F is for Fake, Hourglass Sanitorium ,Trans Atlantic Express, Jacob's Ladder, A Man Who Sleeps by Perec, and the ultimate, Conspirators of Pleasure by Jan Švankmajer are my recommendations to you. Great video, snark, and voice. Regards
It makes sense if you read The Disaster Artist. (Read, not watch. The movie left out the entire freaking backstory, because it was too interested in celebrating Tommy instead of presenting the full person.) It's basically a tale in how this sad and lonely person perceives a world that has abused and abandoned him. Tommy put a lot of himself in that movie, both intentionally and unintentionally. Even details like calling Lisa his "future wife" because he spent some not-great time in France and thus avoids French words like "fiancée." (Ironically, his own chosen name is most likely a misspelling of the French word for bird, "oiseau.")
to me the room is a very common type of film - where the writer and star uses the film to show himself as the best person ever who's unfairly maligned. you see it all the time if you watch b movies(breen, etc)
Good video. Lost Highway and Mullholland Drive actually have pretty understandable structures in terms of plot and Lynch has been pretty open about that, but there is lots of room for interpretation of symbols. SPOILER: Lost Highway is about a jealous man who kills his wife. He prefers to remember things "his own way, not the way they happened". But video represents the truth. Once in prison he experiences a "psychogenic fugue state" (per Lynch) and imagines himself as a young, sexually desirable man. However, reality intrudes on his fantasy and he transforms back to himself and the man in black points the video camera (reality) at him. He tries to run from reality (represented by the police), but in the end is electrocuted for his crimes (what you call the third transformation) and the very end is a grim, endless highway representing his death. Mulholland drive has a very simple dream/reality structure but it told out of order. The dream is full of symbols and ties to Diane's sad life as a failed actress who has had her cruel lover killed by a hit man. She is consumed by guilt and regret and dreams she is an innocent, talented actress and meets her amnesiac lover, who miraculously survives the hit. Reality gradually intrudes on the fantasy until Betty disappears and Diane wakes up, goes mad and commits suicide. Very powerful and my favorite Lynch movie (Twin Peaks is my overall favorite work).
Your understanding of Lost Highway, if I may be bold to say, ties with mine. Where we differ is the electrocution bit: that has always caused me some bafflement. Your theory on that is unassailable.
I'm pretty confident in my Barton Fink interpretation, so here goes (SPOILERS) -- Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) does not exist. Fink, while procrastinating his wrestling picture, invents this character as the "common man" archetype he wants to write about but feels restrained from doing so. This explains why Meadows acts like a caricature. He is Fink's idea of what a common man must be, but Fink really has no idea and is too much up his own ego to realize how silly Meadows is. The homoerotic subtext suggests Fink's imagination getting away with him as well (he's likely bi but repressed because 50s). Similarly, I'm not sold that Audrey (Judy Davis) actually comes back with him to his hotel room. She is real, but it's in the hotel room that she reveals she wrote all of Mayhew's work, can help Fink with his script, and they hook up. This isn't the reality: it's Fink's fantasy. He wants to reconcile with having learned his hero is an abusive alcoholic. He wants a narrative where he can save Audrey and "get the girl." He's literally masturbating. Then, her death and Fink goes to ask Meadows for help... This is where the film twists. Because Fink is *ahem* making a deal with the Devil. Capital D, because it's literally a deal with the actual Devil, who appears to Fink through his own invented character of Charlie Meadows. There are a few details still a bit open. Personally, I think the two cops are also Fink's own characters, as they also act in a stereotypical 40s Noir kind of way. When Meadows returns, he is full Devil, hence everything catching on fire and hence "Heil Hitler." Fink's deal allows him to overcome his writer's block and write the perfect screenplay exactly as he wants it (not necessarily good). Meadows becomes the lead character in his wrestling script. I doubt it's actually very good: we see through these characters how Fink perceives the common man, and his desire to elevate this struggle he knows nothing about means he probably wrote something very shallow trying to be deep. But that's not why the producers hate it -- the producers hate it because they don't want something that's trying to be deep, they want something shallow and spectacle-driven. And this is also the Devil's trick: Fink can write without issue, but no one will ever see his work. The final shot is symbolic of all of these themes. He sees that beautiful frame that inspired him so, but it's underwhelming and the bird falls. He's achieved what he wanted, but it isn't satisfying. Which also plays into his failure to understand the "common man" -- what he perceives as art is actually empty and impossible to relate. Anyway, that's my interpretation.
Because 50s? The movie takes place in 1941, not the 50s. As such, it is a caricature of the Golden Era of Hollywood studios, just the day before the US entered WWII. Take note of one of the last scenes, where Fink's boss appears wearing a military uniform, having been conscripted as a US Army Reserve colonel. This signifies the ultimate conformity of the movie industry to the state, as well as reinforces the rigid hierarchy within the studio system, where Fink is an outcast, once a promising Broadway playwright with serious artistic aspirations, now just one of disposable movie writers, not unlike a factory worker at an assembly line, or even worse, a seasonal farm hand in California. He's overwhelmed by the fast pace at which movies are produced, with very little concern about originality and artistic merit. It's not that he suffers from a writer's block - he's a fish out of water, absolutely clueless about how insignificant movie writers were within that system, in contrast to theatrical playwrights. Mr. Geisler says it loud and clear to him: 'Writers come and go. We always need Indians'. His story, in a way, resembles that of Orson Welles, a very talented young, breakthrough artist, whose career the Hollywood studio system ultimately destroyed. Also, the movie makes subtle fun at the champagne socialist views that Fink has and his pretentiousness: proclaiming himself to be the working man's voice, yet he is by all intent and purposes, a failed attempt at an artist whose claim to fame is just one Broadway play. To suggest he's bisexual or homosexual just because he tries to befriend a common man says a lot about how twisted and crumpled are some people's views on masculinity. This is so 'that's-gay!', which peaked around 2010 and one would have hoped it waned by 2020.
