You told me I was going to be safe with you.
You're safe. You're safe because we died already.
Put you head down... it will be over soon. Now close your eyes... everything is wonderful.
Well, that's it, folks. This is where we end our study of Peter Weir. We hope this gets you to further investigate his canon: The Truman Show, Year of Living Dangerously, Green Card (his only true comedy), and most recently The Way Back, starring Ed Harris and Colin Farrell. Clark and I commented today how there has not been a bad performance in a film we've watched of his, and, arguably, Jeff Bridges, Harrison Ford, and Robin Williams gave the best performances of their careers in a Weir film. Just found this on the web. Let's hope so. The man makes good movies.
Fearless leaves one—it left me—drained. It may be the most difficult of Weir's difficult films (Picnic at Hanging Rock, Last Wave). More so than the more recent Hollywood films we've watched the last couple weeks, this film (penned by Rafael Yglesias, based on his own very good novel) takes us back to those inscrutable Australian films. For this film, Weir, for whatever reason, used a new cinematographer Allen Daviau, who did incredible work for Steven Spielberg. This film, Clark and I agreed, looks totally different than the ones done by John Seales and Russell Boyd. No huge vistas but lots of pinched shots in enclosed spaces. There is, though, that incredible ending, the plane crash, that made Emi a believer.
1. One more time: what do you think of this film? And why? What moment and/or image stayed with you?
2. What do you see Weir playing out here that reminds us of his other films? Do you see any familiar themes, tropes, conflicts, characters? How so?
3. Max Klein clearly makes a choice at the end of the film. The light beckons him: he heads towards it. But then he chooses to go away from it—back to life, back to his wife Laura and their son and their world. He has experienced life from the perspective of one who nearly lost it and from the perspective of one who never knew what it meant to almost lose it. What does it mean for him to have chosen what he does at the end? What has he chosen? Why has he chosen this? Go to town on these queries.
Maybe we'll see you tomorrow—but maybe we won't. If we don't, we'll post the essay question here early in the morning, so you can work on it for Thursday.
Great class, guys. And yes, thank you for your buy in and engagement and enthusiasm and willingness to stretch yourselves.
We'll leave you with this great moment. Rosie Perez was nominated for an Oscar for her performance; and a great one it is, indeed.
I liked this film. I'll admit that at first I was SO annoyed with Max. I mean, I was definitely thinking about the situation from the same perspective as his wife. Not in a romantic way or anything obviously, but with the idea that he could just stop acting like a weirdo and go back to normal. I felt like he needed to go through therapy or something, but I thought he was just experiencing PTSD. Then it made sense that he was not just dealing with PTSD and was actually dealing with a whole lot more. What else explains the strawberries? I think I've actually seen this movie before and I had just forgotten about it.
ReplyDeleteHis attitude sort of reminded me of Jack Aubrey. Both men were fearless at some point or another in their respective films. They also both showed vulnerability. Another character that Max reminded me of was David. They are two examples of the leading male character getting involved in something seemingly "other worldly" or something that doesn't go with the norm. A third example could be Miranda from Picnic at Hanging Rock. You might be wondering how this man is connected to the sweet little Miranda. For starters, they both acknowledge leaving. He does so through death, she does so by simply telling Sarah that she will be "gone soon". They are also mysterious to others. They both seem to embody the same sort of...I don't want to use the word aloof....separate being type attitude. Not that they are putting themselves up on a pedestal but they seem to feel that they are separate from others.
It took me a second to understand how the movie ended. I didn't know if it was another flashback at first. Then I didn't understand his reaction. It seemed that he was laughing and then I thought he was crying and then I thought that maybe he was just hysterical and it was a combination of the two. I really liked how the last thing that he said to his wife was, "I want you to save me" and then BOOM! She saved him!!! So, I think that was important.
I didn’t really like the first half of the movie to be honest. Like some other people, I really started to engage in the movie towards the last 20 minuets. I think that I didn't really like the first half because of Max’s completely off personality, given that we don’t know how he acted before. I think it would be more correct to say that I was extremely confused by the first section of the move. By far, my favorite shot was actually right after Max crashed the car, and the camera paned and showed the shadow of Max in the window, and then cut to the toolbox on the ground. I personally love when movie used silhouettes and shadows to emphasize certain scenes.
