That fact that a film is misinterpreted can’t always be laid at the feet of an audience: Director François Truffaut famously suggested that it’s nearly impossible to make an anti-war film, since the job of a filmmaker is to create compelling characters and situations that inevitably make war look exciting. You can extend that thinking to the creation of compelling villains and anti-heroes—Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko, the odious stockbroker in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, became a hero to many who took his satirical “greed is good” catchphrase literally.
It’s true that sometimes filmmakers do their jobs too well, undercutting their own point by making their bad guys too compelling. Darth Vader racked up one of the biggest body counts in cinematic history, and still wound up on every kid’s lunchbox. Marketing can also be a problem; trailers train us to look for a certain type of movie, so once we’re in the theater, it can be hard to see anything different. A film that looks like a failure as horror can seem brilliant once we realize that we’re in a comedy—think Evil Dead II. We’re trained to limit our expectations, and sometimes it just takes a more open mind.
So what are the most misunderstood movies ever—deservedly or not? In answering that question, I’ve tried to stick to fairly objective readings, and avoiding overly elaborate fan theories (The Shining is probably not about the moon landing). And I’ll start with a caveat: No truly interesting movie can be subject to a single interpretation—even if the writer and director say it’s about one thing, some viewers may have a different take. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that there might be things you hadn’t considered. (You’re wrong if you buy that Shining/moon landing bit though.)
Starship Troopers (1997)
Starship Troopers is a wildly fascinating adaptation in the ways in which it takes straightforward source material—in this case, Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 novel—and satirizes largely by taking it at face value. It’s a rather shocking bit of literary criticism disguised as a B-sci-fi movie, turning the novel’s themes on their heads. At the risk of oversimplifying Heinlein, the novel (with a nearly identical plot) suggests that war is inevitable and that military service might be the best possible cure for a general moral decline.
Director Paul Verhoeven, who grew up in German-occupied Netherlands, called bullshit (while claiming he couldn’t even finish the book). Instead, he created a wildly over-the-top satire that brings to the fore the novel’s possible fascistic interpretations, opening his film with an “homage” to Leni Riefenstahl and including a series of Nazi-inspired propaganda segments. The lead characters have no compunctions whatsoever about treating the alien “bugs” to any and all manner of cruelty and medical experimentation because, well, they’re the enemy, after all. Many early reviewers say it as a mindless spectacle or a straightforward paean to fascism; they clearly didn’t get the joke.
Where to stream: Netflix, Digital rental
Skinamarink (2022)
I'm not sure what people expected when they went to see instant cult film Skinamarink, nor how they interpreted it afterwards—but the relatively low audience score compared to fairly decent reviews from critics suggest that many viewers were various shades of unimpressed and/or confused. Part of the problem, I think, was in managing expectations: It's very hard to describe the film's plot, as it largely has none—we're entering here a world that's all atmosphere and vibe. Prior to completing this feature, writer/director Kyle Edward Ball ran a YouTube channel where he created short videos based on user-submitted childhood nightmares. Skinamarink, filmed in Ball's own childhood home, extends the nightmare to feature length and, on that level, makes perfect non-sensical sense, capturing the feeling of disorientation and fear so common to young childhood. Outside of David Lynch's oeuvre, I can't think of any other film that best captures the feeling of being at sea in a world made for grownups.
Where to stream: Hulu, Shudder, AMC+, Digital rental
Fight Club (1999)
To what extent ought a movie be held responsible for its fanbase? I’ll spare you a rundown of all of the actual fight clubs that rose up in the years following this 1999 David Fincher film’s release, but a quick internet search reveals there’s probably one near you, if you’re so inclined. Like the various men’s encounter groups that cropped up in the mid-’90s, Fight Club looked to an awful lot of viewers like a plea to reconnect with a certain type of stock masculinity—take off your shirt, make some soap, and beat the shit out of other guys, if only to feel something. Tyler Durden became a hero.
The thing is, that’s the furthest thing from what writer Chuck Palahniuk intended; the book the film is based on makes the case that replacing numbness and capitalistic materialism with typical American male tough-guy bullshit is a like-for-like exchange. The film falls down, perhaps, by making Durden too seductive (his plot to wipe out credit card debt also has a certain appeal), but the film concludes with Ed Norton’s Narrator using a gun to free himself from Tyler Durden’s influence, after all. That’s the bit many viewers seem to have overlooked.
Where to stream: Hulu
The Shining (1980)
Where to start with The Shining? It’s a movie that both defies explanation and, simultaneously, has generated enough interpretations to inspire a whole other movie (Rodney Ascher’s Room 237) that delves into the pet theories of fans. The biggest misunderstanding here is about what the movie is intended to be. Stephen King was notoriously dissatisfied with the adaptation of his book, a (very) loosely autobiographical work about his struggles with alcoholism. The Jack Torrance character, played by Jack Nicholson in the movie, provides the book’s central point of view, struggling, in the early chapters, to overcome his own demons and earning a last-act redemption.
The film doesn’t have nearly as much sympathy for Jack. Seen from the outside, minus the character’s internal monologue, he’s a mere bully and an abuser. It’s fair that Stephen King was disappointed in the depiction of a character who so closely reflected his own struggles, but the film isn’t trying to be the story of a man driven off the deep end by trauma and substance abuse (and maybe ghosts); it’s about what happens to an asshole when he finds himself untethered from society’s constraints. It’s true that he doesn’t have much of a character arc, but that’s by design: He’s a bastard. The horror is faced by the ones who have to live with him.
