'Blue Ruin' (2013) and 'Green Room' (2015). Jeremy Saulnier's directed a couple of the best modern thrillers of our generation, and they've since become cult classics.
Is all this drinking required? Some power movies you've included here. These movies are definitely not my cup of tea, however I love your descriptions of the actors and their relationship to the plot and the movies themselves. I relate to the clichés and the importance in avoiding them. I was using that exact comparison in the workshop for writing I ran today. Coincidence reading this in relation to movies. Loved this piece!
Haha! You're absolutely right, the drinking is not required! I only mention it as a potential method to calm the nerves, and the story of Patrick Stewart having to pour himself a drink is what I've heard. These films are masterclasses in tension, without using gimmicks or indeed clichés. Interesting you were also talking about that. I wonder how much easier or harder it is to avoid clichés in prose writing vs filmmaking. How come these movies aren't your cup of tea, too violent sounding?
Can’t deal with tension. Stresses me out! I thought your piece was so good it made me want to see these movies, but I will need those drinks probably to persevere. That’s a very good question. Is it easier to stay out of clichés in writing or filming? What do you think?
Ah I see! I understand. To play devil's adovcate, do you not find the stress can be cathartic? Things like stress or fear during a film can be quite helpful. Blue Ruin is very much about grief. As for the clichés, I've always thought of prose as much freer and therefore less prone to clichés in the hands of a skilled writer. Cinema is perhaps a little more constricted. There is a lot of wonderful, non-mainstream, what's called "experimental" cinema, that plays with the form and breaks all the rules. They are largely academic exercises and will never be watched "en masse" by a movie-going public. So some parameters are repeatedly maintained in order for a film to "look" like a film and be enjoyed, allowing therefore for easier slips into clichés and non-originality. But I have in no way settled on a definite conclusion on this topic.
Stress cathartic? Now you’ve planted this idea, I’ll have to work on this one. The instinct says no it’s not. Will work on this one!
A good writer knows their way around without clichés. Maybe novice writers chose them as a way of recognition. I don’t know. I find that the urge to rely on them is less present these days than when I started. I wouldn’t know about film as much. In terms of how easy it is to create a cliché vs not have a cliché scene.
I'm completely with you on that, the more I've practiced the less reliant I've been on clichés, they've sort of melted away - but that can also be dangerous thinking as I don't want to get too cocky 😉 And then the clichés will just flood back in!
Yeah, don’t speak to soon! I feel like that about poetry and rhymes… the more I write the more I move away from rhyming… Sometimes I creeps back in when the gatekeeper is on holiday so to speak!
Is all this drinking required? Some power movies you've included here. These movies are definitely not my cup of tea, however I love your descriptions of the actors and their relationship to the plot and the movies themselves. I relate to the clichés and the importance in avoiding them. I was using that exact comparison in the workshop for writing I ran today. Coincidence reading this in relation to movies. Loved this piece!
Haha! You're absolutely right, the drinking is not required! I only mention it as a potential method to calm the nerves, and the story of Patrick Stewart having to pour himself a drink is what I've heard. These films are masterclasses in tension, without using gimmicks or indeed clichés. Interesting you were also talking about that. I wonder how much easier or harder it is to avoid clichés in prose writing vs filmmaking. How come these movies aren't your cup of tea, too violent sounding?
Can’t deal with tension. Stresses me out! I thought your piece was so good it made me want to see these movies, but I will need those drinks probably to persevere. That’s a very good question. Is it easier to stay out of clichés in writing or filming? What do you think?
Ah I see! I understand. To play devil's adovcate, do you not find the stress can be cathartic? Things like stress or fear during a film can be quite helpful. Blue Ruin is very much about grief. As for the clichés, I've always thought of prose as much freer and therefore less prone to clichés in the hands of a skilled writer. Cinema is perhaps a little more constricted. There is a lot of wonderful, non-mainstream, what's called "experimental" cinema, that plays with the form and breaks all the rules. They are largely academic exercises and will never be watched "en masse" by a movie-going public. So some parameters are repeatedly maintained in order for a film to "look" like a film and be enjoyed, allowing therefore for easier slips into clichés and non-originality. But I have in no way settled on a definite conclusion on this topic.
Stress cathartic? Now you’ve planted this idea, I’ll have to work on this one. The instinct says no it’s not. Will work on this one!
A good writer knows their way around without clichés. Maybe novice writers chose them as a way of recognition. I don’t know. I find that the urge to rely on them is less present these days than when I started. I wouldn’t know about film as much. In terms of how easy it is to create a cliché vs not have a cliché scene.
I'm completely with you on that, the more I've practiced the less reliant I've been on clichés, they've sort of melted away - but that can also be dangerous thinking as I don't want to get too cocky 😉 And then the clichés will just flood back in!
Yeah, don’t speak to soon! I feel like that about poetry and rhymes… the more I write the more I move away from rhyming… Sometimes I creeps back in when the gatekeeper is on holiday so to speak!