altman

One of the peculiar scenes of the Long Goodbye was the final scene of Marlowe shooting Terry Lennox. This scene struck me as being very out of place in the film with Marlowe being serious and the violence which he seems to avoid throughout the other part of the film. Such a blatant turn of events seems like a ridiculous way to end the film that has been laid back the whole time. I think that the confrontation is a necessary scene but the abrupt shooting kind of ruined the ending for me. This was exaggerated by the fact that the shooting was very over-the-top with Lennox flying back into the river. I would have had Marlowe bring him back to the US and turn him over to the police to create a better ending.

coen bros

The Coen brothers were one of the most interesting directors we have viewed in Art of Film with their wide range of movie genres. We watched Raising Arizona which was a kind of screwball comedy and No Country for Old Men which was a kind of dark thriller, which I particularly enjoyed. This seems to be a odd range of genres in of itself, but this becomes more intriguing when we add in Fargo which is almost a mix of the two, with its comedic characters but has a dark plot. This type of film seems to be manifested again in the Coen's new movie Burn After Reading with its dimwitted characters but criminal plot.

Gran Torino

Clint Eastwood has been known for years for his portrayal of tough-guy, no-nonsense cops and cowboys in many films. But after taking to roles behind the camera, he may now be known better for his direction of bleak dramas ranging from Unforgiven his latest film, Gran Torino. Eastwood has also directed several movies that deal with the theme of war and plays a Korean War vet in Gran Torino. Eastwood himself was in the military and met some other actors in the service while never seeing action. I think that Eastwood's service in the military is the source of this recurring theme of war heroes throughout his films.

Along with the theme of war, violence is a common companion throughout many of Eastwood's. And while it is a common theme, violence is not portrayed to be honorable but as a burden that a man doesn't want to bear. It was shown in both Unforgiven and Gran Torino at the end of the films when Eastwood's character makes speeches about the terrible burden of taking another's life. This comes as oddity to me as Eastwood made a name for himself in Sergio Leone's spagetti westerns where violence was the main theme and draw of the film.