Difference between revisions of "329--Week 10 Questions/Comments"

Ok, now I enjoyed Matewan, but I feel that comparisons to TWBB are mostly superficial. Yes they both are centered on extractive industries in rural areas pre WWII, and yes there is the young preacher in both films as well. But first, I have to say that the music (at least for me) served different purposes in each film. Whereas in Matewan (and again I wasn't wholly focused on it) the music struck me more as just capturing the feel of the region, but TWBB's score (by the guitarist from Radiohead I believe) served more to heighten tension and highlight the rise and fall of Daniel Plainview. Then there are the characters. Matewan as you said, has a strong ensemble, but TWBB was basically all Daniel Day Lewis all the time (though Paul Dano was effectively creepy). Also, Matewan focuses on the workers themselves and to my knowledge didn't even name the owners, whereas in TWBB the lowly workers largely are ignored. Regarding the films' young preachers, I felt that in TWBB Dano's character was used to be a sort of distorted mirror image of DDL. His church grows as does Plainview's oil company, and in the end they are both men who have essentially fallen from grace, and I don't feel that Matewan used the boy-preacher in the same manner. Also, Matewan was attempting to depict a specific historical event and place, whereas I felt that TWBB (based off an Upton Sinclair novel) was more allegorical in its approach by showing the self-made (and self-destructed) man. -Bryan Mull

Ok, now I enjoyed Matewan, but I feel that comparisons to TWBB are mostly superficial. Yes they both are centered on extractive industries in rural areas pre WWII, and yes there is the young preacher in both films as well. But first, I have to say that the music (at least for me) served different purposes in each film. Whereas in Matewan (and again I wasn't wholly focused on it) the music struck me more as just capturing the feel of the region, but TWBB's score (by the guitarist from Radiohead I believe) served more to heighten tension and highlight the rise and fall of Daniel Plainview. Then there are the characters. Matewan as you said, has a strong ensemble, but TWBB was basically all Daniel Day Lewis all the time (though Paul Dano was effectively creepy). Also, Matewan focuses on the workers themselves and to my knowledge didn't even name the owners, whereas in TWBB the lowly workers largely are ignored. Regarding the films' young preachers, I felt that in TWBB Dano's character was used to be a sort of distorted mirror image of DDL. His church grows as does Plainview's oil company, and in the end they are both men who have essentially fallen from grace, and I don't feel that Matewan used the boy-preacher in the same manner. Also, Matewan was attempting to depict a specific historical event and place, whereas I felt that TWBB (based off an Upton Sinclair novel) was more allegorical in its approach by showing the self-made (and self-destructed) man. -Bryan Mull

Oh come, now, Jackie.  You couldn't understand the WV accent?  I enjoyed listening to the dialect (and understanding it all), but I think my awareness of and interest in dialects other than my own (I'm told it's largely Midwest) have been heightened since I've been taking linguistics. -Whitney Holcomb

Oh come, now, Jackie.  You couldn't understand the WV accent?  I enjoyed listening to the dialect (and understanding it all), but I think my awareness of and interest in dialects other than my own (I'm told it's largely Midwest) have been heightened since I've been taking linguistics. -Whitney Holcomb