The Killing of a Chinese Bookie; my favorite Cassavetes
Also The Brown Bunny, I’m sure most hate this film, but for me at least, it has always been prophetic.
The soundtrack alone is a great piece of art like that of Bobby Beausoleil’s Lucifer Rising.
L’Avventura
A clockwork orange, definitly. It’s was such a huge shock for me, it was exactly like if I understood the whole world the instant the movie stoped, le samurai too…because melville is the one who understand the most….like everything about cinema…and it’s so subtle! and of course Alain Delon just rocks!
Apocalypse Now—Francis Ford Coppola
Y Tu Mama Tambien—Alfonso Cuaron
Little Miss Sunshine—Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Farris
Lagaan—Ashutosh Gowariker
In the Mood for Love—Wong Kar-Wai
Lawrence of Arabia—David Lean
Seven Samurai—Akira Kurosawa
If..—Lindsay Anderson
Annie Hall—Woody Allen
The Dollars Trilogy—Sergio Leone
Au Revoir Les Enfants—Louis Malle
Babette’s Feast—Gabriel Axel
Gabby, using two hyphens in a row will format your text with strike-though, as you can see!
Chinatown! Chinatown! CHINATOWN!
If
Down By Law
Everything by Chris Marker
Killer of Sheep
This last affected me profoundly for reasons that are wordless.
And “Naked” (Mike Leigh). That’s the London that no-one ever talks about, the London I know. About a million years from “Notting Hill” and “Bridget Jones”.
Walkabout – Nicolas Roeg
The vision of love in this film is astounding. The idea of two people from such almost opposite ways of life coming together to discover their mutual humanity is incredibly inspiring. Regarding the notion that love is the same thing as possibility: at each step we take to love another human, we are taking chance, and love between people can acquire multiple dimensions if we accept that love only exists as a possibility, an infinite possibility.
The portrayal of human sexuality in this film is equally astounding. That, at its most basic, and therefore most profound level, human sexuality is also about possibility and acceptance of our own lives and who we meet and why, is the closest notion of a true human sexuality that I’ve ever seen represented in film.
I heard that Nicolas Roeg let the sexuality between the two main characters unfold naturally and that he simply was there ready with camera to capture it. Filmmaking at its best.
Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi)- Agnes Varda
Varda succeeds at capturing humanity in its entirety as seen through the eyes of a lone girl. The most difficult process of being a “woman filmmaker” is to forget that you are one, and to become simply human again.
There’s a lot of movies that have changed me in some aspect.
The most importants are:
Pink Flamingos; Funny Games; Blade Runner; The Sound of Music; Sunset Blvd.; Hedwig Velvet Goldmine; Big Fish; Girl Interrupted; Audition, Happiness; Kissed; Suspiria; In the mood for love; Leo; Hinokio; Requiem; Breakfast on Pluto; Plata Quemada; Subway; Betty Blue; Wild at Heart; Twin Peaks;The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things; The Wiz; O Homem que virou Suco; I’m a cyborg, but that´s ok; El Topo; Shortbus.
There are still more,,,
cya
Magnolia
Punch Drunk Love
Fargo
Before Sunrise&Sunset
King Lear and Weekend by Jean-Luc Godard opened my eyes to not only how you can use cinema but art in general as well. Godard has the cinematic effect of Dylan on me; suddenly puzzles fall into place as ideas but never turn clear; they’re constant and ever changing.
Wow, what changed my life? I think Truffaut’s Bed and Board and Gondry’s The Science of Sleep helped me see my inner Doinel/Stephane. I have no doubt in my mind that if I hadn’t seen these movies I wouldn’t be the dude sitting before this screen. I never saw these movies as a coda to live by (like the cool ass dudes in Melville movies), it was more like they helped define bits of my personality. The gizmos, the attire, the curiosity, our instiable love for women: Doinel/Stephane/Ordonez.
There are also movies that set the scene for me: Sofia’s Lost in Translation, Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. Anytime I watch one of these flicks I have a delicious dialectic between the way I see my world and how they see theirs. Moods.
Love is divided into three parts (without any sort of religious resemblance): Brooks’ As Good As It Gets, Wong Kar-Wai’s Fallen Angels, Woody Allen’s Manhattan.
Heartache: Curaon’s Y Tu Mama Tambien, Sofia’s The Virgin Suicides, Chabrol’s Les Bonnes Femmes.
The reason filmmaking is want I want to do for the rest of my life and why women are so deeply rooted in life and cinema for me in a very reflexive loving and and caring way that only the woman i love can ever truly and completely understand oh and by the way this movie is almost proof that cinema has a living breathing sarcastic poetic and brutal soul:
Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita.
