The All-Time List Discussion Thread (Decade Project Vol. 3)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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knives
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#101 Post by knives » Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:00 pm

I guess that answers that.

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TMDaines
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#102 Post by TMDaines » Wed Jun 08, 2016 6:36 pm

Personally wouldn't buy Heimat now. Blu-ray is out in Germany and surely it won't be long until there is an English-friendly version too.

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Satori
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#103 Post by Satori » Fri Jun 10, 2016 1:45 pm

Dorian Grey as Represented in the Popular Press (Ulrike Ottinger, 1984)
This gem might be the most obscure film eligible for this list: not only does it have the least amount of imdb votes, but it didn’t quite crack the top 100 of the decade list through which it qualified for the master list!

Don't let that fool you, though. It is a remarkable film: a news mogul named Dr. Mabuse (played by Delphine Seyrig!) plans an ongoing media spectacle in which she will invent, manipulate, and then “annihilate” a young man named Dorian Grey (played by an actress named Veruschka von Lehndorff, a casting decision all the more radical because the film never directly addresses it). Like in Ottinger’s previous film Freak Orlando, the famous literary and filmic works alluded to are reimagined in a radically different context, which allows the viewer to make connections with them, but never limits the textual play of Ottinger’s film with their accumulated interpretive baggage. The allusions also give a good sense of Ottinger’s intellectual and stylistic archive: Lang’s Mabuse films and Browning’s Freaks on the one hand (also The Golem, which is the name of a member of Mabuse’s entourage) and two seminal queer literary works on the other.

I should say before embarking on the following analysis that a major joy of Ottinger’s work is purely visual, something which I can never hope to replicate through my description.

The film offers a bleak portrait of corporate news in an era of multinational capitalism: from her lair, Mabuse engineers the “story” of Dorian’s rise and fall by manipulating him into a relationship with a famous opera actress and breaking it apart, all for the sake of infotainment journalism. The film engages with the logic of media conglomerates: different aspects of the story and images of the couple are doled out to different media outlets, creating a logic of difference (the “choice” between a newspaper and a pornographic magazine) which is also a form of identity, with all parts leading back to Mabuse’s control room. The control room itself is a cold, grey structure filled with televisions on pillars, some of them surrounded by barbed wire. Later in the film Mabuse takes a trip through news “archives” where a trio of sad, naked old men called the “three virtues of journalism” are withering away. The “popular press” (or “yellow press”) of the film’s title has thus replaced all the ethical or political facets of journalism—which are left in the “past” represented by the archive—with pure sensationalist surface.

Ottinger suggests an opposition between art and commerce when Mabuse takes Dorian to an opera, not to enjoy the extended performance, but to manipulate Dorian into falling in love with the actress. “Art is anachronism,” she tells Dorian, “entertainment is what counts.” However, binaries are never stable in an Ottinger film: while Mabuse’s manipulation of Dorian are indeed part of a nefarious plot to increase the circulation of her newspapers, it is also something of an extended art project in its own right. Earlier in the novel she describes her plan as “a kind of serial novel,” reminding us that “art” and “commerce” have not been separated since the beginning of capitalism.

If the Langian side of the film is to be found in the machinations of frau Dr. Mabuse, the Wildean side is in the film’s play with gender and sexuality, a dominant concern of Ottinger’s narrative films—especially Madame X and Johanna D’arc of Mongolia—which in Dorian Grey becomes central to the film during an extended journey through “the underworld” in the middle of the film. Like the opera sequence earlier, the “underworld” sequence features colorful, “decadent” aesthetics which form a contrast to the décor and costuming of the scenes in Mabuse’s office. In this section, Dorian (and we) are treated to performances by leather-clad lesbians, a pair of gay sailors kissing passionately before engaging in a combination knife fight/interpretive dance, and an extended strip show (among other sights), all of which foreground gendered performance, spectatorship, and pleasure in complex ways.

