I guess this comes down to whether or not the viewer thinks Affleck's character should be forgiven for his actions (even as he can't forgive himself). Film says yes, Glenn Kenny says no. Lee Chandler actually reminds me of a much different character from another acclaimed film from recent years (and I know I'm going to a grotesque extreme with this comparison):Brian C wrote:I've been putting off MANCHESTER - for what, two months now? - due to the once-nagging-now-overpowering feeling that critics are running a little too fast down too steep of a slope on this one. Call it "The Jeffrey Wells Problem", if you will.mfunk9786 wrote:Glenn Kenny's year end list is always without equal. Among other notes is that he seems to have some very harsh feelings toward Manchester by the Sea upon revisiting it/sitting with it for a while.
Kenny's comments here raise an eyebrow for me, to say the least.
Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
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- Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 6:40 pm
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
Structurally, the film reminds me of where the mystery is solved in the middle of the narrative, informing every interaction before and afterwards. I guess knowing the hook when watching the film a second time could dilute its power, but it really didn't diminish for me.
Finally, as for Manchester by the Sea itself, it felt slightly underwhelming as I was watching it (twice), yet, like other posters describe, the film's still lingering in my head for weeks afterward. It's a film that feels stronger as a memory than as a viewing experience, mainly because I think the characters are well-drawn enough that I'm still wondering about them beyond the scope of the movie.
SpoilerShow
Festen
SpoilerShow
Anwar Congo from The Act of Killing as both men are never formally punished for their actions yet you assume at the end of each film that they carry the burden of them every single day of their waking lives.
- Black Hat
- Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:34 pm
- Location: NYC
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
I have to say the criticisms leveled on this by Tony Scott & Glenn Kenny are troubling, but fair.
- Brian C
- I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
- Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
- Location: Chicago, IL
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
Well, finally got around to watching this, and I'm happy to say that my reservations turned out to be unwarranted. It's a very fine film, with a really terrific performance by Affleck that is the best I've seen all year without a close second that I can think of offhand. It's a great role, obviously, but it's also easy to imagine a hundred actors playing this character in a hundred different ways, but without the subtlety and lived-in, natural feeling that Affleck brings. I appreciated the way it extended sympathy to a lot of different characters, without setting its main character in opposition to everyone else. The film as a whole is very well-crafted, even if some of the dialogue seems to be straining a little too hard for authenticity (or maybe I should say that it's fuckin' strainin' a little too hard for some of that fuckin' authenticity bullshit).
I think these comments by Glenn Kenny are off the mark:
1) He comes dangerously close to saying that Affleck's character does not deserve his sympathy, which strikes me as tacky at best. It's one thing to say that the movie is unsuccessful in generating that sympathy, but that doesn't seem to be what Kenny's saying here. Rather, he seems to be saying that a character with this arc is simply not worth the trouble. This implies heavily that he's simply not willing to meet the movie on its own terms, but rather that he's checked out because the character doesn't behave as he wishes him to behave. Plus, of course, it just seems needlessly judgmental in moral terms.
2) I don't want to pull Stephen Colbert's "color blind" bit here, and I love A.O. Scott, but Scott's comments about the racial dynamics of the movie (which Kenny endorses) say a lot more about Scott than it does the film. It didn't occur to me that two of the tenants in the opening Boston scenes were black, or that it would be significant if they were, or especially that this somehow puts Lee in a subservient position out of self-loathing. It strikes me as bizarre that someone would read this into the movie without any more context than what we are given. Frankly, I think someone has to have race on the brain for that to occur to them in the first place; people tend to see what they want to see, and in this case it seems a little ugly.
Still, while I admired the film, there's something a little limited about its ambitions and hence its impact. It's about ... a guy who's sad because something sad happened to him. That's really all it is, and while it's well-made and affecting, it for the most part sticks to mining some pretty obvious emotional territory. I don't think it moves past that sadness into anything more profound or more challenging, and for that reason, I suspect it won't stick with me over the long term. For all its sadness, it just doesn't cut very deep.
