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These pages show how thinking about Bruce Willis movies can
lead to reflection on many aspects of filmmaking and film
watching.
Other essays are still in the word processor: on In Country,
Color of Night, Die Hard II/III, the way we see film stars
etc.
For references, see Sources
and acknowledgements in the About this site section.
For reviews of individual films, see IMDb
and Amazon links at
the bottom of this page.
[General spoiler alert: The movies
discussed are considered known.
To avoid spoilers, do not read the essay if you haven't seen
the film.]
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The
Swiss Cheese Factor
Credibility of the unreal in 12 Monkeys
and The Sixth Sense
Films that venture beyond the
scope of physical reality can't avoid a certain quantity of
plot holes. This essay explores how disruptive such holes are
in an unambiguous narrative as compared to an open-ended one.
Read essay >> |
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Die
Hard: A Classic in Action
"Die Hard" is often said to
be a classic of the action movie, a film that created its own
genre: the blue-collar action hero. But apart from providing
the blueprint for pretty much an entire branch of the movie
industry, the original "Die Hard" is a classic in
a formal sense, through many of the factors that make it a good
entertainment product. The film has various clearly recognizable
traits that it shares with theatrical styles generally referred
to as "classical".
Read essay >>
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The
Kid: Respect Yourself
or
To Say Nothing of The Dog
Film critics have to be particularly
conscious of their own and the film's cultural background.
They run a risk of confusing culture-specific values and connotations
with universal ones.
A Swedish review of "Disney's The Kid" is a case in
point.
Read essay >> |
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McCarthy
Revisited
The review discussed on these pages
was published in a regional paper in Southern Sweden (Sydsvenska
Dagbladet) when Disney's The Kid opened in February 2001.
The critic objects to the film because of it being a vehicle
for Bruce Willis' "arch-conservative Republican world view".
But, in a democracy, what relevance does an actor's political
affiliation have in judging the quality of a movie? Should only
actors deemed politically correct by the media be permitted
to work??? This line of reasoning smacks of Stalinism, or of
McCarthy in reverse.
Read essay >> |
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Disneyfying
Death
A
discussion of the amazing public and critical success of M Night
Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense. Written for Modern American Film,
a summer course held at Lund University in June-July 2002 by
Olof Hedling, PhD.
Read essay >> |
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Talent's
Labour's Lost (The Sixth Sense, long) |
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Watch
Space Cowboys instead! (Armageddon) |
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"Whaddaya
think I am - stoopid???" (The Sixth Sense, short) |
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