ReplyDeleteMax’s personality is a lot like Allie’s in the way that their preach these slightly ridiculous ideas to other people. For a good portion of the movie, Max really does believe that he has died, and that Carla is another ghost. Max also displays certain violent outburst like Allie does. However, I would argue that Max has the charisma of Aubrey by the way that he is able to lead Carla out of her depression. I think that this movie kind of goes into how the society functions. Like, if your baby dies in a crash, you can squeeze two million dollars out of the company responsible. Also, that lying in court to receive more money for your suffering is encouraged. I think that the morality of the lawyer is kind of supposed to make us look at Max as someone who is trying to overcome this corrupt system of law.
I am bringing back the idea the Keating provides to his students, that we live for ideas like love and passion. I think that in addition to living for love and passion, people also live to experience things like fear and pain. When max was fearless, there were so many different aspects of life that were no longer in his reach. The lack of fear that Max was feeling isolated him from feeling everything that was happening around him. We know that Max remembers his marriage, so he must also remember other things about how he lived before the crash. Although surviving the crash gave Max a mental high, the high that he felt numbed him from the things that make every moment unique to each individual. Max could have taken his life of being fearless and unconcerned with having the company of the “living”, but he could have also of chosen to follow the light and die. However, I think that Max chooses to live because he realizes that he really had been living like a ghost, unconnected to the world and the people that he loved. Max was living a life of self-isolation, and I think that Carla helped him realize that he can't grieve over himself anymore, and that it was time to return to the world of the living and to the people waiting for him.
Like Katie and others who spoke in class, I really didn't like the movie until the last 20 minutes or so. The majority of the movie just really confused me, like any older Peter Weir film such as The Last Wave and Picnic at Hanging Rock did. I hate to be repetitive again of Katie (sorry) but I thought the cinematography of the movie was done really well with the cool shots of silhouettes, etc. The scene that stuck with me or intrigued me the most was the one that showed us what really happened on the plane before the crash when Max almost dies from the strawberry in the end. (Still confused as to why he suddenly becomes allergic again. Maybe because he's no longer really “fearless"?)
ReplyDeleteI see a lot of similarities between Miranda of Picnic at Hanging Rock and Max. Both characters have this certain way about them that makes other people have this fascination (obsession maybe too harsh of a word to use?) with them that makes them want to follow and trust people like Miranda or Max. I can also see how Max and Allie are similar in their unusual/ridiculous teachings to others. Max believes that he’s already died in the crash while Allie believes that, with the way civilization is functioning, we won’t survive the destruction of America so that he goes on a quest to reinvent civilization on his own. Both of these ideas ultimately lead to the destruction of themselves, but Max gets saved by his wife at the end and is possibly? returned to the man he once was before the crash. Max’s personality also reminds me of Jack Aubrey. Both Jack and Max, as Kira said, were very strong leaders, but, at some time in the film they showed some vulnerability at some point to prove that they are just as human as everyone else.
At the end, I think that his decision to turn back means that he’s ready to come back to reality and be connected with life again, just as Carla asks him to do before leaving. While being fearless after surviving the crash, Max shut out everything that made him fear, or rather feel anything from his life before. I think that the strawberries should come in to be a really important aspect to this, but I’m not really sure how that would work. Could it be that he was no longer deathly allergic because of his fearless approach? So then the strawberries could be proof that he wasn’t really living in the moment but as a ghost for all that time after the crash since they had no effect on him until he realized what he had done and asks his wife to “save him” right before.
Great film. Jeff Bridges was no less than incredible in his performance. But one of the movies greatest features – and my favorite moment – was the plane crash. The different reactions from the passengers seemed so realistic, but what was most impressive was the way we were able to see the plane being torn apart midair in fire and chaos. As you said, John, this scene leaves one completely and emotionally drained. Rarely do I ever have such an intense mental and physical reaction to a scene, and that alone makes this a film worth seeing.
