Deb 8 Me 7
This is a docudrama about the trial following the Lincoln assassination. Filled with interesting people, stories and information. Not sure how much is true, but I’m guessing the overview, the general facts are in place. Like a lot of these I feel I’d like it more if I’d read the book. There were things introduced and abandoned, alluded to and ignored throughout the movie, as if they were letting us know they were aware of these facts so they put ‘em in, but didn’t develop them because they weren’t pertinent to the story. I say if that’s the case, leave ‘em out, they only confuse things and leave me wanting more from the film.
It’s a story with assassination, but I still don’t see why death has to be so graphically and explicitly expressed. Gore does nothing to move the story along. It can be argued that the horror of the act has to driven home to the audience so we’ll felt something like people felt back then. Of course they didn’t see these murder(s) in such detail, but they faced ultimate terrors daily as the Civil war raged on.
The acting seemed a bit flat, probably the result of the director, not the actors. We both have seen better from Alexis Bledel who seemed to be patched in; and the main dude, James McAvoy (who is a ringer for Broc Smith) was okay, but not inspiring. The 'look' of the movie was distinctive, quite dark a lot of the time, most interiors were lit by candle or a bit of streaming sun, made for some nice lighting direction. We came away from the whole experience sort of vacuous, with little alarms going off about our society past and present. But as we talked it seemed there were a lot of unanswered historical questions posed in the film but unresolved by it.
No comments:
Post a Comment