Originally posted by Esau Cairn
Considering the analogies of the link you provided, I can't work out if it's Conan or you with the mother issues.
Like I said, you clearly don't understand the methodology. But this is the internet; you can educate yourself if you want. It would certainly prevent you from having to come up with lame comebacks instead of admitting that you don't understand or don't want to understand the concept I introduced.
I'm just saying the psychoanalysis link you provided is laughable.
It's a sword & sorcery movie....the sword may be phallic in shape but there's no hidden metaphor because a scene depicts it being held up in the air.
Conan's parents were a race of warriors, so depicting his mother as a woman of submission is pointless & wrong.
Conan doesn't speak much because of the actor's limited grasp of English, in real life. Same as his role in Terminator & the sole reason too that Arnie is famous for his one-liners.
There's nothing to psychoanalyse about that.
The film bastardised & simplified at least 4 different novel plots. It was also subjected to Dino De Laurantiis's personal views of how religion & cults could be depicted in film.
At the end of the day, all I'm saying is that Conan The Barbarian may not be the most ideal film to break down & analyse every minute scene.
Honestly, does there really need to be a hidden meaning to Conan punching a camel????
Or underlining latent homosexuality when he "entices" a priest into the tent to steal his robes???
Originally posted by Esau Cairn
I'm just saying the psychoanalysis link you provided is laughable.
It's a sword & sorcery movie....the sword may be phallic in shape but there's no hidden metaphor because a scene depicts it being held up in the air.Conan's parents were a race of warriors, so depicting his mother as a woman of submission is pointless & wrong.
Conan doesn't speak much because of the actor's limited grasp of English, in real life. Same as his role in Terminator & the sole reason too that Arnie is famous for his one-liners.
There's nothing to psychoanalyse about that.The film bastardised & simplified at least 4 different novel plots. It was also subjected to Dino De Laurantiis's personal views of how religion & cults could be depicted in film.
At the end of the day, all I'm saying is that Conan The Barbarian may not be the most ideal film to break down & analyse every minute scene.
Honestly, does there really need to be a hidden meaning to Conan punching a camel????
Or underlining latent homosexuality when he "entices" a priest into the tent to steal his robes???
Alright, let me back up a step and retackle this position:
I am not endorsing psychoanalysis as an objective or entirely meaningful way to analyze everything. I am using this analysis of the film to showcase how it changes in meaning to people, even on strange levels. To one person, it's all about being the superman, overcoming society, morals, etc. To another, it's just a sword and sorcery flick. To yet another, it's all about underlying sexuality.
Psychoanalysis, especially the field centered around Freud's original intentions, often uses sex in particular to change or give meaning to otherwise benign or mundane actions in a film, with the intent of 'indicating' the id or inner repressed desires of the medium creator. The reason why sex in particular was probably such a big deal for Freud was that most of his patients during its development process were sexually repressed females in Victorian society. Latter proponents of the theory modified it to include or omit some of the more wild sexual themes and clarify that sometimes, meaning is entirely unintended and unjustified for speculation.
To you, the film is just that; a film. No intention was behind every little detail. To someone using the psychoanalytic theory (regardless of intent; academic or personal), the film is layered in meaning.
You could probably apply a lot of philosophical and analytic tools to the film and glean a bit, since the story has a lot of mythical motives, macho shows of strength, dominance, and gore, and is a darkly amoral tale about an outsider of society.
Bottom line? You can say "that's ridiculous", but my point was that the film is more than just a simple fantasy film; it speaks to people, in a very unique way. And because of how it was filmed, written, and portrayed, this leads back to my initial point that a female writer would not easily emulate this style.
Make sense now?
Originally posted by Stealth Moose
To you, the film is just that; a film. No intention was behind every little detail. To someone using the psychoanalytic theory (regardless of intent; academic or personal), the film is layered in meaning.You could probably apply a lot of philosophical and analytic tools to the film and glean a bit, since the story has a lot of mythical motives, macho shows of strength, dominance, and gore, and is a darkly amoral tale about an outsider of society.
Bottom line? You can say "that's ridiculous", but my point was that the film is more than just a simple fantasy film; it speaks to people, in a very unique way. And because of how it was filmed, written, and portrayed, this leads back to my initial point that a female writer would not easily emulate this style.
Make sense now?