I think these comments by Glenn Kenny are off the mark:
A couple of things here:Glenn Kenny wrote:...the more I am asked to acknowledge the "tragedy" of a self-centered alcoholic who is offered an opportunity to be of genuine service to others, and instead opts to go back to his self-imposed sty of self pity, the less inclined I am to see it as tragedy, and more inclined I am to see it as defensive indulgence. So there. Also, there's the way the film neatly sidesteps issues of both moral and legal responsibility, the better to let the viewer experience all that emotion. My friend A.O. Scott raised some eyebrows in his Times review when he said it would be a mistake to deny that the movie had a racial dimension but it certainly does. I myself was reminded of the Lou Whitney song "Thirty Days in the Workhouse," the chorus of which goes "I got thirty days in the workhouse/now don't you shed no tears/'cause if I'd been a black man/they'd have given me thirty years." As Jerry Lee Lewis likes to say, think about it.
1) He comes dangerously close to saying that Affleck's character does not deserve his sympathy, which strikes me as tacky at best. It's one thing to say that the movie is unsuccessful in generating that sympathy, but that doesn't seem to be what Kenny's saying here. Rather, he seems to be saying that a character with this arc is simply not worth the trouble. This implies heavily that he's simply not willing to meet the movie on its own terms, but rather that he's checked out because the character doesn't behave as he wishes him to behave. Plus, of course, it just seems needlessly judgmental in moral terms.
2) I don't want to pull Stephen Colbert's "color blind" bit here, and I love A.O. Scott, but Scott's comments about the racial dynamics of the movie (which Kenny endorses) say a lot more about Scott than it does the film. It didn't occur to me that two of the tenants in the opening Boston scenes were black, or that it would be significant if they were, or especially that this somehow puts Lee in a subservient position out of self-loathing. It strikes me as bizarre that someone would read this into the movie without any more context than what we are given. Frankly, I think someone has to have race on the brain for that to occur to them in the first place; people tend to see what they want to see, and in this case it seems a little ugly.
Still, while I admired the film, there's something a little limited about its ambitions and hence its impact. It's about ... a guy who's sad because something sad happened to him. That's really all it is, and while it's well-made and affecting, it for the most part sticks to mining some pretty obvious emotional territory. I don't think it moves past that sadness into anything more profound or more challenging, and for that reason, I suspect it won't stick with me over the long term. For all its sadness, it just doesn't cut very deep.
- movielocke
- Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:44 am
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
About an hour into the movie my major recurring thought "Jesus this is the whitest movie ever." To be fair they added the two tokens at the start, probably reshoots, recast, to make it not 100% white, we don't know they didn't (note sarcasm) unless the script specified black for those roles, if the script so specified, then the white man serving blacks is definitely a deliberate thing in a movie of such profound whiteness.
The point where he's let go with utterly no charges or suspicion and "we will take your white word for it" is one of the whitest things ever, and is the point of the film I started calling it whitechester in my head.
The point where he's let go with utterly no charges or suspicion and "we will take your white word for it" is one of the whitest things ever, and is the point of the film I started calling it whitechester in my head.
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
That seems presumptive.
- hearthesilence
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
- Location: NYC
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
I think the race issue is more of a problem with the world itself (and rightfully so) than the film proper - at this rate, why not apply the same criticism to any film with white protagonists? Affleck's character would have had a much tougher time if he was black. But that's not the character presented to us and it's not engaging in his story.