What a fun read on the movie! I've got to watch it again now (also, I love the Coens work, so that's easy). I'd first thought it a "purgatory" picture (like "Jacob's Ladder"), but it seemed to go much further. Good stuff! And thanks Moviewise! Love the work!
@@SzalonyKucharz Really solid point about WWII! I obviously missed the year the movie is set. That coming of the second World War could also feed into the bird falling, and obviously "Heil Hitler." The movie is clearly a bit surreal, and plenty of things are not meant to be taken literally. I disagree about dismissing any possibility of queer-coding, especially given the year the film is set. In 1940s Hollywood, very few industry people (and people in general) were open about any non-hetero sexuality. Dietrich got by by not talking about it. James Whale's career plummeted after the Hayes Code was amped up in 1934, and I can't be convinced that was a coincidence. We obviously can't confirm if any other 30s and 40s stars (in front of or behind the camera) were gay or bi (actually, Vincent Price's daughter confirmed he was bi), but certainly many were and they avoided the stigma like crazy. Whether Cary Grant was bi or not, we know he turned down Rope due to its queer subtext, and James Stewart had no issue because there were no rumors about his sexuality. In lieu of being able to openly depict homosexuality on the big screen (literally forbidden by the Hayes Code), queer-coding was used in so many damn movies, using subtle winks and nods to bypass the censors. Hitchcock's films were loaded with queer subtext. Villains especially tended to be queer-coded. Movies like Dracula's Daughter and Cat People have pretty obvious lesbian subtexts. Years later, Gore Vidal explicitly claimed to believe his Ben-Hur character was gay. This was simply a staple of the time. Back to Fink... I tried to find the scene in question here on UA-cam, but it doesn't seem to be up anywhere so I'll have to go off memory. As I recall, the way the scene was shot (wrestling with Charlie) was particularly erotic. IIRC, Charlie was hunched over and beckoning to Fink to "come on, come on." The camera was pushing in slowly on face, and he was looking straight at the camera or close to. The movie is no stranger to POV shots so that in itself isn't too unusual, but it regardless heightens the moment, and is also shot much closer than other POV shots in the movie (I recall a few with the producer, which serve more to distance Fink from his employer via similar means). It isn't simply something weird and awkward where we watching these two have an odd moment, but a key image that lingers on screen, and presumably in Fink's mind. It reads like a seduction scene. On top of that, if you buy into the read that Charlie is a figment of Fink's imagination, you have to then question the motivation of why he would imagine that. One explanation, and one that I think is easy to believe, is that he has a repressed bisexuality. A LOT of people are bi, and many repress it or stay in the closet, especially in that era, so why shouldn't this be represented? Plus, having him feel a literal romantic attraction to his own fictional character is just thematically appropriate and symptomatic of his narcissism -- his art is literally masturbatory. Queer reads aren't a fad of the 2010s, but a fundamental aspect of the history of cinema. For decades, subtext was the only representation possible for queer people, and to dismiss that off-hand is simply to reject a common tenet of film analysis. I'm not saying every movie has queer subtext, or even that queer subtext automatically makes the characters canonically queer, but sometimes it's the case and I think there's evidence it applies here. Sorry for the essay! I tend to ramble.
L'Année dernière à Marienbad doesn't feel like a puzzle... 'till you try to put it together... Otherwise it feels like you were falling asleep while watching a movie about someone's dream. The realm of memories...
The only thing I can guess is that puzzle pictures are just like this video. The viewer is confused cause he assumes he is getting the picture until he isn't and the filmmakers are laughing cause even they don't know what it truly means .
There's a Lynch interview where he's asked if he just put something in to f*** with the viewers and he says, 'No, you never do that. You _never_ do that.'
Vanilla Sky. The movie makes you think one thing, until you realize this prominently-displayed "fix your car Feb 30th". Then the whole movie comes into question.
I still believe Kubrick was just talking out of his a$$ in giving this ridiculous "explanation" for 2001 to this random guy. My theory is, he got tired of people bugging him about the meaning of the movie, so he just fabricated some bs to make them happy and be left alone
Actually, I saw it at 14 in the theater in 1969 and that is exactly what I thought at the end, except for the "being sent back" part. I just interpreted it as ascension to a higher state of being.
About 2001, never forget also, that there is the novel by Arthur C. Clarke (writen at the same time as the movie, from a short story from Clarke) and it support Kubrick’s interpretation. Is about humanity being tested to enter the next stage of evolution, the star baby is the first in this new humanity. The test is technological, could you make it to this point in the solar system with your technology?
Thank you Moviewise. Now I know that my intuition about movies I have seen is based on innate facts. The audience is smarter than pretentious movie makers think they are not. I have affirmed much of my amateur reactions in your channel's content. I'm tired of movies. I haven't gone to the movies for over three years. And I don't miss them at all. Thanks.
You make a valid point, if we thought there's only one kind of puzzle and it can't be solved. The metaphor of the puzzle is widely used in film theory (see Warren Buckland's Puzzle Films and Hollywood Puzzle Films) to group films playing openly with ambiguity and complexity, and not only with temporal continuity. Films are about a lot more than narrated events! Therefore, although you're right about certain complex films that can be ordered in a linear fashion, you're not accounting for spectator experience, which is key to explain films like Memento, where you're not supposed to just understand what happened, but to experience events as the protagonist. A solved puzzle, an unsolved puzzle and an UNSOLVABLE puzzle are different things you should consider in order to tweak your argument, which anyway points to a relevant distinction. That said, you may be the best youtube finding of 2023 as far as I'm concerned. I had never seen film criticism, film education and humor blended together so well. 'Cause that didn't exist. Good job! No: great job!
