486 Homicide

[Mr Sausage]

That could be. I knew the origins of Yiddish, but I never knew it was so similar. That might explain why I could understand some of what was being said but not all. I put that down to it being mostly in the background, but it makes equal sense if it were yiddish.

It's still not plausible as a mistake, tho'.

[knives]

Yiddish has a lot of terms directly lifted from German (though usually with a different meaning) so that is probably just went down though without a rewatch I can't confirm entirely. Also you seem accidentally intent on driving me insane with that artificial word.

[Mr Sausage]

Far from just having terms lifted from German, they're so close to each other that I can understand a fair amount of Yiddish, whereas I can't understand a word of a German dialect like Swiss German or Plaatdeutsch, ect. I see why linguists disagree over whether it counts as an independent language.

I have no idea what the last sentence of your post means.

[domino harvey]

I think he's talking about your tho'

[Mr Sausage]

Hmm. Never thought of contractions as artificial words. If it matters, knives, I only do it because I can't be bothered to type out "though."

[knives]

I have no idea what the last sentence of your post means.

In your first post you talked about loving the artificial dialogue. Whatever artifice there is to delivery in it though I find that it works especially in this film for a very real end. Mamet seems to really understand how people use language as a tool and his dialogue very honestly portrays that. Here, I think he works well to show how the Jews isolate themselves just in how they talk and how that split has a greater psychological effect on Gold. The detectives too use it as a tool, but more in a business sense which seems to be a common point of reference with Mamet and language.

[Mr Sausage]

Oh, ok. You probably could've found a less confusing way to say that.

As for this argument, again, you're oddly uncomfortable with the idea of artificiality and its relation to truth or reality or whatever. Mamet's dialogue is intensely artificial: verbal and articulate and rhythmic in a way you hardly find outside of art. The language communicates a lot about itself precisely because it's so conscious of itself. And I think the relationship between identity, culture, and language in this film is very complex and deserves a full analysis (Gold is similar to Stephen Daedelus in that he is intensely verbal and defined by his use of language, and yet feels too that English isn't his language, that it was the language of his oppressors before it was ever his). The thing about heightened, stylized language is that it calls attention to itself. This isn't good in a movie where the language doesn't bear scrutiny, but fantastic in one where it ought to be scrutinized. It's also purely pleasurable when it's done right.

As someone who loves heavy stylization and artifice, I'm kind of baffled when someone feels they have to apologize for a movie or a book or whatever that's composed that way, or play it down with a "yes, but..." kind of statement. There is more to getting at how people talk than scrupulously mimicking the cadences, word choices, and inarticulateness of actual people sitting in restaurants or milling in banks lines. Yes, Mamet gets at certain realities of how language is used, but that doesn't mean his use of language isn't any less peculiar and artificial.

[knives]

I think you hit it right with that last sentence, but I'd argue for an addition of 'than anyone else'. Even in documentary you get an artifice occurring with language or otherwise in an Heisenberg sort of way so for me noting the literal unreality of an artwork is a bit like saying apples are edible. Even something striving to be absolutely naturalistic is constructed through those making it leaving the sense of the false. Here I'm reminded of those reports that people found the 'performance' of Joe McCarthy in Good Night, and Good Luck unrealistic. So instead I find it more helpful to consider artistic artifice in terms of how it approaches the way things are experienced in which case I find Mamet's use of language completely true. On the other hand something like Adventure Time strikes me as artificial in how it uses language which results in some of its funniest gags.

[Mr Sausage]

Even in documentary you get an artifice occurring with language or otherwise in an Heisenberg sort of way so for me noting the literal unreality of an artwork is a bit like saying apples are edible.

Um, ok. If you think there's no point in distinguishing between mannerism and naturalism, we can probably call it a day and move on.

[knives]

Probably since I find naturalism just another mannered form of expression.

[Mr Sausage]

Probably since I find naturalism just another mannered form of expression.

More like you've decided to become insensible to all differences in degree and now want to persist in finding no distinction between Gertrude and Ivan the Terrible on the one hand and La Terra Trema and The French Connection on the other, on the ground that both are dimly the result of constructedness, and despite centuries of an aesthetic distinction being drawn between the two styles.

The basic distinction: naturalism/realism takes advantage of convention in order to appear as close to the outward forms of real life as the audience understands it. Mannerism breaks those conventions, and breaks them in such a way that the audience can see the breakage and understand that the outward forms of real life are not being approached. These count as two different techniques. You're the only person I've met who thinks this is a controversial distinction.

