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'The Snowman' (Jo Nesbo Adaptation)

Started by Serge, July 19, 2017, 06:53:25 PM

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Gwen Taylor on ITV

Fassbender does make a lot of shit films doesn't he? The X-mens and this and the Assasin's Creed and the rest.

greenman

Quote from: Gwen Taylor on ITV on October 12, 2017, 06:32:31 PM
Fassbender does make a lot of shit films doesn't he? The X-mens and this and the Assasin's Creed and the rest.

To be fare he does have a habit of being the best thing in average to crap films like the recent Alien stuff or X-men Apocalypse but that doesn't make them great cinema, you could argue that most of the time(bar Wickerman like disasters) Cage hasn't actually been that bad either even if the films have been.

Shame 2: Shame Harder needed to retain credibility?

surreal

The trailers for this seemed veeeeery long and I got the feeling that they gave away far too much, I couldn't get past the idea that I'd seen the major beats of the movie.  Compared to the trailer for something like Gone Girl (which literally has the last shot of the movie in it), which still gave nothing away.  Fincher though, I guess.

Head Gardener

saw it this afternoon and the "cutting it up into little pieces, that's what a child does to establish order" line from the trailer isn't even in the film!
nor is a bit in the trailer with a log cabin on fire, it's a fucking mess

mothman

Has there ever been a real-life serial killer who behaved - demonstrated the pathology - like fictional serial killers? Killing in certain ways, in certain locations, specific kinds of victims, playing games with the investigators (and often doing it deliberately to fuck with/take revenge on a specific investigator, it feels like), contructing elaborate scenarios and puzzles, and all the other nonsense? When in reality most of the time they're just sick, often lonely weirdoes who kill people for some sort of sexual thrill and only get as far as they do because no-one notices and nobody cares about the victims, when they were alive or after they're dead and/or notionally missing.


mothman


I had to google his real name. He called himself BTK for Bind Torture Kill. Or as the All Killa No Filla podcast calls him - the Alan Partridge of serial killers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader

Phil_A

Quote from: mothman on October 13, 2017, 07:19:36 PM
Has there ever been a real-life serial killer who behaved - demonstrated the pathology - like fictional serial killers? Killing in certain ways, in certain locations, specific kinds of victims, playing games with the investigators (and often doing it deliberately to fuck with/take revenge on a specific investigator, it feels like), contructing elaborate scenarios and puzzles, and all the other nonsense? When in reality most of the time they're just sick, often lonely weirdoes who kill people for some sort of sexual thrill and only get as far as they do because no-one notices and nobody cares about the victims, when they were alive or after they're dead and/or notionally missing.

That was pretty much the Zodiac Killer's MO, wasn't it? Sending coded messages to the police, etc.

BritishHobo

One thing that always did niggle me in Nesbø's books was the regular use of the cliché 'he's leaving clues for the police because subconsciously, he WANTS to get caught'. Is there any basis for that in reality, any precedent for it in law or psychology?

BritishHobo

Quote from: mothman on October 13, 2017, 07:19:36 PM
Has there ever been a real-life serial killer who behaved - demonstrated the pathology - like fictional serial killers? Killing in certain ways, in certain locations, specific kinds of victims, playing games with the investigators (and often doing it deliberately to fuck with/take revenge on a specific investigator, it feels like), contructing elaborate scenarios and puzzles, and all the other nonsense? When in reality most of the time they're just sick, often lonely weirdoes who kill people for some sort of sexual thrill and only get as far as they do because no-one notices and nobody cares about the victims, when they were alive or after they're dead and/or notionally missing.

And they're always malevolent and evil in a very confident, self-aware way. When the detective ultimately catches them, it's all cold, self-assured posturing. "Yes, I did it, congratulations on finally catching me, detective." Are there any detective novels or films where they catch the killer and they're just a pathetic, feeble figure, weeping at how out of hand their awful crimes have gotten, and the fact that they're going away for it?

Mr Brightside

Is it a snowman what does the murders?

