Eclipse is pure unadulterated "Camp".
Totally wonderful and hilarious. It will be around in midnight shows for years, perhaps decades, to come. Why have all the reviewers who trashed it not seen this?
The first scene is Riley in the rain getting attacked, bitten by an invisible vampire, running and then screaming in agony as he lies on the pavement in the pouring rain. Nice choreography and seductive lighting, I thought.
Then the next scene is Bella and Edward in the meadow. The grass is verdant, surrounding them, brightly colored plastic flowers all over the field, the music 1940's Hollywood for romantic, and the two pretty leads declaring love for each other. Edward saying, "Marry me, marry me," in his beautiful voice and that was when I started laughing. A beautiful piece of schlock deliberately filmed with modern teens a la retro. Wonderful! So I began giggling, never expecting this sophistication, this blatant "camp" sensibility.
From Perdue University:
I entered the twilight irruption (my blog) this way. At my multi-plex I saw Remember Me,(my post) because Chris Cooper was in it. I have followed his career for decades and he has never chosen a stupid script, a stupid director, a stupid movie or character in his entire film career, so that decided me on Remember Me. In addition I got Pierce Brosnan who's work since 007 has been surprising, excellent and subtle. What is to lose here? I thought. Remember Me is a lovely little film, not made for Oscars, awards or splash, but just a wonderful, intelligent and sensitive movie and there are not many of them around at the multi-plexes. Well, I loved it, and thought Emilie de Ravin and Rob Pattinson were excellent. So that is how I first saw Pattinson.
Not too long after Eclipse came to my multi-plex. By then I had seen the supermarket tabloids trashing a young actress named Kristen Stewart. Week after week. I finally read one - I didn't say buy one. So sad, I thought, to do that to a really young girl. Why?
At my multi-plex I saw quite a number of theatres having Eclipse. Ah David Slade of Hard Candy is the director. That makes it really OK as Hard Candy is superb IMHO. I decided to see it to see what all the fuss was about. I saw Rob Pattinson's name was in it and I remembered him from Remember Me. Oh, I said again to myself. And I went in waiting to be surprised. A vampire teen flick is never my choice of film. You can tell I'm snobby because I say film a lot. And I spell theater with an re like this: theatre.
The "camp" never stops. Bella, Edward and Jacob with his bare chest and six pack standing in the street, and Edward saying jealously, "Doesn't he own a shirt?" From the Hollywood reporter, "Where the first film leaned heavily on camp........." and then Hollywood Reporter goes off on a different tangent, but it's interesting. The first Twilight is definitely unconscious "camp" as Hardwicke thought of it as a romance. But then she isn't too cool. She thinks she is, tho', cause every other adjective she uses is "cool".
The tent scene on the mountain top in the snow with the three of them is a howl! Written this way in the book, it still resonates with the violent sex tent scene in Brokeback Mountain. Whoa! The unacknowledged homo-eroticism between Jacob and Edward (Freudian especially with Edward's jealousy) and the "I'm hotter than you," line. By then I was hysterical with laughter and so was the rest of the late show audience. The fight scene was funny, not scary, and Bella administering to Jacob in his bedroom kept me laughing and laughing. And of course the end, back in the meadow with all the bright colorful plastic flowers. An in-movie with referents to other movies. Cool.
I didn't mention the wigs, the make-up on the vampires, the tacky costumes, the body language, the proposal, all perfect "camp".
And in precession one can see Twilight and New Moon as "camp" because they are. And I can't resist seeing Hard Candy as "camp" either. Breaking Dawn for sure is going to be.
What an uplifting, amazingly original funny film I thought as I left to go home. David Slade is really good! And then I forgot about it. Nothing to think about there, right?
And then my Foucauldian lightbulb went on. Up 
next:Eclipse as a visual presentation of Foucauldian Genealogy of Sexuality. Whoa!
Twilight too. Just pure "camp"!
Totally wonderful and hilarious. It will be around in midnight shows for years, perhaps decades, to come. Why have all the reviewers who trashed it not seen this?
The first scene is Riley in the rain getting attacked, bitten by an invisible vampire, running and then screaming in agony as he lies on the pavement in the pouring rain. Nice choreography and seductive lighting, I thought.
Then the next scene is Bella and Edward in the meadow. The grass is verdant, surrounding them, brightly colored plastic flowers all over the field, the music 1940's Hollywood for romantic, and the two pretty leads declaring love for each other. Edward saying, "Marry me, marry me," in his beautiful voice and that was when I started laughing. A beautiful piece of schlock deliberately filmed with modern teens a la retro. Wonderful! So I began giggling, never expecting this sophistication, this blatant "camp" sensibility.From Perdue University:
Definition: Camp
 |
| Aro Plays It As Perfect Camp In New Moon |
CAMP: A sensibility that revels in artifice, stylization, theatricalization, irony, playfulness, and exaggeration rather than content. As Sontag puts it, "Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It's not a lamp, but a 'lamp; not a woman, but a 'woman.'.....Sontag also distinguishes between "pure camp," which amounts to a kitsch that takes itself so seriously that we can now see it as hilarious (in other words, the camp sensibility is on the side of the audience not the author of the work), and "Camp which knows itself to be camp" and is, therefore, already making fun of itself. (Click here for Sontag's article.)
Sontag will say that the "best" camp is unconscious camp. Camp which knows itself to be "camp" is lesser. I am convinced David Slade knew his Eclipse was "camp" and deliberately made it so, which is what brought the huge audience in for this third film of the Twilight series.
You can definitely take your boyfriend to this one!
I entered the twilight irruption (my blog) this way. At my multi-plex I saw Remember Me,(my post) because Chris Cooper was in it. I have followed his career for decades and he has never chosen a stupid script, a stupid director, a stupid movie or character in his entire film career, so that decided me on Remember Me. In addition I got Pierce Brosnan who's work since 007 has been surprising, excellent and subtle. What is to lose here? I thought. Remember Me is a lovely little film, not made for Oscars, awards or splash, but just a wonderful, intelligent and sensitive movie and there are not many of them around at the multi-plexes. Well, I loved it, and thought Emilie de Ravin and Rob Pattinson were excellent. So that is how I first saw Pattinson.
Not too long after Eclipse came to my multi-plex. By then I had seen the supermarket tabloids trashing a young actress named Kristen Stewart. Week after week. I finally read one - I didn't say buy one. So sad, I thought, to do that to a really young girl. Why?At my multi-plex I saw quite a number of theatres having Eclipse. Ah David Slade of Hard Candy is the director. That makes it really OK as Hard Candy is superb IMHO. I decided to see it to see what all the fuss was about. I saw Rob Pattinson's name was in it and I remembered him from Remember Me. Oh, I said again to myself. And I went in waiting to be surprised. A vampire teen flick is never my choice of film. You can tell I'm snobby because I say film a lot. And I spell theater with an re like this: theatre.
The "camp" never stops. Bella, Edward and Jacob with his bare chest and six pack standing in the street, and Edward saying jealously, "Doesn't he own a shirt?" From the Hollywood reporter, "Where the first film leaned heavily on camp........." and then Hollywood Reporter goes off on a different tangent, but it's interesting. The first Twilight is definitely unconscious "camp" as Hardwicke thought of it as a romance. But then she isn't too cool. She thinks she is, tho', cause every other adjective she uses is "cool".
 |
| youtube - Jacob and Bella Kiss |
 |
| Carlisle's Wig - Esme's Outfit |
And in precession one can see Twilight and New Moon as "camp" because they are. And I can't resist seeing Hard Candy as "camp" either. Breaking Dawn for sure is going to be.
What an uplifting, amazingly original funny film I thought as I left to go home. David Slade is really good! And then I forgot about it. Nothing to think about there, right?
 |
| Bella's Wig |
And then my Foucauldian lightbulb went on. Up 
next:Eclipse as a visual presentation of Foucauldian Genealogy of Sexuality. Whoa!Twilight too. Just pure "camp"!
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