Where The Wild Things Are

[Beltmann]

I don't really feel I knew that much more about Max at the end of the movie than at the beginning. I don't feel Max really learned that much more about himself, either. There wasn't a really hard won epiphinal moment in the movie, where Max comes to some important self-realization in the process of all this.

It's true that Max doesn't experience an epiphany at any point. I suppose my only response is, Thank God for that. As Max was running home, I consciously envisioned what I wanted to happen next, and was astonished when Jonze's images matched up nearly perfectly with my hopes for the final moments. In other words, what you disliked about the movie is precisely what I most cherished about it. Instead of leading to some kind of hard-won yet conventional "lesson," Jonze has a different goal in mind. He instead strings together small observations, minor psychological turns, and the beginnings of revelations that, taken together, amount to a very compelling, virtually impressionistic portrait of how kids experience the world. Consider how Jonze extensively relies upon point-of-view shots that unconventionally limit our sense of a scene to what a child might focus on, thereby generating unusual tones of beauty and terror (which is itself a major achievement). Consider, too, all the lingering close-ups of Max that reveal volumes about what he's thinking, and how that tells the story of how he's trying to feel his way through complex emotions that are baffling to him. There is a very clear arc there, even if it never leads to a major "lesson." One night of tantrum and imagination is not going to clarify these emotions, which is why an "epiphany" is not, nor should be, the point of the movie. The movie's subject is not what Max learns but rather the way he grapples with the world, and that angle is explored with insight and sensitivity. Is simply exploring that enough "plot" for a movie? Clearly, many viewers say no. But I say yes. It's what makes the movie a unique and deeply satisfying experience--it's closer in spirit to poetry than most mainstream movies are willing to go.

 

I kind of feel that people who claim that the movie is a disordered, morose mess because Max himself is disordered and morose emotionally are giving the movie a bit of a free pass. The fact that this is all occurring in Max's head doesn't really excuse the filmmakers from having to craft a compelling story with rich characters, even imaginary ones.

It's difficult to argue this, since we clearly saw the movie on fundamentally different terms. Your assertion that the movie is disordered and morose doesn't describe the movie I saw. There are points where the characters are feeling morose, perhaps, but the movie never becomes morose nor disordered. (One of the things I most appreciated is how the metaphorical strategy felt clearly organized. If anything, it is a little too telegraphed.) My affection for the movie isn't based on merely understanding what Jonze was attempting, but on the fact that I frickin' loved watching it. I found it to be a soaring, exhilarating experience; I left the theater wrecked yet elated. So we didn't see it the same way, and there's nothing I can say to address that. That's okay--and it helps explain why there are no right or wrong answers here.

 

Your belief that a movie must "craft a compelling story with rich characters" is a good general guideline, and one that I obviously share. But I'm also willing to acknowledge that some movies actually benefit from breaking that rule, in the sense that some movies operate outside of traditional narrative structures. In the case of Where the Wild Things Are, Max is indeed a rich character but the most compelling story is the one that is happening on planes that have little to do with traditional narrative. Applying your rule seems to me like an act of pedantry; it narrowly and arbitrarily tries to impose a rule on a movie that derives its greatest power and magic from not following the usual conventions of plot and character. Is that giving the movie a free pass? I don't think so. I think it's merely being enthusiastic about what movies can do, rather than prescribing what I think they should do.

[Good Old Neon]

Beltmann has the sorts of opinions that you pretty much want to marry someone for having.

[Atticus]

I did not leave the movie with the same feeling the book gives me, which is fine. I thought it was a breath of fresh air, and that the monsters were very impressive. Also loved the scenery.

 

I don't expect to "get" David Lynch's movies--I accept and enjoy them for what they are, for the ride they take me on. I felt that way with this one--I jumped onto Max's perspectives from time to time, sometimes I was lost myself. but I enjoyed it all the same.

 

I also enjoyed "Up"

[Beltmann]

I also enjoyed "Up"

I also enjoyed Up a great deal; I really didn't mean to denigrate it above. The opening sequence is one of the greatest sequences of the year, but after that the movie settles into the by-now familiar Pixar mode--which means that it's masterful, but masterful in expected ways. I suppose that's one reason why I preferred WTWTA: Jonze's movie feels equally brilliant, but for trickier, more singular reasons.

[Edie]

Beltmann has the sorts of opinions that you pretty much want to marry someone for having.

 

QFT.

