Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by Professor Echo

[Show spoiler]Sadly, this is NOT the same TT you are referring to with regards to past sales. One of the founders has since passed away and his wife, who was also an integral part of the company, has parted ways with them. As such, we cannot confidently point to past evidence and expect the pattern to follow suit. With no announcements whatsoever regarding their intentions, it's anyone's guess what their future will hold, so I myself would not automatically assume their previous methods of selling will necessarily apply to future behavior.

As I posted before, I sucked my want list dry and won't regret it even if a better sale does come along. Having experienced the remorse of passing up earlier sales in favor of potentially better ones, only to see wanted titles go OOP and escalate in value elsewhere, this time I paid heed to all those lessons I had learned the hard way before.

I've learned my lesson too...that TT will constantly drive the price down to move units. The very state of the company, and the fact that we've seen price brackets change in various sales under the current circumstances, proves this.

I've got all of my must-haves, you have your peace of mind...let's just see what happens

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

I've learned my lesson too...that TT will constantly drive the price down to move units. The very state of the company, and the fact that we've seen price brackets change in various sales under the current circumstances, proves this.

I've got all of my must-haves, you have your peace of mind...let's just see what happens

Alright, I have to admit that if there IS a future sale and GENGHIS KHAN makes it all the way down to $2.95 with Free Shipping, I’ll probably go for it. It might be worth seeing James Mason attempt to play a Chinese courtier one more time before the world ends.

[Aclea]

That one is a field day for ethnic miscasting: Egyptian Omar Sharif, Irishman Stephen Boyd, Greco-American Telly Savalas, Frenchwoman Francoise Dorleac and the patron saint of British dodderiness Michael Hordern as hardy Mongols and New York Jewish Eli Wallach as the Shah of Persia. Try even announcing a cast like that today and making it into production. Although Robert Morley basically plays himself as a rubicund English civil servant without the remotest attempt at verisimilitude or Chinoiserie as the Emperor of China, Mason goes into overdrive, with enormous buck-teeth, eyes squeezed shut throughout, and a simpering "Ah So!" accent even Peter Sellers might have baulked at.

Mason had been going through an incredibly bitter and very expensive protracted custody battle at the time that nearly bankrupted him and was always quite open about doing the film because he needed the money, but later admitted that he was so awful in it that every time he saw anybody of Chinese origin he felt a desperate need to apologise to them and that the film left him unable to show his face in a Chinese restaurant again. Morley just blithely sailed through the whole thing as if he were doing Gilbert and Sullivan, though it helped that his character got a line about a map that sums up the whole movie: "It's not only inaccurate, it's inartistic."



That TT disc is at times (the interiors and studio footage) quite a stunningly gorgeous transfer, though sadly the location footage doesn't shine so bright, but that's largely due to the bad weather and poor light in some of the Yugoslavian locations.

[noirjunkie]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Mason goes into overdrive, with enormous buck-teeth, eyes squeezed shut throughout, and a simpering "Ah So!" accent even Peter Sellers might have baulked at.

Which one's worse: Mason or Mickey Rooney?

[Aclea]

Rooney by a mile - Rooney is openly mocking the character while Mason is trying, and failing, to make his appear wise and dignified while presumably hoping and praying no-one he knows will ever see it.



It's quite something to look the silliest cast member in a film where Omar Sharif spends the first few reels like this:

[UnionJackMix]

I think in general people should stop making such a big deal about ethnic casting, simply because you cannot just focus on ethnicity then, you should consider every aspect, even sexuality if you want to go down to the nitty gritty, and then what's left? The actor is not the same person he/she are portraying? Of course it's extreme and ridiculous but let's look at things in context and period they were filmed.
It always makes me think about people complaining about the tv show Friends and how to them it's offensive to pretty much anyone.
Entertainment (movies, music, tv) will always offend someone or raise eyebrows.
Just enjoy them for what they are.

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by Page14

I don't think I can afford my want list.

