Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012)

[tarpilot]

moronic moment in the midst of mania, my b

[manicsounds]

I don't see what the problem is with that. It's easier in the digital realm to immediately look at what was shot, but shooting on film with a minuscule budget probably didn't allow for printing of dailies. But the article didn't go into depth as of why though.

"Beasts" seems to be this year's "Crash", a wild card movie that either despised or loved. (Although Crash had a lot more haters than Beasts)

A great double feature with this is David Gordon Green's "George Washington", both similar in children's perspectives in a world without swag.

Although my movie-watching experience of "Beasts" was terrible, (interrupted viewings, low volume not to disturb other family members, etc) I liked the movie for what it was. I do have to give it another spin, watch it in one succession at full volume.

[hearthesilence]

I'm not sure I'd hold that against the film - I don't think it's a good idea to make a movie that way, but at the end of the day, you can only judge what's there on the screen, not what the director did (or did not do) when he was working on the picture. If he never stepped foot in the cutting room, if he never took a peek to see how the DP or the camera operators had their shots set up, if he left most of the key scenes to second units, it doesn't necessarily mean anything - plenty of great directors have done similar things on their best work.

Again, FWIW, the movie was a mixed bag for me.

[CSM126]

"It's popular. We should hate it so we look cool. It's Oscar nominated? Oh dude, that's totally racist."

This is such a dumb argument. I bought the film unseen, having heard great things, none of which materialized. I wouldn't have done this had I only planned to despise it for "Internet Cool Points" or whatever you're envisioning. Many people like other films which are popular, you can't throw this around when they hate one as well.

As for the second half of your comment, I think the film has enough problems without stacking the deck with racism charges, but complaints of this nature may well just be critical manifestations of coping with and/or explaining away the grating awfulness of the material and how it's expressed. Both articles linked above were written before the Oscar noms, btw.

I meant that to refer to the profoundly awful article that had been linked, which comes off as having the tone I implied. Wasn't making a broad statement about everyone who dislikes it, sorry.

[FerdinandGriffon]

If you're looking for a contributing factor to the trainwreck: Zeitlin didn't look at a single piece of footage until after shooting was completed. I'm shocked this hasn't become a major talking point for boosters -- aren't we supposed to praise movies for not being movies?

As someone who recently shot an independent feature on 16mm and who still hasn't seen a foot of film, several months after production ended, I find the accusations against Zeitlin for not having dailies jaw-droppingly ignorant. When you have less money than most film's catering budget for your entire production, when you're shooting in the middle of nowhere with a skeleton crew, when you're racing against time, weather and inflexible schedules, dailies are simply not an option. I have no idea whether Zeitlin faced any of these difficulties (though I expect he did), and I've never seen his film and don't plan on doing so (Malickian magical realism? I'll pass.), but to dismiss an independent film for not having all the conveniences of a Hollywood production is the worst kind of snobbery.

[vsski]

I totally agree that holding limitations inherent in independent productions against a movie is clearly unjust and even if Zeitlin chose for other reasons not to look at dailies that doesn't make for a bad movie necessarily. After all there are many movies made on ginormous budgets with all the conveniences imaginable that turned out to be utter garbage. So while I can't say that I agree with the article, for me this was an utterly disappointing viewing experience and one that I had high hopes for given the accolades heaped on it. While some people may put down a movie to be "cool" on the Internet, I doubt that goes for the majority of folks.
For me at least I simply don't understand what people see in this film and why it gets any praise and now even has all these award nominations. I certainly don't feel that I need to agree with others and my tastes often collide completely with many critics or other filmgoers, but in most cases I can at least understand what they see in a movie that I may not like. On this one I'm simply dumbfounded.

[MichaelB]

As someone who recently shot an independent feature on 16mm and who still hasn't seen a foot of film, several months after production ended, I find the accusations against Zeitlin for not having dailies jaw-droppingly ignorant. When you have less money than most film's catering budget for your entire production, when you're shooting in the middle of nowhere with a skeleton crew, when you're racing against time, weather and inflexible schedules, dailies are simply not an option. I have no idea whether Zeitlin faced any of these difficulties (though I expect he did), and I've never seen his film and don't plan on doing so (Malickian magical realism? I'll pass.), but to dismiss an independent film for not having all the conveniences of a Hollywood production is the worst kind of snobbery.

It also means that you're obliged to dismiss the likes of In the Realm of the Senses and When We Were Kings, to name just two films whose critical reputation is otherwise pretty rock-solid.

Granted, there were specific reasons for their directors being unable to watch a frame of footage until editing started (Nagisa Oshima couldn't get it processed in Japan for legal reasons, Leon Gast couldn't afford to get his footage processed for something like fifteen years), but it further illustrates the absurdity of the charge.

[HistoryProf]

well i've seen it now and I guess I don't understand either polarized reaction to this. It didn't strike me as anything special - kind of a nice fantastical bit of matinee fare. Nor did I see anything terribly wrong with it. It's a nice little movie, certainly way overhyped, but I can't for the life of me understand how domino, for instance, could take such offense to it all as to be personally insulted by its very existence.

I will say that it is utterly laughable that the girl is nominated for best actress. She did a fine job for sure, but that nomination especially reeks of the Academy's annual "look at how hip and accepting of indies we are!" entry.