I watched The Sunset Limited alone at home on a DVD loaned to me by a friend. I didn't read any reviews before watching it and so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. That was a good thing because, if I had read some of the negative reviews on IMDb, I may have even skipped watching it. That would have been a bad thing.
This film is amazing! With a cast of two and only one scene (if you discount the opening generic footage), to me this seemed obviously a play written for live theatre. However, in live theatre, you don't get the chance to view facial expressions close-up or rewind and study details the same as you do in a movie at home. And that was certainly something I wanted to do. Every moment of this film is significant and one cursory glimpse simply doesn't do it justice.
Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L Jackson perform their roles with classic professional expertise. You feel like a fly on the wall almost to the point where you even want to breathe quietly so as not to disturb the atmosphere. That is the profundity of The Sunset Limited! The ending wasn't at all predictable - if, indeed it WAS the ending - were we supposed to make our own ending like in one of those early computer text story games?
After watching the titles, I was left with two questions. One was, "How on earth did it need THAT many people to make this film???" Tommy Lee Jones directed it and yet there was only the closing scene that he wasn't in. If it weren't for the brilliance of two totally professional actors, this film could have been the work of my university screen production class (I wish it HAD been!). For example, how did it require five painters to prepare the set? These are, of course, somewhat rhetorical questions although, as I say, I'm pretty sure my uni class could have done this as an assignment with just two cameras and camerapersons, one lighting engineer, one sound engineer, a boom swinger, an editor and a sound designer. We would have done all the other stuff such as preparing the set ourselves. In fact, we DID do that except that the director, camera operators and lighting people were also the editors! Now, I don't say this to denigrate this film at all because, as I've already said, it is an excellent movie. All I'm saying is that, given talents like Jackson and Jones, we could have made this movie for not much more than the cost of tape and, if we had done it professionally, six people's time (about a month). So, when I see the crew list for The Sunset Limited, I cannot help wondering what it cost to make. (IMDb doesn't tell us that.)
My second question was, "How many times will I need to watch this movie before I get every little nuance of it?"
Having now read some of the other reviews, it is obvious to me that there are plenty of viewers out there with IQs well below average because some of them not only clearly missed the philosophical and psychological message of this masterpiece, but also lacked the ability to write something remotely intellectual about it - and an intellectual film it is. I guess they are the fans of in-your-face action or slapstick rubbish!
This film is amazing! With a cast of two and only one scene (if you discount the opening generic footage), to me this seemed obviously a play written for live theatre. However, in live theatre, you don't get the chance to view facial expressions close-up or rewind and study details the same as you do in a movie at home. And that was certainly something I wanted to do. Every moment of this film is significant and one cursory glimpse simply doesn't do it justice.
Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L Jackson perform their roles with classic professional expertise. You feel like a fly on the wall almost to the point where you even want to breathe quietly so as not to disturb the atmosphere. That is the profundity of The Sunset Limited! The ending wasn't at all predictable - if, indeed it WAS the ending - were we supposed to make our own ending like in one of those early computer text story games?
After watching the titles, I was left with two questions. One was, "How on earth did it need THAT many people to make this film???" Tommy Lee Jones directed it and yet there was only the closing scene that he wasn't in. If it weren't for the brilliance of two totally professional actors, this film could have been the work of my university screen production class (I wish it HAD been!). For example, how did it require five painters to prepare the set? These are, of course, somewhat rhetorical questions although, as I say, I'm pretty sure my uni class could have done this as an assignment with just two cameras and camerapersons, one lighting engineer, one sound engineer, a boom swinger, an editor and a sound designer. We would have done all the other stuff such as preparing the set ourselves. In fact, we DID do that except that the director, camera operators and lighting people were also the editors! Now, I don't say this to denigrate this film at all because, as I've already said, it is an excellent movie. All I'm saying is that, given talents like Jackson and Jones, we could have made this movie for not much more than the cost of tape and, if we had done it professionally, six people's time (about a month). So, when I see the crew list for The Sunset Limited, I cannot help wondering what it cost to make. (IMDb doesn't tell us that.)
My second question was, "How many times will I need to watch this movie before I get every little nuance of it?"
Having now read some of the other reviews, it is obvious to me that there are plenty of viewers out there with IQs well below average because some of them not only clearly missed the philosophical and psychological message of this masterpiece, but also lacked the ability to write something remotely intellectual about it - and an intellectual film it is. I guess they are the fans of in-your-face action or slapstick rubbish!