Where to stream: Shudder, AMC+, Digital rental
Barbie (2023)
Even many of Barbie's biggest fans see it as an exclusively pro-feminist film—and it certainly is that, but the message here is a bit more complex. Margot Robbie's Barbie goes on a journey of self-discovery into the real world, discovering the ways in which she's been stifled and limited by the world's expectations of a beautiful doll, while Ryan Gosling's Ken discovers a world of male privilege and toxic masculinity. Many perceived an anti-male message, but the movie sets both characters on the same journey: Both Barbie and Ken realize that they've been limited by cultural norms; experiment with breaking those norms with mixed results; and gradually discover that their best selves have little to do with what's expected of them. Without discounting the movie's feminist messages, it's key that the two characters start and arrive at very similar places—it's all about being yourself.
Where to stream: Max, Digital rental
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Oh look, it’s another Stanley Kubrick project. The late director was notorious for his attention to detail; he acquired the rights to Brian Aldiss’ 1969 short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” in the early 1970s with an eye toward making a film version that he continued developing right up until his death in 1999. The director had considered some sort of collaboration with Steven Spielberg on the project in the early 1990s that never came to be, so it was with the full support of Kubrick’s heirs that Spielberg returned to it, penning a script based on a Kubrick-commissioned treatment from writer Ian Watson. The result was a fascinating blend of styles that lead audiences and critics to wonder how much of the movie belonged to each director.
One bit that was debated at the time is the fairy tale ending involving Haley Joel Osment’s robot child David finally getting to experience one final day with his human mother, Monica (Frances O’Connor) in the far future. Some audiences thought that the mysterious beings who made the reunion possible were aliens, and therefore likely a Spielberg addition (the director having a known penchant for friendly extraterrestrials, especially before War of the Worlds). But no! They’re not aliens, but highly advanced robots. Moreover, the seemingly happy ending is actually incredibly bleak—David hardly becomes the “real boy” he sought to be, and his affection is revealed to be only programming, satisfied as it is by a recreated, utterly false version of his “mother.” Dark stuff—and pure Kubrick, if filtered through the gauze of Spielberg.
Where to stream: Paramount+, MGM+, Digital rental
American Psycho (2000)
Most audiences, I think, got it, but American Psycho came in for plenty of early criticism among viewers and critics who found its ultra-male ultra-violence not only off-putting, but offensive. Those interpretations are complicated by the fact that the film is based on a book by Bret Easton Ellis, a not-entirely uncontroversial figure in his own right. Still, the movie’s satirical style is clearly over the top, and director and co-writer Mary Harron has made clear it was her intent to mock and bury misogyny, not to praise it.
Where to stream: Netflix, Tubi, Digital rental
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Stockbroker and scammer Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) is having a fabulous time throughout most of The Wolf of Wall Street running around, high as balls, living a lavish and unrestrained life on other people’s dimes. Scorsese invests a lot of time and energy in making Belfort look cool, or at least like it would be fun to be him, and then blows it all up in depicting the character’s fall, gradually incorporating violence and sexual assault, and laying out the cost to the victims. The ending sees Belfort out of prison and on the lecture circuit, but it’s presented as yet another con job, ending on a shot of an enraptured audience that turns a mirror on us, asking us to consider why we ever thought this asshole was cool (or worth making a movie about).
There’s certainly an argument to be made that Scorsese went too far in depicting the salacious parts of Belfort’s life, and not far enough in showing the cost to his victims, but that stinger makes it clear his intent was never to lionize the crook.
Where to stream: Paramount+, Digital rental
Taxi Driver (1976)
History got away from both Taxi Driver and Martin Scorsese. Starring Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle and Jodie Foster as the underage sex worker he “rescues,” the movie incorporates an attempted presidential assassination on Bickle’s part—and very unintentionally inspired would-be real-life assassin John Hinckley Jr. to shoot President Reagan in order to impress Foster.
All that, and the string of “scared white people” vigilante films that cropped up in the ‘70s, impacted Taxi Driver’s legacy, and the ambiguous ending had led many viewers to conclude the violent Bickle is meant to be seen as a hero. Certainly Bickle isn’t portrayed as an outright villain, but an alienated Vietnam-era outsider; he’s briefly praised by the media at the movie’s conclusion, which is meant to be ironic: If Bickle had succeeded in his assassination plans, he’d have been treated much differently. In subsequent years, both Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader have spoken about the ending’s intended ambiguity.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel, Prime Video
Child’s Play 3 (1991)
A very different film from Taxi Driver, but one also colored by real-world events; in the case of Child’s Play 3, the horrifying murder of a two-year-old boy by two 10-year-olds in Merseyside, England. The British press got the idea that the kids were recreating a scene from the movie in carrying out the killing, though investigators found no such link—they determined the killers had never even seen the film. The resulting moral panic nonetheless led to legislation, and the film never quite escaped the shadow of the murders.
Where to stream: Tubi, Digital rental
Land of the Dead (2005)
As with Day of the Dead, the earlier George Romero zombie movie that grew in esteem over time, the zombies here are smarter and more interesting than the shambling hordes of old. While critics homed in on the issues of class this sequel raises (they’re right there on the surface), they often missed the broader, more existential themes: The zombies are shown developing their own society, and we’re encouraged to sympathize with them when the humans attack. Romero appears to be suggesting that humanity, as it is, is all but unredeemable. Zombies might not be the end of things, but a new (better?) beginning.
Where to stream: Starz, Digital rental
A Serbian Film (2010)
Upon release, A Serbian Film earned a not-undeserved reputation as one of the most depraved films ever made. That alone has garnered it a cult following, though it’s genuinely tough to sit through for all sorts of reasons. What many of the reviews missed, however, was the film’s stated subtext: Srđan Spasojević has talked about efforts to parallel the strife of the Balkan world following the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and, in particular, to satirize what he sees as a scourge of political c
from News https://lifehacker.com/entertainment/the-most-misunderstood-movies-ever-made
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment