Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

Discussions of specific films and franchises.
Message
Author
User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#51 Post by knives » Mon Nov 20, 2017 4:34 pm

His girlfriend didn't do a personality change. It's called acting.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#52 Post by tenia » Mon Nov 20, 2017 5:57 pm

RIP Film wrote:It also resolves itself in a really rushed way, there wasn't much of a third act. Still a decent flick, but structurally it felt a bit loose.
It feels a bit rushed, especially (actually) in the third act that feels too much cliché, as if Peele HAD TO do a typical horror-type portion in its movie. But I still feel that the movie has way more to offer than this, and what precedes this rushed third act still is, to me, tremendous in every way.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#53 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 03, 2017 4:08 pm

I thought this was just okay, a well-made small-scale horror movie with some intelligent insights into a hot-button topic (though not, I'd argue, as many as its cadre of rapid fans claim), but also more than a little silly and nonsensical in its mechanics and specifics. I 100% support the film getting in for Best Picture, though, since no film even remotely like this has ever made it in

User avatar
Big Ben
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
Location: Great Falls, Montana

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#54 Post by Big Ben » Sun Dec 03, 2017 4:47 pm

domino harvey wrote:I thought this was just okay, a well-made small-scale horror movie with some intelligent insights into a hot-button topic (though not, I'd argue, as many as its cadre of rapid fans claim), but also more than a little silly and nonsensical in its mechanics and specifics. I 100% support the film getting in for Best Picture, though, since no film even remotely like this has ever made it in
Peele, unlike a lot of directors seems to be quite aware of the highlighted. That's something at least. That isn't a critique of your critique, just something I wish more people knew. Peele is very aware of how silly some of the film is.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#55 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 03, 2017 5:16 pm

I don't doubt it. The film is an unpretentious genre flick with an added dimension that hit a nerve, and good for Peele

User avatar
Lars Von Truffaut
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2011 6:50 pm

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#56 Post by Lars Von Truffaut » Tue Jan 23, 2018 12:25 pm

dda1996a wrote:
SpoilerShow
I thought the first half was pretty decent, even though the film seemed just a tad silly (the obvious racism and weirdness, the black servents and their mechanical behavior) but the entire second half, which relies on horror was just predictable and pushed it into even sillier grounds. I felt like the film was constantly on the verge of turning into a pitch black comedy, which is why the first half was at least interesting as this push pull between the unease and mystery worked decently. It also didn't help that the film kept reminding me, unfavorably, of Being John Malkovich and Stepford Wives. And the whole conceit lacks any energy; the blind man wants the healthy body not because it's a black body, just because Chris is a good photographer who can see. Also all the white people are old, which sort of negates the point as well.
I also found Peele's direction to be decent at best, which means OK for a first timer but nothing special.
The acting was good though (Kaluuya was terrific). I mean it's still a decent enough picture and I was engaged while trying to understand where the film goes (even though it's pretty easy to guess, it's more the what will the while folks do to him rather than what will happen).
I mean there have been worst films to get nominated (and even win), and I found this to be average and not awful. But there's nothing here to distinguish it or make it one of the year's best films. I'll be way happier if Phantom Thread or the terrific Florida Project got in.
Not here to dissuade you (or others) from perfectly sound opinions, but want to push back a bit as I came away seeing a very different movie. For one, I think we are supposed to be following Kaluuya down this rabbit hole, and so as he experiences a shift in his reading of the situation -- from comical and maybe a little bizarre to horrific -- so too should we as an audience. I still think there are some humorous parts in the second half, but certainly that is not main directive. One of the things I have found so marvelous about this film is that Peele manages to create a tone that is inclusive to all movie going audiences. For the right, it is more straight comedy, while those leaning left are likely to look introspectively and have to shake off some residual anxiety, regardless of what color you are. As a film, it has some artier aspirations* but, unlike something like Moonlight, maintains it's grip on your average mid-to-lower middle class urbanite. (Even suburbanite.) The TSA subplot is a prime example. For me, Get Out pulls off a pretty astounding balancing act and it's that management of tone that makes this an exciting directorial debut and an effective and affective film.

*
SpoilerShow
The riveting bookends of the film, the aforementioned tone management (particularly something like how you want to believe Allison Williams is on his side... the scene where Kaluuya opens up to her in the woods is just terrific work from both actors), the way that you feel the terror without ever undercutting with unnecessary gore (the blood emanating from Stephen Root's brain during surgery / the movement of the camera as Kaluuya's boot goes bat-shit on Caleb Landry Jones) the concept and execution of "the sunken place", the verbal jabs along with the visual (Kaluuya's bit of business in the armchair/Williams cereal eating tendencies) all make this a standout directorial effort. There is more than enough original material to balance respectful nods to Rosemary's Baby, Seconds, and Being John Malkovich.

The blind guy wants Chris's body for his eyes, yes, but also for a new lease on life. The older generation being passed into the youth and these folks' belief that their intellectual superiority matched with the physical attributes of their prisoners will allow them to live their best life is laid out for you in the videotape.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#57 Post by tenia » Tue Jan 23, 2018 12:51 pm

Having watched again the movie yesterday so that my GF could discover it, the last third of the movie still felt vastly inferior to its preceding. It feels particularly mechanic in the way it's unrolling, like your generic horror movie, even down to the order in which the bad guys are disposed of. It feels as if there was only enough subtlety and originality for about 1h15, but then, there was still 30 minutes to go.

However, I agree on the overall tone management. I discovered the movie with already some information of its content, so it was interesting to see how my GF, totally clueless about what it was, would react and the movie really was terrifically efficient at managing scare, tension and laughs, but also very well written dialogues between Kaluuya and Williams. This struck me all the more as a very strong point during this additional watching.
Lars Von Truffaut wrote: *
SpoilerShow
The blind guy wants Chris's body for his eyes, yes, but also for a new lease on life. The older generation being passed into the youth and these folks' belief that their intellectual superiority matched with the physical attributes of their prisoners will allow them to live their best life is laid out for you in the videotape.
SpoilerShow
That'd be my guess too : his main characteristic is being old and litterally degenerated. The blindness and relation to Chris' line of work seemed additional to me, rather than the opposite. It just is practical for the blind art dealer, as if killing 2 birds with 1 stone, but in its core, it's just a bunch of old folk trying to live longer.

User avatar
dda1996a
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2015 6:14 am

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#58 Post by dda1996a » Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:51 pm

I get what you're saying, but at the same time it cheapens what could have been a more potent point. Why just have old white folks transform into a younger body? Those black vessels aren't really that primal and higher evolutionary levels of humanity. What about having a younger person give up his body for a better one, so in a way satiric that whites have intelligence and blacks better bodies?
I still find this whole idea a bit iffy, as it still excludes the entire point of having white people look down on blacks because of their color. It sort of misses the point as I find that point a lot more potent. As I said I still found the first part pretty good, even though I think outside of the whole out of body experience (which felt similar to a Black Mirror episode, don't know which came first) Peele's work isn't that special here (if you'd go with my point on having the white gaze on a black skin person would open up a more abstract and unique direction, but then it might lose that inclusive tone.
Again,i think this is a decent film that has great ideas on its mind, I just think the execution was far from reaching its full potential.

User avatar
Shrew
The Untamed One
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 2:22 am

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#59 Post by Shrew » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:02 pm

The film's conceit is that it takes a complicated, systemic issue (the white exploitation of black bodies and culture, including in arts, music, sports) and make it explicitly physical. I think what you're saying is that "If Chris is chosen due to his talents, couldn't that also have been true of a young white dude, and therefore what does that have to with race?" However, while Chris may have been chosen only because he's black, the film argues that he is able to be chosen because he's black (because there is an existing system that devalues black lives).

Note that the family is also targeting black people not simply because they're racist, but because many come from broken/impoverished/dead families that won't come looking for them. Broken families caused in part by various systemic issues.

