Private Ryan, The Thin Line and back to Ignatius J. Reilly

The Laughing Man (the_laughing_man@hotmail.com)
Wed, 15 Dec 1999 13:46:58 +0000 (GMT) 

>From: Gene Woo <pariah1980@yahoo.com>
A lot of
>my friends told me how much they hated it as they
>rushed off to go see "Saving Private Ryan"(A decent
>film in its own), but the fluid language and ad libbed
>(In "The Thin Red Line", the Sean Penn did many
>improvisations and ad libbing at the encouragment of
>Malick)conversations do seem to bear resemblance to
>Salinger.

In my little opinion, the two films don't play in the same division at all.

Saving Private Ryan was a typical Spielberg-movie, and the best thing with 
it was that you could leave 10 minutes into it, after the first and only 
really good scene (it was absolutely fantastic, got to admit that), and get 
a new shot at another film; at least according to the Sony theater policy.

The Thin Red Line, on the other hand, was a masterpiece. Esthetically it was 
two+ hours of bliss, and the story told was something completely different 
from the boring ethics of SPR (not to mention the hugging of tombstones or 
whatever it was in the beginning/end). It was melancholic, contemplative; it 
took us to the jungle in every sense and let us make our own sense (or lack 
of) of it. It was a story about man, and the super-slow pace was perfect for 
letting our own minds work on a thought for a while without missing anything 
vital, because the journey was as much in ourselves as on the screen.

I saw them only a few weeks apart, starting with SPR, and in the beginning 
of TTRL, when entering the island, I expected the same outburst as in 
Normandie. But nothing happened. It was beautiful. All that tension, and 
then nothing.

TLM

/PS My muse, my lover, my flower among women gave me a copy of Conspiracy of 
the Dunces yesterday, as an early Christmas gift. Be gone, memory of library 
edition, welcome private ownership! A last retreat before the big Proust 
year!
"Please confine your correspondence to orders only". This part I stole from 
the dunces-group:

"
Abelman's Dry Goods
Kansas City, Missouri
U.S.A.

Mr. I. Abelman, Mongoloid, Esq.:
     We have received via post your absurd comments about our trousers,
the comments revealing, as they did, your total lack of contact with
reality.  Were
you more aware, you would know or realize by now that the offending
trousers
were dispatched to you with our full knowledge that they were
inadequate so far as length was concerned.
     "Why? Why?" you are in your incomprehensible babble, unable to
assimilate stimulating concepts of commerce into your retarded and
blighted worldview.
     The trousers were sent to you (1)as a means of testing your
initiative (A clever, wide-awake business concern should be able to
make three-quarter length trousers a by-word of masculine fashion.
Your advertising and merchandising programs are obviously faulty.) and
(2)as a means of testing your ability to meet the standards requisite
in a distributor of our quality product.  (Our loyal and dependable
outlets can vend any trouser bearing the Levy label no matter how
abominable their design and construction.  You are apparently a
faithless people.)
     We do not wish to be bothered in the future by such tedious
complaints.  Please confine your correspondence to orders only.  We are
busy and dynamic organization whose mission needless effrontery and
harassment can only hinder.
If you molest us again, sir, you may feel the sting of the lash across
your pitiful shoulders.


Yours in anger,
Gus Levy, Pres.

"

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