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Subtlety and visual poetry in a time of exposition and explicity

posted 6 years ago by Starman (412)
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To open up wholly new psychological vistas for the spectators this film would probably need to be PG13 in order to achieve subtlety with a violent subject matter, as that becomes the paradox of rating, very often dark and gritty story in a PG13 environment becomes even more pronounced and powerful than if it was Rated R, because it does not depend on the language, nudity or violence to make an impact, but conversely on the mood and subtlety of emotions towards all of this, human imagination is far more powerful when it has to make up for what is not seen and heard. Look at violent and war films in the black and white era of cinema, people didn't feel like it was not gritty because they didn't see lots of blood. A realism is about a grounded worldview, not a focus on gore. Some of the biggest horror and violent films of the first 60 years of cinema of the last century would ALL of them probably be regarded tame nowadays, what happened? Well, humans have lost relatablity towards subtlety. things that are gently touched on to make an unbelievable impact. Film is still a form to produce an imagination, it is all suspense of disbelief, we know it is not real, it's all pretending, I think it is time to go back to the core idea of what story-telling is about, and what purpose it's supposed to serve. How much is it supposed to feed you without you feeding your own imagination to finish the film in your own head? Is this why a lot less people read books?

Stallone and Morrell had a more daring unsual script for Rambo 5 that producers didn't allow, because it was less commercial and too different from the previous films that made money, it starts with the people going to see these films, it is the people who force the system to make decisons more based on profit than art, and definitely less demanding films in terms of subtlety and originality. To go take a risk with film funding, you have to first believe that audience is a lot more unpredictable.

With regards to subtlety towards violence, observe the bloodshed in PG13 war films like Nolan's Dunkirk or Spielberg's War Of The Worlds, a lot is achieved by the focus on people's emotions towards the act instead of the act itself, that is the difference between a video game and a story-telling film.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

'That's the paradox of rating, very often dark and gritty story in a PG13 environment becomes even more pronounced and powerful than if it was Rated R...'

Any recommendations?

[–] Starman (412) 5 years ago

I'll use one example from a more modern film, War of the Worlds, the horror and bloody conflicts are not graphically shown as much as people's reactions to them, which is emotionally even more striking and powerful. Val Guest was a master at this as a couple of others of his generation, the old fashioned way was to rely on people's imagination a lot more, which tends to be a completely foreign concept for many modern viewers, the viewer tends to receive far more emotional reward when things are merely implied by seeing characters's responses to them, because the psychology of our brain tends to supply far more gritty picture of what happens than when it is cheated by being exposed to it, the same goes for the books.

By moving onto the later decades when films started showing more, there's still dozens of other instances from the 70's onwards: Massacre in Rome (1973), Search and Destroy(1979), Un Flic (1972), Jaws (1975), Fire in the Sky (1993), The Duellists (1977), The Others (2001), What lies Beneath (2000), Dark Knight (2008), etc.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Thanks! I've seen some of these and now will watch some others )

[–] TaRaNRoD (1579) 5 years ago

Yup, that is pretty much one of the worst ideas I've heard recently.

[–] Washingtonnative (2613) 5 years ago

A PG13 Rambo movie?? Never gonna happen!!