That's the last words of the movie—and reviewing the ending (as you will be able to below) I was struck by how much this story is about family, about, even more specifically, fathers and sons. Just as Witness was. And Master and Commander. And as we'll see tomorrow, Dead Poets Society.
Clark and I both agreed that this was a better movie than we had given it credit for originally, Clark having seen it twice before, and me, once. This may be my favorite Weir movie. And we both agreed that Harrison Ford is not miscast in this film. As Clark said, he may be better here than he was in Witness.
So:
1. What did you think of this film, now that you've finished it? And what moment or image in it defines for you what this movie is truly about—and how so?
2. This was a commercial and critical failure. According to the oracle (Wikipedia), it cost $25 million to make (and it looks it) and made only $14 million. Why do you think this didn't catch on with audiences in 1986? And do you think it would if it were released today?
3. Clark put it so well today. "How do—or should—we live? Straight or crooked?" How does this film answer that question? And, acknowledging that this is a theme Weir returns to again and again, how do we see this presented in two of his other films—and with what answer? (This is the kind of connecting you're going to be asked to do on the test, so here's a chance to get started preparing for the test a week from tomorrow)
Here's the powerful ending of the film.
1. I liked it, although it was not my favorite Weir film. So far they rank: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli, The Mosquito Coast, The Last Wave, Witness, Master & Commander. My judgement had less to do with the themes of the film (which were intricate and complex), the acting (I also thought Harrison Ford did a good job), or the cinematography. I just don't like the let's-go-explore-the-wild movies. That kind of plot doesn't interest me. For me, the most striking image was when Allie and his family walk into the church and see the natives watching a white man give a sermon on TV. You get a juxtaposition of two paths, that seem equally unattractive. You can either buy into religion, capitalism, the American way of life, which leaves you kind of dull, lifeless and robotic. Or you can buy into Allie's imaginary natural utopia, which gives you a connection with nature, but makes equally spiritually and physically powerless because Allie's controlling everything all the time.
ReplyDeleteI don’t really get why people didn’t like this film. Scrolling through the reviews on IMDB, it seems like most of the people who criticized it thought it lacked relatable, compelling characters. I can see why people thought the children were a little flat, but I think that Harrison really brings home a compelling if not relatable character. And anyway, who says all movies have to have morally-justified leads that make you feel comfortable and cozy? Cherubic protagonists don’t teach audiences anything and can very boring.I don’t think the reviews for this film would change if the film was released now, because I think it’s style is very like that of Master & Commander. Like Master & Commander, it has excitement and bangs and crashes, but it also relies heavily on messages and themes which most audiences wouldn’t pick up on or find interesting. That’s why this movie would be a dud.
I feel like this is cheating, but do you have to pick just straight or crooked? Is there a way to reconcile the two? I’m not sure, because the alternative of the middle ground isn’t as exaggerated as the two extremes each movie depicts. But I still think there’s a way. As Mollie said today in class, living in the wild was a very traumatic experience for them but they can take their new knowledge and apply to the “civilized” world, so they can live without being alone in the woods without being pulled in by America’s Christianity and commercialism. I think we saw this originally in Master & Commander, where the young Blakely combines the teachings of Aubrey and Maturin to become a “fighting naturalist”. This might be a stretch, but in Gallipoli I think we found a brief moment of harmony when Archy and Frank are enroute to the bootcamp, away from the civilized world. They still have human connections in each other, but they also still have connections with the natural world which helps to diffuse all of society’s ideas of macho-ness.
1. I really liked this movie. It was interesting throughout. Every moment led to the next in a way The Last Wave and Picnic at Hanging Rock didn't for me. Yes, I wanted to know what happened, but some parts didn't seem to even end. Everything in this movie is concise, and doesn't drag on or get boring. It was very well made, I think. I also loved watching the change in their houses. They started with a nice, traditional American house. Then they had a comfortable but more primitive house, and finally some logs tied together with the skeleton of a dome on top. Their houses described their situation, and also Allie's sanity from the viewer's eyes. He was a bit odd, but pretty mainstream, then adventurous, then downright crazy about his beliefs. The most memorable part of the movie for me is the image to the seashell wind chime. It reminded me of one of the main themes of the movie: making something out of nothing. The whole film is based around the idea that you can lose/get rid of everything you own except what you can find in nature, and build a life back.
ReplyDelete2. I think this movie was a failure because you can't just watch it. You have to think about the themes to really understand it. Also, it shows an American man who hates America and goes a bit crazy, calling his kids savages. I don't think Americans would want to see someone turn on his family in the first place, but to know that he's an American too, that they could very well turn into him, is a horrifying idea. I don't know if it would be a failure today. I don't think it would be as bad, but Americans, like any other people, like to know that people like them will not lose all sense of family for the sake of ice and adventure. If you just watch the movie for the plot, Allie's change would be the most obvious thing in the movie, and therefore the most memorable. It would be rather horrifying to think that someone possibly similar to you turned into someone as crazy as Allie ended up.
