MovieChat Forums > The Good German (2007) Discussion > Some stylistic tics

Some stylistic tics

posted 16 years ago by Mr_McLaurel
7 replies | jump to latest

I just finished this a few hours ago (some damn duck woke me up, now I can't sleep) and being a fan of the old 40s thrillers this is emulating, I enjoyed it. I do have a couple problems with its aspiration of replicating the look of Old Hollywood. Now, I'm not talking about the sex or the language or the violence, unlike a lot of people on this board that seemed to be turned off by it. I mean there are a couple of cinematic devices in the movie that were not used back during the 40s. Two examples I noticed: The high-contrast, silent flashback to Cate Blanchett's character getting raped by a Soviet. That was what you call a dead giveaway - you never saw stuff like that in films noir or Casablanca or anything. Second: the subtitles! While I acknowledge the superiority of using subtitles over just having an actor fake a German accent (see the scene with Clooney telling the little boy the war's over and he can play with his boats all summer), movies back in the 40s never used subtitles. It just seems like if Soderbergh wanted to do a movie like they did back then, he could've gone all the way. Anyway, I still liked the movie - did anybody notice any other stylistic anachronisms?

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Mr_McLaurel 16 years ago

Well, like I said, I liked the movie, I just noticed these...irregularities I guess. And yeah, I respect it when movies don't use subtitles. I watched Midnight Express recently, which is virtually subtitle-less during the scenes in Turkish. Also, have you seen the movie Birthday Girl with Nicole Kidman? Whole sequences of the movie have Russian gangsters talking to each other in Russian with no subtitles, and you can still get what's going on. Interesting technique.

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Mr_McLaurel 16 years ago

Ha - that would be an honor if true. I remember it was on IFC a couple years ago when I saw it. It was pretty good. Nicole Kidman's very hot in it.

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

[–] LittleMiso 16 years ago

The subtitles were definitely a giveaway, but had I not known the actors the sound quality itself would have revealed that this was a replica. There was the employment of fast cutting in the scene where Tully beats up Jacob early on in the film (this could be just as arguable as the flashback).

I did enjoy this far more than most did, and get more out of it with each viewing. Not being a fan of most of Soderbergh's experiments, this one was particularly intriguing in both the material (IMO the deliberately overblown score kept this from ever being boring) and said anarchronisms.

[–] Ironman54 9 years ago

"Two examples I noticed: The high-contrast..."

I just mentioned this in another thread. If it was intentional, IMO, it was a mistake.
Blanchett looked ghoulish.

[–] alice-enland 9 years ago

Wouldn't have seen an actor as bad as Clooney in a genuine film noir?