J. Hoberman's "Defining Films of the 21st Century"

First response hall of fame.

Do we vote for most defining or

oshii's avalon is a weird lil flick

No matter how you look at it, the lack of Weerasethakul is baffling.

wtf southland tales

xpost def a weird blind spot

Some good movies in there but a fairly tired list (Snow and Gehr are such old hands, has there been nothing at the more abstract end since 2000?!)

Of the ones I've seen Carlos would be my fave, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu comes in at 2nd.

I thought the list seemed pretty awake myself.

i just love russian ark so i voted for it, it probably isn't such a big deal to warrant a spot on this list tho

Hunger. Almost went for Anatolia. Lots of bs in that list.

a lot of these picks are just kinda off, i think; i don't know that it's any more valid a state of the union than just writing people like long slow boring films, now on a wall. i guess the defence of the flight of the red balloon is that it's an international effort, & that's significant. something by apichatpong would seem totally emblematic of a paradigm shift & of a path forwards; i don't think that's true of much else, other than in dry carlos was made for tv; anatolia is new-marginal-cinema kinda ways. there's also a deficit of documentary, essay film, archive film, found film, reappropriated film &c&c&c&c&c.

hoberman is p boring

this is pretty much his favourites (many of which are great but have little contemporary relevance) and a few 'relevant' things

the world is probably the only of the former that conceivably speaks of its time in a noteworthy fashion

One of these:

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-Liang, 2003)
Battle in Heaven (Carlos Reygadas, 2005)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Christi Puiu, 2006)
Flight of the Red Balloon (Hsiao-hsien Hou, 2007)
Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008)
Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2009)

"Contemporary resonance" is a lot more inclusive than any of us probably think.

essay film, archive film, found film, reappropriated film &c&c&c&c&c.

kinda want to make a thread for this sentence, but really i just want a list of these films post-2000

Swap out Beijing Olympics for "Countdown" if you wish.

~cinema of the in-between~ is my fav lofty cinema-crit idea to think about right now, i guess zhang-ke encapsulates it but it would make my list heavily, ponderously. i'd also include wang bing, just for yucks, & then never get around to actually seeing any of his movies.

In Praise of Love (Jean-Luc Godard, 2001)
Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2002)
Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2002)
Dogville (Lars Von Trier, 2003)
The World (Zhang Ke Jia, 2004)
Battle in Heaven (Carlos Reygadas, 2005)
Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
Flight of the Red Balloon (Hsiao-hsien Hou, 2007)
Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008)
Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2009)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2012)

these are all fairly significant (except maybe for the hou film which is rather less so than millenium mambo)

russian ark is probably the best of the early years & once upon a time...of the latter

kinda want to make a thread for this sentence, but really i just want a list of these films post-2000

yeah i want that too! i don't know, but y'know LA Plays Itself, the autobiography of nicolae ceausescu, antecedents like gustav deitsch & shoah, alan berliner, a whole lot of new documentary, matt wolf, decasia, something morbs posted about a couple of days ago pursuing a guy who featured in a clip of film in the '60s, the new sarah polley, capturing the friedmans, jonas mekas, you know. this isn't my strong suit i just feel like it carries a lot of weight.

Did you just name everything J.Ho didn't list there?

ha ha

this is our essay film thread btw, Chris Marker

Marker and Varda aside, I sometimes think people (not nec you, i mean) use the term "essay film" interchangeably with "documentaries not by Morgan Spurlock."

i def support the 'documentary' umbrella being broken up into smaller genres, sort of ridiculous how huge it is

what the hell is Joe Swanberg doing there

not-so-sublte suggestion there that america is becoming more marginal in the film universe?

mumblecore representative i guess

culture is soooo fragmented these days I don't even know what "resonant/relevant" would look like. I mean, Joe/Jane America would give a blank stare in response to ALL of these titles, and so would plenty of other global citizens.

voted inland empire because, you know, fuck you.

carlos runner-up, i guess.

Honestly, it reads better as 'how the 21st century influenced cinema'.

where's shallow hal

think i'll watch one of these tonight, maybe the reygadas

where's Borat?

battle in heaven does have the best opening of any film i've seen in the last decade.

if by "best" i mean 0_o/lol.

where's Borat?

it's a comedy. comedies can't define centuries.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4Oy_7FFvAeg/TGjqgCCBxlI/AAAAAAAAIEU/6sizikKtlDY/s1600/Keaton.+Steamboat+Bill+Jr.+horse+bed.png

Ah the '20s. Defined by a hurricane.

Not suprised/depressed by the near absence of woman directors in the list.

yep. tho it never fails to amaze me how consistently that's the case in end-of-year/end-of-decade/all-time lists.

Surprised no There Will Be Blood. I haven't seen enough of these to justify voting, but just to agitate Eric, I will (for Carlos).

not-so-sublte suggestion there that america is becoming more marginal in the film universe?

― drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Monday, November 26, 2012 10:28 PM (28 minutes ago)

the proportion of american films is not that different to his 80s or 90s lists, he just happens to be a rare american cultural critic who is substantially nonprovincial

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~ejohnson/critics/hoberman.html

its gotta be beijing olympics opening ceremony. great film.

Hunger, though I've only seen like four of these.

I think I've seen 18/22, my fave of which is Hunger, which I don't particularly see as defining this century.

The one to burn is Dogville obv.

Liked Dogville when I saw it, but have become so tired if Von Trier in the years since that you couldn't force me to rewatch it. Still, I have a hard time believing that there's any other film on this list as bad as Southland Tales.

I think The World and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu might feel most 21st-c to me.

Out of all the ones I've seen here, I think In Praise of Love and The World may be the most torpid. Dogville maybe both the best and most like living in the present day.

Will still end up voting Inland Empire, because it's my favorite.

I haven't seen any of these. Just when I was feeling all cultured for going to see Anna Karenina today.

Flight of the Red Balloon is among my least valued Hous.

Me too, but it's cool.

I voted Southland Tales because why not?

http://mediabreach.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/timberlake.jpg

feel like he picked LOL simply cuz of the title; swanberg has made much better films

'the strange case of angelica' sez more abt the 19th century than the 21st imo

JC i very nearly posted that last sentiment. (not a dis, of course)

Inland empire

of course, there are some very good films on this list (tho I couldn't stand RUSSIAN ARK when I saw it, felt like Hitchcock's Rope recast as a grotesquely obscure panto).

BUT - if this is a list of 'defining' modern arthouse movies, then - whatever your feelings abt him as an auteur - haneke's Hidden should be on the list, for inspiring more critical chitchat, books, theories, essays, seminars etc than almost any other 21st century film. 'tree of life' should also be there, regardless of its merits or o/wise.

if it's a list of 'slow cinema', then the lack of Tarr and Weerasethakul is, yes, baffling.

and there's still plenty of popular cinema that's as defining of current history/tastes as any of the films on this list (eg Avatar, Inception)

I've never seen Russian Ark and the concept doesn't make me chase it up.

I would make sure w/Colossal Youth was in there, preferable to Weerasethakul or Tarr made since 2000. Think this is a shift from what has been happening in slow cinema. Costa divides opinion and that has to be interesting.

4 Weeks, 3 Months, 2 Days and This is not a Film are much better, as is Hidden, than some of the films listed: Hunger, Dogville, In Praise of Love...

No Haneke. Too obvious? Hidden would be a good choice IMO.

Claire Denis seems one of the most glaring omissions.

She's great but you could argue for Beau Travail as her best work.

nah, too many ppl do that

Not sure how "defining" it is, but I gathered 35 Shots of Rum had moved into "best of" territory.

nah, too many ppl do that

No reason not too agree - sometimes the majority is correct :)

Love 35 Shots of Rum.

Russian Ark is great, a truly entertaining piece of bravura film-making, but it doesn't feel very influential. i kinda wish it was.

there is a funny tension w/35 rhums to me, that my affection for it would compel me to put it in any kind of top 10 list i was making, but that in stature or bluster it just doesn't have the profile of like an ~important movie~. the same with café lumiere, kind of a sister film to it. i don't know why a lot of these films were picked, but assuming they're meant to work as ambassadors or signposts for trends and directions, it would be good to include something with such a measured, humanist, cinematic feel.

this is not a film really otm also

love russian ark and inland empire, like carlos, haven't seen anything else :(

i guess the beijing olympics thing was on tv when i was playing pool once; it looked ghastly but then i don't like crowds.

it's not really a film though, is it? So then I can pick the YT video of the kid crying "I'm sick of Obama and Romney"?

Bronco Bama is going to be on your year-end top 10?

I'm kinda groggy so might have overlooked something, but I don't think I've seen a single one of these films *shuffles back to 14th century, Piers Plowman in hand*

oh wait the Beijing opening ceremonies, I watched that

Russian Ark is great, a truly entertaining piece of bravura film-making, but it doesn't feel very influential. i kinda wish it was.

― Shane Breen is a gigantic tool (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, November 27, 2012 8:09 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

I think people some times forget, that for half an hour or so, Russian Ark is some people wandering around in a museum... I'd take The Sun or Faust as the one from Sokurov.

'just some people kicking a ball around a field'

^def more boring than Russian Ark

iirc all of russian ark is some people wandering around in a museum

all of some other things too maybe

all of Night in the Museum iirc

Maybe because i'm a filmmaker, I thought the making of Russian Ark was almost as interesting as the film itself. There was a real proper struggle in the making of.

is that in the film? I don't remember -- it's been a while since I dozed t hrough it.

No it's an extra on the DVD.