But these performances are not immune to capture and control by multinational capital either: after the underworld segment, we learn that these images will all be exploited by Mabuse’s media outlets, transforming the live performances we saw into a set of commodified representations. If commerce can never be truly separate from art, neither can we ignore how queer performances can be captured for profit. This is thus Ottinger’s most extended meditation on the role of media in constructing and exploiting all kinds of identities, even those which her work brilliantly deconstructs and reinterprets.

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swo17
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#104 Post by swo17 » Fri Jun 10, 2016 2:29 pm

Satori wrote:it didn’t quite crack the top 100 of the decade list through which it qualified for the master list!
There are actually quite a few of these. They all received just two top 10 votes and usually nothing more than that. There are more of them for decades that had more participation:

About Elly (Asghar Farhadi, 2009)
American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013)
L'Annulaire (Diane Bertrand, 2005)
Canyon Passage (Jacques Tourneur, 1946)
The Cow (Dariush Mehrjui, 1969)
A Diary for Timothy (Humphrey Jennings, 1945)
Dorian Gray as Represented in the Popular Press (Ulrike Ottinger, 1984)
The Ear (Karel Kachyňa, 1970)
Eaux d'artifice (Kenneth Anger, 1953)
Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
The Good Fairy (William Wyler, 1935)
The Green Ray (Éric Rohmer, 1986)
La Gueule ouverte (Maurice Pialat, 1974)
Hail Mary (Jean-Luc Godard, 1985)
Judex (Georges Franju, 1963)
Kiki's Delivery Service (Hayao Miyazaki, 1989)
The Last Flight (William Dieterle, 1931)
Lumière d'été (Jean Grémillon, 1943)
Mädchen in Uniform (Leontine Sagan & Carl Froelich, 1931)
The Man Who Planted Trees (Frédéric Back, 1987)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Jiří Trnka, 1959)
The Most Dangerous Game (Irving Pichel & Ernest Schoedsack, 1932)
Opfergang (Veit Harlan, 1944)
The Phantom of Liberty (Luis Buñuel, 1974)
Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965)
They Made Me a Fugitive (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1947)
The Tribe (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, 2014)
Whirlpool (Otto Preminger, 1949)
Yellow Sky (William Wellman, 1948)
Zazie dans le métro (Louis Malle, 1960)

Ottinger's Johanna d'Arc of Mongolia actually did sneak onto the top 100 for the '80s, but it only had one top 10 vote (at #1).

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Satori
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#105 Post by Satori » Fri Jun 10, 2016 2:59 pm

That's an cool list then: films that few people like (or have seen) but those who do like them like them a lot. I'm happy Dorian Grey is in good company. (And I was the crazy person with Johanna at #1 in the 1980s project and Dorian also in my top 10.)

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domino harvey
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#106 Post by domino harvey » Fri Jun 10, 2016 3:02 pm

I was half of the L'annulaire, Whirlpool, and Zazie coalitions, though the first won't even make my top fifty here (too many great movies, not enough space)

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#107 Post by matrixschmatrix » Fri Jun 10, 2016 4:59 pm

I meant to write up everything I watch for this, so I'm going to try to catch up.

L'Eclisse
Having only seen Blow-Up prior to this, and that under adverse conditions, I wanted to make sure I gave Antonioni a fairer shake- Blow-Up did nothing for me, but it seems as though it's not usually listed as amongst his most interesting work, for all that it has a fabulous hook. Having seen L'Eclisse, though, I suspect he's simply not for me.

It's not so much that I was bored by this- Antonioni's shot choices and composition are probably the most interesting elements of the movie, and there's a fairly coherent sort of emotional framework to it that kept me fairly involved, even as I wasn't responding to it strongly- as that it felt like a version of Contempt that didn't recognize that it would never understand the Bridgette Bardot character, and instead just focused on her as a sort of empty vessel wandering emptily. Monica Vitti is a fascinating presence, and she carries with her enough humanity that it kind of tricks one into seeing something that isn't there in the character she's playing, but as far as I can tell the character isn't much more than an externalized projection of emptiness- almost a human version of the sort of political cartoon that complains about those damned millennials and their phones. Alain Delon, essentially playing the same dashing, conscienceless go-getter as his Tancredi in The Leopard, has at least a bit more verve to him but ultimately, I think that I'll take my Come-Dressed-as-the-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties from Fellini and Resnais, and hopefully skip the hideously embarrassing full body blackface sequences (even if the embarrassment was meant to be the point.)

