Sight and Sound 2022 Top 20

I remember thinking when the last list came out that Vertigo was kind of an odd choice for "greatest movie ever made" since it's so wild and unconstrained for a "masterpiece," so uncomfortably exhibitionist. I'd love to know what a typical moviegoer thought while walking out of that one in 1958. Jeanne Dielman, funnily enough, seems like a safer choice in many respects.

There isn't a movie in this 20 that I outright dislike (though I still haven't and probably never will see Seven Samurai)

Top 5:

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1989)

Boring antiquated vote for The Godfather. I think I've seen all except for Meshes of the Afternoon (though a couple go so far back I essentially haven't seen them either).

Meshes of the Afternoon is only like 15 mins long and you can see it on YouTube, HIGHLY recommend.

This is a fairly impossible poll. Guess I'll go with Renoir?

I'm between Renoir, Murnau, Ozu, and Akerman. It's down to what I'd watch right now.

Renoir, followed by Ozu or Kurosawa

Seven Samurai, dare I say, drags a little. It bores me slightly like Ozu, Dielman, Beau Travail, etc. don't.

Citizen Kane is like the Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles of movies

hahaha.

criterion channel had a fun meshes/mulholland dr double feature a while ago, that’s my pick. but these are some really good movies

I've seen maybe half of these, of the ones I've seen I would still vote for Kane.

Must I?

I also have a Seven Samurai problem, but maybe I should just rewatch.

It’s not untrue that parts of it drag…but then there are all the good parts!

It’s so famous and the first time I saw it was under some weird circumstances that I am only now recalling- a bunch of clever high school students mocking the translated dialogue- so I got off to a bad start somehow I’ve never found a way in, although this hasn’t been a problem with lots of other films. But now that I think of it the initial problem in those cases was internal and not external. I like a lot of other Kurosawas better, since I went in knowing less.

I saw High and Low last month for the third time, a little stoned: exquisitely edited and paced. There are a half dozen Kurosawa I might replace SS with.

I don't fuck with the final battle, though.

I love Seven Samurai but I agree it's a bit of a trek. I'd take Yojimbo and Ran over it, at a minimum. But I get why it's the Classic.

I actually like or love most other Kurosawas I’ve seen, and rate Yojimbo, Ran, Rashoman and especially High and Low very highly, so it’s not a director problem

What's stopping you from watching it?

It's a big time investment to first watch The One Samurai, The Two Samurai...

Persona and Meshes are the ones on this list that speak to me most strongly, and I voted for the former. Most of the others aren't even my favourites by those directors (though Apocalypse Now and In the Mood for Love, and maybe Beau Travail are). Close-Up in fact I would rank ninth or tenth on the list of ten Kiarostami I have seen, I don't get the appeal.

I'd rank Shame over Persona, but, like Eric said, I get why the latter's here.

I might too, but Passion of Anna is my Bergman of choice.

Best parts of Seven Samurai: the close-ups of the scroll as the samurai keep a running count of the bandits they have killed
Worst parts: Mifune sputtering and gesticulating

If you can't deal with Mifune's performance style, Kurosawa will never be for you. I don't mean that disparagingly: it's like dealing with the hijinks in the third act of The Rules of the Game.

I was proud of my students last semester who chose Rashomon for a paper topic; most of them realized he was working in a stylized universe of his own.

2001 is a film that I feel like I still haven't seen properly, and it might be too late at this point. I feel like I'd need to forget everything about it.

These suck:

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov,1929)

Voted Dielman but resigned to 2001 winning.

There isn't a movie in this 20 that I outright dislike (though I still haven't and probably never will see Seven Samurai)

― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Saturday, 7 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Why not?

Lol @ ppl denigrating Seven Samurai like Apocalypse Now isn't in this poll!

lol

He might think they're OK to great in their own ways.

2001's the only one I'm get-behind-me-Satan about.

I've seen all but Close-Up, which I will watch at some point despite being underwhelmed by almost every Kiarostami I've seen. I think he's not for me.

Of the rest, a handful are legit personal faves — Regle du Jeu, Mullholland Drive, Jeanne Dielman (which I can say now that I've finally seen it), Singin' in the Rain, Persona, In the Mood for Love (though not my favorite Wong), Meshes, Tokyo Story. The rest I like or admire to varying degrees, I don't begrudge them their canonicity. Although I haven't seen Man With a Movie Camera since a film studies class in college and have never been tempted to revisit it, so I don't really know how I feel about it. But I know it's IMPORTANT.

To the question of why I’ve never seen Seven Samurai, the answer is I don’t want to

It's a big time investment to first watch _The One Samurai_, _The Two Samurai_...

Worst parts: Mifune sputtering and gesticulating

nonsense

In case anyone was curious to see how this shook out in the all-time ballot poll: ILX All-Time Film and Morbsies Poll: RESULTS Thread for ILX's Favorite Movies, Films, Cinema, Flicks & Moving Pictures

I find in Seven Samurai the same kind of cinematic exuberance that’s in Citizen Kane—it’s just so expressive and fun. And yes the final battle is wonderful.

i quote/paraphrase man with a movie camera all the time lol, to absolutely no use or recognition: [X] WITHOUT INTERTITLES. [X] WITHOUT A SCENARIO. [X]... WITHOUT THE AID OF THEATER. i do find it v moving tbh, tho can understand distaste for its state-sponsored promethian brassiness.

my lynch opinions are not v useful at this point but m-dr is prob my least fave of his; i love p much everything in it, somewhere else.

voted renoir.

At the very least I like all of these, and love most of them. I always treat these polls as "favorite" rather than "best," so voted Lynch.

To the question of why I’ve never seen Seven Samurai, the answer is I don’t want to

― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Saturday, 7 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Weird...but ok...

At the very least I like all of these, and love most of them. I always treat these polls as "favorite" rather than "best," so voted Lynch.

I'm between Renoir, Murnau, Ozu, and Akerman. It's down to what I'd watch right now.

Also love Lynch forever, but I still don’t grasp the anointment of MD above all. It’s about Hollywood. I’ll tuck that into my prior “films about film” complaint. Entirely too interesting mode for a certain sect.

Vertigo is quite far from being my favorite Hitch joint.

I’m with Morbs in rating Vertigo at or near the top, maybe just behind Rear Window and Notorious

Kane might be the only one here I don’t regard as being one if its director’s best, along with Apocalypse

I’m with Morbs in rating _Vertigo_ at or near the top, maybe just behind _Rear Window_ and _Notorious_

If you can't deal with Mifune's performance style, Kurosawa will never be for you.

He's a great actor who's so much more tolerable when he keeps the lid on, like in High and Low and The Bad Sleep Well.

those are two of his best roles, but I also like the more unrestrained performances in the samurai/ronin films (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro)

_If you can't deal with Mifune's performance style, Kurosawa will never be for you._


He's a great actor who's so much more tolerable when he keeps the lid on, like in _High and Low_ and _The Bad Sleep Well_.

Didn’t really need to quote, sorry.

To the question of why I’ve never seen Seven Samurai, the answer is I don’t want to

I admire this decisiveness, sort of, but I'm a slave to polls of this kind, especially if they're consensus-based and I'm familiar with most of the entries already. I'd have to have a big prejudice against a film I haven't seen on a list like this not to add it to my informal "should watch" list.

My Hitchcock top five today:

Notorious
Strangers on a Train
Rear Window
Sabotage
Psycho

2001 slander made me pull the trigger for it

_To the question of why I’ve never seen Seven Samurai, the answer is I don’t want to_


I admire this decisiveness, sort of, but I'm a slave to polls of this kind, especially if they're consensus-based and I'm familiar with most of the entries already. I'd have to have a big prejudice against a film I haven't seen on a list like this not to add it to my informal "should watch" list.

Cannot believe ppl are questioning Mifune when there is a Marlon Brando "performance" in here.

xp: funnily enough I love the role Seven Samurai plays in Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai, where the single mother looks to show the film to her son as a father figure substitute.

Apocalypse Now is an enjoyable enough movie I guess but the thought of it being in somebody's top 200 of anything is just boggling my mind

It's ok, when it's on TV I will watch an hour of it.

depending on the day it would be de jeu, searchers or dielman. today it's renoir.

Might vote for Cléo to be annoying

It's not as annoying as not watching Seven Samurai because you've been traumatised by film bro polls.

tbf it's not the best Kurosawa or the best samurai movie even

It wouldn't be in my top 20 or my favourite Kurosawa, but it's so much more fun than watching Americans go on about Apocalypse now as a Vietnam War 'statement'.

as i say AN to me is the most ridiculous entry - maybe the only ridiculous entry - in the list. how many 18 year old boys vote in this thing?

Twenty-one-year-old film bros are worse than 18-year-olds.

it's all a long distant memory to me

I prefer yojimbo and hidden fortress to seven samurai but that doesn't make it anything close to mediocrity

I think Ikiru should be the consensus pick, less of the trad masc concerns and also a better intro as not four hours long. That said I do love SS and if this was a best ever director poll I think Kurosawa would be my guy.

I'm terrible with Kurusawa, usually I always rewatch his samurai movies that I've seen umpteen times already rather than his more subtle masterpieces, but his samurai movies rule so much!

We all love Kurosawa. It's settled! *bangs gavel*

Finally managed to score a copy of the mag, a single solitary copy in McColl's in Govan! Citizen Kane cover - of course I wanted the Jeanne Dielman, but the mag does reproduce this amazing pic as a full page:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGMdzURWwAErD7r.jpg

They give a selection of the director ballots only, no critics. Good lists - by which I mean, introduced me to films I'd not heard of before - from Khalik Allah, Radu Jude, Alexandre Koberidze, Alice Rohrwacher, Peter Strickland, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. An all-French list from Wes Anderson with some interesting choices. Fun list from Terence Davies, including two Doris Day films. Wouldn't have expected Peter Greenaway to choose Blade Runner.

Nice! Love that picture!

Really want to vote for something that includes jokes, which narrows things down pretty severely

seven samurai it is

Ikiru is pish, Dersu Uzala is my kurosawa joint

I haven't seen that one, and of his late stuff only seen Kagemusha and Ran - so some serious gaps there.

I like Dreams too, only seen 6 or 7 myself

there was a feature on bbc radio about the Rashomon influence on modern tv drama, it had the opposite effect of interesting me in watching any of this stuff or even the original again!

They're doing the complete Kurosawa at the BFI right now. I caught One Wonderful Sunday - Kurosawa does Capra kinda, doesn't entirely work but there's some good stuff in there. At one point the female protagonist breaks the fourth wall and starts begging the viewers to clap for her husband and for all the young couples trying to make a living in postwar Japan, they need the help. No cunt clapped.

all clapped out in the UK

every time someone types "influence" mark s gets his wings

We all love Kurosawa. It's settled! *bangs gavel*

Ope sorry, my gavel broke

Study, study, screen, screen, or bonk bonk on the head!

Lol, Alfred.

Really curious about Terence Davies’s list, especially the two Doris Days.

I voted Vertigo. My relationship to it was pretty organic thankfully. Bought a vhs tape at around 17 without ever having seen it before, or very many classic movies at all, and became obsessed without totally understanding why. Probably almost wore out that tape. Only later did I discover becoming obsessed with Vertigo was practically a cliche. But that’s where my love of movies started and it’s pretty much the experience I’m always hoping to have again every time I go to a movie.

I’ll go to bat for Apocalypse Now! I mean, in that I think it’s great, not top 20 of all time great though.

2001 probably one of the funnier options here?

I use the first 10 minutes of Apocalypse Now because the match cuts, fades, sound design, and POV storytelling lend themselves to that sort of context.

Use them in class, that is.

When I talk or think about Kubrick I almost place 2001 in mental brackets, it’s so, ahem, monolithic, that I unconsciously shunt it off to the side when contemplating the killing, the shining, paths of glory, eyes wide shut, etc. But I do love it. I’m sorry but HALs death is an astonishing moment, dancing spaceships, the light show, the star child, it’s just a fun fucking movie.

I watched the end of In the Mood for Love (another movie I’ve watched too many times) and I’ll be damned if the ending sequence didn’t fucking floor me for the first time in years.

I'm digging your posts, ryan.

I took my mom to lunch yesterday and talked about these moves. There’s a famous story in my family that my dad took my mom to see 2001 on their first anniversary. She hates it to this day.

I described Jeanne Dielman to her and she immediately went home and watched it. Got some amusing text messages.

Every time I think I'm skeptical of 2001 I watch it again and it's always great. Most recently watched it with the kids, who — despite being raised on MCU/new Star Wars/etc — were totally engrossed. It's not a personal favorite or a movie that does much for me emotionally, but it is a stellar (ha) piece of filmmaking.

Makes me wish for his Napoleon movie

Maybe part of the issue is that with almost all his other movies you can kinda have this personal relationship to it, your own take, etc….but 2001 belongs to everyone, for better or worse. I can’t imagine it being anyone’s “favorite” movie, or even favorite Kubrick.

I'm going to hold off on trying it again until I can see it on the big screen.

One of the repertory theatres near here is showing Jeanne Dielman in a few weeks. Gonna be lit.

Anyone doubtful of Seven Samurai should just watch the final battle. There’s this one long tracking shot looking outward from inside some buildings that’s just exhilarating.

Also, the totally deflated feeling afterwards at what should be their moment of triumph seems to come from a very deep place in Kurosawa.

I'm part of this and am excited.

Really want to vote for something that includes jokes, which narrows things down pretty severely

A guy at a screening of Beau Travail burst out laughing at the dancing in the final scene, otherwise you might want to stick to Singin' in the Rain.

Makes me wish for his Napoleon movie

Just multiply Barry Lyndon by Eyes Wide Shut and add Pacino.

Godard only appears here in his silent-film cameo in the Varda film; I suspect this is Fate punishing him for not answering the door when she came to visit him in Faces Places.

But I do love it. I’m sorry but HALs death is an astonishing moment, dancing spaceships, the light show, the star child, it’s just a fun fucking movie.

― ryan, Sunday, 8 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Not the movie I watched.

"They're doing the complete Kurosawa at the BFI right now."

Definitely looking forward to seeing a couple more of them on the big screen.

Do you like other Kubrick movies?

I went to see Dielman today at the cinema. I feel different. I'm not sure how. I don't drink by my own. I don't drink on Sundays as a general rule. I had to drink afterwards.

Beau Travail for me, not a tough pick but I love a lot of these.

And Mizoguchi bangs gavel
And Ozu bangs gavel
And Naruse bangs gavel
And Kiyoshi Kurosawa bangs gavel
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Sunday, January 8, 2023

don't forget Imamura

still haven't seen a Naruse film

Don't forget Oshima either!

I've seen four Naruse films but I would have guessed I'd seen two, he's one of these directors where the films blend together if you're not super attuned to the aesthetic.

They do but he's friskier than Ozu, who also addresses family

I’ve seen only one of these. Got some homework to do.

Oh, wait - seen two.

which two?

This is off-topic, but does anyone know anything about Naomi Kawase? Her films have been in competition for the Palme D'Or at Cannes five times since 2003, with one winning the Grand Prix and another the Ecumenical Jury Prize. I have yet to see one though, and she seems to be completely under the radar

Do you like other Kubrick movies?

― ryan, Sunday, 8 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Paths of Glory and Spartacus are fine, just sorta bog standard ok films.

Barry Lyndon is his only great film, but even then that's accidental. The lack of feeling that he brings to anything he touches perfectly suits the material.

Eyes Wide Shut is funny and that's probably the other one from him that pays repeat watching.

Anyway the guy isn't in the same league as most great directors. He is more like a really good technician. 10 mins from a b-movie like 'Out of the Past' is where it's at and he is only talked up because the US is insecure about great art. Really hope the work that's being done to take down this stuff down carries on. Like, Godfather II is finished now. The only way is up.

Most great films are accidental tbh. Too many x-factors.

