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*** Official Film Thread ***

spurspinter1 said:
This post coloured me intrigued and has been playing on my mind since although I still haven't seen the film in question.

Christian Bale played a very skinny character in the Machinist but did it by putting himself at risk, and did the opposite by playing an obese character (again at risk) in vice. Does that make it okay because he was genuinely skinny and fat at the time of filming? If anything isn't that worse because the actor damaged themselves by going to extremes on both ends of the weight spectrum?

I think I find the likening of blacking up to putting on a fat suit rather offensive, fat people make choices on the daily that make themselves fat. Blacking up is wrong for reasons beyond just pretending to be something one isn't, like in the case of putting on a fat suit.
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I think definitely the actor being at the real weight is much better than using suits to alter it. Though the ideal is just to cast an actor already around the desired weight.

I also think there's a nuance between whether it is portraying a real or fictional character. So Gary Oldman using a suit to play Churchill (discussed in the above podcast) is more acceptable than giving Julianne Moore the role of 'fat friend #3' in some comedy instead of Melissa McCarthy.

An underlying thought is really that its just reinforcing Hollywood's view on what humans should look like, if only their narrow band of acceptable actors can ever get jobs.

I'm absolutely not an apologist for obesity. Personally I would take massive steps to regulate/tax processed food and sugar/salt levels in food. And I am really strong into social prescribing. But the targets need to be the exploitative corporations, not the individuals. And fatting up in films just usually feels like mockery and bullying.
 
Gutter Boy said:
There's an interesting discussion about it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hg0t
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I don't agree with alot with what was said in that podcast

The whale was a fictional story about someone battling with their own morality and past whilst dying of being obese, sorry to break it to people but obese people do die this way, the same way in which smokers dies, drug users die, thrill seekers who drive cars like maniacs die, soilders dies...so what do we do? Expunge all those themes because it may cause offence to people who fall into those categories? Should people who are obese through overeating (which this guy was) get the pass on this more than those that say drink themselves to death? The film in question does not ridicule them but deals with a real life issue IMHO.

The point about should it have been Fraiser, why not>? Its not the same as blacking up, you can't conflate being black and being fat TBH
 
It's a really boring film too by the way. And the ascension stuff was absolute nonsense (though I guess the Jonah reference in the title maybe flags it as a Christian film)
 
Gutter Boy said:
I also think there's a nuance between whether it is portraying a real or fictional character. So Gary Oldman using a suit to play Churchill (discussed in the above podcast) is more acceptable than giving Julianne Moore the role of 'fat friend #3' in some comedy instead of Melissa McCarthy.

An underlying thought is really that its just reinforcing Hollywood's view on what humans should look like, if only their narrow band of acceptable actors can ever get jobs.

I'm absolutely not an apologist for obesity. Personally I would take massive steps to regulate/tax processed food and sugar/salt levels in food. And I am really strong into social prescribing. But the targets need to be the exploitative corporations, not the individuals. And fatting up in films just usually feels like mockery and bullying.
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There is a huge difference between a serious bit of writing about someone and their struggle to reach their family before dying from what is a global problem, lets be frank and a comedy where they just decided to make the cops fat or a character in friends fat for the sack of mockery. The Whale does not hit a mockery note, its a real story that thousands if not millions live every day, why should it not be made to life with this story?

By having these outrages at anything that might be outside the tramlines who do films then portray? Can't be fat, can't be short, can't be tall etc? Then Hollywood and the press complain that there are not enough films representative of the struggles that these people have?

Hoffman and De Niro from Rain Main and Awakenings next I imagine
 
Grays_1890 said:
There is a huge difference between a serious bit of writing about someone and their struggle to reach their family before dying from what is a global problem, lets be frank and a comedy where they just decided to make the cops fat or a character in friends fat for the sack of mockery. The Whale does not hit a mockery note, its a real story that thousands if not millions live every day, why should it not be made to life with this story?

By having these outrages at anything that might be outside the tramlines who do films then portray? Can't be fat, can't be short, can't be tall etc? Then Hollywood and the press complain that there are not enough films representative of the struggles that these people have?

Hoffman and De Niro from Rain Main and Awakenings next I imagine
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Would you be happy if say John Candy was cast opposite Jennifer Lawrence in a straight adaptation of Romero and Juliette, and he was then CGI-ed skinny?
 