3. I don't know. Is it better to be sheltered from scary experiences (war and lack of civilization, for example), or to experience them, and become stronger because of them? Personally, I'd rather experience them and use the knowledge gained in day-to-day life. You can really learn a lot from war (code breaking, tracking, of constellations are what my grandfather learned, for example). And though they may not be commonplace in my life, it's still cool to be able to write a code or tell where you are based on stars. You can't live without a little crookedness, though, as Emi said in class today, a perfect life would be incredibly boring. Sure, one day might be fun, but after that, there's no challenge to life. You'd win every game you played, and you wouldn't have any excuse to think anymore, because whatever you did would be perfect. I would hate that. You have to find the balance between crooked and straight. Another movie this came up in is Gallipoli. Archie wants so badly to go to war, thinking it will be fun and interesting. Which it is, but he also ends up dead. Yes what he learned may have been beneficial, but the knowledge didn't help him any. Also, in Master and Commander, Aubrey pretty much only cares about destroying the Acheron. He only cares about the war and the traditions on the ship. This ends in the deaths of many, without gaining much anyway, as the French captain is still alive. Weir shows us extremes of crookedness to demonstrate that being too extreme does not end well. The key is to learn from "crooked" experiences, and to use that knowledge in other situations.
1.
ReplyDeleteI loved this film. The ending was painful to watch, from Fatboy exploding until the final moment. I cringed a lot, but mostly because of how ridiculously proud and thick-skulled Allie is, not really because of the movie itself. I thought that the film was so well done: cinematography, acting, everything. The cinematography was so beautifully done with the big, open shots of the river with the tiny boat chugging down the middle. I’ve found big, open, wide-angle shots to be a signature image in many of Weir’s films. What really struck me in this movie was the moment with the kids running about the missionary camp and just looking at all the toys and then walking into the church. It really showed the two extremes the movie presents.
2.I’m biased because I liked this movie so much, so I don’t really get why people didn’t like it, but I’ll attempt to explain/understand. I think that to an extent, people don’t want to hear about how much civilization sucks, which is a topic that Allie Fox loves to rant on about throughout the movie. It lowers morale/patriotism, and some people might just hate a main character that hates America. The other characters in the movie (aside from Little Orphan Annies) had depth and ideas behind them, and the idea that they are flat completely boggles me. Look at the struggle that Jerry goes through with how he feels about his father! This kid must be 12 and he’s fantasizing about how to kill his father and then has to struggle with his father’s death. I think this movie made people uncomfortable to an extent because a) they didn’t like what it had to say and/or b) they didn’t understand it. People tend to fear that which they do not understand, or as Andrew Smith said: “People fear what they don't understand and hate what they can't conquer.” I don’t think the opinions on the film would change much if this was a current film. Maybe people are more open-minded now than they were in 1986, but I think that people don’t always like movies that they don’t understand or have to think about.
3. I personally think there’s a third choice: a balance between the two. You can’t live life right along a straight line because that’s constricting and boring, but living along a crooked line can be confusing, unexpected and even dangerous. Why else does yin-yang exist? There must be a balance between the darkness and the light of life (sorry for the cliché). If I have to pick one, I’d say to live crooked. It’s more interesting, it’s off-beat, it’s more dangerous, and it’s more exciting. We see this in Witness and in Master and Commander. In Master and Commander, Stephen and Jack are the two flip sides to a coin, we’ve beaten that point into the ground. In Witness, we see Rachel and John and their two lifestyles. In both movies, we end with a possibility of the child protagonist (Blakeney and Samuel) picking a balance of the two conflicting sides in their life. We don’t know what they will choose, just a possibility of following either side or balancing it out.
I really enjoyed this film. It was very interesting, not in the conventional sense, but still interesting. I think it was a bit slow moving for the average viewer, but I like films like that and I really enjoyed this one. It was slow, but it kept me involved and interested the whole time. It was hard to watch, which made it easy to watch. What I mean is that the movie is very hard on its characters and often times downright cringe worthy, especially in Allie's scenes later in the film. But it's that aspect that helped keep me hooked. If it was all sunshine and smiles this movie would lose a lot of its enjoyableness.
ReplyDeleteI think that this film wasn't a big success because, as I said, it's slow. The average moviegoer likes big, fast paced, explosive movies like The Avengers or equally fast paced romance movies. They aren't interested in sitting around for two hours watching a slow, character-oriented movie about a guy and his family and their personalities. So they didn't go. The movie is also not something that is easily digestible; you have to think about it and get really involved in its themes and ideas to fully enjoy it. Your average romance or action fan won't want to do that, they'll want to just watch it. It's like a book more than a movie in some ways, it takes your mind and not just your eyes to really get it.