Most of the great filmmakers get a crew together that end up consistently making great films.

you couldn't be more wrong about Paths Of Glory imo

but I do agree Barry Lyndon is his greatest

Re: Naruse, I think I’d take Yearning over any given Ozu, but thankful I get to have them all

This is off-topic, but does anyone know anything about Naomi Kawase? Her films have been in competition for the Palme D'Or at Cannes five times since 2003, with one winning the Grand Prix and another the Ecumenical Jury Prize. I have yet to see one though, and she seems to be completely under the radar

I'm not a fan of it, but I think The Godfather II is only 'finished' because everyone decided that The Godfather itself was the appropriate the stand-in for the trilogy

Most of the great filmmakers get a crew together that end up consistently making great films.

― xyzzzz__,

Kubrick got a great crew together consistently too. So did Renoir, Kurosawa, Hitchcock, etc. Spielberg often works with a great cinematographer (Janusz Kaminski). I love film because these people get crews together and still produce flawed work that I still wanna watch and you still can't control the results because there are too many people.

Unless it was Eric who was lukewarm.

Just about every film on this list has scenes that make me cringe from inappropriateness, silliness, and other instances of poor direction -- and that's okay.

I'm not a fan of it, but I think _The Godfather II_ is only 'finished' because everyone decided that _The Godfather_ itself was the appropriate the stand-in for the trilogy

I’ve never seen a Naomi Kawase film. There have been ample and consistent warning signs from the ones I trust

"Kubrick got a great crew together consistently too"

The difference with Kubrick is they were making stuff that was consistently bad.

Just a colossal folly for the studios to indulge him.

But that's not what you wrote -- it sounds as if you wrote that it takes a good crew to make good films. If you want to argue that Kubrick couldn't make good films because of his cramped vision or whatever, that's legit, because whatever else Kubrick was the one major director b/w 1957 and 1999 who had absolute control over what he wrote, directed, and organized.

Among Americans, that is, unless you include Woody Allen, which lol I'll agree with you

Often a good crew gets assembled under a director, they seem to go on a run of great films.

I am guessing Kubrick had a similar band, they all bought in on his vision, which I don't connect with at all xp

you couldn't be more wrong about Paths Of Glory imo

― calzino, Monday, 9 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I'll give it another watch someday.

All fair enough! Was just curious.

Re: feeling in Kubrick, at least in the latter films (post-2001) the feeling I get is his palpable anxiety about the world's capacity for violence, terror, and chaos (and in the last movie...the possible safe haven, or illusion of it, in domesticity...). The Killing is probably the thesis statement.

I am guessing Kubrick had a similar band, they all bought in on his vision, which I don't connect with at all xp

― xyzzzz__,

Fair. I don't either. He's part of the He-Man Crew recognized by cineastes younger than 21.

Paths of Glory is actually the one Kubrick film where the thesis statement (politicians make wars happen) gets backed up.

Yes. I think after 2001 he definitely enters in a "late period" kind of style where the motivating traumas are very much metaphorized or occluded (ie, the shining) and I can totally get why someone wouldn't like that but for me the indirectness is an attempt to get closer by other means--and a healthy skepticism about what art can do or say about such things in the first place.

(though I suppose it also doesn't get much more direct than a literal river of blood...)

Alfred: 2001 and The Godfather.

The Killing aside, I don’t think lithe suited Kubrick much

"Lithe" doesn't suit most filmmakers here for better or worse, Renoir and Denis and Wong excepted.

these last posts seem like gobbledegook

2001 is still the greatest movie of all time to me. It is detached and cerebral and pompous but it is also profound and moving and so beautiful to watch. It's still thrilling after after 55 years. Seeing it for the first time was one of the teenage experiences I will never forget. It was what got me interested in film.

Not being "lithe" is not an insult! Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Ozu, Lynch, etc. aren't lithe at all.

Yep. Those who aren’t terribly into Kubrick tend to slightly overvalue his early quickies

"...he is only talked up because the US is insecure about great art. Really hope the work that's being done to take down this stuff down carries on. Like, Godfather II is finished now. The only way is up."

There you go again.

Godfather II don't even have that kind of muscle anymore.

"the work that's being done to take down this stuff down"--you actually do make it all sound like a conspiracy. And there's this undercurrent of "We've won, nah-nah, now pack up and go home" when you write about Kubrick or The Godfathers I find kind of juvenile.

Have a heart, clemenza! It must be hard on him to be on this board with so many inferior minds, especially after they laughed at him at the academy.

(xposts) Nice. Or "Kay, Kubrick's way of doing things is over -- it's finished. Even he knows that. I mean in 10 years, the Top 10 will be nothing but Chantel Akerman films."

singin in the rain for me

Probably for me too.

Nice to see it getting votes! It's amazing.

I wonder if The Searchers will get any.

SitR was the only one of these 20 films to make me cry multiple times in the last year for just how good it is

Godfather films are great (I even ride for 3 to an extent) but there’s maybe a sense that the culture had consumed them and spit them out in increasingly uninteresting ways and why give too much thought to them?

My one problem w/the trilogy is I’m not really moved by any of the characters, there’s amazing storytelling all over the place but I’m a little removed from it, for all the talk about Kubrick being a cold filmmaker I find these films a little cold deep down albeit superficially running hot. Might obviously be a michael thing, he’s an icy dude who’s hard to like even before he falls into a vat of familia and becomes Mobman.

Oh I'm moved by Fredo. "I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says!" is a big part of my vocabulary. As for Michael, being better at "the business" than even his father at the expense of the family is a tiny bit sad if you're moved by that sort of thing.

the iciness being the tragic flaw, i guess.

There are many moments in the first two GFs that move me, but you might be on to something there, I don't know.

I'm positive, though, they will never go away. Maybe GFII has slipped for the strategic reason that's been mentioned, but I don't believe it has anything to do with the film itself. There are always going to be young critics who see those two films for the first time, and--I believe--many of them will be as overwhelmed as I and countless others were.

Nice to see it getting votes! It's amazing.

I wonder if _The Searchers_ will get any.

I’m not feeling like they’re totally ice cold and I’m not sure it’s a major flaw in the movies, it’s an almost admirable decision to have a lead character be that kind of bastard. I feel like in G3 one of the drawbacks is actually making him a warmer version of the guy.

Ok I guess I might say for a moving character, to me it’s probably Frank Pentangeli, for some reason. Fredo is also moving yeah to me for his fear and Michael’s implacable desire to kill him no matter what he does. But it doesn’t really make me feel for michael at all, and I’m not sure that was the intent either.

The thing that moves me about Michael is when you see him in the early scenes, knowing where he's headed. And also seeing Pacino, and knowing where--"Who-ah!" or however that goes--he's headed.

As far as Kubrick goes, I don't see anything to suggest he's going to disappear. It didn't win like some people thought it would, but he's got the #4 film right now, plus two or three others in the Top 100, I think. So I don't know what xyzzzz's talking about there.

Kubrick has three on the big list and three on the director's list, four different films in all. Is that better or worse than last time? I don't know, but it's still pretty damn good. He and Hitchcock and Godard will continue to place numerous films all over the place.

cannot get past the racism in the searchers

Just today I knuckled down and watched Jeanne Dielman. I didn't hate it, but I voted for Man With a Movie Camera (if it hadn't been that, it would have been Sunrise).

cannot get past the racism in the searchers

I thought The Searchers was the only western still on the list because it is seen as, on some level, "dealing with" the racism. I don't like the film enough to make that argument.

It is pretty far from the only vintage American western to deal with the racism, is my understanding, but it’s certainly the most visible

I used to be a non-believer in The Searchers but now I think I can safely say, like Hank Worden’s Mose Harper, “I’ve been baptized, Reverend, I’ve been baptized.”

I've seen all twenty. I like John Ford and Chantal Akerman. But my personal favorite on this list is Beau Travail. (Though Sunrise is right up there.)

2001 is still the greatest movie of all time to me. It is detached and cerebral and pompous but it is also profound and moving and so beautiful to watch. It's still thrilling after after 55 years. Seeing it for the first time was one of the teenage experiences I will never forget. It was what got me interested in film.

― Dan S, Monday, 9 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I get that it's beautiful to look at on the big screen (and the soundtrack is the best thing about it for me; I couldn't not see it after looking at the music choices). But I don't see anything very profound in HAL, and what engages your intellect in this?

"the work that's being done to take down this stuff down"--you actually do make it all sound like a conspiracy. And there's this undercurrent of "We've won, nah-nah, now pack up and go home" when you write about Kubrick or The Godfathers I find kind of juvenile.

― clemenza, Monday, 9 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Stuff like Dielman has been pretty much belittled or just isn't seen by film criticism outside of S&S. And like Omar says the end result of Godfather is greatest ends up in a an uninteresting place.

And like I said to you in the other thread, there ought to be an element of gaming in this particular poll. Rather than worrying about whether nonsense like 2001 will keep its place why can't we get really great films like Makavejev's W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism in the top 20 in future editions of this poll?

In the first two Godfathers there is lots of interesting stuff in it. This is a story of Italian migration into America.

I voted Ozu, I think in the end because his work as a whole is what I'm most sympatico with at this point in my life

It is pretty far from the only vintage American western to deal with the racism, is my understanding, but it’s certainly the most visible

Yeah, classic Hollywood westerns deal with racism more frequently than people think (which is not the same as saying they do so as often or as deeply as they should have). People assume they never did and so when they see The Searchers, whose discussion of racism doesn't go much beyond Heart Of Darkness imo, they hugely overinflate its credentials in that department.

I highly recommend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Way_Out_(1950_film)

Also: those Anthony Mann westerns addressed w/out much fuss the relations b/w whites and the indigenous populations.

yeah (as i was tempted to point out several times on the Avatar thread) that kind of stuff was part of the standard toolkit for tons of Hollywood westerns at least since Broken Arrow in 1950

I took a class in grad school on the archetype of "captivity narratives" and of course The Searchers was a major text...it's a very rich, if uncomfortable, film in that way.

I got into movies seriously in the mid to late 90s so the 1992 list was my introduction to the canon (once I realized the AFI list was limited, to say the least...)

1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. La Regle du Jeu (Renoir)
3. Tokyo Story (Ozu)
4. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
5. The Searchers (Ford)
6. L’Atalante (Vigo)
6. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
6. Pather Panchali (Ray)
6. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)

I like the 1982 list...

Citizen Kane
The Rules of the Game
Seven Samurai
Singin' in the Rain
8½
Battleship Potemkin
L'Avventura
The Magnificent Ambersons
Vertigo
The General
The Searchers

First one I ever came across was the '72 list (in The Book of Lists) while in high school:

1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
3. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
4. 8½ (Fellini)
5. L’avventura (Antonioni)
5. Persona (Bergman)
7. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
8. The General (Keaton)
8. The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
10. Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
10. Wild Strawberries (Bergman)

Just 17 voters, I think.

Oh I'm moved by Fredo. "I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says!" is a big part of my vocabulary.

"It's the way Pop wanted it."

"It's not the way I wanted it!"

Oddly, I thought Sonny was the most empathetic character in the first GF. Probably has to do with the heat Caan brought to the role. I've always thought he was the standout among a cast of standouts.

The last hug between Sonny and Michael is the most emotional moment for me, yeah.

Cazale's untimely death was such a massive loss to film acting

rewatching it a few years ago it occurred to me that the emotional journey of watching michaels character has become totally reversed, the shock of seeing him transform into a killer ghoul is replaced by the shock of seeing him as a normal friendly guy at the wedding, shopping with Kay, etc, before he's become the "actual" character that i remember & hold in my mind when i think of the film. i also realized i cant remember the first time i saw the godfather, and so cant even remember what my thoughts & feelings might have been watching him go through that transformation for the first time without knowing what was going to happen, which bummed me out a bit

cazale as fredo obv the performance that never loses its potency, impervious to rewatching

The final scene in GF2 is a masterful recapitulation.

'72: peak Bergmania

Fredo's a harder part to play too because he doesn't have any of the menace of the other male Corleones. In the book, they described Fredo as a dream child, a kid who never got in trouble, loved and obeyed his parents. Biggest undoing is his unwavering trust in people, like how he doesn't put it together that Paulie sold his dad out, or how he sides with Moe Greene, not understanding that his family is in actual danger at that point. Or not realizing he was setting his brother up to be killed with Hymen Roth/Johnny Ola.

He's dumb but mostly in the emotionally naive sense, and he doesn't understand that him being passed over is perhaps the greatest thing that could have happened to him, especially after you see what it did to Michael. Cazale captured it perfectly even though he only got a fraction of the screen time

O sorry SPOILERZ

Godfather has been so memed in culture that Michael’s rise is arguably seen as largely a good thing by so many viewers, maybe due to the genuine duplicitousness of his enemies (many of them given even more reprehensible characteristics) when his rise is actually a fall. I don’t think it’s framed as a good thing btw it’s clear it’s meant as a tragedy and these are certainly great films in that respect. It’s hard to view the tragedy as anything other than michael coming into his own, though; kinda like Macbeth or something. He was not really a corrupted good guy as much as there was something in him that was awful and fundamentally evil from the start and it just needed a push in the right context.

The first time I saw the Godfather I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere and (to be honest) how old and musty and weird the film seemed to me. And how long! (Gotta say that it took me a while, until my mid-30s, to become really interested in old movies and the ins and outs of Hollywood, and I didn’t watch a ton of films in general until then; I was somewhere in my late 20s when I saw this.) So the feeling of the movie dominates everything in my memory and the finer points would only emerge with subsequent viewings, through reading reviews or listening to podcasts about it, etc.

If I watched a movie like this for the first time today I’d likely clock much more in the way of subtleties.

Omar otm

Michael's refusal to play ball had less to do with "I am above these reprehensible, evil actions" and more "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me", he didn't like anybody, even his own father, mapping his own life out.

plus, no doubt the war probably fucked him up, he was wounded in action and probably saw some fucked up things.

when i watch it now i see him specifically through the lens of a veteran. he's returning to civilian society without fully processing what he learned about himself while at war, shaken not just by his experiences of violence but also by the side of himself those experiences revealed. back in the states at the wedding around all those thugs and triggermen, he's like a recovering alcoholic trying not to look at the bar. the war made him worried about who he might be and he's afraid to go too far and find out for sure.

otm

while many mobsters were unhinged and might take down a civvy for disrespecting for them, the majority of the victims of violence by mob's hands were other mobsters, who were also pieces of shit, and even then, the rules of engagement were fairly tight, you couldn't just clip whomever you wanted.

Michael was bestowed the Navy Cross, which means more than likely he killed or aided in the killing of many soldiers, many of them civilians who probably didn't want to be there. yeah, there's rules of engagement there too, but often amounted then to "see a guy wearing a different uniform, and shoot". that shit will fuck you up more than killing someone named Johnny No-Neck who robbed one of your street men.

I saw a 25th anniversary screening of The Godfather when I was 18, and it didn't make much of an impression on me. I found the story hard to follow and didn't care about the characters. Not long after, I saw Part II out of a sense of obligation and mostly felt similar about it. (For context, my favorite filmmakers at the time were probably Woody Allen, Robert Altman, and Mike Leigh.) I'm sure I'd get more out of it if I watched it now, though I haven't gotten around to it.

I definitely didn't follow everything the first time I watched it, mostly because it was my first exposure to mob-related cinema, so I didn't even get the tropes of the genre very well.

I read the book not long after and it made a lot more sense on my next viewing, though Puzo had somewhat of a maddening tendency to overexplain things

that and mentioning how people's sphincters released when they died

I had the odd experience of seeing GF2 before I saw GF.

"who the fuck are all these people"

Saw Godfather for the first time as a maybe 14-year-old and it played beautifully. Saw Godfather II as probably a 19- or 20-year-old and it felt like an obligation.

when i watch it now i see him specifically through the lens of a veteran. he's returning to civilian society without fully processing what he learned about himself while at war, shaken not just by his experiences of violence but also by the side of himself those experiences revealed.

ewatching it a few years ago it occurred to me that the emotional journey of watching michaels character has become totally reversed, the shock of seeing him transform into a killer ghoul is replaced by the shock of seeing him as a normal friendly guy at the wedding, shopping with Kay, etc, before he's become the "actual" character that i remember & hold in my mind when i think of the film

so OTM. You see the change when he return from Italy months (presumably) after Appolonia's death.