The opening scene of “Raging Bull” made me instantly know I wanted to be a part of film. Michael Chapman’s cinematography and Cavalleria Rusticana: Intermezzo playing under DeNiro hopping around the ring floored me. I can never look at Raging Bull any other way now.
Jean-Luc Godard (the man and his films) made me want to obsess about cinema and spend my life being a student of it. To the point where I joined a group called “The Auteurs”. Weird huh?
What other way could you look at Raging Bull, that scene alone says it all. That and lamotta in bed saying “come ova here baby, ’fore i beatcha.”
defenetly “burton fink” by the cohens. i was 18 when i saw it, my girlfriend dragged me to the cinematheque kicking and screaming and since then i never looked at cinema the same way again.
"Elephant"by Gus Van Sant.
Because I will never look at schools normally again.
“Pierrot Le Fou”by Jean-Luc Godard
Because of it,I love poetry.
"Fargo"by The Coen Brothers
Because Frances Mcdormand
“2001:A Space Odysee”by Stanley Kubrick
Because Life,The Universe,Darwin.
Several films changed my life. . .And I’m not going to get all technical about why and how and what not. . .
“Otto E Mezzo” by Federico Fellini
“Pierrot Le Fou” by Jean-Luc Godard
“The Battle Of Algiers” By Gillo Pontecorvo
“400 Blows” by Francois Truffuat
Might basic and essential to some. . .But thats me. . .
One of the movies that made changes in my life, and made me think in a different way of life.
Andrej Tarkovszkij: Zerkalo
D.W. Griffith: Intolerance
I’m beginning to go crazy because I though I saw all Tarkovsky movies,which is wrong,because Lakos just said Zerkalo,which made me remembered I haven’t seen that one…..Fuck…..
Edwin, Zerkalo is The Mirror
I’m not sure about life-changing, but movies with a strong resonance;
Blade Runner
Don’t Look Now (the kind of filmmaking that makes you realise that many “auteurs” are unimaginative buffons)
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Heathers
My Dinner with Andre
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Fearless
I was about to realize that like a split second ago Dave….I’m kind of ashamed….
I never thought movies could have that kind of effect… until I saw: “Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit”! Hey, it’s got Ralph Fiennes in it!!
Memento probably, just showed me how brilliant film-making can be achieved simply. Keeps you hooked and guessing throughout and leaves you thinking and talking about it for years and years and years afterwards! A film that did have me nearly screaming at the screen and left me feeling just obsolete to the world was Punishment Park. That film just chews you up and spits you out looking at such a disturbing mess behind you…amazing
‘’ Cinema il Paradiso’’ …age 15…first film allowed to see alone without my parents ….the night …..in a open air cinema, with a jasmine garden surround me, under the stars …..experience unforgettable …..and after the end of the film, the begging of discovering what it is the magic of cinema …the journey goes still on !
Not bat your situation iannis
I’d go for Motocycles Diaries.. not because it’s Che Guevara – It Could Be Anyone – but because he actually changed for what he believes. And what he believes was made throught what he’s seen.
It made me cry even if there’s nothing sad about it! I wish everybody could see that movie.
Clockwork Orange really introduced me to Stanley Kubrick and i never looked back. I was about 15 years old and it changed my entire perspective on life. And believe it or not i saw it in high school classroom. The fact that they allowed her to show it is amazing. But she did and i have never been the same. I guess all the ultra violence got to me.
As a teenager Woody Allen wowed me more than anyone. We were shown Annie Hall in my 10th grade Film as Lit. class & I actually fell out of my chair when he said “my raccoon had hepatitis”. Woody Allen films also introduced me to other artists whom I now love & have great respect for: namely Ingmar Bergman, E.E. Cummings, & Django Reinhardt (film, poetry, & music).
As far as ONE film affecting me the MOST, that would have to be Orson Welles’ F for Fake, which bitchslaps the ultimate power of editing.
Honorable mentions include: Double Life of Veronique, La Jetee, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Fanny & Alexander, Century of the Self, & Claire Denis’ L’intrus.
When i was a child:
movies of Emir Kusturica and Luc Besson that i could watch.
When i was a teenager:
Trainspotting (D. Boyle)
The Doors (O. Stone)
Then:
Blow-Up (M. Antonioni)
Persona (I. Bergman)
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… Spring (Kim Ki-Duk)
Easy Rider (D. Hopper)
La Notte (M. Antonioni)
Last Year in Marienbad (A. Resnais)
Olivier, Probably
Wild strawberries
The seventh seal
Life is beautiful
The return