Nathan Strobel's Blog

I was bored by Little Women the book, as I alluded to in a previous post. I GUESS I can see the adulation that some people have for it; it just wasn’t my thing. The movie, though, was just unbearable. I love older movies. This one was just so saccharine and cloying. I suppose the acting was good for the time, but it just seemed so wooden to me. I found the film interesting as a point of interest, having watched On The Watefront just a few hours earlier. It was amazing to see how far screen acting had moved in 20 years, from young Hepburn to young Marlon Brando.

I mean, I really don’t know. Was I supposed to like it? I hated it. And it wasn’t because there was a dearth of explosions and shootouts. It was just boring, cliched, and truly painful to watch in my humble opinion. I couldn’t force myself to get emotionally involved with any of the characters, because they didn’t seem finished. Their development was sorely lacking. The whole movie just seemed like a random string of events happening to people that I didn’t particularly care about.

 Like I said, I guess the film was a product of its time. It just didn’t have the same emotional impact of the book (which I didn’t like either). The whole deal just comes across as so trite. I WISH I could live in a fantasy world where I grin and move on within a matter of seconds when my sister dies.

It isn’t that the story is bad, I just prefer a little realism in my literature and film.

I “read” Little Women in middle school, and by read, I mean I pretended to read during silent reading time in sixth grade. I didn’t like it much then. I still don’t really like it, although I can see why it is so beloved. It just isn’t my type of book, and I find it rather dull. Some parts are engaging and I enjoy seeing the characters develop, but I hate that stiff turn of the century writing style.

 The dialogue is just so contrived. Every line is something like “Oh yes, mother dear! How I do love going to church! Oh yes I do indeed!” I mean…that’s fine for what it is, it just isn’t something that would normally engage me. So far, there just aren’t any especially engaging or challenging ideas for me to grab onto.

If Little Women were a painting it would be a 17th century Dutch still life. Beautiful in a sense, but at the same time, dull and devoid of any real revolutionary spirit.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I wanted to mention it in class, but for some reason I didn’t.

Someone wondered aloud why Shad ‘O Rory’s character was changed from an Irishman into Nick Varner. I think the filmmakers gave him a german sounding name on purpose. Consider that it was during WWII, and germans were the “enemy” and “evil”. How fitting for the villain of the film to be german and own a vicious German shepherd. Does anyone else think that this is a possibility?

I really liked Miller’s Crossing and thought it worked quite well for what it was. As an homage to classic gangster films it was brilliant. Normally the lack of a well developed emotional side would bother me, but the atmosphere seemed perfect, especially considering The Glass Key. The novel seemed to be more of a jumping off point for the plot of the film, as it was obviously not completely true to the source material. The characters were definitely based on Ned, Paul, Janet, etc. but the Cohen Bros took the plot in a different (and arguably more interesting) direction. I’d say Miller’s Crossing is definitely more true to the “feel” of the novel than the original film adaptation.

The prologue of the film honestly reminded me of The Godfather. Two men sit facing each other across a desk, one established and powerful, the other in a subordinate position. There are obvious differences between the opening scenes in both films, but I don’t think it was a coincidence that the Cohen brothers gave a nod to the greatest mob film of all time.

As an English major, I’ve always been, for the most part, more fascinated by literary theory than the literature itself. Not significantly, but when class discussion turns toward a deconstructionist analysis of The Great Gatsby rather than talking about what kind of car Gatsby drives, I tend to participate a lot more. I enjoyed English 295 because it wasn’t dedicated so much to the nitty gritty of literature itself, but used literature as a tool to reach greater literary and metaphysical truths. So now I’m babbling and I’ll shut up.

 Anyways, that’s why I really enjoyed reading the essays in our film book. I have never been privy to such an in depth study of film theory, and as a self-proclaimed student of pop culture, I found it especially interesting to classify popular (and more obscure) films into the genres which were discussed. I was thinking about the recent batch of romantic comedies released just in time for Super Bowl weekend, the terrible reviews they got, and how films like “Catch and Release” and “Because I Said So” pretty much fit the definition of genre film to a tee.

I honestly believe that these films, at the moment at least, are completely devoid of any sort of intellectual or artistic value, especially in comparison to recent films like Pan’s Labyrinth, The Queen, etc. Maybe they’ll be of some historical value 50 years from now, although I seriously doubt that as well. I believe it was mentioned in class that genre films of any lasting cultural value are the ones that in some fashion, break the traditional mold. It is doubtful that Smokin’ Aces, Epic Movie, or Blood and Chocolate will be available in any sort of home viewing format in 25 years let alone be remembered and culturally valued.