Im pretty sure the 2018 korean movie Burning falls into this category. A little less wacky then a lot of these examples but still one of the strangest and most unique thrillers I've seen.
@@itsmekiruha I disagree. I think there's a lot you can look into for all 3 characters that is really interesting. There are so many things outside of the disapearance that are left unsaid and the I like how the viewer gets to fill in the blanks.
@@user-pn3mw7rx1s fair point I guess but still there was no confusion between what’s real what’s not, who’s this character, why he talk like this, where this is happening or even why (I always knew hero’s motivation, feelings in the core of his relationships). In short - there is no “puzzle”. Mystery for sure. It’s still like a regular movie but with little to no exposition and vague enough dialogue to raise questions. It’s like “yes or no” movie but with a lot of questions: is the girl dead? Is he a murderer? Was this girl even his classmate as she said? Was it the same cat? And so on. You can choose yes and no answers for yourself. I kinda think that’s the point of a movie. I hope I explained my view. I have no clue if I made a ton of grammar mistakes (haven’t practiced English for awhile)
The biggest mistake might be to expect these kinds of movie dream-states to offer any coherent narrative resolution. They don't pretend to play by those rules (and there's nothing I hate more than when people try to distinguish what's "real" from what's "dreaming" in nightmares like "American Psycho" or "Fight Club" or "Mulholland Dr."). As David Lynch says, the movies ARE the dreams. There is no "real" and "unreal." The movie is the movie, and all movies are about what you experience (how you feel, what questions you ask -- of yourself and the movie) as you watch them. I think of "Marienbad" as a kind of immersive hangout movie -- only it's not the characters you necessarily want to hang with, it's the place (the movie) that you feel compelled to revisit, just to kick back and soak up the atmosphere, letting your mind and your senses take you where they will. (If it's a "puzzle," then I think the pieces are triangles in the case of "Marienbad." There's something geometric about that place and all its vanishing perspectives...) Does that mean it's also a "trip" movie (as Kubrick's "2001" was advertised when it was re-released) -- or a kind of "road movie" if the road is the endless one across the landscape of "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"?
To be fair, you never claimed talking about such films would make the genre clear. I subscribed nevertheless - or did I ? (oh sh!t, this is an either/or situation)
''helpless lover of alliteration'' hehe😉 Not only you're a great movie connoisseur but also a poet 😉. Hiroshima, mon amour stands out among these movies, it is not so a 'puzzle picture' as the others mentioned here, it is a brilliant example of film making woven into a romance with ellipsis - all that was omitted from the movie is clear in the backgrounds of the characters, the reveals are complete. The rest of mentioned movies are simply weird/abstract/puzzle pictures whatever you call them.
Amazing video! As a filmmaker, I am wondering where the line is between a messy, no-idea-what-is-happening student film and a Puzzle Picture. Intention perhaps? Craft? The director knowing what's going on and purposefully not telling anyone (like how Stanley ruined his films' chances). Would love to hear what folks have to say!
Even the biggest mess of a confusing film could have some simple intention behind it. But the movie has to be at least somewhat understandable to the audience in order to pose a puzzle to the audience.
Great video, but I'm pretty sure most people just say postmodern film and never define what that means (same with literature that's similar to the films you mentioned).
I think movies represent the thing we value most in the world, emotions. Movies are like dreams; dreams bubble our emotions to the surface at night to keep us engaged so the body can sleep without us around to annoy it. I think the more accurately movies convey their targeted emotion, the more successful they are. These movies bubble the usual dream emotions up during their telling, yes, but with one we don't typically see in movies because it turns a good dream into a bad one--frustration. This is why most people don't enjoy these movies. Frustration is easy to come by for free (love, joy, happiness, etc, not so much), why would we want to pay money to experience it? Don't get me wrong, I own a number of these movies and I love them; but I also like to muse on why they sit where they do at the box office. Just a thought...
How about "Rashomon"? European-style Surrealism isn't a factor, as "Rashomon" is literal and realistic in its presentation of events (although the acting is frequently theatrical and very dramatic), albeit presenting the POVs of different characters, not all of whom survived the events of that fateful day. The puzzle is on the viewer to figure out who is most likely to be telling the truth, and not just their subjective truth, but the truth of that day, as it really happened. I also expected you to mention Orson Welles's "F For Fake", but I haven't seen it in many years and can't recall if it retains any puzzle-like ambiguity when all is said and done.
Watching Hiroshima Mon Amour as an innocent (not Movie Critique) person i thought it was just a tragic Love Story in that they go through so much to find 'Love' but then the bomb drops. French and Japanese Cinema combination personified.
Dude Im hard to give like to any video, not on principle of sorts, just forgets I believe. But your videos demand me to press like and I seldom forget. Pray tell me: where are you from?
I don't think the English term "puzzle picture" is accurate. A puzzle can be finished: jigsaw puzzle, crossword puzzle, rebus puzzle. I prefer either "paradox picture," "enigma movie" or "silly cinema."
Where do you put *A Serious Man*? Low key, yes, but the main character's search for meaning and truth is thwarted by a series of inexplicable events seemingly designed to destroy him. He's not Job. Or is he? There is no overt reference to the Job story. So, what's the point? What is the meaning of the Dibbuk? What does the title mean? Is the movie making a statement about religion? About Judaism? About the post war middle class? About faith? Or is that a fake out and it's really just a dispassionate existential examination of events? Now I want to watch it again.
