Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 03/17/18

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Clerks (Kevin Smith, 1994)

Jeff Anderson and Brian O'Halloran in Clerks

Dante Hicks: Brian O'Halloran
Randal Graves: Jeff Anderson
Veronica: Marilyn Ghigliotti
Caitlin Bree: Lisa Spoonauer
Jay: Jason Mewes
Silent Bob: Kevin Smith

Director: Kevin Smith
Screenplay: Kevin Smith '
Cinematography: David Klein
Film editing: Scott Mosier, Kevin Smith

Every aspiring filmmaker's dream come true, Clerks is famous for having been made on the ultra-cheap with maxed-out credit cards, the proceeds of Kevin Smith's sale of his comic book collection, and essentially the loose change found under sofa cushions. It then made $3 million and established Smith as an auteur. Unfortunately for its imitators, it is also non-stop funny, an achievement few if any of them have equaled. Too often the wannabe Kevin Smiths have emulated the film's raucously potty-mouth humor, its sometimes amateurish acting, and its reliance on transgressive attitudes without possessing its lightness of touch and swiftness of delivery. Smith never leaves time for anyone to wonder whether a joke has come off, even though most of his do.