alot, the first that comes to mind is the Godfather Trilogy.
Citizen Kane, more or less. Jules and Jim, Amadeus, The Best of Youth, Atonement (sort of) all come to mind
well, less are coming to mind than expected- i’d have thought cinema would be fuller of rich epic biographical films with potential for flashbacks, memories etc- i suppose Orlando covers various lifetimes. 1900 by Bertolucci has a decent span. Oh, and Once upon a Time in America
The Gospel according to St Matthew, and bios of Christ, though of course there’s usually a big gap between the birth and the adult preacher- so many years in carpentry, God moves in mysterious ways!
“Once Upon a Time in America” (1984), by Sergio Leone.
Watch the original cut (the Italian version), not the fu**ing Arnon Milchan shorter one (aka “the killed edition”). Leone would have won the Oscars, if only that piece of sh*t didn’t touch that masterpiece…
However, I think that this is the best film about life. And also the one that gives the real impression of the running time.
This is a good thread. It reminds me that I really should re-watch The World According to Garp.
As for my recommendation, try Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man! (1973), which is one of my all-time favs. A brilliant, wildly allegorical story of an ambitiou’s man’s rise, fall, and resurrection.
An essay on the picture can be found here:
http://cinemauprising.blogspot.com/2008/12/thoughts-on-lindsay-anderson-lucky-man.html
Cheers,
Steve
The New World – Maybe too obvious.
il posto – awkward, uncoordianated, and without a beautiful life affirming ending. In this case, I’d also say The Tree of Wooden Clogs just because he sets Bach to people working, and walking down muddy roads.
Van Gogh – Some might think this has a cold perspective of life in the late 1800’s, but it’s basically a Pialat film, so he’s showing more than we might think he is. Every scene has a life experience in it, I think.
Kids Return – Almost more than any other Kitano film because it follows the cyclical idea, and like he usually does, he makes the world a playground where it’s almost impossible not to be happy, even if you’re about to die.
Husbands – Because Cassavetes said so
Career Girls – Realistically shows the effect of meeting people that you grew up with after you’ve supposedly become all grown up, in that, feelings usually stay the same.
Dodes’ka Den
Edvard Munch
A Woman Under the Influence
Maybe outside the scope of the thread, however although half of the below do not take place over a single life, they focus on reflection over a life or contain a multiple generations view:
Hirokazu Koreeda’s After Life
Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story
The Maysles’ Grey Gardens
Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru
Terrence Malick’s The New World
Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage
Magnolia, Magnolia, Magnolia, Magnolia, Magnolia!
A Woman Under the Influence
Ordinary People
The Big Chill
In the Bedroom
Little Children
Michael Clayton
The Tin Drum
Different than any other movie I’ve seen
stroszek. isn’t the dancing chicken the real deal?
A Woman Under the Influence and the Wrestler! Eddie Presley, Mean Creek, Naked, Slacker, and Get on the Bus…Clerks too..but the Wrestler is where it’s at…the film is about being next to this guy who meets life at all points.
Yi Yi is about several lives; it doesn’t cover an entire lifetime but it reflects so many different stages of life that, yeah, it does cover an entire lifetime, and more…
Magnolia, yes!
I disagree about Magnolia — all characters are at an important moment of crossroads/awakening, at different stages — no one character ages.
Gertrud ends with a remarkable ageing.
Forest Gump…just kidding.
IKIRU, YI-YI, YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH, SOLARIS, THE TIN DRUM (good thinking Simon), WILD STRAWBERRIES.
Inland Empire. It’s about life and how one creates its experience.
To Justin Biberkopf above:
One could make the argument that the characters in this picture are all representative of different stages of life existing in different forms, and as such we never really get a handle on them as people that might exist outside of what we see and aren’t intended to. So we might HAVE to make the leap that their existence in the film is to make an emotional point and not to exist as characters.
They are, in a way, emotional devices used to fantastic effect and not necessarily intended to be fully fleshed-out characters.
rocco and his brothers
children of paradis
Slaughterhouse Five – George Roy Hill’s film wants for Vonnegut’s prose the way every adaptation of Twain wants for his (will a great & classic film ever be made from Twain?), but it still gives you the essence.
John Irving adaptations – The World According to Garp was mentioned; but also Tony Richardson’s The Hotel New Hampshire
AtlusSaGa
So over the last couple of days I watched both “Synecdoche, New York” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. I was incredibly impressed by how ambitious both films were in their attempt to define or at least understand life itself. So I was wondering if there were any other films out there that take place over a lifetime.