BritishHobo

It's one of the female characters. It's no (w) man.

mothman

Thing about the Zodiac Killer is, he wasn't really consistent. They seem to be reasonably certain that most of the things ascribed to him were indeed him, but there's no clear overall narrative (like you have with fictional serials), perhaps because not all of his crimes are correctly attributed to him, or some other reason. There's rarely any ambiguity or uncertainty in fictional depictions of serial killers. Sometimes there are, and indeed all sorts of serials get depicted in fiction. But it's this hackneyed unimaginative notion of the fiendishly clever and sinister serial killer with his complex motivations and methodologies that I have a problem with; this Dennis Rader is probably the closest...

BritishHobo

Ah, that was a clumsy mess. I've read the book and even I felt lost half the time. Weird, cluttered, clunky set-up, muddled second act, and then it just sort-of ends. Not much time or depth given to any one or thing, even the case itself felt quite perfunctory.

Serge

Yeah, I went to see it this afternoon and.....just crap. This is the second time that Tomas Alfredson has taken a brilliantly written, thoroughly gripping novel and turned it into the cinematic equivalent of beige wallpaper. And at least 'Tinker Tailor' had a coherent plot. I only really understood the movie because I've read the book, and could fill in the gaps from my memories.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

For a start, is it too much to ask that they pronounce the main character's name correctly? Although the fact that he's called Harry Hole may be richly amusing outside of Scandanavia, it's mitigated by the fact that it's pronounced 'Ho-leh'....except in this film, where it's pronounced 'Hole'. Such a basic mistake shows what a half-assed job has been made in adapting the book for the screen.

The weirdest thing is the fate of Katrine Bratt. In the original books, she's introduced in this, the seventh in the series, and then goes on to feature in all of the following titles. It's implied that her character dies here, though it's never made clear - after she's found in her car, we never hear another thing about her, whether she's meant to be dead or merely unconscious, which, if they were intending to make more films based on the books, is a pretty big oversight.

Fassbender has none of Harry's charm or charisma, and it's hard to feel anything for the version we see here, a blank, charmless nurk. The troubled, alcoholic Harry of the book just isn't onscreen. Other than a couple of early establishing shots of a passed-out Harry, his drink problem seems to be more or less waved away afterwards.

The actual killer almost seems to be relegated to a subplot, mere background to a lot of people wandering about doing stuff. J.K. Simmon's character, who plays a bigger role in the book, seems to be completely pointless in the film, barely even registering as a red herring. They take away the idea that for most of the book we don't even know whether the killer is a man or a woman, which sets up Bratt as a potential suspect, by having the clumsy opening flashback which shows it's a man. (I also don't remember that scene playing out like that in the book, but it's possible I'm misremembering that.)

Talking of flashbacks, Val Kilmer turns up as a stroke victim. Well, that's the only reason I can give for his truly bizarre performance, which he seems to be giving through a rubber mask of his own face. Toby Jones is completely wasted in a minor role, as is Chloe Sevigny - playing twins! - one of whom's death provides a moment of unintentional hilarity, as her severed head is found atop a snowman, a moment which is effectively chilling in the book, but which is undermined by being staged in a weird underground half-cave/half-well (how the fuck did the killer manage to get her and all of the snow needed down there in the brief time he has?) and made utterly hilarious by the fact that the head is a rather obvious Acme Fake Plastic Dead Chloe Sevigny Head which they show in close-up at least three times!

The relationship between Harry and Katrine is never made to feel like the friendship and meeting of equals that it is in the books. Charlotte Gainsbourg is largely wasted as Harry's on/off love interest Rakel, and again, we're never really given a hint of the spark between them (though to be fair, I did go for a piss during what appeared to be a sex scene by the time I got back.) And they completely fuck up the ending - in the book, it takes place in Oslo, everybody is saved, and the Snowman is captured alive (to become a Lecter-ish figure in the following book); in the film, for no real reason, it's relocated to the Snowman's childhood home, which seems to be mainly so they can give Harry and the killer a showdown in the freezing bleak countryside.

