JURASSIC PARK
A film review by Micahel Har-even
Copyright 1993 Micahel Har-even
I wanted to forget my integrity and to write this review without going to the film. Then, I have decided against seeing the film and against writing this review. Finally, I saw the film and got 100 million reasons in favor of writing this review. Most of the following ideas were raised before seeing the film. Those ideas should reflect trends in the American cinema today. Watching Jurassic PARK reassured me that I was right.
Preston Sturges wrote many years ago the golden rules for making a successful comedy. I would like to list those rules along with my rules for making a successful commercial film. Naturally, the rules of Sturges are much better. Here are the rules (my rules are inside brackets):
A pretty girl is better than a plain one.
[A naked girl is better than a dressed one.]
A leg is better than an arm.
A bedroom is better than a living room.
An arrival is better than a departure.
A birth is better than death.
[A death is better than birth.]
A dog is better than a landscape.
A kitten is better than a dog.
[A Schwarzenegger is better than a dog.]
A baby is better than a kitten.
[A dinosaur is better than a Schwarzenegger.].
A kiss is better than a baby.
[A Spielberg is better than a dinosaur.]
A pratfall is better than anything.
[Technology is better than all.]
Is technology better than all?
Technology has no correlation to quality. Most of the great masterpieces of cinema are either silent films or B&W films. The medium of cinema is realistic by its nature. There should be no essential difference between a silent film, B&W film or a colored film. The availability of sound and color opened new ways of expression, nevertheless, the aesthetic nature of cinema has not been changed since the beginning.
One might presume that technology could help to increase the realistic effect. The truth is that realism cannot be achieved by mere imitation or by restoration. Realism can be only achieved if the director and the actors are totally sincere. Spielberg invested 100 million dollars in order to create realistic dinosaurs. The irony is that his film is totally unrealistic. His film is like the Jurassic park, amazing at first sight but totally phony. Whether 100 million dollars or billion dollars are spent virtual reality cannot replace reality.
JURASSIC PARK is like a new candy. It seems to be tasty but very soon you want a sweeter candy. You can enjoy a candy, but how can you take a candy seriously?
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews