In his new excellent film, Gran Torino, the audience is introduced to Clint Eastwood by means of a growl: a deep, canine beast of a sound from Walt Kowalski, a recently-widowed, grizzled Korean War veteran. He’s expressing displeasure at his grandchildren, who have arrived at his wife’s funeral inappropriately dressed. We hear that growl again [...]
Where the Title Comes From.
"Attempting to burrow and disappear into the admiration of certain works of art, I tried to make such deep and pure identification that my integrity as a human self would become optional, a vestige of my relationship to the art. I wanted to submit and submerge, even to die a little. I developed a preference, among others, for art that required endurance, that mimicked a galactic endlessness and wore out the nonbelievers. By ignoring my hunger or my need to use the bathroom during a three-hour movie by Kubrick or Tarkovsky, I'd voted against my body, with its undeniable pangs and griefs, in favor of a self composed of eyeballs and brain, floating in the void of pure art." ---- Jonathan Lethem, "The Beards"Recent Comments
Most Popular (since July 2009)
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- 54% Russell Mulcahy, "Resident Evil: Extinction" (2007).
- 29% Oren Peli, "Paranormal Activity" (2007).
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