General discussion of THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Post your general thoughts and reactions to the film here.
Post your general thoughts and reactions to the film here.
What did you notice of m-e-s in the film? What, in particular, "worked" for you in terms of making the characters credible? What didn't work?
One of the requirements of the second essay is to include a close reading of one of the 5/45/85 frame grabs from the second set of films or of an alternative, which you can select yourself or may be suggested by me. I have chosen the following images from The Age of Innocence, The Dark Knight and The Royal Tenenbaums:
From The Age of Innocence:
(at 18:49)
(at 73:43)
(at 110:21)
From The Dark Knight:
(at 10:24)
(at 89:25)
From The Royal Tenenbaums:
(at 4:50)
(at 27:08)
Similar to The Dark Knight, the questions here are primarily about authenticity and character.
One of the assumptions I made in selecting the films for the second part of the course is that each is striving for some kind of authenticity, in relation to truth, to historical representation, to character, and the preview questions reflect this assumption. Primarily, I am asking how the filmmakers succeed in realizing their visions. However, it maybe that some of the films fail for you in achieving the desired authenticity. In Rashomon, for example, maybe you think that one person is clearly lying. Maybe The Age of Innocence doesn't feel like a window onto 19th century New York. Maybe the characters in The Dark Knight and The Royal Tenenbaums never feel like anything but silly fictions.
In thinking about these films, feel free to flip the preview questions around and discuss what doesn't work for you in terms of m-e-s and authenticity.