Films That Best Capture Your Home Country?
For example, if someone wanted to get a better understanding of Brazil and its people. What films should they see?
I also thought of something else: what films should they avoid—i.e. what films are completely misleading and inaccurate?
Amistad
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind perfectly captures the look and feel of what it is like to live on Long Island, from the streets, houses, rail roads and beaches. The end particularly reminds me of a house that my grandmother’s old house on the Long Island Sound.
Rudo y Cursi
El Norte, I thought caught the essense of life in the US for illegals. And it’s what I grew up around in Laredo, Tx. A border town on the rio grande in south texas.
Ashes and Diamonds
“Muertos de risa” (Dying of laughter) could be like a spanish “Forrest Gump”. It’s the slice of life from two comedians who hate each other for ridiculous reasons and how they go through the years of the spanish transition to democracy and the consolidation (1970 to 1993) keeping their hate and killing each other (no, It’s not a spoiler), like a metaphor of the spanish civil war memories in a divided country. All this from such a typical element of the Spanish television memory like the Ney Year’s Eve Comedy Shows. Ok, It’s more pessimistic, more sad, more sordid and it has more black jokes than all the encouraging and naivety in Zemeckis’ film., but precisely for it, It’s the best way to represent Spain: Goya did the same thing with his painting “Duelo a garrotazos” (Fight with Cudgels): two poor men fighting each other while they sink in the mud.
There is a pondering about the link between the violence and the showbusiness, about all the sexual repression, catholic morality and absence of a romantic freedom ideology in Spain since the 19th century. All the resignation to the totalitarianism and the self hate and embarrassment for the spanish history. The spanish Inferiority complex it’s united to our black comedy and self disdain: we can’t take nothing seriously.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVA_J4Kxat0
I think it’s significant that the next movie from Álex De la Iglesia, “Balada triste de trompeta” (something like “Sad ballad of trumpet”) has a similar premise: two guys from the comedy bussiness hating each other with his life linked to an historical moment; in this case, two clowns falling in love to the same girl and in two troubled years in spanish recent history: 1937 (in the middle of the Spanish Civil War) and 1973 (The assassination of the prime minister Carrero Blanco). The first stills look awesome:
Solaris, thats my home planet.
Anyone else?
I’ll bite.
Nahsville. It is not really about Nashville; it’s about America. It is America.
With the US, I think it’s tough, but Nashville is one that comes to mind. If I were to brainstorm some films, here are some that pop up:
Godfather I and II
Citizen Kane
The Apostle
Singin’ in the Rain
For Americans, what about films that capture the region/city/state that you live in?
I’ll try to think of some for Hawai’i, but the pickens are slim, if you know what I mean.
Capturing America in film is a bit hard, so I’m gonna brainstorm and (as Jazzaloha suggested) come up with one movie that captures Texas perfectly… also a daunting task. There are so many movies about, or set in Texas.
I’m going to go with some others here and narrow it down to my local area – it’s the only way to narrow it down! Andrea Arnold’s ‘Fish Tank’ was filmed around where I live, and star Katie Jarvis was first spotted for the role arguing at a local train station with her boyfriend. It’s an excellent film, but whether you like it or not, it’s certainly not dishonest.
Forget films, a TV show best captures America. The Simpsons.
Nashville I would say is more of ‘A portrait of a portrait of America’ than a portrait of America.
Hell of a Note – Eagle Pennell
Dazed & Confused – Linklater
Texasville- Bogdanovich
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Hooper
Jirin – Nashville isn’t a portrait of America; it is America.
Jerry – I really ilke Dazed and Confused as an American selection.
Re: Regional cinema. I iive in Western NC now, and I’d say that All the Real Girls and Junebug are decent representations. I used to live in Chicago, and I can’t really think of a great Chicago film. I grew up just north of Detroit, so I guess there’s 8 Mile, which is a pretty bad movie, but they got the location right. The best art to represent Michigan in general, though, is Jeffery Eugenides’ Middlesex.
The Grapes of Wrath- Ford
Patton- Schaffer
Once Upon A Time in America- Leone
The Breakfast Club- Hughes
USA — DUMB AND DUMBER
USA – Team America: World Police?
Also, I wasn’t much for the Forman’s film adaptation of Ragtime, but I think the book really captures America.
Jerry – I really ilke Dazed and Confused as an American selection.
Well, it was my TEXAS selection, but it is pretty amazing how a regional film became the defining high school film for the entire USA.
Nashville is superficial America. The one you see when you don’t scan very deeply or try to represent anybody you’ve actually met. The one you see on TV.
Dazed and Confused is a good selection.
I suppose it was inevitable this would degenerate into an America-bashing thread.
AUSTRALIA:
The Last Days of Chez Nous by Gillian Armstrong.
There’s no shrimp on the barbie or kangaroos here. SEE IT!
Unfortunately, no film has perfectly captured my home country of California, but kudos to the Coens for constructing what is easily their finest film around the spirit of this wonderful place :)
I really like Dazed and Confused—both as a film by itself and a selection of a film that captures America—but I might choose American Graffiti over it.
For America, there’s gotta be a film touching on black-and-white racism, too.
Btw, hope about some explanations for the picks? Please?
For me, the Godfather films come to mind because it captures the immigrant experience and the American Dream and its costs.
CK for similar reasons; there is also the capitalistic element and the nature of fame and media.
The Apostle because it captures, I think, a uniquely American approach to Christianity—both in a terms of civic/cultural phenomenon and a serious religious approach. (Not that I identify myself with this type of Christianity—not completely anyway.)
I chose Singin’ in the Rain because the musical seems like such an American thing—a kind of celebration and hope Hollywood style.
I haven’t seen a single film, yet, that captures New York [and I mean the state.]
Jirin – I disagree. America is not one thing or the other; it is many things. This is what Nashville gets right. We live on the surface.
Well as for a certain location, The Fighter did a damn good job of portraying Lowell, MA, which is unfortunate, because I despise that town like no other.
Forrest Gump
Jazzaloha
If someone asked you to choose the best films to help him/her understand your country, which films would you choose? (It would be also interesting to extract the culture/country’s essential qualities and characteristics from the films.)