XP

https://www.35milimetros.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/TheSearchers_imaginario03.jpg

Both those Godfather/Searchers analogies are perfect--the closing door I had already picked up on, but I'd never thought about the returning-from-war parallel.

the key dividing line between the normie michael and mob michael is obv the restaurant assassination but what turns him truly cold, point of no return, is when apollonia is murdered yeah. difference between the godfather and other films of course is that the family in this film is the femme fatale of sorts, which is luring him away from a decent life and on the path to destruction.

The best Michael-before-the-fall moment might be the coda to II, where he announces his enlistment (to the befuddlement of Sonny).

Which is a big part of why I've always said it's better to the see the two original films back-to-back, rather than the chronologically reordered TV version. The extra scenes are nice to have, but you lose those present-past transitions.

Agreed.

When Michael visits Kay at the school, he already looks sunken and hunched.

The best part of Michael's arc might just be Brando's expression when he gets out of hospital and they explain to him what Michael's done

I can visualize that perfectly: Tom tells him (hesistantly) "It was Michael who shot Sollozzo," then Brando weakly waves him away.

I get that it's beautiful to look at on the big screen (and the soundtrack is the best thing about it for me; I couldn't not see it after looking at the music choices). But I don't see anything very profound in HAL, and what engages your intellect in this?
― xyzzzz__, Monday, January 9, 2023

I'm probably not going to express my ideas here very well, but:

besides the overwhelming visual impact of viewing it on a big screen and the soundtrack, what engages me most is its story about leaps in evolution that seem almost impossible, its vision of the past, and its stunning imagination of the future. HAL's dysfunction is focused on a moment in the middle of the film - possibly predicting something we as humans are going to be facing in the not too distant future - but the span of time in the movie is so vast

xp Cazale's great in that scene too. Fredo knows that he's dead weight, and that the family's had to make a deal to ensure his protection, and there's that hint of embarrassment as he repeats the line that they're using to save face. "I'm going to learn the casino business." "Yeah..."

If Fredo has driven to that toll booth instead, and saw the fedoraed men with Tommy guns, he'd have probably waved and said "hey guys!"

I love Dan S's posts.

Xpost His handling of the gun probably an accurate depiction of what would happen if most inexperienced people tried to quickly pull and shoot

his anguished PAP! PAP!!! when Vito's shot is masterful acting.

Very visceral

Have you all spent the entire day talking about The Godfather?

A little bit. Mostly I puttered around in the kitchen in honour of my favourite film.

You never know, you might have to cook for 20 guys someday

what engages me most is its story about leaps in evolution that seem almost impossible, its vision of the past, and its stunning imagination of the future. HAL's dysfunction is focused on a moment in the middle of the film - possibly predicting something we as humans are going to be facing in the not too distant future - but the span of time in the movie is so vast

― Dan S, Tuesday, 10 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I find the dystopian aspect of it pretty poor and really divorced from politics into something really nihilistic and teenage. Technology -- whether it's a book or a computer -- has always been with us and it's always breaking and sorta dysfunctional when it's mass produced. It's a lot more banal and everyday relationship with tech.

OTOH I only watched it once and spent time rolling my eyes at it. I didn't see it at an impressionable age. Vast ranges of time is an ok idea though I think I wasn't interested by then.

Always remember Mark S saying somewhere on here that in Kubrick's future they still hadn't sorted the Visible Panty Line.

I could read Dielman as someone -- very slowly and eventually -- worn down by time and technology (household appliances used to cook, for example).

You see time as vast and terrifying too, an emptiness to fill xp

It should be noted that 2001 came out in 1968 and huffing about "hmm, unsophisticated portrayal of dystopia" is kind of laughable considering the multiplex films it existed next to and the fact that dystopia is hardly the first thing on its mind.

x-post

I saw JD as mechanically powering through the responsibilities of a good housewife (and taking the same determined More Work For Mother attitude to...servicing her johns). Then something--perhaps the letter from her sister in Canada, perhaps the conversation with her son about his early ideas about sex and his ensuing Oedipus Complex phase--throws her out of gear.

xposts: plenty of published 60s (and before) SF is already grappling with what I am talking about in a more sophisticated way than what Arthur C Clarke is doing. Maybe Kurbrick could've absorbed some of it and not been so lazy.

All of that, plus per Akerman she has her first orgasm with the second john — indicated only by the mussed hair — which makes her late and throws after her routine. Then it happens again with the third John, which represents a level of threat to her whole careful order and emotional repression that she can’t process.

Throws OFF her routine I mean

it's true, Kubrick famously hated reading and researching. xxp

About the only film I haven't seen on the hundred, Daisies, will get a viewing tonight. Can't wait.

xx-post

Useful information. I assume JD has been studied as a retort to Belle de Jour's fantasy of a proper bourgeoise housewife/part-time whore?

Kubrick was a compulsive collector and hoarder, since when is that researching?

lol oh ok.

theres plenty of sophisticated politics to be found in 2001 imho, especially (but not exclusively) if you can put yourself in the headspace & concerns of a 1968 viewer, beyond simplistic dystopian allegories. but per ryan upthread if you truly get no pleasure out of the images & music & editing theres not much else to be said.

best parts of JD for me are those moments she seems lost in thought, those moments she's not working. waiting for the store to open, the cafe, arguably even the closing shot--she withdraws into herself, seems alive in a new way. it's possible the ending removes any ambiguity from what's going on these moments, but not necessarily and I prefer to think not.

one cool thing about 2001 is Kubrick's sensibility clashing with Clarke's way more optimistic technological humanism.

BdJ surely needs no such retort, predicated as it is upon being just that fantasy, that impossibility

in the absence of Bunuel, Tarkovsky, a few others, will go for 2001 over Jeu cos wheeee space wheeeeee

"Kubrick was lazy and didn't do research;" an amazing starchild of a take is born this day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aGnuLXCruc

in the absence of Bunuel, Tarkovsky, a few others, will go for 2001 over Jeu cos wheeee space wheeeeee

― imago, Tuesday, 10 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Space isn't fun at all in 2001 or in Solaris.

Space, where no one can hear you snore

(I like 2001)

me too, but I did fall asleep during a screening of it once

Where no one can hear you meme, iirc

It's okay to fall asleep during movies -- I have watching Tsai or even Jeanne Dielman (sorry, Morbs, wherever you are).

Heh. I have fallen asleep in many movies. At first I felt guilty but eventually I started to liken to the old days of "walking in in the middle" and enjoyed the challenge of filling in the blanks when I woke back up. I also witnessed my erstwhile friend the big shot director fall asleep on several occasions so there's that too.

Once during Vengeance Is Mine iirc.

Technology -- whether it's a book or a computer -- has always been with us and it's always breaking and sorta dysfunctional when it's mass produced.

hal's madness isn't about a hippie distaste for technology. (also he is not mass-produced but bespoke, but maybe this is part of yr complaint.) it's about taking the nsc-68 values of the conference room scene, where everyone is reminded of the necessity of lying to their families, to their logical terminus. same as dr strangelove.

There's an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show where his alibi for some situation depends on him having fallen asleep during a film. Every time he tells another person- Buddy, Sally, eventually Laura, I guess- they inevitably say "You fell asleep during The Guns of Navarone?!"

(and like, indeed the thing in hal has always been with us, hence the monkey part, xps)

I'm sure you-know-who would have remembered that one.

i nodded off a few times during inland empire in the theater last year

waking up at any point in that movie is a horrible experience

falling deeply asleep in the theater and waking up without having any sense of where you are in the runtime is really fun, i highly recommend it. downside is you might get robbed, but thats the magic of cinema for you.

Back in my drinking days, I fell asleep in the theater and missed most of Inglorious Basterds. I have yet to re-watch it.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's films always seem like an invitation to sleep - "I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours"

Carpenter's Dark Star in particular comes across like a working stiff riposte to the sleekness and sterility of Kubrickian space travel. 2001 elides questions of ownership - who's funding all this? - although you'd think Kubrick, if not Clarke, might have better anticipated the rise of the despotic billionaire spaceship owner/controller. No need for Hal (at a narrative level) when someone like Musk is far more unpredictably petty and vengeful.