The showdown starts with Harry being shot - apparently in the stomach, though later on, the wound seems to have travelled to his chest. As usual in movies, being shot doesn't stop him from carrying on with doing a bunch of things that most people who've just taken a bullet wouldn't really be able to manage. As the killer advances upon him across - oh yes! - a frozen lake, you can guess what is going to happen a mile off, and the Snowman doesn't live to be weird another day. And then the film just.....stops, with a brief non-sequitur of a scene which is presumably meant to set up a sequel. No wrapping things up, no explanation of Katrine's fate, nothing. I have a feeling that Alfredson originally turned in a much longer cut, and it was brutally edited down to make the boring, incoherent mess we've been left with.

Still, if nothing else, this will hopefully mean that there won't be any sequels, and maybe in a few years time, Norwegian TV can make a proper go of the series, giving the rich characters and plotlines the depth and space that they need.

BritishHobo

That longer cut theory makes perfect sense. I feel like there's huge chunks missing from the Val Kilmer/Toby Jones flashbacks, which are just... there. Kilmer finds a body, gets a letter, clambers out a window, and then the garage scene happens. Presumably the original cut would include some actual wrap-up for Katrine as you say, where she doesn't just disappear.

I'm sure the trailer for the film made Katrine look like the ambiguous, possibly unbalanced figure from the book, so I do wonder if that would have been part of it. Some actual stuff for their team to do, some actual meat on the bones of the case, just lots of filling in of gaps.

Ant Farm Keyboard

Thomas Alfredson has explained that they had to leave whole sections of the script unfilmed, because of various circumstances.
The project was green lighted and funded at the last minute, so they had to rush production, then they got much less time in Norway than they needed, so they couldn't shoot on location a large share of the plot.

https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/director-tomas-alfredson-reveals-went-wrong-snowman-153117316.html

BritishHobo

That explains everything. Val Kilmer's scenes in particular reek of an edit suite where they had to cobble together a subplot with not enough footage.

Serge

I think he's understating it with 10-15%. I also think he's a shit director.

QuoteThe film also had a hard time from Norwegian critics too for its unrealistic geography, with many pointing out that Harry is shown driving on the wrong road when he travels from Oslo to Rjukan.

Alfredson dismissed those complaints adding, "it's not a documentary about the geography of Norway, I wanted to make a fictive thriller. So even if not everything is geographically correct, I don't give a s***."

So what's your excuse for not getting the pronunciation of his name right, Tomas?

Shit Good Nose

Absolute toilet.

I actually think that a lot of the reviews for it have been too kind.

Some of the worst acting I've seen in a major release for quite some time.

amputeeporn

Haven't see this yet - I def will because I'm fascinated by troubled productions and loved the book, but:

By strange and (to me) unique circumstances I visited the set of this not last year, but the year before. I spent a few hours in Oslo uni, where they'd set up the police station, and also Harry's staircase leading from his building. I got to watch Fassbender and Rebecca Fergusson working up a scene over hours.

Now - what I saw was really impressive work, I thought. Two actors working and working, but in the light of all this it's changed somewhat...

I watched them take and re-take a scene over several hours, again and again and again. A very mundane scene which essentially served as an info dump. Them sitting at a desk talking over the facts of the case. It was perhaps even the 'cutting them up into little pieces' scene.

Anyway - their first take stunk. Not because of them but because the script was just landing with a CLANG. Fass completely took control for the next few hours, slowly developing the dialogue from wooden exposition to something more natural, that imparted information to the viewer in a more entertaining way. He would even rope in other bit actors to come and deliver a file or spark another bit of dialogue if the back-and-forth became too much.

I was really impressed and, of course, knowing nothing about the troubled production or indeed how films are put together generally, thought this was Fass taking a plain script up a notch.

I see now he was thinking on his feet, desperately trying to save the movie...

Out of interest - what's the scene setting up a sequel? On set, speaking to one of the producers, she said they'd like to have one but were canvassing opinion on which to do, implying that was another 11th hour decision (apparently there were some desperate re-shoots in London a yea later).

I'll be so interested to find out how this all went so badly wrong. From Alfredson's statements it sounds like they literally forgot to film certain scenes. Also - it was pointed out elsewhere that there are multiple editors listed on IMDB, some of them super-editors etc, with the theory being that they were brought in to save a literally un-showable picture and spin it into simply a disaster.

