Thorsten-I’m another person who doesn’t like Jules and Jim and I’m a big Truffaut fan. My problem is the way the story is told. I don’t care for look of the film. I’ve watched it several times over the last 40 years and it just never works for me. It just seems to cutesy.
to me, “jules and jim” is truffaut’s masterpiece. and its his most demonstrative film, his most representational work. everything you could want to know about truffaut’s style and his preoccupations can be found in that film. so it seems to me that it’s hard to like truffaut in general without liking this film. its the very essence of his style and approach.
Bobby, I find that hard to believe, too. Plus Truffaut in general is much easier to relate to than to other french masters as Godard, Rivette or Rohmer.
Jules et Jim was made in the sixties but is set before and shortly after World War one. Truffaut used old film techniques/styles from this period of time to tell his story, maybe that is what upsets you, Steve. I found it charming.
2001 a Space Odyssey, I still feel as though this film went on at least an hour longer than it had to.
Tarantino in general, I just don’t get why so many people are so obsessed with him.(I’m counting this as one film)
Citizen Kane, I hate to say it but I enjoyed other films of his more, such as touch of evil, and Citizen Kane just kind of bored me. Though I do appreciate some of the technical aspects.
Slumdog Millionaire, I don’t think that it deserved best director or cinematography at the oscars, and watching the first 10 minutes of City of God just shows the “inspiration” for how it was shot.
Eraserhead, this had to be one of the most disturbing things I have ever witnessed.
@ Thorsten Funke, I appreciate your setting me straight. I think that maybe J&J is unquantifiable, and i am trying to find something that is similar to it so I can relate. Not to mention my 1st and only Truffant film. So I am really comparing apples to rocket ships. I’ll admit I am easily bored. But I find dialogue heavy films by, lets say, Bergman captivating. While you may have caught me on the WWII thing, I find my argument still has some validity given the time of the films release and the general sentiment in Europe at this time.
Perhaps the best course of action is a second viewing.
Damn I love this site.
Thorsten-Yes that is the main reason. Some found it charming I found it irritating and distracting. I ended up paying more attention to how he shot the film to the distration of everything else.
On the other hand I love almost all his other films.
if you want to dig into truffaut, try “shoot the piano player” next. that’s a slow burn film. at first it seems a complete trifle. but somehow it gets under your skin and keeps growing on you. most of truffaut’s films have a melancholy romanticism to them. this film has it in spades, and also some of the most genuinely funny moments in any of his films. the comedian’s song in the club is outright priceless, and i dont even know french.
Jules and Jim depends on how well you like the characters/actors. And to an extent they are somewhat unlikeable. Catherine is selfish to the point of madness, and Moreau, though charismatic, lacks classical beauty. Werner is pathetic and obtuse — he never comes to understand how he alienated Catherine. Jim is fickle and too weak to make a decision, which costs him his life. But there is perhaps no better film that illustrates Existentialism. WWI in name only; these guys are the forerunners of the hippies and the ’68ers.
Yes, agreed, J&J are the forerunners of the 68ies, or at least correspond with them.
Rawdealbuffy, I don’t think there is something you “did not get” with the film that may change your level appreciation. I reckon it is one of those you love at first sight or never.
Also, I would like to add that in contrast to Justin I do like the characters very much, especially because of their inaccuracies. I do not understand what is wrong with Catherine. But then, I do understand the longing of the two men to make her happy.
Damn, I love this site, too.
I never said I didn’t like them. I just said I could see how people find them unlikeable — they are. Didn’t you ever love someone who was unlikeable? I have. And by “these guys” I meant all 3 – Catherine as well is a hippie.
I totally agree.
Well it looks like the title of the post includes “overrated” so I look like a douchebag. Sorry about that.
Truffaut is overrated except for The 400 Blows
I found Jules and Jim annoying!
Im still getting over the comment that says breathless could have better editing…….
Lancelot of the Lake: Plays like a parody of Bresson. This time his style comes off as distracting and laughable, while the cinematography is pedestrian, unlike the beauty of his earlier black and white films. Its hard not to think of Monty Python when watching it unfortunately.
Contempt: Beautifully shot and staged, but like other Godard, it just never comes together for me to make an impact and seems facile, and artificial, never striking at the heart of the characters.
Cobra Verde: Some great ideas that are underdeveloped creating a film of some great moments that is to unfocused. Instead of feeling organic one gets the sense that Herzog is making it up as he goes along. It lacks the fluid craziness of his other works.
Full Metal Jacket: The first third has an authenticity and life that other military films often lack which unfortunately doesn’t mesh with the later thirds. The characters seems to exist in an alternate Vietnam, Kubrick’s war and not the actual real event which could be the intention but I found it jarring. Ultimately, the film says nothing new for a war movie, tacking on a laughable final scene to reinforce Matt Modine’s disillusionment by war.
Jules and Jim: French new wave overload and the final death is contrived, forced existentialism.
American History X: a terribly obvious, preachy film that I actually found to be pro racism. Norton’s transition from neo Nazi to reformed racist is about as believable as the flashback showing his character’s transition from naive boy to neo Nazi.
The Fall: very pretty but shallow. The visuals are astounding but Tarsem feels so obligated to frame his images as some fantastical bedtime story, making it feel too sentimental and attached to Hollywood classicism to seem unique.
Jules and Jim: Count me in as not a fan.
Pierrot le Fou: I really loathed this film about two idiots lost in their own romance. Anna Karina is very fetching but loses my interest with her personality shifts- she loves him, she loves him not. The ending is just laughable.
Brick: I saw it a second time this year to give it another chance. Nope, I still can’t stand it. The dialogue is too stilted, awkward and self conscious in conflict with the somber tone to fluidly capture film noir in a high school setting. It feels amateurish and dishonest to me.
For me, “Last Year at Marienbad” has stood for more than 3 decades now as the ultimate pretentious orgy of boredom; however, I have to quantify this.
I have seen the film only once, and it was when I was a teen, and just getting into my early stages of film appreciation, so fairness dictates that I should rent it and re-see it now. However, first impressions do have some impact…I recall my eyes glazing over at the narration and those endless hallways.
Cronenberg’s “Crash” was a case of having loved Ballard’s book (read many years ago) and feeling that the film substituted would-be ‘hip’ attitude and surface for the deeply depraved, self-mutilating lust of the novel which will stick with you with just one reading.
If the film had done justice to the book, no ratings board would have touched it, and it could have been a masterpiece.
And to open one of the regular barrels of worms here:
“Schindler’s List” is better than “Pvt. Ryan”, but neither film should have had the accolades it got, by a mile. Overshot, over-edited, you are always aware of Mr. S front and center, and that, to me, just gets in the way.
I just don’t think he has enough depth as a director to tackle such material. “Jaws” and “Indiana Jones” are fine; park the brain and pick up the popcorn, but for ‘serious’ film-making, no thank you.
breathless
Pulp fiction
Dr zhivago
chinatown – fuck that was boring
The Lady Vanishes (1938). Huge Hitchcock fan (have 30 of his films on DVD), but TLV is bad beyond belief.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) John Ford. Grade B western with Andy Devine thrown in for good measure.
True Grit (1969) Henry Hathaway. Academy Award winning “performance” by the Duke, with the acting talent of Glen Campbell.
A Fistful Of Dollars (1964) Sergio Leone.
For A Few Dollars More (1965) Sergio Leone
“chinatown – fuck that was boring”
the end to this film i really dislike, bored me too.
The Piano: Could not take such an unrelentingly bleak, snail paced film
Persona: I gotta go with “just didn’t like” Don’t kill me for that, but I couldn’t sit through this
Rain Man: Not sure if this is considered a “masterpiece,” but it’s surely beloved…I despise this package…er, I mean film
Eyes Wide Shut: Not exactly embraced when it was released, but on this site this movie’s rep has taken on almost mythical proportions…I’ve said it before, I’ve tried several times and can not get through more than a 1/4 of this
Death in Venice: Visconti’s LONGGGG version of Mann’s SHOOORT book…beautifully made, stunning performance by Bogarde, and completely sleep inducing
Right now I can only think of a few, all of which I know are not bad by any reason, although I just didn’t “get them” the way I guess I was supposed to.
1. Juliet of the Spirits: The first Fellini I saw was 8 1/2, a film that I consider to be an absolute masterpiece. After that,I learned about Juliet of the Spirits, and how awesome it was, and so I bought it on a whim. I watched it, and, although I thought it was well-made, and I loved the music, I didn’t really feel like I “got” the film. It was underwhelming to say the least, a kind of confused display which didn’t really appear to know what it was doing. I’ll see it again, of course, maybe to understand what I was missing, but I can’t make any promises.
2. M: This film, although being rather fantastic in its use of sound, in the idea that it was basically the first psychological drama ever, did something that I didn’t expect. Everything I had read on the film descirbed the camera as “prowling” down the streets. Now, maybe I have a misconception of what the word “prowling” means, but, to me, it means that the camera is almost stalking the characters, or just going down an empty street at night while life goes on in the bars and taverns around, until it finds where it needs to go. I mean, that sounds truly suspenseful, and for me to hear that a camera from the thirties “prowled the streets,” I was ecstatic. Then I saw the film, and I didn’t see that at all. Now, I do think it is a fine film, but I think it was my own expectations of what the movie would be that completely got in the way of what the movie truly was.
3. Taxi Driver: I don’t know what I expected from this film, but I completely found it (when I watched it three years ago) disjointed, and I could not see that anger and rage and fury that was growing in Travis Bickle’s head. I didn’t think the execution was there, and I also thought that the whole thing with Harvey Keitel and Jodie Fostor seemingly popped out of mid-air. Of course, these are all based on a time when my favorite film was Sin City, and I know that I NEED to watch it again, especially considering the people I respect who have praised the film as one of the best films, if not THE best film, of the seventies, but, at the time that I watched it, I just didn’t feel it.
Now, someone earlier mentioned Breathless, and cited that the music wasn’t great. I think the music is so perfectly done for that film, and it adds the complete air of nostalgia every time I think of it. I absolutely love Breathless.
Also, Rear Window is one of the finest films I’ve seen.
Savvy
Gone with the Wind – Didn’t like / Borderline horrible.
Forrest Gump – Horrible.
American Beauty – Didn’t like.
The Lady Eve – Didn’t like.
Schindler’s List – Overrated.
1 Cache by Haneke 2 Gandhi by Richard Attenborough 3 Braveheart by Mel Gibson 4 Around the World in 80 Days by M. Anderson 5 Code Unknown by Haneke—I detest 3 Academy Winners in this list—I like/appreciate Haneke’s other films, but I can’t watch the 2 listed here although I’ve tried a half a dozen times.
@BOBBY: this reminds me that I had a dream last night about stealing a copy of BRAVEHEART from the VHS collection in someone’s attic. I hesitated because it was pan ’n scan, but took it anyways.
These are 5 movies from the IMDb top 250 that I think are overrated:
1.) Saving Private Ryan – the first 15 minutes are good but the rest is typical Hollywood (and Spielberg) fare 7/10
2.) Sin City – not my cup of tea at all – I didn’t like the characters and the over-the-top violence 6/10
3.) The Dark Knight – didn’t like this one too much either, maybe it was too dark and for me 7/10
4.) Crash (2004) – not entirely bad but full of clichés and sentimentality 7/10
5.) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind – original it may be but it’s still overrated 6/10
But this is always a matter of personal taste as well – for instance the before mentioned movies “The Graduate” and “Breathless” are among my personal favourites…
1. Full Metal Jacket – I like Kubrick very much, but in my opinion, it is his least memorable film.
2. Sex, Lies and Videotape – I thoght it was an OK film, but I don’t get what all the hype is about.
3. Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut) – I loved the book and this film doesn’t even capture a slightest bit of it’s essence.
4. The Matrix – I just think it is terribly overrated.
5. Gone with the wind – I think everything has been said about this one, i hate its music
p.s. @ Andy: Eternal sunhine isn’t even original, the plot and setup is ripped off straight out of Alain Resnais’ film “Je t’aime, je t’aime”. I also think Eternal Sunshine is overrated.
“Now, I do think it is a fine film, but I think it was my own expectations of what the movie would be that completely got in the way of what the movie truly was.”
For the most part, this thread should be called “5 films I didn’t make any effort to appreciate or understand.” Or, alternatively “5 films I think are overrated that no one really rates all that highly anymore except my small circle of friends.”
Thorsten
@RAWDEALBUFFY If I interpret Your words correctly than it is a more thorough storyline you miss, some objective or aim the characters should have. Well, maybe you are right, then french films are not for you ;-)
No, really: One can not honestly say that there is nothing happening, so Your Godot reference is far from, well, everything. I mean, there is even a car crash! :-) The men become friends, they fall in love, they quarrel over the same woman, they marry, they go to war (against each other!), one of them – and the woman – dies. And they are not the first generation after WWII. They fight in WW Number one. The novel on which the film is built is from the 50ies but describes an autobiographical story from the 10 and 20ies.
But Jules & Jim, which I saw many times but also a long time ago, for me never was a film where the plot itself was that important. It is about friendship and art. And about a lovingly impulsive woman. And about how this freely but deeply and unconventional attached people fail, because society pushes them somwhere else: the war makes them enemies, the morale would not allow a threesome etc.
(forgive my weak language, I am not a native speaker)
Still, this is on the level of what is this film about. Even more important is the question of: how is it done? How is the story told? And that’s where Truffaut comes in with his down-to-the-roots-storytelling, with his elaborate but at the same time very light camerawork. Every time I see J&J it just makes me feel good, like a glass of fresh lemon juice. And not like a modern day crowdpleaser, in which I can sense I am being manipulated all the time.
In the american sort of remake of J&J, called “Willie & Phil” from 1980, the two male characters get to know each other in New York after a cinema screening of J&J, on the boardwalk, talking about how special and life changing that film is. They then become friends and try to share the same woman, like in the original.