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The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

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Re: The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

#41

Post by at_a_remove »

Take Dark City. I believe the studio forced a new opening that more or less explained everything rather than letting you puzzle it all out. I didn't find the movie too hard to work through, but I think Hollywood execs have a fairly low estimation of the audience's intellect.

Lynch is a bit harder. Lynch is atypical in two ways that play off of one another. First and most obviously, he has been developing as a film-maker (as one would hope over the decades), but he expects that his audience would have kept up with him, introducing a kind of filmic vocabulary. I would say that Mulholland Drive is much, much more comprehensible once you have understood what Lost Highway is on about. In turn, Lost Highway is an extended riff off of the dualism you would see in Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me. As to the second factor, Lynch is very heavy into TM and he would like to present images, sounds, and such to the viewer, and then find out what the viewer thinks of them. Not in a "this is up to you to puzzle out," rather he is pitching rocks and skipping stones off of what he likely believes is to be a collective unconscious or a shared cultural experience, then being excited about what might pop up. It's a genuine interest, I think.

Re: The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

#42

Post by lqet »

pjmorris wrote: post #9

I was amazed and astonished when I first saw 'The Big Sleep', early in my college career. I'd never seen a movie I had a hard time following before, and I was captivated. There's an old Steve Yegge post where he described presenting for Jeff Bezos. I'm paraphrasing, but Yegge said something like after writing the presentation (no slides), delete every fifth paragraph to keep Bezos intrigued enough to pay attention. I…

This is also exactly how I felt when I first watched "The Godfather: Part 2". There was just so much left out, and so much of extreme significance was only slightly hinted at (just take the scene where Michael realizes the betrayal!). If you only stop paying attention for a single scene, chances are that you will not get the plot. That not only makes you completely immersed in the movie, it also makes for very satisfying rewatches.

Re: The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

#43

Post by BoiledCabbage »

yupper32 wrote: post #33
ubermonkey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a deeply predictable (and pedestrian) take, and I 100% expected to see it here (as I expect to see it in any technical forum). Highly technical people -- developers, engineers, etc -- are much more likely (at least in my experience) to react negatively to nonlinear storytelling. Further, the reaction is almost never "wow, not for me" but instead "THIS IS STUPID". It's essentially the equivalent of walking thr…

I really dislike this take. Listen, it's fine if people enjoy nonlinear storytelling to make it an "experience" or a canvas with a few straight lines painted on it. But it is stupid, to follow your quote. If you're using devices to make a story more difficult to follow, just for the sake of making it more difficult to follow for the "challenge", then that's stupid. I'm not claiming The Big Sleep is even in this categ…

> If you're using devices to make a story more difficult to follow, just for the sake of making it more difficult to follow for the "challenge", then that's stupid.

I don't know you, and even I know you disagree with your own statement. If not, the only thing you'd enjoy are media targeted at pre-schoolers and young children.

Anything targeting and age beyond that is made more difficult to follow, by design to make it more challenging than what a young child can grasp. That allowed the creator to explore deeper subjects.

Maybe you don't like things more challenging than your comfort zone, maybe you don't like more less linear depictions but do like them somewhat. Unless you can tell me you only consume media targeted at young children. Even you average Marvel film leaves plenty unsaid that needs to be infered, plenty unspoken to be felt. Non-linear narrative's to evoke a response in the viewe, false imagery, deception, feints and direct intuitional/emotional appeals.

Now those might be targeted at just where you like them, but thats admiring you like them and you agree with the approach and that it's not stupid. It's just when thing slave your preferred zone you begin to dislike them.

Re: The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

#44

Post by lqet »

Regarding classic film-noir movies, I found "The Lady from Shanghai" by Orson Welles much more baffling, and also frustrating. The first time I watched it, I didn't really get the plot. As a big Orson Welles fan, I assumed it was my fault and consulted Wikipedia. The Wikipedia understanding of the plot was equivalent to mine and didn't answer any questions, so I watched it a second time, and a third time. There are massive plot holes. I really believe that Welles was not interested in a coherent plot, he just needed a vehicle for beautiful cinematography and great acting. But it is so frustrating if you try to follow a complicated plot, only to realise at the end of the movie that not even the director was able to understand it.

Re: The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

#46

Post by telesphore »

It's a matter of setting up expectations and balancing that with good story telling.