I'd say it's a moden adaptation of The Book of Job, set in the 1960s Midwestern suburbia. Coen Brothers often retell old stories, placing them in specific periods of US history.
It was based on a Dashiell Hammett novel, rather than an original idea, but I believe the Bogart film, The Big Sleep (1946) , was the first Puzzle Picture.
Loved Twin Peaks but the one that's really twisted my noodle was the utterly enthralling and highly original Severance - from the cast to the creepy title sequence this thing is a masterwork in weird. I hope it carries on leaving us in nylons and suspenders! Oh wait... maybe I meant suspense. Damn this Freudian effect.
@@PF_K I'm not sure. I got it pretty early on but a lot of people have been totally confused - so much is going on for the "innies" that seems pointless. And the fact they are so emotionally immature is a great plot device. I want to know what the hell there are all doing there. Is it humans or aliens (which would be a disappointment to me).
@@marcdraco2189 There are certainly mysterious, even surreal, elements to it. But the overarching plot is relatively straight forward. The characters and their motivations are clear, it's almost entirely linear, and there really isn't much up for interpretation.
Though Dali was quoted to say "I don't DO drugs....I AM the drug", I prefer Jane Wagner (Lily Tomlin's spouse)"s take on the matter: "I worry that drugs are forcing us to be more creative than we really are!" Just saying.
I wouldn't include lynch because per him there is a "correct" interpretation and he's on record saying he despises being weird for weirdness sake, everything is there for some reason. I would have subbed in "the holy mountain", i don't have any take on what it means, but it looks dope as hell. great video, thanks
David Lynch has so many fans that all his films end up being repeatedly analyzed, that’s unavoidable. But he never confirms anything and repeatedly denies theories.
@@Moviewise I think that some interpretations are so internally consistent, meaning that they explain the text of the film or TV show with such fidelity, that they can be considered as close to the "correct" explanation as possible.
@@denisedaisy3357 Oh, yes, I used to go to Lindy Groove all the time, although it was already the 00s when I started going. I met my wife there! Send me an e-mail to continue this conversation so we don't clog up poor Moviewise's comments page.
How about Andrei Tarkovsky? Pick one of his pictures -- maybe Mirror or Stalker.. Or Sergei Parajanov? Maybe makes some sense, but the cinematic language is so different.
Some movies that are just too bizarre are the cinematic equivalent to the "Emperor's New Clothes". The emperor is actually naked, but the tailor tells all the nobles that only those who are worthy can see the magic fabric. No one can see the clothes, because there's nothing to see- the tailor is fooling everyone. The nobles are too cowardly to admit they see nothing- so they lie, and praise the "invisible" clothes, making details up. It takes a common sense boy to be brave and point out "he's naked!" Bullshit films work the same way. They make no sense. There is no brilliant answer. But no one wants to admit they are too stupid to figure the supposedly genius film out. So they praise the bullshit film as a masterpiece. We need a common sense critic to point at the film and say "Nah, it's bullshit. The director is trying to fool everyone, because really, he's got nothing to say." That's how I feel about Southland Tales. Perhaps that qualifies as a puzzle picture as well?
“Maybe it’s all inside the mind of a flamingo in between chess moves “ made me snort and milk come out my nose. I wasn’t even drinking milk.
I have always wondered how do you pitch a movie like that to be made?
it's nice when someone that knows what they're talking about brilliantly articulates how you feel about certain films
F is for Fake, Hourglass Sanitorium ,Trans Atlantic Express, Jacob's Ladder, A Man Who Sleeps by Perec, and the ultimate, Conspirators of Pleasure by Jan Švankmajer are my recommendations to you. Great video, snark, and voice. Regards
by the way, did you already make an essay on puzzle pictures?
Thank you! I did make one once in a dream, I believe. Or did it make me…?
What about Tommy Wiseau "The Room"?
It makes sense if you read The Disaster Artist. (Read, not watch. The movie left out the entire freaking backstory, because it was too interested in celebrating Tommy instead of presenting the full person.)
It's basically a tale in how this sad and lonely person perceives a world that has abused and abandoned him. Tommy put a lot of himself in that movie, both intentionally and unintentionally. Even details like calling Lisa his "future wife" because he spent some not-great time in France and thus avoids French words like "fiancée." (Ironically, his own chosen name is most likely a misspelling of the French word for bird, "oiseau.")
@@davidbjacobs3598 If Tommy screen play directed by Peter Jackson, the movie could be got an Oscar🤣
to me the room is a very common type of film - where the writer and star uses the film to show himself as the best person ever who's unfairly maligned. you see it all the time if you watch b movies(breen, etc)
How is The Room a puzzle picture?
@@VesnaVK SPOOOONN... Also some cast change mid movie that's really "puzzling"
Good video. Lost Highway and Mullholland Drive actually have pretty understandable structures in terms of plot and Lynch has been pretty open about that, but there is lots of room for interpretation of symbols. SPOILER: Lost Highway is about a jealous man who kills his wife. He prefers to remember things "his own way, not the way they happened". But video represents the truth. Once in prison he experiences a "psychogenic fugue state" (per Lynch) and imagines himself as a young, sexually desirable man. However, reality intrudes on his fantasy and he transforms back to himself and the man in black points the video camera (reality) at him. He tries to run from reality (represented by the police), but in the end is electrocuted for his crimes (what you call the third transformation) and the very end is a grim, endless highway representing his death. Mulholland drive has a very simple dream/reality structure but it told out of order. The dream is full of symbols and ties to Diane's sad life as a failed actress who has had her cruel lover killed by a hit man. She is consumed by guilt and regret and dreams she is an innocent, talented actress and meets her amnesiac lover, who miraculously survives the hit. Reality gradually intrudes on the fantasy until Betty disappears and Diane wakes up, goes mad and commits suicide. Very powerful and my favorite Lynch movie (Twin Peaks is my overall favorite work).