I hear you, believe me. There were long days of indecision and serious hesitation. Juggling what I wanted and what I could afford had to be supplemented with lots of research, both into my budget and into the products. That diligent research subsequently factored into what made the list and didn't, but in the end I felt the effort paid off in that I was able to finally balance the insistent quest to own everything, hahaha, with what was affordable to me. The worst hit was always the exaggerated shipping fee at the end and that wound up making some of the unkindest cuts of all to my list.

Originally Posted by UnionJackMix

I think in general people should stop making such a big deal about ethnic casting, simply because you cannot just focus on ethnicity then, you should consider every aspect, even sexuality if you want to go down to the nitty gritty, and then what's left?

I am in agreement with all of this. I used to see a lot of theatrical stage plays that practiced color blind casting and it never bothered me. This insistence on absolute veracity can sometimes dilute the drama and render it to nothing more than politically correct impotence. One of my favorite actors of all time is Lon Chaney Sr., the famed "Man Of A Thousand Faces." If he were around today he'd be the "Man Of One Face." What's wrong with this picture?

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by UnionJackMix

I think in general people should stop making such a big deal about ethnic casting, simply because you cannot just focus on ethnicity then, you should consider every aspect, even sexuality if you want to go down to the nitty gritty, and then what's left?

Warning: nit pick ahead

It's racial casting. Ethnic casting is when a Chinese actor plays a Japanese character (eg. Gong Li in Memoirs of a Geisha) or a British actor plays a French character (eg. Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard). Most people don't get their knickers in a twist about ethnic casting -- though I've seen people go on a rant about the former, in which most of the male actors were actually Japanese or of Japanese descent, while most of the female actors were actually Chinese or of Chinese descent.

(I like to say that my "favorite" of this kind of thing is Sean Connery in Highlander: he's a Scot playing an Egyptian pretending to be a Spaniard.)

The problem, though, is that people seem to less bothered by white actors in "yellowface" than by white actors in "blackface". Even when notable white actors like Lawrence Olivier or Orson Welles played Othello, their make-up was subdued enough that the worst you could say is that they looked "swarthy"; they weren't trying to look black.

But, yes, one should consider the time that the movies in question were made. But that only goes so far. One can still appreciate such films overall, and still state that the casting is (at best) discomforting. And I think by and large people do.

Fans of the Charlie Chan movies roll their eyes that Charlie is played by a white actor in yellowface (while all the supporting characters are played by Chinese-American actors, which is like twisting the knife) while still enjoying the films overall.

On the blu-ray of Breakfast at Tiffany's there an extra feature where Asian-American performers talk about Rooney's character. And every one (that I can recall) talks about how the character is offensive, but also how much they love the movie despite that. But loving the movie doesn't make their feelings about that character go away.

And there's Swing Time, in which Fred Astaire does a routine in blackface. I can deal with it easily enough because I know that it was intended as a tribute to Bill Robinson, a dancer that Astaire greatly admired. But it still makes me squirm a little watching it.

There's only one time when blackface didn't bother me. It was in a Wheeler & Woolsey comedy called Diplomaniacs. The finale had a bomb going off in a room full of people. When the smoke clears, they were all in blackface -- obviously intended to be dirt and grime -- but they all went into this rousing minstrel-style musical number. It was so over the top that it was clear that they were going for parody. And if one paid real attention to the film, there were instances where it was trying to subvert racial stereotypes. Not bad for a 1935 movie.

Bottom line...even if you want to excuse a film for being a product of its time, it's still OK -- and indeed proper -- to knock it for the things that make it less enjoyable as entertainment because social attitudes have changed in the time since. The trouble is, what do you do with a movie that is "offensive" because of modern-day sensibilities and is also just plain awful as a movie? Do you hesitate to bad-mouth it because people will think it's for the former reason? Or do you still bad-mouth it because it's bad?