- FrauBlucher
- Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
- Location: Greenwich Village
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
I agree. I didn't get any impression of racial overtones. I didn't think in those terms until I read it here. I like A.O. Scott but I take some of his criticisms with a grain of salt for this reason. I'm not sure why adding an important black charactor for the sake is important to some when that's not the story.Brian C wrote:2) I don't want to pull Stephen Colbert's "color blind" bit here, and I love A.O. Scott, but Scott's comments about the racial dynamics of the movie (which Kenny endorses) say a lot more about Scott than it does the film. It didn't occur to me that two of the tenants in the opening Boston scenes were black, or that it would be significant if they were, or especially that this somehow puts Lee in a subservient position out of self-loathing. It strikes me as bizarre that someone would read this into the movie without any more context than what we are given. Frankly, I think someone has to have race on the brain for that to occur to them in the first place; people tend to see what they want to see, and in this case it seems a little ugly.
- Black Hat
- Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:34 pm
- Location: NYC
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
HTS I think that's a bit reductive, but that said I don't fully agree with the take on race here. This is a story about a white family in a white town and I don't think it's particularly fair to critique the film for not trying to be something it can't or can not be. It's further unfair because white families in white neighborhoods exist just as much as black families in black neighborhoods, Latinos, Asians etc, etc. A much fairer critique is portraying an irresponsible person who then further compounds this by refusing to accept the responsibility of caring for his fatherless nephew as a sympathetic figure. Having been initially blown away by this film once I read these criticisms I wondered had I been emotionally manipulated?
It's a difficult question to contemplate because it requires a lot of patience and nuance to parse through contradictory emotions. In a way I think to fully engage with, understand the point of Manchester by the Sea you should be as torn up as Lee Chandler. What I mean by this is all of us have been drunk and behaved irresponsibly at one time or another. Do our mistakes lead to tragedy like it did for him? Not for most people, but these things do happen. Once we accept this we then can go towards the question of grief. I don't have children, but everything I've heard from people who do or have experienced such misfortune is that losing a child is the most unimaginable pain one can possibly experience. Lee lost his whole family and feels he's to blame, how can anyone be as arrogant as to suggest how this person should grieve? Grief is the most selfish emotion, it's deeply personal. It's not something I believe you ever truly get over, but you can perhaps learn how to live with. My own experience with grief is with the sudden death of my father in 2013 and to this day I do not set foot anywhere near the area he used to live. Shit, it's nowhere near the same kind of grief but there are certain places I do not go to because they remind me of an ex girlfriend. Does this behavior make me selfish? Maybe so, but it also makes me human to not want to revisit places that push in memories from an extremely painful part of my life and I think to critique Lee Chandler on these grounds is to strip away his humanity.
To condemn Lee is to also be ignorant of the fact that he tried, he tried very hard to do what some feel it was his duty to do and he just couldn't continue. Beyond that while he was there he did help his nephew tremendously, he did everything he could under harrowing circumstances to be there for his nephew. Lee is also not cutting his nephew out of his life he was and will continue to be there for him, he just can't go back to living in that town. To not feel empathy here is in my view a far bigger failure than Lee Chandler is being accused of.
Lastly I would like to add another piece of personal connection, twelve years ago my apartment had a fire where thankfully nobody was hurt but all was lost. The investigation came back that the cause was electrical, but after downing a few beers the last thing I did that night before leaving was take a couple of bowl hits and regardless of the report I've often felt what happened was my fault. If someone had gotten hurt or worse I would never have put my life back together either. Would I have been a selfish irredeemable human being or would I have just been a person who could never figure out how to live with a mistake?
It's a difficult question to contemplate because it requires a lot of patience and nuance to parse through contradictory emotions. In a way I think to fully engage with, understand the point of Manchester by the Sea you should be as torn up as Lee Chandler. What I mean by this is all of us have been drunk and behaved irresponsibly at one time or another. Do our mistakes lead to tragedy like it did for him? Not for most people, but these things do happen. Once we accept this we then can go towards the question of grief. I don't have children, but everything I've heard from people who do or have experienced such misfortune is that losing a child is the most unimaginable pain one can possibly experience. Lee lost his whole family and feels he's to blame, how can anyone be as arrogant as to suggest how this person should grieve? Grief is the most selfish emotion, it's deeply personal. It's not something I believe you ever truly get over, but you can perhaps learn how to live with. My own experience with grief is with the sudden death of my father in 2013 and to this day I do not set foot anywhere near the area he used to live. Shit, it's nowhere near the same kind of grief but there are certain places I do not go to because they remind me of an ex girlfriend. Does this behavior make me selfish? Maybe so, but it also makes me human to not want to revisit places that push in memories from an extremely painful part of my life and I think to critique Lee Chandler on these grounds is to strip away his humanity.