Your understanding of Lost Highway, if I may be bold to say, ties with mine. Where we differ is the electrocution bit: that has always caused me some bafflement. Your theory on that is unassailable.
I'm pretty confident in my Barton Fink interpretation, so here goes (SPOILERS) --
Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) does not exist. Fink, while procrastinating his wrestling picture, invents this character as the "common man" archetype he wants to write about but feels restrained from doing so. This explains why Meadows acts like a caricature. He is Fink's idea of what a common man must be, but Fink really has no idea and is too much up his own ego to realize how silly Meadows is. The homoerotic subtext suggests Fink's imagination getting away with him as well (he's likely bi but repressed because 50s).
Similarly, I'm not sold that Audrey (Judy Davis) actually comes back with him to his hotel room. She is real, but it's in the hotel room that she reveals she wrote all of Mayhew's work, can help Fink with his script, and they hook up. This isn't the reality: it's Fink's fantasy. He wants to reconcile with having learned his hero is an abusive alcoholic. He wants a narrative where he can save Audrey and "get the girl." He's literally masturbating.
Then, her death and Fink goes to ask Meadows for help... This is where the film twists. Because Fink is *ahem* making a deal with the Devil. Capital D, because it's literally a deal with the actual Devil, who appears to Fink through his own invented character of Charlie Meadows.
There are a few details still a bit open. Personally, I think the two cops are also Fink's own characters, as they also act in a stereotypical 40s Noir kind of way. When Meadows returns, he is full Devil, hence everything catching on fire and hence "Heil Hitler."
Fink's deal allows him to overcome his writer's block and write the perfect screenplay exactly as he wants it (not necessarily good). Meadows becomes the lead character in his wrestling script. I doubt it's actually very good: we see through these characters how Fink perceives the common man, and his desire to elevate this struggle he knows nothing about means he probably wrote something very shallow trying to be deep. But that's not why the producers hate it -- the producers hate it because they don't want something that's trying to be deep, they want something shallow and spectacle-driven. And this is also the Devil's trick: Fink can write without issue, but no one will ever see his work.
The final shot is symbolic of all of these themes. He sees that beautiful frame that inspired him so, but it's underwhelming and the bird falls. He's achieved what he wanted, but it isn't satisfying. Which also plays into his failure to understand the "common man" -- what he perceives as art is actually empty and impossible to relate.
Anyway, that's my interpretation.
That is one terrific reading!
Because 50s? The movie takes place in 1941, not the 50s. As such, it is a caricature of the Golden Era of Hollywood studios, just the day before the US entered WWII. Take note of one of the last scenes, where Fink's boss appears wearing a military uniform, having been conscripted as a US Army Reserve colonel. This signifies the ultimate conformity of the movie industry to the state, as well as reinforces the rigid hierarchy within the studio system, where Fink is an outcast, once a promising Broadway playwright with serious artistic aspirations, now just one of disposable movie writers, not unlike a factory worker at an assembly line, or even worse, a seasonal farm hand in California. He's overwhelmed by the fast pace at which movies are produced, with very little concern about originality and artistic merit. It's not that he suffers from a writer's block - he's a fish out of water, absolutely clueless about how insignificant movie writers were within that system, in contrast to theatrical playwrights. Mr. Geisler says it loud and clear to him: 'Writers come and go. We always need Indians'. His story, in a way, resembles that of Orson Welles, a very talented young, breakthrough artist, whose career the Hollywood studio system ultimately destroyed.
Also, the movie makes subtle fun at the champagne socialist views that Fink has and his pretentiousness: proclaiming himself to be the working man's voice, yet he is by all intent and purposes, a failed attempt at an artist whose claim to fame is just one Broadway play.
To suggest he's bisexual or homosexual just because he tries to befriend a common man says a lot about how twisted and crumpled are some people's views on masculinity. This is so 'that's-gay!', which peaked around 2010 and one would have hoped it waned by 2020.
What a fun read on the movie! I've got to watch it again now (also, I love the Coens work, so that's easy).
I'd first thought it a "purgatory" picture (like "Jacob's Ladder"), but it seemed to go much further. Good stuff!
And thanks Moviewise! Love the work!
@@SzalonyKucharz Really solid point about WWII! I obviously missed the year the movie is set. That coming of the second World War could also feed into the bird falling, and obviously "Heil Hitler." The movie is clearly a bit surreal, and plenty of things are not meant to be taken literally.
I disagree about dismissing any possibility of queer-coding, especially given the year the film is set. In 1940s Hollywood, very few industry people (and people in general) were open about any non-hetero sexuality. Dietrich got by by not talking about it. James Whale's career plummeted after the Hayes Code was amped up in 1934, and I can't be convinced that was a coincidence. We obviously can't confirm if any other 30s and 40s stars (in front of or behind the camera) were gay or bi (actually, Vincent Price's daughter confirmed he was bi), but certainly many were and they avoided the stigma like crazy. Whether Cary Grant was bi or not, we know he turned down Rope due to its queer subtext, and James Stewart had no issue because there were no rumors about his sexuality.
In lieu of being able to openly depict homosexuality on the big screen (literally forbidden by the Hayes Code), queer-coding was used in so many damn movies, using subtle winks and nods to bypass the censors. Hitchcock's films were loaded with queer subtext. Villains especially tended to be queer-coded. Movies like Dracula's Daughter and Cat People have pretty obvious lesbian subtexts. Years later, Gore Vidal explicitly claimed to believe his Ben-Hur character was gay. This was simply a staple of the time.
