This is a baby rabbit I saw yesterday on my way back from the store. I was carrying a plastic bag of bread that made a lot of noise while I adjusted my camera but the little fellow didn't run away, not even when I got close enough for a macro shot;
He did finally run into the bushes, though not very far. He didn't seem sick or injured, I think either he was frozen in fear or just not old enough yet to properly fear humans.
How can I stay mad looking at a baby bunny? I have cooled down a little since last night but fundamentally my feelings haven't changed.
One could look at it really as Hazanavicius says he intended it, as a tribute to Vertigo or the music of Bernard Herrmann. After all, Stanley Kubrick used lots of music that wasn't originally written for his movies. I just recently praised Lars Von Trier's use of Wagner in Melancholia.
I think, on reflection, a lot of it has to do with the fact that Vertigo wasn't nominated for any Oscars, Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar, and The Artist is the favourite to win on Oscar night. For the eccentricity of it being a silent film, The Artist is still a very proper film. It praises Hollywood history and doesn't have a particularly dangerous plot, two things Hollywood loves to honour. It's neck and neck with Hugo, Martin Scorsese's own love letter to Hollywood history that also isn't a fraction of the quality of Raging Bull or Goodfellas, two films the Academy failed to award Best Picture when they clearly were the best pictures among the nominees (well, The Elephant Man was also nominated the year Raging Bull was, which was also a brilliant film).
Hearing music from Vertigo in The Artist is like seeing a big, beautiful python nailed to a wall in the waiting room of a corporate office. It's safe, straight As industry, where everyone can make it if you do everything right, kiss the right asses, bottling the Dionysus whose main priority was art. The fact that the movie's called The Artist is one of the series of slaps in the face it represents.
No comments:
Post a Comment