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True Detective - McConaughey/Harrelson crime series - S2 starts June 21st

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Jtwo said:
I agree with this, thats why I think it would be easier digested if fundamentally disconnected from the narrative. And lets make no bones about it, easier to digest is better filmmaking. At least in discussions about things like this.

I'm not mistaking the man then for the man now. The esoteric monologues fit in and I couldn't imagine the show without them. But its a really messy thing to do and even when handled perfectly it can easily be the first thing tip someones "illegitimacy" alarm. Especially since I view their primary purpose as tonal window dressing rather than a true eye into Rust's soul. We don't ever get that amount of detail from Marty.

The monologues are the most TVSHOW thing about True Detective. They are so frequent and go on for so long there is no discernible meaning to the specifics. Their importance is in the general texture and feel of them, which is why I think the show would be better if they were disconnected from the overall narrative.
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I think you're going to need to illustrate how you'd incorporate them tbh, because they only exist within the context of the show and the character of Rust. They're not making a mood piece like Terence Malick. They're an expression of the character within their time and their situation, not necessarily a propaganda of belief.

Also Marty is just not that complicated when you get down to it. The guy is more about the simple pleasures in life versus worrying about the human condition. Nothing wrong with that, but there's only so far you can take it. Thus the degree of imbalance. Hopefully in the latter episodes we'll see a bit more of Marty demonstrating his detective excellence versus playing second fiddle to Rust.
 
They probably should be shooting for mood pieces like those you may or may not see in high level cinema. It'd be a helluva a lot better than MM looking drunk and forlorn. To write pages full of big ideas expressing an incredibly specific (and utterly common) state of being like that and not back them up with the visual craft is what makes this just another TVSHOW.
 
Jtwo said:
They probably should be shooting for mood pieces like those you may or may not see in high level cinema. It'd be a helluva a lot better than MM looking drunk and forlorn. To write pages full of big ideas expressing an incredibly specific (and utterly common) state of being like that and not back them up with the visual craft is what makes this just another TVSHOW.
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http://inception.davepedu.com/

Is that the sound of the SS Backlash pulling into port?
 
Oh, you're saying my critiques of the show stem from feeling insecure about it's universal acceptance?
Gotcha.
 
Kadayi said:
IAlso Marty is just not that complicated when you get down to it.
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Marty is a helluva lot more complex than rust so far, going from they've showed us. Rust is a shell of a character compared to Marty.
 
Jtwo said:
Marty is a helluva lot more complex than rust so far, going from they've showed us. Rust is a shell of a character compared to Marty.
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I wouldn't say Marty is more complex since I think he's a pretty simple character that we've seen plenty of times before in noir-ish fiction before, but he is the dynamic character—as far as we can tell, all of Rust's character growth happened prior to the series while Marty's life is being impacted a lot more immediately.
 
Kadayi said:
They're an expression of the character within their time and their situation, not necessarily a propaganda of belief.
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I've come to the conclusion this is where a bulk of the complaints against Rust's rants stem from. They feel theyre being preached too.

I disagree with that assessment, but yeah. Some of my favorite parts of the show have been the back and forths between Marty and Rust
 
Jtwo said:
Oh, you're saying my critiques of the show stem from feeling insecure about it's universal acceptance?
Gotcha.
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No they just seem contrarian for the sake of it. I did ask you to elaborate as to how you'd do things differently but you haven't really delivered on that front beyond an implied criticism of the medium itself. True detective is a crime drama at the end of the day. There is a central mystery to be solved. If you're looking for something more esoteric I highly recommend Rectify, its an excellent series and well shot and well acted throughout, with plenty to muse upon.

Jtwo said:
Marty is a helluva lot more complex than rust so far, going from they've showed us. Rust is a shell of a character compared to Marty.
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I'm not even sure Marty would agree (“I'm just an ordinary dude with a big-ass dick') but still I wasn't aware that the characters were in competition.

HalfBakedProphet said:
I've come to the conclusion this is where a bulk of the complaints against Rust's rants stem from. They feel they're being preached too.
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Indeed. I blame Fox news. :D

I disagree with that assessment, but yeah. Some of my favorite parts of the show have been the back and forths between Marty and Rust
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For sure. I think Marty gives as good as he gets as well. The bit at the revival where he chipped back at Rust was superb.
 
HalfBakedProphet said:
I've come to the conclusion this is where a bulk of the complaints against Rust's rants stem from. They feel theyre being preached too.

I disagree with that assessment, but yeah. Some of my favorite parts of the show have been the back and forths between Marty and Rust
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Yeah, I can understand how it gets tiring when he's talking to the detectives about it, because there is not necessarily the contrast Marty provides.

“Must be tough. Living with someone spouting insane shit in your ear all day long.”


Also, did anybody post this? If so, ignore me, I always seem to forget, and cornballer will magically appear to remind me.

patton-oswalt-true-detective-1.jpg
 
My biggest problem with Rust's monologues is that they're given way too much real estate for how little they bring to the table. He's a cynic—we get it. A cynic dressed up in slightly more hyperbolic and comically dark philosophy, but a cynic nonetheless. There's nothing particularly interesting about his philosophy (on philosophical ground, I mean), so it should be doing more plot and character legwork than it is currently doing.

I can't help but compare the Rust/Marty dynamic to the Brad Pitt/Morgan Freeman dynamic in Seven. Sure they're not the same characters (and I'm not trying to argue that True Detective is unoriginal or anything because they both follow well-tread cop/noir tropes—that's the point) but I do think True Detective could stand to be a bit less indulgent with Rust. I mean, he's just misanthropic to an extreme, and that does end up flattening his character a little bit. I can't help but feel the writers are trying to compensate for that by having him spouting philosophy, but I guess I would have been fine if they had just left him at "my kid is dead" and not felt the need to give him equal footing as Marty if he wasn't going to be given a similar sized personal arc this season.

(of course, he could very well end up coming to terms with his own cynism, gain humanity, etc. in the end—actually, it's probably pretty telegraphed that this what he's going to do—but then, again, it's just an issue of efficiency, imo. Have faith in the audience. Show, don't tell. etc.)

in short; True Detective just keeps reminding me how fucking amazing Seven is. best serial killer movie evar
 
The Artful Dodger said:
Yeah, I can understand how it gets tiring when he's talking to the detectives about it, because there is not necessarily the contrast Marty provides.

“Must be tough. Living with someone spouting insane shit in your ear all day long.”
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that line was golden

We also know now that *potential spoilers?*
Rust was just wasting the detectives time during the interview
, it makes those long, draw out monologues much more relevant
 
Kadayi said:
I did ask you to elaborate as to how you'd do things differently but you haven't really delivered on that front beyond an implied criticism of the medium itself.



I'm not even sure Marty would agree (“I'm just an ordinary dude with a big-ass dick') but still I wasn't aware that the characters were in competition.
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I don't need to elaborate how I would do things differently. Thats not a prerequisite to offering a critique. Nor is it a prerequisite to valuing a participants opinion in this discussion. My criticism was beyond explicit.

That line "I'm just an ordinary dude with a big-ass dick" is exactly what I'm referring to in terms of character complexity. The outgoing alpha-maleness of a character who literally broke down in tears at the sight of his partner borrowinga lawn mower has WAY more going on than his brooding partner who've we've only been told things about.

I dare say its you who has been viewing our exchange over the last hour as a competition.


I'm not even going to touch your "contrarian for the sake of it" comment. As if I actually had time in my life to record thoughts on the internet that weren't my own, but instead were made with the ambition to stand out among the crowd.
 
I'm relatively new to GAF so I'm not sure if this is the place for this considering what people seem to be talking about, but nobody I know is watching this and I needed somewhere to put my thoughts.

The King in Yellow, the work of literature that the show's writer references, includes a story called 'The Repairer of Reputations', which contains the eponymous and badly disfigured character Mr Wilde. Wilde claims to operate a national conspiracy which saves people's reputations from scandal and then subsequently blackmails them into subservience.

In the last episode, Marty says he has joined a group called the 'Promise Keepers', who are a group of Christian men that hold conferences (primarily in the southern United States) to reinforce the promises they've made to their wives with the purpose of keeping men from cheating on their wives. Although not related to any particular denomination, the group is ostensibly a simple, non-profit Christian organization but has been criticized for using religion as a means to politically re-assert men as the superior sex and encourages the Madonna / Whore view of female sexuality.

In the second episode we learn that a Sheriff is corrupt and protecting the 'bunny ranch' brothel that Doris stayed at before she was murdered. We also learn that the Sheriff in charge when Marie Fontanot went missing had the surname of Childress, a name which also appears in the most recent episode as one of the security guards who escorted the accused who committed suicide. It's also worthwhile noting that Reginald LeDeux can be translated to mean 'Second King'.

Although I haven't tied these points together, it's just stuff I noticed while watching the show. I think the women are being ritualistically murdered to give twisted penance for the reputations of the men who solicited them for sex.
 
That's some pretty interesting research. Thanks for sharing. While some of it might just end up being background information, instead of tying directly into the plot, I think it does bring up very interesting parallels to the themes the show is trying to employ, and it fits consistently with the characterizations which have been developed. I'm not familiar with the Promise Keepers, but that background information fits Marty's character perfectly. The sort of man he is, and the sort of ideas he has about what being a man is, would certainly attract him to an organization like that, even if he thinks he is really helping himself change for the better through the program.
 
I dunno whats worse.....knowing that its all over in 3 weeks, or knowing that we'll have to wait 10 months for the Bluray :_(
 
Wilde claims to operate a national conspiracy which saves people's reputations from scandal and then subsequently blackmails them into subservience.
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I also see the Yellow King/Blackmail thread as being related to the lie Marty and Rust told. They were hunting the Yellow King and were given a story that in Marty's case saved their reputation and gave a sense of peace.

In addition to the explicit "big men know about him" conspiracy that we learned on Sunday.
 
ultratruman said:
I'm relatively new to GAF so I'm not sure if this is the place for this considering what people seem to be talking about, but nobody I know is watching this and I needed somewhere to put my thoughts.

The King in Yellow, the work of literature that the show's writer references, includes a story called 'The Repairer of Reputations', which contains the eponymous and badly disfigured character Mr Wilde. Wilde claims to operate a national conspiracy which saves people's reputations from scandal and then subsequently blackmails them into subservience.

In the last episode, Marty says he has joined a group called the 'Promise Keepers', who are a group of Christian men that hold conferences (primarily in the southern United States) to reinforce the promises they've made to their wives with the purpose of keeping men from cheating on their wives. Although not related to any particular denomination, the group is ostensibly a simple, non-profit Christian organization but has been criticized for using religion as a means to politically re-assert men as the superior sex and encourages the Madonna / Whore view of female sexuality.

In the second episode we learn that a Sheriff is corrupt and protecting the 'bunny ranch' brothel that Doris stayed at before she was murdered. We also learn that the Sheriff in charge when Marie Fontanot went missing had the surname of Childress, a name which also appears in the most recent episode as one of the security guards who escorted the accused who committed suicide. It's also worthwhile noting that Reginald LeDeux can be translated to mean 'Second King'.

Although I haven't tied these points together, it's just stuff I noticed while watching the show. I think the women are being ritualistically murdered to give twisted penance for the reputations of the men who solicited them for sex.
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Wow that was amazing. Welcome to the Thread!
 
Jtwo said:
don't need to elaborate how I would do things differently. Thats not a prerequisite to offering a critique. Nor is it a prerequisite to valuing a participants opinion in this discussion. My criticism was beyond explicit.
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This: -

They probably should be shooting for mood pieces like those you may or may not see in high level cinema. It'd be a helluva a lot better than MM looking drunk and forlorn. To write pages full of big ideas expressing an incredibly specific (and utterly common) state of being like that and not back them up with the visual craft is what makes this just another TVSHOW
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Is not a critique, because the statements are at odds with what actually happens in the show. We're not just sitting watching the characters talk ad infinitum as you imply, we're often times seeing the very thing that you're demanding play out on the screen. For instance the central part of the last episode transitions from Cohle talking to Marty's girls with the tiara to then Marty expressing his regrets interspersed with the moving forward of time. It's key to the narrative to frame the context of the conversation as a recounting though, that is why there needs to be the return to narrator and his audience, which is not us per se but in fact the two detectives in 2012. We are not the audience for the philosophical musings (as with say the narration in 'The thin read line') we are interlopers to a dialogue between the detectives.

