The Fountain (2006)

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

This film was surprisingly great. I was very happy to watch this film last night.
I read a couple of this director's interviews and would like to share some lines that I liked. (http://twitchfilm.net/archives/008224.html)


The Fountain is dealing with all these huge issues. It's asking those same questions that all people have been asking since the beginning of time. Why are we here? What is life? What is death? What happens when you die? Can you love? What is love? Can you love forever? Those are the big questions and no one can answer them. There are no answers. There are just ideas that we can think about and talk about. That's what The Fountain is for me: those late night conversations you had with your college room mates where you basically sat around and talked about what is consciousness? What is existence? That's, for me, what the exercise of the film was about, it was to explore these big questions and to explore the big questions I think everyone has to come into it and start thinking about how they answer those questions for themselves.

I've been thinking lately that I "understand" that I'll die one day but am not sure how eagerly I'm accepting my death. I'm 24 years old now and am where I can still "run" without having many things attached to me. I'd like to keep running until a day comes that I'm willing to slow down.

Thanks

Shin

Lars with the Real Girl (2007)

Directed by Craig Gillespie

Before starting the comment on the film... I had a car accident yesterday. This is the second time this year. Fortunately, I was safe in both times. I hope there'll be no more accidents... Well, this incident actually made me think of this film deeper than I expected. Here is the director's interview.
<http://www.beliefnet.com/story/225/story_22539_1.html>

"Craig Gillespie: The movie deals with the innate goodness of people, and in life I find that’s actually more true than not. People genuinely want to help each other and do right by each other."

I had been feeling this lack of appreciation in my mind. I've realized that it's usually a bad sign when I'm in that state of mind. I haven't quite figured out how to get out of the mental state without causing some hard experience like this car accident... What I need to remember is this simple truth. "I am what i am because there are people who have supported me tremendous amount and guided me with great care. So, be grateful and don't take them for granted."

"Ryan Gosling: I think they (people in town) do it (accepting Bianca to their community) for themselves too. I don't think they do it just for Lars. I say that because I saw her effect on myself, and on everybody on the crew. She(Bianca)'s interesting. She asks you to look at yourself, to be creative, to develop a relationship with yourself that you haven't developed. It forces you to be intimate with yourself. Everybody gets something out of their relationship with her."

"CG: The way we approached this movie... it was never just a doll. It was always a serious relationship that Lars was going through with a woman. Everything we worked on, all his motivation that he had in every scene, was his relationship with Bianca."

"RG: I said to Craig, "How are you going to shoot her?" He said, "I'm going to treat her as though she has a nudity clause in her contract." He meant it, and he did that. He required that everybody treat her like an actress. She got magazines between takes. She had her own trailer, they changed her in her trailer. She came on set and she was treated like any other actor."

I was also able to feel her through the film. (It was similar to the volleyball from "Cast Away" They became more than a thing.)
The film and the car accident reminded me of the importance of having appreciations on my family, friends, and things I'm surrounded by. I'm grateful to what I have been given and thankful to my family, friends, and people who I've spent time with in my life.
Hopefully, this appreciation will last long.

Thanks

Shin

Into the Wild (2007)

Directed by Sean Penn

I'm very glad that I saw this film. Here is a part that spoke to me from the director's interview on Into the Wild
http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_13001.html

"The bottom line is that this thing that I was tracking, in response to his question, was neither objective nor subjective, it was just the wrong paradigm for me. The idea was it's a hunger from deep inside that is touched when somebody - this will that I talk about -- and you can apply it to everything that's happening in the world, you can apply it - let's forget about getting into global politics, just the movies.
You know, I'm so dissatisfied. It’s like good movie, bad movie, I almost don't care. I just want to feel that the person who made it did and then that'll tell me enough. I'll get exhilarated about life better from seeing that movie on that basis alone. [...] And that doesn't mean that I'm going to tell anybody to like that I did it or not like that I did it, or anything else, or that it works or doesn't work every time somebody does do it. I'm proud of the whole thing. It's the way that I wanted to tell it, but for sure we've got to find out what's on the other side of these walls, and that's what he did."

I thought the urge to make something real and the "rawness" captured in this film were beautiful and also essential to live as an artist. I hope I'll be able to capture the rawness and presence of human beings in my work.