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Professor Echo

I am in agreement with all of this. I used to see a lot of theatrical stage plays that practiced color blind casting and it never bothered me. This insistence on absolute veracity can sometimes dilute the drama and render it to nothing more than politically correct impotence. One of my favorite actors of all time is Lon Chaney Sr., the famed "Man Of A Thousand Faces." If he were around today he'd be the "Man Of One Face." What's wrong with this picture?

I think it depends on the context. There are certainly instances in which cross-racial (or whatever) casting is done deliberately to make a point, or for legitimately artistic reasons. Cases in point would be Hamilton or The Wiz. I also think that the works of Shakespeare (and other classic playwrights) should be free and clear of such considerations. Their characters are iconic archetypes, and any actor should be able to play them (I, for one, would kill to see Morgan Freeman playing Lear, for instance). And the nature of a stage production is that there's already a sense of "unreality" in the artificiality of the sets.

Movies can be a different kettle of fish, though. There's still the Shakespeare thing that applies, though. Olivier and Welles as Othello, to be sure, though I admit that as wonderful as they are as actors, it seemed more fitting to see Lawrence Fishburne in the role in the 1995 film. But sometimes it doesn't work for other reasons. Fishburne held his own next to Shakespeare old hands like Kenneth Branagh, Michael Maloney, and Nathaniel Parker. But in Branagh's film of Much Ado About Nothing -- which was surprisingly bad for a number of reasons -- Denzel Washington seemed like a fish out of water (though Michael Keaton, and even Keanu Reeves, were actually quite good at it).

I also think that, by and large, there isn't that much backlash (though there's always some) when an actor doesn't seem to fit the context, even though that might not be actually true. Will Smith in The Wild Wild West or Denzel Washington in The Magnificent Seven.

(And there is always a pesky "exception" to the "rule". Linda Hunt absolutely deserved her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing an Asian male character in The Year of Living Dangerously.)

But these days, I think it's more a problem of actors who don't fit the Heterosexual White Male profile getting shut out of roles that they fit to a "T" in favor of Big Name Actors who aren't hurting for work and don't need to take such roles. I mean, seriously...did they really need to cast Scarlet Johannson in Ghost in the Shell when there are plenty of Asian-American actors who could've done just as well, and need the work (and exposure) more than ScarJo does?

[RCRochester]

I think when it comes to older films, you just kind of have to accept that times were different. I've had this discussion many times on these threads and I find that by and large there was no malicious intent with having white actors portray characters of other races such as Sidney Toler in the Charlie Chan films, etc.

For modern films, I am firmly behind those people who say that if you have an Asian character or a black character, obviously those should be portrayed by Asian and black actors. When people start taking things too far by saying a certain actor "isn't black enough" to play a character, that's where my support evaporates.

When it comes to colour blind casting, for me it's a case by case basis.

In stage shows like Hamilton where you have colour blind casting, or deliberately casting black actors to make a point, then I'm all for it. And for stage productions or musicals where a certain element of suspension of disbelief is required, again, not a problem for me.

I think though one recent example of colour blind casting that I had a problem with was Mary Queen of Scots. As a historical drama that strives for a certain degree of authenticity with period sets and costumes, seeing black people in the royal courts of 16 Century England and Scotland really took me out of the experience. I know some historians will point out things like Saoirse Ronan should have been speaking with a French accent instead of a Scottish one, but that would have raised its own set of questions among the lay people in the audience.

But other examples such as Daredevil, I had no problem with Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin because he was so right for the role and it was a comic book movie set in the present day.

[RCRochester]

And Jayembee, if it seems like I'm just parroting many of the points you are making, it's not intentional. I was crafting a response similar to yours but didn't get a chance to finish it and post it until after you.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

But other examples such as Daredevil, I had no problem with Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin because he was so right for the role and it was a comic book movie set in the present day.

