|
|
Post by Hermes on Aug 30, 2015 13:31:22 GMT -5
Why would somebody uncaucasian be putting white make up on their faces, that would be odd Why would someone choose to apply makeup to their face and then complain about it (in TSS), as if it was something about their appearance they had no control over? Why indeed, but that's explicitly what happens; Colette says 'But you have a white face because you put makeup on. You're putting powder on your face right now.' |
|
|
|
Post by Skelly Craig on Aug 30, 2015 13:49:35 GMT -5
Yeah, I think that was mostly just to make an absurd joke, because it's a climax of increasingly ridiculous statements (before comes "having no hands is still better than having equally strong hands" [paraphrase]). I just read a theory that their faces might have been somewhat burnt in a fire, which is why they need to put white make up on; this makes sense to me. I still think the two being portrayed in the series as Olaf's geishas would be pretty cool.
|
|
|
|
Post by gliquey on Aug 30, 2015 14:20:22 GMT -5
Yeah, I think that was mostly just to make an absurd joke Yes, of course. And it makes me laugh every time. I think it still demonstrates the lack of logic behind the white-faced women, though; it might be a joke on Handler's part but I don't read it as the white-faced women intentionally joking. Colette took them seriously, at least. That is a very interesting thought. I don't think the white-faced women are precluded from being any race, any more than any of the other characters are. There's a difference between the skin colour of a person we might call 'white' and someone with the completely white powdered faces I imagine the women having. |
|
|
|
Post by Skelly Craig on Sept 1, 2015 20:04:52 GMT -5
I think Danny DeVito would do a good job as the director for this. I've recently seen the DeVito-directed 'War of the Roses', and I agree, he would be a good candidate, as his style lends itself to ASoUE. |
|
|
|
Post by meinhard1 on Nov 2, 2015 22:03:21 GMT -5
I have no fears about a lessened budget. Like most here, I agree the film was visually beautiful, but at the same time I found the art direction (quite literally) cluttered. Important visual elements like the Tower, the Incredibly Deadly Viper, and Josephine's house lose some effect when everything that surrounds them is equally strange.
Also Violet and Klause need to be more well-mannered. In the books they were far more socially courteous than anyone would expect of them ... It's part of what endeared them to me, at least.
A TV shows' presumably slower pacing should really help bring out the suspense and humor of the books. Hurricane Ivan won't just appear, it will be a looming, ridiculous, threat.
One thing that's cleared up since the movie is the nature of VFD ... no reason to have spyglasses. They fires they put out oftenaren't literal ones!
...gripping Thomas Newman score or not, it isn't poignant to insist that there is more "good" in the world, than "bad." This is the main reason I want Handler involved. Most people can't earnestly portray his Snicket-morality the way he does.
To reach a bit, I'd love to see a little within the Snicket-narration segments. Some sort of mystery or realization that Snicket himself uncovers while doing his research.
|
|
|
|
Post by Cafe SalMONAlla on Nov 2, 2015 23:39:24 GMT -5
To reach a bit, I'd love to see a little within the Snicket-narration segments. Some sort of mystery or realization that Snicket himself uncovers while doing his research. That could be an excellent way to make the narrator's appearances and presence a bit more interesting, and make the audience care about him. ASOUE mostly doesn't do the switching-between-narratives thing many books do, so including a little ongoing storyline about LS's research could keep things varied. There's this old interview DH did with Leonard Marcus in which he described a typical day for LS. (I can't find the stupid thing anywhere, though I believe I have it on cassette somewhere in the depths of my home.) It was pretty amusing, and gave us a good idea of what Snicket's researching lifestyle is like. |
|
|
|
Post by MisterM on Nov 3, 2015 6:49:53 GMT -5
They shouldn't overdo the narration though.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Nov 3, 2015 7:20:51 GMT -5
One of the biggest problems for any visual adaptation of the series is that Snicket's narration is a huge part of what makes ASoUE so entertaining, but it's virtually impossible to replicate in film because narration is redundant on film. The genius of ASoUE is that the descriptive voice is turned into character voice without it actually being a first-person narrative, but in film, description is displaced by immediate and objective visuals. Perhaps that's a case for the visuals of the film to be highly exaggerated to emphasise character subjectivity.
|
|
|
|
Post by Cafe SalMONAlla on Nov 3, 2015 7:30:46 GMT -5
Technically ASoUE is a first-person narrative though.
