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Owlwise's Replies
If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you, and no shame or crime in that.
For me & for many others, it's a masterpiece that grips us from start to finish, evoking a true sense of awe & wonder, one that that's an intensely aesthetic, thought-provoking, emotionally moving experience.
I really don't think it could or should be remade, because no contemporary remake could possibly do it justice. Any remake would pale in comparison. As I've posted before, I don't find it slow, I find it carefully, deliberately, knowingly paced & measured, conveying the vastness of time & space. And the end works beautifully for me, a genuinely philosophical & aesthetic conclusion that I still find deeply moving & thought-provoking decades later.
However, that phrase "for me" is the key part of my opinion & quite subjective, of course. :)
As Weaver & Allen prepare to go through the chompers:
"This scene is badly written!!!"
I've always considered it to be in a small genre of films about the downside of the American Dream, especially for men as they get older & the dream gets threadbare. Similar films would be Seconds & The Swimmer. Twilight Zone episodes like "A Stop at Willoughby" also cover the same territory.
I think your analysis is a good one. No reason a fine film can't have more than one reading or level of meaning, after all.
Agreed, Lancaster is superb. And the study of his irrevocable descent is riveting.
But the final freeze shot originated in films, not on TV, which later adopted it.
Oh, it's happening for real. But it's told in a somewhat stylized manner to emphasize his downward inner journey.
Superb, thoughtful, emotionally powerful film. Burt Lancaster is wonderful, capturing all the sides of the character, from euphoric & self-confident, to puzzled & self-doubting, to finally being stripped bare & defeated.
Agreed ... but without the original sixties charm.
A favorite scene from the psychology game episode:
Mike: "What do you want me to talk about, the weather?"
Lionel: "Why not, black people have weather too, you know! We get rained on and everything!"
And quite touching when Lionel tells Edith that no matter how scared his family was when they first moved into the neighborhood, they knew that in Edith, they had one true friend they could always count on.
Now that's a good point!
Thanks for that information! It would have been an interesting different direction.
Well, I'm not going to attack you as as "not getting it" or any of that nonsense. Either a film works for the viewer, or it doesn't. The ending works for me. It doesn't for you. Both responses are valid & honest.
What more need be said? :)
I don't think the ending is ridiculous, but rather the natural & fitting endpoint of the entire film. It's been foreshadowed & presaged from the opening scenes.
Yes, this ending is bittersweetly beautiful & thus so much more memorable.
I agree. Filming in B&W means making artistic choices specifically for B&W. If someone needs to have a colorized version in order to enjoy quality writing & acting, then let them do so by all means. But they're missing out on a lot by staying within their narrow comfort zone, if you ask me. (And I know that nobody did.)
Amen.
He was. And is.