tragabigzanda wrote:I just like how he tells stories. There's hardly any camera movement, there's a lot of 2-shots or wide shots, there's almost never any music cues, and events often happen without any major consequences or drastic turn in plot. I find him to be a very non-judgmental filmmaker; his characters always strike me as very real, because they exist in a very realistic world ...
That's why I'm so drawn to him as well. T realness and his dramatic sense, for sure, but the non-judgmental quality is the thing I think that draws me to his work above all else.
Non-judgmental? Please. Have you guys seen Boyhood? The way the conservative character was portrayed? Give me a break.
Boyhood isn't the best movie, verm. Outside of the way its shot, the process of making the film, it's largely uninteresting. I'd put it at the bottom of his work, right below Dazed and Confused (at least that one achieved what it was aiming for, even if I didn't like it).
Those are my two least favorite as well, so at least we have that in common
LoathedVermin72 wrote:I don't know which myth is bigger: that an absence of stylistic flamboyance is tantamount to realism or naturalism, or that realism and naturalism are even good traits in the first place.
The first one.
The second one isn't a myth, a preference maybe, but hardly false.
It all depends on the story being told. Sometime naturalism is an asset and a profound artist choice. Sometimes it's stupid and stilted and stagy in a bad way. There's room for both sides. I tend to be drawn more to heightened realism or magical realism, myself. But when one aims for realism/naturalism and they hit it exactly, like Linklater did in Before Sunset, it takes my breath away.
Fight Club is a great example of heightened realism with naturalism sprinkled among absurdity and flamboyance. It's a pretty outstanding cocktail. The special mad scientist combination of all these things is probably why I'm so drawn to the Coens and David Lynch, too.
I think they are neutral traits. They can be positive, they can be negative. Depends how they are used. I certainly don't think it's inherently a compliment to say a movie is "realistic" or "naturalistic."
tragabigzanda wrote:The indie movie world is full of directors who try to take a naturalistic approach. Apart from maybe Kelly Reichardt, I don't know that anyone succeeds as well as Linklater.
tragabigzanda wrote:The indie movie world is full of directors who try to take a naturalistic approach. Apart from maybe Kelly Reichardt, I don't know that anyone succeeds as well as Linklater.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
LoathedVermin72 wrote:I don't know which myth is bigger: that an absence of stylistic flamboyance is tantamount to realism or naturalism, or that realism and naturalism are even good traits in the first place.
The first one.
The second one isn't a myth, a preference maybe, but hardly false.
It all depends on the story being told. Sometime naturalism is an asset and a profound artist choice. Sometimes it's stupid and stilted and stagy in a bad way. There's room for both sides. I tend to be drawn more to heightened realism or magical realism, myself. But when one aims for realism/naturalism and they hit it exactly, like Linklater did in Before Sunset, it takes my breath away.
Fight Club is a great example of heightened realism with naturalism sprinkled among absurdity and flamboyance. It's a pretty outstanding cocktail. The special mad scientist combination of all these things is probably why I'm so drawn to the Coens and David Lynch, too.
I think they are neutral traits. They can be positive, they can be negative. Depends how they are used. I certainly don't think it's inherently a compliment to say a movie is "realistic" or "naturalistic."
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
tragabigzanda wrote:I just like how he tells stories. There's hardly any camera movement, there's a lot of 2-shots or wide shots, there's almost never any music cues, and events often happen without any major consequences or drastic turn in plot. I find him to be a very non-judgmental filmmaker; his characters always strike me as very real, because they exist in a very realistic world ...
That's why I'm so drawn to him as well. T realness and his dramatic sense, for sure, but the non-judgmental quality is the thing I think that draws me to his work above all else.
Non-judgmental? Please. Have you guys seen Boyhood? The way the conservative character was portrayed? Give me a break.
Sorry, to which conservative character are you referring? The only ones I can recall are his new grandparents when Ethan Hawke remarries, and I thought they were portrayed beautifully -- they read the bible and enjoyed guns, but there was no judgment around either of those things. They were just normal people who had different interests than what Mason was used to.
The guy who comes out of his garage while the kid and Hawke are stumping for Obama.
Oh right. Yea, I see what you're saying -- he's a one-dimensional stereotype of a redneck. Unfortunately, there are people who come off just like that in Texas. Of course they are complex humans with all manner of subtle thought and feelings, but you wouldn't get that from that scene. I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect Linklater took a similar approach to what he did with the abusive stepfather -- there was one interview I heard in which he said he wanted to portray the stepfather how a young boy would see him, as this sort of ogre who came into his life. Maybe he was going for that in this scene? But I take your point.
