ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

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)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8b/df/27/8bdf2798db7e447ea6d1da6bc7ea098d.jpg

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.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Late_Spring_Japanese_Poster.jpg

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.

https://i.imgur.com/F5EqIzo.png

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.

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

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I get why people like The Third Man ... I can't fathom what people see in Odd Man Out

odd man out is particularly bad I barely made it through. unbearable gurning from gate actors.

fallen idol is at least competently made but its whole perspective really grated.

apologies, abbey actors - much worse.

I can't fathom what people see in Odd Man Out

― Rich E. (Eric H.), T

James Mason in stubble.

I feel like I'm definitely in the minority in finding the Third Man score p hideous.

It's fine for about three minutes and not continuous three minutes.

it's not very Austrian is it?

ah the old corrupt europe

The Third Man always surprises me with how exciting it is. The specificity of its setting, the minor characters (like the landlady), the way one of the MPs is a fan of Holly's books, just a wildly entertaining movie.

"A parrot bit me."

I can't fathom what people see in Odd Man Out

snow. beautiful snow

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

― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Thursday, February 8, 2024 8:46 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

not a bad thing! a good film needn’t be so didactic, and anyway I think a viewer with even the slightest degree of discernment can figure out who the bad guy is here. Holly is our stand-in, and his journey from dogged defender of lime’s name to working with the cops to take him down says it all.

saw this for the first time a few days ago and just loved it

I mean we’ve all read paradise lost, sometimes the bad guys are cooler than the good guys. we’re fallen

it's not very Austrian is it?

I believe the story is Reed caught Karas in a nightclub during filming and that's what lead to the choice, so it's authentically "something you could catch when going out in Vienna", tho I agree it doesn't sound it.