ReplyDeleteSpiritual awakenings. Main characters caught on a bridge between two opposite worlds. Obsession with conformity and tradition. I would argue (with the exception of Master and Commander, which I think lacks significant spiritual awakening by the characters, that each movie has these three elements. In Fearless, these themes manifested themselves in the following ways:, Max has a spiritual awakening brought on by his near-death experience, he is caught between our world, and the completely separate spiritual world. Because regular people cannot even begin to imagine Max’s experience, these two worlds are nearly impossible to reconcile.
I would love to “go to town” on these queries… but I’m afraid I still don’t understand the ending. Without a doubt, for me this was Weir’s hardest film to understand,thematically. Okay, so now I know he makes the decision to eat the strawberry to let his wife bring him back, to let his wife “save” him. But what did she save him from? Death, and living life like he was dead, liberated him from so many of life’s hardships: the fear of death (most obviously), and the stupid social conventions, and lawyers. But I guess she was saving him from one of death’s downsides: profound loneliness and isolation. So, I guess he was picking family and love over this isolation. Because isolation is painful. His wife also re-opened the door for their reconnection when she saw the painting on his desk, as she had a greater understanding of where Max was. So… I guess the meaning of the film is spiritual awakenings are enlightening, but they are also isolating. And despite anything new you have learned, it is important to stay connected.
Okay, one more thing. I know this doesn’t relate to the questions, but it was something in the film that I loved: the irony of everyone thinking Max crazy, when he was the only one who was actually sane.
1. What a great movie! I love Jeff Bridges in Big Lebowski and this film really shows how versatile an actor he is. The plane scenes looked incredible and it really brought your into the film. The character Max (this isn’t a criticism) isn’t very likeable. His poor wife tried so hard to help him and connect to him and he acted so insistently indifferent. Max helps Carla so much and seems important to his wife and that’s the only reason I want Max to survive. I thought it was interesting to see the different ways people dealt with the crash, in particular, the greed from the lawyer and Carla’s husband. I loved the scene in which Max eats the last strawberry and the film flashes from the bright light at the end of the plane to the real world. Between the crash and this last scene, Max was wavering in some kind of purgatory and it is so gratifying to finally have a happy ending after all of these downers.
ReplyDelete2. Fearless reminded me a lot of The Last Wave. At times, I wasn’t sure what was real and what was not. In the scene with Carla smelling the baby, everything seems unreal. Would that mother really not have noticed a stranger cozying up to her baby? It made me consider whether Max and Carla were ghosts but then, why could so many people interact with them? Max is also similar to Allie. Max doesn’t have any reservations about smacking people, crashing cars or kissing someone else’s wife. He doesn’t have much self-control and does what his gut tells him to do and like Aubrey, he’s very self-assured that he’s doing the right thing. This film shares the trend of living wildly. Max has the carpe diem attitude as displayed in Mosquito Coast and Dead Poet’s Society. He says, what the heck! And buys gifts for dead people and eats enormous amounts of dessert. Why not! He’s already died!
3. I didn’t really understand why Max wanted to go back to his old life. Even if his fearless attitude was keeping him away from his wife and son, it didn’t seem like he liked them anyway. He seemed to be having a great time and I felt like he was beginning his life anew until seemingly out of the blue, he changes his mind. I think that Max had a choice between dying and going back to his life before the crash but didn’t have the option to continue on in Carla’s life.
1. I liked this film a lot. the last 10 or 15 minutes were incredibly stressful, almost as stressful as the end of Gallipoli. I went out of that movie completely stunned and unable to think. That's how I want to feel when a movie ends: unable to say anything meaningful for quite a while, still processing it for hours after it ends. This was a great movie because of that. I loved the end. I'll talk more about it later, but I loved how he finally made the choice to be able to feel pain and have a reaction, and because of that, he survived. He was a complete jerk to his wife the throughout the movie, which pissed me off, but at the end, he was happy with her. She was still talking AT him, he wasn't quite there, but it was better, and I could see him changing. As long as I live I will never forget the crash scene. That was the most horrible thing to watch. It seemed so real, so scary to see parts of the plane ripping away as if it were made of paper. I wouldn't have expected it to happen like it did, based on the strength of metal, but I guess going however fast it was going would make anything rip. And the view through the windshield before the woman closed the door was so...scary. I can't imagine being a pilot, trying everything I could to get control over the plane again, knowing that I would die, along with many other people. It would be a horrible way to die. The anticipation, waiting for your own death, it has to be awful. That scene made everything he experienced so much easier to understand. It made him seem more human to know what he was reacting to.