It should be noted that 2001 came out in 1968 and huffing about "hmm, unsophisticated portrayal of dystopia" is kind of laughable considering the multiplex films it existed next to and the fact that dystopia is hardly the first thing on its mind.

although you'd think Kubrick, if not Clarke, might have better anticipated the rise of the despotic billionaire spaceship owner/controller

true, but i think Kubrick for one was focused on the Operation Paperclip of it all.

a few years back, I went to a double feature of Tarkovsky's The Mirror and Nostalghia with three high school friends and we all conked out within the first 20 minutes of The Mirror. After being awoken during intermission, we did all stay awake for and generally enjoy Nostalghia though.

B-b-but were there a lot of multiplexes in existence in 1968?
(xp)

Morbs’ take that 2001 is an optimistic film because it looks forward to something beyond humanity is a characteristic and correct take
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.),

Yes, the attitude is, "There's gotta be something better than this."

I was bored by 2001 when I watched it as a teenager but I no longer believe in boredom so I should really watch it again someday

^silby otm!

it's a good movie is my opinion

i will never turn away sleep when it comes to me but i can only really zonk out if it's one of those theaters with the reclining chairs...but in theory i am very pro falling asleep to movies...especially since a lot of my favorite movies have a kind of time-dilation effect that is familiar to what you get from daytime napping.

If I go to a movie after 10, I have to drink a mega soda to stay up.

But then that means pissing during the movie

i am very much of the opinion that there are films that not only are improved by the half-sleep state, but that have been designed to lull you into rest and put you in that state so that you are cycling the right brainwaves to step into the experience. weeraseethakul, harvard sensory ethnography lab, kurosawa, sometimes kubrick... il buco did a great job of that.
crucially, this really only works right on the big screen.

I have to watch Scorpio Rising (28 minutes) over three night at home--I can't get through any film without falling asleep if I'm in my chair. (Better in a theatre.)

Maybe, but I regret the day I had too much wine at brunch and fell asleep during the restored version of Forbidden Paradise.
/xpost

oh I cannot drink before watching a film in the theatre: instant nap even if it's one glass of wine or beer. I can drink during it, though.

back in my wine-drinking days, a friend and I would go to the local winery, then see a movie, and just about every time, instant Zzzzs.

fell asleep on Simpsons movie and Walk Hard that way

At home I've no problem watching a fillum with a cocktail.

just a public service reminder that sleep apnoea is a thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWH7oPBnD9s

lol, the snorers at moma are legendary

My entire family has apnea. The field recordings you could make when we all sleep in one hotel room ...yikes

THE THAI FILMMAKER Apichatpong Weerasethakul encourages audiences to sleep during his films. “Entering a movie theatre is not unlike entering a dream,” he said in one interview. “Films hypnotize us and take us to new worlds. Sleeping and films are like twin realities.”

https://thebaffler.com/latest/apichatpong-the-memorious-zhou

lol, i've never seen that but it's very gratifying!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaZRSQfFo8Y

Morbs’ take that 2001 is an optimistic film because it looks forward to something beyond humanity is a characteristic and correct take
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.),

Yes, the attitude is, "There's gotta be something better than this."

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 10 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Hmm, not a correct take, sorry. This is the kind of attitude being exploited by billionaires that are building rockets on the back of the exploitation of others when what's better for them is to have their assets confiscated and for them to work the land.

Basically all we need is right here.

isn't it, like, a metaphor

I'm not saying I agree, xyzzz, sorry.

it sounds like a reasonable enough take on the film 2001, if not necessarily on how the planet should be managed

xyzzz, there'a way to have a conversation without constantly using variations on "You're wrong" and "Not correct." I'm sure I'm the only one who agrees -- and I don't even like 2001.

never mind the dystopia doesn't 2001 as story - which is probably the least of it as a movie anyway - belong to a Freudian "humanity the abandoned child looking for its daddy" strain of SF

I mean there's a big baby and everything

See also AI, which is “in dialogue” with 2001 on this topic, as they say.

This strangely neglected topic.

Robot boy wants his mommy, waits aeons in suspended animation until finally he is granted his wish by more advanced aliens - or alien robots? - who deliver her to him in resurrected form, if only for 24 hours

It’s almost like good art can bear a multitude of interpretations.

But I suspect xyzzz is being a bit troll-y and “ain’t I stinker” about this whole thing so I’m not sure it’s worth engaging with said poster on this topic.

2001 elides questions of ownership - who's funding all this?

it's v clear the answer is "the state, in partnership w pan am"-- that is, the good ol mil-ind-com

Kubrick, if not Clarke, might have better anticipated the rise of the despotic billionaire spaceship owner/controller

would this movie really be better if they had howard hughes onboard

should benoit blanc have come too

Ahm sorrih Dave. Ahm afraid ah can't doo that,

Ah say, ah say, ah say Dave

i do p much agree w alphie that the movie's suggestion that specieswide transformation and victory in our historic confrontation with the hal-thing is something we need to go to jupiter for is an opiate, and that in this way the movie's a reflection of the values of the v age it is critiquing. (i mean that's kinda what things... do, tho.) still i enjoy thinking abt that confrontation i guess, and usually do say yes when someone asks if i'd enjoy something i already enjoy but in space.

Don’t think he likes to be called that.

apologies if so! a hollow voice says doh.

wait who are we talking about/to

my last was in response to xyzzz re: exploration, space travel, palpitating the pebbles of an alien world etc

Morbs’ take that 2001 is an optimistic film because it looks forward to something beyond humanity is a characteristic and correct take

― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Tuesday, January 10

Agree with this. I also like its imagining a more advanced civilization guiding our evolution

Hmm, not a correct take, sorry.

LOL

OK, then.

It seems to me that Clarke's vision--and it comes through more clearly in the book than it does in the film--is that the "star child" is the next step in human evolution, prompted (again) by the monolith and whatever mysterious force is behind it. As a vision of the human future, it's quite optimistic, if a bit chilly.

Hmm, not a correct take, sorry.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, January 10, 2023 4:09 PM (three hours ago)

Well, you should know

I've traced the post ... the starchild is coming from inside the thread!

This is your moderator etc.

Do not attempt to adjust your television set.

Have you all spent the entire day talking about 2001?

Worth it

touché

Just wait until we talk about Andrei Rublev.

There's like 15 more of these to get through - someone post something snotty about Cléo

Starchild grew up to be a Starman iirc. Then fell to earth.

And started a war

lol clem

There's like 15 more of these to get through - someone post something snotty about Cléo

The never-made Madonna remake would have owned.

xyzzz, there'a way to have a conversation without constantly using variations on "You're wrong" and "Not correct." I'm sure I'm the only one who agrees -- and I don't even like 2001.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 10 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

That's a bit weird. I gave my take on why I thought it wasn't doing it for me. I don't really like art that says "there is something better out there than this".

Hmm, not a correct take, sorry.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, January 10, 2023 4:09 PM (three hours ago)

Well, you should know

― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

You haven't watched The Last Samurai. Please.

Never mind the seven of them.

someone post something snotty about Cléo

The silent film pastiche is poorly observed and executed - Godard never did anything else half as embarrassing. Vagabond rules much harder.

the thought of anyone trying to adapt HdW's The Last Samurai fills me with both intense joy and despair, don't think anyone could pull it off

set it in space. Ludo is the real starchild

DeWitt would sue that stupid idea, it would never get off the ground.

Rewatched La règle for something like the fifteenth time. It is insane how good it is. Just wonderful acting on every level, even the smallest roles.

I was introduced to it in possibly the worst way, in an aesthetics class where we only watched a snippet of the costume party sequence alongside a reading from Bazin - basically just focusing on formal aspects, the way the camera moves, depth of field. I don't think the magic of it exactly came through. The film does so much to build up this crazy world of love and secrecy and shifting alliances. You watch the whole thing and it's like... a battle as intricate as Seven Samurai.

Yes indeed

gotta rewatch that one

The way Renoir begins with Jurieu, seemingly forgets about him, then re-centers the film around his dumb clueless presence for the denouement are examples of good screenwriting (despite how much he said he and the cast improvised) and choreography. The one most committed to obsolete class prerogatives has to die to snap everyone back to reality.