This kind of comes back to one of my biggest issues with that movie in general: What does that accomplish? He was clearly trying to create a film of "moments," and he stresses that that's "what life is." But is it? Does that ultimately wind up being true of life? Where does the movie end up after all those moments? What perspective is gained? Life isn't merely a scattershot assemblage of isolated incidents; they can be reflected upon, they can mutate in our minds, they can give us insight. Is it realistic to film caricatures, claiming that's how a kid would see them, but then never give those characterizations a chance to take on nuance as one matures? I don't think that's representative of reality, but more importantly, it isn't illuminating artistically. It makes for a shallow, misguided movie (especially when it's coupled with all the other toxic shit going in Boyhood, but that's another issue).
LoathedVermin72 wrote:This kind of comes back to one of my biggest issues with that movie in general: What does that accomplish? He was clearly trying to create a film of "moments," and he stresses that that's "what life is." But is it? Does that ultimately wind up being true of life? Where does the movie end up after all those moments? What perspective is gained? Life isn't merely a scattershot assemblage of isolated incidents; they can be reflected upon, they can mutate in our minds, they can give us insight. Is it realistic to film caricatures, claiming that's how a kid would see them, but then never give those characterizations a chance to take on nuance as one matures? I don't think that's representative of reality, but more importantly, it isn't illuminating artistically. It makes for a shallow, misguided movie (especially when it's coupled with all the other toxic shit going in Boyhood, but that's another issue).
While I certainly could agree that it isn't illuminating artistically, I'd probably argue that it is representative of reality. We all encounter people every day for a matter of moments and never know anything else about them. There are countless shitty or seemingly shallow people that have affected me and changed the course of my day in a handful of minutes. I'll never know more about them, but their encounter, rightly or wrongly, colors my opinion of them and sometimes extends to a larger population. The guy who tried to kick me from his bicycle will always be the fucking hipster dipshit with the bad temper and people who ride bicycles in New York City will always be looked at unfavorably by me. Always. Even my good friends, when they ride their bike in NYC, they are enemies. Fuck them.
But, I digress. My point is, it is extremely realistic whether or not it adds to any artistic conversation.
LoathedVermin72 wrote:This kind of comes back to one of my biggest issues with that movie in general: What does that accomplish? He was clearly trying to create a film of "moments," and he stresses that that's "what life is." But is it? Does that ultimately wind up being true of life? Where does the movie end up after all those moments? What perspective is gained? Life isn't merely a scattershot assemblage of isolated incidents; they can be reflected upon, they can mutate in our minds, they can give us insight. Is it realistic to film caricatures, claiming that's how a kid would see them, but then never give those characterizations a chance to take on nuance as one matures? I don't think that's representative of reality, but more importantly, it isn't illuminating artistically. It makes for a shallow, misguided movie (especially when it's coupled with all the other toxic shit going in Boyhood, but that's another issue).
While I certainly could agree that it isn't illuminating artistically, I'd probably argue that it is representative of reality. We all encounter people every day for a matter of moments and never know anything else about them. There are countless shitty or seemingly shallow people that have affected me and changed the course of my day in a handful of minutes. I'll never know more about them, but their encounter, rightly or wrongly, colors my opinion of them and sometimes extends to a larger population. The guy who tried to kick me from his bicycle will always be the fucking hipster dipshit with the bad temper and people who ride bicycles in New York City will always be looked at unfavorably by me. Always. Even my good friends, when they ride their bike in NYC, they are enemies. Fuck them.
But, I digress. My point is, it is extremely realistic whether or not it adds to any artistic conversation.
Yes, but I am not convinced that moments remain static in our memory. But, more to the point, life is not merely a collection of such moments. They do add up to who we are. They do wind up, in a bizarre way, congealing. Boyhood is fixated on depicting moments, without much in the way of examination. That's what bugs me about it. I think life is ONLY a mere collection of moments IF one is not examining it.
LoathedVermin72 wrote:This kind of comes back to one of my biggest issues with that movie in general: What does that accomplish? He was clearly trying to create a film of "moments," and he stresses that that's "what life is." But is it? Does that ultimately wind up being true of life? Where does the movie end up after all those moments? What perspective is gained? Life isn't merely a scattershot assemblage of isolated incidents; they can be reflected upon, they can mutate in our minds, they can give us insight. Is it realistic to film caricatures, claiming that's how a kid would see them, but then never give those characterizations a chance to take on nuance as one matures? I don't think that's representative of reality, but more importantly, it isn't illuminating artistically. It makes for a shallow, misguided movie (especially when it's coupled with all the other toxic shit going in Boyhood, but that's another issue).
While I certainly could agree that it isn't illuminating artistically, I'd probably argue that it is representative of reality. We all encounter people every day for a matter of moments and never know anything else about them. There are countless shitty or seemingly shallow people that have affected me and changed the course of my day in a handful of minutes. I'll never know more about them, but their encounter, rightly or wrongly, colors my opinion of them and sometimes extends to a larger population. The guy who tried to kick me from his bicycle will always be the fucking hipster dipshit with the bad temper and people who ride bicycles in New York City will always be looked at unfavorably by me. Always. Even my good friends, when they ride their bike in NYC, they are enemies. Fuck them.
