Finally finished watching Uncut Gems. It was as good as everyone says! Amazing performances from the entire cast, and good lord it builds up so much TENSION & PRESSURE without ever feeling cheap! A 🧵...
#UncutGems
Uncut Gems also does one of my favorite things you can do in storytelling. The plot is super engaging at face value, but it sets up a central metaphor that ties everything together beautifully. This is a film that truly works on multiple levels.
The key theme of Uncut Gems is pressure and how people react to it. There are so many cringe-inducing moments in this film! And the key motif is the coveted black opal, a precious gemstone formed by contents packed tightly under pressure over time. twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The opal is the perfect metaphor for how the protagonist of Uncut Gems, Howard Ratner, lives. Unlike most precious gemstones, opals are not crystalline (highly organized) in structure, they are amorphous (random and chaotic). But that's what gives them their unique beauty. twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Howard Ratner's chaotic lifestyle chokes everyone around him and puts them under extreme pressure too. For instance there's a scene where his wife, Dinah, squeezes herself into her old prom dress and gives him the evil eye.
To drive that metaphor home (literally!) on the car ride home following that scene, Dinah sparkles like a gem under the glow of passing lights.
Uncut Gems has a very consistent motif of sparkling lights and characters being lit up like the titular, highly coveted (or is it??) black opal. Not only is it pretty to look it, it adds a beautiful extra layer of meaning to these scenes! twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Uncut Gems also has a motif of people being packed into tight uncomfortable spaces. The most obvious being the armored liminal space leading in and out of Howard's gem shop.
There are so many other scenes with this motif. For instance the protagonist's youngest son tucked into bed as his father lays on the floor and ignores him for the dazzling lights of the big game.
Also the scene where the protagonist keeps knocking on his neighbor's doors looking for a bathroom (smallest room in the house) for his son. And then his son emerges, aware of his father's infidelity.
There's also the scene where Howard is voyeuristically eavesdropping on his girlfriend from the closet (another highly closed space) while examining her like a gem under a loupe. twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The climax of Uncut Gems has Howard trapping his enemies in the previously mentioned tiny armored glass entrance to his shop and they are FUMING. There is so much TENSION here!
There's so many scenes that fit these precious gemstone related motifs. It's tempting to conclude "you're just reading too much into it. These are just coincidences!" But I think that actually speaks to the power and flexibility of the central metaphor of the film.
And there are so many assurances from the film itself that yes this symbolism is intentional. Uncut Gems opens with miners digging for opals, zooming into the chaotic structure of the opal then seamlessly transitioning to Howard's colonoscapy!
What an amazing parallel between workers struggling in the mines, digging for precious stones and the doctor digging through Howard's colon looking for polyps and the film mostly consisting of Howard groping for a way out of his ordeal (but always digging himself a deeper hole!)
The film ends with a similar outro zooming into Howard and transitioning to the opal (and then THE UNIVERSE). It's so direct: Opal = Precious stone with amorphous structure created under extreme conditions = Howard/The Human Condition!
There's probably a lot of meaning in how the opals were discreetly sent to him, hidden in the bellies of fish, but I don't know enough about Jewish culture to speak with any confidence here (will try to educate myself tho!) twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
I suspect the central metaphor of people being shaped by pressure like precious stones is also a commentary on the history of the Jewish people. There are so many layers to this movie, so many angles ... Just like an opal!
Really enjoyed this movie. Definitely one of those very literary kinda movies that you can watch over and over and keep catching new angles. I wanna say so much more, but I gotta get to bed. But one more thing, Kevin Garnett was really good! (This was his first time in a movie!)
Couple more thoughts: if Howard is an uncut gem, KG is a finely cut gemstone. As an elite among elite athletes, he has honed his mind and body under extreme pressure. And because of that he's just about the only character that comes out on top in the film.
The opal/formed-under-pressure motif also applies to the miners at the beginning of the film. They have to work under extreme conditions to dig up precious stones for others to get wealthy off of.
Early on there's a shot of an injured miner in the midst of a super tense crowd. He has a huge bloody gash in his leg, with his broken bones protruding out. Someone pours water on his wound. This parallels how opals are formed by rain and have a high water content.
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