Article #2

Another article that caught my attention over the past few weeks on cinema-scope.com, was something very different than the Farber piece. This article was more of what I am doing right, I’m suppose to be writing about what is interesting to me in a piece of art and explain my reasoning. The article was entitled, “The Exiles,” it was written by someone who only refers to themselves as Quintin. The article is talking about a classic film by Kent Mackenzie called “The Exiles.” This was filmed in the late 1950’s but not released until much later and well after the death of Mackenzie. The film has been circulating at screenings around the world due to Thom Anderson using a few clips in one of his pieces. The film is about a group of Native Americans that no longer live on a ranch, but in the city. However, they live in the slums of the city. The two main people are Yvonne and Homer, Homer is a drunk and Yvonne a house wife.

What I found so interesting about this article, was the fact that it wasn’t a review of the film, it was more of a justification of why this was a great and important film. Quintin goes into a great deal of detail about the theme of ambiguity in the film and how he feels about it. He states that it starts out a bit dark with a brief history of the Native Americans but then goes to the a scene of a woman shopping and loving it. And the author just loves it. He talks about how the film shows that the rich and the poor are still together and having a night life. Even though they are poor, they still have a the options to go out and be out on the town. Quintin states “The Exiles shows that the distance between the rich and the poor in the U.S. was immensely smaller that it is now.” It was great to read an opinionated review from someone who actually enjoyed seeing and writing about the film. There is a definite enthusiasm that comes across in this piece. He ends the piece with this, “There are not many films that deal with the obvious, but so important, theme of film: the proletarian class having fun.” He was excited to see this movie and wanted to tell everyone that it is a masterpiece and needs to be seen. That was incredibly refreshing to see in this article. Usually when I read articles, even opinion articles, they seem very dry and bland. They all seem to be written in a monotone voice and lack what it takes to keep me reading. Quintin, who ever he maybe, kept me interested and even got me interested in the movie. I think I’m going try and track it down. I would be very happy to understand exactly all of what he was express in his writing of this article.