Nothing tops Waterloo, critics are imbeciles. About as close to a perfect movie as it gets.
Totally agree. And you never even hear about the movie anymore. Total shame. I watch it every year with newfound awe.
Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before CGI
11–20 of 47 posts
Re: Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before CGI
#12[flagged]
If anything, leaving this information out would flatten the complexities to an even greater degree. Understanding and sharing a well-rounded perspective of a person (e.g. that this person held objectively incorrect beliefs that were despised among his contemporaries) is quite literally why people study history.
Re: Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before CGI
#13[flagged]
Surely you have to draw a line somewhere, though? Adolf Hitler was a painter and Kim Il-Jong directed movies. Neither of them was any good, but if they had been, would it really make sense to judge their art in isolation, without the slightest mention of the authors’ tyranny and mass murder? Griffith made movies that he fully intended as Ku Klux Klan propaganda. That is not in doubt. At the same time these movies are…
As a joke I'll sometimes show images of Hitler's art to people. They're always received with high praise, and rarely is the praise retracted when they learn who the artist was. It's usually "oh that's funny, well he was pretty good. Wow. Didn't know that."
Yeah I think art and artist can be evaluated on separate criteria.
Re: Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before CGI
#14Odd little mistake on the Kubrick film. It's "Barry Lyndon" not "Barry Lindon".
Definitely worth watching if you haven't seen it already.
Re: Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before CGI
#15from May 2020
Re: Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before CGI
#16[flagged]
I came to the comments just to post this. Ironic coming from film buff, the idea that we should judge historical figures through a modern lens.
... but D.W. Griffith was considered racist by his contemporaries, and Birth of a Nation was controversial from the moment it was released.
Re: Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before CGI
#17[flagged]
>The film was controversial even before its release and it has remained so ever since; it has been called "the most controversial film ever made in the United States" and "the most reprehensibly racist film in Hollywood history." The film has been denounced for its racist depiction of African Americans. The film portrays its black characters (many of whom are played by white actors in blackface) as unintelligent and…
The quotes in the Wiki page are modern, not from the time of the release. It was controversial at release, but not so much that there wasn't a White House screening.
It was the first motion picture to be screened inside the White House, viewed there by President Woodrow Wilson, his family, and members of his cabinet.
Re: Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before CGI
#18[flagged]
Would you object as strongly if it had said that he was a really nice guy? Would it be more or less honest a retelling of history if this was ignored or left out? TFA is clearly not discounting the work because of it, and probably nobody would good-faith argue that personality was always decoupled from work? In which case how much you care is just a POV?
I would. I'm not advocating white-washing here. My point is that this piece is not about artist biographies. For this sort of piece, I don't care if he was a serial adulterer, a volunteer fireman, or a local hero, and think that inserting those details is an unnecessary thumb on the scale.
Re: Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before CGI
#19[flagged]
Surely you have to draw a line somewhere, though? Adolf Hitler was a painter and Kim Il-Jong directed movies. Neither of them was any good, but if they had been, would it really make sense to judge their art in isolation, without the slightest mention of the authors’ tyranny and mass murder? Griffith made movies that he fully intended as Ku Klux Klan propaganda. That is not in doubt. At the same time these movies are…
Well, an obvious line is that the political views of political figures are more relevant than their hobbies.
Re: Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before CGI
#20[flagged]
He wasn't just a product of his time. He was so racist his works were controversial when released. Is a single sentence about that really too much?
He was a mainstream Hollywood director, working with the biggest stars of the day, and co-founded the studio United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. The film was some controversial, but much less than you would hope. Most of the controversy is retrospective.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/02/05/arts/05FRIDAYFILE...