ReplyDelete2. I see two main connections to other films (although it's similar to all of them, in one way or another): Aubrey and Burton. He and Aubrey share a sense of invincibility. Aubrey has a lot of faith in himself and his ship; he goes to battle with a french ship that is obviously much more prepared and modern than his, and continues to chase it around, even though it beats him every time they fight. He doesn't seem to care if people die or the ship is ruined, he only cares about destroying the french ship. Max clearly believes that he won't be hurt, no matter what he does. He eats strawberries multiple times in the movie, walks across a very busy street? highway?, stands on the ledge of a very tall building, etc. I don't think it's that he doesn't care if he dies so much as be genuinely believes he can't. David Burton, from The Last Wave, seemed to me like he was trying very hard to conform to what he find out he is, like Max. He also moves away from his wife because of it.
3. I think Max sees what he's done to his wife and son. He's broken their family apart, pushed his son away, and rejected his wife so he can cure another woman. I think he doesn't want to die knowing he's ruined everything he'd built. If he had died on the plane crash, everything would have been fine. Because he didn't, he thought he could survive anything and tempted fate, broke up his family, and hadn't spent any time trying to fix himself. I think he didn't want to die with that in mind. Even though if he died his wife and son would be more or less okay, and they would stay together and stay with their friends, but if he lived, they wouldn't think poorly of him. He would be able to make amends and live with his family like he did before the crash, just with a knowledge of what it's like to almost die. He wants to be alive again, not just a ghost of a person. He wants to be the way he was before, so he eats another strawberry to see if he's back, almost dies, and decides he wants to live.
1. I enjoyed this film a lot. This is another film where the plot isn’t quite what should be focused on if you want to enjoy it. However, this is also the type of film where I don’t think that matters quite as much. They don’t purport to go for realism or an airtight plot. When it’s made clear that the film is about themes and philosophy I don’t mind that at all. The problem I had with the Last Wave was that it was set up as a mystery and had no mystery payoff. This movie didn’t explain much, but it wasn’t a movie where I was expecting or even hoping for an explanation. Jeff Bridges was great. That scene where he was walking down the aisle comforting everyone was mesmerizing. Normally I would be disappointed when a main character’s death via allergic reaction is cured with some pitiful CPR. Ok maybe I am a little annoyed. But for some reason it doesn’t seem to matter quite as much.
ReplyDelete2. The quote about the United States reminds me a lot of Allie in Mosquito Coast. The idea of a character wanting to step into a world or a state of mind foreign or frightening to those around him seems familiar. Master and Commander may be a stretch, but we see this in the Last Wave, Gallipoli, Witness, Dead Poets Society, and Mosquito Coast. What’s unique is that the journey is more about helping someone else and then finding his way back. He finally realizes that he needs saving from his new outlook.
3. It’s hard to say what changes in him. Perhaps he gets some post traumatic stress from the crash and his actions in the movie are him feeling trapped, almost wanting to die. It’s interesting because for the majority of the film it seems like Max has changed for the better. He’s not being great to his family, but he seems enlightened. His change was necessary to save Carla. His drawings seemed to indicate he thought he was something more than human, maybe divine. That confidence may have been necessary to help. However in the long run it started being detrimental. It’s almost as if he’s partially lying to himself. He needs to run into traffic and eat more strawberries to convince himself he’s still safe and needs not have fear. In that sort of limbo after the last strawberry he finds that life is still worth living as s human with some fear.
Not my favorite, but another good Weir movie. This film definitely felt different than his others, missing him common theme of tradition and the different style of filming. Regardless, this was a captivating movie. Like many other people have already said, the first part of the movie was not as amazing as the last minutes of the movie. It was beautiful--it made death look so beautiful.