All a shame. The book combined with a horror aesthetic for cinema could have been an awful lot of serial killer fun. Also, talking to Nesbo himself, he said he'd always guarded the film rights as much as possible because he'd hate to see it fucked up. He refused to even sell them until he'd completed the series with book ten (Police). He has now gone back to the series with an 11th instalment. I wonder if it's so this movie won't be Harry's legacy?

mothman

Val Kilmer did an AMA on Reddit the other day and somebody asked him about The Snowman. Here's his answer:

QuoteI WISH They'd found a way to embrace our world class directors time for him to find his timing in such a delicate piece. All the elements were there and I just have such admiration for Tomas Alfredson, who has made wonderful films before and will again. i was so proud to be a part of his creation and process. a real gent. And of course michael Fassbender is COMPLETELY ABSURD. He's to handsome and too funny and too witty and to talented and too clever and too Irish and too cool and too nice and now he's married our ingrid Bergman and they will have perfect children and another form of master race will form but this time around it will be formed by perfect poets and beauties. I can t wait.

but I got lost s while back and stoppe explaining where i am. 2 days ago I land in Florida to to make up shows cause i had family business that kept me from doing sold out shows in 3 different cities I've sold out months ago. Well I just might move to West Palm Beach. The audience was so kind to me i kind a took my breath away. I mean, over and over they told me how this film and that one and this one no wait this one was their most meaningful and why. And why i'm being so vain is that for so many years i've been in a kind of self imposed exile t write. you have the opportunity as a writer to collect and PRECISELY lay out your core beliefs, and in such a way that you have no excuses, you have to say, this is, this half baked chicken is all i got to say about the world this week or this month and i hope its good enough. after YEARS of notes and talking outlaid to yourself like you are at the moment or past it when you are about to die, imagine your son who has heard you talk like this instead of yourself at least half his life, imagine for real, your daughter trying to even put up with the tightest slightest legit parenting when you start your day getting dressed in an all while taffeta little something... i mean wig fittings and shoes being fitted and built and hand made suits and picking the right white out of the 458 different recognized shades of "white" and which still to cut and which joke to try on tonight and reviewing each and every improv that worked and "What the one that keeps flooring them that i forget to put back in,,,,,,,, grrrrrrr come on mind, come back to me. Shoot, its gone...;/ (spirit gum had in it some sort of brain sap...) anyhow, when it all comes together and its a seamless gossamer web of the best your got, and you achieve the closest thing to perfection you can hope for on stage, what I call in my play, "Lets call it eloquence..." (Heres some more quotes I'm feeling quotey today, quotes from my play as i listen to David Bowies, Lazarus. What a rush....   
n**ger folks work on de Mississippi,
n**ger folks work while de white folks play,
Pullin' dose boats from de dawn to sunset,
Gittin' no rest till de judgement day.

Don't look up An' don't look down,
You don' dast make De white boss frown.
Bend your knees An' bow your head,
An' pull date rope Until you' dead.

Let me go 'way from the Mississippi,
Let me go 'way from de white man boss;
Show me dat stream called de river Jordan,
Dat's de ol' stream dat I long to cross.

O' man river, Dat ol' man river,
He mus' know sumpin', But don't say nuthin'
He jes' keeps rollin', He keeps on rollin' along.

You n' me, we sweat an' strain,
Body all achin' an' racket wid pain,
Tote dat barge! Lif' dat bale!
Git a little drunk, An' you land in jail.

Ah gits weary, An' sick of tryin'
Ah'm tired of livin', An' scared of dyin',
But ol' man river, He jes' keeps rolling' along.

Dat ol' man river just keeps on rollin' on...

The difference between the right word and the wrong one is the same as lightning to the lightning bug. You know, Mrs. Eddy made it into the Webster's new International unabridged dictionary adding to the definition of God. Listen here, "Incorporeal, divine, Supreme, infinite Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love". That ladies and gentlemen, is eloquence. I couldn't have written that. She has taken on a God without judgment!

The suns and planets that form the constellations of the billion billion solar systems and go pouring, a tossing flood of shinning globes, through the viewless arteries of space are the blood corpuscles in the veins of God; and the nations, all these countries all these people and all these thoughts, are the microbes that swarm and wiggle and brag in each, and to think God can tell them apart at that distance and has nothing better to do than try. This is the entertainment of an eternity. Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if He is as little as that, He is beneath it. Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist but you have ceased to live! I share with y'all a religion whose heaven is not put off to another time with a break and a gulf between but begins here and now, and melts into eternity as fancies of the waking day melt into the dreams of sleep.