That said- I still feel as though I'm not being entirely fair, and I'm going to give Red Desert a shot, just in case.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#108 Post by matrixschmatrix » Fri Jun 10, 2016 5:00 pm

A Day in the Country

I sometimes feel a bit dumbfounded by Renoir, since in a lot of his better work it is hard to remember that there's artifice involved, yet somehow also one admires the artistry and symmetry of how the thing was put together. This one is as close as I can recall to a trifle from him, or perhaps more aptly, a madeline- there's a feeling about the whole thing of something remembered, perhaps made somewhat golden through the process of fond remembrance.

It features what is, delightfully, the most completely absurd, Vaudeville stock caricature of a Frenchman looking guy I have ever seen in a French film- with his striped shirt, absurd mustache, gangling height, and literal imitation of a satyr, I kept being reminded of the kind of character Scott Aukerman will do on Comedy Bang Bang, where the point is to be simultaneously half assed and over the top. That character's naked lust is the plot driver, insofar as the piece is plot oriented at all, after the first few scenes introducing him and his cheerfully horny worldview he is mostly restricted to quick cutaways of him doing something absurd. Indeed, most of the characters fade somewhat into stock comic types- the shop owner and his assistant, blithely unaware (or perhaps unconcerned) that they are being cuckolded, form their own little Laurel and Hardy duo, haplessly trying to accomplish anything at all, while the mother appears cheerfully to follow any impulse at all, with no concern for the future.

The two who emerge as the central characters- the conveniently paired Henri and Henriette- stand out the more for the contrast; while Henri is ultimately no less a frivolous man and a horndog than his partner there is a quietness and a gravity about him that, along with his apparently genuine (if easily overcome) concern for the consequences of his actions, give him a romantic quality that makes it easy to see why he could be an anchor point in one's memory, something to be savored and to come back to. Henriette, while apparently so freed by her brief respite from city life that she spends most of her time acting like a child of 12 rather than someone who, in context, was presumably more or less an adult, has an indefinable something about her that gives her guileless enthusiasm and joy an irresistible magnetism, yet also a great feeling of empathy; one feels that if the movie is played in the memory, rather than in the present, it is she who is doing the remembering.

The climax nearly breaks the tone, though that feels apt to the tone, as it must have a central moment that stands out from the rest- Henri's encounter with Henriette starts off somewhat unpleasantly, with her asking him to stop in a way that seems genuine, rather than coquettish, and Henri, who so recently seemed quietly willing to turn back if she so asked, ignores her pleas. It's not entirely clear to me if that is the result of seeing with modern eyes something that takes place in an era of different mores and expectations, or if it is Renoir's intent that what happens is an act of near-rape, one in which Henriette allows herself to be willing only insofar as she has no alternative, or perhaps turned from an act of outright violence to a near one by Henriette's need to remember what is presumably her only experience outside her bumbling husband more fondly. I do not think so; I suspect her protestations are meant more to be resistance against losing the sense of fun, of childhood, that she has been indulging throughout the movie, rather than specific resistance to Henri or to sex, and there's no sense of resentment or anger towards him when they briefly meet again; only melancholy, a shared experience of a private and unreachable past. It's a troubling issue, and one I'm not certain of how I should feel about. Yet regardless of Renoir's intentions for that moment, the work as a whole has a feeling of unity that makes me feel like I'm quibbling in raising objections to it.