ReplyDeleteFrom the first scene in the movie, Max Klein is saving others. He seems to be all powerful and invulnerable, much different than the worried man he was before the crash. He loves this feeling and tests his limits, but ends up pushing everyone away. This powerful man is a common figure in Weir's movies. He reminds me most of the Captain in Master and Commander--both men have little boys that look up to them as well. Also, Weir's films play around with different perspectives that characters have on the world. In this movie, Max becomes a man of no fears, an interesting way to live. In Dead Poet society, Keating teaches the kids to look at the world through a different lens.
I believe he did stay with his wife and kid and went back to being close with his family. Before the strawberry incident he was invincible, true, but very distant from those that love him. He felt this desire to always help people, but eventually he fulfilled those needs and needed to be saved himself. He was still in shock from the crash, but couldn't admit that to himself. He had to almost die-- and in those last minutes, he went through the crash in his head, finally processing it and taking it all in. His wife, who saved him from the allergy, saved him from his inability to get over the traumatic accident as well by making him realize he wasn't okay.
I didn’t really like this film overall mostly because I found the characters pretty frustrating and hard to grapple with. I liked the plot and I think that Weir did a fantastic job with capturing the raw human emotion of pain, which is a huge part of the movie. The part that stuck out most to me was when Max was on the roof of a building, looking as if he would fall at any moment, and just screaming with all of his might. It was very striking to see his mind fall apart and come back together so quickly.
ReplyDeleteMax’s denouncing of America as a country reminds me a lot of Allie in Mosquito Coast. He doesn’t believe in a big part of the world around and believes that giving in is a fluke. He most reminds me of Allie from Mosquito Coast, and he mirrors his journey, becoming more stubborn and frustrating to watch as the movie progresses, putting his life and others’ lives in dangers for some odd reason. As Sohail said, Max’s journey is different. He comes to this climax in which everything falls apart in one moment and it all comes rushing back. Allie just went on believing he was right.
Like I said in class today, after the crash, Max really only feels intense and extreme emotions. He feels apathetic towards daily aspects of his life, where as once before, he might’ve been excited about those very things. He forces himself to the edge to feel these feelings of love, passion, and fear and he feels that only doing this with someone who “understands” him, like Carla, is the way to do this. I didn’t quite fully understand the ending, but replaying through the crash gives every explanation (but not justification) for Max’s sudden cold shoulder to his life. I think that having another experience in which he was so close to death, but couldn’t reconcile himself as well this time or finally accept his fate, he chooses to come back to his family and his life.
I didn’t really like this movie until the final 10 minutes when Weir finally showed the crash in its entirety. I consider myself a plane crash sequence aficionado and I thought this one was one of the best I’ve seen. I also really liked the opening shot of Max and Byron and other survivors emerging from the corn. It was a very religious image to me, and a lot of the film had to do with faith and doubt so I thought the image of Max carrying a baby emerging from complete destruction was a good establishment of the tone. I also thought the recurring image of the eye-like swirl of light. Max had been painting numerous variations of it, and then when he drove into the wall he drove at a graffiti eye, and we got a lot of close ups on Max’s eyes. I got the sense that it was representing all that Max had seen and experienced, and how he had seen the light but somehow managed to escape its grasp narrowly.
ReplyDeleteI found the character of Max and David from The Last Wave similar, particularly the relationships they have with their wives. Both characters are overtaken by an unexplainable phenomenon that effects their entire being, and no one can understand what is going on or how to help especially their significant others. There is also this thread in some of Weir’s films of characters disconnecting themselves emotionally from the world around them. In Picnic in Hanging Rock, the girls who go missing are strangely unaware of the seriousness of situation they are about to put themselves in. In Dead Poets Society, Todd is unwilling to invest emotionally in anything and remains closed off until Keating scares him out of it. In Fearless, Max removes himself from the world because he thinks that that makes him immune to fear and pain.
