Friday, March 11, 2005

More on Million Dollar Baby

What's it really about?

Critics slated the film, saying that it misrepresented itself (being not about boxing, but rather about the right to life). In the build up to the Oscars, the puritanical establishment that passes for public opinion in the US whinged on and on about whether the film's content was suitable for public consumption.

Watching Million Dollar Baby, one is struck by how skillful Clint Eastwood is at giving a healthy dose of pathos without descending into sentimentality. Perhaps that's why there was such an outcry from pressure groups (read: idiots)within America regarding the film's treatment of the euthanasia issue.

The film does contain food for thought, and if you want to make a meal of the assisted suicide thing then that's up to you. What the whigers miss is a whole host of other stuff that makes Million Dollar Baby great. Sucj as cinematographic techniques, filmatic timing, great editing, realistic interaction between the characters...I could go on and on.

I think that my point is this: The aforementioned whingers are not used to having to make up their own minds about issues (they are used to the media making it up for them). So when a picture like this comes along and simply presents a storyline without suggesting how you feel about it they (the whingers) get confused.

Pity we cannot pull the plug on them and put them out of OUR misery.

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