There’s only 4 of these that I have any specific memory of how they go. Probably 2 or 3 others that I believe I’ve seen but have no memory of. I guess I shouldn’t be allowed to vote, but voting anyway, for SitR which is the only one I’ve rewatched recently and which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I'm not gonna poll the directors' list because too much overlap but might be nice to have it here:

1) 2001
2) Citizen Kane
3) The Godfather
=4) Jeanne Dielman
=4) Tokyo Story
=6) Vertigo
=6) 8 1/2
8) Mirror
=9) In the Mood for Love
=9) Close-up
=9) Persona
=12) Taxi Driver
=12) Barry Lyndon
=14) Beau Travail
=14) Seven Samurai
=14) Breathless
=14) Stalker
18) Apocalypse Now
19) A Woman Under the Influence
=20) Bicycle Thieves
=20) Rashomon

Big outlier here is the Cassavetes, I think?

SiTR would be an extremely sensible pick for the greatest movie ever made, imo.

2001 kind of a perfect choice for directors since it probably represents their greatest dream: full control over a big studio budget, major cultural impact, personal/ambitious/uncompromising.

Big outlier here is the Cassavetes, I think?

Yes, that's interesting. It's almost surely the least scripted film on the list. I suppose it's because he was able to get such stellar performances from Rowlands and Falk.

Rewatched La règle for something like the fifteenth time. It is insane how good it is. Just wonderful acting on every level, even the smallest roles.

Nora Gregor's terrible!

Depends how much French you know to spot her rotten accent.

I'm not straight and am not inclined (ok maybe a little inclined) to connect with romantic films about straight people, but In the Mood for Love is an amazing film. As I mentioned before it is a compressed, complicated story that advances in largely shorthand scenes with unexpected moments that are suddenly intimately dilated. it is beautiful to watch

good posts abt regle de jeu. one of the most movie movies ever, a pleasure to watch be a movie. i like that in addition to being a “sumptuous farce” and having passages of terrifying gesamtkunstwerk stuff like the symphony-of-death hunting scene it also has classic instructional fun-w-yr-friends indie-filmmaking moments like the shot of someone fanning some smoke from out of frame left while renoir staggers up a nondescript hillock clutching his hat like wow what a terrible car crash!! great stuff.

du, lol.

Rules was for several years the required text in my film course's capstone project, but, alas, my students Just Didn't Get It. The last three semesters I've used The 400 Blows.

is that a Wilt Chamberlain biopic

Oscar Wilde biopic

Many will disagree, but I feel like the big Altman ensemble films do what La règle du jeu does while reflecting a social milieu closer to my own. La grande illusion is the only Renoir I've really loved throughout.

What other Renoir have you watched?

Watching the '30s films reissued by Criterion in the last decade (Toni, La Chienne, The Crime of Monsieur Lange), never mind Boudu and La Bête Humaine, have considerably enhanced my appreciation. He was already mastering deep focus for the sake of depicting characters interacting with freshness; he's one of those directors who captures the smell of air and grass.

Other than the two we're discussing, I've seen La Chienne, Une partie de campagne, La Marseillaise, La Bête Humaine, and The River, but it's been so long I had to look it up. I was bringing it up relating to reasons why your students might not respond to his films.

one of those directors who captures the smell of air and grass

I know what you mean, but from his films I remember a few minutes of nature and then long scenes of fairly theatrical dialogue in stuffy sets.

Which Altman films do you have in mind? I'm struggling to think of one where I, personally, relate to the social milieu but maybe I'm blanking on something obvious

the rough and tumble port life as depicted in Popeye

I was bringing it up relating to reasons why your students might not respond to his films.

Oh! Yeah, for sure.

I remember a few minutes of nature and then long scenes of fairly theatrical dialogue in stuffy sets.

What I love about Toni, Une Partie de Campagne, and La Bête Humaine is how often the characters lie on hills, sit by rivers, while his camera's alert to the sun and clouds.

gosford park borders on remake in places, but assume that's not the milieu in question

hard not to find yourself in nashville tho even if fleetingly

he's one of those directors who captures the smell of air and grass.

Yes, this is what I love about A Day in the Country. You could probably do a whole piece just on rivers in Renoir films.

Sesonske’s writings on these films are good – he likes finding mythic and pagan themes in Renoir, e.g. Marceau in The Rules of the Game as a Pan type who invades the castle and then retreats to the woods in the end.

or Boudu.

Nora Gregor's terrible!

lol, okay that's fair, I wasn't really thinking of her. I was more thinking of Lisette, Robert, Marceau, all the party guests (how common was it to have a sympathetically portrayed gay character in this period?)

Even so, the film is able to absorb her performance. Christine is supposed to have a conspicuous accent and be a bit out of her element, someone who doesn’t seem to possess much guile, which is why they all think they can keep the affair between la Chesnaye and Geneviève from her. She turns that to her advantage a few times. I love how everyone is delighted by her little speech where she declares that she and Andre spent so many afternoons "sous le signe si rare de l'amitié" while meanwhile Dalio is mugging like crazy right next to her.

mugging with relief and terror

I don’t think there’s a director with a fuller trove than Renoir. Boudu, M. Lange, Day in the Country, Rules, the River, Le petit theatre … even something like Grande illusion, which I love about as much as I can possibly love a war movie

Buñuel and Ozu maybe, yes

I've watched Elena and Her Men three times in the hopes that it'll click. I know it will.

I managed to totally forget Golden Coach and French Can Can … what a career

french can can is a riot

I still have a lot left to see. La Marseillaise was not great, as I recall.

Nobody mentioned La Chienne yet?

I did.

Oh, okay, I see now./zingproblems

La chienne is one I need to watch again. In my memory, it’s bested by Scarlet Street.

Just got La Chienne from the library.

La Chienneis one of my favorite Renoir films, it is very cynical and hard-bitten. Lulu and Dédé are conning Legrand, a clerk at a Parisian hosiery firm, and taking him for a ride. He eventually realizes he has been duped and

I won’t say what happens after that.

It is a noir film that anticipated the concept of film noir

Poetic realism innit.

Another great role for and performance from Michel Simon.

Maybe it's seeing them on so many scratched 16mm prints and bad video transfers 30 years ago that has left the Renoir films seeming so dusty in my mind.

a scratched 16mm print sounds like a beautiful way to watch a renoir

The beginning of La Bete Humaine with Gabin and Carette wordlessly operating the train is so good.

I discovered Bunuel thanks to bad video transfers. My uni had every Mexican film on terrible VHS. I binged in the '90s.

on a formal level la nuit du carrefour is essential renoir imo, sublime and uncanny

Get on those Criterion versions!

I discovered Bunuel thanks to bad video transfers. My uni had every Mexican film on terrible VHS. I binged in the '90s.

It also travelled to the heel of Italy and then back to the FIDI Alamo Drafthouse.

The local library's VHS copy of Hiroshima Mon Amour was so fuzzy that I didn't realize I was actually coming down with flu while watching it, I thought it just looked that way.

Everything had haloes.

Hell of a story wrt La Chienne

In the film Michel Simon falls in love with Janie Marèse, and he did off-screen as well, while Marèse fell for Georges Flamant, who plays the pimp. Renoir and producer Pierre Braunberger had encouraged the relationship between Flamant and Marèse in order to get the fullest conviction into their performances (La Chienne was Flamant's first acting experience). After the film had been completed Flamant, who could barely drive, took Marèse for a drive, crashed the car and she was killed. At the funeral Michel Simon fainted and had to be supported as he walked past the grave. He threatened Renoir with a gun, saying that the death of Marèse was all his fault. "Kill me if you like", responded Renoir, "but I have made the film".[2]

christ

Forgot about that.

:(

Very French

Ah ha. Back to the Copacabana.

Wow, that is a strange story. Michel Simon's Legrand faints during the sentencing in the film as well.

Ended up voting for SITR, tho Kiarostami and Ozu are strong contenders too.

Watching Beau Travail again, I thought, Claire Denis could do Paul Bowles justice.

La Chienne was good. I like the seediness of the art world - basically no distinction between the pimps, critics, and art dealers.

I am puzzled on one plot detail: Is it supposed to be ambiguous whether Maurice killed Lulu? It looked to me like the knife fell on the bed and neither of them saw it, so I thought that she had accidentally been cut. The Wiki plot description says that he attacks her with the knife. But we don't see it happen; instead there's that strange cut to the outdoor scene and a kitten outside. I guess it's more explicit in the novel, probably.

