dissecting this film
need to do a paper on the book and looking for outside opinions on the meaning of the story as a whole and specifific chapters.
shareneed to do a paper on the book and looking for outside opinions on the meaning of the story as a whole and specifific chapters.
sharedont waste your time. its not a bad movie, but there really is nothing deeper there.
The battle of the bush is being fought and won by team Mackey.
This film is extremely deep so obvious you missed the point. Are you really that simple?
sharexxdirynunxx,
you are clearly an idiot. please enlighten us with which part or parts you thought were deep.
its a film made for pseudo-intellectuals. its cute, but hardly worth a second glance. anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves.
The battle of the bush is being fought and won by team Mackey.
DeathGecko, I respect your opinion though I must disagree. I'm a fan of the movie but the movie led me years ago to Denis Johnson and I have since read everyone of his novels and collections of poetry. Johnson is at heart a poet and as is the case with much poetry the meaning is not implicitly clear and is subject to interpretation. The book and subsequently the movie beg to be interpreted and identified with. If you don't identify on a base level or are unwilling to interpret somewhat abstractly then yes it's probably not for you. But coming into this forum where a person is looking to talk with individuals who saw something deeper, you saying there is nothing deeper is counter productive for the thread. Why even post if you refuse to answer the question or try to dissect the film?
I would suggest the OP read the source material as well as find some of his poetry, my favorite being "The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly." Understand Johnson's voice and where it's coming from and I think you'll be able to see deeper into where he was going for this.
There is something to be said in that Oren Moverman kept much of the actual poetry in the movie, not sacrificing it for narrative.
Okay, I know this is kind of late, but a few months ago I watched this movie in a class and thought I'd give a response. I took a contemporary fiction course and one of the books we read was Jesus' Son, and we watched this movie in class as well. The main theme we talked about was something called The Quest. The Quest is a motif that refers to literature based on a journey. The hero will have a 'call', which is something that motivates them to go on this journey for something. They face trials & challenges along the way, and at the end they will significantly change if they succeed (the hero does not always succeed in the quest of a story). In this series of stories, *beep* call is a little abstract. He is a drifter and drug addict who does not feel a purpose or sense of happiness. His journey and trials are varied (breakups, car accident, Michelle dying, addiction, to name a few), and over time, he changes. At the conclusion of the story, FH has realized that there is no one way to guarantee happiness, that in order to be happy, you have to believe in it and work towards success for yourself. Besides the Quest, there are also themes of losing yourself (when he works at the retirement home he sees people who seem to have lost their minds, their memories, etc; they don't fit in with 'normal' people), love, disassociation from reality, intuition and more. The stories raise many issues beyond drug addiction such as mental illness, abortion, health care, life and death, love, friendship, and more. There is meaning in these stories, but of course each person has their own interpretations. These are just some of mine. I won't deny that it's not for everyone. It's not just a weird, indie movie, it's also a weird story. There are lots of things about the stories that confuse people. It is nonlinear, vague at times, and some people find FH's claims of foretelling the bad things that would happen (ie.: car crash) as well as how he handles tough situations to be frustrating. It's a weird story, and FH is a weird person. He isn't supposed to be the person everyone likes. He might not even be someone you're supposed to like at all, but to me that's the point. FH's journey is aimed for him to find purpose and a place in a world that he does not fit into. Anyway, that's my take on this.
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