What Emmanuelle Movie Did You Just Watch?

[Anderson]

13) Someone will post something retarded
14) Moltisanti will make some random comment
15) Devin will say you have no taste.

I don't see Devin shitting on If.

[Abraham Smashington]

I don't see why this needs to turn into another thread discussing other boards.

[Ed Hocken]

I don't see Devin shitting on If.

I don't see why this needs to turn into another thread discussing other boards.

Good point on both counts.

Coming in the mail today. Mad Men: Season 2 Discs 2 & 3.

[Abraham Smashington]

Still need to start the second season. I believe it's on Lesley's que. I missed most of the first season, but i figure it's all good. I was already spoiled by accident.

[Ed Hocken]

I finished the first disc of the second season. Great as always. Still cracks me up that Pete Campbell was the kid in Masterminds.

[BudLeonard]

I adore If...; it's one of my top 20-25 favorite films of all time. Knocked my socks off the first time I saw it over a year ago and this just makes me want to see it again.

Regarding the ending, first, I disagree with Pauline in that you couldn't make it in America. I think there are enough similarities with the English Boarding School system and the network of classic New England boarding schools in America that setting it within that environment could work. However, I wonder if the classist elements would work as well over here; specifically because it's easy to assume that everyone attending an American boarding school is loaded. There's enough of a tattered and worness to the school in "If..." that you can believe this isn't Eton, but an independent school down the scale. I suppose you could also transplant the idea to a school that isn't entirely boarding, but you lose the underlying tension and homoeroticism through the movie because all these guys are basically stuck together.

Second, the ending. The brilliance of the ending is that it manages to be an ambigious fantasy that feels absolutely real. I think it's safe to say that very few people went through high school without some kind of fantasy like the one depicted in the final moments of the film. Hell, most of us were singing "Deck the halls with gasoline/Watch the school burn down to ashes.." at a young age. And the ending isn't about murder or mass slaughter, but a rejection of the institution. The institution is what's being destroyed, not the people. At that point in the film, most of the adults and antagonists are symbols for the overwhelming rage and frustration that teenagers feel towards high school, authority figures, etc. And it's perfectly normal. The FBI and psychologists have done dozens of studies verifying this, and also helping schools realize that there's a difference between a kid saying "I'm going to blow up the school" and "On Monday, June 1, I'm going to blow up the school with a bomb I made." (The recent book about Columbine goes into excellent detail about the differences.)

But the other thing about If...'s ending is that while it's symbolic and ambigious and all that stuff I just blathered on about above, in the moment, as you're watching it, it feels real and exhilerating. And in the moment, you don't know whether it's actually a fantasy or not. Maybe they really have discovered the guns; maybe this really is real, etc. And it ends on such a note that it's not resolved. (It's only because of the other two films in Lindsay Anderson's collaboration with McDowell that we realize it's a fantasy, because that character shows up in both of them...but even then, the connections are very loose.)

I think a remake, if it were to happen, would have to include some kind of greater resolution than that -- either reveaing that it's a fantasy or having the kids gunned down, both of which spectacuarly miss the point. But I also think there's no stopping some brave filmmaker from taking a whack at it -- I think enough time has passed since the wave of shootings in the late 90s and even something like Virginia Tech -- and leaving the ambiguity there. But even then, casual viewers would probably miss the point.

[BudLeonard]

I finished the first disc of the second season. Great as always. Still cracks me up that Pete Campbell was the kid in Masterminds.

What do you think of the moment in "The Benefactor" with Bobbie Barrett? You know what I mean.

[Ed Hocken]

If you mean that scene in the car? Pretty godamn hot stuff. And Jimmie Barret was hilarious.

[Abraham Smashington]

keep spoilers to a minimum or invisoswipe! I don't want to be spoiled again!

[BudLeonard]

No, the one at the restaurant where he sticks his hand up her dress and grabs her to assert his domination over her and then he wipes his fucking hand on her dress.

[Ed Hocken]

Oh yeah. That was great.

[Matt]

An excellent analysis of 'If...', Bud. I need to see the other films by Lindsay Anderson (especially 'O Lucky Man') as he's an incredible filmmaker.

'If...' has one of the most intensely erotic scenes that I've ever experienced in a motion picture, straight or gay: it's simply a boy watching an older boy practice his moves on the gymnastics high bar. The way that it's acted, edited, and scored is just amazing. You knows EXACTLY what's going on and what's going through their minds for the entire scene, and it beats any sex scene that I've ever watched for pure emotion.

The fact that Lindsay Anderson is able to make a scene like THAT and also make the literally animalistic sex scenes between Malcolm and the girl is a testament to his skill as a director.

FANTASTIC movie.

[BudLeonard]

It's fucked up is what it is, but it's a great move by Weiner to fuck with the audience like that. It's also interesting to see the reactions to that move by other people, all of my female friends who adore the show totally hate Bobbie yet hate that moment yet let the character get away with it. As one of them says, "He can do anything he wants, because he's Don Draper." I think that's fascinating. /bernard berkman

Judas, I thought the scene with the girl in the diner was super hot for some reason, but I totally get what you're saying. I've only seen about a fifth of "O Lucky Man!" because it's like three and a half hours long, but I really liked what I saw. Haven't seen the third one, "Brittania Hospital," though.

You know what "If..." would make a great double feature with? "Picnic at Hanging Rock."

[Anderson]

I don't see why this needs to turn into another thread discussing other boards.

Digs are digs. When they're apt and so on.

I still disagree with the adaptation of IF for an American setting. You lose something when you put a US sensibility behind it. Americans are angry and prone to rage. While, the Brit is more likely to contain it and let it stew.

Plus, how the fuck would you keep it from turning into a more academic version of Taps?

[BudLeonard]

I thought of Taps while I was typing that, but the military school is different from a boarding school, I think.

I see what you mean about Americans being prone to rage, but the whole U.S. boarding school experience still has enough of the "stiff upper lip and tradition"-ness to it that it might work.

I mean, I don't think the movie should ever be remade, and I think there are other ways to approach the ideas in that movie from a U.S. sensibility without slapping a familiar name on it, but I think there are some ways it could be done.