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Do You Believe Stanley Kubrick's "Mysterious Messages"?

Started by MortSahlFan, March 10, 2021, 09:34:02 PM

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St_Eddie

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on March 11, 2021, 10:50:42 PM
On a technical level alone, it was an especially well-made documentary...

I take it you didn't watch the video review I linked to, where examples of technical incompetence were given?

madhair60

#31
Is it not intentional that the theories given in Room 237 are largely cracked-out, made-up drivel from idiots? I honestly thought that was the point of the film, to present this stuff as told to the filmmakers rather than to endorse it.

Edit: Sorry, should add, this is in response to the video you linked rather than your post, where you've already basically noted this.

St_Eddie

Quote from: madhair60 on March 12, 2021, 12:17:52 AM
Is it not intentional that the theories given in Room 237 are largely cracked-out, made-up drivel from idiots? I honestly thought that was the point of the film, to present this stuff as told to the filmmakers rather than to endorse it.

Edit: Sorry, should add, this is in response to the video you linked rather than your post, where you've already basically noted this.

Aye, it could well be the case.  My ultimate argument isn't one of whether or not the documentary is providing a thesis on personal interpretation of art or not (though I have my doubts that it is), but rather that the execution is shoddy either way.  It's just a straight up badly made documentary.

madhair60

I watched it. I didn't see any examples of technical incompetence on the part of the filmmakers, rather presentation as-is of the recordings that they requested. The video maker chap seems on the basis of that video (and a couple of others I looked at) to have a fairly narrow view of how a film is "supposed" to be presented*, the video on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood also reflected what struck me as a misunderstanding of the film's themes, he got fixated on how the film-within-a-film stuff was shot without seeming to take a few minutes to think about why that decision might have been made. Lots of meme faces too, I dunno. Naming the channel after an Ebert quote seems like the sort of thing that would make the man steak 'n shake in his grave.

Oh, Room 237. Er, it seems exhausting and dull. I won't bother my arse watching it. The Shining is one of my favourite movies.

(Sorry, I edited the above post entirely but I've put it back now. I should be more decisive)

*But I only watched, like, three short videos, so I wouldn't want to state this like it's a fact

St_Eddie

#34
Quote from: madhair60 on March 12, 2021, 12:33:55 AM
I watched it. I didn't see any examples of technical incompetence on the part of the filmmakers...

Just to pick a few examples from the YMS review (I'd cite further examples but I'll be damned if I'm going to waste my time rewatching this piece of shit documentary)...

* The filmmaker not bothering to request that the man talking about Kubrick in the clouds provide him with a still demonstrating his horseshit theory for use in the relevant scene of his documentary (especially given that the man in question even offered to do so in the audio recording).  Why wouldn't the filmmaker request that evidence?  If he's not going to request that evidence or for some reason the subject was unable to provide him with any, then why leave in the audio segment of the man offering to provide the evidence in your final cut?  He may as well have put a big caption on screen saying "I'm a lazy filmmaker".

* The unedited audio, including long, pregnant pauses and a child interrupting one of the subjects whilst discussing their theory.  What does any of that add to the documentary?  Again; it's just lazy.  It's obvious that the only editing the filmmaker did was to cut at the beginning and the end of the audio sections he wanted to use.  He did absolutely no editing between those clips.  It's inexcusable.  I edit audio on a weekly basis and editing out unnecessary pauses is real 101 stuff.

* The audio having been recorded and provided by the subjects themselves, rather than the filmmaker traveling to record them, resulting in variable audio quality (some of which is unacceptable for a supposed professional documentary).  To my ears no attempts were made to use noise reduction filters which are easily achievable through Audacity.

As someone who has a skill for editing and takes great pride in my work, it offends me as to how lazy and incompetent this filmmaker was.  It further offends me that anyone would dare to suggest that it's "especially well made on a technical level".  Is it fuck.  That's an insult to skillful editing.

St_Eddie

Quote from: madhair60 on March 12, 2021, 12:33:55 AM
The video maker chap seems on the basis of that video (and a couple of others I looked at) to have a fairly narrow view of how a film is "supposed" to be presented*, the video on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood also reflected what struck me as a misunderstanding of the film's themes, he got fixated on how the film-within-a-film stuff was shot without seeming to take a few minutes to think about why that decision might have been made. Lots of meme faces too, I dunno. Naming the channel after an Ebert quote seems like the sort of thing that would make the man steak 'n shake in his grave.

