V for Vendetta weirdly change my perspective on concepts of right and wrong, and good and evil. Not in a major way, but just more so in a philosophical way.
TLDR: The Wachowskis who wrote and directed the film, later became trans. There's a lot of closet trans themes hidden in the film (closet gays/lesbians can relate as well).
Claiming the concept of a "red pill" as something exclusive to the red tribe is correctly perceiving the blue tribe memetic groupthink, while mistakenly thinking that becoming aware of one general memetic prison means you must have found your way out and into freedom. That media/government propaganda narrative most certainly applies to the red tribe as well. If anything, the red tribe groupthink is much older and pointing out the holes in it is the long established function of the blue tribe, hence why the ideas of The Matrix don't get as much concentrated attention from them.
If you live your whole life in the blue tribe, if your state is a blue tribe breaking out of it and understanding the world from the other side is liberation.
Then yes after that we need a bit of both, both sides have their pathologies.
We live in a narative whether we like it or not, but once we understand that we can more easily take control of it.
Good reminder. Fight Club had the same effect on me but it went through phases as I first watched it in my teens and appreciated it for certain reasons, especially the more anarchist future “back to nature” aspects.
But then as I grew older and read the book and gained more life experience in general, I appreciated it differently, the deeper meaning, anti-satire, realness and broader narrative as I then started to understand it, seeing things about society through the lens of the characters and with an understanding of why we have order and laws and a system. I thought I was maturing or being some higher intellectual.
But then as I got even older and gained even more wisdom and experience, I realized the teenager appreciated aspects were really the true and tangible message, and it was because of the truth that was revealed. I came full circle and realized the returning to nature was the real answer all along, and appreciated the anarchy again and even more fully but now for an entirely different reason.
Oh and READ THE BOOK! It is the only time in my life where I was not disappointed after reading the book that I had watched a movie before reading the book actually, just try hard not to catch any spoilers on differences between the book and the movie!
"The Man Who Never Was" 1956 British movie made me aware of just one of the MANY ways that Allied intelligence during World War 2 was able to fool the Nazis and potentially save many lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Never_Was
But there is also a scene (which I cannot find online) where the main character (a playwright) is explaining that the only way to make his play work is to make everybody a main character. He realizes that everybody, everywhere, is living out a rich life and that they're the main character of that life.
It is a fantastic movie and i highly recommend it.
I knew a guy who worked on that film and still didn't know what it was about. I personally enjoy the scene where she's touring a house with a broker while it's on fire.
I love Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP), but I found Synecdoche, New York to be sooo incredibly anti-interesting in its multiple layers of ironically unironic self-indulgence that I really truly hated the film.
I have never had such a strongly negative reaction to any other movie. I'm having trouble thinking of a somehwat-close second. Maybe Blue Velvet?
If I heard someone else say that, I'd imagine that they had missed something, or just didn't "get it", but I don't think that's the case! :)
Yes! I love Aronofsky's work. The Fountain is a hauntingly beautiful film. The poster from this film hangs in my children's bedroom and I can't wait to watch it with them when they're ready for that type of story.
I studied it at uni and wrote an essay where I explained that the main character couldn't be a symbol of both fascism AND a film director, because that would mean the director was calling himself a fascist. My lecturer's response was something like "why not?".
I was a very black-and-white thinker at that time, and his response was eye-opening for me.
I knew of Werner Herzog but recently got really interested in his work after he guested on Conan O'Brien's podcast. I'm reading his autobiography right now.
It's fascinating how he was begging some investor about how he had to make the movie Fitzcarraldo, because if he didn't, his life would be purposeless (I do hope I'm remembering this right). It got me wondering how he got away with things like forcing his crew to carry tonnes of ship over a mountain, but, also why shouldn't he get away with it, why should there be a strict construct of what's allowed or not.
He has this wonderful story of how someone else got 'his' monkeys for Aguirre from the airport, the ones used for the final shot.
He forged paperwork to make it look like he was a veterinarian who needed to give the monkeys vaccinations, and took them to the movie-set instead. The original 'ask for forgiveness, not for permission' mind-set.
it felt like more of an attack against academia and the forward march of scientific "progress" than specifically towards government. The character Oppenheimer has his own issues specifically with government, but it's moreso that by that point, he has decided not to blindly agree with the status quo and so has become a threat. Oppenheimer is portrayed as part of the problem after around the 3/4 mark though. "I feel I have blood on my hands"
Indeed, and I don't think the film painted government in a bad light necessarily.
When I said government, I should have more accurately said politics. Or even humanity. It is depressing to me that we can get ourselves into a situation where using a weapon of that magnitude can be the reasonable course of action.
I dont know, but probably the last great American "film". Shot on monochrome and depicting American history in raw and surreal way. The industry soon moved on to mainly digital video. Although many contemporary directors still shoot on film. Nolan for one.
I was in the second group that went through only digital film program in my whole country in, I was about to give you shit for saying "soon after" till I realized it was less than 10 years between Dead Man and me graduating.. getting old is weird.
I was there and quit my career to keep shooting film the way I wanted to. We all thought film was dead! (close by made a come back) I have mad respect for the big directors shooting on film today, keep it up!
