As I was talking with a friend today about the perplexities and futility of life, I began to give a brief description of The Stranger, primarily focusing on the ending with the trial and Meursault's detached personality and view of life. Getting more emotional and more confused as I attempted to depict this to my friend, he suggested I read The Myth of Sisyphus at which I chuckled and said how that was one of Camus' main points and we had already discussed its relevance to the novel. I thought it was really amusing how my point of view seemed to blend enough with Camus' that it was suggested I read about Sisyphus.
Anyways, last week we watched The Man Who Wasn't There. Aside from being an interesting movie in the general sense, I really did feel that Camus' "philosophy" was being projected in it. I enjoyed the black-and-white old style film noir quality, as well as recognizing several loved actors such as Tony Shalhoub, Richard Jenkins, Christopher McDonald, and Jack McGee.
The title forces the question of which man wasn't where? I find this to be answered by: Ed Crane was the man that no one really believed was at the scene of the death of Big Dave. Though he tried telling the truth to help his wife, his story was just not "exciting" enough. The darkness of the movie was evident not only in the plot, but in the cinematics such as the dark room where Big Dave tells Ed about his affair and a cigar cutter catches the light, or when the jail bars cast shadows across the face of the lawyer and around him, the dark against his light grey suit.
This brings me to something else I enjoyed -- Ed's lawyer Freddy Reiedenschneider. Perhaps I am biased as I love Tony Shalhoub, but his enthusiasm and spirit in trying to find a logical explanation for the murder was almost contagious. Then again, I get really into criminal investigation shows at times, and the scenes where the lawyer tried to get behind what happened were really engaging. The first main scene with him where Ed tries to tell the truth about him committing the murder was really tense as Freddy rambles on and on about his hypotheses while Ed's wife slowly turns her head to stare at her husband when she realizes that he really did commit the murder and she is unfairly locked up, and Ed's face has a mixed look of terror and calmness.
One thing I didn't enjoy very much was the forced humor. Yes, sometimes it was funny and fit in, but other times, the absurdity (oddness, not Camus' absurd) stuck out too much. This included things like the whole UFO idea and most of the scenes with Birdy. Oppositely, the ending scene where the camera pans across expressionless faces watching Ed die was very moving and enhanced the movie after the stupid UFO thing.
However, having watched countless movies with my father and brother when they always pointed out logic flaws, difficult scenes, mistakes, and the overall quality of a film, I have "inherited" a very critical point of view towards movies. Overall, I enjoyed the movie and was also made to think about the ideas presented, though it didn't speak to me as much as the novel The Stranger itself did.
Anyways, last week we watched The Man Who Wasn't There. Aside from being an interesting movie in the general sense, I really did feel that Camus' "philosophy" was being projected in it. I enjoyed the black-and-white old style film noir quality, as well as recognizing several loved actors such as Tony Shalhoub, Richard Jenkins, Christopher McDonald, and Jack McGee.
The title forces the question of which man wasn't where? I find this to be answered by: Ed Crane was the man that no one really believed was at the scene of the death of Big Dave. Though he tried telling the truth to help his wife, his story was just not "exciting" enough. The darkness of the movie was evident not only in the plot, but in the cinematics such as the dark room where Big Dave tells Ed about his affair and a cigar cutter catches the light, or when the jail bars cast shadows across the face of the lawyer and around him, the dark against his light grey suit.
This brings me to something else I enjoyed -- Ed's lawyer Freddy Reiedenschneider. Perhaps I am biased as I love Tony Shalhoub, but his enthusiasm and spirit in trying to find a logical explanation for the murder was almost contagious. Then again, I get really into criminal investigation shows at times, and the scenes where the lawyer tried to get behind what happened were really engaging. The first main scene with him where Ed tries to tell the truth about him committing the murder was really tense as Freddy rambles on and on about his hypotheses while Ed's wife slowly turns her head to stare at her husband when she realizes that he really did commit the murder and she is unfairly locked up, and Ed's face has a mixed look of terror and calmness.
One thing I didn't enjoy very much was the forced humor. Yes, sometimes it was funny and fit in, but other times, the absurdity (oddness, not Camus' absurd) stuck out too much. This included things like the whole UFO idea and most of the scenes with Birdy. Oppositely, the ending scene where the camera pans across expressionless faces watching Ed die was very moving and enhanced the movie after the stupid UFO thing.
However, having watched countless movies with my father and brother when they always pointed out logic flaws, difficult scenes, mistakes, and the overall quality of a film, I have "inherited" a very critical point of view towards movies. Overall, I enjoyed the movie and was also made to think about the ideas presented, though it didn't speak to me as much as the novel The Stranger itself did.
I too enjoy Shalhoub's performance as Freddie Riedenschneider, and a number of his catchphrases have found their way into my Coen-brothers-allusion repertoire ("I litigate, I don't capitulate!"). But "enjoying" it also means seeing it as a wicked parody of how law functions at times in our system, as the defense attorney flatly rejects a straight-up confession as "story B," which we're not "going with," and instead he cooks up an entire fiction (that, oddly, still bears some resemblance to the truth, but not in any of the essential details). The Coens are perhaps even more critical of the justice system in this film than Camus in his novel, and that's saying a lot.
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