Catfish (Schulman & Joost, 2010)

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John Cope
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:40 pm
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Catfish (Schulman & Joost, 2010)

#1 Post by John Cope » Wed Aug 04, 2010 9:17 pm

Some fascinating insights on the recently released trailer.

I seriously wonder if this will outdo Inception here for amount of necessary black boxed discussion. I have not seen it and don't know the "twist" but it certainly feels reminiscent of Maupin's Night Listener (that's no condemnation, by the way). We could benefit from more serious explorations of the implications and effects of the virtually real.

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domino harvey
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Re: Catfish (Schulman & Joost, 2010)

#2 Post by domino harvey » Wed Aug 04, 2010 9:36 pm

The twist is a variation of what you could probably guess knowing only the premise

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John Cope
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Re: Catfish (Schulman & Joost, 2010)

#3 Post by John Cope » Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:24 pm

Great review by A.O. Scott.

karmajuice
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Re: Catfish (Schulman & Joost, 2010)

#4 Post by karmajuice » Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:51 am

This film blew my expectations out of the water. I was expecting something fun and probably pretty lurid and the film delivered so much more than that. I don't want to say much about it yet, but I do want to recommend it. One small detail I liked was how it integrated the digital aspects of our lives into the texture of the film, even ones which weren't strictly necessary, like the GPS.

Very mild (vague) spoilers:

Scott's review is pretty good. Most of his criticisms are just, though he is perhaps too harsh toward the filmmakers. Much of the film is amateurish but that's to be expected, considering the film's unassuming origins. If they occasionally express anxiety or crack jokes about the situation -- well, it's only a natural reaction to such circumstances and including it in the film only helps to convey what those circumstances feel like. The suspense and dread that the film builds does the same, but the conclusion beautifully belies the expectations that the exposition develops. He treats that as though it were an accident and had nothing to do with their structuring of the film.

And what if the film does express pity? Since when is pity alone an act of condescension? While they aren't free of criticism, Scott's just smearing the filmmakers to give his review an edge. Some of his other thoughts are spot-on, though.

One other thing about the review. Documentaries are, by their very nature, opportunistic. That can be a bad thing if it's pushed to an extreme, but opportunism is inevitable if you're recording an event as it happens.

I brought some friends along to see it and they all really liked it. One related a story afterward about the time he discovered that one of his friends was a pathological liar, and how the film resonated with the difficulties and anxieties of dealing with that.

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Lemmy Caution
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Re: Catfish (Schulman & Joost, 2010)

#5 Post by Lemmy Caution » Wed Oct 13, 2010 5:27 am

The film sounds similar to Talhotblond: (2009), where an internet romance takes a very wrong real-life turn. I'm not sure why Catfish is getting so much attention and Talhotblond just fell by the wayside. I guess I need to see Catfish to find out, though it seems mostly a case of right time, right place.

I thought Talhotblond: was a very well done documentary, a gripping exploration of a pretty wild true story. It even takes some chances, such as having the dead guy provide a fictional, based on real life, narration. I'd encourage folks to seek out Talhotblond:, one of two or three superlative documentaries I saw in 2009.

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Zumpano
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Re: Catfish (Schulman & Joost, 2010)

#6 Post by Zumpano » Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:33 am


karmajuice
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Re: Catfish (Schulman & Joost, 2010)

#7 Post by karmajuice » Wed Oct 13, 2010 4:18 pm

I certainly wondered about that. I was unsure going in which it was, and I could easily believe that it was all fabricated. I wonder what motive they would have for denying that it's fiction, though. Pure publicity-stunt surprise? Maybe, but I find that hard to believe given the nature of the film.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter to me. I regard documentary filmmaking as essentially fiction anyway, and while there may be some ethical grounds for objecting to their rule-bending, it doesn't impact the quality of the film. If the film turns out to be fiction, it only gives more credit to the maturity of the filmmakers (Scott could no longer argue that they just stumbled across something meaningful). Also, if it were all a lie, that would only build upon some very relevant themes that are established in the film itself -- the ambiguity over what is real in the digital age, and whether or not you can find value at the heart of a lie.

terabin
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Re: Catfish (Schulman & Joost, 2010)

#8 Post by terabin » Wed Oct 13, 2010 5:16 pm

To build on your argument karmajuice, if the filmmakers did end up faking their innocence of Wesselman-Pierce's ruse, it actually adds to the complication of who we are sympathetic to in the film. Both sides are using facebook as a means to escape from boredom, promote their work, and engage in the new kind of interactions that are made possible. Both distort the truth while they access these new social media spaces and then later as well when they meet. This added level of complication would be a positive.

Cheerupemokid
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Re: Catfish (Schulman & Joost, 2010)

#9 Post by Cheerupemokid » Thu Nov 04, 2010 1:55 pm

Saw this last night. It really is a fun film to wrap your head around. What really took me by surprise is how engaging and in a way touching it becomes. I wasn't expecting that in the least. Definitely one of the few pictures I've seen this year that had me excited to read up more on it the next day.

In regards to the "truth or fiction" argument, I do find the topic fascinating, but agree that ultimately it doesn't change my viewing of the film. There really is no movie that isn't "fabricated" in some form, and the closest documentary I've ever seen to that would be Yasakuni, which consisted of many overly long clips of home movies that were a complete bore to watch. I'll take a director molding a story over straight-up video footage almost any day.

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