Back to Fink... I tried to find the scene in question here on UA-cam, but it doesn't seem to be up anywhere so I'll have to go off memory. As I recall, the way the scene was shot (wrestling with Charlie) was particularly erotic. IIRC, Charlie was hunched over and beckoning to Fink to "come on, come on." The camera was pushing in slowly on face, and he was looking straight at the camera or close to. The movie is no stranger to POV shots so that in itself isn't too unusual, but it regardless heightens the moment, and is also shot much closer than other POV shots in the movie (I recall a few with the producer, which serve more to distance Fink from his employer via similar means). It isn't simply something weird and awkward where we watching these two have an odd moment, but a key image that lingers on screen, and presumably in Fink's mind. It reads like a seduction scene.
On top of that, if you buy into the read that Charlie is a figment of Fink's imagination, you have to then question the motivation of why he would imagine that. One explanation, and one that I think is easy to believe, is that he has a repressed bisexuality. A LOT of people are bi, and many repress it or stay in the closet, especially in that era, so why shouldn't this be represented? Plus, having him feel a literal romantic attraction to his own fictional character is just thematically appropriate and symptomatic of his narcissism -- his art is literally masturbatory.
Queer reads aren't a fad of the 2010s, but a fundamental aspect of the history of cinema. For decades, subtext was the only representation possible for queer people, and to dismiss that off-hand is simply to reject a common tenet of film analysis. I'm not saying every movie has queer subtext, or even that queer subtext automatically makes the characters canonically queer, but sometimes it's the case and I think there's evidence it applies here.
Sorry for the essay! I tend to ramble.
Don´t forget about Yorgos Lanthimos, the most interesting contemporary Puzzle Filmmaker.
I still think The Lobster is a metaphor of some kind.
L'Année dernière à Marienbad doesn't feel like a puzzle... 'till you try to put it together...
Otherwise it feels like you were falling asleep while watching a movie about someone's dream. The realm of memories...
I saw Last Year at Marienbad as a teenager & LOVED IT !!! Thank you for this fabulous video! 🎉
One of my favourite vague subgenres!! Well done thank you 🙌🙏👍
the first surrealist short film was from Germain Dulac, not Buñuel.
This is one of my favorite UA-cam channel. Thank you
How could you make a great video like this defining Puzzle Pictures and not mention "Eraserhead" (1977) by David Lynch??
that was the first thing on my mind as well 😅😅
Me too. Lynch's best, IMO.
Your Videos So Gooooood
Can you make a video on Tone in movies
How it should be done and
How it should not be done
Thank you! And that’s a great idea for a video!
@@Moviewise
Please do the way you explain
Is so good and simple to understand
Better than other channels
The only thing I can guess is that puzzle pictures are just like this video.
The viewer is confused cause he assumes he is getting the picture until he isn't and the filmmakers are laughing cause even they don't know what it truly means .
There's a Lynch interview where he's asked if he just put something in to f*** with the viewers and he says, 'No, you never do that. You _never_ do that.'
@@JohnMoseley Meaning what?
Vanilla Sky. The movie makes you think one thing, until you realize this prominently-displayed "fix your car Feb 30th". Then the whole movie comes into question.
Yeah, everyone knows February has 31 days.
I still believe Kubrick was just talking out of his a$$ in giving this ridiculous "explanation" for 2001 to this random guy. My theory is, he got tired of people bugging him about the meaning of the movie, so he just fabricated some bs to make them happy and be left alone
It was a book adoption by Arthur C. Clarke. Kubrick is not the one to ask.
Actually, I saw it at 14 in the theater in 1969 and that is exactly what I thought at the end, except for the "being sent back" part. I just interpreted it as ascension to a higher state of being.
Yeah, but what about The Shining?
i need a list of every movie shown in this video (the surrealist ones anyway)
There's a list at the end.
@lynnbowers4722 a lot of the films ln the list I could find at all on letterboxd or on Google.
About 2001, never forget also, that there is the novel by Arthur C. Clarke (writen at the same time as the movie, from a short story from Clarke) and it support Kubrick’s interpretation. Is about humanity being tested to enter the next stage of evolution, the star baby is the first in this new humanity. The test is technological, could you make it to this point in the solar system with your technology?
I'm glad you mentioned "Enemy"; it seems to be seldom discussed.
What is the movie at 0:49 with crocodile
Thank you Moviewise. Now I know that my intuition about movies I have seen is based on innate facts. The audience is smarter than pretentious movie makers think they are not. I have affirmed much of my amateur reactions in your channel's content. I'm tired of movies. I haven't gone to the movies for over three years. And I don't miss them at all. Thanks.
You make a valid point, if we thought there's only one kind of puzzle and it can't be solved. The metaphor of the puzzle is widely used in film theory (see Warren Buckland's Puzzle Films and Hollywood Puzzle Films) to group films playing openly with ambiguity and complexity, and not only with temporal continuity. Films are about a lot more than narrated events! Therefore, although you're right about certain complex films that can be ordered in a linear fashion, you're not accounting for spectator experience, which is key to explain films like Memento, where you're not supposed to just understand what happened, but to experience events as the protagonist. A solved puzzle, an unsolved puzzle and an UNSOLVABLE puzzle are different things you should consider in order to tweak your argument, which anyway points to a relevant distinction. That said, you may be the best youtube finding of 2023 as far as I'm concerned. I had never seen film criticism, film education and humor blended together so well. 'Cause that didn't exist. Good job! No: great job!
