High cinema

I decided to have a 'cultural weekend' and watched Scorcese's Taxi Driver, and Stalker by Tarkovsky. I thought Taxi Driver was quite good but not the amazing film that everyone has been talking about since 1976. I'm guessing it was probably revolutionary for its time but take away the novel elements (dude turns vigilante, the you talking to me line) and you've got a fairly linear narrative of a dude turning vigilante. De Niro's performance was exceptional and I thought the film perfectly captured New York's urban decay in the 70s, the atmosphere was great, however ultimately I felt it was a bit mundane. Out of Scorcese's work I thought Goodfella's was more deserving of the accolade of an amazing film.

Onto Stalker, I found the idea interesting, I know they had to shoot it a second time after the film prints were destroyed so they were on a tight budget, however I found the film incredibly tedious, the settings were just wilderness and decayed industrial interiors partially submerged in water. Actually the industrial scenes worked in a way as they were reminiscent of Giger paintings. However, I'm not entirely sure whether they were in the zone or a modernist interpretation of the zone which stripped it of its alien qualities substituting them with symbolic/minimalist set designs. The shots were incredibly long, lasting over minutes. I can respect the cinematography and the intention but I found it a bit meh. It just didn't really go anywhere, it was like a modernist play or something, I would have preferred at least some elements of alien activity. One review stated that the slow pace allows you to project your own thoughts into the film, however I find that problemmatic to some extent with this film, that you're distanced from the action because of a lack of it. You're no longer in the film but placed in an intellectual/philosophical mood by it but really the philosophical thoughts one might have are of the pub variety, with little rigour. I make this criticism sparingly as 2001 is an example of such a film yet I always found it really good because I think it was an example of really well made 'art film.'

I've seen a few art films, The Visitor, Strange Colour etc and the one thing I notice about all of them is they are remarkably po-faced and slow moving wearing idiosyncratic shots on their sleeves and often with sparse dialogue. I wonder by making these signals about having a serious intent that we're led to expect them to be brilliant when they're about as good as the average popcorn flick? Just another point about shots, I think Kubrick really mastered the auteur shot, his particular shots were genuinely iconic and genius, I don't think the same for close ups of foods (eg Tarantino) or some of the shots in Taxi Driver, which were well chosen (eg the birds eye view at the end) but not necessarily inspirational.