Second, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” is a television movie. The red carpet premiere and credible stars (Aidan Quinn, Anna Paquin) that HBO supplied can’t conceal that this is a movie of the week—a form as eternal, indigenous and sacrosanct as the Black Hills of South Dakota. Simple-minded, blocky, smug, uplifting, always in a major key. Easy to sing along with.
As a result, Bury My Heart sounds like a creative failure. From now on, when people think of Dee Brown's book, they'll remember this production. They'll assume the book is equally unpalatable and skip it.
This is exactly why you need creators dedicated to honesty and authenticy. If the screenplay is messy, uncomfortable, even difficult, that's reality. Manipulating it doesn't necessarily make it better and often makes it worse.
Of course, when I see Bury My Heart, I may decide it's good. But the point is valid regardless. If a contrived Bury My Heart is good, an uncontrived Bury My Heart could have been great.
Writerfella here --
ReplyDeleteSomewhere traversing the wilds of backwoods Mississippi, on a laptop as usual. The only things to add here are these: HBO rarely produces trash; whether or not BURY MY HEART... is any good totally is a matter of PERSONAL judgment, NOT personal pre-judgment; and pay-TV far is less of an investment risk than one might imagine. No one has gone broke by investing in an HBO property. Therefore, opinions are worth far less than is a Nielsen rating based on a measured quantity recorded electronically if only because the audience for a particular filmic entity always is larger than the number of 'critics' available anywhere nationwide. 'Critics' exist of their own accord; but 'critique' exists from an educated and responsible point of view, not always accorded and most often ignored. Which means that 'critics' are like storm-watchers, alerted when storms are present but silent when storms are among the missing. The one thing that writerfella knows is this: critics are the 'fleas' that projects must endure, and for the most part, those 'fleas' never asked for their presence but simply were directed at their targets by those who did not understand the medium at which they were aimed...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
The critics I've quoted have seen the movie, since critics get copies in advance. They've read or are familiar with the book. I'll bet most of them are as educated as you or I.
ReplyDeleteIt's your opinion that critics don't understand the medium they're criticizing. I don't need to ask to know you can't and won't justify your unsubstantiated claim. In the words of William Golding, "Nobody knows anything," which means insiders like you are as clueless as critics, bloggers, and everyone else.
As usual, you think ratings = quality, which shows you don't know much about quality moviemaking. Unfortunately, the ratings for Bury My Heart are unlikely to be good since HBO has buried it on the Memorial Day weekend. So what will you conclude if and when it tanks: that low ratings prove the critics were right?
That conclusion would be as silly as concluding that high ratings proved the critics were wrong. But that seems to be your position. You must've been shocked that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Night at the Museum, and Cars didn't win best-picture Oscars, since they were the box-office winners of 2006.
Writerfella here --
ReplyDeleteNo, only that the vehicles YOU mentioned did not win the awards YOU seem to think mean quality that otherwise escapes such efforts, period. Remember one certain circumstance: reality becomes what YOU make of it...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Writerfella here --
ReplyDeleteAnd, hey, it's muggy and warm here in Mobile, AL, but it's the very kind of weather that Oklahoma would expect at this time of year. writerfella will be back on his own home turf Tuesday, after the holiday. Down here in 'Bear' Bryant territory, writerfella's Oklahoma University T-shirts and OU athletic shoes didn't get the respect one might expect, but so far, no one has challenged his right to wear such. Wow, danced with a shirtless Armand Assante tonight in a gay bar in the university district and he kept saying, "You don't know who I am, do you?" the whole time! writerfella knew, for sure...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Since you don't think critical praise or Academy awards denote quality, what do you think denotes it? Give us an answer other than your usual touting of box-office receipts as "proof" of quality.
ReplyDelete