Sunday, June 29, 2014

REPORT (1967)


Experimental/Avant Garde Cinema Week Day 7

There are several experimental or avant garde films on the 1001 movie list. In trying to figure out how to deal with them, I have tried to handle these often tough nuts to crack by just watching them and trying to answer ten basic questions about them on my personally devised standardized test. So let us conclude with..

Report

1. What happens?
A news narrative of the day of the Kennedy assassination is reported with images relating to the assassination, but not in the order or in the way we have normally viewed it.

2. Was it heavy? Did it achieve total heaviosity?
It was pretty heavy. Yes, I'm giving this one the official heaviosity label.

3. What was your favorite part?
I liked that the scenes never quite seem to match what is being narrated, and challenges your perception of what you are seeing.

4. What was your least favorite part?
The part with the bullfighting was a bit off-putting at first.

5. Did you get it?
I believe I got this one.

6. Might the viewing experience have been enhanced from either prescription or non-prescription medication of some kind?
No, you need to take this one straight.

7. What about the sex?
You may see some sex appeal from the ladies in the advertisements for refrigerators and such, but these are overwhelmed by the scenes of violence.

8. What about the violence?
There are plenty of violent images during the last few minutes of Report, though the scenes of violence from the actual assassination are missing.

9. Describe this film in one sentence starting with "This is the film..."
This is the film where you may perceive an event you've looked at many times in a new way.

10. Would you watch it again?
Yes. And it would only take me 14 minutes!


                              

2 comments:

  1. I think this one made the list because it was an exercise in film editing and showed that part of movie making the clearest. I did a post a while back on what I'd replace in the list and I said I'd swap this one out for the Zapruder film of Kennedy's assassination. That has certainly earned a far greater place in film history and deserves to be on the list.

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  2. The Zapruder film is at least featured in Stone's JFK, which is on the list.

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