The Hours (2002)

Directed by Stephen Daldry

It took an entire film for me to realize that Virginia Woolf was Nicole Kidman... Anyway, here are the sections that I picked from the director's interview. The interview is great.
http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,898195,00.html

"I suppose that at its core it's about the very difficult choices people have to make in order to make their lives possible. So often those choices are put into cliche or a sentimental mode that tries to make it easier for us to have happiness. The cost of that happiness or the cost of the choices are never explored. The cost of the choices that, it seems to me, these incredibly courageous women make, felt very truthful."

I actually saw "The Hours" and "Cast Away" back to back. These two films which dealt with similar themes in a way made me think of what is the price I'm paying to seek a successful life (whatever the "successes" are). I wonder... Well, I guess I'll find out in the future.

Thanks

Shin

Cast Away (2000)

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Before going to the director's interview, I'd like to introduce a book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. So far, this is the best book I've read this year. In this book, the author mentions a Hedgehog Concept as one of the key factors for trasforming a good company to a great company.

A Hedgehog Concept is "a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles."

Three Circles are

1. What you can be the best in the world at.
(and, equally important, what you cannot be the bet in the world at)

2. What drives your economic engine.
(cash flow per X in the social sector)

3. What you are deeply passionate about.
(The idea here is not to stimulate passion but to DISCOVER what
makes you passionate.)

I've been very curious about what make a difference between great filmmakers and good filmmakers. So, I'd like to try to apply these three circle to Robert Zemeckis. (I won't be able to fill all circles...)

1. I wasn't able to find the exact phrase of what he thinks he can be
best at.

"If I just keep making movies that I want to see, and that I think somebody else wants to see -- and those are the two questions that I ask myself, because I don't want to be suicidal. [...] if the answer to those two questions is, "yes" then you may as well make the movie."

2. N/A

3. I certainly found this one.

"I won an Academy award when I was 44 years old, but I paid for it with my 20s. That decade of my life from film school till 30 was nothing but work, nothing but absolute, driving work. I had no money. I had no life. I was just devouring movies and writing screen plays. I look at my good friends who are my same age and they're not as successful as I am, but I look back and I think, "They were living very exciting lives as bachelors in their 20s. They were pulling down some pretty good money." But they weren't driven and obsessed with becoming film directors."

"Hard working pays off at the end" may sound too common... For those, I'd like to end this note with a comment of Carl Reichardt, CEO of Wells Fargo at the time of transition.

"What we did was so simple, and we kept it simple. It was so straightforward and obvious that it sounds almost ridiculous to talk about it."

Interivew from http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/zem0int-1

Thanks

Shin

Across the Universe (2007)

Directed by Julie Taymor

I waited for this film to come out for a long time...
The film was great. I was interested in this director's theatrical background because I felt the film was very tehatrical. So here her interview goes. In the interview, she talks about the benefits of film and theater.

"I knew that whatever I did (for creating the Lion King) had to be totally theatrical, because I couldn't compete with film. One of the reasons I love to jump back and forth between mediums is that film does allow me to be more literal. I can go to the real place. I can go to the Coliseum, and I don't have to fake it. I can go to an Eskimo snowfield if I want to have snow; I don't need to do chicken feathers falling out of a plate. [...] What theater does best is to be abstract and not to do literal reality. You watch this water -- but it's just silk (with blue lines)-- disappear through a hole. Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry."

It is always fascinating to see films that play with visual images that provoke certain emotions and feelings in audience because, for those films, the director's focus is more on "how" to tell a story rather than "what" to. I think...

Thanks

Shin

Gosford Park (2001)

Directed by Robert Altman

I think this film is one of the best films I saw this summer. I read the interview on this film and would like to share some of it.
http://www.iofilm.co.uk/feats/interviews/r/robert_altman.shtml

"It was a genre(murder mystery, class satire) I had never done before and that's all I look for every time. I'm not a very creative person coming up with ideas, I don't care much about stories in films. I look at films more like paintings and I look for a genre that the audience knows and will be kind of comfortable with, "Oh, I know what this kind of thing is" and then I just like to give it a little turn."

I wonder the other filmmakers that I admire also look at films as painting...

Thanks

Shin