Part of that turned up in the Mark Cousins documentary, and it was quite interesting. I kept drifting off when I saw Russian Ark on release, but I think I'd have a better appreciation for it now.

I think people some times forget, that for half an hour or so, Russian Ark is some people wandering around in a museum

that's the entire movie

i never really cared about the making of the movie or the one-take conceit, or rather i don't care about it as a fitzcarraldo-y 'challenge', i do care about it as a reason the film is so lush and enjoyable

Well no. Not more so than a normal film is people wandering around on sets. Like, most of the film is scenes from Russian history, but there are these long stretches where it's just people looking at art... And it is really, really boring.

yeah but those scenes from russian history are all walking around a museum

different strokes! i enjoy movies that are little more than aesthetic exercises, and i find russian ark much more enjoyable than 96 minutes in an actual museum (i like museums).

Where did Hoberman publish this list anyway? Is there any kind of a write-up accompanying it?

Keen on Russian Ark, but hey, my favorite Nabokov book is THE GIFT, so my patience with odd tidbits of Russian history is high.

No matter how you look at it, the lack of Weerasethakul is baffling.

Agreed.

Almost none of these films made it out here to the edge of the world.

b-b-but it's 2012! EVERYTHING is available!

Where did Hoberman publish this list anyway? Is there any kind of a write-up accompanying it?

they're all essays from his new(ish?) book.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Yeah, voted Inland Empire.

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

lol @ the five of you who voted southland tales

pimps don't commit suicide

lol @ the five of you who voted southland tales

^^^

Kangaroo Jack was robbed

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (and Inland Empire) is the best movie of the last 12 years imo.

if you haven't seen it - it's a must. such a remarkable film.

lol @ the five of you who voted southland tales

My vote for it was kind of a joke -- I love other things on the list more -- but I do legitimately want to see Southland Tales again. It's my favorite fable of the Bush era.

ouatia is a really good movie but i don't know what you could use to elevate it above anything else from a similar crop - say new czech or social iranian or argentinian stuff. i like it a bunch but kinda like w/this bunch of films, it seems v poor at creating actual emblems or perfect archetypes of a form.

i think OUATIA stands above the "similar crop", cause it is "wider" in terms of the influences (like a combination between Kiarostami, Tarkovski, and Antonioni) and especially the layers of it's meaning: it deals with social, ethical, philosophical and psychological issues at the same time, while most of the other "crop" are exploring a much narrower path.
and the last thing i can say about OUATIA imagery is that it is "poor"/

ah no, sorry, clumsy phrasing on my part - i was referring back to hoberman having failed to really catch a representative set of films, rather than anatolia, the imagery of which was the opposite of poor. the lighting & costumes of the film are really memorable. i'm not really arguing against the film, here, only trying to celebrate say 4 months, 3 weeks or a separation or post tenebras lux or the headless woman or archipelago, all of which i think are as rich & singular. it's one of those cases where i've nothing against the film but am against it being held as a singular exemplar of something.

ok, but as much as i think the films you mentioned are great, anatolia is better (regardless of hoberman) imo

haven't caught all the films in hoberman's list, and i don't know about OUATIA being best film of the last 12 years or whatevs, but it's the one that i voted for in this poll, and it was easily the best movie i saw in 2012 - i loved all the echoes of Blow Up, the wind whispering through the trees, the way that we're diverted from the 'mystery' so that scenes of 'investigation' and 'interrogation' subtly transform into metaphysical enquiry - and the sequence where they visit the village, and the young woman brings them food and drink, was a part standing in for the whole - ie the discovery of something beautiful in the most unexpected of places

i will rewatch Anatolia at some point but i found it distended and not very deep.

yeah but you are distended and not very deep

that's what she said

not entirely enamoured of the notion of depth, layers, profundity, it belongs the tendency to view films/books/etc as orphaned capsules of noumenal value capable of aggregation and comparison to other such objects, as if this is separabale and distinct from whatever the the consumer brings to the table

'anatolia' probably benefits from some local knowledge, i rated ceylan beforehand but it's like he answered my concerns

Last (x) movies you saw

and decided to make a film full of turkic tropes and slightly mystical, very deliberately situated elements

Loved Once Upon a Time. Don't know about 'depth', but I loved the way it told so many stories though so little. Like, the relationship between the two brothers, or what really happened that night. We're just piecing everything together through gestures, looks, and small bits of information (something the police never bothers to do, as soon as truth according to the law has been established). The little brothers delayed laugh in the prologue still haunts me. It just says everything about how he looked at his elder brother, and vice versa.

That whole thing between the doctor and the police chief and the story of the wife was just melodramatic and unnecessary, though, imho.

I think most of Ceylans films seem very Turkish, with a lot of thought about the difference between city and country, east and west, etc. But I've never been to Turkey, all I base it on is that it sorta reminds me of that Pamuk-novel I once read.

