COOPER, BRANDO, AND NEWMAN BOXSETS IN NOVEMBER (1 Viewer)

[Roger Rollins]

Maybe it's because I subconsciously eradicate the Oscars for 1952 from my memory because of the insipid choice for Best Picture, and the Academy's ignorance toward SINGIN' IN THE RAIN!

I have corrected my post, and got a chuckle out of the way you kindly pointed out my faux pas. The reference to the song by Messrs. Tiomkin and Washington was quite witty.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Hmm....$40 for one film or that one film and six others for $40. Me know which one I'm taking.

 

[Armin Jager]

It was at the moment it was made a popular movie that hit a certain strain just before the war.
Now it's simply embarassing and I don't have to make the same excuses for THE GRAPES OF WRATH, ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS or TO BE OR NOT TO BE made roughly at the same time. Hawks is one of the most highly regarded directors, but in any study or biography YORK is commented upon with remarks ranging from indifference to total hostility. A movie dealing with such serious issues as war and conscience shouldn't be that dumb. Alone the whole turkey affair is horribly misjudged. Compared to ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT or WESTFRONT 1918, this is a throwback to silly war heroics rounded up with folksiness and sentimentality (Gary Cooper pondering alone in the mountains what to do).
But it's probably a good film for military people who can show it to people as advertisement for joining the next war.

 

[seanOhara]

Which says more about the people writing on Hawks' career than it does about the film.

Yes, it's an absolute propaganda piece, designed to get the audience feeling patriotic and ready to kill Nazis. But that's neither a good nor bad thing. Triumph of the Will, Alexander Nevsky, and Sergeant York are all great films even though they're propaganda.

And to say that Gary Cooper's most popular film is an embarrassing inclusion, is insane. Sergeant York is a movie that people who don't normally buy catalogue titles will buy.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Please, try again! WWII was already in full swing when this film was released during the Fall of 1941, and it was only a matter of time before America was going to be brought into this world conflict. Furthermore, only the film intellects make such negative comments about a film that many common Americans really enjoyed. Don't forget that films are made for the masses to be entertained by them and not for those that write about film and take an academic approach to evaluating them.




Crawdaddy

 

[Corey]

i always thought that cooper should've won for ball of fire and not sergeant york.

 

[Thomas T]

Oh gosh! Add my voice to the chorus of those who are miffed that I'll have to buy entire box sets for titles I desperately want even if I have no interest in the other titles. Oh, for the days when Warners would make all titles available individually. Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and buy them then sell or give away the trash (trash to ME!).

Gary Cooper: Keeping all but dumping Sergeant York.
Marlon Brando: Keeping all but dumping The Formula.
Paul Newman: Dumping Pocket Money and The MacIntosh Man.

 

[Simon Howson]

Hence the first chapter of Professor Richard Maltby's text book on Hollywood Cinema is titled "Entertainment". This is a quality of film that is studied, because scholars like Maltby realise that the promise of being entertained is what attracts audiences to the cinema (or to the DVD shelves).

I think what you are arguing against is interpretation, which is what most people think studying film means. Increasingly, film studies is concerned with the industry, economics, aesthetics, and technologies of filmmaking, and leaves interpreting films to members of the english faculty.

But then again, the recent thread on The Searchers shows that interpretation is alive and well outside of the academy too. So maybe we are all scholars at heart...

 

[Jacqui]

Spot on. I can't even believe this argument started.

If Sergeant York entertains, then you will buy it. For those who love Gary Cooper, it is a superb offering in a wonderful Warners tribute.

 

[Robert Crawford]

What I'm arguing for, instead of against, is that most people first and foremost watch films to be entertained. Of course, there is a level of interpretation while watching a film because that process is very similar to reading a book as one absorbs the information presented to them. There has been a level of more discussion about film interpretation on this forum than what an average moviegoer will do, but that's because this forum gives those of us a tool to do so. Many of us have either studied film or have fancy themselves of doing so in a less conventional manner.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Or you can buy Sergeant York separately that way, you only have to sell The Formula, Pocket Money and The MacIntosh Man.





Crawdaddy

 

[Simon Howson]

I'm surprised that Sergeant York has created so much controversy in this thread, I thought it would've been The Fountainhead!

