my areas of expertise are:
- classic film noir
- hitchcock
- yugoslav cinema
- hip-hop films
my areas of interest are:
- documentary
- jarmusch
- godard
Okay, well, I think this probably is a good idea, since I do have certain areas only where I’m particularly knowledgeable. And the other stuff I wish I was more aware of. But here are what I consider my areas:
silent films (international)
Hollywood films of the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s
the French New Wave
New German cinema of the 70s
underground/avant-garde (Anger, Brakhage, Warhol)
video installations (Nam June Paik, Ulrike Rosenbach)
films of the 90s (mainly American)
I’m not going to list my ‘area of expertise’ (Because, in all honesty I probably don’t have one).
My ‘areas of interest’ lay in broadening my knowledge of all movements of cinema and the minds behind the beauty.
Areas of Expertise (using the word “expertise” loosely):
Wong Kar-Wai
French New Wave
Films of the 90s
Asian Cinema of the 2000s
Italian Cinema of the 60s
Interested in:
Avant-Garde/experimental films
erotic cinema
Middle Eastern films (like those by Kiarostami)
films by Raoul Ruiz and Chris Marker
Silent films
Experimental film.
Gay film.
See my book “Film: The Front Line — 1984” (Arden Press)
Expertise:
Pedro Almodóvar
Luis Buñuel
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Derek Jarman
Jim Jarmusch
Aki Kaurismäki
Spike Lee
Yasujiro Ozu
Douglas Sirk
Kar-wai Wong
Interests:
Sam Fuller
Jean-Pierre Melville
I tend to plow through the filmographies of directors I enjoy until I get sick of their artistic style, and then I leap to a related director (influences, contemporaries, proteges, similar themes/philosophies), repeat, repeat, and eventually double back around to finish off the rare or final entries, because I’m an completist.
i admire you. i find it almost impossible to be a completist. i’m interested in so many films and filmmakers, and there’s so much out there, that i can’t help but jump around. i dont think i’ve seen the complete catalogue of any of my favorite filmmakers. but then again, a couple of my favorites have made upwards of 50 movies each (plus television)!
Yeah I’m far from completist in my viewing habits, and I’d use the term expertise a bit loosely too, as JP said, except maybe about Fassbinder and Godard.
I tend to go broad instead of just deep in a genre or two, then make up for it by watching a lot. The genre I watch the least is westerns. I have a small selection of those that I really like (‘The Searchers’ ‘The Wild Bunch’ and a few more) but the classic shoot-em-ups I don’t actively seek out. Sergio Leone is, of course, an exception to that rule.
Interests would be: Silents, mostly European ones, Japanese cinema from the 30es on. The formalism of Ozu never fails to move me. Also recent Chinese/Vietnamese films, classic noir, horror movies, anything by or with Orson Welles (at least once), Von Stroheim, behind or in front of the lens. Bergman. Bergman. Bergman.
Being Danish, how could I not love Dogme/Trier? Some absolutely amazing films among their output.
Good documentaries (Wiseman is a favorite)
It’s all over the place, but in a good way. I do wind up digging down and ‘doing’ a genre or a director on Netflix now and again, but I am generally happy with mixing it up. My wife is a film buff too, and apart from the horror films, she’s good for any of the above.
Future goal: finding a region 1 DVD of “Santa Sangre” so I don’t have to watch my old VHS-dubbed-to-Betamax copy anymore.
If I like somebody, I tend to try and watch everything by them that I can get – in some cases, multiple times. However, even the best can turn out a few stinkers, so that is not always rewarding – especially if they are prolific. The periods and directors I really like tend to never wear on me, or Billy Wilder is an example, they grow. I am never disappointed when re-visiting British films, as they don’t seem to age. I have been exploring newer international cinema, the explosion happening everywhere, and rely on this site for many of my future pics for viewing. That’s why all your combined expertise is so handy, as there are a great many areas I know little or next to nothing. This has never prevented me from sounding like more of an authority (or blowhard, pompous ass, whatever) than I really am on this very site. My only claim to fame is that I like to watch and have watched lots and lots of films. You people will keep me watching and I will now know which areas to NOT get into a argument with you.
Expertise?
Nothing. I only have interests. Lots, but nothing that couldn’t easily be outshone by anyone else here.
My two favorites are: Michael Mann, and Jean-Pierre Melville.