To condemn Lee is to also be ignorant of the fact that he tried, he tried very hard to do what some feel it was his duty to do and he just couldn't continue. Beyond that while he was there he did help his nephew tremendously, he did everything he could under harrowing circumstances to be there for his nephew. Lee is also not cutting his nephew out of his life he was and will continue to be there for him, he just can't go back to living in that town. To not feel empathy here is in my view a far bigger failure than Lee Chandler is being accused of.
Lastly I would like to add another piece of personal connection, twelve years ago my apartment had a fire where thankfully nobody was hurt but all was lost. The investigation came back that the cause was electrical, but after downing a few beers the last thing I did that night before leaving was take a couple of bowl hits and regardless of the report I've often felt what happened was my fault. If someone had gotten hurt or worse I would never have put my life back together either. Would I have been a selfish irredeemable human being or would I have just been a person who could never figure out how to live with a mistake?
- MoonlitKnight
- Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:44 pm
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
I don't think the problem in the world right now is racism so much as it is tribalism. Also, I believe Lee's boss was black, too (Stephen McKinley Henderson, who's also in "Fences") -- or was he something else? I'm drawing a blank right now.hearthesilence wrote:I think the race issue is more of a problem with the world itself (and rightfully so) than the film proper - at this rate, why not apply the same criticism to any film with white protagonists? Affleck's character would have had a much tougher time if he was black. But that's not the character presented to us and it's not engaging in his story.
- theseventhseal
- Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2016 3:53 pm
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
I'd like to see this but I wondering if this isn't my "Ordinary People" of this millennium. "Ordinary People" was the award and critical darling of its day, but just not my cup of tea. I also am still suffering from Casey Afflect Suffering Syndrome after watching "Gone Baby Gone" two years ago, whence I nearly drowned in chowder-drenched accents and teary faces with runny noses. Other problems include finding Boston accents about as endearing as I find Brooklyn accents, which is too say not at all. You would think given devices like televisions, cinemas, radios, and internet broadcast young people might rather not speak like some deep forest aboriginal tribe but emulate the verbalizations an educated variety. I don't know, if "Manchester by the Sea" is yet another celebration of the Beer-in-fist-Red-Sox-ranting-Car-Phaarking-F-Word-Bombing-Working-Class-of lobster-country-Lament, but if it is, as suggested by the trailer, I'll have to pass. Especially as Afflect has already, I think, definitively shown he has mastered the broken hearted, big foul mouthed Yankee with a teary runny nose portrayal. I don't know how many years have passed between Gone Baby Gone and Manchester by the sea, but for myself - not enough, I'm guessing.
Last edited by theseventhseal on Sun Jan 08, 2017 12:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Michael Kerpan
- Spelling Bee Champeen
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Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
I like accents, Brooklyn, Boston, Southern (of various sorts), pretty much all of them. Long may they flourish! Down with bland, homogenized generic American English!
So there!
So there!
- theseventhseal
- Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2016 3:53 pm
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
For some reason I love Southern accents (especially on women!) but the northern variety is just so SLOPPY sounding. Give me British, French, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Texan, Fargo N.D.... but that Yankee and New Yawk mushmouth stuff. Yuck!Michael Kerpan wrote:I like accents, Brooklyn, Boston, Southern (of various sorts), pretty much all of them. Long may they flourish! Down with bland, homogenized generic American English!
So there!