[tongue-tied]

I did not leave the movie with the same feeling the book gives me, which is fine. I thought it was a breath of fresh air, and that the monsters were very impressive. Also loved the scenery.

 

I don't expect to "get" David Lynch's movies--I accept and enjoy them for what they are, for the ride they take me on. I felt that way with this one--I jumped onto Max's perspectives from time to time, sometimes I was lost myself. but I enjoyed it all the same.

 

I also enjoyed "Up"

 

Maybe David Lynch should have directed WTWTA! Hmm, doesn't star a woman-in-trouble, though. Oh well.

 

I don't have much else to offer here besides to each his/her own. I felt very little after the opening sequence of this movie, and I'd like to think it isn't because I've lost my inner child or that my heart runs cold. I picked up on how the Things relate to Max's mind, the real world/fantasy world connections. I didn't need a grand adventure story (though I wanted them to have a little more fun), and I didn't need a lesson learned or some obvious step towards adulthood. I wanted depth of emotion, and what I felt I got was implied depth, a surface that rang hollow. I thought it was lazy and grasping.

 

Also, I wished the Things would growl more.

[Sir Stewart]

I left the theater wrecked yet elated.

 

There it is.

[m_thomp]

I also enjoyed Up a great deal; I really didn't mean to denigrate it above. The opening sequence is one of the greatest sequences of the year.

 

I found that first ten minutes extremely moving. This was both a shock and unexpected, even whilst wearing 3D glasses, and to be honest I never quite recovered from it. As Beltmann said, it soon dipped into the usual Pixar buddy-chummy capers, but every so often they still managed to hit those heart tugging grace notes. I found, in many ways, that it was quite similar to The Station Agent.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing Where The Wild Things Are, I actually enjoy films that manage to polarise audiences. And judging from the comments I've read here it's causing a divide on the scale of the Sopranos' finale.

[jakobnicholas]

I should let this go. We all see movies differently. I thought LOT of this movie was brilliant....the real life scenes, the sound, the music, the creature design, the visuals...

 

But I've had a hard time figuring out how to explain what bothered me about the movie. Thanks to the internet, thousands of opinions can be found on just about anything. I found this lengthy review from someone named Daniel on a Christian website. I think he hits on a lot things that I agree with...I bolded some of it.

 

As far as production value is concerned, this film is phenomenal. Everything from the visual effects to the cinematography is well done. The animatronics are very believable. The film is colorful and the scenes and locations often seem to reflect paintings; perhaps they are meant to emulate Sendak's book?

 

The music probably fits the "indy" genre very well. It really sets the tone of the movie, and it is possible that I will pick the soundtrack up; I didn't hear any swear words in the lyrics. The music is great. As far as good goes for this film, that is all I have to say.

 

I think this is the kind of movie that film critics are really going to love, as it is very "artsy" and psychoanalytical in certain ways. My main issues with the film are as follows: Just from a story point of view, I was very confused as to what it exactly was about. I understood that the monsters represented the child's psyche (aspects of his own personality mixed with those of the people around him) and that the child had a very disturbing anger issue which he expressed through acts of violence and rage. But so much of what actually went on in the movie was confusing.

 

It was even more confusing because of the second issue I had a problem with: the conflict/resolution in the film. It is obvious in the movie that the child had deep emotional problems and that he was on the island because of these issues, sort of "battling with himself," or, perhaps "learning to cope" in some way. But the problem never feels like it is properly resolved.

 

The ultimate message of the movie (which is really hard to pin-down; it seems very postmodern to me) as far as I could gather it was: "life is hard and it gets harder and all you can do is deal with it." At one point in the movie, one of the monsters is depressed because of his own feelings of inadequacy in relation to the false promises that the child made about being a "king." The child said he would fix the problems of the monsters, and it was later discovered that he was just an average child with no powers. This causes one of the monsters to ask if there truly is a king who could give them any sort of hope, and he seems to conclude that there is not. This goes along with the child's teacher, who, earlier in the movie, posits that one day the sun will burn out and consume the solar system, but that humans will likely have eradicated themselves long before such an event takes place.

 

I am bold enough to say that the depressed monster and the fatalistic teacher seem to not-so-subtly represent doubts about Christianity (or possibly any sort of supernatural/theistic belief.) The answer to the monster's query is that there is no king who will protect, provide for and rescue him. He is apparently doomed to live a hopeless existence, in the same way that the world is apparently doomed to be consumed by the sun one day.

 

A friend who I watched the movie with specifically mentioned the incident about the monster and king, and he said, "When I saw that scene, I wanted to say to the monster: there IS a King who will be there for you! His name is Jesus!"

 

In a lot of ways, this movie seems to be about hopelessness and about simply dealing with hopelessness in a way that leaves out the supernatural. The child tells a story early in the film about a vampire who loses all of his teeth and is forsaken by his vampire friends because of it; this seems to represent how the child views himself.

 

Dave Eggers, who co-wrote the screenplay for this film, also wrote "What is the What?" which was the story of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan. Deng himself struggled with the problem of evil related to the incredible suffering he witnessed and endured during the civil war in Sudan. While the book does not dwell on the issue all that much, it unashamedly questions God's role in the evil that took place in Sudan. Was it God who brought the evil, or was it God who stood by and watched the evil? Is there even a God, if He would allow such terrible things to happen? It seems like Eggers may have translated some of that thinking into the screenplay for this film.

 

It is very unclear what the child was supposed to have learned from his experience, as there is no tangible point where it is made evident that he learned anything at all. I kept waiting for a moment where the boy would realize the error of his ways, the "Eureka" moment where he would be reconciled with the monsters for being dishonest with them and return home to his mother to apologize for hurting her. I waited, but it never came. If it did come, there was nothing overt about it.

 

In the book, the child chooses to return home to his mother because he realizes that she is more important than the Wild Things. In the movie, he seems to leave the island depressed, realizing that he has hurt the Wild Things by lying to them about being a king with special powers. He seems to return home because he has to, rather than because he misses and loves his mother. (Admittedly, he runs home to see her, but the reason he leaves the island in the first place seems to be related to what I wrote above, as far as I could tell.) From a philosophical/moral perspective, what is so objectionable about this film is the utter senses of hopelessness and fatalism that are present throughout.

 

The film seems to have underlying atheistic assumptions: there is no one looking out for us; there is no one who is going to help us. There is no "king" with power to protect us; if we live long enough to see the sun die out, we will die with it. The monsters put their faith in the child, only to be shattered when they find out he is a fraud. Their hope was an illusion; hope is a placebo. Aside from that, the monsters themselves, while functioning as comic relief at certain points, were actually quite frightening. And I do want to say at this point to those of you who are parents: this is NOT a kids' movie! It is very much an adult movie with adult themes.

 

Do not let its PG rating and the fact that it is based on a children's book fool you. What was so scary about the monsters (and they were; there were children crying in the theater) was not that they had horns and sharp teeth and massive bodies. It was that they were personifications of the child's mind, and thus were incredibly immature and flippant with their dangerous strength and ferocity. It was like the movie "The Last King of Scotland," where Nicholas Garrigon says to Immi Amman, who calls himself a king, "No, you're a child. And that's why your so ****ing scary." Essentially, the monsters were the same way.

 

I felt the same sense of dread watching this film as I did while watching “The Last King of Scotland;” there was a constant fear that one of the beasts would snap and rip the child to shreds. Numerous times throughout the movie, several of the monsters threatened to eat the child. When the child first arrives, one of the monsters removes the child's (who is made king) crown and scepter from a pile of smoldering human bones. At the end of the movie, it is revealed that he is the only king that the monsters hadn't eaten, and thus the source of the bones, while hinted at earlier, are confirmed. There is a constant sense of tension in the film that the child is surrounded by a pack of immature and very dangerous creatures.

 

Like the child himself, there is a constant teetering between a sense of happiness and a near explosion of rage, especially with the "main" monster who seems to most clearly personify the boy, voiced by James Gandolfini. It is hinted at more than once that if the child says or does the wrong thing, he will be killed. The monsters seemed to personify very visceral and explosive emotions that made the child himself violent and angry at times. It was honestly disturbing to watch the beginning of this movie.

 

The child is portrayed very well and very realistically; the sad thing is, I think there are a lot of kids like that today. I used to be one of them, so seeing it on the big screen really hit home for me. I think of how angry and upset and explosive that I used to be when I was younger, and it makes me glad for the grace of Jesus Christ, who changed my heart and made me a new person.

 

I am not convinced that a so-called "placebo" of faith could be responsible for so radical a change. The "king' represents nothing more than shattered faith in this film. I think one of the main messages of this film is that we have to fix ourselves, because no one else is going to do it. While I am all for personal responsibility and self-reflection, I am very much convinced that there is a King who can change our hearts and lives. We will not burn ourselves away with blood lust or global warming, for as the last chapters of scripture tells us: the end will come on His terms, not ours.