I think this is in interesting topic because I was thinking about my own lack of expertise when it comes to film. My interests are varied but my expertise is limited to myself. I think I’m an “expert” on those films that appeal to me, as I have a very insular view of most films. I have a few obsessions or ideas that I enjoy experiencing cinematically. I tend to be interested in character studies, or films that peel back the layer on society and its inhabitants. I look at film as a voyeuristic experience that allows us to look at different ways of living and existing, in ways that are simply not possible to encounter in our routine daily lives. Also, my somewhat shy and inhibited nature makes film an ideal way of examining people and how they “act”. Obviously film isn’t the best way to learn about people, but its self conscious enough and earnest in its endeavors to examine and mimic human behavior, or shed light on various emotions, in whatever way that it can. I feel like I am experiencing and trying to understand something important about the world and the people in it in a collaboration with the writer, director, DP, etc. Other times my goals are much less grand or pretentious and film is simply a way to set a mood, much like music is. I get to pick which world I’d like to inhabit for an evening and exist within its images, music, and emotions. This probably doesn’t make me qualified to talk about film in any kind of academic way. I rarely look at film from some kind of ideological perspective, or try to tease out all potential meanings and symbolism that are present. I think film for me is a kind of pure experience that I’m either unable to or incapable of, expressing in any kind of intellectual way.
Richard: You are doing very well expressing your thoughts now and I am sure you have a lot to say about any film you see. Thank goodness this is NOT an academic site, or most of us could get failing grades for just spouting off our opinions without necessarily backing them up. Not to worry Richard, you are among friends and we can all share our ignorance with one another and not feel ashamed to do so. Of course, be prepared to take the flak with the compliments, but this is like the round table – we are all equals.
Comedy. I like to laugh. To make a great comedy is a daunting task. The film has to have a good story without taking itself to seriously, or have no story at all. All the while, trying to keep you interested, and make you laugh. It seems that a lot of people are apprehensive to say that a comedic film is great, but there are so many that are. John Landis and Mel Brooks are probably the greatest comedic directors of all time since they have made the two greatest comedies ever, Animal House and Blazing Saddles, respectively. It is unfortunate that we live in an age where the art of making a well crafted comedy has been destroyed. Jud Apatow is trying to bring it back, but even his stuff is very hit or miss. All in all I think this genre of film is the least respected and most overlooked, but thats just my opinion.
All of my life I have been interested in Japanese culture. So when I started seriously studying film I gravitated toward Japanese film and animation. I have noticed that in my rather large DVD collection the only languages that are represented are English and Japanese. Of course I have Criterion’s 3-disc release of Seven Samurai along with the Eclipse release of Late Ozu. Out of all of the directors represented in my collection David Fincher, Orson Welles, Stanely Kubrick and Richard Linklater all come in a distant second to Takashi Miike. My favorite two Criterion releases have to be Hara Kiri and The Sword of Doom.
Though it is kind of counter intuitive that I should love Japanese cinema so much since my attention span is so short. And most of Japanese cinema is characterized by long, static almost stagnant shots. I recall watching Mizoguchi’s Life of Oharu for a class on Japanese film and culture, I was so restless I was checking my watch every ten minutes. I get easily board watching two people just standing around talking. That is why I am trying to look for films that are a perfect synthesis between arresting visuals, sound, music, representation and story all combined in with a fast tempo and yet has the ability to communicate quite and solitude at the same time. I find a lot of anime reaches this perfect synthesis of these things. Two prime examples include the anime TV mini-series FLCL and Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive 2.
Expertise? only interests.
Everything off kilter is fine by me, kubrick or obsessive cinema (noirs) are also right up my alley.
If there’s an area I know a lot about, is post and film editing. I practice this, so it’s my major area of expertise.
Blow smoke post, but hey that’s democracy.
I’ll parrot others: I’ll leave it to other folks to assess my expertise or lack thereof.
Primary interests include Japanese postwar and new wave films (I could really devote my life to Japanese film, in a perfect world), Bengali parallel cinema, Iranian new wave, French new wave, b movies from the 1950s & 60s (zombies n monsters n aliens n creatures from the deep), Italian neo-realism (and filmmakers with roots in neo-realism), 70s ‘new Hollywood’ cinema, and several other things. Some of those movements I can say I know lots about, some very little, but I’m always exploring. I’m a critical admirer of a lot of American independent film. I know very little about westerns, musicals, silents and avant-garde cinema, though I’m fond of many of the ones I do know.
Some interests a little more esoteric: I have a complex interest in black/Latino/Asian-American presences in American film, and love to investigate that from all angles. Ditto for independent gay and lesbian cinema. I have a big interest in films that engage with philosphical or spiritual issues, especially if it’s nonsectarian and the interest is personal rather than received. And I guess that all of those ‘more esoteric’ film interests could fall within the realm of a cinema of transformation – identity, and psychological insights and turning points. I studied sociology and am an admirer of braniacs like Edward Said and Jacques Derrida, and – under the influence of their thinking, I really enjoy ‘reading’ films, taking them apart, and speculating about what might be at the heart of them. This is a little vague, but my ‘fave films’ would all embody this, I suppose.
my area is Ozu Yasujiro, I love the films of this master, also my area is the so unfamously called the transcendental style in film, I have a lot interest in classic Japanese cinema (Mizoguchi Kurosawa Naruse) another interest is the great Robert Bresson, Italian neorealism, Weimar era cinema, the great F.W. Murnau, I have taken courses of Antonioni and Dreyer. I have certain knowledge of new german cinema ( Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders)
My area of expertise is The Karate Kid Trilogy (None of that Hillary Swank shit.) and the movie The ‘Burbs. That’s it. I don’t think I can hang with most of you in pretty much any other area.
i can probably hang with shotzi on at least the first two of the trilogy(yes…insult meant to star wars & lotr people) the “bad boy of karate” lost me…and i have also seen a woman is a woman like a trillion times.
other than that…maybe baseball films?