- Shrew
- The Untamed One
- Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 2:22 am
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
I think there's an unintended racial element to the film, but Scott's comments reach. Part of it is the geography of place. The real Manchester-by-the-Sea has a population of 5,000 and is 97% white, like a lot of American suburbs. Boston/Quincy (where Lee works in the beginning) is more diverse (though only 4.5% black and 24% Asian--it would have been more accurate if his tenants were Chinese). The cocaine business is another matter. Lee gets off less directly because of his race and more because he's a familiar face in a small town, but it's still a good illustration of white privilege.
The one thing that felt slightly off about Manchester to me is class. The real Manchester has a median income of over $100,000; it's a very tony suburb of Boston, though it has some roots as a fishing town. To its credit, the film doesn't hide this--the exteriors and some spaces (the lawyer's office, the school), clearly display the town's wealth. In the script, Longergan seems to have imagined something more like the "working-class paradise" Glenn Kenny accuses the town of being (I feel like he was imagining more Gloucester than Manchester, by that title doesn't have a ring to it). But thankfully, the filming seemed to absorb a lot of particulars of location, so it doesn't feel nearly as fake as it sounds on paper.
The Chandlers and a lot of the spaces they inhabit read as working class, even though it's never quite clear what they do for a living (except Lee, but we never know what his job was before). The accent is another element of that where there's confusion. I'm just a relatively recent transplant to Boston (where most people don't actually seem to have much of an accent), but the most noticeable accents I've heard have been on the working-class (construction workers, transit drivers) and also professionals (doctors and lawyers). They also tend to be stronger a bit outside the city (so Manchester's area fits). That makes classing the characters hard (particularly Randi) sometimes, though the "fawking" language they use seems to indicate a rougher background.
It's not impossible to imagine them in contemporary Manchester--an older family that's passed down a house and always kept working--but a lot of the class distinctions within the town seem elided over. It never feels fraudulent (and the film gets much else of the local color and environment right), but it's a weak point, especially compared to the more sharply felt realities of economics and class in You Can Count on Me and Margaret.
The one thing that felt slightly off about Manchester to me is class. The real Manchester has a median income of over $100,000; it's a very tony suburb of Boston, though it has some roots as a fishing town. To its credit, the film doesn't hide this--the exteriors and some spaces (the lawyer's office, the school), clearly display the town's wealth. In the script, Longergan seems to have imagined something more like the "working-class paradise" Glenn Kenny accuses the town of being (I feel like he was imagining more Gloucester than Manchester, by that title doesn't have a ring to it). But thankfully, the filming seemed to absorb a lot of particulars of location, so it doesn't feel nearly as fake as it sounds on paper.
The Chandlers and a lot of the spaces they inhabit read as working class, even though it's never quite clear what they do for a living (except Lee, but we never know what his job was before). The accent is another element of that where there's confusion. I'm just a relatively recent transplant to Boston (where most people don't actually seem to have much of an accent), but the most noticeable accents I've heard have been on the working-class (construction workers, transit drivers) and also professionals (doctors and lawyers). They also tend to be stronger a bit outside the city (so Manchester's area fits). That makes classing the characters hard (particularly Randi) sometimes, though the "fawking" language they use seems to indicate a rougher background.
It's not impossible to imagine them in contemporary Manchester--an older family that's passed down a house and always kept working--but a lot of the class distinctions within the town seem elided over. It never feels fraudulent (and the film gets much else of the local color and environment right), but it's a weak point, especially compared to the more sharply felt realities of economics and class in You Can Count on Me and Margaret.
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- Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2016 6:10 am
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
"To not feel empathy here is in my view a far bigger failure than Lee Chandler is being accused of."
100% agree. There's something unpalatable about Kenny and Scott's remarks about the film, to me. I find the idea of accusing the film of being somehow uncritical of its protagonist's privilege to be borderline gross. There's something laughable about a cushty middle class New York film critic putting limits on his sympathies for a working class character who is suffering a gargantuan and personal grief, just because he's confident a black guy would've had it worse. This kind of picking and choosing speaks of a quieter kind of cultural privilege that both seem completely oblivious too. The triumph of the film is the breadth of its empathy, even in dealing with a comparatively small world. In their criticism, Kenny and Scott somehow end up doing the opposite.
