MovieChat Forums > I... comme Icare (1979) Discussion > How is this great??

How is this great??

posted 12 years ago by tieser
8 replies | jump to latest

I dont get it. Watched the first hour of this movie the other night, and all i could think was: what were the people in the 'commission' doing for a year??? nobody ever cared to seek out the tv camera material??? didn't they check if the bullets were actually fired from deslows rifle?? why would there be a cut to a close up of the president getting shot in the amateur video?? i mean come on!! these aren't even goofs!! wtf was happening there? it's a joke.

for me, the whole conspiracy set up was so implausible and trite that i couldn't keep on watching .. maybe it gets better??

[–] Eumenides_0 12 years ago

The Comission was encouraged by the government to find an explanation that ruled out a conspiracy. As such, they only valued data that backed up their own preconceptions, and didn't bother to analyse evidence that refuted their expectations. This is hardly surprising: it happens all the time, and the human mind is in fact built to work like this. When we believe something, we'll find data to support. whatever we believe in. This is called The Thinker and The Prover:

http://deoxy.org/wiki/The_Thinker_and_the_Prover

Yves Montand's character was different; he didn't have preconceptions, he just felt the investigation had been sloppy, and decided to let the evidence take him to their own conclusions.

You should have watched the rest of the movie, it gets a lot better, especially when Montand and a doctor discuss the Stanley Milgram Experiment:

http://www.experiment-resources.com/stanley-milgram-experiment.html

This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

[–] chamacao-1 12 years ago

I do get it!
Any piece of cinema that is in a foreign language, and that generally we do not understand without subs. is perceived as a true masterpiece.

There is great value in foreign films and there are great works of art... but this one is NOT one of them.

[–] doomgen_29 12 years ago

Sometimes people don't get it, sometimes I don't either, but in this instance you're wrong, or you simply weren't in the right mindset, who knows.

[–] erleyas 10 years ago

yes, unfortunately you lost it. The last 5 seconds of this movie makes it a great movie. Sorry

[–] HrutkaPal 10 years ago

I do get your point.

Even if the commission is all corrupt, and they didn't even try to find the killer, why didn't the prosecutor do all this research within that year?

It's like he first realised this case after it was only "solved".

Also, many other things seem a bit off...
Just to name the biggest one: That organisation killed a bunch of witnesses just like that, but that prosecutor was not killed right after he had his veto on the report or searching for that unknown witness. What were they waiting for?

[–] grybop 8 years ago

Just to name the biggest one: That organisation killed a bunch of witnesses just like that, but that prosecutor was not killed right after he had his veto on the report or searching for that unknown witness. What were they waiting for?

Exactly!

Other minor issues include:
- finding a tape where someone has chronicled the organisation's actions and scheme by pure luck (!!)
- said messages on tape are garbled among pieces of music, but when they are de-garbled via changes in speed, frequency and tone, the music stays intact. Who would mess with such a great soundtrack, eh?

The famous ending is nothing the viewer cannot see coming from miles away - it admittedly gives much credibility to the movie though.

If you want to see a better political thriller with Yves Montand, watch Z (1969)
If you want to see a better thriller about the assassination of a president, watch JFK (1992)

[–] kosmikino 8 years ago

Ironically, in my opinion, your comments exactly underscore the accuracy of the film in its fictional representation of 'The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy' AKA 'The Warren Commission', set up by Lyndon Johnson to investigate the JFK assassination.

Most people who have studied how the commission functioned and its conclusions (especially the declassified notes) are left with exactly the same 'WTF' feelings.

As for the conspiracy being 'implausible and trite' - I would really recommend you read a book like 'JFK & The Unspeakable' by Jim Douglas and then re-watching the film - I am pretty sure you will reach a different conclusion as to the veracity, plausibility and accuracy of the fictional conspiracy presented in I... comme Icare, which I personally consider a masterpiece of the political assassination thriller genre - up there with Executive Action, Parallax View and JFK.

[–] Kinsayder (28) 6 years ago

I remember enjoying the movie when I first saw it many years ago, but watching it again recently with a more critical eye I was struck by the carelessness of the writing and direction. OP highlights a few of these defects but there are many others.

The problem is that writer director Henri Verneuil seems out of his depth with this sort of material. I love conspiracy thrillers but this one feels like hackwork. Perhaps in the hands of Costa-Gavras it could have been the masterpiece that some people are mistaking it for.