Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

October 29, 2018 8:25 AM

Much of Pi’s considerable publicity centered on its special effects—perhaps logically, considering that the film had no stars, apart from Gérard Depardieu, who makes a cameo as a ship’s cook. What it sold was illusion: Of the film’s 960 shots, 690—one and a half of its two hours—employ visual effects. And which of its illusions was more potent than Richard Parker, a triumph of digital engineering that also chewed the scenery? Because Life of Pi is based on what is essentially a philosophical novel, the big cat was, in the words of one commentator, “a visual representation of a philosophical abstraction.” But it was a representation that throbbed with life. You could hear it breathing. You could smell its catty stench. I couldn’t guess what percentage of the picture’s audience came expressly to see the tiger, as opposed to the cataclysmic storm, the sinking freighter, the phosphorescent breaching whale, the island of meerkats. The tiger was an essential part of the movie’s spectacle, maybe the synechdoche for that spectacle, and it was spectacle that people came to see.

Inside the Tiger Factory, Peter Trachtenberg
posted by the man of twists and turns (16 comments total)

I like to imagine a bunch of tigers watching the movie commenting to each other about how the filmmakers couldn't quite get out of the Uncanny Valley. "omg, did you just hear that growl? *eyeroll*"
posted by gwint at 8:33 AM on October 29, 2018 [8 favorites]

I just read Life of Pi and watched the movie at the end of last month, knowing nothing about it except it was about a kid and maybe also a tiger on a boat.

I genuinely am curious why the book is so acclaimed. I don't care about the movie, it looks pretty, people can like the movie. But the book though.

I asked on facebook for people who liked it to tell me why but only got a like and a heart react, no actual answers.
posted by phunniemee at 8:56 AM on October 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

I was very confused at first by the first sentence, at first thinking it was about Darren Aronofsky's Pi, which could also be said to be visual representation of a philosophical abstraction but is notably lacking in tigers.
posted by Candleman at 9:32 AM on October 29, 2018 [34 favorites]

reply to P: personally I think the book was over-rated. It's not terrible but it scooped a lot more acclaim than I'd expected. I've found some of the other books by the same author more interesting.
posted by ovvl at 9:43 AM on October 29, 2018

I was very confused at first by the first sentence, at first thinking it was about Darren Aronofsky's Pi, which could also be said to be visual representation of a philosophical abstraction but is notably lacking in tigers.

he was obviously reading the original script

11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: 4. tigers have patterns 5.there are tigers fucking everywhere, help me!
posted by lalochezia at 9:57 AM on October 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

I asked on facebook for people who liked it to tell me why but only got a like and a heart react, no actual answers.

It was well-written? I don't read a lot of magical realism so I dunno, it was magical realism which was a nice change for me? And it didn't really commit to having a real resolution at the end which I liked - I think it's uncommon enough that people might think it's so radical to not answer the question of what was real. Again, maybe everyone else doesn't read a lot of magic fiction either, maybe this is pretty common, I dunno.

I mean, can't I enjoy a book without having a specific reason?
posted by GuyZero at 9:58 AM on October 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

And by "well-written" I mean that

a) I liked the sentence-to-sentence poetry of the book
b) it's tightly plotted - although in this case the cat saves the protagonist instead of vice-versa
posted by GuyZero at 10:00 AM on October 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

When the book first came out, many people and family members said, "You have to read it, it's so good! You'll love it!" When I asked what made it good, they just replied "Oh, just read it! SO GOOD!!"

I read it. It seemed well written. I went along with the conceit. I got to the ending. And I hated it.

Whatever they saw in the book, that they so loved, did not appeal to me. When they followed up, and I honestly said I hated it, the replies I got were "But it's sooo good!" But not one of them could tell me what it was they liked about it. Just that it was "so good"

I never watched the movie, didn't see a reason to.
posted by jazon at 10:48 AM on October 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Spoilers: The book is well written, although I started to lose it at the floating island part, and the ending felt as patronizing as "it was (or might have been) all a dream" endings usually do.

The movie was great though! Too bad the animation studio couldn't keep up that pace and folded.
posted by Popular Ethics at 11:28 AM on October 29, 2018

maybe the synechdoche for that spectacle
Damn it, Internet! When I read this, my brain cheerfully went "synah-kynah-dotie-chotie".
posted by xedrik at 11:30 AM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I mean, can't I enjoy a book without having a specific reason?

Sure! When you say you like something, can't I ask what features you like about it so I can attempt to share in that experience with you?
posted by penduluum at 11:41 AM on October 29, 2018

Too bad the animation studio couldn't keep up that pace and folded.

Movie studios do their best to make VFX studios eat the costs of delays and mistakes, and that appears to be what happened to Rhythm and Hues.

I can't find the reference now, but I remember a quote going around at the time from a movie exec to the effect of, "If I haven't made at least one or two VFX studios go out of business during the making of a movie, I haven't been doing my job."
posted by clawsoon at 12:10 PM on October 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I saw the previews, the tiger looked so fake I knew I'd never be able to watch the movie. I find the same problem with virtually every CGI wolf I've ever seen.
posted by doctor_negative at 12:42 PM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

It was kind of shit tiger tbh.
posted by ethansr at 7:57 PM on October 29, 2018

I have a fondness for the craft displayed when you write a book that is basically a "bottle episode". Most of Pi happens in a boat in the middle of nowhere, with just the boy and the tiger. But Martel manages to make it compelling nonetheless, for me at least. The same with Handmaid's Tale - huge portions of that book take place with Offred just sitting in her room doing nothing. It's a talent to be able to make that sort of nothing work.

I also read magical realism sporadically, so there's sort of a novelty factor there too. I liked the elegance of the writing, the lightness of prose that still managed to be pretty rich despite this. I liked the conceit of having a kid and a tiger survive the way they did, and I was pretty okay with the ending - like it didn't blow me away, but I didn't feel ripped off by it either. The structure of the book, with Pi relating his adventure to a journalist years after the fact allowed me to take a relaxed contemplative attitude to the book too, without the will-he-live tension defused completely.

I also read a lot. So I don't feel compelled to lose my shit over a well-written book. If you read a book a year and something like Life of Pi comes along it can be a bit overwhelming and you might not be really up for conveying why it's so moving, especially if the rest of your reading are like, Dean Koontz thrillers and romance novels (not that there's anything wrong with that kind of writing - it's just a very different flavour).
posted by Jilder at 7:51 PM on October 30, 2018

I also really, really enjoyed the film on release. I saw it in 3D - always a gamble, as I have a fairly mild eye problem that makes 3D movie glasses really uncomfortable and sometimes I just can't get the buggers to sit right at all, so I get to see....a nice expensive blur). It was chaos and delerium in the right moment and I didn't find the synthetic tiger to be distracting - in 3D everything has a certain unreal quality anyway so it worked for me.
posted by Jilder at 7:54 PM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]