100% agree. There's something unpalatable about Kenny and Scott's remarks about the film, to me. I find the idea of accusing the film of being somehow uncritical of its protagonist's privilege to be borderline gross. There's something laughable about a cushty middle class New York film critic putting limits on his sympathies for a working class character who is suffering a gargantuan and personal grief, just because he's confident a black guy would've had it worse. This kind of picking and choosing speaks of a quieter kind of cultural privilege that both seem completely oblivious too. The triumph of the film is the breadth of its empathy, even in dealing with a comparatively small world. In their criticism, Kenny and Scott somehow end up doing the opposite.
- Brian C
- I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
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- Location: Chicago, IL
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
At this point, it's worth noting that Scott, at least, seems to have admired the film overall, and writes as though the film's racial politics as he perceives them are a point in the film's favor:Apple Peeler wrote:"To not feel empathy here is in my view a far bigger failure than Lee Chandler is being accused of."
100% agree. There's something unpalatable about Kenny and Scott's remarks about the film, to me. I find the idea of accusing the film of being somehow uncritical of its protagonist's privilege to be borderline gross. There's something laughable about a cushty middle class New York film critic putting limits on his sympathies for a working class character who is suffering a gargantuan and personal grief, just because he's confident a black guy would've had it worse. This kind of picking and choosing speaks of a quieter kind of cultural privilege that both seem completely oblivious too. The triumph of the film is the breadth of its empathy, even in dealing with a comparatively small world. In their criticism, Kenny and Scott somehow end up doing the opposite.
I don't agree with his reading of this aspect of the film, but there's no indication that he's unable to feel empathy for Lee. I would urge you to re-read his review, because I don't think you're being very fair to him.A.O. Scott wrote:Maybe its sounds like I’m over-reading, or making an accusation. But to deny that “Manchester by the Sea” has a racial dimension is to underestimate its honesty and overlook its difficult relevance.
- Michael Kerpan
- Spelling Bee Champeen
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Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
Boston area accents (not all were quite the same) were NOT confined to only working class people and the elite. Many folks with the northern variety moved further north (into the suburbs) when they could afford it, those with the southern variety did the same -- but moved to the south shore. Today there are indeed lots of Boston residents not originally from Boston -- and virtually none of these people have acquired Boston accents. One is more likely to encounter old-fashioned Boston accents in middle-class folk in the suburbs than in Boston itself, but there are pockets of Boston where one can still find accents.
The stereotypical Boston accent (often not gotten right) is the southern variety. I wonder if this film actually captured the north of Boston accent -- or just used the south Boston variety. (These were VERY distinct back in the 70s, actual speakers of either variety easily recognize which variety someone is using -- and there is a bit of antipathy between north shore and south shore folk).
The stereotypical Boston accent (often not gotten right) is the southern variety. I wonder if this film actually captured the north of Boston accent -- or just used the south Boston variety. (These were VERY distinct back in the 70s, actual speakers of either variety easily recognize which variety someone is using -- and there is a bit of antipathy between north shore and south shore folk).
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- Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2016 6:10 am
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
Sorry, this is absolutely my bad. I hadn't read the Scott review and had built an image of it solely from Kenny's given quotes and context. Thanks for pointing this out. I guess I still stand by the thrust of my slightly pissy post, but only as a response to Kenny's complaints.Brian C wrote:I would urge you to re-read his review, because I don't think you're being very fair to him.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
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- DarkImbecile
- Ask me about my visible cat breasts
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- Location: Albuquerque, NM
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
SpoilerShow
Harder to blame Lego Lee for failing to put the fireplace screen in place when he's lacking flexible hands, I guess...
