tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post2037433608388716270..comments2024-02-20T12:26:24.682-05:00Comments on language goes on holiday: Life of PiDuncan Richterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-71657590379281807432013-04-15T08:56:14.099-04:002013-04-15T08:56:14.099-04:00Thanks, Jon. I haven't read the book and can&...Thanks, Jon. I haven't read the book and can't quote the screenplay, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi" rel="nofollow">wikipedia</a> confirms my memory about what is said near the end: "After giving all the relevant information, Pi asks which of the two stories they prefer. Since the officials cannot prove which story is true and neither is relevant to the reasons behind the shipwreck, they choose the story with the animals. Pi thanks them and says, "and so it goes with God.""<br /><br />I don't think it's very mysterious, given this, why nearly everyone misunderstands the religious point of the story. <br /><br />But I agree with you that this is not the only idea about religion to be found in the film, and that it is far from being the best such idea there. The questions you raise at the end of your comment are good ones, it seems to me, and the movie does have something to say about them. I just thought, or perhaps felt, that the Forest Gumpy message and the shouting obscured any deeper thinking that might be there. I should read the book. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-41324390211771697382013-04-14T20:24:49.497-04:002013-04-14T20:24:49.497-04:00I think having liked the book so much (note: I rea...I think having liked the book so much (note: I realize that I'm probably too much a mark for this kind of thing) actually made me like the movie more, because I do agree with you that much of the movie was the kid just screaming at the tiger.<br /><br />I did find the scene where he thanks Vishnu for incarnating in the fish he's just killed to be very moving.<br /><br />I actually found the end of the movie horrifying, because if the kid was also the tiger then he cannibalized his own mom (somehow that didn't occur to me nearly as forcefully when reading the book, just because the book is so much more charming and enthralling). <br /><br />Let me also note that I think that nearly everyone is misunderstanding the religious point of the book and film. They are not saying that the religious and rationalistic ways of looking at the world are just two different perspectives. It's rather a meditation on how to remain holy when the rationalistic perspective gives lie to what you might take to be the religious one.<br /><br />The religious point of the book/film is that after he's saved he is able to turn from a cannibal into a gentle man with a loving family. So I think the film is really profoundly about grace. In this respect I think the real key scene is *not* when he asks the writer which version is true, but rather when he is explaining why he cried as a child after Richard Parker walked away and his saviors carried him away. This kind of problem is much, much closer to the central problem of the Bhagavad Gita (and there are analogues in every other religious tradition) than the Forest Gumpy thing of reality is what you make of it. Can we be holy while still living in the world? How can the kingdom of heaven be at hand yet still in the future?Jon Cogburnhttp://www.projectbraintrust.com/cogburnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-76179957291484808742013-04-13T08:53:33.129-04:002013-04-13T08:53:33.129-04:00True, it is stylized. Somehow I like that in Taran...True, it is stylized. Somehow I like that in Tarantino but not here. This probably affected my suspension of disbelief, which is a problem for any storytelling. And "Stuck on a Boat" would have been a great title for the movie! Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-49173080177845433202013-04-13T02:58:05.730-04:002013-04-13T02:58:05.730-04:00I completely understand that, and I do think my ex...I completely understand that, and I do think my experience of the film might have been different had I not been watching it with my kids (who are 3 and 7; my three-year-old still refers to the film as "stuck on a boat," which I find endearing and which I hope isn't some kind of scarring!). I guess I didn't find the acting and style of the film problematic; the film is, as it were, "stylized"--although that might be taken as a kind of lack of a certain kind of seriousness (e.g. the violence in a Tarantino film is "stylized"...).Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-180637484204712932013-04-12T14:05:10.737-04:002013-04-12T14:05:10.737-04:00Matt: You're right, it's not all bad. And ...Matt: You're right, it's not all bad. And I'm glad Hollywood is making movies that encourage thought. If I had seen it on a big screen, or with a child who was interested by it, then it might have been a very different experience. I found the CGI and all the shouting off-putting, and the acting didn't seem great either. The fact that I'm writing about it suggests it had some substance though. I did think that the message at the end--I mean a message that was delivered then, not the cumulative message of the whole film--was that God's existence is consistent with the facts so why not believe if you want to?, and isn't it nicer than the alternative? That seems pretty shallow to me. But there were other messages too, about the difficulty of faith and the violence of nature (the fear and trembling stuff, I guess). Those are better, but the shallow stuff kind of spoiled the taste for me. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-34571363048193274252013-04-12T11:23:28.834-04:002013-04-12T11:23:28.834-04:00my old prof.Charlie Winquist use to ask undergrads...my old prof.Charlie Winquist use to ask undergrads to entertain the idea of God as a tiger in the room to give them a sense of old school fear&trembling, not sure that it really makes sense to talk of choosing to believe (or not believe).<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-77379321058854052782013-04-12T08:41:19.233-04:002013-04-12T08:41:19.233-04:00The worst?! I guess I see why it might all seem ph...The <i>worst</i>?! I guess I see why it might all seem phony to you. There were points where I see that, and maybe the problem is that the ending can seem a bit phony...and perhaps if you dislike fictionalism, then the end will seem insipid. But on the other hand, I liked the various ways in which religious belief was challenged and stretched in certain ways. I like that a "big Hollywood" film was going there because I suppose it's good for people to think about those things. Anyone who thinks the message is just, "Believe the story you like," (was that that message) will perhaps see the problem that if I just like the story, that's not enough for belief, etc....and then there's more work to do. I also enjoyed having a conversation with my 7-year-old about why Pi was so upset about eating the fish (and why he didn't eat fish before that). (We still eat some fish sometimes...)<br /><br />Or maybe I was just seduced by the spectacle. :)Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.com