Terry Gilliam is an amazing director and writer, but this film demanded too much of the viewer, so much that it actually got boring to decipher everything.
Jodelle was great, but I felt it might damage her psyche to go through such an experience, not to meantion the viewer.
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"The truth is behind everything..."
Morally uptight kindergarten teachers don´t necessarily make for best art critics.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
Walter-
The film is rated R so the audience is at their own discretion in watching it. But I do agree that there are things a child shouldn't be required (or allowed) to do in movie roles. It may all be simulation, but that doesn't mean it's not harmful.
Out THERE?...with the bees...and the hail...and the A-bombs! -Bobby Hill
"There are things a child shouldn´t be required (or allowed) to do in movie roles".
There no doubt ´are´ such things, however, none of these things were done in Tideland - not in my opinion nor in the opinion of whatever child protection organizations there are in Canada. And in the 21st century, such organizations can be trusted to be more than sufficiently strict... so your moral outrage seems quite misplaced here.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I don't believe it is. Children don't possess a strong separation between reality and fantasy. There's always a chance of "transference". That's the best way I can put it.
Try to imagine it from the actors' point of view. They're not experiencing what we see; rather they're spending hours on end in a very real, studio setting, having the lines and scenes explained to them by adults who are going to be very aware of how to help a kid get through them. This is interspersed with staccato moments of shooting short scenes in-character, followed by more prolonged periods of 'real life'.
Parents may well be on-hand to help, and the other actors will break character when 'cut' is yelled. We find Dickens disturbing, but that's because we don't see him sat down in a folding chair, drinking a latte and checking his text messages.
It's all about context, and while we viewers are given the director's intended experience - which is indeed disturbing and challenging - the actors, and in particularly Ferland, do not have that context. Because of this, even to a child, the difference between acting and real-life will always be stark.
At least, that's my thoughts on the subject.
Try to imagine it from the actors' point of view. They're not experiencing what we see; rather they're spending hours on end in a very real, studio setting, having the lines and scenes explained to them by adults who are going to be very aware of how to help a kid get through them. This is interspersed with staccato moments of shooting short scenes in-character, followed by more prolonged periods of 'real life'.
Parents may well be on-hand to help, and the other actors will break character when 'cut' is yelled. We find Dickens disturbing, but that's because we don't see him sat down in a folding chair, drinking a latte and checking his text messages.
It's all about context, and while we viewers are given the director's intended experience - which is indeed disturbing and challenging - the actors, and in particularly Ferland, do not have that context. Because of this, even to a child, the difference between acting and real-life will always be stark.
At least, that's my thoughts on the subject.
Totally agree, Ferland was a professional actress, young as she was, used to the business, AND kids constantly do play or pretend things naturally anyway, so there is no stretch to any of it, after all, the parents were likely just behind the cameraman.
Goes to show how well a film is made when you can forget that it is a film, with twenty or forty people BEHIND the actual camera, standing there.
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Exactly right. EXACTLY.
No one need worry too much about kids on film sets, they are treated with absolute courtesy, respect, and mind for their welfare.
And what you see on screen is not reality, just an approximation of it. Even less so in fantasy films.
Heck, I suspect Drew Barrymore was more traumatized during the making of E.T. than the girl was during the making of Tideland.
Never defend crap with 'It's just a movie'
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I wouldn't say EXACTLY. Here's part of an email that Sarah Polley sent to Terry Gilliam many years ago about her experience making Munchausen.
Basically, I remember being afraid a lot of the time. I felt incredibly unsafe. I remember a couple of trips to the hospital after being in freezing water for long periods of time, losing quite a bit of my hearing for days at a time due to explosives, having my heart monitored when one went off relatively close to me, etc. I remember running through this long sort of corridor where explosives went off every few feet, things were on fire, etc. I cried hysterically in my dad's lap and begged him to make sure I wouldn't have to do it again, but I did. I think I did it quite a few more times. I remember the terrifying scene where we were in the boat and the horse jumped out and ended up surfacing a plastic explosive that went off right under my face. I remember being half trampled by a mob of extras and then repeating the scene several times. I remember working very long hours.
I know I had some fun as well, but it's pretty much obliterated by the sense of fear, and exhaustion, and of not being protected by the adults around me. And again, the adults who should have been there to protect me were my parents, not you. This, of course, took some time to arrive at. I admit I was pretty furious at you for a lot of years.
What she did in Tideland is nothing compared to what Linda Blair did in the Exorcist.
My vote history: http://us.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=9354248
I gave it an 8...
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