>"In the Company of Men." Yuck.
>
>-- Luke
Did you notice that in the most painful scene in the movie, with a white wall background, a set microphone could be seen dangling? You can't miss it (rent a copy, check it out). If you're like me - it destroyed the moment, right before the entire repulsive scam is confess. The appearance of the microphone creates an alienating effect. If forces you to realize that you are watching a film, and therefore cannot take the emotional impact of the film seriously. Which is to say, we are placed, as viewers, into taking up an instrumental attitude toward the film itself: this isn't real, I'm just in a theatre (or at home) - we treat 'the film' in the same way that Chad (Aaron Eckhart) strategically manipulates Christine (Stacey Edwards), his friend(s), and his colleagues. We become, in a 'safe' way, the very thing we find most disgusting in the film. I thought it was brilliant, in a painful kind of way.
ken