On why “The Limits of Control” is totally rubbish.
I want to dedicate this post to all the reviewers who found so many meanings and ideas worth telling in the latest Jarmusch. I confess that I’ve found the enthusiatic reviews even more ridiculous and pretentious than the movie itself. I was ready to express some mean remarks, but fortunately I came across this interview with Jim Jarmusch here and finally all makes sense when it comes to why this movie is such a beautiful mess (the beautiful bit comes from Christopher Doyle, the DP). For the most part I’ll try to let the director talk and I’ll try to refrain from many comments (my only intervention on the text from filmlinc.com will be to use my magic marker to mark some words) but I can’t promise anything:
— “I’ve always been non-analytical in my films. I’ve always put things in the film without analyzing why. Or what do they mean? Or what am I trying to say?”
— “…and I wrote a 25-page story, and there wasn’t really dialogue in it at all.”
—“…and I don’t like scripts as a form.Unless I know the director and their style, and the places they’re gonna shoot, I have a really big problem visualizing scripts.” (Silly me, all this time I thought that the very first job of a director is to visualize the screenplay)
—“Part of me wanted to make an action film with no action in it, whatever the hell that means. For me the plot, the resolution of the film, the action toward the end is not really of that much interest. It’s only metaphorical somehow.” (On this count, I have to say that he did a brilliant job. And isn’t nice to let the viewer to fill all the blanks, to have a feeling that you bring your contribution to the work of art?)
—“…but I wanted to do something to…I don’t know, just trigger an appreciation for one’s subjective consciousness.”
—“There were a few scenes where I reduced a few shots that I kind of maybe shouldn’t have. Because I was really into using almost every angle we photographed. So less about variations to choose from, but then in the editing room, I thought, let’s try to use them all.” (This is to answer to all of those, myself included, who complained about the nonsensical cutting style.)
— “So what I did was actually look for all the damaged pieces of film, or the short ends, or things with flares, or some kind of slight aberration of motion – the things that normally I would throw away.” (Regarding the car sequence coming from the airport; the one scene that I liked a lot and I was asking myself how they shot it.)
— “I almost feel like we’re really on the cusp, we’ve already started a kind of apocalypse of thought because all of these old models that they tell us are reality are all crumbling.” (We can recognize here a theory loved by French academic left with the ‘reality is arbitrary’ and all that postmodernist bullshit.)
— “Why are diamonds valuable? Which is a totally bogus thing. It’s decided by some corporate entity that this substance is valuable. Why is gold more valuable than copper? Because somebody said so.“ (You can find in these phrases the reason why the character played by Bill Murray came out so ridiculously schematic.)
And so on…
I’m in no position to make a suggestion to Jim Jarmusch, but I can’t help but say that there might be a reason why the script and the storyboard for “The Godfather” count in excess of 2000 pages (written and re-written countless time, and where every stone in the walkway is there for a reason).
…And easy on the stairs with postmodernist sloppy ideas.
beauty is also something not well-organized, not exact, not well-formed not predictable . .
Yeah, but not everything that glitters is gold. I don’t think your definition applies (or should apply) to filmmakers.
Interesting review.
Personally I liked the movie a lot. It was simple and didn’t require a lot of thought, the pace was slow and chilled out. There was hardly any dialogue and what there was was mostly all code and not necessarily meant to be taken literally. There were several major things that weren’t explained at all, some of which seemed entirely unrelated to the story in general, which I liked.
I found the movies attempts at being philosophical amusing.
But it was obvious that in some ways not a whole lot of care was put into putting it all together. There were several moments that were just ridiculously stupid.
But I am a big fan of b-movies and this one is much better than average.
I don’t think it’s an amazing work of art. But I got a lot of enjoyment from it(apart from the boring Bill Murray scene).
I was entertained for most of the duration, which is all a film requires in order to be good.
That is just my opinion though. This is obviously the sort of movie many people will hate.
i must say that i really envy you. the instant i witness ‘several moments that are ridiculously stupid’ the whole experience is ruined for me. [i had the same problem with antichrist by lars von trier]
part of the problem was that this movie came highly recommended from someone whose opinions i used to trust (but not anymore), and as a consequence i was having very high expectations, so when i saw it i was very disappointed.
I agree with you, sir. I greatly had a distaste for this film. I like most of the other works of Jarmusch, but this is a definite stinker. It’s like he tried to make a Samurai movie without having him do anything remotely clever, and he didn’t give all the really great actors anything to do other than ramble out cryptic and boring dialogue.
glad to hear it. i hate to say this, but i’m afraid that some directors really need a no-nonsense producer in their team. and bill murray should learn to say no to some favours.
agreed.
It is visually stimulating, funny, cool and the music was fantastic. I love bill murrays charactor.
Good for you. Although your love for Bill’s ‘charactor’ make me wish that the Mayan were right.
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I found the film fascinating and mysterious. Why does everything have to be explained? Is everything in life explained? I don’t think so. For me this is what this film is about. It pushes the imagination to fill in the spaces between. Also, screenplays aren’t always necessary. Though they are very common for most mainstream industry films, there are many, many films which are composed more as poetry and follow a stream of ideas, not a screenplay.
and what stream of ideas is ‘tlc’ following, dear richard?
and since mocking a subject poorly understood (capitalism, in this case) is poetry?
anyways, it just happens that i think that the movies who manage to be good without a written screenplay happens to be good by sheer luck (plus a good dp) or the screenplay is already in the mind of the director, but he doesn’t bother to put it on paper, that’s all.