When I first read this post, I didn’t notice the “fast-paced” requirement. The films I recommended — THE GRADUATE, THE 400 BLOWS, RUN LOLA RUN, and DO THE RIGHT THING — are fairly fast-paced, especially RUN LOLA RUN, but you might want to consider MOULIN ROUGE. It’s message is trite and soppy but you can certainly introduce teens to the art of editing and music and set design and costuming, etc., using it.
If I had that assignment, I’d probably stick to my first four selections.
Thanks for the warning, Jaspar. However, I don’t think I said anything that’s actionable. I’m within my rights to say Tatum overacted in PAPER MOON and to quote reports about her behavior on the set (which came from Bogdanovich, I think).
On the other hand, Ryan O’Neal might have a legitimate lawsuit against the media tabloids IF he really did NOT proposition his own daughter (Tatum) at Farrah Fawcett’s funeral, but I was just quoting those reports, so I don’t think anyone can sue me. (Over the years, I’ve learned a lot from watching courtroom dramas!) :-)
I like this Veronese, ALLEGORY AND STRENGTH AND WISDOM (1580), because the guy in it looks just like me. The original is in the Frick Collection in NYC, one of the greatest medium-sized museums in the world. (I’ve tried to follow Kenji’s advice on posting art but nothing seems to be happening. Maybe when I actually POST this, iot’ll turn into an image…
I know that this post has just started and I’m glad that most of the films listed appear to be genuinely Surrealist. But, to often, that artistic label is applied to anything that’s “weird,” “out of the ordinary,” nightmarish, or dreamlike. I once read an article that said that Robin Williams and Steve Martin were Surrealists!
Obviously, Surrealism has a very precise history in painting, sculpture, poetry, and other art forms, as well as cinema. But the term can be overused. Andre Breton, the author of the Surrealist Manifesto (1924), was still alive when LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD premiered and he said that as long as he lived MARIENBAD should not be called surrealist. He died 5 years later, but I don’t think MARIENBAD is surrealist.
To get down to cases, probably the chief American exponent of Surrealism is David Lynch.I think there are enough narrative and stylistic elements in most of his films to qualify him as an “real surrealist.”
@ Susan M: In 1925, Franz Roh coined the term “magic realism” (magischer Realismus in German) to a group of neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) painters. That New Objectivity style also developed in German cinema.
But “magic realism” has generally been applied to Spanish and South American literary works. I imagine that the recent PAN’S LABYRINTH would be a good example, but I would hesitate to call that film surrealist.
Obviously, there’s a fine line between the two styles, but I don’t see the “magic” in Lynch’s work. I see straight surrealism.
@CEM: I wouldn’t consider Arthur Penn’s career to be “mediocre.” NIGHT MOVES may be his masterpiece. He also directed THE LEFT-HANDED GUN, THE MIRACLE WORKER, and MICKEY ONE. BONNIE & CLYDE and LITTLE BIG MAN have already been mentioned.
I’ll admit that he may have lapsed into mediocrity since those heady days, but anyone who directed half a dozen memorable films shouldn’t be described as mediocre, at least not in my opinion. Arguably, Antonioni, Bergman, Truffaut, Welles, Resnais, Fellini, Hitchcock, and many other filmmakers “lost their touch” in their later years.
@Alvaro: Woody Allen disn’t actually DIRECT “What’s New, Pussycat?” Although he wrote the screenplay and appeared in the movie, it was actually directed by Clive Donner. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Allen’s actual debut film was still astounding: “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?” (a title similar to “Pussycat”). Even in that case, though, Woody didn’t shoot the original material; it came from a Japanese movie directed by Senkichi Taniguchi. So, we may as well call TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN his auspicious debut movie!
Since this thread has been revived, let me comment on THE PASSION OF CHRIST. I think we need to separate the film’s holy subject from its merits as a piece of cinema. I rate it very low as a work of filmmaking, in part because skilled filmmakers know how to make a viewer see and feel suffering WITHOUT having to overdo it.
The torturing of the Christ portrayed in the film was probably somewhat historically accurate but I just think it would have been more effective in conveying Jesus’s pain and suffering if some restraint had been used. BTW, more than 300 images in the film were CGI shots.
I WANTED to like this film, in part because the beginning was much more mainstream and, for lack of a better term, mature, than most of QT’s previous work. But then the juvenile and immature stuff started showing up: using the subtitles to call attention to them by not translating the French or German (Wundebar!); adding handwritten scrawls on the screen to identify Goering, etc.; some of the unnecessary and sophomoric humor (although SOME of it was funny, there was just too much of it).
The performance of the actor who played Landa was SO superb (and the role was so well conceived) that I finally thought that QT had reached a point where his “fan base” could expand beyond the “fanboys” mentality. I’m not yet willing to join the club.
I’m still a bit reluctant to chime in fully on INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, although I posted one brief, mixed review above.
I do want to comment in general on the “Let Tarentino be Tarentino” argument that I saw voiced earlier. First, most of us (even professional critics) cannot influence QT or Harvey Weinstein to get him to be anything other than what he is. The fact is that we do not have to LIKE what he does. Another slogan might be “Let Ed Wood be Ed Wood” (or whoever you think is the worst filmmaker ever). No one’s trying to take anyone’s artistic freedom away but, just as directors have every right to make the films they want, audience members and critics can select what they want to watch and what they want to say about those movies, good, bad, or indifferent.
Second, I also don’t think we need to try to attribute nefarious personal motives to those who love or hate QT (or those, like me, who see SOME good qualities and some improvement in his “oeuvre” but who are not yet ready to accord him the respect that we would other living directors such as Scorsese or Wong Kar-Wai). Even Steven Spielberg grew up a bit and stopped making “popcorn” movies; maybe QT will eventually mature into a world-class filmmaker — in my OPINION. Bobby Wise’s point, immediately above my post, is apropos to my thoughts about “INGLORIOUS BASTERS”: “codes are at play in his films, whether Tarantino is aware of them or not.” My take is that INGLORIOUS BASTERS follows the classical Hollywood codes more than any of QT’s previous features and, although I love nontraditional movies, I guess I expected this one to avoid the cheesy, “in-joke” tricks and smirks at the audience (and I’m not referring to Brad Pitt’s constant smirking). I also wonder how “regular” audiences responded to ALL the cinematic references to Pabst, Riefenstahl, Emil Jannings, Clouzot, etc. I found it too be too much, and I “got” all the allusions!
My ABSOLUTE favorite pieces of classical music are two of Beethoven’s late string quartets: Opus 131 and Opus 135. He was deaf and dying but he composed some of the most beautiful and daring music ever heard. But you must get the Deutsche Grammophon version performed by the Wiener Philharmoniker, with Leonard Bernstein conducting. All the other recordings sound flat.
BTW, to just MENTION film briefly: did anyone notice a variation on Beethoven’s FUR ELISE playing in the background at the beginning of Tarantino’s INGLORIOUS BASTERDS?
A somewhat obscure novel entitled CITY OF NIGHT (1963) by John Rechy, the autobiographical story of a gay hustler who travels around the U.S. to find himself. Ideal to direct would be Gus van Sant or Todd Haynes. I wrote a script for it years ago, with the idea of John Schlesinger directing (the serious version of MIDNIGHT COWBOY), but it didn’t pan out.
The opening lines epitomize Rechy’s neo-beat writing style:
“Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard—jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll-moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.
Remember Pershing Square and the apathetic palm trees, Central Park and the frantic shadows. Movie theaters in the angry morning-hours. And Chicago’s wounded streets…Horrormovie courtyards in the French Quarter…Tawdry Mardi Gras floats with clowns tossing out glass beads, passing dumbly like life itself….Remember rock-n-roll sexmusic blasting from jukeboxes leering obscenely, blinking manycolored along the streets of America, strung like a cheap necklace from 42nd Street to Market Square, San Francisco..
One-night sex and cigarette smoke and rooms squashed in by loneliness.
And I would remember lives lived out darkly in that vast City of Night, from all-night movies to Beverly Hills mansions…."
I’m an educator and even though I’ve encountered NUMEROUS instances of student’s ignorance of historical events, I can’t believe that “kids today” would not know that Hitler died in his bunker, not in a flaming movie theater, along with the rest of the German High Command.
Maybe I’m being surprisingly optimistic! After all, as P. T. Barnum supposedly said, “Nobody ever lost a buck underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”
I am often surprised that students appreciate JOAN, given that it is b&w, silent, and with intertitles. The new choral and instrumental score certainly helps.
As for rating the silents, I see it as a close call between:
JOAN
POTEMKIN
MOTHER
I WAS BORN BUT…
CITY LIGHTS
MODERN TIMES
THE KID (Chaplin short)
THE GENERAL
COPS (Keaton short)
A CORNER IN WHEAT (D. W. Griffith short)
THE LAST LAUGH
SUNRISE
THE MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA
UN CHIEN ANDALOU
NAPOLEON
NANOOK OF THE NORTH
There’s an obvious one that people are overlooking, although it may be difficult (or expensive) to obtain:
Frederick Weisman’s HIGH SCHOOL (NOT THE SEQUEL).
It’s a 75-minute documentary about a Philadelphia high. The opening is one of the great first scenes in movie history. A POV shot from inside a car as it drives through the streets and approaches the high school building, with Otis Redding singing (supposedly on the car radio), “Sittin’ at the dock of the bay…wastin’ time.” Then we go inside the building and proceed to watch the teens wastin’ time.
I’ve seen, met, and spoken to hundreds of filmmakers and performers. I won’t bore you with a long list of these encounters, although I’ll mention one: I once hit Telly Savalas’s golf ball by mistake. (We were both playing Titleist 2.)
However, more to the point: I thought this thread was supposed to be about celebrity-BLEEPING. Who’s actually BLEEPED a star or auteur?! C’mon, confess!
The closest I came (no pun intended) was that Georgia Engel, who played Georgette Baxter, Ted’s fiancee and eventual bride, on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW was interested in dating me (before her fame and fortune) and asked me to attend a play she was in and to come backstage afterward. (It didn’t happen.) She went on to win two Emmys for playing Georgette and received 3 nominations for a more recent role on EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND.
And, a female friend claimed to have bleeped Warren Beatty (but who hasn’t).
@Vellaem: I just caught up to this post and noticed that you mentioned Kubrick’s early doc, THE SEAFARERS.
A little personal history: After finishing my master’s degree at NYU, I got a job making films for the Seafarers International Union, AFL-CIO. I asked to see the other films made about the union and they screened THE SEAFARERS, a mediocre doc from the 1950s. When the credits came on, I was flabbergasted: PHOTOGRAPHED AND DIRECTED BY STANLEY KUBRICK.
I contacted my NYU prof, John Kuiper, who was head of the Library of Congress Motion Picture Division at the time, and told him about my find. Up until then, people only knew about K’s other two docs, A DAY AT THE FIGHTS and THE FLYING PADRE. At Kuiper’s request, I sent a 16mm print to the Library of Congress and received a Certificate of Appreciation in return. My best guess is that if you want to see THE SEAFARERS, you’ll probably have to go to the Library of Congress or, maybe, AFL-CIO headquarters—assuming that the film hasn’t turned to dust by now.
Thanks for the information, Drew. I’ll look for THE SEAFARERS on UTube. I haven’t seen that movie since 1974.
One interesting Kubickian motif that appeared in the doc: K focused one scene on the labor union’s COMPUTERS, early Univacs as I remember them. Maybe pre-pubescent HALs?
One of my mentors at UCLA Film School, Dr. Howard Suber, devised the theory of the “one-hour pivot” in narrative film. The idea is that about one hour into a film, a decision is made that creates a turning point. I usually check my wristwatch as I’m watching a movie to see if it holds up, and it usually does.
In INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, at the one-hour point, Shoshana announces that she is going to burn down the theater. In that way, the film is not as random or unstructured as Tarentino might want it to be. It’s just following the classic arc pattern.
Suber’s book is titled THE POWER OF FILM. I just wrote a review of it for the JOURNAL OF FILM & VIDEO.
Bobby: I didn’t mean to imply that IG followed the classical narrative pattern in any way other than the 1-hour pivot or turn. You are correct that there are other elements that mark it as somewhat unconventional, although it’s not that unusual to have multiple protagonists against a single antagonist (nazism, as personified in Hitler and the German High Command). Thus, the basterds’ story and Shoshana’s revenge narrative converge at the end. A very obvious example of different protagonists playing out their own stories but converging to defeat a common enemy is DEATH ON THE NILE.
Ellie: You say, “You suck and suck and suck, and then finally, you rock. Then you suck again. Don’t let people’s opinions stop you, just keep working through your suckiness, and keep going.”
Those are no doubt words to live by, for art and Life.
Mike Spence: I generally agree with you about John Simon’s negative reviews. However, he DID champion at least one filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman. He even wrote a book about the director, INGMAR BERGMAN DIRECTS. As I remember it, Simon begins by saying something like, “In my most carefully considered opinion, Ingmar Bergman seems to me the only absolute master [of cinema] to date…”
Of course, that was his MOST CAREFULLY CONSIDERED OPINION.
@Mel Brown: I agree with Josh S.: I don’t think Keaton appeared in M. HULOT. At least imbd.com has no listing for such an appearance (and they even list Keaton scenes that were left on the cutting-room floor!)
However, Tati himself made a gag cameo appearance as M. Hulot in Truffaut’s STOLEN KISSES (1968).
Crucial to any understanding of the ending is what Bill Murray whispers into the woman’s ear at the end. I’ve ramped up the volume to try to make it out but to no avail.
Does anyone know what he said? Maybe from the screenplay? It’s probably meant to be “ambiguous” in tribute to Antonioni, who Sophia thanked when she received her Oscar for Best Screenplay.
Berjuan: I brought up Ingmar Bergman in a tangential conversation about John Simon. It had to do with film critics who disliked almost everything, admittedly a bit off the main thread about INGLORIOUS BASTERDS but relevant to the meta-subtext of liking and disliking certain filmmakers. John Simon, for instance, seemed to appreciate only ONE director: Ingmar Bergman.
Someone else can explain what Elvis has to do with all this…
Jean-Luc Godard: “Cinema is truth, twenty-four frames per second.”
Ingmar Bergman: “Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.”
@Drew: Actually, Bergman’s real name was ERNST Ingmar Bergman, and he never changed it. He just didn’t use his real first name much, like THOMAS Woodrow Wilson.
We’ve gotten a bit silly here. Maybe no one wants to talk about INGLORIOUS BASTERDS anymore?
@Filmflam: Although “I’m a stranger here myself” has been linked to Nick Ray because it seems to typify many of his characters, the quote is actually a line from JOHNNY GUITAR, which was written by Philip Yordan.
Transitional Films almost 4 years ago
When I first read this post, I didn’t notice the “fast-paced” requirement. The films I recommended — THE GRADUATE, THE 400 BLOWS, RUN LOLA RUN, and DO THE RIGHT THING — are fairly fast-paced, especially RUN LOLA RUN, but you might want to consider MOULIN ROUGE. It’s message is trite and soppy but you can certainly introduce teens to the art of editing and music and set design and costuming, etc., using it.
If I had that assignment, I’d probably stick to my first four selections.
Go to Comment
Favorite performances by child actors almost 4 years ago
Thanks for the warning, Jaspar. However, I don’t think I said anything that’s actionable. I’m within my rights to say Tatum overacted in PAPER MOON and to quote reports about her behavior on the set (which came from Bogdanovich, I think).
On the other hand, Ryan O’Neal might have a legitimate lawsuit against the media tabloids IF he really did NOT proposition his own daughter (Tatum) at Farrah Fawcett’s funeral, but I was just quoting those reports, so I don’t think anyone can sue me. (Over the years, I’ve learned a lot from watching courtroom dramas!) :-)
Go to Comment
Our favourite paintings: the great Auteur Gallery almost 4 years ago
I like this Veronese, ALLEGORY AND STRENGTH AND WISDOM (1580), because the guy in it looks just like me. The original is in the Frick Collection in NYC, one of the greatest medium-sized museums in the world. (I’ve tried to follow Kenji’s advice on posting art but nothing seems to be happening. Maybe when I actually POST this, iot’ll turn into an image…
! www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=g&p=c&a=p…!
Go to Comment
MODERN SURREALISM almost 4 years ago
I know that this post has just started and I’m glad that most of the films listed appear to be genuinely Surrealist. But, to often, that artistic label is applied to anything that’s “weird,” “out of the ordinary,” nightmarish, or dreamlike. I once read an article that said that Robin Williams and Steve Martin were Surrealists!
Obviously, Surrealism has a very precise history in painting, sculpture, poetry, and other art forms, as well as cinema. But the term can be overused. Andre Breton, the author of the Surrealist Manifesto (1924), was still alive when LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD premiered and he said that as long as he lived MARIENBAD should not be called surrealist. He died 5 years later, but I don’t think MARIENBAD is surrealist.
To get down to cases, probably the chief American exponent of Surrealism is David Lynch.I think there are enough narrative and stylistic elements in most of his films to qualify him as an “real surrealist.”
Go to Comment
MODERN SURREALISM almost 4 years ago
@ Susan M: In 1925, Franz Roh coined the term “magic realism” (magischer Realismus in German) to a group of neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) painters. That New Objectivity style also developed in German cinema.
But “magic realism” has generally been applied to Spanish and South American literary works. I imagine that the recent PAN’S LABYRINTH would be a good example, but I would hesitate to call that film surrealist.
Obviously, there’s a fine line between the two styles, but I don’t see the “magic” in Lynch’s work. I see straight surrealism.
Go to Comment
Masterpieces By Mediocre Directors almost 4 years ago
@CEM: I wouldn’t consider Arthur Penn’s career to be “mediocre.” NIGHT MOVES may be his masterpiece. He also directed THE LEFT-HANDED GUN, THE MIRACLE WORKER, and MICKEY ONE. BONNIE & CLYDE and LITTLE BIG MAN have already been mentioned.
I’ll admit that he may have lapsed into mediocrity since those heady days, but anyone who directed half a dozen memorable films shouldn’t be described as mediocre, at least not in my opinion. Arguably, Antonioni, Bergman, Truffaut, Welles, Resnais, Fellini, Hitchcock, and many other filmmakers “lost their touch” in their later years.
Go to Comment
Astounding Debuts almost 4 years ago
@Alvaro: Woody Allen disn’t actually DIRECT “What’s New, Pussycat?” Although he wrote the screenplay and appeared in the movie, it was actually directed by Clive Donner. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Allen’s actual debut film was still astounding: “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?” (a title similar to “Pussycat”). Even in that case, though, Woody didn’t shoot the original material; it came from a Japanese movie directed by Senkichi Taniguchi. So, we may as well call TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN his auspicious debut movie!
Go to Comment
IS THE "DIRECTOR'S CUT" ALWAYS BETTER? almost 4 years ago
Since this thread has been revived, let me comment on THE PASSION OF CHRIST. I think we need to separate the film’s holy subject from its merits as a piece of cinema. I rate it very low as a work of filmmaking, in part because skilled filmmakers know how to make a viewer see and feel suffering WITHOUT having to overdo it.
The torturing of the Christ portrayed in the film was probably somewhat historically accurate but I just think it would have been more effective in conveying Jesus’s pain and suffering if some restraint had been used. BTW, more than 300 images in the film were CGI shots.
Go to Comment
Reactions to Inglourious basterds almost 4 years ago
I WANTED to like this film, in part because the beginning was much more mainstream and, for lack of a better term, mature, than most of QT’s previous work. But then the juvenile and immature stuff started showing up: using the subtitles to call attention to them by not translating the French or German (Wundebar!); adding handwritten scrawls on the screen to identify Goering, etc.; some of the unnecessary and sophomoric humor (although SOME of it was funny, there was just too much of it).
The performance of the actor who played Landa was SO superb (and the role was so well conceived) that I finally thought that QT had reached a point where his “fan base” could expand beyond the “fanboys” mentality. I’m not yet willing to join the club.
Go to Comment
Reactions to Inglourious basterds almost 4 years ago
I’m still a bit reluctant to chime in fully on INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, although I posted one brief, mixed review above.
I do want to comment in general on the “Let Tarentino be Tarentino” argument that I saw voiced earlier. First, most of us (even professional critics) cannot influence QT or Harvey Weinstein to get him to be anything other than what he is. The fact is that we do not have to LIKE what he does. Another slogan might be “Let Ed Wood be Ed Wood” (or whoever you think is the worst filmmaker ever). No one’s trying to take anyone’s artistic freedom away but, just as directors have every right to make the films they want, audience members and critics can select what they want to watch and what they want to say about those movies, good, bad, or indifferent.
Second, I also don’t think we need to try to attribute nefarious personal motives to those who love or hate QT (or those, like me, who see SOME good qualities and some improvement in his “oeuvre” but who are not yet ready to accord him the respect that we would other living directors such as Scorsese or Wong Kar-Wai). Even Steven Spielberg grew up a bit and stopped making “popcorn” movies; maybe QT will eventually mature into a world-class filmmaker — in my OPINION. Bobby Wise’s point, immediately above my post, is apropos to my thoughts about “INGLORIOUS BASTERS”: “codes are at play in his films, whether Tarantino is aware of them or not.” My take is that INGLORIOUS BASTERS follows the classical Hollywood codes more than any of QT’s previous features and, although I love nontraditional movies, I guess I expected this one to avoid the cheesy, “in-joke” tricks and smirks at the audience (and I’m not referring to Brad Pitt’s constant smirking). I also wonder how “regular” audiences responded to ALL the cinematic references to Pabst, Riefenstahl, Emil Jannings, Clouzot, etc. I found it too be too much, and I “got” all the allusions!
Go to Comment
Classical Music almost 4 years ago
My ABSOLUTE favorite pieces of classical music are two of Beethoven’s late string quartets: Opus 131 and Opus 135. He was deaf and dying but he composed some of the most beautiful and daring music ever heard. But you must get the Deutsche Grammophon version performed by the Wiener Philharmoniker, with Leonard Bernstein conducting. All the other recordings sound flat.
BTW, to just MENTION film briefly: did anyone notice a variation on Beethoven’s FUR ELISE playing in the background at the beginning of Tarantino’s INGLORIOUS BASTERDS?
Go to Comment
You choose the book to make into a film. Then choose the director. Go! almost 4 years ago
A somewhat obscure novel entitled CITY OF NIGHT (1963) by John Rechy, the autobiographical story of a gay hustler who travels around the U.S. to find himself. Ideal to direct would be Gus van Sant or Todd Haynes. I wrote a script for it years ago, with the idea of John Schlesinger directing (the serious version of MIDNIGHT COWBOY), but it didn’t pan out.
The opening lines epitomize Rechy’s neo-beat writing style:
“Later I would think of America as one vast City of Night stretching gaudily from Times Square to Hollywood Boulevard—jukebox-winking, rock-n-roll-moaning: America at night fusing its darkcities into the unmistakable shape of loneliness.
Remember Pershing Square and the apathetic palm trees, Central Park and the frantic shadows. Movie theaters in the angry morning-hours. And Chicago’s wounded streets…Horrormovie courtyards in the French Quarter…Tawdry Mardi Gras floats with clowns tossing out glass beads, passing dumbly like life itself….Remember rock-n-roll sexmusic blasting from jukeboxes leering obscenely, blinking manycolored along the streets of America, strung like a cheap necklace from 42nd Street to Market Square, San Francisco..
One-night sex and cigarette smoke and rooms squashed in by loneliness.
And I would remember lives lived out darkly in that vast City of Night, from all-night movies to Beverly Hills mansions…."
Go to Comment
Reactions to Inglourious basterds almost 4 years ago
I’m an educator and even though I’ve encountered NUMEROUS instances of student’s ignorance of historical events, I can’t believe that “kids today” would not know that Hitler died in his bunker, not in a flaming movie theater, along with the rest of the German High Command.
Maybe I’m being surprisingly optimistic! After all, as P. T. Barnum supposedly said, “Nobody ever lost a buck underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”
Go to Comment
can the "passion of joan of arc" arguably be the greatest silent film ever? almost 4 years ago
I am often surprised that students appreciate JOAN, given that it is b&w, silent, and with intertitles. The new choral and instrumental score certainly helps.
As for rating the silents, I see it as a close call between:
JOAN
POTEMKIN
MOTHER
I WAS BORN BUT…
CITY LIGHTS
MODERN TIMES
THE KID (Chaplin short)
THE GENERAL
COPS (Keaton short)
A CORNER IN WHEAT (D. W. Griffith short)
THE LAST LAUGH
SUNRISE
THE MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA
UN CHIEN ANDALOU
NAPOLEON
NANOOK OF THE NORTH
Go to Comment
International High School Films over 3 years ago
There’s an obvious one that people are overlooking, although it may be difficult (or expensive) to obtain:
Frederick Weisman’s HIGH SCHOOL (NOT THE SEQUEL).
It’s a 75-minute documentary about a Philadelphia high. The opening is one of the great first scenes in movie history. A POV shot from inside a car as it drives through the streets and approaches the high school building, with Otis Redding singing (supposedly on the car radio), “Sittin’ at the dock of the bay…wastin’ time.” Then we go inside the building and proceed to watch the teens wastin’ time.
Go to Comment
my ex roommate bleeped eddie murphy over 3 years ago
I’ve seen, met, and spoken to hundreds of filmmakers and performers. I won’t bore you with a long list of these encounters, although I’ll mention one: I once hit Telly Savalas’s golf ball by mistake. (We were both playing Titleist 2.)
However, more to the point: I thought this thread was supposed to be about celebrity-BLEEPING. Who’s actually BLEEPED a star or auteur?! C’mon, confess!
The closest I came (no pun intended) was that Georgia Engel, who played Georgette Baxter, Ted’s fiancee and eventual bride, on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW was interested in dating me (before her fame and fortune) and asked me to attend a play she was in and to come backstage afterward. (It didn’t happen.) She went on to win two Emmys for playing Georgette and received 3 nominations for a more recent role on EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND.
And, a female friend claimed to have bleeped Warren Beatty (but who hasn’t).
Go to Comment
What is Kubrick's Most Under-Appreciated Film? over 3 years ago
@Vellaem: I just caught up to this post and noticed that you mentioned Kubrick’s early doc, THE SEAFARERS.
A little personal history: After finishing my master’s degree at NYU, I got a job making films for the Seafarers International Union, AFL-CIO. I asked to see the other films made about the union and they screened THE SEAFARERS, a mediocre doc from the 1950s. When the credits came on, I was flabbergasted: PHOTOGRAPHED AND DIRECTED BY STANLEY KUBRICK.
I contacted my NYU prof, John Kuiper, who was head of the Library of Congress Motion Picture Division at the time, and told him about my find. Up until then, people only knew about K’s other two docs, A DAY AT THE FIGHTS and THE FLYING PADRE. At Kuiper’s request, I sent a 16mm print to the Library of Congress and received a Certificate of Appreciation in return. My best guess is that if you want to see THE SEAFARERS, you’ll probably have to go to the Library of Congress or, maybe, AFL-CIO headquarters—assuming that the film hasn’t turned to dust by now.
Go to Comment
What is Kubrick's Most Under-Appreciated Film? over 3 years ago
Thanks for the information, Drew. I’ll look for THE SEAFARERS on UTube. I haven’t seen that movie since 1974.
One interesting Kubickian motif that appeared in the doc: K focused one scene on the labor union’s COMPUTERS, early Univacs as I remember them. Maybe pre-pubescent HALs?
Go to Comment
Reactions to Inglourious basterds over 3 years ago
One of my mentors at UCLA Film School, Dr. Howard Suber, devised the theory of the “one-hour pivot” in narrative film. The idea is that about one hour into a film, a decision is made that creates a turning point. I usually check my wristwatch as I’m watching a movie to see if it holds up, and it usually does.
In INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, at the one-hour point, Shoshana announces that she is going to burn down the theater. In that way, the film is not as random or unstructured as Tarentino might want it to be. It’s just following the classic arc pattern.
Suber’s book is titled THE POWER OF FILM. I just wrote a review of it for the JOURNAL OF FILM & VIDEO.
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Reactions to Inglourious basterds over 3 years ago
Bobby: I didn’t mean to imply that IG followed the classical narrative pattern in any way other than the 1-hour pivot or turn. You are correct that there are other elements that mark it as somewhat unconventional, although it’s not that unusual to have multiple protagonists against a single antagonist (nazism, as personified in Hitler and the German High Command). Thus, the basterds’ story and Shoshana’s revenge narrative converge at the end. A very obvious example of different protagonists playing out their own stories but converging to defeat a common enemy is DEATH ON THE NILE.
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What is (are) your favorite frame(s)? Part Deux over 3 years ago
How about IDENTIFYING these extraordinary frames?
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Trading movies on Goozex over 3 years ago
BR = Blue Ray. (I’m surprised I know that.)
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What is Kubrick's Most Under-Appreciated Film? over 3 years ago
Ellie: You say, “You suck and suck and suck, and then finally, you rock. Then you suck again. Don’t let people’s opinions stop you, just keep working through your suckiness, and keep going.”
Those are no doubt words to live by, for art and Life.
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Reactions to Inglourious basterds over 3 years ago
Mike Spence: I generally agree with you about John Simon’s negative reviews. However, he DID champion at least one filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman. He even wrote a book about the director, INGMAR BERGMAN DIRECTS. As I remember it, Simon begins by saying something like, “In my most carefully considered opinion, Ingmar Bergman seems to me the only absolute master [of cinema] to date…”
Of course, that was his MOST CAREFULLY CONSIDERED OPINION.
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Tati over 3 years ago
@Mel Brown: I agree with Josh S.: I don’t think Keaton appeared in M. HULOT. At least imbd.com has no listing for such an appearance (and they even list Keaton scenes that were left on the cutting-room floor!)
However, Tati himself made a gag cameo appearance as M. Hulot in Truffaut’s STOLEN KISSES (1968).
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My views on ending of lost in translation... over 3 years ago
Crucial to any understanding of the ending is what Bill Murray whispers into the woman’s ear at the end. I’ve ramped up the volume to try to make it out but to no avail.
Does anyone know what he said? Maybe from the screenplay? It’s probably meant to be “ambiguous” in tribute to Antonioni, who Sophia thanked when she received her Oscar for Best Screenplay.
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Reactions to Inglourious basterds over 3 years ago
Berjuan: I brought up Ingmar Bergman in a tangential conversation about John Simon. It had to do with film critics who disliked almost everything, admittedly a bit off the main thread about INGLORIOUS BASTERDS but relevant to the meta-subtext of liking and disliking certain filmmakers. John Simon, for instance, seemed to appreciate only ONE director: Ingmar Bergman.
Someone else can explain what Elvis has to do with all this…
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my favorite quote from a film director over 3 years ago
John Ford: “Filmmaking is a job of work.”
Jean-Luc Godard: “Cinema is truth, twenty-four frames per second.”
Ingmar Bergman: “Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.”
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Reactions to Inglourious basterds over 3 years ago
@Drew: Actually, Bergman’s real name was ERNST Ingmar Bergman, and he never changed it. He just didn’t use his real first name much, like THOMAS Woodrow Wilson.
We’ve gotten a bit silly here. Maybe no one wants to talk about INGLORIOUS BASTERDS anymore?
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my favorite quote from a film director over 3 years ago
@Filmflam: Although “I’m a stranger here myself” has been linked to Nick Ray because it seems to typify many of his characters, the quote is actually a line from JOHNNY GUITAR, which was written by Philip Yordan.
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