Chasing Certainty
Aug. 4th, 2012 12:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pktechgirlbackupAs mentioned previously, I find stand up comedians fascinating. They have this wonderful mix of ability to analyze and inability to lie means that they give unusual clarity into the patterns in their lives. My most recent thread of interest is Kevin Smith. Technically, he doesn't do stand up, but he does record the Q+A sessions he does while promoting his movies. Given his utter lack of focus, I'm counting it.
In Burn In Hell, he describes the process of making Red State. It's beautiful. It's that perfect kind of creativity, where he saw something that provoked an emotional response in him, and tried to create something that shared and refined that emotion. The financial bit was also interesting- he'd been trying to make it for years, no one would fund it. Finally, a friend of a friend who had no experience in the movie business funded it entirely because he saw Smith's name on a poster with Bruce Willis. The movie in question was Cop Out, the only movie Smith directed but didn't write, which apparently was not well received by anyone. But it got Red State made. I love this story so, so much. It is perfect.
So you can imagine my disappointment when Red State was kind of meh. It had ambitions, but ultimately it didn't speak to me. It really doesn't deserve that origin story. Undeterred, I'm going back and watching all the movies Kevin Smith has done, plus the commentary and special features. I've seen most of them before, but it's been years, and I have fresh eyes now. Clerks and Mallrats are both... fine. Much like Red State, Clerks's reach exceeded its grasp, and Mallrats wasn't trying to be more than a comedy. I may just not identify with the source material very much.
But the third one... the third one stood. Chasing Amy feels like the first movie made by the Smith I know from his stand up. It's not merely insightful, it's honest, and it's right. I almost wished I watched more (any) romantic comedies, so I could more accurately describe how much better this movie is than them. Chasing Amy is basically this blog post in art form. It is about how the desire for a well marked map for romance and sexuality can kill the best thing you've ever had. And how filling in the empty parts of the map can be painful and costly, but brings you a certainty and a calmness that would be impossible otherwise. Safety and certainty are in some ways opposed, like innocence and wisdom. It's about the human inability to take yes for an answer, and how destructive that is.
I love this movie so much I ordered Jersey Girl and Zack and Miri Make a Porno from the library. I love this movie so much I may actually buy it, and I don't buy *anything* right now, much less things I can stream on Netflix. But G-d, this thing is beautiful
In Burn In Hell, he describes the process of making Red State. It's beautiful. It's that perfect kind of creativity, where he saw something that provoked an emotional response in him, and tried to create something that shared and refined that emotion. The financial bit was also interesting- he'd been trying to make it for years, no one would fund it. Finally, a friend of a friend who had no experience in the movie business funded it entirely because he saw Smith's name on a poster with Bruce Willis. The movie in question was Cop Out, the only movie Smith directed but didn't write, which apparently was not well received by anyone. But it got Red State made. I love this story so, so much. It is perfect.
So you can imagine my disappointment when Red State was kind of meh. It had ambitions, but ultimately it didn't speak to me. It really doesn't deserve that origin story. Undeterred, I'm going back and watching all the movies Kevin Smith has done, plus the commentary and special features. I've seen most of them before, but it's been years, and I have fresh eyes now. Clerks and Mallrats are both... fine. Much like Red State, Clerks's reach exceeded its grasp, and Mallrats wasn't trying to be more than a comedy. I may just not identify with the source material very much.
But the third one... the third one stood. Chasing Amy feels like the first movie made by the Smith I know from his stand up. It's not merely insightful, it's honest, and it's right. I almost wished I watched more (any) romantic comedies, so I could more accurately describe how much better this movie is than them. Chasing Amy is basically this blog post in art form. It is about how the desire for a well marked map for romance and sexuality can kill the best thing you've ever had. And how filling in the empty parts of the map can be painful and costly, but brings you a certainty and a calmness that would be impossible otherwise. Safety and certainty are in some ways opposed, like innocence and wisdom. It's about the human inability to take yes for an answer, and how destructive that is.
I love this movie so much I ordered Jersey Girl and Zack and Miri Make a Porno from the library. I love this movie so much I may actually buy it, and I don't buy *anything* right now, much less things I can stream on Netflix. But G-d, this thing is beautiful
