It took me a couple of days of thinking about this film to come to the conclusion that having watched it for the first time i think i underrated it. Yes it is dark and dank and dingy and in places incoherent but that i came to realise was Altmans intention and his way of directing.
The DP did an extraordinary job and i felt as cold and muddy and trapped as the inhabitants of this tiny godforsaken township. The performances are all very good but especially the two main leads.
That scene on the rope bridge was sickening and heartbreaking it still makes me mad to think of it now days later and that's powerful film making.
I love Leonard Cohen so right from the opening i was always going to love the songs but they fit so perfectly for this film i wondered if he hadnt actually wrote them especially. (I know he didnt)
So yeah at first it was an assault on the senses in many ways and so unlike anything i have ever seen before i think i came to a hasty conclusion toward the negative and having thought more and more about this film i now think it is a near masterpiece and one of my favorites of the New Hollywood era.
The DP did an extraordinary job and i felt as cold and muddy and trapped as the inhabitants of this tiny godforsaken township. The performances are all very good but especially the two main leads.
That scene on the rope bridge was sickening and heartbreaking it still makes me mad to think of it now days later and that's powerful film making.
I love Leonard Cohen so right from the opening i was always going to love the songs but they fit so perfectly for this film i wondered if he hadnt actually wrote them especially. (I know he didnt)
So yeah at first it was an assault on the senses in many ways and so unlike anything i have ever seen before i think i came to a hasty conclusion toward the negative and having thought more and more about this film i now think it is a near masterpiece and one of my favorites of the New Hollywood era.