Pulled the trigger for Close-Up but Rules of the Game was the closest of seconds, followed by Dielman

Missed this earlier this month:

RIP Michael Snow (1928-2023)

He cast his votes for the Greatest Films of All Time in the 2022 #SightAndSoundPoll, selecting four films, three of which are his own pic.twitter.com/d8bVeVk2G3

— Sight and Sound magazine (@SightSoundmag) January 6, 2023

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Watched the first 30 seconds of Seven Samurai last night

Just kidding

I liked what Ebert said, that Seven Samurai "represents a great divide in his work; most of his earlier films … subscribe to the Japanese virtues of teamwork, fitting in, going along, conforming. All his later films are about misfits, noncomformists and rebels.”

it still wouldn't be in my top 10 for this poll, though

I have made sure that some of you will be aghast when The Godfather's one vote places it above films you love.

lol, that is sure to be the case for In the Mood for Love

re In the Mood for Love, “The food culture of 1960s Hong Kong plays a central role throughout the film. The lonely pair continue to run into each other at the dai pai dong, ordering noodles to eat by themselves while their respective spouses “work late.” Mrs. Chan offers to make taro soup for Mr. Chow. When a drunken landlord accidentally traps them together inside Mr. Chow’s bedroom, they pass the time by eating.”

I have probably seen seven samurai over a dozen times and I will likely watch it again this year

I liked what Ebert said, that Seven Samurai "represents a great divide in his work; most of his earlier films … subscribe to the Japanese virtues of teamwork, fitting in, going along, conforming. All his later films are about misfits, noncomformists and rebels.”

I don't think that's true at all! Drunken Angel, Stray Dog and One Wonderful Sunday are all about outsiders; Ikiru and No Regrets For Our Youth explicitly go against going along and conforming. The demarcation line I'd trace, for Kurosawa as for most artists of his generation, is the defeat of Japan in WWII.

I love that after all the times I've said I very much enjoy The Godfather you still think I hate it, clem

Ozu does the quiet rebellion thing brilliantly

I have made sure that some of you will be aghast when The Godfather's one vote places it above films you love.

― clemenza, Thursday, 19 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Got to hand this one to you.

Not that you hate it, Eric, or even that you don't like it; it was that many people (I didn't even necessarily indicate you...) will hate seeing its one vote place it above films they like much more that won't get a vote.

Anyway, just a joke.

That's true; I do hate seeing movies I love get zero votes, but those are the règle du jeu

Be strong, Mr. Eric! People are watching.

Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of a cannoli

As if The Godfather will get one vote. If only!

I've been doing my darndest to direct the reactionary votes toward Seven Samurai this whole time evillaugh.gif

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

lol

lol -- see, clem? You weren't alone!

Who were the secret 2001 voters?

An even spread, though Murnau deservedThe Searchers' two votes.

yes, Sunrise deserved more love, but I like that all the rest got votes

The number that surprises me the most--shocks me almost--is 9 for Persona. Nothing to do with the film, which I love, but beforehand I was going to predict which five films I thought most likely to get zero, and that was going to be one of them. People just rarely talk about it in the context of these lists.

2 for Vertigo is a surprise given its Morbsies placement

Actually, that's just as or maybe even more surprising.

An even spread, though Murnau deservedThe Searchers' two votes.

otm, it's really stunningly beautiful top to bottom iirc

Being the only film to get zero votes is special in its own way!

Unless I’m missing something, that’s a grand total of 1 vote for silent (or thereabouts) cinema?

At least this poll kept Regle in the top 10

Man With a Movie Camera is silent, unless you see it with the Shuffle Demons providing an improvised soundtrack.

I knew I was overlooking something

murnau was robbed

2002: pop critics are stupid rockists that can barely put a sentence together. ILX is where it's at.
2022: ILX doesn't get a ballot for the S&S poll. Let's keep it that way.

Seriously though, seeing Renoir at 2nd place and then the discussion was really great. I should rewatch Regle and get to French CanCan

2002: pop critics are stupid rockists that can barely put a sentence together. ILX is where it's at.
2022: ILX doesn't get a ballot for the S&S poll. Let's keep it that way.
2001: Wins yet again

Wow. I voted for either Cleo or Persona (can't remember which) but both Sunrise and Meshes of the Afternoon deserved better than this.

Michael Jeck’s commentary for Seven Samurai on the Criterion Channel is rather dry but super well observed and cool.

Sight and Sound 2022 Round 2: 21-40

btw when did Close-Up become the canonical Kiarostami but not Through the Olive Trees, A Taste of Cherry, Certified Copy, etc., all of which I prefer? (Close-Up is fine ftr).

Close-Up was also the only Kiarostami in the top 100 in 2002 (#68) and 2012 (#43).

My first watch was in 2012, yeah.

seemed like every public library in the county had a copy of A Taste of Cherry.

Same way Tokyo Story became the default Ozu … who the hell knows? (I love Close-Up, and it’s still maybe my #4 or #5 AK overall.)

TS became the default Ozu, I suspect, because it was easily available. Every Blockbuster I visited in the '90s had a VHS copy. Not the case with Close-Up, I don't think.

the meta quality of it, as a docufiction film that kind of becomes a documentary, makes it stand out among his other great films to me

Oh, I know: we're suckers for films about films. But this is Kiarostami's fascination.

That he inserted himself into the middle of the film and changed the course of events makes it unlike any other film I think

Tokyo Story became the default Ozu because it references neither a season nor a time of day and as such is easier not to get mixed up with a different Ozus.

Tokyo Story's '92 placement (surprise top 3) fed into its availability in the ensuing decade(s) ... I agree with Dan S that Close-Up is perhaps the slipperiest of Kiarostami's meta experiments, which is also to account for it getting pushed to the top.

(Also, '22 seemed to take a lot of cues from '12 in terms of what new masters' "default" picks would be)

Come by!

https://com.miami.edu/event/the-sight-sound-top-ten-jeanne-dielman/

I wish I was in Miami instead of cold and drizzly New Jersey. Speaking of how certain films seem to get selected as the representative for a director who often made many films in a similar style, of the 5 Wong Kar Wai films I’ve seen, In the Mood for Love is the one that made the least impression on me. But I get that it’s kind of the most grown-up and has the best production values.

I usually don’t let the weather get to me, but the cold drizzle this evening and stepping over or walking through the resultant puddles was totally a bummer.

The Godfather is on tonight on film 4 uk (II tomorrow, III on friday, repeated next week). making it about a dozen of the S&S top 100 that've been on free-to-air tv since mid-december.

(and Parasite is on again next week)

I've been watching the shortest movies on the list that i haven't seen before. Partie de campagne, The house is black, black girl, several under 90 minutes. Gotta build up to edward yang, bela tarr, those endless documentaries...

Pyaasa is leaving Criterion channel this month so I'll try to watch that longer one.

Oh! Need to watch all those Guru Dutts! Meaning I need to, maybe somebody else needs to as well.

"...of the 5 Wong Kar Wai films I’ve seen, In the Mood for Love is the one that made the least impression on me"

re: In the Mood for Love, the characters repeatedly meet in a cramped 1960s Hong Kong apartment building (to a couple of Spanish language Nat King Cole songs on the soundtrack). She is always wearing different beautiful cheongsams. They get to know each other and eventually role-play the adultery they think represents the lives of their spouses. They try to imagine confronting their spouses and can’t. They yearn for the same connection with each other and it becomes very palpable for them, but then it is gone. The events are told in short-hand

In addition to the innovative filming techniques which I’ve mentioned in other threads and which go to the heart of the story - presaging or echoing of certain moments, replaying of scenes with different perspectives, use of different frame rates, overcranking, step-printing, different exposures - it is a heartbreaking story of missed connections and lost love

also how most scenes are short but some are extended

I can’t claim to have noticed the innovative techniques. Not sure if it would’ve changed my impression, which is that the film was less entertaining than Chungking Express, Days of Being Wild, Happy Together or Fallen Angels.

I haven’t seen it since it was in theaters but Dan’s analysis seems to me otm. Will hopefully find some time in my busy schedule to rewatch soon/pvmic