Never Mind
Last night me and the Missus were treated to a screening of Gus Van Sant's latest, Last Days: a fictional chronicle of the last 48 hours in the life of a drug-addled young rock star, inspired by the events of Kurt Cobain's last days.
I can honestly say it was the most boring 97 minutes of my waking life. There is no plot. The camera simply follows the central character, Blake, around, in endless tracking shots, as he mumbles to himself, eats a bowl of coco pops while chainsmoking, urinates, sleeps, watches TV etc. It makes Big Brother Live look like the Dukes of Hazzard.
At one point, the camera lingers on a patch of weeds in the garden for a full minute, as though something were about to emerge from them, or as though they would turn out to be significant later.
Nothing.
Just weeds.
I'm guessing this was Van Sant playing with the conventions of cinema, pushing the boundaries. Trying my patience more like. There's a good reason that films have conventions about what you show, and what you don't show. And that reason is that if you show everything a character does, it makes for a VERY DULL FILM.
Having said that, I thought Kurt Cobain was a very dull musician, but that's a whole nother argument.
Rant over.
posted by Pete Gold @ 12:54 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Sting!
There was the man alienated modern youth should have turned to!!
Hee, hee.
Yes, I can see it now. Disgruntled Newcastle teacher becomes middle of the road white punk/reggae senstaion, attracts huge middle-class following, grows old and rich and starts performing with rap stars to boost his kudos. Finally he realises he's lost his way and returns to his northern shanty town to teach the shoeless children about the works of Jane Austen.
That film would be just as bad.
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