The Rom Com Thread

superrific said:
Well, I don't have time at the moment for a lengthy disquisition and I doubt anyone would want one, but I will try to make at least five points briefly. Spoilers ahead, though I will try to minimize.
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States: "I don't have time at the moment for a lengthy disquisition." Then drops the longest post on the page. Impressive as always.
 
Who would have thought that we would have a 6 page thread on rom com on this board? You guys and gals are something else. (y)
 
breepf said:
Yes, I do dispute that. You seem to be talking about romantic love. I'm talking about romanticism as a theory of art creation. To talk about Brooks making a film with no accidents whatsoever is to give credence, intentionally or otherwise, to a romantic theory of art creation.
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If you think I'm talking about romantic love, then you should read more closely. In my undergrad years, I wrote a paper about Foucault, Weiss and Rimbaud, titled roughly "Madness, The Clinician, And The Mystical Romantic." I'm well aware of what you mean by romanticism.

I didn't really say that AGAIG "broke the mold." I don't recall that. I said that it defied genre assumptions. You call that genre reflexivity (admittedly, I hadn't heard that term). Fine. I still think it makes the movie interesting and enjoyable. It's one reason I like it more than, say, When Harry Met Sally.

Nor did I say that Brooks made no accidents. I did say that there's nothing accidental about the film, which was a direct response to your claim that the narrative structure was "accidental." In context, that was what I was referring to. The idea that the writer (story wasn't his) accidentally stumbled upon the central conceit of the film, the one that the film painstakingly sets up, explores and then comments on, is preposterous.

I'm not interested in this discussion any more. Go ahead, have the last word. I still don't have any clue why you invited me to a discussion only to insult me for partaking in it. Strikes me as a dick move.
 
superrific said:
If you think I'm talking about romantic love, then you should read more closely. In my undergrad years, I wrote a paper about Foucault, Weiss and Rimbaud, titled roughly "Madness, The Clinician, And The Mystical Romantic." I'm well aware of what you mean by romanticism.

I didn't really say that AGAIG "broke the mold." I don't recall that. I said that it defied genre assumptions. You call that genre reflexivity (admittedly, I hadn't heard that term). Fine. I still think it makes the movie interesting and enjoyable. It's one reason I like it more than, say, When Harry Met Sally.

Nor did I say that Brooks made no accidents. I did say that there's nothing accidental about the film, which was a direct response to your claim that the narrative structure was "accidental." In context, that was what I was referring to. The idea that the writer (story wasn't his) accidentally stumbled upon the central conceit of the film, the one that the film painstakingly sets up, explores and then comments on, is preposterous.

I'm not interested in this discussion any more. Go ahead, have the last word. I still don't have any clue why you invited me to a discussion only to insult me for partaking in it. Strikes me as a dick move.
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You wrote this:

"Probably the reason that you think my take on film relies on romantic presumptions is that the thread is about romantic comedies. And while I understand you are using romantic as a historical/theoretical term, it's also true that most rom-coms are also romantic in that way. Unless there are surrealist rom-coms I'm not aware of (and no Belle Du Jour does not count, as it is just as modally romantic as any of the films you listed)."

^ Perhaps you're mixing up ideas in the back-and-forth, but it's categorically untrue that Hollywood romcoms are "romantic" in the aesthetic sense that gets translated into film studies as auteur theory. And, on top of that, romanticism is an inadequate theory of art--to apply it to Hollywood filmmaking is to only compound its inadequacies to a breaking point.

You misunderstand the distinction that I'm drawing between AGAIG as a melodrama and as romcom. As a romcom, sure, its screenwriter did all the genre shit to which I've already testified. The "romcom" appelation is public and obvious. We call the film a romcom as consumers; the studio likely thought of it a romcom too, though they'd be loathe to market it as such. Genre tags do not sufficiently differentiate multimillion-dollar products. After all, anyone can make a fucking romcom.

But as a melodrama, the screenwriter's work unfolds in a context about which he's likely unaware. There his variations on a theme are accidental, I'd contend. Put another way, yes, maybe he did come up with a generic variation: sympathy! But in the wider modal context, he's likely unaware of the history of melodrama as a modern way of storytelling that relies on suffering, victimhood, and virtue. Hell, he probably does not know the history of melodrama in American filmmaking. Melodrama was a generic tag placed on virtually every fucking film (western melodrama, crime melodrama, romance melodrama) in film distributor catalogs in the 1910s.

I'm sure your professor loved it, but I do not regard an undergraduate paper on mystical romanticism as evidence that you have any substantive knowledge of romanticism or art more generally.
 
I was this many years old when I realized Intolerable Cruelty a Coens' film! I had never watched. Had it recorded forever. Just randomly picked it last night. Didn't finish because passed out from a food coma, but seemed impressive. I definitely see the Coens' element. Very stylish shots and weird/interesting dialogue.

Impression I got was they're trying to deconstruct the genre. Am I correct? I'll have to finish, obviously. Lol.

Also, didn't realize there was another Rom Com thread, started by Bigs. I apologize. We can merge, if need.
 
I'll also add the fact it's a Coens' film probably explains why it's never hit the register, so to speak, as a rom com. Sort of like Burn After Reading as a spy film. Coens make most sense as regional story tellers. By which I mean, like the old regionalist fiction of the late 19th/early 20th Century that puts you in a particular milieu. O Brother, Fargo, No Country, etc.

When they go non-regional genre, I think a lot of what they're attempting to do gets lost on viewers.
 
