Sight and Sound 2022 Round 2: 21-40

Late Spring without a second thought.

Pather Panchali.

(Fooled you, didn't I?)

Late Spring (Ozu, 1949)
Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)
L’Atalante (Vigo, 1934)
Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955)

Don't make me choose.

DAISIES every time

I'll watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire and get back to you. Definitely won't vote Wilder or Chaplin.

Daisies was my discovery this month -- I had never seen it!

I can tell you what I WON'T consider:

Shoah
8 1/2
Taxi Driver
Portrait of a Lady on Fire

I like the four of'em to some degree, especially the last two.

Quite hard. Has the first film in both polls I've not watched (Chaplin).

I actually have six still unseen here (some really shameful): Joan of Arc, Au hasard Balthazar, The Night of the Hunter, Shoah, Daisies, Portrait of a Lady on Fire

oh man you gotta fire up Night of the Hunger right away

I tend to confuse the shorter Tarkovsky films.

Sorta proud my students dug Au hasard Balthazar last semester (they preferred Pickpocket tho).

Night of the Hunger

look who hasn't had breakfast yet

I've seen Au hasard Balthazar once, never have felt inclined to watch it again, and still consider it one of the greatest movies I've ever seen.

Sorta proud my students dug Au hasard Balthazar last semester (they preferred Pickpocket tho).

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

So do I but I might rewatch.

Confession: I've only seen it once too lol. That was my Big Reveal last semester. The ending unnerved me too much the first time.

of the ones I’ve seen, DO THE RIGHT THING

I was lucky enough to be shown Daisies when I was 17 and it was definitely a key text for my young brain in discovering how experimental cinema could be extremely fun and lively

gonna be hard not to vote for Playtime, one of those filmgoing experiences where i remember just floating out of the theater on a cloud of excitement. "comedy" isnt nearly a big enough word for what it does.

Hmm.

It's nice to see Daisies get recognized, it was pretty obscure when I saw it in an Eastern European humanities class in the early 90s.

Godard and Tarkovsky are my two favourite filmmakers, but Mirror never connected other than as a stylistic exercise, and Breathless is good but atypical. I saw M again last year and loved it a lot more than before, but I think I'll end up voting Balthazar.

I’ve seen more of these. Probably torn between Playtime and Balthasar.

Those two plus Daisies are to me fully realized visions that happen to attack the idea that a movie is a single kind of thing

Night of the Hunter

Taxi Driver — maybe a boring answer but also a top ten movie for me for many reasons.

I think Pather Panchali is the one which is closest to my heart.

Mirror is so good I'm afraid to say something cheap about it.

do the right thing was my #1 when we did the films poll recently. so that one.

Out of the 5 or 6 of these that I've seen, the only one I've rewatched recently is 8 1/2 (well actually only the last half or so, which I caught randomly on TCM one evening). Based on that, I feel confident that it still holds up. I saw it for the first time on the big screen, at a repertory cinema in SF in the mid-90s.

Voted donkey

My top 5, probably:

1. Pather Panchali
2. Taxi Driver
3. Rear Window
4. Night of the Hunter
5. I did, I think, really like Late Spring ages ago, but I'm not even sure it was that; it could have been Early Spring or Late Autumn. If not that, Psycho or Joan of Arc or Portrait of a Lady.

Two of these I haven't seen--Mirror and Daisies--and some I'm indifferent to: Some Like It Hot, Breathless, 8-1/2, and--I saw it again recently and was surprised how little I responded to it--City Lights. One of them, Playtime, I truly hated.

You have to watch Playtime knowing that it's a comedy where every joke falls flat.

I just didn't get it at all.

Just realized the coincidence of Night of the Hunter and Do the Right Thing being in the same group.

My tops:

L’Atalante
Pather Panchali
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Late Spring
Playtime
Do the Right Thing
Au hasard Balthazar
The Night of the Hunter
Psycho
Rear Window

One of them, Playtime, I truly hated.

― clemenza, Friday, January 20, 2023 11:04 AM (eleven minutes ago)

boooooooo

Night of the Hunter is great, cuts to the heart of how fucked up american protestants are

Just realized the coincidence of Night of the Hunter and Do the Right Thing being in the same group.

