Haven't made a regular livejournal post in a while. I wonder if there's even anybody left who reads it?

Been a while since I've been inspired to write more than 140 characters.

But I just had an idea for something to use livejournal for. I was watching a movie with my family, and I had a thought.

From now on, any post tagged with "mini critiques" will contain little musings about things. I'm thinking small nuggets of film analysis, criticism, or theory. Okay?

I don't claim they'll be particularly inspired, or enlightening, but they could be! Who knows at this point.

I'll try to keep spoilers under a cut, so beware there. Before the cut I'll name all the things I'll be talking about.

Let's start with one right here.

So, with my family here on Easter Sunday, we decided to watch a bootleg of Shutter Island, which my cousin brought down. Should have decided not to watch it, based on the bootleg quality alone, which was awful. But anyway.

I noticed the film was pretty similar in tone, subject, and period to A Beautiful Mind.

I don't believe this is intentional. It just sort of worked out that way, but then, what does that mean?

What is it about that post-war, cold war time period that makes film makers choose it for these tales of false memories and schizophrenia? I guess with A Beautiful Mind it was only natural, as it was based on a real life from that time period. But is it more than that?

Is it because that's when a lot of these ideas about psychiatry came about, or were put into practice? The film makes a point about the Nazi experiments in internment camps, the main character appearing to be one of the liberator at Dachau.

Could it be that these film makers set their movies in this time period because they lived through it when they were young? Is this just something film makers do? Or are these specific film makers trying to say something about their own lives?

And of course there's the cold war paranoia aspect of it all. It's a good backdrop for this kind of story.

So, I don't know if I'm right about any of this, but it's fun to think about. Anyone else got anything to say about this?

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