I think if you re-read my post you'll see I wasn't really making a fuss about Gina's nudity in the scene with Hawke. Instead, I was using that to reaffirm my general point about mainstream films' predictable willingness to disproportionately cast young and/or attractive women and direct the camera on them in a state of undress in a manner that contributes nothing to the story or to the quality of acting.
If it had been Gina tucked up under the bedsheet and the male actor strutting about getting dressed (an everyday domestic scenario that mysteriously never seems to make it into mainstream movies) then that would undermine my point.
What instead I make a "fuss about" (although some might call it a "reasoned argument") is people who, possibly through self-esteem issues, feel the need to pretend that attractive women being disproportionately found in a state of undress in films is essential for the wellbeing of the craft. That it enhances the movie in a way that the likes of Hitchcock, Coppolla and Kurosawa were cruelly denied due to censorship in their time. I find that position utterly laughable.
It'd be far more honest to say, "I enjoy viewing the female form. I'd rather see Gina naked in this flick than Hoffman's parents and it has nothing to do with advancing the plot. It's superfluous fluff that increases the chances of a film getting financed."
But no, instead people, overwhelmingly of the male persuasion (go figure), feel the need to log into threads like this and throw around words like "prude". As if the preference to see a scene that advances the plot or the character rather than a scene with a pair of breasts is in someway inappropriate in a website dealing with movies.
As for Hoffman's character:
Heroin abuser - check
Fraudster and embezzler - check
Manipulates brother into committing a felony - check
Orchestrates armed robbery against his own parent's business - check
Life must be peachy if people like that constitute "normal men" to you. You can make a case that Hawke's character was the normal man led astray but Hoffman's character was a 24 carat shyster, and, to reiterate my point, it is pushing the boundaries of believability that he above all mankind would enrapture Gina when he was a "gopher" when they first met.
reply
share
franzkabuki
11 years ago
"Mainstream films` predictable willingness to disproportionately cast young and/or attractive women and direct the camera on them in a state of undress in a manner that contributes nothing to the story or to the quality of acting".
Bizarre thing to worry about - or indeed to even take particular note of. And the answer to the mystery is simple - women are more often seen naked in films than men because of the simple fact that men are ugly. Not nice to look at. But this is such a silly, pointless topic from top to bottom; as a matter of fact, I should start my own thread inquiring why are most people in films gratuitously clothed? There`s usually heating and sh-t in modern appartments and clothes aren`t normally used to identify characters, either. So why this costly habit of dressing performers that contributes nothing to the story or to the quality of acting?
"It has nothing to do with advancing the plot".
There`s more to the art of film than "advancing the plot" you know.
"It`s superfluous fluff that increases the chances of a film getting financed".
When you`ve got the likes of Lumet, PSH, Hawke, Finney, Tomei etc on board - not to mention possess an outstanding screenplay to boot - you don`t need tits to get started.
"As for Hoffman`s character: etc etc etc".
Yeah, just what I said - he`s a pretty normal man and very much an adequate representative of the human kind. Nothing particularly bizarre or deviant about him.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
reply
share