for a Miike win I think Russell was just as talented and equally deserving. I live in the UK so if you want me to get myself arrested trying to give Ken's widow the award, just let me know. Thanks to Shrecknet for organising, thanks Debbie for streaming, thanks to the council of elders for assembling the lineup of films, thanks everyone who effort-posted, thanks everyone who voted. This has been super fun.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 16:45 |
|
Congratulations to this burly boi! An 11-seed who didn't even have a complete 6-film roster!!
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 16:48 |
|
You rock, Shreck. You rock, Deb. You rock, Fran. You rock everyone. Ken Russel's aight.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 17:02 |
Wow. I really wasn't expecting a clean sweep! Congratulations to Ken, the rightful king of all horror directors. And again, thank you so much to Shrek and everyone else who made this so fun. I hope this thread hits the gold mine, because it deserves it!Franchescanado posted:It's in the same category as Street Trash and The New York Ripper, in which I would feel embarrassed if I made one of my female friends watch it. If you made that triple bill happen, I'd be at your door with popcorn in a heartbeat.
|
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 17:06 |
|
Wow, I was really expecting 2-1 in either direction. That's wild. Congrats to the winner
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 17:14 |
|
Hail King Ken! This was really fun. I'll take some time to collect my thoughts on my favourite movie and director discoveries in the tournament.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 19:25 |
|
I voted a straight Russell ticket so I'm pretty happy with the result. Unfortunately I got a bit tied up in October challenge thread this past week but thanks to Shreknet and all that participated and contributed!
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 19:29 |
|
Almost made it but at least this means that Lair of the White Worm is the best directed film by the best director All hail!
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 19:34 |
|
Let's have a vote on the best Russell movie, to once and for all determine what is the best spookadoodle.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 20:01 |
|
We don't need to hold a vote we all know his best is Lair. I'm mostly comfortable with this outcome, but I do not understand the relative lack of love for Over Your Dead Body. It could just be a short film containing the shots of the set with no story at all and it would be better than most movies, but then the story is also good and cool!
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 20:10 |
|
I think it fell victim to being a first round rewatch. I remember liking it but not fully grasping it, but that was 3 months ago and like 100 films so my memory is shaky. If it was any other week I would have probably rewatched it, but with the October Challenge underway I think most of us were kind of ready to close the book. I did vote for it though. In fact I went 2-1 on Miike. Once again I was on the wrong side of the vote! Score!
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 20:23 |
I said that Over Your Dead Body was the best film in the final, and I stand by that, but I also voted against it. For what it is and what it does, I think it has few equals, but I can't help but vote for the more rounded character piece in Gothic.
|
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 20:57 |
|
I can respect that; Gothic is very much a film where I love the idea more than the execution and the execution is still pretty good. STAC, if you're ever up for it I'd suggest watching some version of Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan before you give OYDB a rewatch - being familiar with the play they're staging probably helps. Nobuo Nakagawa's 1959 is the one I was pointed to when I went down this rabbit hole and I'll vouch for it as worth your time on its own merits in addition to informing a bunch of other Japanese stuff.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 21:18 |
|
Irony.or.Death posted:I can respect that; Gothic is very much a film where I love the idea more than the execution and the execution is still pretty good. That was the other thing holding me up from rewatching it. After I watched it the first time I said "I want to rewatch this but I want to (a) watch the play first and (b) watch it without dubbing." So I could have rewatched OYDB last week but it would have been without being more familiar with the play and still dubbed. In hindsight I should have researched it better and done the two of them as a Double Feature last week. But ah well. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Oct 8, 2020 |
# ? Oct 8, 2020 21:23 |
Oh and that Tubi dub was awful
|
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 21:54 |
|
Debbie Does Dagon posted:Oh and that Tubi dub was awful Yeah, I fell asleep during the first groupwatch and went back on my own and rewatched it all with subs.
|
# ? Oct 8, 2020 21:59 |
|
This was fun. Much thanks to everyone who pulled this together form the listings to the streams.
|
# ? Oct 9, 2020 10:33 |
|
Carpenter wuz robbed. But I'll take this result as second prize. Shrecknet, what is the point of putting the results in spoilers in your post when you put the winner in the thread title?
|
# ? Oct 9, 2020 10:40 |
|
The title wasn't edited until a few hours after the results, presumably to keep the suspense for those doing a frantic
|
# ? Oct 9, 2020 10:46 |
|
Franchescanado posted:Some thoughts, before voting is over, about Altered States A beautiful post. Altered States is one of my favorite movies, and I think you're pretty right in your interpretation. The thing about Jessup being in search for a kind of true spiritualism is explicit at the end of Chayefsky's original novel, where he says "What happened to me last night was more of a religious experience than a scientific one". I don't think Jessup is necessarily seeking out God or a specifically religious experience, but is looking for a kind of higher truth through a quasi-religious type experience that can only be obtained via destruction of the self. Bataille called these 'limit experiences', or a "tearing of the subject from himself", as Foucault put it. A lot of drug users who seek ego death seem to do so, by my lights, for its own sake. It's a kind of search for freedom via release from the self and all its trappings (and one could say Jessup definitely escapes his; it's hard to care/worry about a family when the only thing you know is the pleasure of hunting and killing a goat with your bare hands, though I think this is incidental for him). Jessup isn't just looking for the ecstasy of escape, he's actually looking for answers behind those trappings, and finds only nothingness. Maybe that's why I don't think he's irredeemable, because I sympathize with that desire (and like another poster who liked the film, I'm also another hopeless academic, so maybe there's something to that). Jessup, as he once was As far as the ending goes, the movie has Jessup's declaration of love as the end, a victory for the real and tangible, but in the novel it's the first thing Jessup says when he wakes up. I'm guessing Russell did it for dramatic effect, to make the moment appear more final. That last, saving embrace in the novel is wordless. And just as you said, the ending isn't really an ending. Previous to that last moment, Emily goes into a full dialogue about how his nature will never let him leave those mysteries alone. "Truth is only transitory, it's human life that is real! You and me, sitting in this room! Truth is the illusion!", he says, wanting to burn his work in what he calls a symbolic act of religious sacrifice to try and exorcise the very real terror that exists within himself as a result of his discovery. "That despair is not just a matter of the spirit to me. It's a palpable demon inside me, and it has to be ripped out". Jessup's crisis begins to manifest Moreso than an allegory for the dangers of seeking faith or transcendence in destructive ways, I take it as a character trying to come to terms with the depression caused by existential crisis. And that is something that really doesn't have a clean ending. We're all wanderers in the desert, lambs without a shepherd, perpetually on the brink of becoming the 'last man' and falling into a new nihilism. That's the demon that can hatch and grow inside us, consuming ourselves, by consequence consuming those we love (as it momentarily does Jessup's wife near the end), transforming us into hideous, new forms. Only something real and meaningful can save us. "... her face pressed against his real body, her arms desperately wrapped around his real waist, a pair of young living human beings standing embraced in the white sunlight of their living room."
|
# ? Oct 9, 2020 11:07 |
All of the Altered States effort posting kind of got lost in the excitement of the results, but thank you to Fran and Origami Dali, you've both given me a lot to consider. Altered States is definitely a good film with a lot to say, and I hope next time I can appreciate it a bit more because of your efforts.
|
|
# ? Oct 9, 2020 13:10 |
|
Excellent points, Origami Dali! Jedit posted:Carpenter wuz robbed. But I'll take this result as second prize. Shrecknet can’t edit thread titles. I did it after a few hours. It also said Results Are In for a bit. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Oct 9, 2020 |
# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:16 |
|
|
# ? May 21, 2024 16:22 |
|
I wish I could see what you folks see in Altered States. As I mentioned before, it ticks all the boxes for a film I should like.
|
# ? Oct 9, 2020 21:47 |