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Owlwise's Replies
Perhaps this is just a matter of different viewing experience. The final sequence, beginning with the stargate scene to the very end, has always been crystal clear to me, as it has been to others. And it's essentially the mirror/bookend to the Dawn of Man opening, which presages that ending. It works for me & I've always found it quite moving & meaningful. It doesn't work for you, and that's certainly fine. I won't insult you by saying that "you just don't get it" or anything like that. I've had the same experience of just not feeling something deep for a film that others have found quite fulfilling -- haven't we all?
I agree, it may well be a basic difference in innate personality type that creates the barrier for some, nothing more than that. It doesn't mean a lack of intelligence at all, just a different mode of personal experience. What appeals to one doesn't do so for another.
What you just wrote, seconded enthusiastically!
I went the other way, following more of the arts (though with a lifelong appreciation for & fascination with science, especially the Big Ideas). But I agree with you completely about it being a life-changing experience. To this day it remains one of the most moving & transformative films I've been lucky enough to see. It made me think & it made me feel. It's a genuine work of enduring art, and it still has a powerful effect on me when I watch it again.
I saw it in one of those big, plush, old-fashioned theaters in New York City, on a huge curving screen. Our 9th grade Earth Science teacher justified & arranged it as a field trip of scientific interest for our class, bless him. :)
Oh, I agree with you there! I was imprecise earlier; I meant that I don't believe that Kubrick was specifically trying to mimic an LSD experience simply because it was au courant. Though of course all that you say about higher levels of consciousness is quite true! In short, I don't think he was trying to be trendy in a superficial way, in the sense of simply latching onto the style du jour, e.g., "Oh, this is popular right now, why don't I just toss it in?" I can readily see him knowing about the transcendent experience through human history, however.
Or maybe I'm just overthinking this point too much for my own good. :)
You're perfectly free not to believe him, but he's absolutely right. I first saw it as a 14-year old in 1968 & have seen it many times since over the following decades, and that interpretation was clear to me from very my first viewing of the film. Kubrick isn't obscure or pokey or psychedelic; it's all told directly through visual storytelling, as was his intention. It will always be a great film.
I can understand not knowing famous people from particular fields you're not especially interested in--for instance, I don't follow racing, so other than a few top names heard on the news, I know practically nothing about it.
But it does amaze me that people in a film studies class wouldn't know some of the most important people in film, or that aspiring musicians wouldn't know some of the most important people in their chosen genre of music. Yet I've come across such people many times, claiming to be great fans, but lacking even basic knowledge of the major figures of their field of interest..
Because Rufus going back in time to Bill & Ted is already part of the history of that Utopia, so he has to do it to complete the time-loop.
Well said!
People looked a lot older at a younger age decades ago.
I agree that mores & attitudes change over time. But in dealing with entertainment from the past, depicting the past, I think it's much better to trust that an intelligent, educated audience will not only see that those mores & attitudes are part of the period depicted, but that they won't confuse an accurate depiction with an endorsement of them.
For example, is watching Gone With the Wind really going to turn someone into a racist who wasn't one before? Is the traditional Victorian model for men & women in Journey to the Center of the Earth really going to change the minds of modern viewers about men & women?
By the way, while my politics have always been progressive, I just don't believe in the sort of censorship that you're proposing. I also recognize that what many consider progressive attitudes today might well be considered hopelessly out of date & just plain ignorant some 50 years down the road. Human decency & respect are admirable qualities; blind zealotry, even in a good cause, isn't.
But most of all, I don't want anyone imposing rigid, zero-tolerance standards on thought & art. Not even if those standards happen to coincide with my own beliefs. I don't especially like racist or sexist speech, for instance, but I don't want it removed from existing art, especially if it's honest to the characters & period depicted. Presumably a mature, intelligent viewer will be able to understand it in context. We should trust other people to be able to figure that out for themselves.
I'd only say that "obsessive traits and found it socially difficult with his collaborators on set" is hardly limited to autism, and that a great many creative people of every neurological stripe show the same qualities in their work habits. An intense drive isn't strictly an autistic trait, it's a human trait.
Well, I've always enjoyed them, in part for the mystery aspect, but even more because of the friendship between Holmes & Watson. Those who love the stories tend to especially enjoy those little moments of the two of them just talking amidst the late Victorian/early Edwardian ambience.
Why such vehemence? For many viewers, that passage of time is precisely what we felt, and the deliberate blandness of the dialogue was part of that. For you, it obviously doesn't work. I'm not saying that you're wrong, or stupid, or that you "don't get it" or anything of the sort. Different experience, different opinion, that's all.
This is true! :)
Actually, no, just going from memory of the B&W years.
Just once, a black woman in a crowd when Barney accidentally caught the escaped prisoner, early on in the series. After that, no … at least, as I remember it. I could be wrong.
A lot of homes back then had just one bathroom, though.
"My blushes!" as Holmes once said to Watson. :)
But there's so much snark & ugliness on message boards, I don't want to add to that. And I'm well aware that my opinion is just that, my opinion. Every viewer sees a movie differently, bring their own life experience to it, taking their own interpretations from it. That's how it should be, shouldn't it? I'd like to think so.
Yes, she could have gone either way. Your interpretation is just as valid as mine. I'm coming at it from having known people like this: sometimes they can rise to the occasion, sometimes the apparently simplest & obvious thing to do is too enormous for them. For me, Sophie was in the latter state … but who can truly say except Sophie?