I have started Natural Born Killers at least three times, but always at night and have fallen asleep each time. Which boggles me, because I rather like what I've seen of it. I need to put that on my to-do list.

And yet, I cannot disagree with a single word.

Woo hoo! My sister in Oliver Stone hatred!

I love Eric Begosian. Had a great time with him at a live event a few years ago. (He was smoking. I was in the front row, having an allergy attack. He used it to hilarious effect in the act.)

Seeing him live kind of gives the lie to his all-nihilism all the time persona. I get the sense he's a lot more woobie than wrathful in real life.

And hey, small role in the upcoming Blade...I can't wait.

eta: oooh sorry

Hurray for Hayden's hate-on.

As for Blackhawk Down,

This didn't bother me, because the whole film was structured to show us the war through these specific soldiers' eyes.

This is true. But I happened to watch BD for the first time a day or two after watching 28 Days Later, and the zombies were portrayed in a fashion remarkably similar to how the Somalis came across, down to the jump-cuts and the screaming. It was really unnerving, and undercut BD significantly in my eyes. My immediate instinct was to blame Ridley Scott's love for visual fetishizing, but you don't fetishize unless you've already reduced the thing you're fetishizing to an object.

you don't fetishize unless you've already reduced the thing you're fetishizing to an object.

Can't you do it to reflect that the thing is fetishised by the POV you're trying to convey?

What ita said.

Can't you do it to reflect that the thing is fetishised by the POV you're trying to convey?

I don't know -- can you think of a (different) example? I certainly never saw any other point at which the film looked critically at the characters; rather, it seemed to endorse them, and by extension, their viewpoint, wholeheartedly. If the film had really meant to separate itself from the characters' viewpoint, I think there would have been more instances of critical distance.

It's not my experience that visuals can easily do that, portray something without endorsing it, without specific delineations of "now this is his POV" and "now this isn't". Like, B&W, or different film stock, or flashbacks. I think it's something that's harder to do in visuals than in, say, words, because people tend to assume that they are seeing "the truth", unless they are powerfully cued otherwise.

I haven't seen the movie, so I can't comment on its attempt or failure there. And I will have to spend today searching for examples more concrete than "Bill is the one that thinks Superman is the identity and Clark the costume, not QT."

However, it seems like a very simple premise to me, which is probably why I'm having a hard idea finding an example. My basic reaction to the idea of making a POV movie is "well, sure."

I don't actually need to see a contrast to believe it's a limited POV, and I don't believe that mere presentation is endorsement.

I never saw BHD, unfortunately.

Hurray for Hayden's hate-on.

(Zoidberg) Hurray! (/Z)

Consider something like HBO's Deadwood in contrast to Stone. Both are attempting to convey the same sort of Hobbesian "people are shitty to each other" message, both are interested in presenting their stories as a form of revisionist history, and both are focused on macho, powerful men. But Deadwood manages to do all this with a sense of subtlety and nuanced presentation (not to mention a healthy appreciation for women) that should leave Stone cowering under his bed. There's plenty of other tough-guy directors who've managed to balance out their macho issues with some real emotion (I used Deadwood because its creator is a right-wing, law-and-order tough guy like Stone). It just kills me that Stone, who is completely in thrall to his own macho self-image, can a) make movies in the first place and b) receive acclaim for his hackery. But I'll shut up now, because I'm ranting.

To use another war example, it's the way the French ship was treated in "Master & Commander." We barely see it, or we see it from far away, which is how our sailors see it. There are no scenes to show us the humanity or the indiviuality of the French--they get less screen time than Somali civilians. I don't think the film is saying the French sailors are less human than Aubrey's crew, just that they are the Enemy and the Unknown...to them.