YMS is one of the, if not the single best film critic on YouTube.  He may not be right 100% of the time (who is?), but he has a wide knowledge of film, eclectic tastes and delves deep into what works and doesn't work within filmmaking and why that is.  He is able to provide his thoughts on film in an intelligent, engaging and entertaining manner.

madhair60

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 12, 2021, 12:55:52 AM
YMS is one of the, if not the single best film critic on YouTube.  He may not be right 100% of the time (who is?), but he has a wide knowledge of film, eclectic tastes and delves deep into what works and doesn't work within filmmaking and why that is.  He is able to provide his thoughts on film in an intelligent, engaging and entertaining manner.

I'll have a look at some of the longer vids; I only looked at the quickies. I liked it better than RLM, I'll give it that.

Replying to the above:

I haven't seen it but based on the review I feel like the presentation is purposeful. Everything you're describing would make sense if the documentary was about convincing the viewer that the perspectives actually had merit. It doesn't seem like that's the point, so not having that overlay/leaving in the kid interrupting seem like they're creating a certain mood. The overlay thing seems as though it's supposed to elicit the response "but it doesn't!" and the kid thing as someone mentioned (sorry, can't be bothered scrolling back) suggests that it's painting a picture of different people from different walks of life who all have their crackpot ideas about The Shining. I can't see laziness in the examples from the review, rather than the idea of another film entirely. But I won't argue the toss; I've not seen it, you have.

St_Eddie

Quote from: madhair60 on March 12, 2021, 01:09:12 AM
...the kid thing as someone mentioned (sorry, can't be bothered scrolling back) suggests that it's painting a picture of different people from different walks of life who all have their crackpot ideas about The Shining.

What is it telling the viewer about people from different walks of life?  That some people have kids?  Riveting.  It's a shame that one of the subjects didn't record their theory whilst cooking a bubbling stew, so that we could realise that people eat food too.

Far more likely that the filmmaker couldn't be fucked to either edit that part out or request that the subject re-recorded that thought via a separate take, when their kid wasn't making a racket in the background.

Besides, if the filmmaker wanted to show people from different walks of life, then why didn't he get off his fat, lazy arse and actually show them?  You know, do that thing that documentarians are supposed to do and travel to film your subjects on camera, as opposed to having them do all the work by recording their voices on a shitty built-in iMac microphone and e-mail those hissy recordings to you?

madhair60

I agree. It is far more likely that the filmmaker(s) just couldn't be bothered doing the film properly. You are right.

St_Eddie

#39
Sorry, one final thing I'd care to say in regards to Room 237 (typed before your response above, madhair60)...

Quote from: madhair60 on March 12, 2021, 01:09:12 AM
Everything you're describing would make sense if the documentary was about convincing the viewer that the perspectives actually had merit. It doesn't seem like that's the point...

That's one of my big bones of contention with the documentary; some of the theories do have merit.  A few of the theories put forward (maybe 15% of them) are insightful and a valid, intelligent form of film analysis, but the filmmaker carelessly and thoughtlessly peppers those moments throughout the ravings of deluded lunatics spouting infuriating drivel, with no distinction made between the insightful and the sputtering of diarrhea whatsoever.  Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum put it better than I ever could in his review of the documentary...

Quote from: Jonathan Rosenbaum"Like so much (too much) of contemporary cinema, Rodney Ascher's Room 237 is at once entertaining and reprehensible. Alternating between the extravagant commentaries of five analysts of Kubrick's The Shining (Bill Blakemore, Geoffrey Cocks, Julie Kearns, John Fell Ryan, Jay Weidner), it refuses to make any distinctions between interpretations that are semi-plausible or psychotic, conceivable or ridiculous, implying that they're all just "film criticism" and because everyone is a film critic nowadays, they all deserve to be treated with equal amounts of respect and/or mockery (assuming that one can distinguish between the two) -– that is, uncritically and derisively, with irony as the perpetual escape hatch."

"Which is another way of saying that we need criticism in order to have journalism, and the reductive treatment of all critical voices as equal is the surest way of nullifying all criticism and therefore all journalism as well."

In other words; Room 237 makes a mockery of intelligent and well reasoned film analysis by saying that all analysis is interpretative and therefore all equally valid.  So, you can have some utter cretin claiming that The Shining is a metaphor for buttery mashed potatoes and treat that with as much credence as somebody astutely acknowledging the film's thematic element of the white man's destruction of native Americans throughout history.

chveik

well he would he say that, he doesn't want to lose his source of income.

St_Eddie

Quote from: chveik on March 12, 2021, 01:39:20 AM
well he would he say that, he doesn't want to lose his source of income.

