u/United-Ad822

I agree with the sentiment: a film was trashed on release, its director's reputation destroyed and the studio bankrupted based on bad pre-release press and a truncated cut made at the studio's demand. It's exactly the kind of film one wants to reclaim. I just can't see what everyone else sees when they call it a misunderstood masterpiece. I've seen the film twice, both times in the restored 3 1/2-hour version, and both times it's struck me as barely functional from a narrative standpoint, with baffling lapses, longueurs and dog-ends (what's going on with the John Hurt character, to pick just one example?). I also think the filmmaking is a mixed bag: the visuals and production design are both incredible, but Cimino doesn't seem to have a clue what to do with the dialogue scenes, which are all glacial and stilted (except when they feature Sam Waterston, who's giving the best performance in the film and manages to wrest it into something gripping when he's onscreen). And if you ask me, there's something kind of smug and simplistic in the film's misery and "everything sucks" cynicism - the film came at the end of a decade of other films saying similar things, but they don't have the tang of adolescent posturing that this does.

I'm not trying to be combative; I'm just giving my own response to the film. I've tried to like it, but I just can't. To the people who do like it: what am I missing?

An almost perfect film - the plot has the timeless feel of a fable, but it's directed by Kenji Mizoguchi and shot by Kazuo Miyagawa, so it also has some of the most incredible camerawork and visual storytelling you've ever seen. Plus, I think I even prefer Fumio Hayasaka's score here to his music for Ugetsu, since it has a melodic, emotive layer on top of the composer's usual weird atonality and instrumental textures.

However, there's one thing about the story that I don't understand. Why does Zushio resign his post immediately after freeing Sansho's slaves? If he wants to follow the teachings of his father to be merciful at whatever cost, surely he understands that resigning would lead to the people he's freed being re-enslaved?

It's probably Hou's most beautiful film, but it's probably also his most obscure and elliptical, and he's never been a filmmaker who likes to go easy on his audience. Why does he make things so difficult to parse at the narrative level here? (For instance, what's with the pregnancy/abortion conspiracy (if that's even something that happens)?) Does the plot actually give us all the information we need, and it's just a matter of being attentive enough? Or is it actually the case that he's withholding things, presumably for stylistic and/or thematic reasons? If so, what would those reasons be?

I remember watching Robert Redford's tribute to Henry Fonda when the latter was receiving the AFI Life Achievement Award and finding it strange that Redford made no mention of Fonda's performance in OuaTitW, despite it now being considered among his best work. That must have been in the late '70s or early '80s. I also remember watching Fonda being interviewed by Dick Cavett - presumably a few years prior - and having to explain what OuaTitW was because Cavett hadn't heard of it. How did the film go from being obscure and un-talked-of to being regarded as one of the best Westerns, if not films, ever made? Can the turning of the tide be attributed to a particular event (e.g. Leone's death) or piece of criticism/scholarship, or was it something that happened gradually? And if it was gradually, are there any comparable examples in film history of this happening?

Basically, I'm looking for some writing/scholarship/etc about this film. Most of the stuff I can find approaches it from a thematic angle, but I'm more interested in the visual and stylistic aspects of the film: there are so many formal choices made by Bertolucci and co. that intrigue me but that aren't particularly easy to parse, so I'd be grateful if anyone knows where I can find pieces that address the motivation behind the film's aesthetic.

I'm at the bit where Jean Valjean is carrying Marius through the sewers, and I feel like I've lost the thread of his character. Before entering the barricade, he's inflamed with jealousy and wanting to kill Marius, but as soon as he enters the barricade he suddenly seems to become driven by the desire to protect him. I feel like when this kind of thing happens, Hugo normally pauses and goes back to explain the thought process that led the character to his/her decision. He hasn't done that here, which strikes me as an unusual lapse for a writer who's normally so diligent in orienting the reader.

So my understanding is that in the film, the PFLP is paid to carry out the OPEC siege by Saddam Hussein because he wants to raise the price of oil so that he will have the necessary funds to wage war against the Kurds. I can't find any other sources that cite this - every Wikipedia page I can find seems to agree that the object of the attack was to raise awareness about the Palestinian cause - so is it a complete fabrication by Assayas and co.?

Why is there that bit where Monescu and Madame Colet lock their doors after coming upstairs (from presumably having sex)? Is it to insinuate that their night together is still just beginning? Because if so, why would they then lock themselves in two rooms that, based on the evidence of the rest of the film, aren't adjoining one another?

I don't really get what the present-day closing scene/epilogue is all about. Up to that point, I was loving the film's atmospheric tour through the sights and sounds of mid-'70s Recife as well as its huge cast of extraordinarily vivid characters; I was loving how exciting and funny it was as well as the acuteness of its sociopolitical commentary (sharks are a pretty fantastic metaphor for authoritarianism, as it happens). But then the film suddenly shifts course and becomes about completely different things, narratively, thematically and stylistically. It's such a huge change, and it happens so abruptly, that it completely threw me off-balance to no clear purpose. Anyone else have the same issue?

I've never felt like I completely understood what the novel was saying with the famous "If we want everything to stay the same, everything must change" line. My current understanding is that it means that for the Sicilian aristocracy to maintain its material wealth it will have to surrender its political power. But if this is right, then why doesn't Lampedusa really depict that power? Why does he only show the material wealth (i.e. the stuff that's staying the same)?

Shit.

I was rewatching this recently and was reminded of something that had sort of bothered me about it the first time: the whole thing about the brothers Jean-François and Luc both happening to be in the Resistance. Actually, it's not so much that as just the one scene when they're together (Jean-François is rowing Luc to the submarine) and neither of them seems aware who they're sitting opposite. In fact, Jean-François says in voiceover that he's surprised "the chief" looks so normal; if he can see that much, how can he not also see that that's his own brother? In a film that's otherwise so scrupulous and un-sensational, this sticks out as pat and contrived.

(Also, anyone know what's going on with the scene in the London YMCA? I'm sure it's thematically relevant, but I can't put my finger on it.)