 

For its production value, I think this is a great film.

 

Morally, it can be lighthearted at times, but this is because of the immaturity of the 9-year-old protagonist whom the monsters represent. In reality, the creatures personify the very skewed psyche of a troubled and disturbed child who expresses his deep emotional hurt and feelings of loneliness and betrayal physically and violently. The tone of the film is downright dark at times, expressing hopelessness, fatalism and explosive rage.

 

Philosophically, this movie could very well stir some deep discussions, but keep in mind that the themes are very difficult and very adult.

 

As a final warning: please do NOT take small children to see this film. You will regret it.

My Ratings: Moral rating: Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 4

[Sir Stewart]

I read the book over and over as a kid. And it wasn't because it only gave me the warm feelings of a happy ending. It was unsettling. When Max is leaving, the monsters cry that they'll eat him up, they love him so.

Perhaps if it was released today, the book would be deemed unfit for kids?

[bjorn_skurj]

"Moral rating: Offensive"

 

Wonder what that guy thought of Bad Lieutenant?

[Sir Stewart]

"Moral rating: Offensive"

 

Wonder what that guy thought of Bad Lieutenant?

 

I LOLed.

[bjorn_skurj]

"Moral rating: Wife, Fetch the Torches!"

[Dude]

It's what makes the movie a unique and deeply satisfying experience--it's closer in spirit to poetry than most mainstream movies are willing to go.

 

What you see as brave and poetic, I see as lazy, not fleshed out and half-assed (from a character development / dramatic standpoint). There was mention in interviews with Jonze that the script was sort of a living breathing entity up to the day they were shooting, and that they were continually throwing new things in on the fly, even some of the actors getting involved in writing dialogue, and to me a lot of that shows. I loved the first third of the movie and thought it was wonderful, when there was very little dialogue and all the moments and beats were well-paced and hit me emotionally. Even the biting scene, with Max acting out, made sense to me at the time. The movie's worst qualities to me became apparent when the Wild Things began to talk extensively to Max and to eachother. With all the bickering and the occasional psychobabble over the need of a king, the dialogue was really poorly written IMO, and not poorly written like "we ought to dumb this down because a 9-year-old would be saying / thinking these things", but poorly written like not compelling, not entertaining, nothing that moved me emotionally. As others have pointed out, there are no memorable lines, either - not that that's a necessity, but I think the script had huge issues, and the studio thought the script had huge issues, too, and critics are also attacking the movie a bit due to this. The movie has a 6.9 / 10 average rating on Rotten Tomatoes which isn't exactly what I would call a universal slam dunk with the crits. And among the people praising the movie, no one is saying it's due to it being well-written, everyone loves the visuals (which with me you will find zero dispute on.)

 

I think Jonze as a director was essentially writing and directing from his emotional gut, which to me, gives the whole film an unfinished feel. If Jones had thrown out most of the dialogue and shot a mostly silent movie along the lines of the first half of Wall-E, I think I would have absolutely loved this movie. But instead we had a lot of poorly written dialogue, in some stretches painfully bad. A plot wasn't necessary, but once you strip away a lot of elements that I think you're basically saying aren't necessary for a good film - plot, character arc, dialogue, real characters, etc. - you don't really have much of anything to hold on to outside of a very pretty series of images.

 

Applying your rule seems to me like an act of pedantry; it narrowly and arbitrarily tries to impose a rule on a movie that derives its greatest power and magic from not following the usual conventions of plot and character. Is that giving the movie a free pass? I don't think so. I think it's merely being enthusiastic about what movies can do, rather than prescribing what I think they should do.

 

I guess the real qualifier you are missing here is prescribing what good movies should do. We've all seen bad movies that didn't give us real characters or a real plot, or emotionally compelling dialogue, or characters with arcs who gain some new information from the whole experience, otherwise what was the whole point? (something the Greek tragedians figured out and has been working for thousands of years...) There's a lot of bad movies that fail some of the basic age-old tests of what makes for good drama. Some are even very pretty visually and technically. I think this film falls into that category.

[Good Old Neon]

Just from a story point of view, I was very confused as to what it exactly was about. I understood that the disciples represented Jesus’ psyche (aspects of his own personality mixed with those of the people around him) and that God had a very disturbing anger issue which he expressed through acts of violence and rage. But so much of what actually went on in the Bible was confusing.