So coincidental that I don't get the significance.

yeah, clem, I'm not seeing the coincidence?

Both have four word titles with “the” in them

Bill Nunn recites Mitchum's love/hate speech.

finger tattoos

oh right!

electorate hasn’t watched do the right thing recently enough, poll results invalid

Night of the Hunter today, on another day it could be Mirror. With Balthazar and Do the Right Thing just behind

Seen all but Shoah and Some Like It Hot. Not sure I'll ever sit down and watch Shoah right through

One of them, Playtime, I truly hated.

― clemenza, Friday, 20 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

This is one where it really helps for everything to be blown up in the big screen.

You get the idea of Shoals after an hour. Or less.

Shoah. Lol

I feel like you'd get the idea after reading about it but maybe that's unfair. I mean obviously it's important

Lots and lots of moments in these films I have vivid memories of and Shoah has as many as any of them.

For what it's worth I saw Playtime in a theatre. When you're really disliking a film, that's a minus, not a plus.

only one of these featured the music of Public Enemy, so it's pretty easy

xp lol ok. I was thinking the sets look great in the theatre but nevermind.

I really don't mean to disparage the film. I think it's meant for a temperament far from my own.

only one of these featured the music of Public Enemy

M was about a public enemy though

I went with Playtime, but M is a close second.

(I've seen all of these but Shoah.)

voted for Taxi Driver, one of my favorite films of all time. It is totally surreal and seems to take place in a dream. the music is ravishing and seems out of time, and the cinematography is lurid and intoxicating

Late Spring and Mirror would be my other choices. I'm drawn to 8 1/2 because it is my film mentor's favorite film, but I think La Dolce Vita and La Strada are my favorite Fellini films. I like Le Mépris more than À bout de souffle. Some Like It Hot still creeps me out

and I'm still not sure what it is about The Night of the Hunter that warrants its placement in the top 40 films of all time.

The only American film that approximates Poe and Gothic horror; it's a fable in the 19th century sense. It looks nothing like contemporaneous American film? Laughton + Agee + Gish + Mitchum is an (un) holy combination.

I’ve seen even fewer of these.

xp

ok, that makes some sense of it for me

I’ve seen even fewer of these.

― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings)

Which have you seen?

Taxi Driver and Do The Right Thing.

Went M over Psycho

DAISIES every time

― pilk/pall revolting odors (wins), Friday, January 20, 2023 3:31 PM (yesterday)

^^^^ easy vote

that is the only film on the list I haven't seen yet. I will watch it

It’s choice

is it me or is this list way better than the top 20?

Late Spring vs M is not a choice i would want to make irl

If there was no Hitch I'd agree.

agree because you don't think he belongs this high on a list or because Psycho and Rear Window are certified bangers and legit choices for favourite here?

l'atalante, because i have other fav ozu's

will take the opportunity to recommend reis & coredeiro's ana which i will reductively say is like what if mirror was good

NV - Hitch doesn't belong this high. Vertigo is his only film I'd put in a top 40.

Psycho, Rear Window are bangers.

Daisies just ahead of M.

Oooh. I predict varied results.

20-way tie

This one is much harder than the top 20. I don't think any of these winning would really annoy me, maybe Some Like It Hot, whose stature I've always been baffled by—it's not even close to Wilder's best film!

I haven't seen:

Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1966)
Shoah (Lanzmann, 1985)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma, 2019)
8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)
Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)
City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)

I could vote for:

Late Spring (Ozu, 1949)
Playtime (Tati, 1967)
The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955)
Daisies (Chytilová, 1966)
L’Atalante (Vigo, 1934)
Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955)
M (Lang, 1931)

I probably shouldn't vote for Daisies as I only saw it for the first time very recently, but I loved it so much, so that.

The top 6 here is pretty unbeatable (Shoah is the only one here I haven’t seen).

Strongly considering:

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1927)
Late Spring (Ozu, 1949)
Playtime (Tati, 1967)
Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989)
Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1966)
The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955)
M (Lang, 1931)
Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)

Not in a million years:

Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959)
8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)

Which is to say, hard agree with Chris L on the top 6

and I'm still not sure what it is about The Night of the Hunter that warrants its placement in the top 40 films of all time.

― Dan S, Friday, January 20, 2023 5:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I can tell you that night of the hunter was talked about in such hushed tones by my mom when I was growing up, like it was this absolutely diabolical nightmare of a film which never left her memory. Maybe bc she saw it in the theater when it was released (she would have been eight or nine.) it’s a truly surreal trip of a movie, real horror movie stuff for the era, I mean it’s wild how frightening Mitchum is considering how he’s usually such an avuncular presence, and his scariest moments here really make him the personified kind of terror that one can imagine children conjure up in their darkest dreams. And that shot of shelley winters’ body tied up in the car, hair billowing underwater, is still such a horrifying beautiful gut punch.

I'm finding it hard to remember very much of Some Like It Hot, apart from the immortal punchline. Pretty sure I'd enjoy it on rewatch.

It's alright.

I'm really torn. I knew 8 1/2 would catch some flak here (though maybe that speaks well of its chances in the poll) but I do love it and find it kind of affecting. Night of the Hunter is a strong contender, as is M -- both of which are just so singular and memorable to me.

M was the first seriously "old" movie I watched in my teen cinephile phase and it knocked my socks off. If anything I was used to more contemporary movies being far more static (in a certain sense) and less expressive. It felt so free in its tones and movements. Still does.

The whole creation of Night of the Hunter--James Agee script, Laughton's only film as a director, the participation of Stanley Cortez and Lillian Gish--also figures into its iconic strangeness.

I'm pretty sure I watched it before I'd seen a single Laughton performance

It looks nothing like contemporaneous American film?

this is otm Alfred as is omar's hidden comment

Mitchum's "chiiiiiiillldrennn...?" Is one of the most frightening line readings I've ever heard

Love several of these and it’s hard not to vote for Late Spring, but Daisies blew my mind both times I watched it. So I’m going with that.

Love several of these and it’s hard not to vote for Late Spring, but Daisies blew my mind both times I watched it. So I’m going with that.

(One post for each time it blew my mind.)

One for each of the twin priestesses of Mothra.

outside the top 40 - Barry Lyndon, Wanda, Fear Eats the Soul, News From Home, Le Mépris, Sans Soleil, La dolce vita, Daughters of the Dust, L’avventura, Sunset Blvd., A Brighter Summer Day, Blue Velvet, The Leopard, Madame de… etc. - are all amazing films, and some of them surpass the films on this list

are all amazing films

That's indeed a list of major, major films ... and then also Blue Velvet

I have Night of the Hunter coming in the library.

Loving these threads btw. I've already bought three books on Jean Renoir since the last thread, lol.

Laughton considered casting Gary Cooper as Harry Powell, but Cooper did not accept the role as he thought it might be detrimental to his career.[24] John Carradine expressed interest in the role of the reverend,[25] as did Laurence Olivier, but his schedule was not free for two years.[26] Robert Mitchum was eager for the part of the preacher. When he auditioned, a moment that particularly impressed Charles Laughton was when Laughton described the character as "a diabolical shit," and Mitchum promptly answered "Present!"[24] Laughton liked Mitchum for the role partly due to his sexual persona, but Grubb was concerned about the character of the preacher being considered sexual. Laughton told him, "If you want to sell God, you have to be sexy.

jmm report back on your experience with it! that’s where my vote went.

my favs:

l'atalante
balthazar
m
city lights
pather panchali

voting for l'atalante, finally saw it last year, pure magic. the one of these that i used to be very impressed by but am now less enthusiastic about is playtime. the last half is still fuckin fire though.

watched l'atalante this afternoon, it is a small gem of a thing

this list has a lot of 'sound design is the secret weapon of cinema' heavy hitters

Portrait of a Lady on Fire was very good; not so much I would have thought it would make #30 in an all-time-list, but better than a number of the other 19 listed here. Never seen a Sciamma film before. I liked the cleanness of the images, and the way the pacing never lagged even though there was plenty of time for introspection and observation. Interesting parallel with Late Spring: both feature bridegrooms who never appear onscreen.
Also, kudos to the director for resisting what for me would have been an irresistible temptation to use a sad-girl ukulele version of "I'm On Fire" over the end credits.