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#60 Post by swo17 » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:05 pm

It's playing on the whole notion of white people (particularly from an older generation) primarily valuing blacks for sport. In general, this film is about the implicit racism of praising blacks or treating them well but for the wrong reasons.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#61 Post by knives » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:09 pm

It is also explained explicitly with the Jesse Owens thing where the grandfather worshiped the black body, but not soul/ mind, because he saw it inherently as better through a process of othering.

User avatar
Lost Highway
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2013 7:41 am
Location: Berlin, Germany

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#62 Post by Lost Highway » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:17 pm

dda1996a wrote:I get what you're saying, but at the same time it cheapens what could have been a more potent point. Why just have old white folks transform into a younger body? Those black vessels aren't really that primal and higher evolutionary levels of humanity. What about having a younger person give up his body for a better one, so in a way satiric that whites have intelligence and blacks better bodies?
I still find this whole idea a bit iffy, as it still excludes the entire point of having white people look down on blacks because of their color. It sort of misses the point as I find that point a lot more potent. As I said I still found the first part pretty good, even though I think outside of the whole out of body experience (which felt similar to a Black Mirror episode, don't know which came first) Peele's work isn't that special here (if you'd go with my point on having the white gaze on a black skin person would open up a more abstract and unique direction, but then it might lose that inclusive tone.
Again,i think this is a decent film that has great ideas on its mind, I just think the execution was far from reaching its full potential.
Isn't every other movie about racism about "white people look(ing) down on blacks because of their color" ? The target of the satire here is cultural appropriation and microaggressions and it targets liberal racism, which is what differentiates Get Out from many of the other films about racism.
Last edited by Lost Highway on Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#63 Post by tenia » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:55 pm

There's also the guy at the bingo explaining that black is back in fashion, which to me further added to what Lost Highway is describing (which is the view I share about the movie).

User avatar
Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#64 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:22 pm

Is it really about cultural appropriation, tho', since what's fetishized is black physicality rather than culture? Spoilers: Of course there's the blacks-as-superior-athletes stuff (the Jesse Owens story, the son's observation that Chris' body offers advantages in MMA, the old people's continued expression of admiration for various black athletes), and black people as possessing a kind of primal physical sexuality (the daughter's sexual obsession with athletic black men)--two ways black people are often reduced to the mere functioning of their animal bodies. Then there's also Andre/Logan, the black man who weirds Chris out for how he lacks any of the social and cultural signifiers of American black people. We learn it's because one of the old, rich, white men now inhabits his body, but that's all he inhabits. Logan/Andre otherwise acts like an old, rich, white person without any knowledge or seeming interest in black culture.

The only exception is the Stephen Root character, Jim Hudson, who does covet something other than just a new body: Chris' talent, which Hudson obviously hopes to gain along with working eyes. But then this character verbally distances himself from the mentality and fetishization the rest of the group holds regarding black people, indicating he's happy to exploit their looniness for a gain that's more personal and mainly unconnected to race, ie. he'd accept the same procedure were it a talented white person. I took the point here to be that it's not merely racists (of whatever stripe) who use racist institutions built on oppression: that powerful men who may not hold any specific racist views will nevertheless happily patronize and exploit these systems if it'll further their own selfish goals. Racism and the abuse of power in general become indistinguishable, so that we cannot put all our hopes on rich, powerful people to reform the systems they're embedded in even if their motivations generally seem untouched by racism.

Conspicuously, there are no white people in the movie who try to act like black people in that cringing way we're all familiar with.

User avatar
Lost Highway
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2013 7:41 am
Location: Berlin, Germany

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#65 Post by Lost Highway » Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:29 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:Is it really about cultural appropriation, tho', since what's fetishized is black physicality rather than culture? Spoilers: Of course there's the blacks-as-superior-athletes stuff (the Jesse Owens story, the son's observation that Chris' body offers advantages in MMA, the old people's continued expression of admiration for various black athletes), and black people as possessing a kind of primal physical sexuality (the daughter's sexual obsession with athletic black men)--two ways black people are often reduced to the mere functioning of their animal bodies. Then there's also Andre/Logan, the black man who weirds Chris out for how he lacks any of the social and cultural signifiers of American black people. We learn it's because one of the old, rich, white men now inhabits his body, but that's all he inhabits. Logan/Andre otherwise acts like an old, rich, white person without any knowledge or seeming interest in black culture.