I'm not much of an anime person, but I watched an episode of Blue Lock with a friend, and fell in love with it. Watched it over the next few weeks, and it gave me a completely new understanding and appreciation for soccer, ambition, and individualism. As someone who had never had even a passing interest in any sport. Since, I've joined a beginners soccer clinic and absolutely love it.
It's a movie I seem to go back to, to understand more about it and how the different story lines are connected. The philosophy aspect of this film I find appealing and it made think about reality differently although I wouldn't call myself a believer of such things.
I found the book even better and started reading more novels from David Mitchell. "Cloud Atlas" is still my favorite of his books. A lot of his essays are available online via The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/davidmitchell
Loved loved loved the book, so when I heard there was going to be a movie I thought "NO WAYYY they'll pull it off" but, somehow they did a pretty darn good job and with A list actors too. I've read all his stuff now :)
Both of these were written stories first, but I first encountered them as movies.
Arrival. I really enjoyed the idea that learning something new could lead to other changes in perception that you wouldn’t think are related. It also led me to other works from Ted Chiang, each of which brought unexpected mind bending concepts.
Solaris. Teaches the lesson that we need to accept that there may be things we just aren’t able to understand.
I would strong suggest reading the Ted Chiang short story on which it is based: Stories of your Life.
Spoilers ahead:
The movie necessarily makes some changes and adds some action through geopolitics, but at its core it remains the story of a mother that knows that her child will die and her marriage will fall apart; yet she still decides to get married and have a child. It's a story about accepting fate and the ephemerality of life and happiness - and then aliens also happen to be around with a very cool perspective on time to make the whole story work.
It’s the central theme of the story. Children, marriage, life brings both joy and grief; can you still embrace it, knowing the grief that will come?
I can’t find the article, but there was a HN post sometime ago that was a beautifully written memorial to the death of a pet dog. Why do we invest in loving pets that we know we will outlive? Particularly as adults, when we know the end from the beginning. Does the whole become worthless because the end is pain? No! Embrace life - the joy and the grief.
Solaris (2002), Soderbergh's love story in space, is one of my favs. (I watched the Russian adaption and didn't have the same reactions) The plot of human inner life juxtaposed with non-Terran nature flips the script for antagonist--the enemy is within us and humans did not evolve to be in space. Cliff Martinez's soundtrack is, for me, right up there with Vangelis or Tangerine Dream.
There are a number of movie directors who really deliver a cinematic experience and mess with your head: David Cronenberg, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, to name a few contemporaries. I return to a handful of their films again and again. Many very re-watchable.
I think it's worth adding here a few playwrights who have made films scripts: Stephen Poliakoff and David Mamet.
I want to shout out to a classic director: Michelangelo Antonioni. He flipped my lid. He really captures something for me with his cinematography and the quiet emotional tension he gets from his actors. Blow Up (1966), LaAvventura (1960) are my favs.
2001 - it was on TV one afternoon on a rainy bank holiday in the early 80s, when I was probably far too young to fully appreciate it, and what I saw was simply awe-inspiring.
A Most Violent Year
Barry Lyndon
Breaking the Maya Code
Equilibrium
Margin Call
Moonfall
Good Kill
Godzilla vs Kong
Inception
Seven Days in May
Simone
The Leopard / Il Gattopardo
Trudell
Until the End of the World
Visualization of hyperloop between Florida and Hong Kong, and some of the hollow earth visuals, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39722705. Rest of the movie was less memorable :) The storyline of Apple TV's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is more engaging. A few good visuals as well, but it doesn't have a movie budget. Moonfall has a good interior visualization of "hollow moon" spaceship at the end, but is otherwise forgettable. Mind-bending images of fictional "under space" and "inner space", respectively.
I just watched Seven Days in May (1964) last night. It is about an attempted coup by a general who opposes an anti-nuclear treaty. A stirring defence of democracy.
236 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 341 ms ] threadTLDR: The Wachowskis who wrote and directed the film, later became trans. There's a lot of closet trans themes hidden in the film (closet gays/lesbians can relate as well).
https://twitter.com/genericeddie/status/1659081857793769472
https://web.archive.org/web/20060115061830/http://www.rollin...
That the media and government create a propaganda narative, a fake reality we live in.
The red pill has become a symbol of breaking out of all the progressives lies.
Then yes after that we need a bit of both, both sides have their pathologies.
We live in a narative whether we like it or not, but once we understand that we can more easily take control of it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=adXm2sDzGkQ
But then as I grew older and read the book and gained more life experience in general, I appreciated it differently, the deeper meaning, anti-satire, realness and broader narrative as I then started to understand it, seeing things about society through the lens of the characters and with an understanding of why we have order and laws and a system. I thought I was maturing or being some higher intellectual.
But then as I got even older and gained even more wisdom and experience, I realized the teenager appreciated aspects were really the true and tangible message, and it was because of the truth that was revealed. I came full circle and realized the returning to nature was the real answer all along, and appreciated the anarchy again and even more fully but now for an entirely different reason.
Oh and READ THE BOOK! It is the only time in my life where I was not disappointed after reading the book that I had watched a movie before reading the book actually, just try hard not to catch any spoilers on differences between the book and the movie!