Which I agree with wholeheartedly. Superhero movies seem to get a lot of heat for this sort of thing, because fans will cry, "But this character is white in the comics, and has been for the past 50 years." And that's especially odd, because comics and comics characters change every time a title (or the whole company's output) gets a reboot. And readers just go with the flow. As popular (in a cult way) as the 1960s Batman TV series is, no one seems to remember that after Julie Newmar stopped playing Catwoman, they recast the character with Eartha Kitt! And that was the 60s! And I especially got a kick out of Smallville, when so many people got rankled that Pete Ross was being played by a black actor, but nobody gave a hoot that Lana Lang was played by a half-Japanese actor (I suppose that was OK, because Kristin Kreuk could "pass").

Again, I think context matters. For example, it's a significant aspect of the character that Tarzan is white. He's the son of a British peer who was in a shipwreck off the coast of Africa in the 1880s (or thenabouts). If one was making a Tarzan movie today that was done as a period piece, it would be reasonable to cast a white actor in the role rather than a non-white one. But if the backstory was changed, and the setting was current-day, all bets would be off. Back in the early 00s, there was a Tarzan TV show that was set in the current day, and Tarzan was the son of an American industrialist. They did cast a white actor in the role, but given the context, casting a non-white actor would not be at all unreasonable.

[Professor Echo]

I think RCRochester’s point of taking it on a case by case basis is the way to go. For instance, while I often appreciate color blind casting, it’s not a one size fits all application. I personally do not want to see a black James Bond. Sorry, but that’s not the character as originally conceived, written and executed. If you want a black James Bond, then why not a black Charlie Chan? See? It’s a slippery slope, isn’t it?

[Dollar Colonel]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

I think when it comes to older films, you just kind of have to accept that times were different. I've had this discussion many times on these threads and I find that by and large there was no malicious intent with having white actors portray characters of other races such as Sidney Toler in the Charlie Chan films, etc.

I agree generally with your post except for this comment in part. It was offensive back then too. It's just that people didn't care or weren't vocal enough to matter.

We can still criticize the system and the actors that went along with them. It doesn't mean they were bad people, but at the same time they weren't that ignorant either.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Professor Echo

I think RCRochester’s point of taking it on a case by case basis is the way to go. For instance, while I often appreciate color blind casting, it’s not a one size fits all application. I personally do not want to see a black James Bond. Sorry, but that’s not the character as originally conceived, written and executed. If you want a black James Bond, then why not a black Charlie Chan? See? It’s a slippery slope, isn’t it?

The character of Bond as he was originally conceived was a composite of several people Fleming knew from his Intelligence work during WWII. But the important thing was that Fleming created him in the 1950s as a contemporary character, and everything stems from that. The James Bond of today's movies is also contemporary, but contemporary relative to today. None of the contexts that make him white in the 1950s apply to today.

James Bond is another situation like my Tarzan example. If after No Time to Die is released, the franchise gets rebooted as a period piece set in the East vs West of the 1950s/1960s, like the original novels, I think Bond staying white would be appropriate. But if the series continues to be set in the present day, I think Bond could be played by an actor of any race. As long as he remains British. :-)

I'm one of Those People who think Idris Elba would be a killer James Bond (pun intended).

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by jayembee

The character of Bond as he was originally conceived was a composite of several people Fleming knew from his Intelligence work during WWII. But the important thing was that Fleming created him in the 1950s as a contemporary character, and everything stems from that. The James Bond of today's movies is also contemporary, but contemporary relative to today. None of the contexts that make him white in the 1950s apply to today.

James Bond is another situation like my Tarzan example. If after No Time to Die is released, the franchise gets rebooted as a period piece set in the East vs West of the 1950s/1960s, like the original novels, I think Bond staying white would be appropriate. But if the series continues to be set in the present day, I think Bond could be played by an actor of any race. As long as he remains British. :-)

I'm one of Those People who think Idris Elba would be a killer James Bond (pun intended).