 

[u2roolz]

Hello,

 

I think I am somewhere split down the middle for this film. To me it feels like a film that once you see how it unfolds so unconventionally, in a sense, that maybe the 2nd time you see it it will be better to digest. I should point out that I got my Bachelor's in Film and I always praised the work of Spike Jonze. Even if he did 2 films before this and before that a bunch of commercials. Interestingly enough one of my old film professors confessed that Spike got his start in the business due to his families' big bank account. Ok, that really doesn't matter but in some ways it shows that he's been put in his position due to financial luck. It may also explain why a studio would back a film so financially risky. An $80 million film adaptation of a children's book that may not make its money back if it frightens its main demographic. (as of right now it's made $56 million according to Box Office Mojo)

 

The script - While looking back to Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, I began to realize that maybe Jonze was only as good as the material he was given to work with. You could argue that Charlie Kaufman's scripts really made those films shine. While not overly visual as Wild Things, I give him a lot of credit for pulling off those 2. On this film he worked with Dave Eggers and I read that he wold make up/rewrite the script on the spot before shooting. That's not completely a bad thing since some directors can rely on improvising from talented actors. For me this script worked only in certain scenes and in those scenes I felt like I got the gist of what I should be getting. The 15-20 minute scene of the Wild Things playing with Max bored me and then later on he just packs his shit and leaves quick to end the movie abruptly.

 

What's on the screen - Jonze works again with his Director of Photography from his 2 previous films (lance acord) and really captures the most beautiful images of his 3 films. It tops a room full of Malkovich's. Sadly, for me on first viewing this wasn't enough for me to like the film overall.

 

The Trailer - Someone mentioned something on here about the music in it made the film seem "indie". I don't know about you, but I cringed when I heard The Arcade Fire's Wake Up being used in the trailers. As if the source material and Spike Jonze wasn't enough, the studios threw the emo and hipster crowd a hip bone by tagging on Wake Up. Yes, "indie" films cost $80 million to make under the Warner Bros. Studio. I guess we should start calling "indie" films alternative.

 

"Not Getting A Film Vs. Can A Film Be Ok?" -(on IMDB) A lot of people are bashing those who "didn't get" the film and people are fighting back saying "fuck you it wasn't good to begin with...not a question of not getting it." Is this a hipster battlefield to avoid? Saying you liked it to be cool or smarter than a 5th grader? Saying you didn't like it to be brave thinking that the film is really overhyped and not as good as it thinks it is? One topic title included "Where The Emo Things Are". LOL. Admittedly, I used to be the type of bloke who would boast that I got a certain film, but I'd have the decency to talk it out with someone who it wasn't clear with. I didn't do it to be cool, I did it to prove that film can be a very unique experience where images and dialog could mean something different to each person. I'd stress that what "I" got out of the film shouldn't matter as much as what "you" got out of it. And I want to know what you got out of it to see things from a different point of view.

 

Half assed final analysis - I'm a feeling a bit under the weather, so I'm not 100% with it to make complete sense. A lack of sunlight from living in your parents' basement can be detrimental to ones' health. I really respect this film for being bold in its approach in both a visual and storytelling standpoint. That being said I really need to see this again to find a better critique of it for myself. The problem is I don't feel like sitting through it again. And this is coming from a guy who will watch a David Lynch movie more than once, even if it causes temporary insanity. : ) I remember reading that Lynch was supposed to do a cartoon recently.

 

Wes Anderson and The Fantastic Mr. Fox - Another "hipster" directing a kids movie. Like the Wild Things trailer, this one uses a Rolling Stones song. But the stop-motion animation looks amazing. It looks both cute and disturbing that it looks like an Anderson movie trailer of years past. The white title cards for the actor's names.

 

The Future for Spike Jonze - Well, after Adaptation he mentioned that Kaufman was writing a "horror" script unlike anything before it and it was supposed to be next for both of them. Let's hope that it comes out.

 

Thanks,

Kristofor

 

PS I hope I didn't offend anyone. I'm not usually bitter about this type of stuff. I'll use my old film school excuse: I'd be much better to talk it out with you folks in person instead of typing it.

PPS I don't really live in my parent's basement. That was supposed to be a cliched joke. When I went to see Jay Leno while in Vegas in 04 I was in the front row. He went around asking people what they did. Of course when he got to me I told him that I was in film school. To which he replied "so you plan on living in your parent's basement for the rest of your life."

