why????
Why didn't this film do so much better?
It is absolutely brilliant.
Have we become so brain dead from all the special effects and big budget movies that we cannot see quality when it is right in front of us?
I'm sure that some of it is because it maybe hits a little too close to home. If you fly or are going to fly, this is the kind of film that would scare the heck out of you. The detailed sequences of the crash are haunting. It is a dark film without the Hollywood hype, not the kind of film that really kills at the box office. Brilliant film!
Salvation is free
well, it wasn't a big budget film for one, and didn't get a whole lot of promotional backing from the studio. typically, this type of movie usually gets a bump from picking up nominations and/or wins in the golden globes and oscars, after which the studio will try to use the awards cachet to lure in filmgoers looking for a more serious, introspective movie rather than a blockbuster.
but 'fearless' came out in the same awards season as some major studio tear-jerkers--most notably 'Schindler's List,' which was the big winner at the oscars. also out that year were 'In the Name of the Father,' with Daniel-Day Lewis as a young Irishman wrongly imprisoned in England as a suspected IRA terrorist, and 'The Remains of the Day,' with Anthony Hopkins as a loyal English butler forced to confront his employer's anti-semitism during the rise of the Third Reich, when many members of English Parliament quietly supported the Nazis.
These three movies (two of which, 'Schindler's List' and 'In the Name of the Father,' are based on true stories) combined artistry, introspection, and serious examination of moral, ethical, and psychological issues in a manner similar to 'Fearless,' but they had an advantage: all three dealt with events of major and currently-pressing historical significance. 'Schindler's List,' of course, was the first big studio movie to frankly confront the realities of the Holocaust, prompting a huge resurgence of interest in the lives and tales of survivors, many of whom were nearing the end of life (Spielberg's 'Saving Private Ryan' benefitted from a similar renaissance of sentimental interest in the lives of WW II veterans as they began to pass away in large numbers). 'The Remains of the Day' was similarly timely, and benefitted from Anthony Hopkins' recent anointment as 'acting genius' after the success of 'Silence of the Lambs'. 'In the Name of the Father' also appealed to ethnic sensitivity and had timely political relevance.
'Fearless,' as brilliant as it is, is emotionally wrenching in the extreme, and deals primarily with the psychological angst of a privileged white man (the character's name is Klein, so presumably he's Jewish, but his religion/ethnicity are ignored in the film, as the character is agnostic). It also plays on a fear we all live with: the possibility of death in an airplane accident. Ironically, 'Fearless' taps into a primal fear. We feel pity and anger and remorse for what happened in Nazi Germany and for the injustices surrounding the conflicts in Northern Ireland, but, at least in 1990's America, we weren't afraid of being rounded up by jackbooted Nazis or being locked up as suspected terrorists (though now, perhaps, we might be more sensitive to such fears).
I would be interested to see how 'Fearless' would do if it were reissued today, when almost everyone in America has been touched by the tragedies of 9/11. It's not about terrorism, but it's about coping and survival, things we are all trying to get better at in our current age of fear.
consider that in addition to flying we will all die that is perhaps slightly closer to home than pteromerhanophobia though we are unique in our knowledge of mortality it is not something of which we like to be reminded and this film is imminently involved with the knowledge of death
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