The only exception is the Stephen Root character, Jim Hudson, who does covet something other than just a new body: Chris' talent, which Hudson obviously hopes to gain along with working eyes. But then this character verbally distances himself from the mentality and fetishization of black people of the rest of the society, indicating he's happy to exploit their looniness for a gain that's more personal and mainly unconnected to race, ie. he'd accept the same procedure were it a talented white person. I took the point here to be that it's not merely racists (of whatever stripe) who use racist institutions built on oppression: that powerful men who may not hold any specific racist views will nevertheless happily patronize and exploit these systems if it'll further their own selfish goals. Racism and the abuse of power become indistinguishable, so that we cannot put all our hopes on rich, powerful people to reform the systems they're embedded in even if their motivations generally seem untouched by racism.

Conspicuously, there are no white people in the movie who try to act like black people in that cringing way we're all familiar with.
Cultural appropriation as in when when white people adopt the look of people of color: https://mic.com/articles/95444/5-reason ... .1oxNyq712" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Get Out is an allegory on cultural appropriation.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#66 Post by tenia » Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:43 pm

There's also the riff on how voting for Obama is hip probably mostly because he's black, so that's a very cool sign of being progressist.

User avatar
Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#67 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Jan 23, 2018 4:06 pm

Lost Highway wrote:
Mr Sausage wrote:Is it really about cultural appropriation, tho', since what's fetishized is black physicality rather than culture? Spoilers: Of course there's the blacks-as-superior-athletes stuff (the Jesse Owens story, the son's observation that Chris' body offers advantages in MMA, the old people's continued expression of admiration for various black athletes), and black people as possessing a kind of primal physical sexuality (the daughter's sexual obsession with athletic black men)--two ways black people are often reduced to the mere functioning of their animal bodies. Then there's also Andre/Logan, the black man who weirds Chris out for how he lacks any of the social and cultural signifiers of American black people. We learn it's because one of the old, rich, white men now inhabits his body, but that's all he inhabits. Logan/Andre otherwise acts like an old, rich, white person without any knowledge or seeming interest in black culture.

The only exception is the Stephen Root character, Jim Hudson, who does covet something other than just a new body: Chris' talent, which Hudson obviously hopes to gain along with working eyes. But then this character verbally distances himself from the mentality and fetishization of black people of the rest of the society, indicating he's happy to exploit their looniness for a gain that's more personal and mainly unconnected to race, ie. he'd accept the same procedure were it a talented white person. I took the point here to be that it's not merely racists (of whatever stripe) who use racist institutions built on oppression: that powerful men who may not hold any specific racist views will nevertheless happily patronize and exploit these systems if it'll further their own selfish goals. Racism and the abuse of power become indistinguishable, so that we cannot put all our hopes on rich, powerful people to reform the systems they're embedded in even if their motivations generally seem untouched by racism.

Conspicuously, there are no white people in the movie who try to act like black people in that cringing way we're all familiar with.
Cultural appropriation as in when when white people adopt the look of people of color: https://mic.com/articles/95444/5-reason ... .1oxNyq712" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Get Out is an allegory on cultural appropriation.
'Adopt the look' means adopt the social and cultural signifiers of black culture, ie. the clothing, hair styles, gestures, lingo, and patterns of speech. These are all the things no one does in Get Out. Quite the contrary: the group covets black bodies, but thinks those bodies ought to be married to white culture. Notice Andre/Logan is seen at the beginning of the film mocking white speech patterns when he pronounces '"suburbs" and then shows up later using exclusively those speech patterns (along with dressing like and using the body language of white people).

