Andrew Sarris: "Less Than Meets the Eye"

Don't think I've ever seen a Mamoulian film. Mankiewicz came and spoke to us back when I was in university.

If I go through all the categories, and then do a March Madness bracket for the winners, looking forward to the Sergei Eisenstein-Jerry Lewis final.

I'm voting for the best of these or the one who least meets the eye?

If it's the former, I'm going Mank for All About Eve alone.

i.e. More Than Meets The Ear

Descending order:

Carol Reed
Wyler
Huston
Mank
Zinnemann
Kazan
Lean

All of these directors except maybe Wilder kind of belong in this category, I think. They've all had one or two good or great movies, but most of them are pretty meh.

This list is a pretty good argument against too-consistent auteurism.

I'm usually more interested in what people like than what they don't like, so vote for best/favourite. My own top three would be Wilder, Kazan, Reed. From the others, I really like Bridge on the River Kwai, All About Eve, Roman Holiday, Detective Story, The Nun's Story, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, and The Maltese Falcon. I'm lucky if I've seen 5% of their combined filmographies.

Reed doesn't, although I don't know what you think of The Agony and the Ecstasy and Oliver.

This list is a pretty good argument against too-consistent auteurism.

Not really.

Wondering if auteurism might be connected with falling out of love with movies, tho.

a belief in auteurism is connected to falling out of love with movies after falling in love with them.

I have some vague memory of either Sarris applying his rankings to post-'67 directors in a magazine article, or of someone else doing it for him based on his reviews and year-end lists...something that appeared 10 or 15 years ago. I may be completely dreaming this up, though.

There are some gems in pretty much every one of those catalogs. & the fact that some of these directors were churning out all sorts of stuff (and in part churning out some stuff so they could make other stuff) and weren't necessarily consistent given all the variables that were thrown at them, well that shouldn't really count as a mark against them and especially not against their really awesome films. Ox-Bow Incident ftw, btw.

A belief in auteurism is connected to a belief in falling in love with movies.

The professionalism of these men turns "auteurism" into hash imo.

Maybe, but watching their work turns cinephilia into sleep imo.

I'd rather watch cooking shows imo.

A useful site:

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

Maybe, but watching their work turns cinephilia into sleep imo.

Watching most of Wilder's movies turns cinephilia into sociopathy.

Auteurism turns skin into http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0s30cnNNk1qzabkfo1_500.jpg

He divides his lists into English, foreign and non-fiction? Lame.

Some of those movies come up short of meeting the eye.

And I watch movies sitting down.

Mamoulian made maybe the best musical comedy film ever, Love Me Tonight.

I'm looking at his IMDB page--didn't know he was fired from Laura.

watching their work turns cinephilia into sleep imo.

alas, Andy may not have had the opportunity to be riveted to Greetings or Murder a la Mod by the book's pub date.

Kazan, Huston, Wilder, periods of Reed, Wellman, and Milestone, all GREAT. But stick to the brilliant superficiality of All About Eve if you're keeping your gay glasses on.

Elderly Huston from 1975-87 beats Mankiewicz. (Annie and Victory notwithstanding.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Ah, the days when film was a collaborative business and auteurs didn't exist.

Fun, fun days...

huston, though it's a tough call between him and wilder. huston made more films that i love, but wilder made a few films that i love more.

feel bad about not voting for Huston but of course it's Wilder

between huston and kazan for me

mamoulian's Dr Jekyll is really great - surprisingly erotic, still p sinister in places, lotsa arty/fluid camera shots that put the lie to the myth that all the early talkies were 'static'. think mamoulian def had pretensions to european art cinema (and theatre)

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

I'm the one who voted for Wyler.

think i was kazan

Pretty good response. (If that sounds strange, you should see some of my other polls...) I'll post "Strained Seriousness" tomorrow. I think it'll be an interesting vote if, and only if, I leave Kubrick off.