Controversial People in Films

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Magic Hate Ball: May 6, 2007; ha ha ha!
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HBO will be releasing a new four-part documentary about the Woody Allen allegations later this month:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okFP4iQrfu8

# ¿ Feb 6, 2021 20:16

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 06:46

Magic Hate Ball: May 6, 2007; ha ha ha!
you've already paid for this

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

so would someone that watched it now be a rape loving sicko?

It feels like a really famous movie that would be normal to hear someone watched.

This kind of incendiary and frankly bad faith langauge is not necessary or even appropriate.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 16:50

Magic Hate Ball: May 6, 2007; ha ha ha!
you've already paid for this

Franchescanado posted:

To move on from Woody Allen, but to keep within the same discussion in a way, I would highly highly highly recommend everyone listen to Jamie Loftus's mini-series The Lolita Pod. It's 10 episodes, and explores Nabakov's novel Lolita and the character of Dolores Haze and how she is interpreted and misinterpreted throughout literature, film, music, and theater.

There first two or three episodes are about the novel and the original character of Lolita, but the rest of the series explores all the different film adaptations (there's a whole episode dedicated to just the Kubrick film), theatrical adaptations, and how the character has been grossly misused and perverted by Hollywood and pop culture, as well as how so much of our culture trivializes sexual assault or makes heroes out of abusers like Humbert Humbert. As you can imagine, Woody Allen, and people like him, come up in discussion. You don't need to have read the book to listen and enjoy--the first episode covers it in depth--and now that the series has concluded, you can go through it all pretty quickly. There's a lot of ideas and opinions from experts in various fields, from literary professors to psychologists to actual actresses, and people interested in the topic of this thread would find it interesting. It's one of the most thoughtful and well-researched podcasts I've ever heard, and it still manages to have a sense of humor to keep from getting too heavy.

Oh, I should listen to this. Lolita is a fantastic book if you can stomach it, it's like a lesson in how to read between the lines. Weirdly enough, the musical adaptation from the 70s is actually really good, and probably the best translation of Humbert's direct addressing of the reader by giving him a kind of standup comedian emcee role (which slowly disintegrates as the audience turns against him). They even use Quilty to parody the idea of "edgy" things being chic and funny by making him a TV writer known for pushing the envelope.

It made me think a lot of how comedians use laughter to both disarm and unite audiences, and how often you still hear people say something along the lines of "relax, it's just a joke". I think part of what made Manhattan so beloved for so long was that Allen was so good at being disarming, which made the content more palatable because a lot of the film's coup was bringing surprising depth to the whole concept. From Ebert's original review:

ebert posted:

And Mariel Hemingway deserves some kind of special award for what's in some ways the most difficult role in the film. It wouldn't do, you see, for the love scenes between Woody and Mariel to feel awkward or to hint at cradle-snatching or an unhealthy interest on Woody's part in innocent young girls. But they don't feel that way: Hemingway's character has a certain grave intelligence, a quietly fierce pride, that, strangely enough, suggest that even at seventeen she's the one Woody should be thinking of during Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me."

In a lot of ways it's like CK's TV show, Louie, which was widely praised for being able to switch between humor and pain, often making very astute observations about life and featuring characters who felt surprisingly grounded. And then we find out he entraps women and makes them watch him masturbate and suddenly all of the jokes about him jerking off under overpasses seem disgustingly prescient.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2021 23:17

Magic Hate Ball: May 6, 2007; ha ha ha!
you've already paid for this

Kubrick could absolutely be manipulative and controlling, particularly after the debacle of Spartacus. There's the famous bit from Dr Strangelove where he goaded George C Scott into performing increasingly zany takes under the guise of "warming up", which he then inserted in the final film, and also the time that he found out Malcolm McDowell had a fear of snakes and decided to give his character, Alex, a pet snake. The impression I got when studying him was that he was a megalomaniacal obsessive with poor social skills, like a less suave/horny version of Alfred Hitchcock.

Also, that article is really lovely. The anecdote at the end is so striking:

quote:

At one point during our time together, Duvall shares a childhood memory of Houston's one and only snow day: "They let school out. Everybody couldn't wait to get home. We all built snowmen in the front yard. The thing is, by the time we built the snowman, everything else was green again. Because we'd used up all the snow."

# ¿ Feb 12, 2021 20:18

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