[colinr0380]

Mr. S, if you liked those, of course see House of Games, but also The Spanish Prisoner. Those to me are his two best (as a director/writer - Glengarry is James Foley)

Moe, what is your opinion on Oleanna? That seems to be one of Mamet's most divisive films.

[matrixschmatrix]

It's entirely true that 'naturalism' is in a sense as artificial as any other form of art, and that verite films are as constructed as Kubrick films, in the sense that one can't just say that naturalism and verite are inherently more true due to their apparent lack of artifice. But it seems strange to deny that Kubrick and Mamet are consciously aesthetically denying naturalism and adopting something that is noticeably more unlike the day to day reality with which I'm familiar than say Kazan or D.A. Pennebaker. That's not a value judgment, and it's not denying that they're fundamentally as or more applicable to the human condition or whatever, but natural and artifical are both aesthetic styles, and it's weird and confusing not to see that. Like, if you said you found Brecht plays to be incredibly truthful, that would be great, but if you said you found them naturalist, that would be pretty bizarre.

[Moe Dickstein]

Mr. S, if you liked those, of course see House of Games, but also The Spanish Prisoner. Those to me are his two best (as a director/writer - Glengarry is James Foley)

Moe, what is your opinion on Oleanna? That seems to be one of Mamet's most divisive films.

Funnily you picked the one I haven't seen yet. I'd probably like it since I've liked every Mamet piece I've ever come across to date.

[Mr Sausage]

Mr. S, if you liked those, of course see House of Games, but also The Spanish Prisoner. Those to me are his two best (as a director/writer - Glengarry is James Foley)

Moe, what is your opinion on Oleanna? That seems to be one of Mamet's most divisive films.

Oleanna looks very interesting, but I got the sense from reading the comments on this board that I should read the play rather than watch the movie.

House of Games and Spartan are the ones I most want to see next. Oddly, despite my interests (or maybe because of them), I want to watch Redbelt the least.

[matrixschmatrix]

House of Games is amazing and is probably the single Mamet work that makes it impossible to turn my back on his corpus regardless of how much he annoys me.

[knives]

Probably since I find naturalism just another mannered form of expression.

More like you've decided to become insensible to all differences in degree and now want to persist in finding no distinction between Gertrude and Ivan the Terrible on the one hand and La Terra Trema and The French Connection on the other, on the ground that both are dimly the result of constructedness, and despite centuries of an aesthetic distinction being drawn between the two styles.

The basic distinction: naturalism/realism takes advantage of convention in order to appear as close to the outward forms of real life as the audience understands it. Mannerism breaks those conventions, and breaks them in such a way that the audience can see the breakage and understand that the outward forms of real life are not being approached. These count as two different techniques. You're the only person I've met who thinks this is a controversial distinction.

Honestly, for your first point I think your underselling your point especially to the second set of examples since the Visconti is clearly more naturalistic and based in realism as a style than the Friedkin which I would never have thought to relate it to. At the same time I think you're wrong about my point, though my vagueness is to blame. I think comparing the Visconti to something in a similar vein like Bicycle Thieves might better develop my point. I think in terms exclusive to the concept of artifice there is a huge gap between the artificial in terms of each film moreso than say the Visconti and Kubrick which I find equivalently mannered relative their practiced styles.
Going back to the two neo-realists I find, you can disagree, De Sica far more artificial developing storied situations and characters that are not as reality is experienced. There's a Spielbergian sentimentality placed on the proceeds which give an omnipresence of mood. Visconti though at least gives the sense that the style is identical to how the characters experience this event. The style matches the characters seemingly telling it. Homicide for me is as Gold would tell it while something like BT is not so it is for me artificial.

It's entirely true that 'naturalism' is in a sense as artificial as any other form of art, and that verite films are as constructed as Kubrick films, in the sense that one can't just say that naturalism and verite are inherently more true due to their apparent lack of artifice. But it seems strange to deny that Kubrick and Mamet are consciously aesthetically denying naturalism and adopting something that is noticeably more unlike the day to day reality with which I'm familiar than say Kazan or D.A. Pennebaker. That's not a value judgment, and it's not denying that they're fundamentally as or more applicable to the human condition or whatever, but natural and artifical are both aesthetic styles, and it's weird and confusing not to see that. Like, if you said you found Brecht plays to be incredibly truthful, that would be great, but if you said you found them naturalist, that would be pretty bizarre.

I'm not saying that Homicide is naturalistic, just that it is not artificial.

[Mr Sausage]

I came here expecting you to fall into the trap of quibbling with my examples only to find you quibbling with an example I never chose!

I think what's most bizarre about all of this is that you talk as if you're the only one to figure out that realism/naturalism is relative and context dependent. Everyone in this conversation knows this; we're not distinguishing between artificial and natural styles out of ignorance of the constructedness of both sides, we're doing it because there are clear aesthetic differences nonetheless!