I think that, as others said, a middle ground is needed. Straight is too boring, flat, and lifeless. But crooked, as exemplified by Allie and his family in this film, is too crooked at times, too dangerous and unpredictable. So in a balance, you get excitement and adventure, but some sense of order and sensibility as well. There's just too many dangers in crooked and too few in straight. I think this is clear in lots of Weir's films. In Gallipoli, at least in the first half, Archie is dead set on serving his country and helping in the war effort, which is a crooked and dangerous path. Frank, on the other hand, is content to sit around with his friends, do odd jobs, and run races, living a pretty normal and bland life. In Master and Commander, meanwhile, we've got Aubrey and Maturin, with both seeming to have a taste of both: Aubrey lives straight for his country and his duty, but that's a dangerous life, and Stephen is adventurous and excited to discover new things, but he's not a sailor or a warrior so much as he is a doctor and a scientist.
1. Good movie but I wish that they all lived happily ever after. Things are just better that way. I found the characters very empathetic and the story was a middle class (living on the farm) to riches (just after Allie built Jumbo Fat Boy) to rags story. My favorite part of the movie was when Geronimo was working together to build a village. It reminded me of the building scene in every Phineas and Ferb episode. I thought that the scene in which Mr. Haddy comes by while the Foxes are living on the trashed beach sums up the movie pretty well. It shows the tension in the family. Allie always thinks he’s right even if he’s endangering his family. Allie feels like he can’t accept any help.
ReplyDelete2. Making America the enemy is not popular in… America! I don’t think that the US was the enemy in this movie but Allie painted a bad picture of populated areas in general. In Master and Commander they changed the enemy from the Americans to the French so that it would sell better in the box offices. It probably made people uncomfortable to even consider the validity of Allie’s ideas about America. Also, this movie paints a bad picture of Christianity which people might have gotten upset about. Mosquito Coast isn’t particularly enjoyable to watch either. I feel so bad for Ally’s family.
3. I think that Peter Weir shows the great things about living “crooked” but also what’s wrong with it. In the Last Wave, Burton begins his journey living straight and oblivious and by the end, he seems to have somewhat more of an idea of what’s going on. Instead of just being a sitting duck while the apocalypse crashed down upon him he got to know a little bit about why it was happening. In Witness, Samuel begins with a very ordered lifestyle and ends with information of what danger is. He isn’t left with the knowledge of how to change the violence, just that it is there. In Mosquito Coast, Allie comments on the horrors of America and tries one approach of how to combat the problem. We learn from watching the movie that that approach doesn’t work. In each of these movies we are faced with an issue and though each of the movies had a conclusion, there wasn’t an answer to how to combat the problems.
It was interesting how emotionally attached to the characters i was, despite not seeing the first half. The first image i saw was the family walking around a destroyed village of some type, i was confused, but i instantly felt sorry for the family. Obviously the audience quickly falls in love with the adorable twins (i swear they were boys), i came to like the big-heart and radicalness of the middle child and i liked the leadership of the oldest boy. The audience also automatically feels sorry for the mother. I grew to hate Allie, he is one of my least favorite movie characters of all-time. If Allie had committed suicide and died while underwater, he would easily be my least favorite character and i would hate this movie, fortunately he survived. The image that stuck with me was when Allie gave Mr.Haddy his watch. The watch was his only tie to the civilized world. The tie was both the watch itself and the essence of time. When he gave the watch away symbolized the fact that there is no going back to civilized world.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it made a lot of money because it made people uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable watching the kids go through things like that and having no control over the situation. Also, i think people felt weird making out Allie to be the villain. It was weird because viewers questioned, is what Allie is doing really so bad? It's hard to watch somebody with good and morale intentions, be that bad of a person.
I think Weir presents the idea there a many types of structures, and some, from the outside, might look crooked but are still straight. In Mosquito Coast, from the outside looking in the living conditions looked like a mess, but the family functioned like a machine and there was an acceptable structure. Not sure if i'm allowed to mention a movie we haven't seen yet...But in Dead poets Society, there is a structure that is altered that to some looks crooked, but to the students and teacher is straight.
1. Although my perspective on the main character has drastically changed, I still thoroughly enjoyed the film. It’s still one of my favorites we’ve watched in the class. I love how we split the movie perfectly in two days, because the mood is so different in the second half than it was in the first. I almost feel like I’m writing about a completely different film! I think the scene that stood out to me the most, although it wasn’t full of dialog or action, was when we got all the shots of the invented ice machine in the jungle. It looked so foreign and misplaced in such a tropical land, and I think it truly captured the essence of trying to force civilization into somewhere it didn’t really belong.
ReplyDelete2. Like someone said in class today, if I was not taking this course I don’t think I would have watched this movie. Among all the other action packed and mystery filled films that are out there, one might look past this film. Although I don’t find this particularly fair, it’s understandable. You should watch this movie with patience and really allow it to sink in. People usually don’t go for those types of films. But, if people do finally sit down and watch it, I don’t think they would forget about it like they do all the other action packed but meaningless stories.
