No truly interesting movie can be subject to a single interpretation—even if the writer and director say it’s about one thing, some viewers may have a different take. That said, here are the movies that most would agree have been misunderstood throughout the years.
  • neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    49·
    4 months ago

    Can there be a community rule that any list-icle must include the complete ordered list in the post description?

    • Starship Troopers (1997)
    • Skinamarink (2022)
    • Fight Club (1999)
    • The Shining (1980)
    • Barbie (2023)
    • A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
    • American Psycho (2000)
    • The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
    • Taxi Driver (1976)
    • Child’s Play 3 (1991)
    • Land of the Dead (2005)
    • A Serbian Film (2010)
    • Jennifer’s Body (2009)
    • (500) Days of Summer (2009)
    • Inception (2010)
    • Juno (2007)
    • It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
    • 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
    • Into the Wild (2007)
    • Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
    • A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
    • Spencer (2021)
    • Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
    • Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
    • The Philadelphia Story (1940)
    • niktemadur@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      4 months ago

      Curious that Eyes Wide Shut didn’t make the list.
      But there’s already two Kubricks on there.
      Speaking of which, what’s A Clockwork Orange, chopped liver?

    • Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      41·
      4 months ago

      Thank you for the comment, I’ll try to keep that in mind for next time

      I wouldn’t have it as a hardcore rule as there aren’t that many different people posting, and enforcing rules would probably deter potential punctual posters

  • Pronell@lemmy.worldEnglish
    191·
    4 months ago

    The authors themselves didn’t get Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.

    His story is told through the lens of one who has accepted the propaganda. The first few pages describe what is actually going on, then we go to the perspective of the teenager who is considering signing up.

    As such, the movie is closer to the book than most acknowledge, despite the loss of all the mechsuits.

    • 11111one11111@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      I always have a hard time with opinion articles about how everyone else’s opinion is wrong??? Not all the breakdowns were opinion in this article. Like the one on The Shinning using references to King’s take on the movie, that is a decent write up but most the others are just the author’s opinion of the movie.

  • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlMEnglish
    5·
    4 months ago

    Latest fan thoughts about The Shining I’ve heard recently:

    • Jack is regularly glancing into the camera throughout the film (see YT Video on it) … too often to be an accident.
      • I forget what theory the YT video puts up for this, but my immediate interpretation linked it to the repeated use of mirrors to depict Jack and his reflection, including the famous “breaking the 180 degree line” scene in the red toilet … I think there’s just a basic idea in the film that the “horror” of the hotel is in all of us waiting to come out … and so jack looks at us because the film is a mirror of what’s inside us as the hotel was a mirror to jack of what was inside him.
    • There are two “Jacks”, one the “writer” and the other that’s in the story he’s writing (See YT Video). The horror stuff, apparently, turns out to be the “written” jack, not the writer.
      • Less sure about this, as it probably just comes down to a continuity error, where even if Kubrick new about it, was happy with it for the editorial effect of selecting the particular scenes in their particular sequence.
      • Still … it’d be interesting to see how this lines up with the camera glances from the first point above!

    Additionally, a pretty accepted idea AFAICT is that Jack is a child and domestic abuser before going to the hotel. Many of us may have seen the shorter “European cut” (myself included), but the longer “US Cut” includes a scene that makes it explicit that Jack had hit Danny before (see comparisons here). Also, it’s pretty easy to frame the film as a pretty cutting metaphor about domestic abuse (beyond the fact that Jack is literally trying to kill his family) … the way that Wendy is taking care of everything like a stereotypical house wife while being trapped in a grand expensive hotel that has literally deathly cold outside barring her escape.

  • geography082@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    4 months ago

    Dude that’s what good movies were suppose to be about, the first interpretation is what we we are used to understand , the following interpretations were the ones that made the directors and writers to shine . That feeling you had after watching them that… ok you understood something but something was still odd… That became extinct , today people needs the shit straight and direct with no thinking. Fast.

  • clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    4 months ago

    I am happy to see that I didn’t miss the subtext on Breakfast at Tiffany’s, given that the movie is slightly oblique in relation to the two main character’s income sources (much less so with the guy, but it is easy to extrapolate to the girl)