Sure, but I think the big elephant in the room that many people ignore is film style, noticing the different choices filmmakers make can differentiate good film makers from bad more effectively than interpretation. Ultimately anyone with a particular political or social agenda can interpret whatever they want from a film by simply assigning symbolic meaning to elements that were never intended. Yet what remains is the particular images that directors, cinematographers, editors, production designers etc. decided to use to construct the film, they will survive even the most mundane piece of interpretation.

Back on topic:

I've been waiting for the Brando and Newman boxes, and am looking forward to Mutiny on the Bounty, Reflections of a Golden Eye, The Left Handed Gun, and The Drowning Pool (primarily because it was shot by Gordon Willis). I'm also now considering getting the Cooper boxed set, but I'll see how my bank account goes around that time.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Then we have to agree to disagree because even though the overall processing and interpretation of the information is different between the two such as our sense of hearing is not being utilized while reading, there are similarities. For instance, if I'm reading a novel like "The Godfather" and I get to the part in which Michael is moving his father into another room at the hospital as he fears another asassination attempt against his father. Though, I'm utilizing word comprehension as I read that portion of the novel, the pictorial imagination of my brain is in full swing as I interpret what I'm reading while forming images of that activity taking place.

Anyway, back on track to the subject matter. I'm very pleased with these upcoming releases.





Crawdaddy

 

[george kaplan]

Had to jump in here cause I agree with this 100%. Robert & I disagree a lot, but it's not in terms of this basic philosophy (which a surprising number of people on HTF disagree with), but rather we often disagree on whether or not a film is entertaining. Which is of course, just having different taste. Personally, Sgt. York doesn't entertain me, but I certainly disagree that it's an embarrasing film.

 

[ted:r]

Add my voice to the people happy with all three box sets. I count at least 8 really wants on the sets and the rest at the very least interested in.

Yes, I understand the "why these and not those" arguments, the "why not a box set on Bess Flowers" argument and the "I only want 2 out of the 6 argument", but I feel these arguments are more of the glass is half empty type. With WB, I say its definitely half full and getting fuller.

Comparing these boxes to Universal's Grant-Hudson-Crosby boxes in terms of quality of films and I'd have to say WB takes it handily (even though Grant is my favorite actor of the bunch).

So I say huzzah, WB, huzzah!

 

[Opi]

I try to avoid judging movies with my 2006 mind.
Thankfully I'm a collector, so I fully appreciate the opportunity to buy those gems and lesser treat together at a reasonable price. I'm happy about all 3 sets even if I do only know half of the content. Or maybe it's BECAUSE I only know half of them.
Sometimes I tell my two kids how much I envy them for the lack of cinema knowledge. IMAGINE what treasure kingdom is ready to be discovered right for their eyes (i mean my 2500+ DVDs.)

I think its remarkable funny how different - different people rate different movies. For example the big title that sold the JOHN FORD box set wasn't the Informer (which I still have never seen in my life) it was "Cheyenne Autumn" which I still praise as on of the best filmed western ever.

It seems that we Germans still can't endure war propaganda movies in any way (S. York, which I have no recollection at all) but are always willing to suffer a little with the "heroic native indians"

Now give me "I Will Fight No More Forever (1975) (TV)" and I'm ready to cry me an ocean.

Please WARNER, keep them coming !

 

[Simon Howson]

This is my point, when you look at a photograph of a person's face you do not interpret it, it is coherent based on the visual capabilities inherent in being human, joined with our perceptual knowledge of the real world. It is a cognitive act, not an interpretive one. In the case of recognising other human faces, it is something we have evolved to do with great efficiency.

Writing on the other hand requires decoding, because the word chair, and an image of a chair are different things. Hence it does not have as immediate impact as seeing a particular chair present in a specific space, as reproduced by a movie camera.

We are both interested in films as entertainment, one reason I propose that films are such a popular form of entertainment is because they tap directly into our visual capacity, without the need for any interpretation or 'translation'. We enjoy exercising our visual capacity inside a cinema because it seems so much like the real world (even though it isn't). Since written language is created by humans, there isn't as immediate a connection between the words and the perceptual experience evoked by those words.

But now I'm getting all Gombrich...

 

[Robert Harris]

I believe the undeniable point here is that the cinema is a language, which translates differently to each individual.

RAH

 

[seanOhara]

The Kuleshov experiment indicates to me that we do interpret faces.

 

[Robert Crawford]

It surely does.