3. I personally don’t believe that there is a set right and wrong way to live. It is a matter of preference. In this case, Allie tries to make the lines of nature straight for himself and his family. Although it went horribly wrong in the end, thanks to his incessant need to keep inventing, it could have gone really well. In the first half of the movie, he and his family lived happily while trying to make the crooked lines of nature straight. In Picnic on Hanging Rock, we see the opposite. The girls seemed to be living on too straight of a line, and finally break free to run their course on the crooked side of life (or so we may assume). Also, in The Last Wave, David continuously tried to make meaning of the crooked lines of fate. He was so set on figuring out what was happening until the very end, when it was too late. Even though Weir revisits the same theme of how to live life, I feel like we always get different variations as opposed to one solid answer.
I can't decide if I love or hate this movie, but I have strong feelings about it either way, so to me that proves that it's a great movie. A defining moment for me is the day after the ice machine explodes when the family gets to the beach and celebrates because they can finally go home, but Allie insists that America isn't there anymore. That is the moment I realized that Allie had become like one of his machines--programmed to perform a certain task until it broke down. Allie had programmed himself to see his vision through but never had the capacity to abort the mission or even realize he was in too deep and jeopardizing his family. I think the movie wasn't successful in 1986 because it made people so uncomfortable. Watching a movie about someone who is crazy and dangerous and feeling like there's no salvation for the characters can be very disturbing. I had a similar feeling while watching this movie that I did while watching the movie Silver Linings Playbook, a great movie about people who may or may not be crazier than Allie. Judging by the success of Silver Linings Playbook, maybe Mosquito Coast would have fared better with today's audiences. As for the question of living straight or crooked, I think we should live flexibly; we find it so much easier to live straight because we're humans and we like order, but we're doomed to bend to forces outside of our control unless we can learn to live a little crookedly when neccessary. The characters in Weir's other movies who survive and thrive are the ones like John and the Lapps and Aubrey and his men who live straight when they can but can bend when they need to. This relates to the theme presented in Weir's other movies that people and institutions who are accustomed to structure and control can't maintain control in an intrinsically chaotic world. Allie articulates the view of people like Mrs. Appleyard who believe that it is their job to impose order on the world because God didn't finish it. Collectively, Weir's films make the point that if God did create an unfinished world, it was meant to be unfinished ao that Aboriginese spirituality and human emotions could exist outside of the realm of human understanding.
ReplyDelete1. I really enjoyed this film. I found the plights of the characters more interesting and complicated than those of the other films we watched. In the beginning of the film at least, Allie’s arguments are thought provoking. His reaction is extreme and questionable, but he’s far from an antagonist. His convictions never change, but our opinion of him does. If he had succeeded he would’ve been someone to admire. That little community looked pretty good. Even if that’s not what you’re into (I would never want to live there) you have to admit he pretty much set things up the way he’d promised. The downfall makes me wonder if his community was always doomed or if it could have survived sans creepy guys with guns. His anger at the reaction to the ice makes me think it would be the former. It makes him a very interesting character. I see too moments that define what the movie is about. The first is when the small village is finally on its feet and Allie and his family sit down in their nice house for thanksgiving dinner. This shows the best of Allie and what things could’ve been. The next moment is when the whole family is celebrating on the beach getting excited about going home and Allie says something like “Everything we need is right here.” This shows him at his lowest. Interestingly enough it’s the perseverance he shows here at his worst that inspired everyone so much when he was at his best.
ReplyDelete2. This film doesn’t compliment many people. The entirety of the United States is scorned for its lifestyle. Religion is presented as something to laugh at. It’s also not the traditional adventure movie. Understanding and thinking are essential to taking something away from the movie. That can be tough on American audiences. I don’t think it would do any better today. Attitudes have not shifted from commercialism at all.
3. I think that he is saying there’s no one best way to live. Extremes are presented in this movie. Rome Georgia (Weir’s choice for a representation of America) looks awful. So they leave. Then their attempt to live new lives ends disastrously. So maybe it’s best to find some middle ground. Don’t completely abandon everything and try to make your own society, but don’t buy into everything that the masses buy into. Allie was restless. Maybe a better option would’ve been to seek a real type of change where he was. Or maybe move somewhere where change was easier or where people thought more like him. In Master and Commander, Aubrey compromises. He chases the Acheron to the best of his ability and then realizes that the doctor’s life is more important. Then he uses an idea from science to destroy his enemy. I will grudgingly use Witness as my next example. In the end the Amish see that true violent conflict does exist and must sometimes be faced. John Book sees that there are others ways of living than his. He can’t give up his life and Rachel can’t give up hers, but when the two worlds clash, peaceful ends can be achieved through a mix of the two lifestyles. Although it seems to me that the real world wins by a point (Book gets two guys violently and the kid gets one by ringing the bell).
