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Zardoz is the movie that keeps giving. -The shot of the floating god vomiting guns is iconic. -"The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life, and poisons the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill!" ^^Americana at its finest. It also has a supreme allegorical response to many existential topics: theology, class, mortality, politics, sex, weapons et al. precision posted:Someone get SuperMechaGodzilla in here, I really want to hear his thoughts on this movie. If you have archives: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2508472&userid=118075 Also, "Zardoz is hosed up because it's so odd and surreal, but I think the claims that it is nonsensical are highly overstated. I think Boorman's being self-depreciating, because it's secretly genius. Zardoz is an excellent low-budget movie that is augmented by the bad effects. ...Zardoz was already awesome. A remake would just reveal its forgotten greatness. ...the religious bad guys are directly compared to the Wizard of Oz. The idea is that their whole culture is lovely and fake, and the bad effects put that message across quite well. Not to go too crazy with the defense, but lotsa primo canonical directors have intentionally used lovely effects as metaphors. I mean, Boorman's a talented guy. His movie before Zardoz was Deliverance, so I give him the benefit of a doubt." -SMG
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Feb 27, 2015 07:02
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ZenMaster posted:Now I regret not having archives... "Zardoz doesn't seem too off-the-wall if you read it as a critique of religion. It's a rather old movie, so it's not really worth tagging, but: Spoilers are in this post! Avoid if you care about Connery's man-package! Anywho, I mean, you have a giant hypocritical god who hates sex and promotes violence against everyone but "the chosen people". The Penis is Evil speech is essentially the entire old testament of the bible, summarized into about thirty seconds. Zardoz himself is a reference to The Wizard of Oz's giant floating head, and the moral of that particular story is to pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Connery learns that god is fake because he read the Oz book, and is inspired to question his belief system (re: penis being evil). So he discovers, as in the Wizard of Oz, that god is really a puppet. With the Wizard of Oz connection in mind, I'm almost sure the absurdity of the blatant artifice is intentional. I actually think everything is supposed to look fake and hokey, because that's what Boorman is arguing religion is. Even if the bad effects weren't intentional, they certainly fit the theme to a T. The same goes for the later sequences that take place in "heaven". In this case, god was created by a bunch of jerks - who don't realize their sexless pursuit of everlasting life has made them become absurdly moralistic out of sheer boredom. *cough*church*cough* Connery uses the sex & violence skills he picked up in reality to show the Eternals how a real man lives life - blowing up the immortality machine in the process. And the Eternals love it! So the message is that god is fake and heaven sucks, so the only way to truly better yourself is through secular education and a healthy attitude about sex. Connery combines his book-smarts with his street-smarts and thus learns to control his baser instincts, instead of neutering them entirely. And that's how Sean Connery became the pinnacle of human evolution, in the documentary Zardoz." -SMG quote:Argueman posted: "That's a good reading, but it misses that Connery's enlightenment is a result of his appreciation of the arts and his subsequent revolutionary disdain for state authority and organized religion. I would say that the movie instead promotes a virile and intellectual form of social liberalism, wherein liberal philosophy is used to affect legitimate social change, but not tip the scale too far in the process. The passiveness of the Eternal crew only served to re-enforce a harmful status quo. Connery raises a family and dies at the end specifically because he broke the Eternal's convoluted laws and allowed for the personal freedom to have sex and die his way. The vaguely traditional family structure he chooses under that freedom is also an educated rejection of the barely-restrained anarchy followed by the Brutals. It's ultimately a middle ground between chaos and imprisonment. -SMG quote:criptozoid posted: "He's a hypocritical god though; he doesn't have much problem with the chosen people raping and pillaging - and the Brutals maintain their population somehow, despite being against all forms of reproduction and the concept of human life itself. The radical feminism is definitely a part of it, since the basic idea behind the Eternals is that eternal life turns you into a bunch of, basically, pussy-whipped faggots. (Beard drawn on with marker, etc.) But I think the focus is more on sexual repression as a form of castration, more so than female empowerment being bad. I can't believe I missed the tabernacle reference, thanks for pointing that out! I'd also love to see a remake, but at the same time I know that they'd modify the Penis is Evil speech in some way, and that just can't be allowed to happen." -SMG
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Feb 27, 2015 23:29
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