If you liked Portrait, watch Girlhood, which I prefer.

i think M

Jean Vigo is one of those directors I always have to remind myself wasn't, apparently, gay even though I think his filmography is incredibly gay

omar does a great job of describing part of Night Of The Hunter but w/o getting into spoilers I think it's also important to point out how all that menace gets turned on its head in the film's climax, a tonal shift that totally bewildered me the first time I saw the film, rarely seen in classic Hollywood (unless it's by accident) but totally of a kind with a lot of arthouse cinema to come, Lynch of course a prime example. So that's also part of why I think it's on here, it's just totally sui generis for its time and place imo.

That being said I'm voting Playtime.

outside the top 40 - Barry Lyndon, Wanda, Fear Eats the Soul, News From Home, Le Mépris, Sans Soleil, La dolce vita, Daughters of the Dust, L’avventura, Sunset Blvd., A Brighter Summer Day, Blue Velvet, The Leopard, Madame de… etc. - are all amazing films, and some of them surpass the films on this list

― Dan S, Sunday, 22 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

La Dolce Vita is wack.

Fellini (sorry) is wack

That's right

It's time for a backlash to the Fellini backlash (Nights of Cabiria is great, I like stuff in several others)

Nights of Cabiria was hard work. all that shouting

I Vitelloni's his best, but I have time for Nights of Cabiria and The White Sheik. The early '60s party movies, despite amusing and poignant bits, are like road shows that don't know when to quit.

Cabiria, White Sheik, Vitelloni, Variety Lights all much funnier than Some Like It Hot

Madness (I do like Cabiria)

From what I remember I like it ok but no idea why any Fellini is considered to be anything much worth beyond the odd re-screen.

It's funny, I don't give a shit about Fellini except for 8 1/2 (and La Dolce Vita to a limited extent).

I wish I liked Mirror more than I do...I keep trying.

Love a good angry walkout

When Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali debuted at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, no less a personage than Francois Truffaut stomped out early, declaiming, "I don't want to see a movie about peasants eating with their hands."

What a dickhead.

And, it's worth saying, a really mediocre filmmaker, debut feature aside

Shoot the Piano Player is great.

And, though I'm not as big on it personally, I think most people would say the same of Jules and Jim.

I would be curious to know exactly what the original statement was - seems like it could have been distorted over the years (I see slightly different versions in different articles, some without the "eating with their hands" part). Anyway, apparently he changed his mind on second viewing.

When Francois Truffaut then a film critic first viewed “Pather Panchali” (Song of The Road) he severely criticised it. He found the film too slow and initially meaningless. After viewing it a second time he was compelled to change his decision and applauded the cinematic efforts of debutant director Satyajit Ray.

Rewatching Pather Panchali last night, I thought of The 400 Blows more than once, so it's an odd little dustup.

S&S poll only went for 400 blows in the top 100 didn't it? If so, good.

I'd rather Pialat's debut was in its place.

The 400 Blows is an excellent thing to show in a film class. I still feel strongly about it and The Story of Adele H.

I think Truffaut produced L'enfance nue, no? (I can't check now)

Rewatching Pather Panchali last night, I thought of The 400 Blows more than once, so it's an odd little dustup.
― jmm

That came up on this thread:

The Day Is Done, Take Me Across: The Satyajit Ray Thread

It's clear he didn't get the movie when he saw it but the wording of the Truffaut quote strikes me as likely apocryphal. It actually sounds like something Godard or one of those guys would put out there.

It’s never been refuted, has it?

La Dolce Vita and all of Fellini's films are awesome imo, but it's not surprising that ilx rejects him. Mirror is great too, as well as The 400 Blows (and all of the films in the Antoine Doinel series) and Jules and Jim

All of Fellini?

most of Fellini, except for the later films

I've only watched the first two of Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy - Pather Panchali and Aparajito, both of which are amazing. Haven't seen Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) yet, or The Music Room

Watching Pather Panchali and The World of Apu during the 2015 revival was one of my Transcendent Film Experiences.

I liked Days and Nights in the Forest better than any of the Apu films, maybe just because it had a lighter touch. The only other Ray I've seen is The Home and the World, I find him good without feeling too compelled to see any particular title.

I liked Ray's Charulata and The Big City. I need to see more.