For starters, I'm glad we can have a "grown-up" banter, rather than calling each other "idiots" for not understanding or accepting the other's view point.
I guess we both agree to disagree as we're approaching the subject of psychoanalysing a film from different angles....
I simply state, you can't truly analyse a film from just what you see on screen, you NEED to know more about the back-ground motives & politics that went into making a film. The decisions that were made behind-the-scenes & more importantly the editing of certain scenes that, if included, might've change the whole perception of a character, much less the story.
3 examples come to mind.
i) You can psychoanalyse the mythos of Connor Macleod in the 1st HighLander...THEN comes the sequel & you find out he's actually an alien! Your psychoanalyse gets blown to pieces.
ii) The 1st Mission Impossible went through numerous directorial & script writer changes resulting in a very convoluted movie whose story line made little sense.
How can you even begin to analyse Ethan's character?
iii) Blade Runner. You walk away thinking Deckard gets the girl & happy ending, despite knowing she's a replicant with x-amount of life left. You could write a thesis on Deckard based on that movie. THEN comes the Director's Cut where it hints that Deckard is also a replicant...well once again, your analyse falls to pieces.
But ultimately, your point is that you don't feel a woman is up to writing a male dominated role as Conan. I just think that's a bit old fashioned to say so. If a female actress can act in gritty roles, written by men, then I can't see why the opposite can't happen.
Originally posted by Esau Cairn
For starters, I'm glad we can have a "grown-up" banter, rather than calling each other "idiots" for not understanding or accepting the other's view point.
Me too. I guess I forget there are other old people on this forum.
I guess we both agree to disagree as we're approaching the subject of psychoanalysing a film from different angles....
I simply state, you can't truly analyse a film from just what you see on screen, you NEED to know more about the back-ground motives & politics that went into making a film. The decisions that were made behind-the-scenes & more importantly the editing of certain scenes that, if included, might've change the whole perception of a character, much less the story.
True, from my own personal viewpoint I always consider the director's intentions, writer's, etc when they're known. This doesn't mean I can't speculate on what is not explicit.
3 examples come to mind.i) You can psychoanalyse the mythos of Connor Macleod in the 1st HighLander...THEN comes the sequel & you find out he's actually an alien! Your psychoanalyse gets blown to pieces.
IIRC, that movie isn't canon, and the original creator even said as much. It has been largely ignored by everything else in the series.
ii) The 1st Mission Impossible went through numerous directorial & script writer changes resulting in a very convoluted movie whose story line made little sense.
How can you even begin to analyse Ethan's character?
True, but his character and the films weren't deep drama. John Woo directed a film or two in the series. Conan, despite being fantasy, has drama overtones, and symbolism, as well as myth motives.
iii) Blade Runner. You walk away thinking Deckard gets the girl & happy ending, despite knowing she's a replicant with x-amount of life left. You could write a thesis on Deckard based on that movie. THEN comes the Director's Cut where it hints that Deckard is also a replicant...well once again, your analyse falls to pieces.
Actually, I did a lot of work on the symbolism in Blade Runner in college, and I could attest that even without the explicit nod that he is a replicant, it can be inferred and indeed was inferred by others. Hell, Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford both disagreed on the subject, and they were directly involved.
Remind me sometime to share the symbolism in that film regarding animals, emotions, and eyes. It's ridiculous the stuff I gleaned from the film. It's a classic.
But ultimately, your point is that you don't feel a woman is up to writing a male dominated role as Conan. I just think that's a bit old fashioned to say so. If a female actress can act in gritty roles, written by men, then I can't see why the opposite can't happen.
Well, what gritty action roles for women have been written by men and haven't been full of shallow tropes, over-sexualization, and so on? I'm not saying it's impossible; I've indicated many times it's extremely unlikely. If I said offhand "men can't write women very well", the comment would be agreed with more often then not. If I say " a woman probably can't write or capture Conan as well as the first film did", I'm old-fashioned. That's quite the double standard.
Removed all references to the planet Zeist and the Immortals are explained as coming from Earth's distant past
Some scenes were re-sequenced, e.g., a long swordfight was broken into two separate fights and the opening scenes in the Quickening were turned into flashbacks in the Renegade version. Scenes that did not make it into the Quickening version were restored in the Renegade version, e.g., Louise and Connor's climb to the hole in the shield and a fight scene between Connor and Katana on top of a truck.