But children, let me preach to you tonight: All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure. And always tell the truth. Then you don't have to remember anything. I have always preached. If the humor came of its own accord and uninvited I have allowed it a place in my sermon, but I was not writing the sermon for the sake of the humor. I am saying these vain things in this frank way tonight because I am a dead person speaking from the grave. Even I would be too modest to say them in life. I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead- and not then, until we have been dead years. People ought to start dead and then they would be honest so much earlier.

​I feel I am fading now. This happens every now and again. Oh I left my beautiful home and family to go off, a Tramp Abroad, to pay my debts. I tried to speculate. I got greedy. I went crazy. I didn't read the signs. Shall I read some Huckleberry Finn? Alright, I'll be your Huckleberry! The 13 year-old-son of the town drunk. Huck was hated by all the mothers, because he was idle and lawless and vulgar and bad--so all their children admired him and wished to be like him. He was the only really independent person, boy or man, in the community. Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps and under trees and he did not have to go to school or to church; and he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything that goes to make life precious, that boy had. And for this reason, I suppose, he was continually happy. I, can't go back on the river again tonight Lord.
The California-gold rush-get-rich-quick disease of my youth spread like wildfire, all the way up to Wall Street. It produced a civilization which has destroyed the simplicity and repose of life; replaced its contentment, its poetry, its soft romance dreams and visions with the money fever, sordid ideals, vulgar ambitions, and the sleep which does not refresh; it has invented a thousand useless luxuries, and turned them into necessities and satisfied nothing; it has dethroned God and set up a shekel in His place. Oh the dreams of our youth. How beautiful they are, and how perishable.

Lets, come to accounts now, shall we? I can't feel my left leg. If the world comes to an end, I don't want to be in the city of Angels. I want to be in Australia. Everything there comes, ten years too late...



Blackout. [Halley's Comet streaks across the pitch black stage]



TWAIN: [In black- into a mike] Fruck... This is fructifying... Dirty pool Lord. What of the most important question in the world? I know it , and aim to answer it. May I stay a while, we, I wasn't a'tall finished. What's that Lord? Can't, hear, you. [Pause] Really? You don't say? I'm flattered- Oh glory! Oh the unknowable, known. The Family of man... I see now. O I see.

I have been loved before, but this is a masterpiece!



​                        THE END


By Val Kilmer all rights reserved    4.7.11   

So now you know.

Serge

Quote from: amputeeporn on December 10, 2017, 12:33:09 AMOut of interest - what's the scene setting up a sequel? On set, speaking to one of the producers, she said they'd like to have one but were canvassing opinion on which to do, implying that was another 11th hour decision (apparently there were some desperate re-shoots in London a yea later).

I can't remember the exact details, as I've tried to purge the movie from my mind, but the final scene is set at the police station (I think) and we see them talking about investigating another murder. Again, off the top of my head, I don't remember if what they're talking about fits in with the plot of one of the other books. I hope they leave it alone after the mess they made of this, and let the rights revert back to Nesbo so they can  do it properly in Norway a few years down the line.

BritishHobo

I found it amazing, because you'd think a gallery-playing 'this is your next case' would be really obvious, to make book fans go 'oh shit, they're doing that book next!' like seeing the Joker card at the end of Batman Begins. But like you say, I barely caught the mumbled garble, let alone got what the reference was. I thought I heard teeth, but surely they weren't going for The Thirst?

amputeeporn

Quote from: BritishHobo on December 10, 2017, 04:58:19 PM
I found it amazing, because you'd think a gallery-playing 'this is your next case' would be really obvious, to make book fans go 'oh shit, they're doing that book next!' like seeing the Joker card at the end of Batman Begins. But like you say, I barely caught the mumbled garble, let alone got what the reference was. I thought I heard teeth, but surely they weren't going for The Thirst?

Wow, that would imply it was a VERY late decision (and therefore is probably correct).

Interesting that Val bears no ill will to the director...