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#109 Post by knives » Fri Jun 10, 2016 5:06 pm

I just caught up with the Ottinger too, my first by her, but unfortunately I must admit the only thing I could find to be enthused about was the brilliant title. he aesthetic is pleasant and even occasionally great shifting from John Waters to a Werner Schroeter style as the film progresses. The style though rarely has anything to grasp onto. One of the few truly successful segments is the Spanish opera early on which plays well with the style and the Bunuel light material. There's a certain familiarity at play, but it is done with such aplomb that it does feel new. Sadly though even a good segment like this is undercut by Ottinger insisting on closing it out with a lame non-sequitur that was done better elsewhere (you can choose between Simon of the Desert or Rocha's The Dragon of Evil). Most of the time though the connection between the blatantly played political points and the form of delivery is nonexistent. It makes the enterprise feel more like The Big Short then the Alexander Kluge films that I suspect were the actual goal. Perhaps the film could have achieved a Mr. Freedom or Jubilee type pleasure at 80 minutes, but at nearly double that the everything and the kitchen sink approach with no substance gets very trying. The Privilege inspired main story doesn't help either with its Andy Warhol and Mabuse spouting off nonsense that seems to exist only as a guard against criticism (I don't know how self deprecating it is supposed to be taken but there is a moment where Gray literally says if you don't get it you're just too conservative in your tastes) or make redundant points about consumerism.

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#110 Post by Tommaso » Fri Jun 10, 2016 5:41 pm

Satori wrote:That's an cool list then: films that few people like (or have seen) but those who do like them like them a lot. I'm happy Dorian Grey is in good company. (And I was the crazy person with Johanna at #1 in the 1980s project and Dorian also in my top 10.)
I had Dorian in my #3 spot in the 80s list and "Johanna" on #17, so I guess the two of us are responsible for "Dorian" being eligible now. Thanks a lot for your write-up and analysis with which I completely agree, but also with your statement about how its visual qualities somewhat elude description. This is simply such an incredibly visually striking film, from the sets and lighting down to the costumes and the make-up and hairstyles of the actresses. That opera performance is almost beyond words in this respect. A completely fetishistic film, like much of Ottinger's work (and I would even include her ethnographic documentaries, at least for some sequences). If it runs in a theatre somewhere near you, don't hesitate to watch her latest 12-hour-film about the people residing in Alaska and Russia along the Bering Strait, and about their past and present life, called "Chamissos Schatten" (2016). It feels more like an installation than like anything you would expect from a normal documentary film, but it has a somewhat entrancing and strangely meditative overall effect. I found it utterly beautiful and unique.

Anyway, back to Dorian: I guess most people will only have a chance to see the film via the VHS-sourced copy that is carried by the backchannels, which is a pity, as the film's impact is only fully realised via a pristine new copy, which I had the pleasure to see theatrically two years ago during an Ottinger retrospective, and it almost makes for a day-and-night difference. However, Ottinger has recently released Dorian and some other of her early masterpieces ("Bildnis einer Trinkerin", most highly recommended!) on her own private label on a dvd with English subtitles. I would suppose that it looks as excellent as the magnificent theatrical screening I saw, and I would immediately buy it. However, Miss Ottinger considers herself an artist and her films as art works, so she demands 80 Euros for that single dvd. But if money doesn't play any role in your film-viewing habits, go and buy this masterpiece.

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#111 Post by jindianajonz » Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:40 pm

Here are links to some of the shorter films which are available for free online, arranged by run time (I.e, really no excuse not to watch these)

La Sortie des usines Lumière (1:50)
Study No. 7 (2:38)
Panoramic View of the Morecambe Sea Front (2:38, with Commentary)
Walking From Munich to Berlin (4:01)
Suspense (10:10)
The Sinking of the Lusitania (12:14)
Eaux D'Artifice (12:36)
Frankenstein (12:41)
The Cameraman's Revenge (13:21)
The Land Beyond the Sunset (13:58)
Ritual in Transforged Time (14:27)
Un Chien Andalou (15:50)
Listen to Britain (19:36)
Blood of the Beasts (22:06)
Easy Street (23:26)

(Let me know if you find better versions of these, and I'll update the links)

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#112 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:49 pm

I mean, there are some reasons not to watch Blood of the Beasts- a sensitive stomach, for one- but not for lack of availability.