That line "I'm just an ordinary dude with a big-ass dick" is exactly what I'm referring to in terms of character complexity. The outgoing alpha-maleness of a character who literally broke down in tears at the sight of his partner borrowing a lawn mower has WAY more going on than his brooding partner who've we've only been told things about.
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Marty in 2012 is not Marty in 1992.

I dare say its you who has been viewing our exchange over the last hour as a competition.
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You over estimate how much attention I pay to posters Vs the weight of their words.
 
So I was watching a bit of the first episode of TD and really liked it. Does it keep getting better or does it stay consistent?
 
Loke13 said:
So I was watching a bit of the first episode of TD and really liked it. Does it keep getting better or does it stay consistent?
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So far the first three episodes are extremely consistent, and then after that it gets better and better in different ways. One of the more refreshing shows in the genre.
 
ultratruman said:
I'm relatively new to GAF so I'm not sure if this is the place for this considering what people seem to be talking about, but nobody I know is watching this and I needed somewhere to put my thoughts.

The King in Yellow, the work of literature that the show's writer references, includes a story called 'The Repairer of Reputations', which contains the eponymous and badly disfigured character Mr Wilde. Wilde claims to operate a national conspiracy which saves people's reputations from scandal and then subsequently blackmails them into subservience.

In the last episode, Marty says he has joined a group called the 'Promise Keepers', who are a group of Christian men that hold conferences (primarily in the southern United States) to reinforce the promises they've made to their wives with the purpose of keeping men from cheating on their wives. Although not related to any particular denomination, the group is ostensibly a simple, non-profit Christian organization but has been criticized for using religion as a means to politically re-assert men as the superior sex and encourages the Madonna / Whore view of female sexuality.

In the second episode we learn that a Sheriff is corrupt and protecting the 'bunny ranch' brothel that Doris stayed at before she was murdered. We also learn that the Sheriff in charge when Marie Fontanot went missing had the surname of Childress, a name which also appears in the most recent episode as one of the security guards who escorted the accused who committed suicide. It's also worthwhile noting that Reginald LeDeux can be translated to mean 'Second King'.

Although I haven't tied these points together, it's just stuff I noticed while watching the show. I think the women are being ritualistically murdered to give twisted penance for the reputations of the men who solicited them for sex.
Click to expand...

whooooa!

I think you got it dude.

That means Marty's mistress is definitely at risk. Possibly Marty's daughter too.

Clearly Reggie was linked to the conspiracy some how. I still wonder why his spiral was burned off.

It's times like this that I wish Damon Lindelof was still on Twitter. I wanna know what he thinks of this show.
 
ultratruman said:
I'm relatively new to GAF so I'm not sure if this is the place for this considering what people seem to be talking about, but nobody I know is watching this and I needed somewhere to put my thoughts.

The King in Yellow, the work of literature that the show's writer references, includes a story called 'The Repairer of Reputations', which contains the eponymous and badly disfigured character Mr Wilde. Wilde claims to operate a national conspiracy which saves people's reputations from scandal and then subsequently blackmails them into subservience.

In the last episode, Marty says he has joined a group called the 'Promise Keepers', who are a group of Christian men that hold conferences (primarily in the southern United States) to reinforce the promises they've made to their wives with the purpose of keeping men from cheating on their wives. Although not related to any particular denomination, the group is ostensibly a simple, non-profit Christian organization but has been criticized for using religion as a means to politically re-assert men as the superior sex and encourages the Madonna / Whore view of female sexuality.