- TMDaines
- Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
- Location: Stretford, Manchester
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
Enjoyed the film, but didn't find myself moved as much as others seem to have been. What nobody seems to have mentioned is how funny the film is. As in real life there's a good amount of laughter mixed in with sadder events, even during testing times.
- rohmerin
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 10:36 am
- Location: Spain
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
Jesus, what a great film! I don't remember a bigger tragedy except Holocaust movies. Sadly Michelle Williams, by far the best actress in the States, appears so few in a small but not minor supporting role.
Silly questions about USA:
- Why houses are made with wood? It's beautiful but I find it more Scandinavian than British. I suppose because it's faster, cheaper and you've got plenty woods. Correct?
- Why do you get like a 'Condolence party' after the funeral? Is it an English tradition? I don't know where it's coming and I've always being stranged by.
- Why do you hug so much? I'm from a kissing country but in UK, they don't hug as much you do.
Silly questions about USA:
- Why houses are made with wood? It's beautiful but I find it more Scandinavian than British. I suppose because it's faster, cheaper and you've got plenty woods. Correct?
- Why do you get like a 'Condolence party' after the funeral? Is it an English tradition? I don't know where it's coming and I've always being stranged by.
- Why do you hug so much? I'm from a kissing country but in UK, they don't hug as much you do.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
I've hugged more people in my life than I've shaken hands with, it's very common here-- almost every woman I've met as an adult in a non-work or dating context has introduced herself to me with a hug. I don't know that I've ever seen friends or relatives kiss one another unless they're in a romantic relationship.
Having not seen the film, based on the title I assume the film shows waterfront New England architecture, in which case it's a regional style. Post-funeral "parties" are called receptions. Like wedding receptions, they're a chance to eat and drink with friends and loved ones after the heavy trauma of the funeral ceremony. It's not uncommon for some folks to skip the funeral/burial entirely and only come to the reception. Depending on the vibe of the family, they can be somber or jovial.
Having not seen the film, based on the title I assume the film shows waterfront New England architecture, in which case it's a regional style. Post-funeral "parties" are called receptions. Like wedding receptions, they're a chance to eat and drink with friends and loved ones after the heavy trauma of the funeral ceremony. It's not uncommon for some folks to skip the funeral/burial entirely and only come to the reception. Depending on the vibe of the family, they can be somber or jovial.
- rohmerin
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 10:36 am
- Location: Spain
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
Thank's Domino for your replies. In Spain is totally normal to kiss strangers with two. One Italians. French may be they don't. I dislike at all and I prefer shaking hands... but I am all British inside.
What strange is the Church featured in the film! As you people as said, they are Catholic, but to me the Church with white walls and no Saints and or decoration through the walls was almost a Dreyer - protestant- film ! althought the altar is not shown.
Casey's skin is pretty and so pale. His brother looks a Spaniard, may be that's the reason (more than is acting talent) because I don't like him.
What strange is the Church featured in the film! As you people as said, they are Catholic, but to me the Church with white walls and no Saints and or decoration through the walls was almost a Dreyer - protestant- film ! althought the altar is not shown.
Casey's skin is pretty and so pale. His brother looks a Spaniard, may be that's the reason (more than is acting talent) because I don't like him.
- matrixschmatrix
- Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
New England actually has a fair number of more ornate Catholic Churches- at least as far as stained glass and a statue or two go, and more elaborate vaulted architutre- but unless you're in an arch diocese I don't know that it's the default even here. I don't think many churches constructed after the turn of the century look that way, and we also have a number of places that started out as a church for one denomination and later switched. It's much weirder when you have a Lutheran church with stained glass depiction stations of the Cross, too
- djproject
- Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 3:41 pm
- Location: Framingham, MA
- Contact:
Re: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016)
In Cambridge, a Catholic parish building is now a Serbian Orthodox parish [St. Sava].matrixschmatrix wrote:...and we also have a number of places that started out as a church for one denomination and later switched. It's much weirder when you have a Lutheran church with stained glass depiction stations of the Cross, too