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#113 Post by swo17 » Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:53 pm

Of course, all of these are also available on disc, with a few even on Blu-ray. The thought of someone only seeing Study No. 7 via a stuttery Japanese YouTube knockoff site makes me die a little inside.

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#114 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jun 11, 2016 6:04 pm

matrixschmatrix wrote:I mean, there are some reasons not to watch Blood of the Beasts- a sensitive stomach, for one- but not for lack of availability.
That's my argument against watching Love Streams

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#115 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jun 11, 2016 6:18 pm

matrixschmatrix wrote:L'Eclisse (...)
That said- I still feel as though I'm not being entirely fair, and I'm going to give Red Desert a shot, just in case.
I'm glad to hear Red Desert is still on tap (easily his best for me), but you should, as a viewer of world cinema, at the very least see L'avventura as well. Perhaps Antonioni's various ruminations on alienation will make more sense in conjunction with each other or removed from expectations? I don't think L'eclisse is as chidingly judgmental as you've taken it, and I wouldn't confuse a depiction of shallowness or self-involvedness as mere condemnation/cheap lip service by Antonioni. I'm indifferent to Blow-Up and L'eclisse didn't quite click for me initially either (though I've come to think it's brilliant in the interim-- assuming you have the Criterion disc, you should explore the extras), so don't give up the ship yet!

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#116 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sat Jun 11, 2016 6:37 pm

Fair enough, though I think if I'm still not getting anything out of it after those two, I'm going to write him off. The burden of expectations is almost certainly a problem, since he seems to be one of the absolute top tier of like international arthouse directors, for most people, so I keep going in expecting to experience something as overpowering as La Dolce Vita, which is obviously not really his style. I've certainly had the experience before where a director just suddenly clicks for one movie, and then all the rest make sense to me as well.

I've started trying to make some notes on how best to find the movies I have yet to watch and don't own- as far as I can tell, there's no English friendly release of Trnka's A Midsummer Night's Dream anywhere? I couldn't even find it in the back channels. It's probably not worth making notes for the ones that have prominent BFI or Criterion releases, but can we put something together to help with ones like this?
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domino harvey
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#117 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jun 11, 2016 7:07 pm

matrixschmatrix wrote:Fair enough, though I think if I'm still not getting anything out of it after those two, I'm going to write him off. The burden of expectations is almost certainly a problem, since he seems to be certainly one of the absolute top tier of like international arthouse directors, for most people, so I keep going in expecting to experience something as overpowering as La Dolce Vita, which is obviously not really his style. I've certainly had the experience before where a director just suddenly clicks for one movie, and then all the rest make sense to me as well.

I've started trying to make some notes on how best to find the movies I have yet to watch and don't own- as far as I can tell, there's no English friendly release of Trnka's A Midsummer Night's Dream anywhere? I couldn't even find it in the back channels. It's probably not worth making notes for the ones that have prominent BFI or Criterion releases, but can we put something together to help with ones like this?
There is, a VHS recording of a TV broadcast with Richard Burton narrating, because that's the one I saw

And I don't think anyone could fault you for seeing four of a well-respected director's best-known movies and still not feeling him-- we all have our shrug-worthy sacred cows

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#118 Post by swo17 » Sat Jun 11, 2016 7:13 pm

There was a Japanese DVD in Czech with no English subs. The backchannels have this with English fansubs, as well as a lesser quality VHS rip with an English dub.

As for a more general availability list, I could put something together if desired, though if you're already most of the way through one, you might finish it and then I could add it to the first post. As I've said before though, the answer will pretty much always follow the hierarchy of obvious --> look it up on filmaf --> backchannels.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#119 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sat Jun 11, 2016 7:16 pm

I didn't even finish the As, but I wasn't using filmaf, which looks as though it will be much more convenient than my previous 'look everywhere I can think of' strategy.

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#120 Post by Mr Sausage » Sat Jun 11, 2016 8:32 pm

domino harvey wrote:
matrixschmatrix wrote:Fair enough, though I think if I'm still not getting anything out of it after those two, I'm going to write him off. The burden of expectations is almost certainly a problem, since he seems to be certainly one of the absolute top tier of like international arthouse directors, for most people, so I keep going in expecting to experience something as overpowering as La Dolce Vita, which is obviously not really his style. I've certainly had the experience before where a director just suddenly clicks for one movie, and then all the rest make sense to me as well.