MendotoManteo said:
I'll also add the fact it's a Coens' film probably explains why it's never hit the register, so to speak, as a rom com. Sort of like Burn After Reading as a spy film. Coens make most sense as regional story tellers. By which I mean, like the old regionalist fiction of the late 19th/early 20th Century that puts you in a particular milieu. O Brother, Fargo, No Country, etc.

When they go non-regional genre, I think a lot of what they're attempting to do gets lost on viewers.
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Arguably the Coen Brothers' best films are Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing, neither or which are regionalist. Or it's possible I don't get exactly what you mean by regionalist. And of course, the Coen Brothers' most famous film is likely Big Lebowski, which again isn't really regionalist.
 
superrific said:
Arguably the Coen Brothers' best films are Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing, neither or which are regionalist. Or it's possible I don't get exactly what you mean by regionalist. And of course, the Coen Brothers' most famous film is likely Big Lebowski, which again isn't really regionalist.
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You're right, about Big Lebowski. I got way ahead of my skis. But, yeah, that's their most famous/popular movie, and it's not regionalist.

What I meant by "regionalist," is like how American authors and readers of the turn of the century loved regional fiction. Stories that were tied to a particular place. There was a taste for the exotic, but we were still a relatively insular country at the time.

Things like New England fiction. Southern, of course. And Midwestern stories of life on the northern plains. Westerns were coming into their own at that point. I've always thought the Coens' tried to attempt these things but in a modern era.

Sorry, I'm not being articulate. Got a lot going on in my head.
 
MendotoManteo said:
You're right, about Big Lebowski. I got way ahead of my skis. But, yeah, that's their most famous/popular movie, and it's not regionalist.

What I meant by "regionalist," is like how American authors and readers of the turn of the century loved regional fiction. Stories that were tied to a particular place. There was a taste for the exotic, but we were still a relatively insular country at the time.

Things like New England fiction. Southern, of course. And Midwestern stories of life on the northern plains. Westerns were coming into their own at that point. I've always thought the Coens' tried to attempt these things but in a modern era.
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Got it. I agree with that as a partial characterization of the Coens' films. For instance, even Barton Fink -- which has a lot of ruminations about the interplay of high art and Hollywood -- is intimately tied to that place (including a rather dry, subtle but unmistakable reference to Hotel California). But you'd have to add their fascination with American film as well. And their interest in writing humor, a task at which they have enjoyed intermittent success. Hudsucker Proxy has its moments, for sure, but I think a lot of the humor there doesn't quite work.
 
superrific said:
Got it. I agree with that as a partial characterization of the Coens' films. For instance, even Barton Fink -- which has a lot of ruminations about the interplay of high art and Hollywood -- is intimately tied to that place (including a rather dry, subtle but unmistakable reference to Hotel California). But you'd have to add their fascination with American film as well. And their interest in writing humor, a task at which they have enjoyed intermittent success. Hudsucker Proxy has its moments, for sure, but I think a lot of the humor there doesn't quite work.
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So, I'm going to be honest. I haven't watched any of those films. Despite being a big fan. My ex wife once bought me a DVD collection (when that was still a thing) of their earlier films (most of which you mentioned), and one of our dogs chewed them up! Lol. So I've never watched. What would you recommend as a start, for their older films?

And have you watched Intolerable Cruelty?
 
MendotoManteo said:
So, I'm going to be honest. I haven't watched any of those films. Despite being a big fan. My ex wife once bought me a DVD collection (when that was still a thing) of their earlier films (most of which you mentioned), and one of our dogs chewed them up! Lol. So I've never watched. What would you recommend as a start, for their older films?

And have you watched Intolerable Cruelty?
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I have watched Intolerable Cruelty. To be honest, I have a bit of a soft spot for George Clooney (please do not repeat this, LOL) and I like the chemistry between him and Jolie, but it's also a flawed film and I didn't like it that much second time around. So I'd say, pretty good, with potential to be really good at times.

As for what are the best movies, it depends on what you want. Miller's Crossing is a gangster film, noirish, suspenseful. It's great. It does gangster with a bit of a lighter touch than Godfather films and the like. Not a super light touch, but it's not "leave the gun, take the cannoli." It's got wonderful performances; a strong plot; and plenty of suspense.

Barton Fink is more of an art film. Amazing performances -- including by John Goodman, in maybe his best overall performance -- and there's a lot going on. It's one of my favorites, though it's not necessarily for everyone. It's about a high culture playwright from NYC, who ostensibly was writing a theater for the common man but in reality he was a darling of the art scene there and never interacted with the "common man" too much. So they hire him to go out to Hollywood and task him with writing a B wrestling film. Turns out that the "common man" is a bit more elusive. Barton himself is obviously modeled on some of the playwrights of that era (Eugene O'Niell comes to mind), and there's a very interesting send-up of Faulkner (who did himself go to Hollywood late in life, where he found little success as a screenwriter). It's a great movie, but not necessarily the most approachable.

Blood Simple is a noir thriller that gets some acclaim in various circles. I was not that impressed. It's fine. It's competent. It's fun to watch. But compared to the other films, it's meh.

Hudsucker Proxy is their first serious attempt at comedy, in my view. Much of the humor in Fargo is just funny accents, which is amusing but shallow. It's bit of a weird film, and it's not for everyone. I like it. Don't love it. The best 45, 50 minutes are amazing, but it's inconsistent.

I sort of lost interest in them after Big Lebowski. I'm not sure exactly why. I guess their movies just didn't appeal to me. I saw the black and white one that followed Lebowski and found it boring. No Country is an exception, of course, as I like that film. It wasn't as if I was consciously avoiding them. It was just like, my interests were elsewhere. I didn't like Burn After Reading too much.
 
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