1.
Sheil: Hi Zach.
2.
Treitz: Hi Kate. I thought we could structure
this like a Q&A, and I would ask you questions since we’re in different
places and saw it at two different times.
3.
Sheil: OK.
4.
Treitz: Where did you see the movie?
5.
Sheil: The Angelika. It was the earliest show,
at 11:45. There were about five people in the audience, all of whom were older
men.
6.
Treitz: Shouldn’t the crowd be mostly teenage
girls?
7.
Sheil: Because of all the hot guys?
8.
Treitz: Because it seems like a movie that would
play to the sentiments of teenage girls. Is that sexist?
9.
Sheil: I don’t know. I’m not going to tell you
what is and is not sexist. It seems like people tend to think it’s a pretty
feminist movie. Bathsheba doesn’t want to get married, she wants to run her own
farm, etc. Those are fine ideas. Also, don’t underestimate teenage girls.
10.
Treitz: Well, there were four teenage girls
sitting next to me in the theater. But two-thirds of the way through the movie,
they walked out. Who knows why? It just seems to me it’s disguised as a female
empowerment movie, but it’s made by two guys named Thomas. And the premise of
the movie is that her life is completely structured around men.
11.
Sheil: No, her life isn’t structured around men,
the story is structured around men’s fixation upon her.
12.
Treitz: Right, but the only thing that’s
feminist is that she says she wants to be independent. The movie is about her
long process of finding out she wants to be a housewife. It’s like the plot of
Fifty Shades of Gray, or rather the whole trilogy, when we looked it up on
Wikipedia.
13.
Sheil: That’s not true, though. She’s been in
love with that guy for years. Also she offers him partnership in the farm.
14.
Treitz: But I don’t understand how that’s
feminist.
15.
Sheil: I don’t know. This conversation is annoying
me.
16.
Treitz: OK. Let me try to create some questions
from my notes.
17.
Sheil: You took notes? Nerd.
18.
Treitz: I was afraid I would forget something.
My first note is: “Far From the Madding Crowd”… except I wrote “Maddening” at
first and crossed it out and put “Madding.” What’s a “madding crowd”?
19.
Sheil: I assume that a madding crowd refers to
either the city, like London, or to other people in general. It seems like
Bathsheba and Oak both demur from being surrounded by other people.
20.
Treitz: OK, so why do you think we were asked to
write about this movie?
21.
Sheil: Because we made a period piece. And this
begins in 1870, right?
22.
Treitz: Yes, so it’s different continents but
English-speaking and a similar time period. 10 years apart. I just feel like
our movie is so different that it is almost impossible to compare, because of
the style and content and ethos of how we made our movie. You can tell that
this has a production value that is very mainstream.
23.
Sheil: Yeah, it’s a large sweeping story.
24.
Treitz: And we always talked about how we wanted
to avoid anything that was “sweeping” or bucolic or…
25.
Sheil: Sure.
26.
Treitz: I mean, I don’t really feel like I could
critique the guy who made The Celebration. That movie is so incredibly intense
and vitriolic and I can’t imagine how it was created. It’s amazing. But I do
feel like I could critique the guy who made The Hunt. And this movie is hard for
me to attach myself to.
27.
Sheil: I always find it difficult when books are
translated to the screen and they try to fit everything in. Like in East of
Eden, Kazan chooses a specific part of that book. Now, I’ve never read Far From
the Madding Crowd so I can’t speak to how well it was interpreted but it seems
like they chose to be pretty comprehensive.
28.
Treitz: The scope of the story is the same.
29.
Sheil: Right, they kept bits and pieces from
every part of the book and it made it difficult for me to care about any one
part very much.
30.
Treitz: Do you think that’s because the plot
moves along quickly?
31.
Sheil: Yeah, like the older guy, Boldwood.
Michael Sheen’s a wonderful actor. He falls in love with her and is devastated
by her, and he does such an excellent job, but it’s like, why do you care about
her? You haven’t spent any time with her.
32.
Treitz: Right. But that makes sense for the
time, when people were forced into those kinds of relationships. That’s where
people laughed in the audience, with these juxtapositions of how well people
know each other versus what they’re asking each other to do.
33.
Sheil: The audience was laughing?
34.
Treitz: There were a lot of laughs. Like when
Gabriel Oak first asks her to marry him.
35.
Sheil: Yeah, that moment is played for laughs.
And I didn’t have any trouble connecting to that. That made total sense because
he understood when she said no it was because they hardly knew each other.
36.
Treitz: But that becomes her relationship to all
three suitors. The only people proposing to her don’t know her.
37.
Sheil: And I liked that about it.
38.
Treitz: Yes, but it seems like any time these
three guys are in the same room together, it’s to advance the plot and you feel
the hand of the author. That storytelling style feels like these characters
exist inside a plot… that the characters don’t move the plot along, the plot
moves the characters. Which you see in the first 10 minutes, when she goes from
a poor farm hand with a smudge of dirt on her face to a rich heiress and
landowner with the brightest red velvet… it doesn’t even make sense that she
could find that outfit in time to drive to the estate.
39.
Sheil: So, she had one nice dress. No big deal.
I mean, that’s what makes it characteristic of the time. Shifting fortunes were
a huge part of Victorian literature.
40.
Treitz: And that’s what makes this kind of thing
perfect for Hollywood.
41.
Sheil: It looks better than most Hollywood
movies.
42.
Treitz: Right, but it’s put together with no
more care and attention to detail than most prestige pictures. And the
characters don’t feel very alive to me, more like they represent some class or
type of person.
43.
Sheil: I think all of the actors do an excellent
job and I think Carey Mulligan is a very good actor.
44.
Treitz: Yeah, everyone plays their part well.
So, what is the difference between an adaptation like this and one that we
liked a lot, Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights? There are a lot of similarities
in how time is passing. Similar ideas for shots, like nature details to convey
the passage of time… close-ups of snails or whatever… but Andrea Arnold’s way
of looking at it was a lot more interesting. This way just feels like a
romantic comedy or dramedy. I guess the moment in Madding Crowd where I noticed
my brain turning off was when he gave her a knife-sharpening lesson.
45.
Sheil: That was like the scene from Ghost. Or
that scene in Tin Cup.
46.
Treitz: Yeah, that’s when I thought, “I’ve seen
this movie before.” Which is fine, but…
47.
Sheil: It’s like so many stories of this kind.
It’s a frustrated romantic relationship where, because of pride or social
standing or whatever, the protagonists can’t communicate their feelings to one
another.
48.
Treitz: Who do you think would like this movie?
49.
Sheil: People who like Nora Ephron movies, which
is to say: me.
50.
Treitz: So you liked it?
51.
Sheil: Yes. Like I said, I found it a little bit
impenetrable but I liked it.
52.
Treitz: I guess that’s all I needed to ask.
No comments:
Post a Comment