The movie may well be an allegory for cultural appropriation as you claim; but if it is, it's doing so with a narrative in which no one actually does that.
tenia wrote:There's also the riff on how voting for Obama is hip probably mostly because he's black, so that's a very cool sign of being progressist.
That's a bit different than appropriation. That's more along the lines of the other stuff where white people confuse using social signals that indicate one isn't racist with actually being not racist, an idea which is later embodied by a group that claims to love black people because they admire certain athletes, but at the same time is happy to subjugate black people.

Either way, tho' I've no doubt the film is aware of cultural appropriation and keeps it in mind, it still chooses to focuses its narrative on another kind of appropriation, one built out of a couple of traditional racist ideas about black bodies.

User avatar
Mr. Deltoid
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2011 8:32 am

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#68 Post by Mr. Deltoid » Tue Jan 23, 2018 5:34 pm

I actually caught up with this on the weekend, having initially been put-off by the plethora of liberal think-pieces churned out by The Guardian about this film over the last six-months or so (I wanted to wait until the dust has settled, so was surprised to see the film gaining traction at this years Awards!) I'm not familiar with the Director's previous work as I'm in the U.K. and don't watch a lot of U.S. television, but I am aware of the main actor, Kaluuya, from his bit-parts in Black Mirror and Psychoville (even if he wins the Oscar, he'll always be Tea-Leaf to me!). The film itself is rather broken-backed. The first half is front-loaded with some pretty good stuff, as it essentially replays Guess Who's Coming To Dinner fifty years on. In doing so, Peele subverts the patronising middle-class liberalism on display in the former film by replacing the parents racially-based disdain with a creepily over-eager fetishisation of black physicality and culture. Race in America, it seems, is forever the elephant in the living-room.
There's a nice tension and building of suspense here (especially in the strange non-sequiters like the gardener's midnight-run), but as the film progresses, the more conventional it becomes. Kaluuya is good in this, never over-playing his role, where many might have been tempted to. Unfortunately, the third act is a disappointment, less Polanski, more slasher-fodder. I won't dwell too much on the god-awful-just-strayed-in-from-a-shit-sitcom-friend, because it's Peele's debut and he got more things right than he did wrong, but still . . . . . ?
I don't begrudge Get Out's success (it obviously connected to an audience), but I do find it wildly over-praised. The race angle has been exploited, rather ironically, by many critics who have hailed this as the important film of the moment - a howl of rage in a post-Obama world of Black Lives Matter, etc. - but I think it's rather colour-blind of them to focus solely on the racial elements when Class seems to me as just as important factor in the narrative. It's certainly there if you choose to look, but in the 2018 game of Identity Politics Top Trumps, race scores more points than class (plus, if the film does have an antecedent then Brian Yuzna's Society seems to me to be just as relevant as The Stepford Wives).
I foresee Get Out inspiring a lot of earnest Film Studies students to pen dissertations about what this film says about American race-relations in the era of Trump (a bit like how a lot of my peers in 2001/2 seemed to all write about Fight Club and what it told us about post-millennial masculinity in crisis). There's a lot in this film for the more hyper-sensitive students of the Safe Space generation to chew over/get triggered by: micro-aggressions, white-guilt, cultural appropriation - it's all here folks! Whether that confirms their prejudices or challenges them remains to be seen.

User avatar
mfunk9786
Under Chris' Protection
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#69 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Jan 23, 2018 5:48 pm

Mr. Deltoid wrote:hyper-sensitive students of the Safe Space generation to chew over/get triggered by: micro-aggressions, white-guilt, cultural appropriation
Take this shit to Reddit, please

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#70 Post by MichaelB » Tue Jan 23, 2018 6:06 pm

tenia wrote:Having watched again the movie yesterday so that my GF could discover it, the last third of the movie still felt vastly inferior to its preceding. It feels particularly mechanic in the way it's unrolling, like your generic horror movie, even down to the order in which the bad guys are disposed of.
But with the absolutely crucial difference that:
SpoilerShow
we're highly likely to have seen Night of the Living Dead - as, undoubtedly, has Peele - and vividly recall how that film ends. And even if we haven't, we're most likely all too aware of the number of recent cases of cops shooting black people on sight, even if they're doing something much more trivial than actually shooting up an entire rich white family. And so the entire final act seems to be building up to something similar - as I'm sure Kaluuya's character is acutely aware as well - so for me the suspense was pretty much constant.

