Geoff Klock on How to Start.
How to Start: Punch Drunk Love, Night Ripper, and Kill Bill
The first 2 minutes and 40 seconds of Punch Drunk Love are pretty well amazing.
You learn everything you need to know about the movie’s universe in those first 2 minutes and 40 seconds: This man is lonely (the shot puts him in the corner, and nothing adorns the empty space), smart (he figures out this company has a coupon reward thing that rewards more than the product is worth), and he lives in this world where no one cares (the guy on the other end of the phone is apathetic), and where violence can come out of nowhere (at the crack of dawn this weirdly peaceful moment is broken as an SUV just flips over disastrously, careening off camera and it is never returned to). But his salvation is there as well: out of nowhere, in this cold and violent place, this quirky funny old beautiful instrument just APPEARS, a herald of the salvation, the old fashioned old testament GRACE (which you do not do anything to get but which is simply thrust upon you) that he will find in quirky Emily Watson. Before the movie starts you get the whole thing in micro.
Read the rest over at Geoff’s Blog: Remarkable.
Tags: Blog, Crack, Dawn, Emily Watson, Empty Space, Geoff Klock, Kill Bill, Klock, Old Testament, Peaceful Moment, Punch Drunk Love, Universe, Violence, Violent Place