An essay I wrote exploring the poetics of Breaking Bad, with a beautiful video by Dave Bunting, just went live on IndieWire's PressPlay, here.
For a contemporary cinematic experience as visceral and visually arresting as Breaking Bad, audiences must look abroad, to Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void, or further, to films coming out of Thailand, Japan, and South Korea. ... Vince Gilligan’s series puts U.S. cinema to shame, not just in terms of story, but in its execution: The direction, the dialogue, the acting, and—as is evident from the video essay above—the cinematography are, quite simply, of a higher order of intelligence. An intelligence that is extremely, at times obsessively, self-aware.
blowing minds...
ReplyDeletePersonally I find it hard to maintain interest for a film narrative if it needs more than 8 hours to complete it's arc. Just a thought, would we be talking about the richness and efficacy of B.B.'s cinematography were it to be constrained within a 135' format? In spite of it's esthetic maturity it all seems overly diluted to me; and repetitive.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that.
ReplyDeleteSiphonophoros, I understand not being interested in a series.
ReplyDeleteBut, remember: much of my article is about a single episode, one that runs for far less time than your 135' format. There is more going on in that single episode than most of what is going on in American big screen movies.
I do respect your disinterest in lengthy series, though. I had no interest in them myself before Mad Men.