A Year in Shorts Day 118: "I Met the Walrus"

One film I really like despite not really understanding it at all is Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There. A bizarre, fractured take on the music biopic, I’m Not There tells the story of Bob Dylan by analyzing six distinct points in his career, casting six distinct actors to play him and shooting in six distinct styles. Knowing far less about music than I do about movies (which regular readers of this blog will know is saying something), a lot of the movie’s subtleties and meanings are lost on me, and it’s just a film I sort of vibe with. And that’s perfectly fine! It’s just that I imagine a Bob Dylan fan would have a much more rewarding experience with it, much as a bigger Beatles fan than myself would probably take a lot more away from today’s short, I Met the Walrus.


(via Wikipedia)


For a multitude of reasons, Josh Raskin's I Met the Walrus is an odd duck of a film. It consists of an edited interview between producer Jerry Levitan and John Lennon, recorded in 1969 after the fourteen year old Levitan stalked John Lennon from the Toronto Airport and talked his way into his hotel room. That alone sounds like the premise for a fairly intriguing short (or maybe even a one-act play), but that mostly just serves as backdrop for the short. Instead Raskin gives us some of John Lennon's classic pontificating set to a series of trippy visuals loaded with symbolism. People who love John Lennon will probably love this film. And people like me (who are ambivalent towards him at best) will find something to like here too.



How much you get out of I Met the Walrus probably depends on how much you put into it. From my perspective it's mostly just a visually interesting way to represent an interview, and that's enough to make a good short. If you're more interested in the subject being interviewed than I am, that might make it great! If you hate weird animation, you might think this short sucks. But whatever you think about it, you can't change one thing- it didn't win the Oscar. But hey, it won a Daytime Emmy and that's not nothing!


Keep up with the Oscar Baiting here on Letterboxd!


The Great Oscar Baiter is a not-for-profit work of criticism. All images herein are property of their respective owners and are protected under Fair Use.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Song of the Week #6: "The Ballad of High Noon"

Image
I was finally able to catch Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast this weekend, and I have to say it certainly lived up to the hype. There’s a lot to love about this movie, from the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, the exquisite performances from both the seasoned veterans and newcomers in the cast, to a script that’s brimming with heart and humor. But one aspect of the film I don’t see a lot of people mention is the way it incorporates footage from other films- most notably Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon, using not only a scene from the movie itself but scoring two pivotal scenes with the film’s theme song, the aptly-named (and Oscar-winning) “The Ballad of High Noon.” It was a bold choice to be sure, but who could blame Branagh? It’s a great movie, and a great song- and the subject for today’s installment in Song of the Week. (via Wikipedia) For those of you haven't seen High Noon... well, you really should get on that, it's a classic! Aside from being a taut, tightly edited thril
Read more

Song of the Week #15: "Take My Breath Away"

Image
I’ll put myself on a consistent schedule for these things one day, I promise. In my defense, there are a lot of movies to catch up on, and isn’t that what Oscar Baiting is all about? For instance- until recently, I’d never seen the original Top Gun! But with Top Gun: Maverick holding its spot as the biggest hit of the year (probably only to be dethroned by Black Panther or Avatar ) and even potentially soaring into the obligatory crowd pleaser Best Picture slot, I figured it was time to see where things began. Because while the Oscars Top Gun: Maverick may win have yet to be decided, the first Top Gun only went home with one- for the love theme, “Take My Breath Away.” (via Wikipedia) Love themes for films have gone a bit out of style these days, although for a long time it seemed to be a surefire way to nab a Best Song nomination. Seriously, look through the Wikipedia article and count how many times you see "Title Seemingly Chosen at Random (Love Theme from Movie You Didn
Read more

This Year in Shorts: The 95th Academy Awards

Image
  (via Wikipedia) Once again the most magical time of year is upon us- the time in which we look at all fifteen of this year's Oscar-nominated shorts and rank them arbitrarily based on my own personal preference at the time of publication. If that's not magical, I don't know what is! Still, I know that not everyone is as into the shorts as I am. Even aside from that, not everyone has the free time or desire to search all of them out. But the Academy will be airing ALL the categories live this year, and as such it might be good to have a baseline of what potential wins we should be celebrating or getting unreasonably mad about. And isn't getting unreasonably mad about things what awards season is all about? Not that there's too much to get worked up over this year. This year's crop of nominees are mostly pretty damn good, and even the bad ones don't make me angry like they did LAST year. Which came as a bit of a surprise to me, considering the guy who made t
Read more