Maybe Satyricon represented the end of Fellini's genius in making films. It is outré and garish, like Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain, but like that film it is fascinating in retropect

Pather Panchali strikes me as the best of the trilogy, if only because Durga and the old aunt are such wonderful characters. And the story is more centered on forests, fields and nature scenes, and so the photography is just amazingly beautiful.

I thought I might include The Passion of Joan of Arc in my top 25 in the ilx poll but didn't, there were too many films that superseded it for me, but it is still an all-time great film

Other great Ray films not yet mentioned: Devi, The Hero, The Coward. Charulata and The Music Room are incredible. Days and Nights in the Forest might be his Renoir movie.

"La Dolce Vita and all of Fellini's films are awesome imo, but it's not surprising that ilx rejects him."

Why would ilx reject him?

It's alright not to like everything.

Aparajito is my fav of the Apu trilogy for pretty much the opposite reasons jmm cites for prefering Pather - I was much more taken with the portrait of an urban India, in contact and conflict with the West, and the protagonist drunkenly bragging he'll be as big as Shakespeare and Jane Austen. Pather is magnificent but the India it showed me was much more familiar from colonial portraits - which is not to say it's somehow fake or fetischized, it's real of course. To be fair I was also a drunken youth with outsized ambitions when I saw the trilogy though.

The Big City was probably my favourite new-to-me watch of last year; a film that gives every character their due.

The absence of any other Indian cinema, whether arthouse or commercial, in the top100 shows that despite all the whining it could still stand to improve its representation in many areas.

Why would ilx reject him?

I think Fellini has been very unfashionable in most film critic/enthusiast circles for a while. Kinda bound to happen when you personify the normie idea of what an "art film" looks like.

City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)

That final scene is cinema, to me.

xp: I don't know about that. La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2, especially, will have fans. The more films I watched the less I thought about Fellini.

1 Playtime
2 Passion of joan of arc
3 M
4 Taxi Driver
5 Some like it hot

I did not like 8 1/2 but I saw it when I was a teenager. Couldn't finish Claude Lanzman's Shoah Diary.

Juliet of the Spirits is the underrated Fellini, which I predict the future will bear out.

His two best imo are La Dolce Vita and Nights of Cabiria.

Shoah is incredible and I would have watched more hours of it.

No love for The White Sheik?

Oh wait, I see some upthread.

xxp
Lanzmann's The Last of the Unjust is essential as well. I thought it was his final movie but that was Shoah: Four Sisters which I haven't seen yet.

I'm not trying to rank the Lanzmann holocaust docs but I think Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m. is a masterpiece, it's so powerful because it covers resistance and resistance that was successful. And it acknowledges that incidents like this where Jews managed to organise successfully to murder high ranking Nazis and escape certain extermination was an extreme rarity in the nought point nought nought nought recurring % range.

"La Dolce Vita and all of Fellini's films are awesome imo, but it's not surprising that ilx rejects him."

Why would ilx reject him?

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, January 24, 2023

It's alright not to like everything.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, January 24, 2023

I agree completely. I think ilx rejects him to an extent because he's a super-straight man who makes a fetish out of straightness and masculinity, in a dated 50s/60s way.

A little like Bergman and Antonioni in some aspects, but more aggressive.

I like him though because, along with Bergman, he was an iconic filmmaker when I came of age and I think at the time their films resonated far beyond the milieu they placed them in, which seemed very new at that moment

while the S&S Critics' top 100 included two of his films and the S&S Directors' top 100 included three, he didn't enter into our ILX poll of the top 100 greatest films

Antonioni is similarly dated in a lot of his scripts but the camera movement is something else so there is something to come back to.

Don't get why there is a need to keep liking stuff just bcz you came of age and that hit the spot. Icons fall. I mean I love a lot of Takeshi Kitano's films but I wouldn't put him in a top 50.

Funnily enough I re-watched King of New York last night. Ferrara and Fellini could be a point of comparison in that 'men only' sense but there is just no comparison. Everyone is having such a ball doing it, nothing deep. It's like a very plastic compilation of all these moments in every gangster film put together side by side. Rather have that than this Fellini crap.

I'll look at Juliet of the Spirits though.

