A 5 for the day in honor of Peter Weir, one of my favorite directors. Really insightful observations. Well done.
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Have loved Weir’s movies since I first saw Witness. Witness was SO POWERFUL – I went to several writing seminars along the way that used the storytelling features of that movie to illustrate a wholly compact story from Beginning to Middle to End. Just one of the highest in excellence I think.
Which made Mosquito Coast a HUGE disappointment. I came out of the theatre going WTF?! I HATE that movie. Oh the direction is good…but I hated the story.
And am so glad some of the commenters talked up M&C…although I would have to agree, it did not quite attain the appeal that Weir had been able to infuse in his earlier movies. But considering the O’Brian series are such a complex thing to work with, it was a FAR FAR better adaptation that I had seen yet…much better in some ways than Jackson’s LOTR…the ‘liberties’ that Weir took with the story were nowhere near as outrageous and the fact that M&C came out as a near perfect immersion of a life no longer existing, Id have to say it deserves continued consideration.
i totally agree that Witness is a superb film on every level – I’ve seen it countless times and it ALWAYS works. It’s interesting what you said about M&C – the “immersion in a life no longer existing” – that seems to be one of Weir’s themes – and it’s shown to perfection in Witness (although that world does exist, of course – but it’s a closed world, one we, as outsiders, rarely get to see into.) There are so many wonderful non-judgmental details … like when Eli (God, how I love Eli) is showing poor John Book how to milk a cow and he gets frustrated and says (blowing all our preconceived notions of Amish men out the window) “Haven’t you ever had your hand on a tit before?” And John Book replies grumpily, “Not one this big” and there’s a pause and then Eli just throws back his head and howls with laughter. It’s details like that that just make the film spectacular!!
Another one of his films I adore (that also has that “immersion in a life no longer existing” thing) is The Year of Living Dangerously – one of my favorite films of all time. Have you seen it? We are tossed immediately into the world of Indonesia, on the threshhold of their revolution against colonialism – and Weir doesn’t give us a chance to catch up, we have to figure it out as we go. It’s terrific. And Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver have a marvelous little love story – and Linda Hunt is fantastic (playing a man).
I don’t think Mosquito Coast is a success by any means – but for some reason I still really admire it. It’s one of those rare failures where I actually admire the attempt, if that makes sense. So often, a failure is just a failure – but for me, Mosquito Coast (and Harrison Ford’s performance – not to mention Helen Mirren and River Phoenix) are fascinating in their scope, even when they fall short.
I just love Peter Weir. Wonderful stuff.
And Fearless is one of my favorite movies of all time – with Jeff Bridges at his very best.
Once again, I am reminded how much I like Peter Weir films. It’s an odd thing, but he never comes to mind when I think about great directors, yet I love so many of his films, films that are obvious expressions of the director and his singular approach. Just looking at a list of his films, my reaction is, “Yes, yes, hell yes, not perfect but still interesting, yes, one of my favorites”, etc. I need to put Fearless on my Netflix list. I haven’t seen it for several years, and it calls for a reviewing. BTW, I never liked Dead Poets Society. In fact, I thought it was ridiculous, and it made me angry. On the other hand, every great director should make at least one film that some people hate, and that makes some people angry—I think that’s a rule.
I’m not expert on film direction, though I greatly appreciate thoughtful analyses of film direction. In the end, I just know what I like, and the fact that so many of Peter Weir’s films are among my all-time favorites says to me that he’s a great director. Since no one has mentioned it yet, I also have to give props to “The Truman Show” (even though I know how you feel about Laura Linney, Sheila!). The fact that Weir has made movies which got restrained performances from both Robin Williams AND Jim Carrey must be worth something!