Steven H wrote: ↑Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:27 am
Does anyone else feel the comedic aspects of this film are largely ignored or swept under the rug? I laugh my head off every time I see it, from Welles' smirks, and the newsreel satire, to Dorothy Comingmore's grating accent. I connect with it as a drama as well, but the humor is there for me. The last time I attended a screening, I distinctly remember not a chuckle coming from anybody but myself and the few friends that came with me.
I’ve watched it a few times and have laughed at certain spots at different times throughout.
The recent interest in this movie, beyond the Criterion release, merits so much more then I thought of it before without having seen it or bothered learning why it has the reputation it does. So what, big deal, the guy’s sled, etc., etc.
It’s almost reductive to say it’s because of Trump, but like much of the discourse surrounding America in the last five years it must be reckoned within how relevant it is today. Maybe more in the 90’s and 2000’s, when the headlines tycoons like Trump made weren’t so entwined and indeed detrimental to national security.
To a guy in his early 20’s with the passion for more recent cinema in how to help perceive the world I’m in movies like this didn’t fit in. Meaning the movies made when my grandparents were my age, much less my own parents (though my love for Boomer cinema has remained steadfast).
To who I am now it is more important to try and learn from the past, mistakes to avoid in the ever-smaller gap that is my future and what lies ahead tomorrow or even a minute from where I am right now. For such an old movie, it actually goes by pretty quick which I guess can be interpreted as how innovative it was, or just how much it’s creators knew how short life can truly be.
Charles Schultz apparently watched this 40 times in his lifetime.