[u2roolz]

I just received my Entertainment Weekly in the mail and noticed that there was an article called Want To Start A Fight? Just tell someone what you think of Spike Jonze's movie Where The Wild Things Are.

 

LOL.

Unfortunately, the article isn't online yet. The author is Mark Harris.

www.ew.com

[Beltmann]

I guess the real qualifier you are missing here is prescribing what good movies should do. We've all seen bad movies that didn't give us real characters or a real plot, or emotionally compelling dialogue, or characters with arcs who gain some new information from the whole experience, otherwise what was the whole point? (something the Greek tragedians figured out and has been working for thousands of years...) There's a lot of bad movies that fail some of the basic age-old tests of what makes for good drama. Some are even very pretty visually and technically. I think this film falls into that category.

No, I'm not missing that. (I mean, come on: Do you really think I don't recognize the value of character development and sturdy narrative?) What you're missing is that I'm rejecting your premise as too narrow. Certainly your premise applies to movies that choose to emphasize traditional narrative (nearly all mainstream movies, I'd say), but my argument is that there is no such thing as a standardized, one-size-fits-all rubric when it comes to judging art, and that it's unfair to apply such a rubric to movies when it doesn't really apply. For example, if I used your rubric to judge, say, Stan Brakhage's Moth Light, I'd have to report that it's a failure, since it has no character development and no drama. But is it fair to make that criticism about a fully abstract movie that literally has no characters and no narrative? Obviously not, as you know.

 

So what does Brakhage have to do with Jonze? Well, my argument is that while some movies are purely abstract or purely narrative (those are the easy ones to approach), many movies fall somewhere in between, making them trickier to approach. Just because a movie contains elements of traditional narrative doesn't mean we should automatically approach it as if it's purely narrative. In fact, some movies that contain real characters and real plot choose for artistic reasons to emphasize other qualities, and it's a mistake to assume that's always an inherent flaw. There are a lot of good movies that choose to operate on levels separate from typical dramatic conventions. I think WTWTA falls into this category.

 

In other words, what makes a movie good is not always easy to know. There is no standardized rubric, but instead a sliding scale with immeasurable variations. (Surely the ancient Greeks aren't the only ones who know something about art.) If we must have a guideline, how about this one: One way to determine whether a movie is good is if its intentions are defensible, and if it succeeds at realizing those intentions on its own terms. I think there are many brilliant movies that are wrongly criticized for de-emphasizing character and plot. Often audiences are made uncomfortable when movies ask them to operate in unfamiliar ways, and that discomfort manifests itself in criticism rather than curiosity.

 

A plot wasn't necessary, but once you strip away a lot of elements that I think you're basically saying aren't necessary for a good film - plot, character arc, dialogue, real characters, etc. - you don't really have much of anything to hold on to outside of a very pretty series of images.

Again, that's really where we disagree. I think we are left with a great deal left to hold onto. I know this because I was deeply engaged, and rather moved, by what is left. I think the observational qualities and impressionistic strategies are, indeed, perceptive. (The "pretty images" have little to do with what I liked best about the movie.) Perhaps that's just a matter of taste, or bias, or personal connection. I dunno... but I do know that such differences go a long way in justifying the need for diverse modes in art, not prescriptions.

[M. (hristine]

Often audiences are made uncomfortable when movies ask them to operate in unfamiliar ways, and that discomfort manifests itself in criticism rather than curiosity.

You have just described the great limiting factor, not just for appreciation of art but human development as well.

 

Along the engagement continuum, the point at which one disengages is opportunity. Curiosity the unbinding.

[bleedorange]

I'm anxious to see this movie, especially given the divergent opinions. I was also going to support Beltmann's post about the many forms great art can take and how sometimes the best art can break outside of those norms.

 

Then I realized it was pointless because I couldn't say it better than him anyway.

[uncool2pillow]

Beltmann, I'm curious what exactly do you teach? I think I would love to sit in your classroom. If you're as eloquent in your classroom as you are online, it'd be a treat.

[Beltmann]

Beltmann, I'm curious what exactly do you teach?

Thanks for the kind words! I'm just a high school English teacher. My primary area is American Literature for honors sophomores, but I also handle the journalism class. Sometimes I teach Ancient and Modern Mythology and sometimes a course called Humanities (which is the study of modern painting, music, and film from a humanistic standpoint). Next semester I will teach a brand-new course that I proposed called Film as Social Criticism. Feel free to audit the class.

