Their Frail Deeds Might Have Danced, by David Bax

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7 Responses

  1. bob says:

    Dylan Thomas, you say? so it cribs from Soderbergh’s Solaris, as well?

    i don’t mind if a movie shows its influences (that was one of the selling points of The Dark Knight for me, frankly). But it sounds like he either should have intercut the backstory with the plot (for pacing reasons) or truncated it down and left his “motivations” slightly more vague.

    But oh well. i’ll take a 3-hr epic after a summer and fall of Meh. Even if it’s less than Lean, if it’s as entertaining as, say, The Next Three Days or some other ‘adult-oriented thriller’, that’ll be good enough.

    Sometimes, you just get tired of watching movies made for kids.

  2. I loved the movie, but you bring up some good points. I tried to push Signs out of my head while watching Interstellar, but it’s hard to ignore the connection.

    Anywho, I love the show, huge fan.

  3. Ryan says:

    I think Nolan’s “justifications” for the supernatural events in the movie were far more audacious than simply throwing up your hands and saying “God did it”. That’s the laziest form of storytelling. I would disagree that there were any coincidences in the film’s “emotional crescendo” as well, but I can’t go any further without spoiling. I do think there were problems with the movie but the emotional connection between father and daughter brought it a long way.

    • Battleship Pretension says:

      In Signs, chalking the serendipity up to God is not lazy, it’s actually the whole point. Whereas in Interstellar, the coincidences are plot contrivances and trying too hard to justify them actually distracts from whatever the point may be.

      – David

  4. Ray (@RaySquirrel) says:

    I saw Interstellar opening night and was absolutely amazed! Is it a perfect film? No it is not. Do I care? No I don’t. I have long ago given up this futile search for the “perfect film” which many film lovers seem hopelessly attached to. As if there can be a film that is not only without flaws but represents some sort of Platonic ideal of what a film is. So what if Nolan’s dialogue is a little exposition heavy? To me that is just part of the texture. That is how Nolan writes dialogue. I see it is no different from how Aaron Sorkin, or David Mamet, or any other celebrated writer of the day.

    I think the issue of Nolan emulating other filmmakers without being able to replicate a similar emotional impact has more to do with the viewers who can immediately identify Nolan’s influences. For years I couldn’t identify what it was that made Akira Kurosawa such a celebrated filmmaker. Then I realized it was because Kurosawa pretty much influenced every other filmmaker who came after him. The way he made movies simply became the way movies were made. Scorsese, Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg, they are all essentially aping Kurosawa, and everyone else aped them.

  5. Matt Curione says:

    Fantastic review, David. You hit on a lot of points that I share, mostly having to do with Nolan’s self importance and the overstated grandeur of his films. Just another reason this is one of my favorite sites.

  6. Ines says:

    Great review. Spot on.

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