freeway scenes
yipes, i had to ff through the 'mood' freeway scenes. just too long and did not set up the movie for me....traffic representing????
shareThe commentary track pointed out some symbolism which I had missed in that scene. Give it a listen.
shareIf you are referring to the scene when Harlan rides with Lonnie, it isn't too long (but can make the action movie lovers impatient). That traffic, speed, too many people, too many cars, they are exactly something that Harlan doesn't like and what he wants Tobe and Lonnie to understand. Though living in California Harlan won't accept the Californian style of life.
The real question to authors, however, is - why would a person like Harlan decide to go so far as California to live in an environment so different from the one that he was used to and that he could fit in. If he wanted to leave Dakota because of his prison experience, there were countless places more adequate than California.
Seabreeze is long gone with this puzzlement. I thought the reference was about the freeway pedestrian overpass shots in the beginning. The kids are inside the cage of the overpass safety fence, and the jet flies along the open sky space in between the upper fences. They might feel trapped in general, which is why they take to Harlen so readily. Come to think of it I don't think my DVD even has a commentary track! I must be thinking of the interviews.
My Sister thinks Harlen is from SD as well, but the cop says Martin served a youth camp sentence in Ventura County, which is right next door to the San Fernando Valley. He's just a Jewish valley kid who is trying to start his troubled family life over again as someone else who has oversimplified the secret to happiness.
"The only reason I'm paranoid is because everyone's against me." - Frank Burns.
I didn't know these geographic data. It still doesn't exclude the possibility that Harlan came from SD to California where he had problems that caused him to end in jail. But I guess that your explanation is more likely to be the real one.
shareThat's what I love about commentary tracks and interviews. You can get a sense of what the creators were going for, even if they didn't succeed with the theatrical version. I never recommend researching a feature before you've seen it cold, so you can personalize the interpretation. Afterwords, I like to discover how far off I was. I think it makes us better viewers in the long run.
"The only reason I'm paranoid is because everyone's against me." - Frank Burns.
But there is a chance to get disappointed. For years 2001 was my favorite SF movie and one of the best movies ever. And then I read Clark's novel (as he is my favorite SF writer). Kubrick's movie is so open to different interpretations and offers so many possible explanations and messages - for me the ending scenes were among the best phylosophical ideas about the Universe and human position in it. And after reading the book it suddenly looked like a cheap alien story, definitely the worst thing that Clark had written I've ever read (how can it come from the pen that created "Childhood's End" or "The Songs of Distant Earth"?). Ever since I've been trying to forget that I've ever laid my hand on a book...
shareGood points. This original topic was about the slow pace of a transition, or another possible mood being represented other than boredom. So there are limits to how hard the viewer should work to decode abstractions.
David Cronenberg said that he had to betray the book in order to make Spider a cinematic expression. Just like a cover-tune can be a completely different animal from the original song, adaptations are just that, a partial borrowing from another medium. We still have the old versions to re-interpret.
"The only reason I'm paranoid is because everyone's against me." - Frank Burns.
I can't believe people actually think he was from South Dakota! It was all part of his fantasy cowboy life. 'His name's Martin Lassiter. He's a local kid from Reseda. Did a year in Chino for robbery', says the cop as they are driving towards the campsite. A 'local kid' is not a man who recently moved to California from another state.
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