Why I cannot stand Ridley Scott...
There is this film director, named Ridley Scott that manages to get on my nerves almost every year since 1977. Is is not that his movies are outright bad (well not all of them) but that fact that he always manages to muddle whatever project he's involved with, using ecxessive style over minimal and tedious substance. And he almost always gets away with it, because he manages (or he's lucky enough) to make people focus on the pizzaz and ignore the bad craftsmanship. I sincerely hope that his reign of pedantic moralism is at an end, and let's face it, if one wants pedantic moralism and visual effects there is always Spielberg...
So let's have a look at my grievances and complaints list:
1.The Duellists (1977)
This is the one I like. It plays like a poor man's Barry Lyndon at times but stil no one should expect more from a young director, and unlike all his others movies it even has a couple of funny moments. Oh yes forgot to tell you that, funny and Ridley are at eachothers throats since...
2.He gets away for the first time with Alien (1979). A run of the mill claustrophbic and slightly messy affair is saved by the creature design (H.R. Giger) who is not even credited with the designs for the spaceship and the amazing eggs storage and the famous fossilised alien navigator
but it's just the start of trend to fail to give proper credits to people who's ideas and work he ripped off. So despite the sloppy acting, and sloppier direction the movie comes at a time of dearth for sci-fi horror movies, becomes an instant cult classic and gets copied a thousand times.
3. Ok the first version of Blade Runner (1982) is not entirely his fault. The studio rejected the movie that was then re-edited and a murky and annoying voice over was added to be restored 10 years later with a Director's cut. Still the movie owns everything to the Art direction and the special effects. Scott presents a watered down, heavy handed take of the excellent Philip K. Dick's novel (Do androids dream of electric sheep?) removing all the sociological background to make it essentially a police action love story with the usual pompous mumbo jumbo that his characters love to produce:
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. "
I cannot stop thinking what Fincher (the fight club) or even Singer (Usual Suspects) would have made of this material..."The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long and you have burned so very, very brightly Roy. Look at you, you're the prodigal son, you're quite a prize."
4. Thankfully Scott goes then into 15 years of desperate crap with the almost exception of the oversentimental Thelma & Louise (1991). Of course he fails to give any credit to Easy Rider the concept of which he clumsily ripps off. The rest are "masterpieces" of all sorts:
G.I. Jane (1997)
White Squall (1996)
1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
Black Rain (1989)
Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
Legend (1985)
And when you thought he's well on his way to oblivion, the Ridley hits the fan one more with the most overrated movie in the history of overrated movies ever:
5.Gladiator(2000)
A straight rip-off from The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) not to mention Spartacus and Ben-Hur, with plenty of tedious special effects, gets saved by the bovine eyes of Russel Crow, and 2 decades of longing for a good ol' sword and sandals epic. Ridley films the arena as a WWF parade of freaks, drowns everything is overcast skies and sepia tones, throws in the most pompous dialogue imaginable, fails to use the original ending with the entrance of Maximus Legion's to Rome (and don't anyone says THIS would be ahistorical...lol) and opts for a weepy preposterous scene with Senators, women children and Praetorians solemnly parade the Coliseum sands...
Did he got a reprimand? A big loud laugh that would send him back to obsurity? Nope he got world fame and 4 Oscar awards. Hopefully his coleagues were careful enough to avoid the Best Director one...
Or as the venerable Roger Ebert put it nicely:
6. 2001 0ne was a good year for Ridley. Instead od the usual tripe, he went beyond himself to make two dire attempts at film making. For the first Hannibal the least we think or say the better. Michael Mann and Ted Demme demonstrated how exactly to film a Hannibal Lecter movie. Twice. Instead Ridley opted for the same tired atmosphercs he keeps throwing at us since Black rain, with fog upon mist grim streets and grimer characters, and a plot beyond confusion that begs for someone to kill the whole the cast so we don't have to suffer those 120 minutes. In the Silence of the Lambs the light was more terrifying than any darkness RS brought on screen but most importantly, you cared for the characters. Which is not our hero's best feature and it brings us to:That's enough for the provinces, but not for Rome.
A foolish choice in art direction casts a pall over Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" that no swordplay can cut through. The film looks muddy, fuzzy and indistinct. Its colors are mud tones at the drab end of the palette, and it seems to have been filmed on grim and overcast days. This darkness and a lack of detail in the long shots helps obscure shabby special effects (the Colosseum in Rome looks like a model from a computer game), and the characters bring no cheer: They're bitter, vengeful, depressed. By the end of this long film, I would have traded any given gladiatorial victory for just one shot of blue skies. (There are blue skies in the hero's dreams of long-ago happiness, but that proves the point.) The story line is "Rocky" on downers."Gladiator" is being hailed by those with short memories as the equal of "Spartacus" and "Ben-Hur." This is more like "Spartacus Lite." Or dark.
Black Hawk down. How this war porn left the cutting room is beyond belief. I mean there are all kinds of war movies out there that prety much covered all the aspets of what RS was filmimg and much better. The company of soldiers (Platoon,Hurtgen Forrest, Das Boot,Casualties of war, We were soldiers), the visceral battle experience (Saving private Ryan, Iron Cross) the futility of the conflict (Apoclypse now, Full Metal Jacket) all that had been shown. Did RS attempted one of these well trodden paths? Well yes and no. Yes becaused he used every cliche in the book, threw in al the rising Holywood star power, and invested heavily in atmosherics (again). But somewhere between the "one bullet per nanosecond" reasoning, the disposable enemy, and the silly political sermon all sympathy for the soldiers disappear. This was filmaking by the numbers at its worst, exactly like a porn movie. Relentless action, absence of plot.
7. After the unfun and easily forgettable Machstick men, finally came the long expected hour where nothing of the previous gimmics worked. In 2005 Ridley decides to take a potshot at the Crusades with Kingdom of Heaven . Well this was a true Ridley moment: Orlando Bloom did not have even the bovine quality of Crow, there were no sentimentals to excuse his political idiocy as in BHD, the battles were a step back from LOTR, the plotholes were not nicely drapped in sepia gimmicery and weepy music and the whole show bombed at the box office.
The end? Well we said so in 1982, and we jinxed the whole thing. I will refrain from any prediction...
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Garbarsardar