Post-crash, Max rids himself of all fear because he is afraid to submit himself to it. In my opinion he was a coward for doing that. Just because he pushed all the fear out of his life doesn’t mean he isn’t immune to it or can’t feel it anymore, it only makes him weaker. The scene with Dr. Perlman and the other crash survivors, those people were brave because they were being open about what had happened to them and didn’t just wave it off by saying they were “already” dead. I don’t think Max understood how important it was to actually feel what had happened until Carla visited him and talked him. She had been so afraid, but by confronting what had happened in the crash she had set herself free. At the end, as Max is almost about to die because of something as trivial as an allergy, he confronts the crash and then becomes unafraid in a different sort of a way, unafraid of life rather than unafraid of death. He accepts the miraculous and terrifying parts of life and decides to turn away from the light, because life is no longer scary, whereas before he was not scared of death and was content with walking into the light.
1. I had trouble with this movie. I would probably try it again to see if my opinion would change, because I know that I didn't get everything out of it on my first viewing. Part of my dislike existed because I was focused on trying to figure out whether or not there was something supernatural going on. It was frustrating having to watch Max's affect on his family and those around him. His attitude was frustrating, particularly because I didn't know what caused that attitude. Most of the time I couldn't tell if he was in shock, suffering PTSD, realizing some supernatural power, losing his mind, or some combination of those things. I can understand the value of viewers being left in the dark, but I found it somewhat excessive and distracting. I feel like, even now, I don't understand what Max's motives were. There are also so many questions I had that have been left unanswered. I feel like I don't have enough information to really process or begin to try to answer these questions either. For instance, I'm really curious about why Max was so "normal" after the plane crash when he told the other survivors to follow him. I don't know if he had previously started his quest to test his fears.
ReplyDelete2. Like many of the characters we have seen, Max tests his courage and fortitude. While Max pushes the limits to see what he can endure while fending off fear and death, Mr. Keating explores the lengths he can go as a teacher to affect his kids, and Allie tests his ability to care for his family in the jungle and found a new community. I think the theme of the importance of relationships was brought up again here, as well. There is an extremely powerful relationship between Max and Carla, as well as all of the survivors. I think the psychologist was working with this idea. He knows that those survivors have shared something toothier that other people can't understand. This is what Max realizes, although he thinks that his idea is original to him, and that it means no one else understands him. There's also the climax at the end where Max chooses to rely on his wife to save him, instead of keeping his distance from her, and everyone else that he thinks can't understand him.
3. Max does not put trust in other people, throughout the film. He talks about having lost his faith in God, not being able to communicate with his wife and child, and thinking the psychologist that was assigned to help him is a fraud. The way he tests how far he can go without dying is egotistical; he only trusts his own ability to survive, and doesn't give credit to others. I think that what truly frightens him throughout the film is the thought of putting his trust in another person. Even in his relationship with Carla which is very strong and loving, he can only help her. When she says she wishes she could help him he retracts into himself and says she can't. At the end of the film he has gone as far as he possibly could with his brushes with death. He sees the way toward death, and I think that for that moment, choosing to let himself die might be the easiest choice. Instead he decides to go back to the world and to his wife. He lets her save him. He fully trusts her. I think that he's asking her to save him literally from the allergic reaction, and from the course he has set himself on. He has finally realized that he is hurting himself, and keeping himself from happiness. By choosing to go back to the world he chooses happiness, and his relationships. He chooses to be fearless.
