odessa steps and the untouchables
Anyone else find it amazing how the untouchables does a remarkable job recreating the odessa steps sequence from battleship potemkin? of course there are adaptations...but still...incredible!
shareThe Untouchables is one of my favorite films, and I never realized it was referencing Potemkin. We recently watched Potemkin in my film class at Northwestern and when the Odessa Steps sequence came on, it was like a light clicked in my head. One more reason to like The Untouchables!
shareHaha--I'm in that class too, and writing my screening report right now.
This same scene is also recreated in Terry Gilliam's Brazil.
So give me a stage, where this bull here can rage.
In the Untouchables I guess they called it "homage", but it doesn't work at all. I sneer when I see it, can't help it. In Brazil it fits a lot better with what's going on. I guess I just can't stand those kind of "homages".
shareThey do that often in films. Where they pay homage to a classic.
Asgard why do you sneer? I am curious as to what you find so bad about the sequence in Untouchanles? A homage is there as a reminder of something great that may have been forgotten, to show appreciation of something amazing.
How is that bad?
Asgard will have to speak for him/herself. Where I sometimes find De Palma's homages a little intrusive is where they are either so obvious (and often don't quite fit the rhythm or style of the rest of the movie?) or where they feel like maybe they were ideas adopted because De Palma couldn't come up with his own way to do the scene.
Granted, when a scene is this great, and this much of a classic, it's very challenging to do it better. Usually, if you're doing an homage it's better (or at least easier) to do it as a gag. De Palma's homages tend to seem very serious. If he's joking, it's not too clear that's what he's doing (except for a *few* of his Hitchcock homages -- ones that have usually followed more serious homages to the same scenes in other de Palma films).
I'd have to agree that De Palma tends to go a bit overboard (or maybe just whacks you over the head?) with his homages. Easy to accuse him of near theft.
Still, I do still like that scene (in Untouchables) despite the fact that I know it's a De Palma homage. Maybe it's the Mamet script?
An homage can work perfectly if it is referencing to a film that is not so widely known by America.
De Palma's homage in The Untouchables to Battleship Potempkin works so well because it makes more people want to see BP; as of now it is only known well by lovers of film.
The same would go if someone were filming an homage to Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows, or Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries. With just the right amount of camera shots and direction it would most likely work very well.
However, as we all have come to sadly realize, it would not work anymore to pay homages to popular films like The Wizard of Oz, It's A Wonderful Life or Star Wars... films that have been recycled so many times that it just gets depressing after a while.
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"This is no mine. It's a tomb."
However, as we all have come to sadly realize, it would not work anymore to pay homages to popular films like The Wizard of Oz, It's A Wonderful Life or Star Wars... films that have been recycled so many times that it just gets depressing after a while.
I beg to differ.
1. It's risky to say "we all have come to ... realize," a presumption of opinion to say the least;
2. Not all homages are created equal. As I've said in this forum particularly, a de Palma homage tends to be a bit on the obvious side. I can think of homages that I've seen (or at least believe to be homages) that are far more subtle, partly a borrowing of technique that appeared particularly notably in one movie and is nodded to in a latter movie. Some may not even be homages. After all, I suppose some would declare certain sequences to be homages when they are similar more for their use of the same technology (say certain Steadicam shots now verging on movie cliches?) -- where DO we draw the line of definition?
There's a thin line between homage and cliche, perhaps?
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