Well, I'm saying it too and I'm not a journalist.

Joe Oakes

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 12, 2021, 12:55:52 AM
YMS is one of the, if not the single best film critic on YouTube.

Yeah, some of his stuff is great, and he made me realise that furries are people too, so to speak. Can't usually watch people gaming, even got bored of Limmy, but his playthroughs can also be excellent. His Death Stranding one was highly entertaining. I find his friend, Scott, fucking funny.

greenman

Just watching a short amount of I find him overwhelmingly obnoxious.

St_Eddie

Quote from: greenman on March 12, 2021, 08:34:12 AM
Just watching a short amount of I find him overwhelmingly obnoxious.

I'd recommend trying one of the 'Your Movie Sucks' videos that his channel is best known for.  He also does mini-reviews and quick thoughts on new releases (which are more often than not straight up reviews, with little humour - but the YMS series is where he delves into terrible films and critiques them with humour).  His YMS review of the horror title Frozen is a good place to start.

I'd also recommend his hilarious critique of the atrocious live event that is The Hot Tub Cinema Club, where he attended one of the Hot Tub screenings and relates the appalling experience of doing so.

If you still don't care for his style after those two videos, then yeah, he's probably not for you.

phantom_power

Quote from: madhair60 on March 12, 2021, 01:32:03 AM
I agree. It is far more likely that the filmmaker(s) just couldn't be bothered doing the film properly. You are right.

Yeah I think it is quite likely that having spent years making a documentary he wouldn't spend five minutes editing some audio

I enjoyed Room 237 and I think part of the point is to show the "valid" theories with the "crackpot" ones because in the end they are probably all bollocks and some form of cultural pareidolia. It is quite fascinating that an at first glance quite straightforward film can accommodate so many different theories. I suppose part of it is that the relative blankness is a sort of blank slate for people to fill in with theories and conspiracies.

I think "badly made" in this case equates to "isn't presented in the way I wanted it presented", which is a valid but different criticism. The way the theories are presented are clearly a decision made by the film-maker rather than laziness on their part

colacentral

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 12, 2021, 12:44:45 AM
Just to pick a few examples from the YMS review (I'd cite further examples but I'll be damned if I'm going to waste my time rewatching this piece of shit documentary)...

* The filmmaker not bothering to request that the man talking about Kubrick in the clouds provide him with a still demonstrating his horseshit theory for use in the relevant scene of his documentary (especially given that the man in question even offered to do so in the audio recording).  Why wouldn't the filmmaker request that evidence?  If he's not going to request that evidence or for some reason the subject was unable to provide him with any, then why leave in the audio segment of the man offering to provide the evidence in your final cut?  He may as well have put a big caption on screen saying "I'm a lazy filmmaker".

* The unedited audio, including long, pregnant pauses and a child interrupting one of the subjects whilst discussing their theory.  What does any of that add to the documentary?  Again; it's just lazy.  It's obvious that the only editing the filmmaker did was to cut at the beginning and the end of the audio sections he wanted to use.  He did absolutely no editing between those clips.  It's inexcusable.  I edit audio on a weekly basis and editing out unnecessary pauses is real 101 stuff.

* The audio having been recorded and provided by the subjects themselves, rather than the filmmaker traveling to record them, resulting in variable audio quality (some of which is unacceptable for a supposed professional documentary).  To my ears no attempts were made to use noise reduction filters which are easily achievable through Audacity.

As someone who has a skill for editing and takes great pride in my work, it offends me as to how lazy and incompetent this filmmaker was.  It further offends me that anyone would dare to suggest that it's "especially well made on a technical level".  Is it fuck.  That's an insult to skillful editing.

The answer to all your bullet points there is that the director of Room 237 was taking the piss out of everyone that he included. That was what annoyed me about it.

It seems to be often the case that when people want to argue that art is open to interpretation, what they are really arguing is that it's open to their interpretation.

St_Eddie

#47
Quote from: phantom_power on March 12, 2021, 09:17:53 AM
Yeah I think it is quite likely that having spent years making a documentary he wouldn't spend five minutes editing some audio

Yes, because no documentary maker or filmmaker has ever been incompetent or unprofessional.  Tommy Wiseau spent years putting The Room together as well.  By your logic that means that the writing, direction and editing in said film are all very competently done and well thought out.

St_Eddie

I love this snippet from an interview with the director...

QuoteWhen did it strike you that you didn't want to show these people's faces, that you just wanted to hear their stories and work with the imagery from all of Kubrick's films?

