#jim emerson

[90smovies]

[randyseaver]

The heart is a lonely hunter

I hate to deliver this news: Joanne Twomey: Portland Press Herald photo If you or someone you know was hoping to make Gov. Paul LePage’s visit to Biddeford a big part of your Valentine’s Day plans, I hope you have a Plan B. According to Mayor Alan Casavant, the governor had a scheduling conflict and rescheduled his visit to March 5. Casavant said he is  still looking forward to the governor’s…

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[kendaisigo]

Apes & Allegories

While I quite liked Stranger Things, this 2011 article by Jim Emerson was the first thing that came to mind once I had finished it. I'm not saying every single sci-fi or fantasy work needs subtext or allegory, but I often don't see the point in creating these vast, amazing worlds and then not using them to say anything meaningful about the human condition.

“A horror or science-fiction movie without subtext is like Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory without electricity. The inner metaphor is what gives it life and resonance. Otherwise, it's just a story about stitched-together people parts.”

[slufac]

does anyone know whether jim emerson has like, had a job, since scanners ended

[lost-in-the-movies]

The Architecture of Gravity, video essay by Jim Emerson

[cinenotebook]

Pulp is great when exercised properly. The same goes for criticism. The above video shows enjoyable examples of both, where erudite critic Jim Emerson breaks down the construction of spatio-temporality in an action scene from Philip Noyce's Salt (a film that was not received all too well). Compare that to this painful job on Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. Emerson has fun, but remains apt, making for some great infotainment.

[viciousmenhavemanymasters]

Realism, as usual, is simply a fig leaf for doing what you want. Virtually any technique can be justified as realistic according to some conception of what’s important in the scene. If you shoot the action cogently, with all the moves evident, that’s realistic because it shows you what’s “really” happening. If you shoot it awkwardly, that presentation is “realistically” reflecting what a participant perceives or feels. If you shoot it as “chaos” - well, action feels chaotic when you’re in it, right? Forget the realist alibi. What do you want your sequence to do to the viewer? Do you want it to pass along an impression of bustle and flurry? Or do you want to make the viewer wince, recoil, even mildly reenact the movements of the players?

Observations on film art : Bond vs. Chan: Jackie shows how it’s done

A really nice article explaining what can sometimes be a dry topic: editing and shot composition. In particular, it explains why so many action sequences leave the audience confused, bewildered or unmoved as a result.

See also, Jim Emerson's dissection of the Harvey-Dent-In-The-Truck chase scene here and the counter-example of Salt here.

[somenotesonfilm]

Nostalgic objects are catalogued and fetishized: a record player, a map, a pair of binoculars, a pair of lefty scissors, a pair of 'Sunday school shoes,' a pair of glasses, a suitcase of books, a portable record player, a French pop 45, a record of Benjamin Britten's 'Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra,' a small reel-to-reel tape recorder, a pair of handmade fish-hook and scarab earrings, a coonskin cap, a corncob pipe, a pen knife, a khaki uniform with symbolic patches and buttons and a piece of jewelry that is of sentimental value but that was not a badge originally intended to be worn by males... Suzy says her binocs are her 'magic power' and all of these things are imbued with near-mystical significance because of their sentimental associations for the people who value them. In Andersonville, emotions are encoded into talismans, metaphors, symbols, memories. That's always been his thing, but in this age of collections, this moment of Pinterest ascendancy, it strikes a chord both modern and melancholy. Life is messy, but solid objects can be inventoried, ordered, classified, categorized in ways that make sense and have meaning, so that we can hang onto them.

Jim Emerson on Moonrise Kingdom