1. I really like the film yesterday and I still loved it today. I love how everyone begins to realize that there father has gone mad trying to achieve his dream of a Utopian society. My favorite part of the film is the development of the characters. The scene that stuck with me the most was when Mother finally had had enough of her husband and she screams. I love that scene because the viewer finally sees that Mother has a backbone and doesn't only follow.
ReplyDelete2. No doubt that this movie was a commercial failure because there was a lot of thinking to do during this film. As you saw in class today during the discussion, there are a lot of themes in this film. People couldn't sit down in the theater and try to figure out the meaning of the film. Most people who watch films go to watch films because they want to relax, not think. I think that the culture is different now than it was in 1986, and this film would be a commercial hit!
3.Life is too complicated to live just crooked or straight. This movie shows that it is good to live on both sides and not to go too extreme. Weir shows this by comparing two worlds, which he does in almost every film. The first world is Allie and the missionary, who have world with straight edges, and the indigenous people with a crooked world. Weir shows that both sides didn't work if they went completely on one extreme, but people like mister Hati, who live in the center of the spectrum, succeed in the world.
It's funny, I was not a big movie person before this class. Sure, I liked to watch a good movie now and then, but I had trouble focusing. Having ADD (don't worry, I'm not about to get all "I have ADD and this is why life is hard" on y'all) I have trouble sitting for more than 30 minutes maximum. With these films, I have been able to sit and watch and get absorbed. With The Mosquito Coast I feel as though it has been more difficult to sit through and watch. This might also be due to the fact that I watched the second half of the movie before I watched the first half. That messed things up. I would probably say that this is my least favorite movie so far. It's not that I hate it, it is just at the bottom of the list. I think the fact that Harrison Ford bothers me might be making my judgement unfairly choose favorites. I do like the children and the people of Jeronimo. Charley is smart and I'm glad that Weir took time to show his intelligence.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of this movie being a commercial and critical failure...I can't say I am extremely surprised. I can't even say I'm really surprised. In fact, I am not that surprised. I can see a lot of people thinking that the movie was boring or predictable. I can also see a lot of people thinking it was unpredictable and extremely interesting, but the point is that I understand both sides. Maybe people don't like Harrison Ford. Just a thought.
Ah, the question of living straight or crooked. I mean, what defines either way of life? It is like today in class when Emi was talking about living in a perfect world. I agree with her in saying I don't know if I would want a perfect world. I think many people would say a perfect world is a world with no mistakes or war or conflict or struggle. No, I do not want people to die in wars and I do not want others to struggle. However, it is the wars and the down times and the struggles that are as important (if not more important) than the good times. I tell myself every day that a person should not be measured by how far they have fallen, but by how far they are able to rise afterwards. So, I would say that people should live this "crooked" life because it is the twists and turns and divots and mountains that create the life that I want to live.
I shall not drop to my knees in praise for this movie, however it will be place on my mental shelf of respectable films. Most unusual was the effect it had on me. After the ending, my brain was left empty, and throughout the discussion I had nothing to say. This is quite a strange phenomenon for me. Why is this? Perhaps the film, in all it's disarray, is actually more complete than a traditional Hollywood film. Disregarding the ridiculous setting and exaggerated events, the plot carried sheer simplicity; a family goes from point A to point B with many a lesson learned in between. After the ending, I wanted nothing more than to walk out of the room and be on my way. Content.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to define the film in an image—to take the DVD cover picture, say— I would have to use the picture of the two boys in the canoe, dragged behind their father. They would like nothing more in that moment than to kill him.
In 1986, Ronald Reagan was president. The very roots of this movie spring from ideas such as rebellion, skepticism, and radicalism. The 80s, in comparison to its preceding decades, kept to itself. Therefore, a of such outlandish ideas such as this, may have been ignored simply due to this aspect.Ten years before or ten years after, Weir's pockets would be bulging.
Straight or crooked? Well, Weir clearly loathes the straight, or, if nothing more, he finds it a good antagonist in the film making industry. Interestingly, I must note, the director doesn't give us much of a crooked world to revere in comparison. Perhaps, one won't see this ideal world of Weir's until they reach heaven— paradise. Although, in that case, Weir doesn't even know what he is after. He must know this; his ideal world does not actually exist, in life or in film. Therefore, rather than paint us a nirvana that is obscured by clouds, he does the next best thing; he shows the opposite extremity— that which he sees wrong with the world. We cannot become more crooked, for even running off to the jungle has no effect, but we can become less straight.