In the second episode we learn that a Sheriff is corrupt and protecting the 'bunny ranch' brothel that Doris stayed at before she was murdered. We also learn that the Sheriff in charge when Marie Fontanot went missing had the surname of Childress, a name which also appears in the most recent episode as one of the security guards who escorted the accused who committed suicide. It's also worthwhile noting that Reginald LeDeux can be translated to mean 'Second King'.

Although I haven't tied these points together, it's just stuff I noticed while watching the show. I think the women are being ritualistically murdered to give twisted penance for the reputations of the men who solicited them for sex.
Click to expand...

Interesting theory but 'Promise Keepers' is a real thing. I'm not sure whether HBO would be down with implying (even fictionally) that somehow they're a front for devil worshiping serial killers.

Also it's Ledoux versus Le deux.

Zabka said:
MM mowed Woody's lawn in that one
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DN4jqynmLs#t=25
 
Jtwo said:
They probably should be shooting for mood pieces like those you may or may not see in high level cinema. It'd be a helluva a lot better than MM looking drunk and forlorn. To write pages full of big ideas expressing an incredibly specific (and utterly common) state of being like that and not back them up with the visual craft is what makes this just another TVSHOW.
Click to expand...

You and I have already discussed this, and I don't believe you're being a contrarian for its own sake, but I do disagree. I actually enjoy the moments when it lingers on Rust as he speaks, if only because he is acting and speaking the dialogue so well.

I don't think that a lack of "visual craft" for these scenes detracts from them. Some of my favorite philosophical/spiritual monologues or scenes from Bergman or Tarkovsky linger on the speaker, many times for long takes. FWIW, they also use voiceover over imagery, as well.

I don't necessarily think one is more "cinematic" than the other.
 
I think the best thing they can do for S2 is go in a completely different direction than S1. Don't try to outdo it, but make it a different beast altogether. Strike a different tone, mine different thematic material, etc.
 
Las Vegas could be interesting but that's just me. A lot of that town has no soul but it has so many pretty lights etc. that it might just work. Northern California might also be good.
 
duckroll said:
I thought it was rumored to be California. Sounds a bit boring, but it's a pretty big state and I'm sure there are interesting and underused areas in it if it's true.
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LA can be an incredible location. You just need to have a director like Michael Mann with an eye to make it pop.
 
ultratruman said:
I'm relatively new to GAF so I'm not sure if this is the place for this considering what people seem to be talking about, but nobody I know is watching this and I needed somewhere to put my thoughts.

The King in Yellow, the work of literature that the show's writer references, includes a story called 'The Repairer of Reputations', which contains the eponymous and badly disfigured character Mr Wilde. Wilde claims to operate a national conspiracy which saves people's reputations from scandal and then subsequently blackmails them into subservience.

In the last episode, Marty says he has joined a group called the 'Promise Keepers', who are a group of Christian men that hold conferences (primarily in the southern United States) to reinforce the promises they've made to their wives with the purpose of keeping men from cheating on their wives. Although not related to any particular denomination, the group is ostensibly a simple, non-profit Christian organization but has been criticized for using religion as a means to politically re-assert men as the superior sex and encourages the Madonna / Whore view of female sexuality.

In the second episode we learn that a Sheriff is corrupt and protecting the 'bunny ranch' brothel that Doris stayed at before she was murdered. We also learn that the Sheriff in charge when Marie Fontanot went missing had the surname of Childress, a name which also appears in the most recent episode as one of the security guards who escorted the accused who committed suicide. It's also worthwhile noting that Reginald LeDeux can be translated to mean 'Second King'.

Although I haven't tied these points together, it's just stuff I noticed while watching the show. I think the women are being ritualistically murdered to give twisted penance for the reputations of the men who solicited them for sex.
Click to expand...

Indeed. However, you have to keep in mind that the narrator in the Repairer of Reputations is extremely unreliable and it's unclear what if any of the events actually happened as he describes, and whether or not Mr. Wilde was real. If he was real did hehave resources like claimed, or if he was a con man taking advantage of the narrator's predicament or just a harmless old man swallowed up by the narrator's madness.
 
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