I really didn't like this movie for its duration and I don't really know why. Maybe it's because I was just as glad to get away from the difficult films or maybe it's because I really didn't like Max, but I just didn't enjoy this movie as much as I have enjoyed the others. Even the ending didn't make me a believer, though it allowed me to think about the movie as a whole more than I could while I was watching it. Now that I've had a couple days to let the film sink in, I appreciate it as an important part of Weir's cannon. Max reminds me a lot of Allie, to the point where I thought Harrison Ford should have played Max. Both characters have a certain closed-mindedness that makes them seem crazy and hurts those around them. Again, Weir brings children into the story as symbols of innocence that adults have a responsability to protect. He also brings back the theme of trying to use reason in a world that makes no sense--the film makes commentary on religion and even on adulthood and humanity through this theme. Carla's life made sense before the crash because she had a strong faith, a strong religion, and a clear purpose in life: to protect her baby. When Bubble died, Carla fell apart because her purpose in life was gone and her faith was shattered and all she had was an empty religion. Max helped show her that some things were completely out of her control and that helped restore her faith--she had done the best that she could but her baby died anyway. Max is different from other Weir characters because he fully accepts that he has no control over what happens to him to the point that he lets go completely. This movie proves that while trying to impose order on the world is dangerous, it is important to try to find some meaning in life. Throughout the film, I knew that the right thing for Max to do was to go back to his old life. His wife loved him, and I knew if he could just get over himself they could be happy again. I had given up on Max's capacity to do the right thing, so I was pleasantly surprised when he actually let his wife save him and chose to come back to her. That's a lie--at first I was kind of annoyed that he hadn't died, but now that I've let the film sink in a bit, I am glad that he came back to her. I think his choice at the end of the movie means that he has accepted the balance between knowing that the world is irrational and trying to make it mean something anyway. He realizes that love isn't pointless even if life and death are random and he realizes that his real responsability is to his family. Max doesn't have to be an angel just because he is fearless--he can go back to living a normal life despite what he has been through and he can make the most of the life he has.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to add this, but the moment that stuck with me was the moment that Max crashed the car and the tool box had crashed through the window for reasons that I explained in my post.
ReplyDelete1. I absolutely loved this film. Now that I’ve seen them all, this was, hands down, my favorite movie we watched in class. It had a clear plot that carried out wonderfully and a message that stood out from the rest of the films. It seems like all of Weir’s film have a theme of ways to live, but this film’s theme stood out to me. Most of the others had the message of going against tradition and stretching against the norm, but Fearless showed us what it is like to really live. My favorite scene in the movie is definitely the moment of the crash when Max walks through the aisle. It may be cliché of me to say my favorite scene of the movie is the end, but, honestly, if it had ended without that scene, Fearless would not have made such a significant impact on me.
ReplyDelete2. It is difficult for me to make connections between Max and other characters in Weir’s films, just because he seems so different to me. All for the main characters in Weir’s films have clear motives and emotions, and Max just seems like an empty, but fearless, man. In some ways, I can relate Max to Miranda from Picnic on Hanging Rock. Both characters do not seem to have the complex personalities that we see in Mr. Keating or John Book. They are somewhat mysterious in that way. However, people are still drawn to them. We talked a lot about how people in Picnic on Hanging Rock are obsessed Miranda, and it is clear that people on the descending plane in Fearless were relaxed just by the look on Max’s face. I think it is just this certainty these characters have about them that makes them similar.
3. Max Klein has experienced all aspects of life by now. All through out the movie, we see the Max Klein that is not afraid to test his life as if it was nothing, as if he was already dead. We follow Max through this journey of living as a ghost, and it is kind of depressing. We know that he had this connection with his wife and child that is simply not there anymore, and in its place is his ability to eat strawberries. I feel like throughout the entire film, as we watch Max put himself through trial after trial, we want nothing more than for Max to come back to life. Real life, that is. In the very end, I thought Max was going to walk into the light. But then I remembered what he said to his wife right before that- “I want you to save me.” He turned back and walked towards her voice, choosing life over death. In a way, if he had walked to the light, he would have been giving up. Instead, he chose to give life one more shot as a changed man. He knows what it is like to almost die/die/live like you are dead. That moment of him and his wife lying on the ground laughing and crying is really, really amazing. He’s saying “I’m alive, I’m alive” and I think it means something different this time. Both he and his wife know that he’s back in a real sense.
The perfect end to the myriad films of Weir. Fearless successfully combines the best parts of all Weir's films—existentialist notions, artful touches, and spiritual questionings— into one unbelievable package. I must and will watch it again. It is difficult to compare this film to my other favorites because their very nature is so different that its almost an apple and oranges type deal. Within its own domain, Fearless was equally as compelling. Emotionally, intellectually, and, somewhat, spiritual, the movie tapped into my internal devices. I bought Jeff Bridges performance to the highest degree. He accomplished the simplest yet most difficult aspect of acting: don't act, be. Every moment the camera fell on his face, I could see the world in all its complexity.