Picnic at hanging rock throws "crookedness" at the audience, I think, harder than any movie. This "crookedness" is so potent that it comes in the form of spiritual mysticism, eerie synthesizer music, and the abandonment of all structure, by Miranda and Marion, to God know what.To all the characters in the movie, the event at Hanging Rock was something horrible. But was it really? Furthermore, nearly as potent, us pupils saw a striving for "crookedness" in The Last Wave. In fact, in this bizarre film, the ideas of straight and crooked were taken to a whole new level. As David leaves his very own structure for the ways of the aborigines, he discovers an entirely new structure—one that is arguably more powerful.
All this just blew my mind. I am going to go sleep on it.
This was one of my favorite Weir movies. I loved that I hated the character Allie. To have such an unlikable main character is a big risk, which I assume impacted how it did commercially. A scene that was hard to watch was where the family had just left Geronimo and reached the ocean. They were deciding which way to go in order to get home, but Allie was intent on searching through the washed up trash on the beach. His kids and Mother told him they wanted to go home, but he proceeded to say the same thing when they first landed on Geronimo--that they have everything they need on the beach and what they don't have, they don't need. When his family still tries to convince him to leave, he lies and tells them America has been blown up and they can't go back. This is where he turns. He goes from being slightly crazy to tyrannical--lying to his family in order to get them to do what he says.
ReplyDeleteAs I said before, I think a lot of people didn't like it because Allie was so unlikable. Usually one wants to root for the main character, not hate him. He is so ego centric and tyrannical, that you start to feel for his family. This to me is what kept me so emotionally attached--it was his family I cared about, not Allie. If released today, I'm not sure how it would do. People might be more accepting of Allie-- open to the new ideas in the movie industry.
It's hard to answer that question because I disagree with it. There are times to live with straight lines and times to live with crooked ones and times where there are no lines, just gray area. To answer the question though, Weir suggests we live in crooked lines. In Picnic at Hanging Rock, the girls are forced into boxes that define them by Mrs. Appleyard. By the end of the movie, some of the girls have bent those lines--taking off some of their clothing, engaging in "tomboy foolery," and even liking girls. In Master and Commander, Weir also suggests we live by crooked lines. The captain was very rational and the doctor was very into nature--by combining the two (disguising the ship, like the bug disguised itself) they were able to take over the French ship.
I'm unsure and frustrated. Because I definitely hated Allie, and I'm not entirely sure that I'm mixing up my feelings about him with my feelings about the entire movie. I feel like I liked it but then, as I mentioned in class, I'm extremely frustrated by it because it doesn't seem to present any viable options. Though I think there's a powerful line in the beginning narration where Charlie talks about his dad saying there'll be a war but it will be a war where neither side is entirely innocent. And I like that the movie explores the idea that with two extremes, things aren't gonna work. There's the world of modern civilization that, at least according to Allie, is causing anger and there's crime and a bunch of other issues, but then he attempts to create a whole new civilization and there's still crime and it doesn't work out. I think the movie points to a middle ground but doesn't show it and that was why the film was such a failure. Not only that, but the character Allie was telling the movie goers they were doing it wrong, but then Allie doesn't have it right either. It's not any sort of feel good movie, and it leaves you with a very disconcerted and angry feeling, at least for me.
ReplyDeleteI feel like there's a sense of helplessness in Weir's films. Well, maybe that's not the right word, but you have to search for the solution yourself, and when it's not immediately readily available it almost seems like there isn't one. Aubrey will never stop fighting and putting his own desires over the desires of others, the girls are never found and Sara kills herself, the last wave comes to take everybody out. While I definitely enjoy films that make you think, there's a certain satisfaction to a story playing out the way you expect it to, almost a feeling of "I made that happen" or that you had any affect on the outcome at all. It allows us instant gratification and a chance to feel in control. I think the lack of that in this film was what made it such a failure, which is interesting because I think the whole point of the film was to analyze that illusion of control. I think what Weir's films show, particularly Picnic at Hanging Rock and Master and Commander is that you can't live straight, and you can't live crooked, you have to be somewhere in between. The thing that allowed Aubrey to take the French ship was to use his own tradition as well as science. The school's environment killed Ms. Appleyard and Sara but the girls on the rock who went completely in the opposite direction of structure are never found. I think, perhaps, we should live like sine waves. Not straight or crooked, just curved, straddling and moving back and forth over the middle ground.
I liked this film a lot better than the other Peter Weir-Harrison Ford collaboration. It took more risks than Witness, which is quite a feat considering very bold to make a movie about Amish people. One image that stands out to me as having some meaning is when Allie had put Charlie and Jerry on the small boat tethered to the main boat. It was a bit hypocritical of Allie to do that, because his whole philosophy is to question the set structure and the way the things are, and what Charlie and Jerry were doing was questioning the structure their father had put into effect. However, they got punished for it. It goes with what Allie said about straight vs. crooked— even though Allie is set on questioning the greater system that is controlling society, he himself still wants to be in control of everyone in his world.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the main reasons this film didn’t do well was because Harrison Ford was still riding the Indiana Jones wave, and he was very much an American hero and people loved him. But in this movie, there isn’t much to love and he isn’t exactly a relatable guy. He’s crazy, and that could have been alienating for many viewers. I don’t think it would do that well today either, because while it is a large film in scope and the themes and ideas it is presenting and it has a fair amount of action, but it’s not exactly a summer blockbuster that people would want to see and would passively enjoy.
