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Author
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Comment
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La
Reine Noire
Registered User
(4/15/02 4:41:09 pm)
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Amelie
I have to second the comment that "Amelie" was wonderful. I know I could relate it to a faery-tale of one sort or other, but my brain's not working at the moment. Beautiful, charming film that completely got shafted at the Oscars.
~Kavita
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MechanicalBill
Registered User
(4/15/02 5:17:11 pm)
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Fairy Tales in Movies
What about Spielberg's (and Kubrick's) AI? I thought that the Pinochio tale was interwoven into the film masterfully, almost hauntingly, especially in the scene where Osment is submerged below the water (along with the rest of Manhattan), waiting for the blue fairy. Spielberg's fusing of sci-fi and fantasy illustrates how the two genres easily overlap and commingle, and this brings to mind last year's fascinating discussion on fairies and aliens (March, 2001, I believe).
Actually, I first stumbled upon the discussion group (last week, in fact) while doing research on that very topic (for a possible PhD proposal) and was delighted to discover that an intelligent dialogue had already taken place. I look forward to future discussions of this nature.
Adam
(anyone have any suggestions for an academic program that could cater to my current interests? I'm specifically interested in Irish fairy narratives and more contemporary American alien narratives.)
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Otherworld
Registered User
(4/15/02 5:57:57 pm)
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Fairy Tales in Movies
I would "Harvey" and thats my one contrabution for tonight but will be back
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isthmus
nekoi
Registered User
(4/16/02 3:12:31 pm)
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Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Kate> It's been awhile since I saw the film but I liked the way they dealt with the subject matter. Humerous, but sharp. Dark. I'd love to read about the connections you saw. The only thing that struck me was the song about people being split apart. Did that whole concept come about from Plato?... Auf... my copy of the Symposium's back home...
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hmhockey17
Registered User
(4/18/02 10:22:35 am)
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Donkey Skin
Hey:
I was wondering if any of you know where I could get a copy of Donkey Skin?
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hmhockey17
Registered User
(4/18/02 10:23:48 am)
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Donkey Skin Sorry
Please email me ASAP at hmhockey17@hotmail.com
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CynicalFairytales
Unregistered User
(4/20/02 7:52:33 am)
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Yahy!
Oh! I'm so happy that someone mentioned Tottoro!
I love that movie so much.
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Callie
Registered User
(4/21/02 7:27:35 am)
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Re: Top Ten Fairy Tales as Movies
Has anyone seen "Princess Mononoke"? I have it on hold at the library; my understanding is that it is based on a fairy tale, and it's done in anime style.
-Callie
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Gregor9
Registered User
(4/23/02 10:34:42 am)
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Re: Top Ten Fairy Tales as Movies
Mononoke is quite wonderful indeed. Great animation, a terrific English script, and a story that doesn't make things simplistic, but if anything terribly complex and, in a way, unresolvable. It's breathtaking.
Speaking of Princesses...has anyone seen the film "The Princess and the Warrior"? It's by the director of "Run, Lola, Run", with the same actress in the lead. There is something about the film that feels sprung whole from fairy tales. Analogies abound, with the "princess" living in a mental asylum that can be seen as a castle, encapsulated like Rapunzel from the outside, only here it is her position in the asylum itself that's hermetic; full of questions about healing and rescuing that beg comparison with fairy tales as well. In some respects she--Sissi--is transgressive, too (depending on how one defines that). It's one of those rare films that does not go anywhere it might and has me walking around trying to analyze it--unsuccessfully--a day later. About as un-Hollywood as you get.
Greg
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Kerrie
Registered User
(4/23/02 12:43:20 pm)
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Re: Fairy Tales in Movies
"What about Spielberg's (and Kubrick's) AI? I thought that the Pinochio tale was interwoven into the film masterfully, almost hauntingly, especially in the scene where Osment is submerged below the water (along with the rest of Manhattan), waiting for the blue fairy. Spielberg's fusing of sci-fi and fantasy illustrates how the two genres easily overlap and commingle, and this brings to mind last year's fascinating discussion on fairies and aliens (March, 2001, I believe). "
Actually, we had a discussion on A.I. (which I found to be rather fun!) last July, trying to figure out all of the potential fairy tale references:
../../2001/jul2001/aikubrick.html
I could stretch by saying that Fifth Element has some fairy tale
references (such as when Dallas(?) wakes the Fifth Element with
a kiss) but it would be lots of stretching. Can't think of too many
others I've seen that haven't been mentioned yet. Need to get out
more.
Soft whispers and valley blossoms,
Kerrie
Edited by: Kerrie at: 4/23/02 3:37:28 pm
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Laura
Registered User
(4/23/02 10:49:25 pm)
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Tykwer
Oooooh, Greg, so jealous! I missed Der Krieger und die Kaiserin when it was in Atlanta. That interests me -- that the German title places the warrior first, rather than the princess. Merely for aesthetic purposes, or something deeper? Hmmm ...
At any rate, I've seen Lola and another of his films, Wintersleepers, which I also highly recommend. Personally, I think both tales have a folkloric element to them: important color symbology, essential universal timeless themes, an element of the fantastic or the unreal. I can keep going, but won't unless someone's keenly interested. :-)
Laura S.
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Gregor9
Registered User
(4/24/02 4:43:38 am)
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Re: Tykwer
Laura,
Yes, there seems to be something, as you say, folkloric about this film, although my sense is not that Tykwer is consciously pulling out these elements but that he's working on an intuitive plane and tapping into into the same locus out of which fairy tales spring. Unlike say George Lucas, who pretends to harness mythological material on this level, Tykwer, I think, doesn't attempt to know. He just seems to assemble the pieces by feel.
I'll have to look for Wintersleepers, that's one I missed.
And it is odd that the original German title reverses the order of the two characters. It is the warrior who is most in need of healing--and here you can definitely go into Fisher King territory all day long--but it's the princess who heals him, and it's through her that we come to understand him. He has to lose virtually everything before she can, though. Really, the more I think about this film, the more I like it.
Greg
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(4/25/02 6:53:01 am)
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Mononoke, Lucas, fisher kings, etc.
Mononoke was quite a wonderful film, though while watching, it felt very un-Japanese and even un-fairy-tale like. I was not surprised to see that non-Japanese writers had had quite a bit to do with it. Am I wrong that Neil Gaiman was one of the writers?? I've forgotten now. It felt like an environmental polemic in fairy-tale dress, without all the multiple resonances and ambiguity of real fairy tales.
On Lucas' alleged use of mythological materials, a recent Salon.com
article is relevant: www.salon.com/ent/movies/...index.html
This article aroused quite a bit of protest on another list I'm on, but to me it seemed dead on.
GF:"Yes, there seems to be something, as you say, folkloric about this film, although my sense is not that Tykwer is consciously pulling out these elements but that he's working on an intuitive plane and tapping into into the same locus out of which fairy tales spring. <...> Tykwer, I think, doesn't attempt to know. He just seems to assemble the pieces by feel."
Years ago I read portions of a psych dissertation that looked at symbolism and structure in psychtherapeutic narratives. The writer didn't take note of it, but I was much struck by the obvious relationships with Grail legends and other Western mythic and folkloric materials. A set of narratives from one patient, for example, had a great deal of fascinating stuff about the emotional significance of her irregular menstrual bleeding and the fair-haired light-skinned male doctors treating her (she was of southern Italian extraction). (The dissertation, by the way, was by Gary Gregg from University of Michigan, maybe ca. 1984??)
What it made me think was that the symbols and qualities and relationships in fairy tales, Grail legendry, and so on, are actually deeply embedded in the psyches of those of us who've grown up in so-called Western cultures. And that fairytales, for example, are not so much old, traditional, *archaic* materials that we can find modern meaning in, but are merely older avatars of enduring psychological/cultural root narratives, for lack of a better term, which we're still carrying around inside us today. And that's perhaps the locus Greg is referring to.
Judith
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isthmus
nekoi
Registered User
(4/25/02 7:10:14 am)
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Re: Mononoke, Lucas, fisher kings, etc.
Neil Gaiman wrote the final translation into English. He had to concentrate so much to make the syllabels match the movement of the mouths, ppl said that the dubbing was better in the English version!! ^_^ As far as I know, Hayao Miyazaki wrote the script himself. The relationship b/w man and earth is a major concern that he has tackled before. Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind is also very similar this way - he wrote a whole manga series for this one before it became a movie.
As for Western narratives, that is an interesting point about them being culturally specific. I was reading The Cat by Marie-Louise von Franz and she talks about how fairy tales are created to compensate for what is lacking in the collective consciousness of a culture.
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Jess
Unregistered User
(4/25/02 7:13:53 am)
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Movie?
I must have Donkeyskin on my mind these days, but I saw "The Heiress" last night with Olivia de Haviland and all I could think was this was a variant of that tale. Anyone familiar with it? It is a great movie.
Jess
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La
Reine Noire
Registered User
(4/25/02 9:15:41 am)
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The Heiress
"The Heiress" was actually based on a Henry James novel called "Washington Square." Whether or not he based it on "Donkeyskin," I'd not know.
~Kavita
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Jess
Unregistered User
(4/25/02 12:58:14 pm)
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The Heiress
Thanks Kavita!
It makes sense that it is Henry James, now. I haven't read Washington Square. Maybe I will have to read it now. It is just the movie "the Heiress" has so many of the Donkeyskin elements - dead beautiful, perfect mother, daughter whose father constantly compares her to her mother's image (although this time negatively), controlling abusive father, helpful other (an aunt), father manipulating daughter to keep her at home with him and driving away a suitor, etc. I wonder whether anyone else sees the parallels is the book/movie with the fairy tale.
Jess
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La
Reine Noire
Registered User
(4/25/02 1:36:01 pm)
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The Heiress v. Donkeyskin
It certainly does sound like "Donkeyskin," at least the first half. It does make one wonder what would have happened, had the author chosen to go on with the story of the daughter, but he chose to stop when she gave up her suitor.
A lot of "classics" seem to have fairy-tale themes woven through to some extent.
~Kavita
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Jess
Unregistered User
(4/25/02 8:53:15 pm)
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Heiress v. donkeyskin
Kavita,
True enough. That is one of the reasons I enjoy fairy tales. They are enjoyable in their own right, but also as a window into other literature. I find them quite inspirational. Who knows? maybe James was inspired by only the first half of the fairy tale. The triad relationship between father, daughter and dead mother is a very interesting one with a lot of opportunity to embellish the original tale. Or perhaps, and more likely, it is mere coincidence.
Thanks for the info.
Jess
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(4/26/02 8:01:05 am)
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I was reminded of...
Last night I was set to watch a video of a French film. Before hand there were numerous previews. One of them reminded me of a great Chinese film that I saw several years ago. The film, with the admittedly cheasy title of THE EMPEROR AND THE ASSASSIN is a splendid view into the history of China BC. Although not specificaly "fairy tale-ish" at all the film is set so long ago and in such an "alien" culture that it seemed as if I were watching a great, expansive fantasy epic.It is from the same director as FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE and features the same actress as well. Ravishingly beautifull to say the least.
Also I just heard that Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST has been refurbished and will be released to theatres again this summer. If you live in a big city don't pass up the opportunity to see this film on the big screen. The rest of us will have to wait for it on vieo, sigh...
Charles
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