ReplyDeleteJust as I can see myself in all of my writing regardless of its variety, I can see Weir's mind clearly behind all of his works. Like noted above, the man grasped all the best bits this time. In this one, Weir didn't really create anything new or radical, but reflected—created a culmination of it all, leading to its ultimate greatness. I think this applies thematically as well as character-wise. The idea of a man struggling for self in a somewhat non-traditional manner has been played out in the body of Allie, David Burton, John Book, and now Max Klein. Their venture reaches beyond simply finding their place in the universe. Each of them feel a part of something bigger—much bigger. I think Weir might too. In terms of theme—or perhaps redefined as moral, message, or point of the film— I find great difficult in its interpretation, although I am aware it remains similar throughout his works. I will give it a shot: Weir recognizes and mediates on the idea that life as a whole is not nor can be defined into nice little packages that can fit in our minds. In attempting to restrain it for our own purposes, we are self destructive. Each of his films tell a story that take the viewer out of the TRADITIONAL realm. Cumulatively, these films point towards a world without definition, or at least much less of it.
Max Klein receives a blessing much like the one George Bailey receives in the most famous American movie ever made, It's a Wonderful Life. Rather than seeing what life would be like without his existence, Max gets to see through what I call "the bullshit of life". The term is not exactly accurate because this "bullshit" encompasses the good and bad. Fundamentally, I am referring to the human creation of that which does not exist. An entire universe in our psychology. Coming so close death, Max unsees it all, or perhaps sees through it. The result is a state of purity in some ways. The non-existent, human reality fades away, leaving Max with respective pros and cons. He cares not for money or his reputation or even his life itself. His vision that, for so long has been obscured by humanity, becomes crystal clear. There is no good or bad in a place like this. Relativity does not dwell here. Things simply are. There is a catch though, and I think it is a big one—the reason Max came back. Love and compassion lie within our imagination as well. Humanity holds fear and hate but also all that is wonderful. Is it not worth it to live in something that does not exist if that thing is beautiful?
I adored this film. It made me believe in it, certainly, because it affirmed values I already hold dear. If the film had ended making it seem like Max's philosophy of "we could be dead any second there's no point to doing anything" was true, I would have hated it. But I think in the end, what it truly showed, was that there is a reason to live, and truly I think that's what Max had lost and was trying to find throughout the movie. And what I especially loved was that the thing he found a reason to live for was all the things he had had in the first place. His wife, his son, love, family. Ultimately, we exist for a reason, whether that reason was chosen by God, or some vaguely human but superhuman higher power, or karma or fate or the universe or evolution, but if our only reason to exist was so we could die at any moment, then we wouldn't be here, we'd all be dead. As Gabe said, what would a world full of happiness and love be without the negative? How would we even know? I think the movie shows that the goal is not to be fearless, but to recognize your fears, recognize that you're scared, and know that makes you human and allows you to appreciate the things you aren't scared of even more. At the core I think Peter Weir's films are about control and this one best demonstrates that there are things we can't control and that's okay, and to look for the bright spots of light to make us appreciate our control and lack of control together.
ReplyDeleteMax chooses emotion, Max chooses love, Max chooses living. Because I'd argue that with the state he's in most of the movie, he doesn't feel any true feelings, aside from perhaps panic, something that looks like happiness but feels a lot more like when you're not happy so you trick yourself into thinking you're SUPER FREAKING THRILLED, and then that weird inbetween sort of limbo state where he stares into the distance. I once knew someone who said he believed people had to have three things in their life to survive and function. One was love, one was something I don't remember, but the third was faith. Faith in something, anything, God, people, cheese, whatever it was but people had to have faith. I think Max has lost his faith until the end of the movie. He's floundering, feeling like everything should have ended, he should have died, but he didn't and now he feels like he can't trust anything in his life, including the people he once held dear. And I think, by asking his wife to save him and eating that strawberry, he's asking to have that faith restored, and I think he does.