But, I digress. My point is, it is extremely realistic whether or not it adds to any artistic conversation.
Yes, but I am not convinced that moments remain static in our memory. But, more to the point, life is not merely a collection of such moments. They do add up to who we are. They do wind up, in a bizarre way, congealing. Boyhood is fixated on depicting moments, without much in the way of examination. That's what bugs me about it. I think life is ONLY a mere collection of moments IF one is not examining it.
I don't disagree. You and I are very largely on the same page when it comes to the movie -- what it is, what it does and doesn't do. I just wanted to defend that one moment in the film. It didn't bother me and Linklater's explanation for it doesn't bother me in and of itself. That's all I was getting at.
LoathedVermin72 wrote:This kind of comes back to one of my biggest issues with that movie in general: What does that accomplish? He was clearly trying to create a film of "moments," and he stresses that that's "what life is." But is it? Does that ultimately wind up being true of life? Where does the movie end up after all those moments? What perspective is gained? Life isn't merely a scattershot assemblage of isolated incidents; they can be reflected upon, they can mutate in our minds, they can give us insight. Is it realistic to film caricatures, claiming that's how a kid would see them, but then never give those characterizations a chance to take on nuance as one matures? I don't think that's representative of reality, but more importantly, it isn't illuminating artistically. It makes for a shallow, misguided movie (especially when it's coupled with all the other toxic shit going in Boyhood, but that's another issue).
While I certainly could agree that it isn't illuminating artistically, I'd probably argue that it is representative of reality. We all encounter people every day for a matter of moments and never know anything else about them. There are countless shitty or seemingly shallow people that have affected me and changed the course of my day in a handful of minutes. I'll never know more about them, but their encounter, rightly or wrongly, colors my opinion of them and sometimes extends to a larger population. The guy who tried to kick me from his bicycle will always be the fucking hipster dipshit with the bad temper and people who ride bicycles in New York City will always be looked at unfavorably by me. Always. Even my good friends, when they ride their bike in NYC, they are enemies. Fuck them.
But, I digress. My point is, it is extremely realistic whether or not it adds to any artistic conversation.
Yes, but I am not convinced that moments remain static in our memory. But, more to the point, life is not merely a collection of such moments. They do add up to who we are. They do wind up, in a bizarre way, congealing. Boyhood is fixated on depicting moments, without much in the way of examination. That's what bugs me about it. I think life is ONLY a mere collection of moments IF one is not examining it.
I don't disagree. You and I are very largely on the same page when it comes to the movie -- what it is, what it does and doesn't do. I just wanted to defend that one moment in the film. It didn't bother me and Linklater's explanation for it doesn't bother me in and of itself. That's all I was getting at.
basically i am saying linklater is a stupid person
LoathedVermin72 wrote:This kind of comes back to one of my biggest issues with that movie in general: What does that accomplish? He was clearly trying to create a film of "moments," and he stresses that that's "what life is." But is it? Does that ultimately wind up being true of life? Where does the movie end up after all those moments? What perspective is gained? Life isn't merely a scattershot assemblage of isolated incidents; they can be reflected upon, they can mutate in our minds, they can give us insight. Is it realistic to film caricatures, claiming that's how a kid would see them, but then never give those characterizations a chance to take on nuance as one matures? I don't think that's representative of reality, but more importantly, it isn't illuminating artistically. It makes for a shallow, misguided movie (especially when it's coupled with all the other toxic shit going in Boyhood, but that's another issue).
While I certainly could agree that it isn't illuminating artistically, I'd probably argue that it is representative of reality. We all encounter people every day for a matter of moments and never know anything else about them. There are countless shitty or seemingly shallow people that have affected me and changed the course of my day in a handful of minutes. I'll never know more about them, but their encounter, rightly or wrongly, colors my opinion of them and sometimes extends to a larger population. The guy who tried to kick me from his bicycle will always be the fucking hipster dipshit with the bad temper and people who ride bicycles in New York City will always be looked at unfavorably by me. Always. Even my good friends, when they ride their bike in NYC, they are enemies. Fuck them.
But, I digress. My point is, it is extremely realistic whether or not it adds to any artistic conversation.
Yes, but I am not convinced that moments remain static in our memory. But, more to the point, life is not merely a collection of such moments. They do add up to who we are. They do wind up, in a bizarre way, congealing. Boyhood is fixated on depicting moments, without much in the way of examination. That's what bugs me about it. I think life is ONLY a mere collection of moments IF one is not examining it.
I don't disagree. You and I are very largely on the same page when it comes to the movie -- what it is, what it does and doesn't do. I just wanted to defend that one moment in the film. It didn't bother me and Linklater's explanation for it doesn't bother me in and of itself. That's all I was getting at.
basically i am saying linklater is a stupid person
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 3:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I don't think I've ever seen all of it.