 

Some of the complaints about WTWTA remind me of how the Impressionists were initially received: Their work was widely criticized by the gatekeepers for being sloppy and out-of-focus. If you've ever seen an Impressionist painting, you'd have to concede that it does look sloppy and out-of-focus. But once you understand that their goals were new, and that they emphasized qualities separate from traditional detail, symmetry, etc., you begin to realize that it's unfair to say it's bad art merely because it appears sloppy. (It's a bit like saying a poem sucks because it isn't prose.) The fact that Impressionist paintings appear sloppy is an accurate observation, but not a fair criticism--by focusing on what the art is not, it misses what the art is. Unfortunately, that same mistake is still being repeated in much modern film criticism.

 

Anyway, I'm fascinated by the polarizing effect WTWTA has, and I think reasonable people can disagree. I totally see where Dude and Lodestar are coming from--it's just that we approached the movie from utterly different, and utterly incompatible, angles. The cool thing about art is that there is always room for multiple approaches, and that ought to be encouraged.

[u2roolz]

Beltmann, I would love to see your syllabus for that Film as Social Criticism class. I've always wanted to teach a film class like that. One of my greatest memories of going to film school was watching a film with my peers and having us discuss it.

[nadja]

For me, Max's character arc was that he went from being a completely self-absorbed, immature kid who thought his mother existed solely to comfort and protect and feed him, to finally recognizing her as a fellow human being who was also struggling and worrying and doing her best. It is the ultimate in character development - from being fixated on oneself to being concerned about another.

 

In the beginning, like any kid, all Max cares about is himself - wanting his sister to pay attention to him (and not to her friends), to have his mother all to himself (with no boyfriend), to be fed exactly what he wants (no frozen corn). And on the island all the monsters are as needy and whiny and self-absorbed as he is. They look to Max to make everything ok and build a safe place where no harm or sadness can enter, and he fails miserably. Just like he has looked to his own mother to protect him from pain, and she has not. It's hard for me to see how "nothing happened" on the island. What happened was that Max got outside of himself for the first time in his life. Instead of just feeling the pain of having his igloo smashed, he saw how the monsters felt when he smashed their huts. He recognized the consequences of his behavior. He grew up. How did nothing happen?

 

I guess I can see how people felt the film was depressing and defeatist, but to me the main point was: yes, life is hard and painful and lonely and no one can save us from that, but we're all in it together. We all feel that way. It's maybe the most crucial development we make as human beings - from seeing our parents as failures because they didn't shield us from harm, to seeing them as fellow human beings doing the best they can. It's called maturity, and it's what I saw on Max's face when he sat at the table in the final scene and watched his mother watching over him and closing her eyes in sheer exhaustion and relief. He felt compassion for her, and that was the whole point. It's how he changed.

[Beltmann]

For me, Max's character arc was that he went from being a completely self-absorbed, immature kid who thought his mother existed solely to comfort and protect and feed him, to finally recognizing her as a fellow human being who was also struggling and worrying and doing her best. It is the ultimate in character development - from being fixated on oneself to being concerned about another.

 

In the beginning, like any kid, all Max cares about is himself - wanting his sister to pay attention to him (and not to her friends), to have his mother all to himself (with no boyfriend), to be fed exactly what he wants (no frozen corn). And on the island all the monsters are as needy and whiny and self-absorbed as he is. They look to Max to make everything ok and build a safe place where no harm or sadness can enter, and he fails miserably. Just like he has looked to his own mother to protect him from pain, and she has not. It's hard for me to see how "nothing happened" on the island. What happened was that Max got outside of himself for the first time in his life. Instead of just feeling the pain of having his igloo smashed, he saw how the monsters felt when he smashed their huts. He recognized the consequences of his behavior. He grew up. How did nothing happen?

That's a good post, and it articulates how I felt about Max, too. Naysayers might reply that this particular arc is not portrayed with enough concrete dramatic signposts, and so therefore remains a vague and lazy arc. I'd say that what Jonze does is the opposite of lazy: Instead of relying on well-worn dramatic conventions--the easy route--he instead telegraphs this emotional and psychological arc through a wealth of minor, subtle, acute observations that accumulate into something large and coherent. He makes it hard on himself but pulls it off--which is partially why I found it so powerful and moving.