There's at least a couple of Kitano's movies that are personal faves and I was consider putting high on a list

I'd actually rate Fellini more than Bergman and Antonioni if we're judging these things solely from a gender studies perspective, in that he's more upfront and as such more illuminating. His movies are very explicitly about indulgence and he's not afraid to look ridiculous in his libido, as opposed to the more furrowed brow take of a Bergman or an Antonioni.

That's true about Nights of Cabiria and the extent to which he probes Marcello in La Dolce Vita (H haven't watched Juliet... in ages), but Bergman's theater-influenced hijinks are weirder to me.

Do not see that with Bergman, who gives far more space for women in his films!!

Fellini sounds a bit like Knausgaard or something xp

Sure Bergman gives women more screentime, but it's women as filtered through the psyche of a man from a certain era. Just as an example Isabella Rosselini recently gave an interview to Jesse Thorne where she talked about her mother and him clashing during Autumn Sonata because Ingmar just couldn't imagine a woman choosing a career and not feeling guilt over that.

By contrast with a lot of Fellini there's no pretension that we're getting a view into any psyche save his own. This certainly limits him in certain ways but as I said, it's very what you see is what you get.

Again this isn't meant as a take on the total value of these two directors, I don't need every artist to be a good feminist for me to enjoy their work, but I'm just talking within the confines of discursing straightness and masculinity, as per Dan's post.

Inevitably the roles of women will be filtered through Bergman as he writes the scripts. That's no different to any male director who does the same, like Fassbinder.

But it's not simply a case of more screen time is it? They have personalities and seem fully fleshed dramas, with all their faults. There is nothing comparable going on with Fellini. I can't imagine any actress clashing with Fellini over the psychology of the character on set.

What I'm suggesting is that Bergman's worldview is conservative. I mean obviously it is compared to Fassbinder, but in general the women being fully fleshed out characters doesn't clash in any way with the fetischization of certain norms - it actually kinda reinforces them, by acknowledging the conflicts therein and thus making the whole thing more believable.

I agree with you no actress would be in that situation with Fellini. Nor would any male actor, aside from the one playing his stand in.

You're both right, I think? While I've dinged Bergman here for titling a film Fanny and Alexander which cedes little space for Fanny, I can't think of a major director from the era, for example, writing speeches for Liv Ullmann's wife in Shame that lash against Max von Sydow's marginalizing of her domestic worries; or in limiting the husband's role in Autumn Sonata to observer, watching Ullmann and Ingrid B.'s drama (if I remember correctly Bergman doesn't even tell the film through the husband's POV).

I think of Buñuel, who once balked at being termed a feminist director because of Susana, Viridiana, Diary of a Chambermaid, and Belle de Jour; to a degree he was correct. But in at least a couple of those films he showed curiosity about a woman's role in domestic spaces dominated by men.

(sorry, long post)

Apropos of probably not this conversation, I did enjoy the explicit L'aaventura reference in S2 of The White Lotus.

I haven’t seen Juliet of the Spirits or Nights of Cabiria recently. La Strada seems like a transitional film for Fellini, where he is starting to define his style, with Giulietta Masina starring in a signature role, and with a completely savage performance by Anthony Quinn

What I like most about him though is the visual extravagance of mid-period films like La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and to some extent Amarcord. Whatever reservations I have about his world view and his detachment, there is no one else who approximates his visual aesthetic - depicting societal chaos, catholic superstition, wonder, nostalgia, carnality, altruism - all in an elegant and beautiful way in terms of concept, framing, cinematography.

The scores by Nino Rota were great too

playtime

Man, Night of the Hunter was so good.

What struck me most - and which I wasn't expecting - was just the eerie, hypnotic forward motion of it, the way it moves from tension to dreamy calm, and the recurring image of the stars overhead and the river below. So much of it is carried on the music and Mitchum’s singing, and the music and imagery flow together so perfectly. Absolutely crazy that this is Laughton's only directed film.

I will have to watch that film again

I can never remember anything, but I saw a film within the past month that I thought paid explicit homage to Night of the Hunter's river escape.

Night of the Hunter is on my short list of films that actual manage to feel dreamlike, in the unpredictable and sometimes threatening way of real dreams.

actual-LY, as Tom Lehrer would say.

