On Tuesday, February 9, 2016 at 11:59:21 PM UTC-6, septimus_...@q.com wrote:

I don't claim to be an expert in Jarmusch's films, but it does bother
me that his protagonists never seem to be looking for anything.
They may be on the road, but are never on a real quest, whether
it is for love, redemption, transcendence, or anything at all.
They are opposite of existentialists; they may as well be pieces of
stones, beings-in-themselves, totally self-sufficient and timeless.
That's why _Only Lovers Left Alive_ may be the ultimate Jarmusch
film. The protagonists can't even die, in principle. They just
sort of hang around, unchangeable, superfluous.

His costar in _Crimson Peak_, Mia Wasikowska,
shows up and breathe much needed life into the film, but
is on-screen for maybe 15 minutes ...

I meant to single out Wasikowska's performance in _Restless_
for praise. It is the first Gus van Sant film that I have
enjoyed in a long time. Even the title connotes an anti-Jarmusch
vibe. It helps that van Sant didn't write it. Wasikowska
plays a cancer patient while Henry Hopper is a smart outcast
still reeling from a tragic accident. The two are clearly
hipsters -- but hipsters who are also sincere and searching
for something meaningful in their lives, whether they admit
this or not. The film is cleanly shot, in the best Gus
van Sant way, not in the least cluttered or sentimental.
The Autralian Wasikowska is a natural; I suspect she will
be a household name some day.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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More than halfway through _Only Lovers Left Alive_, the
2013 Jim Jarmusch film about two star-crossed vampires
and their reunion, I finally figured out what the film
is about. It is an indictment of the hipster protagnoists
as frauds and posers. At least that is my hope. Or
as one reviewer wrote, "[Tilda Swinton's] androgynous, on-the-verge-of-decadence beauty pushes Jarmusch into
further revealing the hipster's insufferable exploitation
of society's failing -- perhaps the ultimate example of
cultural vampirism."

Around the halfway point, Adam, a rock musician played by
Tom Hiddleston, casually brags about giving the adagio of
Schubert's string quintet in C to the latter to publish
in his own name. (Jarmusch chooses not to play the string
quintet in the film; the comparison with Adam's god-awful
techno music would have been deadly.) The string quintet
is of course one of Schubert's greatest masterpieces, and
among the 3 compositions being considered for my funeral
(alongside "Death and the Maiden" and Brahms' "Rain"
sonata -- only the version with Anne-Sophie Mutter though).
Schubert must have written it during the illness that
killed him, so it is truly haunted by death. What is more,
Schubert's best and most sophisticated pieces were either
unperformed in his lifetime, or unappreciated by the
amateur musicians and audience alike (unlike most of the
giants he did not have patrons in royal courts). The
fact that he managed to finish his incomparable late
work is then a sign of his faith in humanity and posterity.
Somehow he knew history would vindicate him. Or perhaps
it didn't matter; he knew how exceptional he was, and that
was enough.

The point that the smug-looking Adam, who has all
eternity to live and all the money to fritter away, and
ends up doing nothing, is capable of writing anything
worthwhile, is just laughable. Unfortunately, Jarmusch
has his secondary characters praise Adam to the sky.

(Earlier John Hurt's Christopher Marlowe also brags
about penning Shakespeare's plays, but at least that
has been an in-joke among literary circles for centuries,
and Marlow could actually write.)

I have tired of Tilda Swinton long ago (her dishonest,
bucktoothed turn in the despicable _Snowpiercer_ finishes
her for me). Hiddleston can be such a magnetic presence
(in _The Deep Blue Sea_ and _The Crimson Peak_) but is
wasted here. His costar in _Crimson Peak_, Mia Wasikowska,
shows up and breathe much needed life into the film, but
is on-screen for maybe 15 minutes (despite the fact that
the DVD jacket makes a big deal of her subplot). Her role
is much like that in _The Map to the Stars_, another film
she almost also single-handedly rescues. As Hiddleston claims
on Charlie Rose, she may not be a superbly trained actress
but she is incapable of dishonesty. I much prefer
her to the static Saoirse Ronan.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)