I've started trying to make some notes on how best to find the movies I have yet to watch and don't own- as far as I can tell, there's no English friendly release of Trnka's A Midsummer Night's Dream anywhere? I couldn't even find it in the back channels. It's probably not worth making notes for the ones that have prominent BFI or Criterion releases, but can we put something together to help with ones like this?
There is, a VHS recording of a TV broadcast with Richard Burton narrating, because that's the one I saw

And I don't think anyone could fault you for seeing four of a well-respected director's best-known movies and still not feeling him-- we all have our shrug-worthy sacred cows
I nearly did that with Bresson. While I liked Balthazar, both Pickpocket and Diary of a Country Priest did nothing for me. I let A Man Escaped be the final test of whether or not to keep going with him. I really liked the movie, tho', so, while no convert, I'm keeping with him.

That said, I more or less share your experience with Antonioni. I liked The Passenger well enough, but both L'avventura and L'eclisse left me indifferent, and Blow-Up was more interesting in the context of Blow Out and The Conversation than in itself. I'm not close to writing Antonioni off, but I also haven't seen any of his films in the last eight years.

Godard is a weird case for me, in that I'm not over keen on the small handful of films I've seen, but somehow Contempt is a towering masterpiece for me, a top-ten favourite. So I don't know what to do with him, really.

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#121 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sun Jun 12, 2016 2:26 am

They All Laughed

I've gotten used to seeing Bogdanovich's movies in gorgeous presentations- all the ones I've seen, apart from Targets, had pristine audio and video- so it was somewhat disconcerting seeing this, an obviously high budget work, in slightly muddy color and muddier sound, particularly given how important the needle-drop soundtrack winds up being. I think it took me a bit longer to get into the movie than I would have liked as a result, though I'm guessing a second watching would resolve that, knowing now whom the characters are and what they are doing for the first twenty minutes.

I think that feeling of bewilderment is somewhat intended, though (Bogdanovich implies as much in his conversation with Wes Anderson) and somewhat par for the course for this kind of Rules of the Game connected in love story. It may even contribute to how satisfying it is when everything starts clicking together, particularly when our male leads are gracefully handled and managed by the women later in the movie. It's one of those movies where it has a secret grace that reminds me of the French films that seem to be the blueprint for it too, an adultness in its own and in its characters attitude towards moving in and out of relationships- even from the literal children in it. Apart from Dorothy Stratten's angry soon-to-be-ex (which has as many eerie connotations as the long held shot of the twin towers in the opening) nobody seems to hold a grudge about anything for all that long, nor to get all that inconveniently heartbroken when a relationship ends. Things move along, and it's best to take what joy there is to be found in them.

Obviously, the centerpiece for that attitude is Ben Gazzara's relationship with Audrey Hepburn, which feels in some ways like the realest thing in the movie, something that could be a film unto itself- a fleeting, charming affair that benefits both parties, even if it leaves them melancholy afterwards, and one wherein their shared sense of very adult love and attraction is not diminished by the knowledge that it has no real permanence. Hepburn is only on screen for a few minutes, but is perhaps the most memorable person in it, particularly since it's the first thing I've seen her in past the 60s; her endless, guileless charm from that period has deepened into something that feels like wisdom, without diminishing either its attraction or its endless freshness. She brings out the best in Gazzara, too, whose wistfulness and seeming maturity overcome what would otherwise probably be a fairly unattractive, womanizing character- he's like Roy Scheider in All That Jazz in that way, someone who is perfectly honest in his dishonesty, and hard to dislike because of it.