I don’t think you can have it all. I don’t think you can have a world that makes sense while also being a mystery that you need to figure out. In this film, Allie thinks he has figured it all out and has found a way to make his crooked world straight, but he only creates even more crooked lines for himself and it leads to his death. I think you can’t try to change the crooked world we live in because there is something bigger going on around us. In Gallipoli, the mission they were on and the war they were participating in was totally misguided and crooked, but they participated regardless because there was nothing else they could do, and their efforts didn’t amount to much. In the Last Wave, David tries to solve the mystery of Dreamtime, but there were greater forces at work. We are all so insignificant in the grand scheme of things and we can’t comprehend just how little power and control we have, so it is time to accept the fact that our lives are forever crooked, and maybe then crooked will become straight.
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ReplyDeleteI really liked this film (well I’ve basically liked pretty much all of them). I really love how my opinion of the father’s character changed so drastically in between days. Yesterday, I could understand his reasons for keeping his children away from the world and wanting to begin something new. Today, all I felt was hatred for him, although I have to admit I did feel kind of bad for him. Just a little. For what stuck with me the most, I’d say that watching Allie completely transform Geronimo with all of his inventions was fascinating to me.
ReplyDeleteI’m having a hard time understanding why it was such a failure as well. I looked on Rotten Tomatoes, and it got 75%, which is pretty good, and I thought that all of the acting was great, too, especially Harrison Ford because it wasn’t his usual role and made him struggle with it a bit. I agree with Molly in saying that this movie probably didn’t do well commercially because the idea of a man abandoning and criticizing the civilization that they live in couldn’t have been too appealing at the time. I think that maybe the movie was too real and freaked people out in that sense.
Maybe he’s saying that people shouldn’t live a particular way—that lives are neither crooked or straight, but in-between. Weir answers this question in The Mosquito Coast just as he does in all of his other movies: by giving the viewer two opposite worlds. Jack and Stephen, which is traditional vs. scientific, Allie and the missionary, indigenous vs. straight, John Book and the Amish, etc. are all examples of characters who represent different beliefs/worlds in Weir’s films that we’ve seen. Weir never really provides a direct answer, but leaves the audience to think it through and decide for themselves.
After watching the whole movie I didnt really like it. Allie was the main reason I didnt like it. He was annoying throughout the film. He was self centered and didnt listen to anyone. The production of the film and the technical parts were fine, but Allie really bothered me. An image that really stuck to me was when Allie went to go get some piece of the motor and didnt come back and Mother was really sad, and Charlie and Jerry said lets go back, and then Allie came up and called them traitors. I thought that was an interesting scene because Allie seemed to purposley untie the rope and later when he got the motor he seemed to sneak up on them and to see what they would say. That seemed a little bit crazy to me. I think he wanted to catch them giving up, and Allie clearly didnt like that.
ReplyDeleteI think people didnt watch this movie beacause it was a depressing movie. Also it was about how Allie failed and how he brought his whole family down with him. It doesnt seem like a movie that I would want to watch for fun, and I think thats what other people thought too.
Some movies that we watched that are similar to this was Picnic at Hanging Rock. Mrs. Appleyard was very orderly, and wanted something to be done and only one way. An example of that was with Sara, and the poem and how Sara didnt want to memorize that poem she wanted to read her own poem. Another movie that was kind of similar was i. Master and Comander. Jack wants to just do one thing and fight while on the other hand Stephen wants to go do other things and visit the Galapagos.
I personally still liked the movie, even though Allie became an unbearable character. I can’t remember who said it, but I think that reason that I stayed with the movie was because the story wasn’t about Allie, but about Charlie. I think that most defining scene was when the raft disappeared into the storm. For me, this reminded me of the Flood in Noah, and the cleansing of the earth. We known that Allie refers to America as a “toilet” and to me, this scene highlights the search for a pure land to live on.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of people had said that they read some reviews that said that Harrison Ford’s acting was too pushed, and I can see why some people might think that, but I personally liked Ford’s acting. (But I also think that Will Ferrell is over the top and too dramatic, but he seems to be well liked by most people, so maybe its just a personal thing or an actor only playing certain characters too much) Although our classroom isn’t very representative of the whole population, I think that the movie would have gotten better reviews if it had been released now, but this observation is based on the class’s relatively positive reactions. But I would have to agree with Clark, I liked Harrison Ford better in this film than in Witness. Even though there was so much repressed emotions between Book and Rachel, I actually found the way that Allie gallivants around speaking his words of wisdom to be much more interesting. However, I can see why some audiences in 1986 would find Allie’s words of wisdom to be insulting to their way of life.