Im pretty sure the 2018 korean movie Burning falls into this category. A little less wacky then a lot of these examples but still one of the strangest and most unique thrillers I've seen.
it kinda falls into "was he a murderer?" with yes or no answer
@@itsmekiruha I disagree. I think there's a lot you can look into for all 3 characters that is really interesting. There are so many things outside of the disapearance that are left unsaid and the I like how the viewer gets to fill in the blanks.
@@user-pn3mw7rx1s fair point I guess but still there was no confusion between what’s real what’s not, who’s this character, why he talk like this, where this is happening or even why (I always knew hero’s motivation, feelings in the core of his relationships). In short - there is no “puzzle”. Mystery for sure. It’s still like a regular movie but with little to no exposition and vague enough dialogue to raise questions. It’s like “yes or no” movie but with a lot of questions: is the girl dead? Is he a murderer? Was this girl even his classmate as she said? Was it the same cat? And so on. You can choose yes and no answers for yourself. I kinda think that’s the point of a movie.
I hope I explained my view. I have no clue if I made a ton of grammar mistakes (haven’t practiced English for awhile)
Uzumaki is an amazing puzzle picture for sure
Brilliant stuff
Gonna have to check these out
Make a video about the three Charlie Kaufman movies as a director, please.
FANTASTIC STUFF!
The biggest mistake might be to expect these kinds of movie dream-states to offer any coherent narrative resolution. They don't pretend to play by those rules (and there's nothing I hate more than when people try to distinguish what's "real" from what's "dreaming" in nightmares like "American Psycho" or "Fight Club" or "Mulholland Dr."). As David Lynch says, the movies ARE the dreams. There is no "real" and "unreal." The movie is the movie, and all movies are about what you experience (how you feel, what questions you ask -- of yourself and the movie) as you watch them. I think of "Marienbad" as a kind of immersive hangout movie -- only it's not the characters you necessarily want to hang with, it's the place (the movie) that you feel compelled to revisit, just to kick back and soak up the atmosphere, letting your mind and your senses take you where they will. (If it's a "puzzle," then I think the pieces are triangles in the case of "Marienbad." There's something geometric about that place and all its vanishing perspectives...) Does that mean it's also a "trip" movie (as Kubrick's "2001" was advertised when it was re-released) -- or a kind of "road movie" if the road is the endless one across the landscape of "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"?
To be fair, you never claimed talking about such films would make the genre clear.
I subscribed nevertheless - or did I ? (oh sh!t, this is an either/or situation)
ha i finally found Alain Resnais's !!!! never knew how to write his name. He had a film about "happiness machine" that i search forever!!
There is only one thing to say about this video: 36. Or is it 41? Or both?
Definitely?
What about 1931 Dreyer's bizarre horror film Vampyr?
From which movie is this scene with the naked woman and the crocodile?
That’s a French film from 2011 called The Minister (L’Exercice de l’État)
''helpless lover of alliteration'' hehe😉 Not only you're a great movie connoisseur but also a poet 😉. Hiroshima, mon amour stands out among these movies, it is not so a 'puzzle picture' as the others mentioned here, it is a brilliant example of film making woven into a romance with ellipsis - all that was omitted from the movie is clear in the backgrounds of the characters, the reveals are complete. The rest of mentioned movies are simply weird/abstract/puzzle pictures whatever you call them.
Amazing video! As a filmmaker, I am wondering where the line is between a messy, no-idea-what-is-happening student film and a Puzzle Picture. Intention perhaps? Craft? The director knowing what's going on and purposefully not telling anyone (like how Stanley ruined his films' chances). Would love to hear what folks have to say!
Even the biggest mess of a confusing film could have some simple intention behind it. But the movie has to be at least somewhat understandable to the audience in order to pose a puzzle to the audience.
Great video, but I'm pretty sure most people just say postmodern film and never define what that means (same with literature that's similar to the films you mentioned).
Which Guy Maddin film was that shot from near the end?
Brand Upon the Brain!
One of his best
I think movies represent the thing we value most in the world, emotions. Movies are like dreams; dreams bubble our emotions to the surface at night to keep us engaged so the body can sleep without us around to annoy it.
I think the more accurately movies convey their targeted emotion, the more successful they are.
These movies bubble the usual dream emotions up during their telling, yes, but with one we don't typically see in movies because it turns a good dream into a bad one--frustration.
This is why most people don't enjoy these movies. Frustration is easy to come by for free (love, joy, happiness, etc, not so much), why would we want to pay money to experience it?
Don't get me wrong, I own a number of these movies and I love them; but I also like to muse on why they sit where they do at the box office.
Just a thought...
Thank you, well stated.
I think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a total puzzle picture and I'm surprised I've never seen anyone interpret it as such.
In what way?
Picnic at Hanging Rock?
Is The Shining a Puzzle Picture?
How about "Rashomon"? European-style Surrealism isn't a factor, as "Rashomon" is literal and realistic in its presentation of events (although the acting is frequently theatrical and very dramatic), albeit presenting the POVs of different characters, not all of whom survived the events of that fateful day. The puzzle is on the viewer to figure out who is most likely to be telling the truth, and not just their subjective truth, but the truth of that day, as it really happened.
I also expected you to mention Orson Welles's "F For Fake", but I haven't seen it in many years and can't recall if it retains any puzzle-like ambiguity when all is said and done.
what is the film from 1:00 to 1:03 (b/w shot of man running)?
Spellbound 1945 by Alfred Hitchcock
@MrDavidDDC thanks a million, chumbawumba
Name of movie shown for apparently one second 1:34 - 1:35? 1:03 ?