It was a voice-only approach and that was mostly for logistical reasons. The budget was somewhere around zero dollars, so I just recorded Skype conversations.

All this talk of how he chose to focus on the voices for artistic reasons.  Pfft.

madhair60

Disagreeing that Room 237's presentation is the result of incompetence doesn't really extrapolate sensibly to the idea that incompetent filmmakers don't exist.

Also, that interview snippet doesn't change my feeling that the choice to use the audio as-is (or at least to create that impression, I imagine it was edited extensively) is absolutely an artistic decision rather than just laziness or incompetence. The distinction there seems personal, maybe it's a bad decision that makes the movie worse, but it's still a decision. I don't feel as though the financial/logistical element really factor into it; the filmmakers were still in charge (presumably...) of how Room 237 turned out.

Putting that aside, even if the decision was "I can't be bothered editing this", it still leads to a particular feel that seems to make the proceedings more interesting than a standard talking heads doc may have been. It's certainly stimulated discussion of how it ultimately affects the way people feel about the theories. It makes the film sound like an interesting mediation on the power of myth applied to a beloved piece of pop culture and how people can find meaning in what are, in fact, disconnected and abstract images. I feel like uncut (or presented as uncut) audio is a good way to get across the sense of personal enthusiasm in the subjects. I can see the potential merit in that.

Fucking hell I'm effortposting about a film I haven't even seen. Can we just talk about The Shining instead? Here's my theory - it's brilliant.

frajer

Quote from: madhair60 on March 12, 2021, 11:52:29 AM
Here's my theory - it's brilliant.

Seconded. Had the pleasure of seeing it at the BFI Southbank a few years ago and even though I'd seen it dozens of times on VHS/DVD/Blu-ray over the years it was an absolute mind-blower seeing it on the big screen.

Chedney Honks

If you have the option, I would enormously recommend The Shining on 4K UHD Blu-ray, one of the best I've seen. It still looks exactly like a very filmic 70s movie, but with impeccable presentation and detail which makes it look like it could have been made yesterday.

2001 on 4K Blu-ray is even better. I don't even like the film that much but the depth on that picture is unbelievable.

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: Chedney Honks on March 12, 2021, 12:19:10 PM
If you have the option, I would enormously recommend The Shining on 4K UHD Blu-ray, one of the best I've seen. It still looks exactly like a very filmic 70s movie, but with impeccable presentation and detail which makes it look like it could have been made yesterday.


Is it the American version with the extra 25 mins? I've kind of gotten used to that one now.


greenman

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 12, 2021, 08:40:51 AM
I'd recommend trying one of the 'Your Movie Sucks' videos that his channel is best known for.  He also does mini-reviews and quick thoughts on new releases (which are more often than not straight up reviews, with little humour - but the YMS series is where he delves into terrible films and critiques them with humour).  His YMS review of the horror title Frozen is a good place to start.

I'd also recommend his hilarious critique of the atrocious live event that is The Hot Tub Cinema Club, where he attended one of the Hot Tub screenings and relates the appalling experience of doing so.

If you still don't care for his style after those two videos, then yeah, he's probably not for you.

Watching some of his top 10 yearly lists were he tones down that persona and obviously talks about stuff he enjoys a lot I found more tolerable but that kind of snarky takedown of bad/unambitious cinema I really can't say I have much interest in at all, seems like a waste of time to lower yourself to the level of someone like Nostalgia Critic although I spose it gets more views.

amputeeporn

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 11, 2021, 10:18:57 PM
Nah, not having this.  It's just a shitty, badly made documentary.  This whole retroactive idea that the point of the documentary is to show how we all bring our own personal interpretations into The Shining is hogwash.  It's ironic because it's projecting onto the documentary the same way that the interviewees in said documentary project onto The Shining and create their own "meaning" of what it's all about, without the evidence to back it up.

If the documentary had wanted the ultimate point to be about personal interpretation, don't you think the filmmaker may have actually raised that point at the end of their documentary, to hammer home their point?  Having said that, let's say that it is about personal interpretation; well, so what?  Why is it interesting to sit down and listen to cretins spouting utter gibberish for an hour and a half?  I guess to come to an epiphany that everyone interprets art differently?  Oh my god!  Mind blown!  What an incredible revelation!  I'm really glad that I sat through an excruciating waste of my time, listening to gubers prattling on, talking nonsense to learn something as basic and obvious as that.