"That whole thing between the doctor and the police chief and the story of the wife was just melodramatic and unnecessary"

weird you think so, cause it's the film biggest example of the conflict between "truth" and "humanism" -> maybe THE issue of the film.
the doctor believes in the first, the prosecutor in the latter, but in the end, the doctor will change his mind..
also,without the story, the ending would become obscure.

"Russian Ark is great, a truly entertaining piece of bravura film-making, but it doesn't feel very influential. i kinda wish it was."

i tend to agree.

it's weird that Hoberman Chose Reygadas' Battle in Heaven and not Silent Light.

xxpost: Yeah, ok, unnecessary might be the wrong word, but um... Clumsy and out of tune with the rest of the movie? Like, most of the stories in the film are fairly lowkey, that one seems to come from a different film.

a 'mystery' film is predicated on the idea that things are hidden beneath the surface (and can be brought to light by a close reading of the 'clues'), so i don't think it's unfair to ask questions abt the depth or o/wise of a film like OUATIA, even though it's one of those narratives that evades or declines tidy resolution, and thereby offers a critique of the search for meaning, or a single definitive truth.

but more generally, 'depth' seems to me primarily a literary value, not a cinematic one - in the best films, depth is better expressed through camera movement, time, space, light etc - rather than through textual (verbal) means

true, and Ceylan is an expert in the cinematic language.
just one example: his Mise en Scene as an imagery of alienation between characters is superb.
a big/small dramatic event for one is an indifferent world for the other.

This list is missing Scott Pilgrim.

well I saw Anatolia abt 11 months ago, and i can barely fucking remember what i had for breakfast today

watched Goodbye, Dragon Inn yesterday.
such a great small/big film.

MoMA here is wrapping up a retro of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and naturally I haven't gotten to anything (I know the four films that have gotten US releases). Anyone ever seen his debut feature, Kasaba (The Town)?

No, but liked whatever else of his I've seen.

Ordered a book (already remaindered) yesterday that I didn't realize had been published last May:

https://i.postimg.cc/VLqKQzxW/hoberman.jpg

I read that, and it was a pretty good portrait of the scene, but not a fan of how it was written. Iirc it felt like every sentence had a proper noun in it, so it ultimately felt exhausting/overwhelming, like reading a 300 hundred page calendar entry. "Yoko Ono took the stage at the Mud to premiere her Cut Piece. Flaming Creatures premiered as a work print to 10 people. Ornette Coleman played five nights at the Village. Harry Smith, drink in hand (and on breath), hosted a screening." And so on.

I'll probably be thinking about that nonstop as I read...I generally like Hoberman's film writing a lot, though he can be a little obscure.

Morbs had some beef with Hoberman which made him distrust everything he wrote, although as far as I can tell it all stemmed from a difference of opinion over Spielberg and Abbott and Costello.

xxp One thing I noticed after living in NYC was how much NYC film criticism (particular reviews written for the Voice, perhaps understandably so) made local references that someone who's never been here may not get. This kind of came up when I went to a talk with Bruce Goldstein, longtime programmed at Film Forum, and he and moderator David Schwartz momentarily discussed how some NYC papers (particularly the Times) have this hybrid existence of being a local paper and national paper at the same time.

*programmer at Film Forum

David Schwartz was just there a lot for the Bo Widerberg retro which he programmed. Assuming you are talking about something else though.

Also, living in NYC back in the day I was able to get some of the references in the Voice, but by no means all of them.

xp It was actually for Schwartz's MoMA program looking back on repertory theaters, so appropriately he included a lengthy discussion with Goldstein for one screening. I hope they recorded it, it was a pretty informative talk.

I'll bet

Schwartz brought that subject up more than once during Bo Widerberg, talking about how Elvira Madigan was a big arthouse hit, and then also remarking on the recent passing of Toby Talbot.

Trying to remember a before-my-time rep house from before my time that Annette Insdorf was mentioning during the Wojciech Has retro which a name I found amusing. The Elgin, I think.

https://www.joyce.org/about-history-mission-community-engagement-zpj4

She first saw The Saragossa Manuscript there as a midnight movie in 1972, I believe.

The Elgin is supposedly where the midnight movie concept started. They also ran El Topo for six months starting in December 1970, and Pink Flamingos for six months (or more?) circa 1973.

Man I was spaced out today and especially typo prone

Halfway through Hoberman's New York Avant-Garde book. Although I like the whirlwind juxtaposition of events--Dylan releases an album the same day as this LeRoi Jones reading, and two days before an important Ken Jacobs screening--Josh is right, it does read like an events calendar, and it can wear you down.

i think that aspect of Hoberman's new book is why I love it, haha

I just wish he'd do it a little (or maybe a lot) less, and find more time for the occasional autobiographical anecdotes he slips in.