Hacker Cinema
Scent of a Woman
1992 · Film · 156 min
Directed by Martin Brest
Charlie Simms is a student at a private preparatory school who comes from a poor family. To earn the money for his flight home to Gresham, Oregon for Christmas, Charlie takes a job over Thanksgiving looking after retired U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, a cantankerous middle-aged man who lives with his niece and her family.
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One of my favorite movies was "Scent Of A Woman". But when I watched it in the German-dubbed version, I was appalled. It made the whole movie suddenly seem like a comedy. To me, the translation had killed its "soul", for lack of a better term.
I still want my kids to learn English. And ideally also one or two other languages, like Chinese.
As Nietzsche said:
"So you have mounted on horseback? And now ride briskly up to your goal? Well, my friend - but your lame foot is also riding with you!"
Whoever though 'Magic Mike' as a sexy film clearly hasn't watched "Profumo di donna" - 1974, the Italian movie after which "Scent of a Woman" with Al Pacino was later adapted in 1992. The Italians were on a whole different level back then, and also the French and Nordic cinema wasn't pulling their punches when it comes to explicit nudity in films.
Maybe the prude nature of Hollywood films is a reflection of the American society and of the Chinese one where many blockbusters are being pushed?
That being said, as a European, I really don't care for sex scenes in mainstream movies, as they mostly feel forced and shoehorned in there and not relevant to the plot in any way, and are absolute cringe when the writers didn't spend any time or efort developing any attraction between the characters, and instead the script just forces them to suddenly f*ck because he's the male lead of the movie and she's the female lead, therefore they must get it on.
> Who is saying this, and what is their point of reference?
That's an interesting question. The people who most commonly say this are not WASPs and probably were a rival of the WASPs at the time WASPs ran the country. My personal view of this is that prior to Kennedy, the WASPs were more insular and more elitist and actively discriminated. This is based on reading various things. I will give some examples. The Ivies probably all had a Jew quota. We know Harvard certainly did and from what I remember they instituted it in the 1920s when the Jewish population of the school was as high as 25% at that time. I believe I saw recently that even Stanford admitted to having one as recently as the 50s. In fact, Leland Stanford had made some derogatory comments about the Chinese in his constituency which is not so WASPy now. I know also that you find a number of powerful WASPs during the time of WWII were neutral or even slightly in favor of Hitler but not all of them maybe not even most but some definitely were. There is also a history of "white shoe" law firms that were made up of all WASPs that did not allow Jews in. I think books like the Great Gatsby kind of comment on them as well.
It's not surprising to me that two different members of the Roosevelt family were presidents. WASPs also implemented anti-miscegenation laws. As well, the immigration system allegedly preferred white protestants over others. This motivated the 1965 immigration Act (look at background of who sponsored it, I think this is significant in that time)
Kennedy was the first Irish and Catholic president. Post Kennedy I think what you are talking about is how they are now. I am not trying to argue they are evil, much less so relatively speaking. What I am trying to say is kind of nuanced.
I think very implicitly, they are kind of the group everyone thinks of when we think of elitism in the US right? You usually find institutions they founded apologizing for things WASPs did ages ago. Law suits at elite schools seem to imply that admissions policies are displaying nepotism of old family scion WASPs who are undeserving into the schools at the expense of others. You see movies where the antagonists are WASPy elites like in Meet the Parents or Scent of a Woman.
The bizarre thing about it is that more and more stories are coming out of Asians with super rich families who gave large donations to the schools and their children are being accepted in spite of the lawsuits and the public apologies for the previous nepotism and quotas. Even situations like with Jared Kushner's father who made a large donation just before Jared was accepted at Harvard. But there are disproportionately high numbers of Jews and Asians in the schools and this is said to be a result of hard work and not nepotism. One or two stories do not prove anything of course but likewise I would not say that everything WASPs did was undeserved.
This isn't to say that there aren't undeserving WASPs in high positions or very talented minorities but no one is perfect. What I am saying is that I see a setup here where elitism, discrimination, and nepotism were shunned when done by one group but humans being humans, the new elite who surpassed the old does the same things. I am not very optimistic about it either. I predict things will become very tribal.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your list, even though some of those are mediocre at best, but yeah I did mean per year, and limited to Hollywood (Parasite for instance not counting). And no, ok, I will also straight up disagree with the second Knives out Movie which I thought was absolute trash. A perfect example of poor storytelling and the form over substance of modern cinema.
But just taking say 1992 you have Last of the Mohicans, The Unforgiven, My Cousin Vinny, Malcolm X, Bad Lieutenant, Scent of a Woman, Reservoir Dogs, Dracula, Chaplin.
And then a bunch of fun schlomp like Arizona Dream, Basic Instinct, Sister Act, Army of Darkness, Home Alone 2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Mighty Ducks, Wayne’s World.
These are all undoubtedly great movies.
And then another huge bunch of watchable stuff easily comparable to some of your mentions like Watcher or High Life.
And 1992 is not an outlier.
In 1993 you have Jurrasic Park, Groundhog Day, Whats Eating Gilbert Grape, Scindlers List, Meanace 2 Society, Alive, Dazed and Confused, Falling Down, In The Name of The Father, True Romance, Demolition Man, Carlitos Way, The Secret Garden, Philadelphia, A Perfect Workd, Cool Runnings, Short Cuts.
In 1991 Silence of The Lambs, Ternimator 2, JFK, Point Break, Thelma and Louise, Boyz in the Hood, The Doors, My Own Private Idaho, Barton Fink, The Fisher King, Naked Lunch.
In 1990 Goodfellas, Hunt for Red October, Total Recall, Edward Scissorhands, Home Alone, Godfather 3, Dances with Wolves, Tremors, Back to the Future 3, Awakenings, The Witches, Wild at Heart, Jacobs Ladder, Nikita, Slacker, Millers Crossing.
And the quality difference is massive too, not just somewhat better. Like just Millers Crossing is miles better than anything that has been made in the last 5 years, and I’m picking at random.
In 1994 Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, The Lion King, Speed, Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber, Stargate, Natural Born Killers, The Crow, Clercs, Maverick, Ed Wood, In the Mouth of Madness, Interview With The Vampire.
I could go on.
And this is not even talking about how the 80s is a better decade for cinema, or how the 70s is the peak of the power of the author with far more experimental, artistic, and substantial productions.
Has quality declined? Yes. Massively. Humongously. Stupendously.
From the top of my mind that movie is "Terminator 2".
Runners-up: "Scent of a woman" and "The talented Mr. Ripley". Several Woody Allen movies are worth to revisit. "Deliverance" and "Pulp fiction" also.