|
|
|---|
Showing posts with label a guide to recognizing your saints. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a guide to recognizing your saints. Show all posts
Thursday, April 8, 2010
One of the best things about my love affair with the movies is that I can see a movie more than once and get something different out of it every time. The movie can take on a new meaning, inspire me, force me out of a funk or just relax me for the night. I watched A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints this week and this time this film has inspired me in a way that makes me want to start making another film.
I can’t quite put my finger on why I love this film so much, or why I find it uplifting instead of saddening, but I do. When I watch A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints I know this summer in Dito’s life was traumatic and horrible, but watching the film you know that it was actually transforming, it was something that made him who he is today and he can’t escape that which is why the last line of narration in the film is so damn important – “In the end – just like I said – I left everything, and everyone. But no one, no one has ever left me.”
For me, everything I love about this film actually goes back to the style inherent in the film. It’s incredibly unique and that’s why I find it so inspiring. From the music choices, editing style, actors chosen, time line and narration of the film every element in this film works together perfectly to give you a snapshot of a summer and a man, and the style gives it a clear insight into what he must really be like and who he’s become.
The fascinating thing about A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, at least for a film intellectual like me, is the perspective of the film. Dito Montiel is played as an adult by Robert Downy Jr, and as a teen by Shia LeBouf; it’s about the summer that changed his life and that he ends up writing a book about as an adult and comes back to visit his neighborhood. However, Dito Montiel is also a real person, not just any person but the man who wrote and directed the film and actually wrote a book about these events in his life called A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. This might be one of the most autobiographical films I’ve seen in a long time and I can only imagine how unique an experience it had to have been for Montiel to put it on screen himself.
Right now A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is making me wonder if there is anything in my life, stylized or not, that would be just as entertaining to watch and as healing to put from page to screen. I don’t know the answer to that, but you can bet I will be thinking about that. I can’t imagine what that would be like as an artist to have something I can put out there that’s so literally personal, and how freeing it might be.
I can’t quite put my finger on why I love this film so much, or why I find it uplifting instead of saddening, but I do. When I watch A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints I know this summer in Dito’s life was traumatic and horrible, but watching the film you know that it was actually transforming, it was something that made him who he is today and he can’t escape that which is why the last line of narration in the film is so damn important – “In the end – just like I said – I left everything, and everyone. But no one, no one has ever left me.”
For me, everything I love about this film actually goes back to the style inherent in the film. It’s incredibly unique and that’s why I find it so inspiring. From the music choices, editing style, actors chosen, time line and narration of the film every element in this film works together perfectly to give you a snapshot of a summer and a man, and the style gives it a clear insight into what he must really be like and who he’s become.
The fascinating thing about A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, at least for a film intellectual like me, is the perspective of the film. Dito Montiel is played as an adult by Robert Downy Jr, and as a teen by Shia LeBouf; it’s about the summer that changed his life and that he ends up writing a book about as an adult and comes back to visit his neighborhood. However, Dito Montiel is also a real person, not just any person but the man who wrote and directed the film and actually wrote a book about these events in his life called A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. This might be one of the most autobiographical films I’ve seen in a long time and I can only imagine how unique an experience it had to have been for Montiel to put it on screen himself.
Right now A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is making me wonder if there is anything in my life, stylized or not, that would be just as entertaining to watch and as healing to put from page to screen. I don’t know the answer to that, but you can bet I will be thinking about that. I can’t imagine what that would be like as an artist to have something I can put out there that’s so literally personal, and how freeing it might be.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Lately, I have had a fascination with watching Robert Downey Jr. movies. I’d forgotten how much I love him as an actor until I picked up Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and threw it into my DVD player a few months ago. Now I am obsessed. Since I opened a Netflix account and now have access to everything I added most of Downey’s catalog and Christian Bale’s to my queue. The latest Downey film I received is A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.
The film is autobiographical about the life of the director/writer of the film and book - Dito. In the film Dito is played by Robert Downey Jr. in the 2005 time line and Shia LaBeouff in the 1986 time line. In the present Dito has just written the book about his life as a teen in Queens and why he left, and his mother gives him a call because his father is sick and won’t go to the hospital so she wants Dito to attempt coming home and taking him. Dito left home in 1986 and hasn’t been back since. The film recounts the events that led up to Dito fleeing home in the flashbacks with Shia LaBeouf.
I enjoyed this movie, but I don’t think that it is one that will appeal to the mass audience. The director has chosen to add some experimental elements into the film that won’t sit well with a large portion of the audience. There is subtitles put in the film when they would not normally be necessary, portions are edited similar to The Limey where you flash forward and backward with characters during a conversation so you don’t see them speaking while you hear them conversing, and the fourth wall is broken multiple times.
It is my opinion that this film worked in this format because it was made by the author of the book. It is obviously not a faithful adaptation to the entire book, but rather focuses on something very specific that Dito needed to work through – his relationship with his father and the life that he wanted for his son. This is actually one movie that really makes me want to learn more about the man behind it and read the book.
Director & Writer: Dito Montiel
Dito: Robert Downey Jr.
Young Dito: Shia LaBeouf
Flora: Dianne Wiest
Laurie: Rosario Dawson
Young Laurie: Melonie Diaz
Diane: Julia Garro
Jenny: Elenore Hendricks
Guiseppe: Adam Scarimbolo
Nerf: Scott Campbell
Young Nerf: Peter Tambakis
Antonio: Eric Roberts
Young Antonio: Channing Tatum
Monty: Chazz Palminteri
Mike: Martin Compston
Frank: Anthony DeSando
Dito: In the end - just like I said - I left everything, and everyone. But no one, no one has ever left me
The film is autobiographical about the life of the director/writer of the film and book - Dito. In the film Dito is played by Robert Downey Jr. in the 2005 time line and Shia LaBeouff in the 1986 time line. In the present Dito has just written the book about his life as a teen in Queens and why he left, and his mother gives him a call because his father is sick and won’t go to the hospital so she wants Dito to attempt coming home and taking him. Dito left home in 1986 and hasn’t been back since. The film recounts the events that led up to Dito fleeing home in the flashbacks with Shia LaBeouf.
I enjoyed this movie, but I don’t think that it is one that will appeal to the mass audience. The director has chosen to add some experimental elements into the film that won’t sit well with a large portion of the audience. There is subtitles put in the film when they would not normally be necessary, portions are edited similar to The Limey where you flash forward and backward with characters during a conversation so you don’t see them speaking while you hear them conversing, and the fourth wall is broken multiple times.
It is my opinion that this film worked in this format because it was made by the author of the book. It is obviously not a faithful adaptation to the entire book, but rather focuses on something very specific that Dito needed to work through – his relationship with his father and the life that he wanted for his son. This is actually one movie that really makes me want to learn more about the man behind it and read the book.
Director & Writer: Dito Montiel
Dito: Robert Downey Jr.
Young Dito: Shia LaBeouf
Flora: Dianne Wiest
Laurie: Rosario Dawson
Young Laurie: Melonie Diaz
Diane: Julia Garro
Jenny: Elenore Hendricks
Guiseppe: Adam Scarimbolo
Nerf: Scott Campbell
Young Nerf: Peter Tambakis
Antonio: Eric Roberts
Young Antonio: Channing Tatum
Monty: Chazz Palminteri
Mike: Martin Compston
Frank: Anthony DeSando
Dito: In the end - just like I said - I left everything, and everyone. But no one, no one has ever left me
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