wattsup32
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:00 pm

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#71 Post by wattsup32 » Tue Jan 23, 2018 6:40 pm

Lost Highway wrote:
Get Out is an allegory on cultural appropriation.
I am not sure if anyone has listened Peele's commentary on the film, but he lays out exactly what he is thinking with every shot, prop, sound, etc. It isn't about cultural appropriation.

However, I advise you to take my word for it instead of listening to the commentary. It is both hyper-pretentious and, somehow, ultra-basic. Neither of which I have ever heard him be, so I assume he was nervous or something. I had to resist the urge to like the film significantly less after hearing it.

User avatar
matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#72 Post by matrixschmatrix » Tue Jan 23, 2018 7:23 pm

Not to bring up the intentional fallacy, but I think a lot of filmmakers express themselves better in film than they do in talking about their own work- it gets narrowed and lessened and they don't necessarily have the richness in words that the film itself does. Spike Lee is the obvious one here (his Do the Right Thing commentary makes it sound like uh not a rich film) but even someone like Scorsese, who can be eloquent about other people's work, has said that he stopped doing commentaries on his own because he felt like he was lessening them. So, here, I don't know that I would take Peele's commentary as the final word on what the movie means, particularly if he was stiff and nervous doing it.

wattsup32
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:00 pm

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#73 Post by wattsup32 » Tue Jan 23, 2018 7:40 pm

matrixschmatrix wrote:Not to bring up the intentional fallacy, but I think a lot of filmmakers express themselves better in film than they do in talking about their own work- it gets narrowed and lessened and they don't necessarily have the richness in words that the film itself does. Spike Lee is the obvious one here (his Do the Right Thing commentary makes it sound like uh not a rich film) but even someone like Scorsese, who can be eloquent about other people's work, has said that he stopped doing commentaries on his own because he felt like he was lessening them. So, here, I don't know that I would take Peele's commentary as the final word on what the movie means, particularly if he was stiff and nervous doing it.
I had considered that myself, but he actually says "and, if you take my interpretation on the film, and you should" a couple times in the commentary. He's not leaving room for interpretation. He's saying in almost so many words, "your interpretation isn't right, mine is." And, it's fine, really.

My real point was, if hearing the exact phenomenon you describe can put you off a movie, don't listen to his commentary on this. If this phenomenon won't put you off, go for it.

User avatar
Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#74 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Jan 23, 2018 8:12 pm

matrixschmatrix wrote:Not to bring up the intentional fallacy, but I think a lot of filmmakers express themselves better in film than they do in talking about their own work- it gets narrowed and lessened and they don't necessarily have the richness in words that the film itself does. Spike Lee is the obvious one here (his Do the Right Thing commentary makes it sound like uh not a rich film) but even someone like Scorsese, who can be eloquent about other people's work, has said that he stopped doing commentaries on his own because he felt like he was lessening them. So, here, I don't know that I would take Peele's commentary as the final word on what the movie means, particularly if he was stiff and nervous doing it.
It's hard to apply this reasoning to allegory, tho', which by its nature is an intentional and preconceived design carefully woven into the fabric of the text. An inadvertent or unintentional allegory is a very different thing than your garden variety unintentional theme or meaning, and requires a higher degree of proof considering how unlikely it is in general.

User avatar
matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

#75 Post by matrixschmatrix » Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:23 pm

True enough, I suppose, though I think one could say of something that it works as an allegory for something else even if not intended as such- certainly, I think the physical act of stealing black bodies could be a metaphor for appropriation, though I think the movie is going for something more direct and more intentionally evil. Appropriation would be, perhaps, cloning the young black people to create new vessels? Still wrong, but not the visceral, vampiric wrongness of literally destroying someone WHILE you take their identity.

Post Reply