Discuss Summer Hours
Discuss → Movies → Summer Hours → General
This movie explains why movies suck today
posted by rooprectSTAFFMOD on December 19, 2023 at 8:56 AM
Ok not really. Forgive the clickbaity title. But more or less, yeah.
Summer Hours is about humans' relationship with the art of prior generations. Here the story is about a 75 year old woman who wanted to preserve the legacy of her artist uncle, everything from his paintings to the furniture he used to the house and property where he lived. She dies, and the estate falls to her children who argue about splitting everything up and selling it off. The movie takes us through the impending deconstruction of the artist's legacy.
But as the director Olivier Assayas says in an interview, the hidden protagonist is the granddaughter Sylvie, or the 3rd generation after an artist's death. They are deprived of their connection by the 2nd generation's rush to move on. Even though the grandchildren seem ambivalent because they don't understand what all the adults are fussing about, the final scenes show that all along Sylvie had felt a deep connection. That connection is now broken.
As always, this is an incredibly insightful work from Assayas. The story of family tension engages us on the surface so we don't get bogged down in artsy pretentiousness, but at the same time if you're reading the undercurrent it's like inhaling a socio-philosophical treatise.
How did we lose our connection with the classics, whether it's cinema, music or literature? The 2nd generation (our parents...or I guess grandparents at this point) failed to instill in us a love for these things. They broke the connection. We can now dig up these classics in some obscure corner of youtube, or if we're lucky they get remastered and resurrected on blu-ray with some fanfare. But in a sense that's as sterile as the museum scene in this movie - where a crowd of fidgety tourists are ushered past the relics as if they're checking off things on a to-do list. Art is more than a museum expo, it's an appreciation for who, what and how it was created.
The bottom line: Indiana Jones ("This belongs in a museum!") can suck it.
Reply by genplant29
on December 20, 2023 at 7:30 PM
I know nothing whatsoever about this movie, but feel compelled and inspired to mention/agree (as a lifelong historian, preservationist, genealogist, archivist, information documentarian, also, of course, vintage movies buff - not to mention person who cares) that anyone who likes to think only movies, stuff, and things of today matter, and that past movies and stuff is old, boring, out-dated ho-hum "who cares?" news/items, not worth giving time of day to/about or checking out or having, is oblivious, as learning where today's stuff evolved from, and appreciating it, provides a master class - and absolutely matters. Today isn't the amazing end-all that many folks like to consider it to be. Stuff of today will, soon enough, be viewed as old, passe, lame (by many or most), as well; I already see it as bound for that imminent, inevitable destiny.
Great post you've made, roo. Interesting, insightful, and thought-provoking. (Hopefully my comments won't seem off-topic as, admittedly, they're not at all about this specific film.)
Reply by rooprect
on December 20, 2023 at 8:40 PM
Spot on, gen! Even though you haven’t seen the movie, you grasped exactly what it was saying. The movie shows how each successive generation is basically full of itself (in this case, they’re chasing profits or trying to reinvent art with modern designs) and they reject the legacy of the old artist.
The movie is about a painter, but I think that’s a thinly veiled proxy for the cinema masters & classics that have gotten trampled by flashy blockbusters of today. Funny thing is, like you said, today’s box office hits will eventually become tomorrow’s forgotten scraps, and the same thing will happen to the next crop.
I guess the only bright spot is that the true classics will always be preserved in a museum (a significant plot point in this movie). But that’s not the same as if they were honored by society at large.