It's amazing how it gives us the literal facts of Mitchum's character right away in his very first scene. We know right off the bat that he's a serial killer, that he's hunting a widow... but he achieves so much more depth and menace the more we listen to his voice, and finally becomes a kind of nightmare abstraction as this silhouetted figure on horseback.

yeah i might be swayed to night of the hunter tbh

Watched Daisies and--as I suspected--not really for me. I know it's an angry film, but in execution it's whimsical and slapstick-y; much as with Playtime, when it comes to whimsy, I'm like Lou Grant responding to spunk on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I liked the surf music during the mock fashion show, and it looked like no other film I've ever seen, and that's an achievement.

Absolutely crazy that this is Laughton's only directed film.

Peter Lorre had a similar post-war fate. He returned to Germany to direct and co-write a great movie called 'Der Verlorene' ('The Lost One') in 1951, but was never asked to direct again.

This was probably because, at a time when West German cinema was churning out soft-focus Heimatfilme for a traumatised audience, 'Der Verlorene' focuses on the remorse of a scientist who had done secret research for the Nazis and murdered his fiancée when he discovers that she had been working with the Allies. The film didn't go down well at all with German cinemagoers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_q3FcVsLr8

I hate to say it, but I wouldn't mind seeing this series of polls carry on for the directors' poll results, as well (where La Jetee was in the top 35, its highest ranking ever to my knowledge).

I thought we might poll the films on the directors' list that didn't make it to the critics'.

Do you know if the 101+ results might be out by then?

They've got two more days to make good on releasing the ballots in January. My hunch is maybe by the end of February tho.

wonder what's keeping them

They're watching Jeanne Dielman.

They've got two more days to make good on releasing the ballots in January. My hunch is maybe by the end of February tho.

― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Sunday, January 29, 2023

I thought I read that they were going to release the top 250 this Tuesday

Ah, indeed:

Get ready for round two: the top 250 of the #SightAndSoundPoll will be revealed on Tuesday 🍿 pic.twitter.com/w2wK0QKle0

— Sight and Sound magazine (@SightSoundmag) January 27, 2023

I would be happy if we continue to poll the films in groups of 20 for both the critics and directors

I'm reading Robin Wood's book on the Apu Trilogy right now, and it's wonderful. I keep wanting to post quotes here.

I feel like before I watch The World of Apu I should rewatch the first two again

I definitely would. I'd rewatch the first as a standalone, but I think the other two are best seen in sequence.

Re-watched Balthazar last night. Hits differently when you get to know an animal.

Besides all that whenever I watch Bresson it's such a reset. The acting, mannerisms, Balthazar is so obliquely told.

Boccaccio was a reference point for the multiple changes of fortune.

Anyway this is mad hard. I have just reasoned out Tarkovsky and Late Spring but I cannot decide between this pair.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1927)
L’Atalante (Vigo, 1934)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

good winner, Balthazar deserved more votes probably

Love the spread of votes (went for L'Atalante in the end). Shoah not getting any votes is interesting.

I'd vote for any Lanzmann because some of his interviews are like the most heightened drama I've ever seen. The Rabbi who had Eichmann threatening to murder him if he didn't do ridiculous amounts of scholarly research within the hour (so he could pass himself off as a Jewish emigration expert). Dude that planted an axe into a Nazi deathcamp commander's head. It's god's work that he captured this stuff while the people were still alive.

Shoah perhaps needs some updating for contemporary audiences, you could insert pop songs and a narrator saying "but this was an illusion".

Snark aside tho a nine hour documentary about one of the most horrific events in human history is a tough sell, and even if you've gotten around to watching it (my DVD box has been staring at me unwatched for years) you're prob unlikely to think of it as a "favourite", it feels v apples and oranges to compare it to anything else on this list.

BBC2 screened it over two Sunday evenings. I definitely watched the first part, but now come to think of it I don't think I watched the 2nd.

I guess few would think as a favourite. Guessing you didn't vote in the poll, Calzino?

ILX Shoah watchalong club when

Christmas?

xxp

no didn't vote! for anyone put off by the sheer length of Shoah there is Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m. and The Last of the Unjust which are both essential and unforgettable.

well, I'm glad my lurker vote for playtime made the difference