I am embarrassed to revive this thread I posted some time ago, with its obvious typos, but I wondered since we have so many newer posters here, if anyone would care to use this to tell us a bit about your own areas of interest. I think it interesting, personally, to know a bit about the films people here like and what areas of film appeal to them. At least, we then know who’s brain to pick when certain film areas come up. I wish more people here would post this kind of personal background on their profile section, but so many prefer anonymity, hence this thread.
French New Wave and French Crime Movies would probably be my expertise in film along with the Cassavetes school of filmmaking. My main interest in films IW atch though would have to be screenwriting, I put this above everything else. If your script sucks, I probably won’t watch your movie.
I think my only area of expertise is in the cinema of Ozu. I have seen 18 of his films and understand almost all facets of his career (sans the very early comedies in the late 20’s, and the two early sound films in the late 30’s). Ask me about Ozu, and I will probably have an answer.
Interests:
Minimalist films, or any film that is not based on, “plot” and doesn’t manipulate emotions (i.e. the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Tsai Ming-liang, Jia Zhang-ke, Bresson, among others).
I am fairly well educated in American film. I am also a Kubrick and Scorsese expert. I am very interested in Bergman, Fellini, and Dreyer but I am no where near an expert but someday soon I probably will be.
I’d say I’m something of an expert on Humphrey Bogart, the Marx Brothers, and Hollywood films of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. I also know a ridiculous amount of information about Casablanca. My interests are Louis Malle, Fellini, Truffaut, Jarmusch, Godard, samurai films.
Can’t say I’m a expert on any subject, but I do have many interests, mostly Hollywood’s 30s, western, “noir”, Italian cinema, american 90s and actual south-american cinema. I’m a music journalist in São Paulo/Brazil, and I do love films the same way I do love music, as Richard wrote very well: “I get to pick which world I’d like to inhabit”. Thing is I’m geting more and more interested about the reasons, facts and works behind all of these images and emotions. And that’s why I’m here. Oh, and I do have a hard time writing in english, specially when I’m drunk. []s!
Isn’t this what profiles are for?
Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to flesh mine out a little better than the simple declarative statements that it currently is…
Hmmm…
—PolarisDiB
I’m more a jack of all trades and master of none. My main interest is Mizoguchi (and i like Japanese classic cinema generally) but even with him i’ve only seen about 20. I like to cover all over world cinema as best i can but not specialising in any great depth. This may be a case of itchy feet, gadfly spirit. If you take the case of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, co-originators of the theory of evolution, and the sporting fame of great specialists v all-rounders, i’m not sure spreading yourself thinly always pays. Being British i’ve seen more than my share of British films but not really by design. I could certainly come up with a decent selection of lots of great Fred Astaire routines off the top of my head. There was once an article on me in Wales on Sunday with the headline “Taff-finder general” (i.e Welsh-finder general); this creature combination of magpie ferreting has spilled a little, but superficially, into Welsh cinema
oh i know; i’ve been a listaholic, used to collect em, but even with this the folks at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They (who i’ve helped out a bit) should now be the real experts
I’m interested in particular filmmakers more that particular movements or national cinemas. I am interested in the history of film style as well.
Bob Stutsman
Note: If anyone in the auteurs could edit the topic heading to eliminate typos, I would appreciate it. There is no editing feature for this after the fact. I have a visual problem that doesn’t let me catch these things sometimes before I post. Thanks.
Some of this is covered in various other threads, but I though it might be useful to have some background information on people’s various areas of interest and/or areas of expertise in film. Since I have been on this site, I have encountered a wide range of people with different interests and areas of knowledge. I know we have people on site who are students/intructors in films studies, film reviewers, independent filmmakers, etc., and have knowledge and expertise in certain areas. I am always learning something new everytime I come here. If we could share some information about our own areas of interest and knowledge, it might enable us to share or connect with people who have similar interests, or pick their brains if we need to explore an area. As most people leave their profile sections blank or cryptic, I really only get to know their own interests from reading their posts. So, if anyone thinks this would be a useful exercise, here goes. Use this or post any information you think relevant.
My major areas of interest are: American films of the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s; British films of the 40s, 50s, and 60s; Japanese films of the 50s and 60s; Italian films of the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. The directors/auteurs I am most interested in are: Kubrick, Hitchcock, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Wilder, Antonioni, Kurosawa, Kieslowski (I know this information can be added to our profile section, but I am limiting my own posting here to those I have studied the most). I am also interested in learning more about current international cinema, various ‘new wave’ movements, experimental cinema. I would like to share in discussion groups relative to certain film topics, films, and directors.