Gutter Boy said:
Would you be happy if say John Candy was cast opposite Jennifer Lawrence in a straight adaptation of Romero and Juliette, and he was then CGI-ed skinny?
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Would not overly bother me? Why would it? Because of the negative connotations to skinny people?
 
Gutter Boy said:
It's a really boring film too by the way. And the ascension stuff was absolute nonsense (though I guess the Jonah reference in the title maybe flags it as a Christian film)
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It's a stage play and it shows, but it's more about the characters and them dealing with stuff from the past. Maybe they could have shown more from a time before he got fat. The movie is no more than good, but the performances are stellar.

I figured the title came from Moby dingdong, as it's a central part of the plot. It's not a religious film, but religion has played a part in shaping their lives. In the end I figured he just died, but was relieved of the burden of wanting to do something right by his daughter.
 
Gutter Boy said:
I think definitely the actor being at the real weight is much better than using suits to alter it. Though the ideal is just to cast an actor already around the desired weight.

I also think there's a nuance between whether it is portraying a real or fictional character. So Gary Oldman using a suit to play Churchill (discussed in the above podcast) is more acceptable than giving Julianne Moore the role of 'fat friend #3' in some comedy instead of Melissa McCarthy.

An underlying thought is really that its just reinforcing Hollywood's view on what humans should look like, if only their narrow band of acceptable actors can ever get jobs.

I'm absolutely not an apologist for obesity. Personally I would take massive steps to regulate/tax processed food and sugar/salt levels in food. And I am really strong into social prescribing. But the targets need to be the exploitative corporations, not the individuals. And fatting up in films just usually feels like mockery and bullying.
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Respectfully I don't think you've addressed how or why it may be inappropriate to liken putting on a fat suit to blacking up - Discussion of how to combat obesity isn't really pertinent, people can choose whichever way they want to destroy themselves.

Do you really think it's better for the actor to undergo massive changes in weight like in Bale's case? There's an incredible level of dedication that has to be respected but it's also essentially self harm, when prosthetics can alleviate all the risks of massive weight gain / loss.
 
spurspinter1 said:
Respectfully I don't think you've addressed how or why it may be inappropriate to liken putting on a fat suit to blacking up - Discussion of how to combat obesity isn't really pertinent, people can choose whichever way they want to destroy themselves.

Do you really think it's better for the actor to undergo massive changes in weight like in Bale's case? There's an incredible level of dedication that has to be respected but it's also essentially self harm, when prosthetics can alleviate all the risks of massive weight gain / loss.
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My point is more that you hire an actor of appropriate weight, rather than get a skinny actor to transform, either through props or diet. It should be more authentic, rather than the tossy congratualatoryness for doing something to make themselves not so beautiful.
 
Gutter Boy said:
My point is more that you hire an actor of appropriate weight, rather than get a skinny actor to transform, either through props or diet. It should be more authentic, rather than the tossy congratualatoryness for doing something to make themselves not so beautiful.
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But it’s called acting for a reason GB. How do you know they didn’t audition heavier actors but couldn’t find the right person? Would you rather they hired a worse actor just because they weigh more than Brendan Fraser?

Actors shouldn’t play roles outside of their race but I don’t see any issues with any other sort of role.
 
Gutter Boy said:
My point is more that you hire an actor of appropriate weight, rather than get a skinny actor to transform, either through props or diet. It should be more authentic, rather than the tossy congratualatoryness for doing something to make themselves not so beautiful.
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Do you still consider wearing a "fat suit" akin to blacking up? That's what brought up but you're flat out refusing to acknowledge / address/ think about at this stage.

Actors much like people can't be defined by terms like "skinny" as everyone can be skinny or fat depending on diet / lifestyle. And beauty is a relative term, some people consider "fat" people beautiful, much like skinny or muscular, that's all relative but the initial comparison remains distasteful (in my opinion of course).
 
K.D.D.D.D.Soc said:
I'm of an age were we listened to the wireless, I love radio drama and comedy, the actors can be any age, shape, colour or cross eyed it does matter.
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I love listening to the old bbc radio drama's, getting a picture in my head of who the character is and googling the actor/actress to see what they look like.
Most of the time its absolutely nothing like the image in my head.
 
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