I am Jack's nodding in approval.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwkSyrN0mvY
As a teenager: - Syriana - The Matrix - Fight Club - Before Sunrise
But there is also a scene (which I cannot find online) where the main character (a playwright) is explaining that the only way to make his play work is to make everybody a main character. He realizes that everybody, everywhere, is living out a rich life and that they're the main character of that life.
It is a fantastic movie and i highly recommend it.
https://youtu.be/WFwS_Dqd-IU?si=A4h7BSXx90CxqvhV
I love Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP), but I found Synecdoche, New York to be sooo incredibly anti-interesting in its multiple layers of ironically unironic self-indulgence that I really truly hated the film.
I have never had such a strongly negative reaction to any other movie. I'm having trouble thinking of a somehwat-close second. Maybe Blue Velvet?
If I heard someone else say that, I'd imagine that they had missed something, or just didn't "get it", but I don't think that's the case! :)
There are others, but it's been a while, and my memories of it are mercifully fading. I prefer to not interfere with that process!
If the goal of art is to induce thought and make an impression, these are both successful projects. :)
This film has haunted me with its beauty. Not as airy as Mallick's work, a little softer than Aronofsky (The fountain, black Swan are masterpieces).
I think Mr. Nobody attempts a weaker version of this film, cloud atlas also.
Gattaca, inception, 2001, kpax maybe.
Made me move out of the city and off grid, buy a dog and find satisfaction in the simple life.
I studied it at uni and wrote an essay where I explained that the main character couldn't be a symbol of both fascism AND a film director, because that would mean the director was calling himself a fascist. My lecturer's response was something like "why not?".
I was a very black-and-white thinker at that time, and his response was eye-opening for me.
It's fascinating how he was begging some investor about how he had to make the movie Fitzcarraldo, because if he didn't, his life would be purposeless (I do hope I'm remembering this right). It got me wondering how he got away with things like forcing his crew to carry tonnes of ship over a mountain, but, also why shouldn't he get away with it, why should there be a strict construct of what's allowed or not.
I didn't learn anything new (I read American Prometheus), but seeing the affair dramatized so well was pretty moving.
it felt like more of an attack against academia and the forward march of scientific "progress" than specifically towards government. The character Oppenheimer has his own issues specifically with government, but it's moreso that by that point, he has decided not to blindly agree with the status quo and so has become a threat. Oppenheimer is portrayed as part of the problem after around the 3/4 mark though. "I feel I have blood on my hands"
When I said government, I should have more accurately said politics. Or even humanity. It is depressing to me that we can get ourselves into a situation where using a weapon of that magnitude can be the reasonable course of action.
I dont know, but probably the last great American "film". Shot on monochrome and depicting American history in raw and surreal way. The industry soon moved on to mainly digital video. Although many contemporary directors still shoot on film. Nolan for one.
I tried to like Anon, but I didn't. Same thing with another one his movies, "In Time"
Lord of War was good, inspired by true events.
> Vincent: You wanna know how I did it? This is how I did it Anton. I never saved anything for the swim back.
It's a movie I seem to go back to, to understand more about it and how the different story lines are connected. The philosophy aspect of this film I find appealing and it made think about reality differently although I wouldn't call myself a believer of such things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnAqFyaQ5s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mitchell_(author)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mitchell_(comedian)
I think the complicated story/narrative threw a lot of people off from appreciating it
Really good movie to re-watch multiple times, the scope of that movie is crazy
Both of these were written stories first, but I first encountered them as movies.
Arrival. I really enjoyed the idea that learning something new could lead to other changes in perception that you wouldn’t think are related. It also led me to other works from Ted Chiang, each of which brought unexpected mind bending concepts.
Solaris. Teaches the lesson that we need to accept that there may be things we just aren’t able to understand.
I would strong suggest reading the Ted Chiang short story on which it is based: Stories of your Life.
Spoilers ahead:
The movie necessarily makes some changes and adds some action through geopolitics, but at its core it remains the story of a mother that knows that her child will die and her marriage will fall apart; yet she still decides to get married and have a child. It's a story about accepting fate and the ephemerality of life and happiness - and then aliens also happen to be around with a very cool perspective on time to make the whole story work.
I like the story, but I find it profoundly sad that she has to live through her marriage and birth of her child with the knowing of what is coming.
I can’t find the article, but there was a HN post sometime ago that was a beautifully written memorial to the death of a pet dog. Why do we invest in loving pets that we know we will outlive? Particularly as adults, when we know the end from the beginning. Does the whole become worthless because the end is pain? No! Embrace life - the joy and the grief.
There are a number of movie directors who really deliver a cinematic experience and mess with your head: David Cronenberg, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, to name a few contemporaries. I return to a handful of their films again and again. Many very re-watchable.
I think it's worth adding here a few playwrights who have made films scripts: Stephen Poliakoff and David Mamet.
I want to shout out to a classic director: Michelangelo Antonioni. He flipped my lid. He really captures something for me with his cinematography and the quiet emotional tension he gets from his actors. Blow Up (1966), LaAvventura (1960) are my favs.