Watching Hiroshima Mon Amour as an innocent (not Movie Critique) person i thought it was just a tragic Love Story in that they go through so much to find 'Love' but then the bomb drops. French and Japanese Cinema combination personified.
David Lynch's first film was Eraserhead, and every frame of it was weird and perverted.
Dude Im hard to give like to any video, not on principle of sorts, just forgets I believe. But your videos demand me to press like and I seldom forget.
Pray tell me: where are you from?
I don't think the English term "puzzle picture" is accurate. A puzzle can be finished: jigsaw puzzle, crossword puzzle, rebus puzzle.
I prefer either "paradox picture," "enigma movie" or "silly cinema."
Puzzling pictures would be the perfect term.
"Puzzle picture" or an arthouse isn't a genre on itself, it's defiance of genre.
Gozu by Takashi Miike is a good one to add to the list.
The Shining is a puzzle picture and even 2001ASO
The Shining seems to be very much influenced by Marienbad.
@@flyondonnie9578 indeed
Dogtooth and Under the Silver Lake come to mind
"puzzle picture" i believe was a style of art from william s. burroughs' "cities of the red night".
Where do you put *A Serious Man*? Low key, yes, but the main character's search for meaning and truth is thwarted by a series of inexplicable events seemingly designed to destroy him. He's not Job. Or is he? There is no overt reference to the Job story. So, what's the point? What is the meaning of the Dibbuk? What does the title mean? Is the movie making a statement about religion? About Judaism? About the post war middle class? About faith? Or is that a fake out and it's really just a dispassionate existential examination of events?
Now I want to watch it again.
It is a puzzle picture, I think it's closer to reality. Reality is puzzling enough
I'd say it's a moden adaptation of The Book of Job, set in the 1960s Midwestern suburbia. Coen Brothers often retell old stories, placing them in specific periods of US history.
It was based on a Dashiell Hammett novel, rather than an original idea, but I
believe the Bogart film, The Big Sleep (1946) , was the first Puzzle Picture.
Having read the book and seen the movie four times, uhhhh, no.
Ah, Twin Peaks ❤️
Loved Twin Peaks but the one that's really twisted my noodle was the utterly enthralling and highly original Severance - from the cast to the creepy title sequence this thing is a masterwork in weird. I hope it carries on leaving us in nylons and suspenders! Oh wait... maybe I meant suspense. Damn this Freudian effect.
Severance is great, but it's decidedly not a 'puzzle' series, if that's what you're suggesting?
@@PF_K I'm not sure. I got it pretty early on but a lot of people have been totally confused - so much is going on for the "innies" that seems pointless.
And the fact they are so emotionally immature is a great plot device.
I want to know what the hell there are all doing there. Is it humans or aliens (which would be a disappointment to me).
@@marcdraco2189 There are certainly mysterious, even surreal, elements to it. But the overarching plot is relatively straight forward. The characters and their motivations are clear, it's almost entirely linear, and there really isn't much up for interpretation.
Though Dali was quoted to say "I don't DO drugs....I AM the drug", I prefer Jane Wagner (Lily Tomlin's spouse)"s
take on the matter: "I worry that drugs are forcing us to be more creative than we really are!" Just saying.
I wouldn't include lynch because per him there is a "correct" interpretation and he's on record saying he despises being weird for weirdness sake, everything is there for some reason. I would have subbed in "the holy mountain", i don't have any take on what it means, but it looks dope as hell. great video, thanks
Absolutely. I would further argue that many of Lynch's work has been explained.
David Lynch has so many fans that all his films end up being repeatedly analyzed, that’s unavoidable. But he never confirms anything and repeatedly denies theories.
@@Moviewise I think that some interpretations are so internally consistent, meaning that they explain the text of the film or TV show with such fidelity, that they can be considered as close to the "correct" explanation as possible.
@@denisedaisy3357 I don't think so. What is PDBA?
@@denisedaisy3357 Oh, yes, I used to go to Lindy Groove all the time, although it was already the 00s when I started going. I met my wife there! Send me an e-mail to continue this conversation so we don't clog up poor Moviewise's comments page.
Southland Tales. I'm only half joking.
What about Woman in the Dunes?
Wasn't it clear the meaning of I'm thinking of ending things? Main guy just wanted to end his own life?
what*s it all mean
missed Godard!
interesting
How about Andrei Tarkovsky? Pick one of his pictures -- maybe Mirror or Stalker.. Or Sergei Parajanov? Maybe makes some sense, but the cinematic language is so different.
I hate plots anyway
it looks like you've missed out on the most important cinema of them all: richard elfman's the forbidden zone. view immediately.
Eraserhead
Are you brazilian?
His accent is Central-Eastern European, I guess.
@@SzalonyKucharz
And his access to numerous little clips of British TV make me wonder if he lives there.
You’re funny.
: )
Some movies that are just too bizarre are the cinematic equivalent to the "Emperor's New Clothes". The emperor is actually naked, but the tailor tells all the nobles that only those who are worthy can see the magic fabric. No one can see the clothes, because there's nothing to see- the tailor is fooling everyone. The nobles are too cowardly to admit they see nothing- so they lie, and praise the "invisible" clothes, making details up. It takes a common sense boy to be brave and point out "he's naked!" Bullshit films work the same way. They make no sense. There is no brilliant answer. But no one wants to admit they are too stupid to figure the supposedly genius film out. So they praise the bullshit film as a masterpiece. We need a common sense critic to point at the film and say "Nah, it's bullshit. The director is trying to fool everyone, because really, he's got nothing to say." That's how I feel about Southland Tales. Perhaps that qualifies as a puzzle picture as well?
A puzzle picture is not complete nonsense, it just has multiple interpretations. It's ambiguous to a medium level.