|
|
|
|
Post by Skelly Craig on Nov 3, 2015 7:58:43 GMT -5
I would argue that narration, if done well, is not redundant on film. It is tricky to avoid the common pitfall of just narrating what's happening on screen, which is why narration gets such a bad rep in screenwriting and gets written off as a gimmick. Still, some of the best films have successfully used narration to flesh out the world of the movie and its characters; Apocalypse Now, Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, A Clockwork Orange, Sunset Boulevard... I also like it in The Usual Suspects, The Royal Tenenbaums, A Scanner Darkly, Fight Club, Trainspotting, and GoodFellas. Of course it's often that book adaptations resort to it, like the last four movies I mentioned. I think with Lemony as unreliable narrator/him being a character, this could work.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Nov 3, 2015 8:46:59 GMT -5
Technically ASoUE is a first-person narrative though. Only technically, though. We're not following what the first person is doing; we're following a bunch of third persons he's talking about in great detail. I would argue that narration, if done well, is not redundant on film. It is tricky to avoid the common pitfall of just narrating what's happening on screen, which is why narration gets such a bad rep in screenwriting and gets written off as a gimmick. Still, some of the best films have successfully used narration to flesh out the world of the movie and its characters; Apocalypse Now, Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, A Clockwork Orange, Sunset Boulevard... I also like it in The Usual Suspects, The Royal Tenenbaums, A Scanner Darkly, Fight Club, Trainspotting, and GoodFellas. Of course it's often that book adaptations resort to it, like the last four movies I mentioned. I think with Lemony as unreliable narrator/him being a character, this could work. You'd know more about it than I would, and I thought that somebody would probably provide counterexamples, but it's that "if done well" caveat that I dislike. Well, obviously we hope that the Netflix series will be done well, but some things are easier to do well than others. Nonetheless, are any of those films directly comparable to ASoUE in terms of how narration is handled, which is to say not the voice of the lead characters and ubiquitous? That might give us some pointers for how the Netflix series could (but might not) address the issue. |
|
|
|
Post by Linda Rhaldeen on Nov 3, 2015 9:36:23 GMT -5
The best part of the TV show How I Met Your Mother is the format of an overarching narrator telling a story, and yes sometimes the narrator is pretty clearly unreliable, or exaggerating, or even censoring (sandwiches, anyone?), but the show plays it straight and the actors and scenery reflect the narration however implausible. My hope is that the Netflix series goes a similar route.
|
|
|
|
Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Nov 3, 2015 12:14:01 GMT -5
The best part of the TV show How I Met Your Mother is the format of an overarching narrator telling a story, and yes sometimes the narrator is pretty clearly unreliable, or exaggerating, or even censoring (sandwiches, anyone?), but the show plays it straight and the actors and scenery reflect the narration however implausible. My hope is that the Netflix series goes a similar route. I'm a fan of HIMYM mainly because of the narrative format (it's one of those great ideas that seem obvious once it's done; in fact, I think it's largely what redeems an otherwise pretty run-of-the-mill sitcom). Still, I think the show is wildly different in tone to what anyone should do with ASOUE - the HIMYM brand of narrative humour relies on exaggeration and the obviousness of the narrator's unreliability, often made clear because it puts his own involvement in a more flattering light. I don't think you could do that with Snicket, as he isn't personally involved in the story being told - his narrative humour is more subdued and, if anything, driven by understatement (not so much in content as in tone, which, while hopeless, is always more calm than panicky) rather than exaggeration. On a(n even) more subjective note, I think it would take something away from the Snicket universe if L were confirmed with certainty to be unreliable. Doubt and uncertainty, to me, is a large part of ASOUE, including the doubt about what to doubt. However, I'm a great fan of meinhard1's idea to see some mystery unfold in mid-story segments about Lemony himself (I was trying to do that in that single-scene ASOUE TV adaption opening I wrote some time ago), particularly if it can eventually tie in with the main story and/or some of Snicket's personal anecdotes from the books ("I'm writing this as I crouch behind the altar in the Church of the Alleged Virgin" and suchlike - love that one!). |
|
|
|
Post by Skelly Craig on Nov 3, 2015 18:32:07 GMT -5
Nonetheless, are any of those films directly comparable to ASoUE in terms of how narration is handled, which is to say not the voice of the lead characters and ubiquitous? That might give us some pointers for how the Netflix series could (but might not) address the issue. Good point. Most of those are from the perspective of one of the main characters, but not all. Sunset Boulevard has the lead narrating, but we start off with him being dead, so we have a dead man be the narrator. I think the best examples for a Snickety use of an off screen, 3rd person narrator would be Moonrise Kingdom (for the once-in-a-while appearing narrator), Magnolia (mostly for the opening, which is similar to the asides in ASoUE's chapter openings), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (particularly for its meta humor), and possibly Barry Lyndon (for the narrator's deliberate deflation of suspense, by informing the audience of events beforehand, enhancing the feeling of fateful cosmic tragedy). (Some other good ones might be Royal Tenenbaums, Amélie, & The Assassination of Jesse James.) In the end, though, they are technically similar to the narration employed in the ASoUE movie, just putting emphasis on slightly different aspects to suit the story. |
|
|
|
Post by gliquey on Nov 4, 2015 11:34:20 GMT -5
The best part of the TV show How I Met Your Mother is the format of an overarching narrator telling a story, and yes sometimes the narrator is pretty clearly unreliable, or exaggerating, or even censoring (sandwiches, anyone?), but the show plays it straight and the actors and scenery reflect the narration however implausible. My hope is that the Netflix series goes a similar route. HIMYM is definitely one of my favourite ever television shows and it is this overarching plot device, however self-contradictory and ridiculous, that I love most of all. Much like with ASOUE and its timeline errors (is Snicket writing long after or within days of events happening?), I'm happy to apply suspension of disbelief at least up to a certain point. It's the knowledge that someone is telling you this story for a reason, and the wonderful soliloquys we can get from the narrator (deep and profound in HIMYM; dry humour and wit in ASOUE) that I adore. The narrators in each might be unreliable (Ted more so), but we love them anyway. |
|