Anyway, the point still stands: are you refusing to see the how Ivan the Terrible is artificial in a way La Terra Trema is not, so much so that we can distinguish them on that basis, or are you going to hold that they're both just the same thing and the word "artificial" is meaningless in the case of the two of them?

I'm not saying that Homicide is naturalistic, just that it is not artificial.

The dialogue in Homicide is very artificial. So artificial that it even has its own term: Mametspeak. Basically only people in Mamet's work speak like that. That's about as artificial as you can get, when something in your movie doesn't get compared to real life but to the rest of your work.

[knives]

I honestly don't get what you are arguing now. My argument has never been about realism which I don't find a very realistic mode of expression, but all the same agree with you on entirely. My disagreement is with the use of artificial. Mametspeak is not tofu pretending to be turkey. It is the turkey. Just today on the trolley I saw an incident between a cop and a young pair of ladies straight out of a Mamet script. Homocide presents reality as it is rather than what some majority thinks it should objectively be.

[Mr Sausage]

Well I haven't understood what you're arguing from the get go, so it looks like we're both now equally confused.

The reason Mamet's dialogue is artificial is not because no one in the real world talks like that, but because everyone in his world talks like that, with an almost equal level of speed and wit. Homicide presents reality as David Mamet sees it, so much so that it stops being our world and starts being his.

If I had to guess, I'd say the problem rests entirely on the fact that you have no clear idea of what the world "artificial" means or what its significance is regarding art.

[knives]

It may stop being your world, but it is still mine. Certainly, to use your example, I find The French Connection far more artificial than Homicide.

[Mr Sausage]

Everyone in San Diego talks like they're in a Mamet film?

I don't usually appeal to consensus in an argument like this, but I still feel like pointing out that Mamet's dialogue is routinely called artificial (by detractors and boosters alike) whereas I don't think anyone in history has ever called the dialogue in The French Connection artificial (let alone moreso than a David Mamet film). So congratulations on being the first.

[knives]

Thanks. I don't think everyone talks like a Mamet film, but in those settings people use language exactly like in the Mamet film. I think our big disagreement is you see the sliding scale as across styles where one style is inherently more artificial than another while I think that scale is self contained within each style so that there is different levels of artifice within each style even though no style is inherently more artificial. So I guess what I'm saying is that I believe Guy Maddin when he says his movie is 97% true.

[Mr Sausage]

Are you saying artifice isn't inherent to any individual style? What is it inherent to, then?

As for the rest, you used 'style' so many times it started to lose all meaning.

I don't think everyone talks like a Mamet film, but in those settings people use language exactly like in the Mamet film.

The interesting question is whether they talked like that before David Mamet came along.

Anyway, Mamet's verbal style may not be sui generis, but it's still artificial, regardless of whether you occasionally hear someone say something that could've come from a Mamet film. Indeed, to continue along the lines of my first sentence above, I think Mamet's dialogue owes more to snappy comedies from the forties like His Girl Friday, just as I think that art imitates other art more than it imitates life and that life imitates art more than vice versa. I sometimes hear people say things that could've come from a Shakespeare comedy. You'll still never hear me say that his dialogue is anything other than artificial, or confuse my life for a Shakespeare play, (or think that what was said was actually good enough to make a fine addition to one of them).

[knives]

Are you saying artifice isn't inherent to any individual style? What is it inherent to, then?

As for the rest, you used 'style' so many times it started to lose all meaning.

Yes, I could have written that better. The best answer from me is I don't know. I've been using character POV, but I don't think that would stand up to much scrutiny.

I don't think everyone talks like a Mamet film, but in those settings people use language exactly like in the Mamet film.

The interesting question is whether they talked like that before David Mamet came along.

Sadly I'm only a little older than this movie, so I couldn't say though old people I know who worked in sales have told me Glengarry Glen Ross might have well been a documentary.

Anyway, Mamet's verbal style may not be sui generis, but it's still artificial, regardless of whether you occasionally hear someone say something that could've come from a Mamet film. Indeed, to continue along the lines of my first sentence above, I think Mamet's dialogue owes more to snappy comedies from the forties like His Girl Friday, just as I think that art imitates other art more than it imitates life and that life imitates art more than vice versa. I sometimes hear people say things that could've come from a Shakespeare comedy. You'll still never hear me say that his dialogue is anything other than artificial, or confuse my life for a Shakespeare play, (or think that what was said was actually good enough to make a fine addition to one of them).

Agree to disagree on the artificial thing, but I do agree with the rest said here.