Bogdanovich also mentions in that chat with Anderson that this is the movie he feels is most like him, and it shows- he's leaning less on his cinephilia here than in a lot of his work, and there's a lot of his other interests (past and future) in it- I particularly felt like the use of country music prefigured his (I would say underrated, though I haven't seen it in years) The Thing Called Love, but there's also the farce (particularly the car crash) and the overall bittersweet romance that feel like consistent interests of his. I'm not sure this is my favorite of his work, but I can imagine it being one that would grow on me, particularly as I round out his filmography, and it's high on the list of wildly undeserved flops.

(On a side note, I was also somewhat distracted by the touch assist scene, since as far as I know that is solely a Scientology thing- but, apparently, that was something Camp, herself a Scientologist, brought to the role, so that makes sense. Though I would have thought it was unacceptably close to mocking the idea for someone who actually believes in it.)
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#122 Post by movielocke » Sun Jun 12, 2016 3:23 am

matrixschmatrix wrote:I meant to write up everything I watch for this, so I'm going to try to catch up.

L'Eclisse
Having only seen Blow-Up prior to this, and that under adverse conditions, I wanted to make sure I gave Antonioni a fairer shake- Blow-Up did nothing for me, but it seems as though it's not usually listed as amongst his most interesting work, for all that it has a fabulous hook. Having seen L'Eclisse, though, I suspect he's simply not for me.

It's not so much that I was bored by this- Antonioni's shot choices and composition are probably the most interesting elements of the movie, and there's a fairly coherent sort of emotional framework to it that kept me fairly involved, even as I wasn't responding to it strongly- as that it felt like a version of Contempt that didn't recognize that it would never understand the Bridgette Bardot character, and instead just focused on her as a sort of empty vessel wandering emptily. Monica Vitti is a fascinating presence, and she carries with her enough humanity that it kind of tricks one into seeing something that isn't there in the character she's playing, but as far as I can tell the character isn't much more than an externalized projection of emptiness- almost a human version of the sort of political cartoon that complains about those damned millennials and their phones. Alain Delon, essentially playing the same dashing, conscienceless go-getter as his Tancredi in The Leopard, has at least a bit more verve to him but ultimately, I think that I'll take my Come-Dressed-as-the-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties from Fellini and Resnais, and hopefully skip the hideously embarrassing full body blackface sequences (even if the embarrassment was meant to be the point.)

That said- I still feel as though I'm not being entirely fair, and I'm going to give Red Desert a shot, just in case.
if you're not into architecture or the meaningless meanderings of wealthy ne-er-do-wells, it's unlikely Antonioni will really work. My favorite of his is actually L'Eclisse, and I've not entirely given up hope of finding a good film by him, but for the most part, the prospect of putting in one of his films is less enticing than a visit to the dentist.

Noiradelic
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#123 Post by Noiradelic » Sun Jun 12, 2016 5:33 am

Think L'eclisse is one of the worst films for a newbie or near-newbie to start with, and for a savvy cinema buff, L'avventura's the best. Red Desert's one of my favorite films of his, but L'avventura's more representative and, of course, his breakthrough film and first of the informal trilogy.

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thirtyframesasecond
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:48 pm

Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#124 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Sun Jun 12, 2016 6:29 am

matrixschmatrix wrote:I've started trying to make some notes on how best to find the movies I have yet to watch and don't own- as far as I can tell, there's no English friendly release of Trnka's A Midsummer Night's Dream anywhere? I couldn't even find it in the back channels. It's probably not worth making notes for the ones that have prominent BFI or Criterion releases, but can we put something together to help with ones like this?
I saw this at the BFI (as I did his Old Czech Legends) - it's a great, great movie and definitely high up in my list. I'd love a good career retrospective of Trnka on DVD if one was available.

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domino harvey
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#125 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jun 12, 2016 7:47 am

Matrix, great thoughts on They All Laughed. I don't agree that Bogdanovich leans less on cinephilia here than elsewhere, as the whole film is both a metaphor for his career and the deepest fantasy of every film lover (going from observing/watching films to participating in them = private eyes doing the same for their subjects), but overall I enjoyed your response and I'm glad you got so much out of it. I think one of the (many) reasons this is my favorite film is that I never tire of reading/hearing the reactions of others to it-- especially when they like it as much as you have, of course!

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