Questions posed by EWS

[keith woodward]

David writes:
>All this serious analysis makes me question the first comments to this list
>saying the movie was horrible

That's a rather fallacious claim, don't you think?

>(which also seems to be the general word of
>mouth judgement elsewhere).  Could this general initial negative reaction be
>in response to seriously disturbing issues raised in the film?

Not for myself, at least.  What I find seriously disturbing are the social
issues (to which I rarely pay any attention) in the film that are seriously
behind the times.  And that much of the symbolic structure (addressed in
the original "Questions posed by EWS" post) is petty and paper-thin.  Of
course the pass word is Fidelio, of course he finds the mask in bed with
his wife, etc etc.  I suspect that much of the negativity also centers
around the heavy-handedness and self-consciousness of the film's being
disturbing.  It's not as disturbing as it thinks it is (my wife and I often
found ourselves chuckling uncontrollably at those disturbing moments, the
piano playing ping...Ping...PING!)  What's all that disturbing about the
film anyway (other than it's frequent tendency toward self-indulgence)?

Keith