So yes, I do believe that SOME genre films have value; either those that are extremely well done or those that tweak the traditional formula. But there is a large category of films that are pure forgettable junk pumped out solely as a product.

I am ashmaed to say that last night was the first time I’ve seen Yojimbo. I haven’t seen many westerns in general, and I should probably look into fixing that. For the most part, I enjoyed the movie. There were a few dull moments, but they were very few and far between. I really don’t have anything especially insightful to say, unfortunately. I’m not familiar with Kurosawa’s work, although I’ve heard him mentioned frequently and I’ve been meaning to explore a little more. I have seen The Seven Samurai, which I count amongst my favorite movies. As far as Westerns go, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is still my favorite and even if it isn’t 100% unique, it’s in my (uneducated) opinion, head and shoulders above Yojimbo.  I just didn’t feel the connection with the Samurai that I felt with Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name. Maybe a cultural gulf or something? Either way, I loved Yojimbo, especially the final scene and line. Truly badass.

After finishing the movie, I must say…I really didn’t like it much. Was it entertaining? Sure. But most of it was just absurdly beyond belief. The word that kept running through my mind, during and after the film, was “kitsch”. It just felt so forced and SO damn 40s. It was like watching a movie from 1961 about a sock hop starring Marilyn Monroe and Elvis. I’m of the opinion that greatness in any field (art, music, film) should have some degree of timelessness. Obviously Casablanca looks somewhat dated today, but it isn’t absolutely laughable in the same way The Glass Key is. In my opinion, The film doesn’t really have any merit today outside of “let’s chuckle at how goofy people in the 1940s looked”. I don’t get that feeling from other films of the same era (or even earlier) that are more well done. Enjoyable to a degree, but definitely not a classic.

 In other news, everyone should read this article: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=wilson

It has nothing to do with film (or sports, as the espn.com url might indicate). I just found it extremely disturbing, and I think you guys will too.

I really enjoyed the first half of The Glass Key that we watched in class today. It was pretty much exactly what I expected out of the film, but nonetheless, I love the genre. I was a little disappointed with a few of the changes (No Bernie Despain, no mention of (N)ed’s compulsive gambling, etc.) And obviously in the book the characters are more richly drawn and quite a lot more complex. It is very interesting to see the characters on screen, however. I noticed that my vision of the book didn’t really match up with the director of the film. The sets almost look as though they are from a stage production, but I suppose that is to be expected from a 1942 film. I think a remake directed by the right person could be fantastic. I would make the sets a little more seedy and menacing and the violence a little more graphic. I suppose I was picturing the book from a 2000s frame of mind, not 1930s.

 In other thoughts, while I enjoyed the film for its pure entertainment, it seemed as thought it was paced almost TOO quickly. I can see why The Glass Key is a sort of “forgotten” noir film; in my humble opinion, it doesn’t have the plot and character richness that other classics from the same era do. The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, and Sunset Boulevard come to mind. The events were coming so rapid fire there was no time to really invest in the characters.

I’m not sure precisely what we’re supposed to be doing here, so hopefully I won’t screw it up too badly.

As far as The Glass Key goes, it was one of the few books I’ve truly enjoyed reading for a class in quite some time, which is rather depressing for an English major I suppose. I took a medieval lit class last semester, and as much as I tried, I just couldn’t get too engaged with Chaucer.

I related to The Glass Key easily, not only because it was written relatively recently, but also because I could picture it in my mind in relation to movies I’ve seen in the same vein. I have never pictured a book in black and white, but that’s what I did with this novel, mostly because I’m vaguely familiar with film noir from the same era (The Maltese Falcon, et al).

It wasn’t that I could connect with any of the characters, as I’m about as far away from a hard-boiled detective as one is going to get, but that the detective story is such a classic and accepted genre, both in film and literature. It just felt like home to me, and I would normally shy away from other similar novels.

I also admire the subtlety and craft obviously inherent in the writing. A person unfamiliar with the field of detective novels might assume that most are either similar to Sherlock Holmes or simply throwaway fiction. It’s interesting that a detective novel is actually worthy of in depth analysis in an upper-level english course. I never would have assumed that before.

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