^^^

Then what about a black Charlie Chan? A male Miss Marple? A trans Sherlock Holmes? I’m sorry, but it’s the same principle. You can’t say what’s right for one character isn’t right for another. Either the original conception of a character is honored or it isn’t.

I agree with Roger Moore who opposed a black Bond in deference to Fleming, but quite rightLy suggested creating a new character who is a black spy in the mold of Bond. Create a black or Mexican or whatever Charlie Chan type, a doddering old male sleuth like Miss Marple and a transsexual Victorian mastermind detective like Holmes. Is it so hard to create new characters rather than constantly distort the established ones?

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by Dollar Colonel

I agree generally with your post except for this comment in part. It was offensive back then too. It's just that people didn't care or weren't vocal enough to matter.

One could argue that if "people didn't care" then they weren't offended by it.

Originally Posted by Dollar Colonel

We can still criticize the system and the actors that went along with them. It doesn't mean they were bad people, but at the same time they weren't that ignorant either.

There are tons of examples in old Hollywood of white actors playing blacks, Asians, First Nations in a horribly racist manner, but there are also tons of examples of white actors wearing makeup to portray an actor of a different race in which their intent was to use their skills as an actor to bring dignity and/or honesty to the role and the character they are playing.

Clearly the latter practice is now frowned upon today, but that doesn't mean you can apply that standard to the past and simply dismiss everything with a blanket statement that things were bad or racist or ignorant. Circumstances were just different and you have to recognize that.

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

There are tons of examples in old Hollywood of white actors playing blacks, Asians, First Nations in a horribly racist manner, but there are also tons of examples of white actors wearing makeup to portray an actor of a different race in which their intent was to use their skills as an actor to bring dignity and/or honesty to the role and the character they are playing.

Clearly the latter practice is now frowned upon today, but that doesn't mean you can apply that standard to the past and simply dismiss everything with a blanket statement that things were bad or racist or ignorant. Circumstances were just different and you have to recognize that.

Lots of people these days have what I call, “time machine fixes.” They would like nothing more than to go back in time and apply all their present day remedies or imagined remedies to everything from the past they NOW deem offensive. As this is not feasible, they do what they think is the next best thing, b!tch and moan about the past until someone capitulates to their demands of suppression, banishment and extinction.

[JasonMichael]

And since Disney has suppressed Song of the South, the world is a better place.

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by Professor Echo

^^^

Then what about a black Charlie Chan? A male Miss Marple? A trans Sherlock Holmes? I’m sorry, but it’s the same principle. You can’t say what’s right for one character isn’t right for another. Either the original conception of a character is honored or it isn’t.

I agree with Roger Moore who opposed a black Bond in deference to Fleming, but quite rightLy suggested creating a new character who is a black spy in the mold of Bond. Create a black or Mexican or whatever Charlie Chan type, a doddering old male sleuth like Miss Marple and a transsexual Victorian mastermind detective like Holmes. Is it so hard to create new characters rather than constantly distort the established ones?

You know, I sometimes have a difficult time wrapping my head around the James Bond thing. I'm sure I have my own prejudices preferring to see a white James Bond, but I remember back in the 90s Colin Salmon appeared in a couple of the Brosnan films and many people said he would make a good Bond and I generally agreed with them (any reservations I had were that I didn't know him well enough as an actor).

The thing with Bond is that the film series is so far removed from Fleming's original creation these days that race would just be one more thing. I mean, we already have a black Felix, a black Miss Moneypenny, and I have no problem with that.

The Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple examples you give I think are a bit different because they are period specific characters and it would be odd having a black woman investigating murders in 1930s English high society. We do already have a version of Sherlock Holmes where Dr. Watson is an Asian American woman and people are fine with it because it's a fresh and interesting take on the character among many other traditional versions.

As for Idris Elba, I've never really thought he'd make a good fit as Bond, not because of his skin colour, but because he's always seemed too "Cockney" to me. It would be like Jason Statham playing Bond. They're good at what they do, but they just don't seem to me like they'd fit the part.