Who saw Silver Linings Playbook?

[Baitball Blogger]

Last edited Sun Apr 14, 2013, 10:11 AM - Edit history (2)

What was the director trying to portray with all those scenes where the two protagonists talked to each other while they were standing in the middle of empty streets? It was a constant theme. There were no cars in sight, and the only two times there were people around it was either Halloween, or the crowd was pertinent to the scene.

I got the impression he was trying to show how isolated people are who have mental illnesses.

[onehandle]

1. There is no shortage of cars or people in the Philly suburbs.

Unless the street is cleared of activity to shoot a movie.

I just saw it as places to exchange dialog.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

2. Insightful!

It was an excellent and creative illustration of the isolation experienced by those suffering from mental illness.

[rurallib]

3. I spent two hours looking for the exit

after being drug there by my wife.........

[Baitball Blogger]

4. My hubby said it was a chick flick too.

But he's showing interested in keeping up with the best of the best and he wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. He thought Bradley Cooper did an outstanding job.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to drag him to see World War Z, so I'll have to do that one on my own.

[GoneOffShore]

5. Watched on an airplane - without plugging in my headphones.

It looked like a really bad movie.

And I knew almost all the extras, plus a couple of the smaller roles.

Without sound it didn't make it as a movie. Pretty much the same as the new Planet of the Apes reboot.

Haven't seen a movie trailer recently that made me want to watch the whole thing.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. A movie without sound! SPOILERS

Yikes! The sound is everything. The score, the sound effects and, of course, the dialogue. Especially in this movie it was critical since you are dealing with the subject of mental illness. If you didn't hear anything, then you missed the main points. Like the fact that the male protagonist had anger issues and a song could set him off because it was his wedding song and he caught his wife cheating on him at the same time that she was playing their wedding video.

Or that Jennifer Lawrence, who might have appeared loosey-goosey to you in the movie, had become a sex addict because she had lost her husband to a stupid set of circumstances. Most of the movie, you just assumed there was nothing redeemable about her, but then she explains that during her marriage she had lost her sexual appetite, which is why her husband had gone to get her something at Victoria's Secret. On the way back he stopped to help someone who was on the side of the road and was killed in an accident. So the assumption is that she became a sexual addict to punish herself.

Or, my God! How could you understand what was at stake with the parlay! Without understanding the parly, the dance scene would have made absolutely no sense to you.

Not to mention that you would have missed that wonderful scene where Lawrence stands up to De Niro's character.

Nope. You didn't see the movie.

[GoneOffShore]

8. Moving pictures are just that.

Last edited Mon Apr 15, 2013, 12:46 PM - Edit history (1)

If you watch a movie with the sound off you should be able to understand the movie.

That's why they were called "motion pictures" in the first place.

I'll stand by my assessment.

And "My Dinner With Andre" really doesn't count as a movie - it's a talk show masquerading as a movie.

Added on edit - Could totally tell that the main character had anger issues.

Could also see Lawrence standing up to the DeNiro character.

Meant to also say that I started with the sound and the dialog was so bad and banal, along with the acting, that I unplugged and went over to music.

YMMV

[Phentex]

10. I take it you don't watch Muppet movies?

Sure, you could guess the plot but you'd miss an awful lot of fun, corny one liners. Unless you read Kermit's lips...

[Baitball Blogger]

11. It's possible we're talking to the reincarnation of Buster Keaton.

[GoneOffShore]

12. That left a mark.

[valerief]

15. Bwahahaha! Even silents had dialogue screens. nt

[GoneOffShore]

13. I did and had fun with them.

I'm just saying that a lot of times it's possible to watch and "get" a movie without the sound or hearing the words.

Think of the opening sequence of "2001 - A Space Oydessy". No dialog for the first 20 minutes. And granted it would have had a lot less impact without the sound track, but totally understandable.

[Orrex]

14. I think that's simply an unreasonable expectation

A fully realized film IMO should integrate sight and sound into a complete whole. You might get the gist of it from one or the other, but you're really missing something if you watch a good flim with the sound off. That would be like reading a novel without the dialogue. It could work, but I'll bet that you don't get the full impact of it.

It doesn't really work to cite 2001 as "proof" that you don't need sound, because that's an extreme outlier from four decades ago, made by one-of-a-kind director. And the vignette that you describe was conceived as a no-dialogue sequence, which is very different from a scene where the viewer simply decides to switch off the sound after the fact.


Speaking of Kubrick, you'd have to strap me into one of those Clockwork Orange chairs to get me to watch The Silver Linings Playbook, and I'd probably respond in much the same way as my droog Alex.

[GoneOffShore]

17. I get your point.

I realize that 2001 is an outlier, but would that then make Nosferatu, Metropolis, almost all of Chaplin's movies outliers as well? They were all fully realized and complete stories without sound. Yes, there was musical accompaniment, but one still gets the movie without the sound.

And sometimes, turning off the sound after the movie starts is the only way to get through it, i.e., Silver Linings Playbook. I was strapped in my chair and we were flying in one of Delta's older Boeings with the drop down movie screens. There was no way to escape the damned movie apart from putting on a sleep mask and I wasn't sleepy.

[Orrex]

18. You have greater fortitude than I do!

I would probably have tried to escape from the plane via the toilet.


Silent films are another interesting but tricky example. They were conceived, staged, and filmed with the understanding that the audience wouldn't hear anything except music, so they're constructed that way from the ground up, not to mention that they have bits of dialogue and plot literally spelled out for the viewers.

[GoneOffShore]

19. We were mid Atlantic so that escape option wasn't feasible.

I think the only thing that could have made Silver Linings worse would have been a soundtrack by Coldplay.

[valerief]

16. That's because we know all the Hollywood formulas. nt

[bigwillq]

9. Saw it. Loved it. (nt)