When Allie says that he wanted to have right angles and straight lines in nature, I wrote in my notes “man vs. nature”. We see man vs. in Picnic at Hanging Rock and in Master and Commander as well, as Aubrey attempts to fight the sea in his attempt to capture the Acheron. I think the Weir asks us to find common ground with nature, as it hurts as well as heals us. I believe that if anyone would be able to figure out how to live between crooked and straight, it would have been Charlie. Based on the faith and love that Charlie still has for his father at the end of the movie, I believe that he would try to honor his fathers ideals while blending them with his own as he moved forward in life.
1. I have seen this movie before (as I said yesterday) and I really like it. I think it is a great movie that is profoundly disturbing in a way that is very engaging. I really like the character of the father because he seems so real and yet so very removed from any of my real life experiences. This is what makes the movie disturbing. My favorite part and the part that defines the film for me was the part where they all wake up in the morning and Allie is sitting there looking very blank and then mother says something about being so sorry that the village was destroyed and he says something like “sorry… don’t you see it… we’re free.” I don’t think that I quoted that exactly, but I still think that it is one of my favorite lines in any movie ever. It also tells us that the story is going to go down hill fast and how it will do so.
ReplyDelete2. I think that it did not really do well then because (I may be wrong) people still liked America a lot. Now I think that people are less patriotic. This movie really says all of the things that we are now realizing. America is full of people who take it for granted and they will definitely screw it up at some point. I think this movie would do well now because its message is easy for many people to relate to. It was not as relatable 30 years ago.
3. I thought that this movie was kind of different from the other films in that there was no group of people that seemed to have it right or was at least made to seem to have it right. In Whiteness the Amish are the people portrayed as having done things right. In the last wave the Aborigines are the people who are shown this way. This movie is closer to picnic at hanging rock in many ways. In picnic at hanging rock all of the groups of people seemed to have a rather skewed view of reality. This was also true about Mosquito Coast. I would say that this movie still answers the question a bit. I would agree with what was said in class today in that Mr. Haddy was the only person who seemed very happy and fairly well off. I think that this movie tells us that the way to live straight is to be happy. Allie was only happy when he was working on something. This movie tells us that the way to live straight is to find a way to be happy forever.
ReplyDelete1. I don't like it very much. There were scenes that were really well done, and I liked a lot of the different parts of it. I liked many of the characters and I liked the humor. I was just kind of depressed that the father wasn't being a real hero for his kids. Allie seemed to make the wrong choices for his family at every turn, and his family did nothing about it. There was so much imbalance of power, and I'm sorry, but Allie was just an ass. I really mean it when I say he reminds me of Jack from The Shining. I think the section where we see clip after clip of Allie ranting was particularly telling. This supported my belief that his actions weren't solely chosen because he thought they were best for his family. He clearly had intense anger and resentment built up about things in the United States. It seemed to surpass a concern for the well-being of his kids. He seemed frantic to build a society and make himself known.
2. My guess as to why people didn't like it is the reason I didn't like it. I was depressed. I think the highest point for the family was at the beginning, and everything went downhill from there. There's certainly a chance that it might have offended people. I think Weir knew what he was doing when he created the gender and race roles in the film, but a viewer who is just looking at the surface of the film might not understand that. Also I could see how Allie's views about America could potentially be seen as offensive. I could potentially see it being a little more popular now, but I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe just because so many people in our class seem to have liked it. Also, I don't know if Weir is more widely known now than he was when this film came out, but I think that would make a difference. Knowing Weir adds something to the movie, I think.
3. I think he ultimately says there is no perfect world with straight edges. Allie tried to create A Whole New World (sorry, Aladdin,) that would be his version of a utopia, and everything went to hell. His first attempt ended up burned down, and his second was almost completely engulfed by the ocean. Weir doesn't even suggest that such a civilization could ever work. In my opinion, Allie's unreasonable, selfish personality suggests that his vision is contrived and ridiculous. As I said earlier, I don't think the U.S. has a perfect system. I think that in a sense, Allie is doing what the U.S. is doing. They both search for a perfect world where life is easier. Picnic at Hanging Rock shows this in the way that the school tries to create "perfect young ladies." They teach "proper" ways of doing things. The film gives a certain majesty to nature, and disorder. The different values people have of societies is also shown in Witness. John can't live without his technologically advanced world, despite (and maybe even because of?) the violence it harbors. This is everything Allie, and the Amish, are against. In Witness, however, there is no middle ground. Rachel and John have to choose which world they want to live in: that of modern society, or that of the Amish. In The Mosquito Coast I believe there is a middle ground, but Allie doesn't see it. He can't comprehend of a compromise.