A documentary about personal interpretation of film, where the subjects provide their own theories on what a film means, could absolutely work but it would require that the theories be at least somewhat credible, intriguing and thought provoking and it would require that the central message of varying personal interpretation be clearly communicated by the end of the documentary.  Room 237 is not that documentary.

Instead Room 237 is a pointless collection of theories upon the film, told by absolute nobodies with no clue of what they speak, much less an understanding of film production, film critique, or film analysis.  It's the documentary equivalent of filming a bunch of randos and asking them to look at a cloud and then ask each of them what they see it as, through their pareidolia perception.  Does it sound interesting to hear people say "ice cream", "man in a hat", "woman walking a dog" for an hour and a half?  Because that's what Room 237 essentially is.

It's giving the filmmaker far too much credit to suggest that there was any thought behind this documentary other than "man, there's a lot of theories about The Shining out there on the Internet.  I should place an ad asking people to record their theories on microphone and submit them to me, so that I can stitch them all together and release it commercially".  Fact is, it's just an incompetently made "documentary" (and I use that word in the loosest possible sense), both in concept and execution.  As per usual, Adam from YMS gets it spot on in his review.

I'm not going to respond in kind to this, because I think you've done a great job undermining your own point - but suffice it to say that the insufferable borderline personality disorder smugness of the video you've linked is literally unwatchable to me, so I guess it's horses for courses, eh champ?

Ant Farm Keyboard

Quote from: Chedney Honks on March 12, 2021, 01:36:26 PM
Extended Cut, yep.

The international cut may be better.

As it happened a couple of times with his own films, Kubrick found out what he was actually interested in very late in the process. There were some scenes shot that explained the mysterious appearances in the hotel room in the final act (including the guy in the bear costume), as Jack Torrance was browsing through the archives of the Hotel.
He ultimately chose to focus on the Jack-Danny relationship, and Jack's own vulnerabilities, while the novel and the script were more about the hotel being an evil place.
The original cut, that played for one weekend in LA and New York (five theaters each), had an epilogue, where the hotel manager visited Wendy at the hospital, to explain that they hadn't found Jack's body (just after the shot of Nicholson frozen to death). He notices Danny playing outside the room, and he throws him a ball that bounces exactly the same way the ball thrown by the "twins". They spent an entire day getting the bouncing right. Cut to the final shots in the empty rooms of the hotel, with "Midnight, the Stars and You" playing, and the picture of the 4th of July ball.
Shelley Duvall loved the scene because it was very Hitchcockian (the manager knew and was manipulating them from the very beginning). But losing these two minutes contributes a lot to the shock of seeing Jack in the picture, that would have been much more diluted after this kind of interlude.

It's a pity that, due to the UHD Blu-ray, the international version is now getting slowly phased out. That's one of the questionable choices made by the estate and Leon Vitali. I'm sure that there are economic considerations, but it's still a mistake to me.

The official reason for the shorter version was that American box office started soft for The Shining and Kubrick didn't want the film to lose money, as Barry Lyndon did, but I think that there are other motivations. The international cut is tighter, and excises mostly material from the original novel, at a time King was starting to be vocal about his criticism of the film. Keeping the longer cut in the US would keep King "happy", while Kubrick would roll out his preferred version in other places. Ultimately, Kubrick and King found this arrangement, under which King wouldn't make more comments about Kubrick's film, in exchange for gaining back the adaptation rights after 15 years or so, hence his miniseries.

Also, do you remember the stuff when Danny drives his tricycle, with the noise that starts as soon as the tricycle goes from carpet to hard floor? It was unplanned. When they shot the scene, they noticed the discrepancy in volume and they were trying to fix it. At some point, a random crew guy said something like, "But you know, it's actually a cool effect." Kubrick thought about it for a few seconds, and he agreed.

greenman

The main shift between the two cuts for me would actually be the US version puts more of a focus on Wendy, especially the scenes with Danny and the social worker early in the film. I think you could argue that does give it a bit more movement, Jack is an asshole from the moment we meet him and just gives it more free reign as the film goes on were as Wendy actually stands up to him.

The international cut does play up the sense of confinement more though I spose as we rarely see anything outside of the hotel and the journey to it. Kubricks's ability to make any situation seem strange and alienating though does I think mean thats a bit less important.

That Your Movie Sucks channel is dogshit. Just endless unenlightening pablum from a deeply boring man. Why is so much YouTube content about cinema just so incredibly fucking facile and bad, and why on earth is it all so popular? Are people really that bored?

frajer

Watched a few of his reviews out of curiosity and now have even more appreciation for On Cinema. Has to be an inspiration, surely?