ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

I owe it a rewatch, but there are so many Rossellini movies I still would rather see first

i don't really get it. the moral circle is too neat and i would prefer to watch literally any rossellini movie but also i want him to get the bike back.

The Bergman collaborations were eye-openers for me about a decade ago, so it's hard for me to return to what was for decades readily available.

I liked this film a lot better when I saw the original ending, where he and his son team up to burn down the entire neighbourhood of the real bicycle thief.

No need to critique Bicycle Thieves in comparison to Rossellini. Italian neo-realism has stood up v well.

I watched:

Napoleon (Gance, 1927)
Daughters of the Dust (Dash, 1991) - find that early 90s soundtrack score has dated badly but otherwise there are some beautiful images. This was through MUBI so needs a proper big screen watch.

The best observation in Mark Cousins’ History of Cinema series is when he points out a moment in the Bicycle Thieves where the little boy nearly gets run over while crossing a busy road - you don’t get much more realist than that, but De Sica doesn’t make a big deal of such a happy near accident.

not making a big deal out of almost getting run over is the minimum bar for realism if a movie's supposed to be set in Rome

Paris, Texas (Wenders, 1984). Pretty successful translation of his road movie schtick to the US, with an excellent cast and score.

Let's get this restarted

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The Red Shoes, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948
Morbsies #282
Sight & Sound Critics #67
Sight & Sound Directors #72

Love it, tho I haven't seen it in years. Not my favorite Archers film — a bit portentous iirc — but beautiful to watch.

Haven't seen it yet but it was the favourite film of a prick I used to share a house with, called Jacques. Will try not to hold this against it.

Not my favorite Archers film — a bit portentous iirc

That's my conclusion

Any P&P from this run is a candidate for "best British movie ever," basically. But this one is the one I feel the most strongly about, and I can't imagine that changing as I get older.

it definitely sometimes is my favourite P&P

As with the other P&Ps, the criterion remaster is up in full on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fmI_8MwNeI

Not my favorite Archers film — a bit portentous iirc

That's my conclusion

― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, January 2, 2024 4:28 PM (two hours ago)

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i don't really get this film. the shoes are red am i missing something else.

every time i read something about how good it is its like 'its in technicolor'

The Archers stumble a bit in this when they try to make overarching commentary on what it means to be an artist. I also have the same issue with Powell's Peeping Tom.

i love peeping tom. the artist as pervert is a much more fun analogy

i always think about the line about 'the blind live in the rooms upstairs' when my neighbours are making noise although this is probably quite ableist

plax otm

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I absolutely love the Kate Bush song this film inspired

Wow Lermontov and Craster are both fucking dicks.

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Late Spring, Yasujirō Ozu, 1949
Morbsies #39
Sight & Sound Critics #21
Sight & Sound Directors 62

THE GREATEST

I may lean a tiny bit more toward An Autumn Afternoon these days, but that's just because I'm getting really flipping old now

to some extent picking my favourite is arbitrary but Late Spring is perfect, so much inner drama evoked through such stillness, i think my love reflects my flipping oldness too, it speaks to my feelings about the stasis we resign ourselves to and maybe, eventually, accept

plus Ozu is probably my favourite director of architecture as a character in itself

Watching here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU-iOxf4vI0

Loved Late Spring, can't think of much to say about it, oh well.

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The Third Man, Carol Reed, 1949

Morbsies #12
Sight & Sound Directors #63

My students just wrote their first essays (the other choice: Do the Right Thing).

...on this marvel.

As before I had a great time watching this, and there's so much to enjoy about the art direction, the Dutch angles, the world building, the sound design and the music of course, the performances from just about everyone, the sewers!, that first shot of Harry Lime! - but despite everything I just can't shake the feeling that it's all a bit of a trifle, an Ealing caper movie like The Lavender Hill Mob. But maybe I like it all the better for that, I do love The Lavender Hill Mob after all, anyway I'm full of shit and this is great.

It's admitidely been a minute since I've seen The Lavender Hill Mob, but I don't remember it having a harrowing depiction of postwar Europe, or of the effect of faulty medication on children, or a sad meditation on friendship gone wrong. Is it just that The Third Man has crime in it?

No it doesn't have any of those things (well maybe a meditation on friendship) but it has that late 40s/early 50s British studio feel - and while it ultimately isn't a crime caper, it also has a lot in common with that.

The problem is that Harry Lime is so likeable a character that it's too easy to overlook how he is exploiting postwar Europe (specifically the children who got the contaminated medicine). Consider that the Lime character got (softer and lighter) radio and TV spinoffs, rather than Holly or Anna.

My biggest issue is how that zither theme KEEPS. COMING. BACK.

Is it a problem? I think the film and Greene's script underscore those crimes fairly well before and after Lime's appearance.

You are correct, but Welles' performance is so grand that viewers may overlook or excuse those crimes.

one slight frustration is that Holly doesn't make the case to Anna that "you shouldn't have any loyalty to Harry, he's murdering children, ffs"

idk I've shown this film to student and they get the Charming Monster trope possibly more than 1949 audiences.

*students

i saw this film at the bfi once and immediately after it ended someone turned around and said 'cracking film, absolute classic' and unfortunately i hate it now

not really but the disappointment of other carol reed movies does tarnish it a bit. the parts with orson welles are fun but feel a bit cheap when you think about it too much after, just too desperate to charm.

Have always irrationally hated it. Everyone should get at least one classic that just rubs them the absolute wrong way, and this one is mine.

i dont hate it i just hate the people who like it

Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, Outcast of the Islands, Our Man in Heaven, all good films.

I didn't catch The Third Man until the mid '90s and even then Harry Lime didn't engage my sympathy, way before we understood how gaslighting works. He was an engaging bastard who deserved to hang.