catapult magazine

Never one to make silent judgments, I hereby proclaim that Cold Mountain is pornographic…and I’m not just referring to the sex scene between Nicole Kidman and Jude Law, whose golden buttocks positively glow in the warm light of glimpse-glimpse editing and the swell of melodramatic Romantic music. I don’t mind a good anti-war film, but this one is too simplistic and not good at all (though there are some beautiful images of the North Carolina countryside). I felt like the message at the end was “Why should we make war, when we could be making sweet sweet whoopie with the gentile Southern girl back home?” And the tag ending that was supposed to make us feel some sense of transcendence felt so false. Someone tell me why this film was even considered as a possible Oscar nominee for Best Picture of the year.

Have you read the book? I’ve tried several times, but can’t get into it. Book was supposed to be really good, too.

Haven’t seen it and now I definitely won’t. I prefer to enjoy the film as I imagine it to be, knowing almost nothing about it: Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellweger standing in the snow saying, “This mountain is COLD!” over and over.

That beautiful North Carolina countryside….
is actually filmed in Romania.

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I tried the book several times as well and just couldn’t seem to keep going. I haven’t seen the movie and don’t plan on it, because it seems like it may fall under the same type of disappointment as Snow Falling on Cedars…and I got through that book twice!

I saw the film and found it to be quite sterile and unbeleivable. I was a bit disappointed due to the fact that I was eager to hear T-Bone Burnetts work on the soundtrack, which ultimately was the best thing about the movie after the opening civil war battle scene.

Cold Mountain is a beautiful film. Quite romantic but why not. It seemed to be more of a legend or a fable than realism.
The weak script did make the acting performances seem forced. I also felt like I was watching stars rather than actors.

I really enjoyed the visual design of the film. It reminded me of the clean, majectic feel of Shyamalan’s work. Maybe not gritty enough for the subject matter but I think it was honest.

Grant, I’d be interested to know what you thought was pornographic about the movie?