Ambiguity, elision, out-of-order story telling, etc. are all part of art but it's a delicate balance. There's a contract that artists set up with the audience that will allow them to use these techniques. Primer is one of those where I'm OK with my confusion because the story was interesting without all the answers, and it was setup pretty early on that this wasn't an A to B story. On the other hand, the fade-to-black ending of The Sopranos was, in my opinion, a total violation of that contract. Nowhere did they setup that kind of ambiguity. Yes, it's a series vs. a movie but my point still stands.

No Country for Old Men, again IMO, rides that line a little close. Sure the Bardem character checks his boots at the end but there were some other major gaps that I don't think were set up. It was well acted and produced but expectations were not managed so it still goes into my meh pile.

When it works the it's a lot of fun figuring things out. I'll have to give The Big Sleep a try.

Edit: At the other end of the spectrum, expository lumps are no fun either.

Re: The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

#47

Post by version_five »

One thing I'd add to the article is that a key feature of the Marlow novels is their meandering plots. I read once that Raymond Chandler stories are about the journey, not the destination, so basically you're following Marlow around as he does stuff (that is mentioned in the article). The stuff he does is locally interesting, and it makes the stories good. But judging the stories based on their plot synopsis doesn't really get you anywhere. I've read all the Marlow novels, a while ago now, but I'd be challenged to give a decent summary of any of them. Its about the individual scenes.

Re: The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

#48

Post by yupper32 »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #43
yupper32 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike this take. Listen, it's fine if people enjoy nonlinear storytelling to make it an "experience" or a canvas with a few straight lines painted on it. But it is stupid, to follow your quote. If you're using devices to make a story more difficult to follow, just for the sake of making it more difficult to follow for the "challenge", then that's stupid. I'm not claiming The Big Sleep is even in this categ…

> If you're using devices to make a story more difficult to follow, just for the sake of making it more difficult to follow for the "challenge", then that's stupid. I don't know you, and even I know you disagree with your own statement. If not, the only thing you'd enjoy are media targeted at pre-schoolers and young children. Anything targeting and age beyond that is made more difficult to follow, by design to make i…

> If not, the only thing you'd enjoy are media targeted at pre-schoolers and young children.

Oh come on, you know I wasn't talking about that kind of challenge.

There are two things:

1. Pieces that are more challenging to read/watch because the story is deeper and the challenging read is required to tell that story.

2. A piece that purposely makes it the story harder to follow, or is otherwise really difficult to follow, without adding much depth.

I was clearly talking about #2.

"In fact, the plot isn't impossible to follow – it's just extraordinarily difficult without a pen, a notepad and a pause button to hand." - The article

That's just stupid, and absolutely falls into #2. It's a crime drama.

Re: The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

#49

Post by lqet »

telesphore wrote: post #46

It's a matter of setting up expectations and balancing that with good story telling. Ambiguity, elision, out-of-order story telling, etc. are all part of art but it's a delicate balance. There's a contract that artists set up with the audience that will allow them to use these techniques. Primer is one of those where I'm OK with my confusion because the story was interesting without all the answers, and it was setup…

> On the other hand, the fade-to-black ending of The Sopranos was, in my opinion, a total violation of that contract. Nowhere did they setup that kind of ambiguity.

I respectfully disagree. One of the qualities of "The Sopranos" was exactly that things weren't always spelled out explicitely. Also, I did not really find the ending to be extremely ambigious. I mean, it is pretty clear what happened.

Re: The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

#50

Post by WalterBright »

yumaikas wrote: post #28
seph-reed wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a really nice read. I've made a habit lately of "checking out" on having any opinion about anything I can't truly analyze. And this is a great example of why. I'm surrounded in content telling me why Bezos is a monster, and they make a good argument. But for all that hatred, I've never once heard a single mention of him being smart, let alone intimidatingly smart, let alone "a first class genius" or "better…

I wonder how much of "smart" is due to his power, and how much of it is due to his intellect. I say this not because I don't believe he doesn't have an impressive intellect, but because, well, what if someone had his intellect, but worked in an Amazon warehouse due to circumstances outside of their control?

Being smart isn't good enough. One must also be motivated, be willing to put in the effort, and not be discouraged by repeated failure.

I had a friend once who was very smart. He was always starting new projects to make money, and always quit at the first or second obstacle.

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