I'm glad to see you responding to my earlier post about Aronofsky and the RoboCop remake. Although we don't totally agree on the question of more "artistic" or "non-mainstream" filmmakers making big-budget summer spectacles for the masses, I honestly don't think our positions are as far apart as you make them out to be. (Oops, there goes the "red meat" you were hoping to sink your teeth into!) I thought you knew me and my cinematic tastes better than to think that I don't like "well-made action" as much as the next guy. It's not as though I look down my nose at anything that isn't My Dinner with Andre or a moody Bergmanesque family drama. Don't you remember how stoked I was to see Snakes on a Plane? (It may not have lived up to those expectations, but that's beside the point.) We've seen enough movies together over the years, and enjoyed them together, that I don't see how you can think that we have a "fundamental difference in our movie preferences"—or if we do, it's certainly not to the extent you make it out to be. Maybe that just means I'm a philistine too.
That said, I still can't help but think that Aronofsky and filmmakers like him could be doing more with their limited time and energy than making superhero movies. I enjoy those movies when they're well made—and I'd certainly rather see guys like Nolan and Raimi making them than Bay—but I just don't think those filmmakers' summer blockbusters are as good as most of their other films. The Dark Knight is probably the best of the kind of movies we're talking about, but I still don't think it has the level of passion and complexity of Memento or The Prestige. I'm not saying it's impossible for superhero movies, or big-budget action/adventure movies of other genres, to have potential for depth, complexity, and genuine emotion. Every genre has that potential; films like Shane, The Searchers, Once upon a Time in the West, and The Assassination of Jesse James show that Westerns aren't all just about cowboys vs. Indians or lawmen vs. bandits, and films like The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2001, Solaris, and Moon show that science fiction isn't just about saucer-men and Buck Rogers. However, I simply don't think that there's been a superhero movie of that caliber yet to raise the genre above the level of the average comic book, as the Westerns and sci-fi films I mentioned raised their respective genres above the level of pulp Western and sci-fi novels. I'd say The Dark Knight and Watchmen have come closest, but the superhero genre still has a long way to go, especially when we remember that those movies are the exception rather than the rule by a sadly wide margin.
So my position is basically that I really like a lot of the big-budget, mainstream movies filmmakers like Nolan and Raimi have made—and I'd probably even enjoy a RoboCop movie made by Aronofsky too. But they seem to have a harder time making truly complex, groundbreaking, passionate products when making those kinds of movies than I've seen them make with other projects. (Of course, meddling on studios' part to protect their $100-million-plus investments is a very possible contributing factor to this as well.) As much as I enjoy these kinds of movies, I can't help but think that these filmmakers could be put to better use elsewhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment