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Posted: |
Feb 19, 2017 - 2:06 PM
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By: |
OnyaBirri
(Member)
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This is the first in what I hope will be an ongoing series in which we collaboratively offer ideas to improve slow-moving films with little or no action.
For this first installment, I will offer improvements for director Robert Ellis Miller’s 1968 snoozefest, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.“
* SPOILERS AHEAD! *
Opening scene with fat guy breaking window of bakery: This scene would have been more intense with a gritty, urban underscore, something similar to Lalo Schifrin's Bullitt theme. When the police arrive, it would have been great if a fight broke out between the fat guy and the cops. Also, the fat guy could have thrown one of the cops through the window, with the cop getting whipped cream all over his face as he crashes into the cake.
Stacy Keach punching brick wall: This scene would have worked better with a nervous jazz underscore. Perhaps some of the crowd could have started placing bets over how long Keach would last. It then could have segued into a choreographed scene, something like the Jets and Sharks with Leonard Bernstein underscore, with the crowd taunting Keach. Finally, Keach could have lashed out against the crowd with a switchblade. A missed opportunity.
Fight scene at the carnival: Finally, we see some action. This scene would have played much better with a dramatic underscore, maybe something similar to the iconic battle music that was frequently used in Star Trek episodes.
Sondra Locke’s party: The introduction of fireworks into the story line provided the perfect device to show some body parts flying through the air; sadly, this possibility was left undeveloped. Also, the guests refusing to leave the party could have nicely segeued into a mixed-marshall-arts segment in which Locke attacks party goers.
Alan Arkin and fat guy in cab: I started to get excited when Alan Arkin threw the Whitman sampler out of the window. Arkin then could have opened the door and pushed out the fat guy. The fat guy could have clung to the cab's roof and pulled himself up. Then, Alan Arkin could have climbed onto the roof from his side of the cab and they could have had a fistfight on the roof of the moving car, perhaps with some marshall arts content. The cab then could have sped up in an attempt to throw them off, maybe crashing into a produce stand, or into a large sheet of plate glass being carried across the street by movers.
Alan Arkin suicide: Alan Arkin could have held Sondra Locke as a hostage, leading to a dramatic standoff with the police, in which Arkin frantically scribbles demands on his notepad and delivers them to police via paper airplanes thrown out of the window; or, Arkin could have gone postal in any number of locations before doing himself in.
What are your thoughts?
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Posted: |
Feb 20, 2017 - 12:43 PM
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By: |
Jim Phelps
(Member)
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This Lonely Hunter movie is from 1968, so you shouldn't have any trouble ratcheting up the pace of this relic using footage of other films from that most violent of years, 1968. You can start by throwing in the car pursuit sequence from BULLITT, also from 1968, but instead of Steve McQueen, just arm, ply with booze, and then unleash Lee Marvin to crack the skull of every cast member within smashing distance. It would be especially gratifying to see ol' Lee pistol whip Alan Arkin into submission. Arkin's one of those know-it-all actors that Hollywood forces the public to like. I'll hate any film in which Alan Arkin appears and every on screen performance he gives if the s.o.b. lives to be eleventeen thousand years old.
You know what? Forget that. Just insert fifty hours of Tet Offensive footage, also from 1968. No one saw it coming then, and they sure as Hue won't expect it in any damned "director's cut" now.
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Ive got one for improving Dune. A huge iconic explosion right at the beginning.
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Posted: |
Feb 21, 2017 - 4:29 AM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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I've not seen THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER (that I can remember, anyway), but I have a problem with the premise of this thread, which describes slow films as something 'negative' that needs 'fixing'.
I love slow cinema myself, and the thing to remember is that the tempo is set as a point in itself; to make an issue out of the way we experience time. It wouldn't make sense to talk about 'fixing' the tempo of films by Tarr, Tarkovsky, Angeloupoulos, Weerasethakul, Sokurov etc. And you could apply the same sentiments to more mainstream films too, that strive for this particular way of storytelling/experience. Something like Gareth Edwards' MONSTERS, for example, or Kelly Reichardt's movies.
The real problem -- as others have pointed out -- is a lack of patience among a rapid-editing-hungry audience, which means that these films are usually relegated to cineaste territory. But some crossover films manage to pull through also in a commercial sense, like ARRIVAL last year.
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