I must admit to doing very little research on non-Western or Japanese films. However, I saw Sembene’s “The Wagon” and pieces of Kiarostami’s “And Life Goes On…” in film history class, thought the former was particularly powerful, and the latter more real than most of the famous Italian works. So despite the bias that many of us have, I can assure you we don’t feel the West exclusively makes films of quality! A select few have written the history of film’s development, and too many of us have bowed to them without question. Hopefully The Auteurs can help to right this…
Please watch it silent. The damned thing is only available to watch because of a near-miracle, so don’t tarnish it with a soundtrack inspired by (not created for) the film, placed on top of it without Dreyer’s approval. Yes, we’re all guilty of watching silent movies with new soundtracks, but in this case, the director directly stated that he wanted it to be seen silent.
The “Voices of Light” version is valuable when one wants to appreciate “Voices of Light”.
Orson Welles is a two-timer whose films deserve the best DVD editions possible. I’ve sent quite a few e-mails to Criterion, begging them to sift through the legal issues and put out a Welles box…
I once told my girlfriend that “Barry Lyndon” is the most perfect film ever made. (I still almost agree with myself.) So we finally sat down to watch it together, and hours into this epic we find ourselves at a scene where Lord Bullingdon sits and writes with his eager little half-brother. As it cuts between the two my girlfriend shouts “The writing on their papers changes! There’s less now than before! It’s not perfect! It’s not perfect!”
I thought “Kung-Pow!!” was funny in the fifth grade and I still think it’s funny.
If just one famous director would come out of the closet with their love for this film, and if I could just write one auteur-theory driven paper on Oedekerk, I’m sure this Satire on the Failings of Commercialism: A Certain Tendency of Tonguey could one day earn credit in the art film community… Ahem.
I never thought much of him until last night, when a 2 am “GoodFellas” on TCM sucked me into its incredibly fun story. I think new knowledge of film form (thanks, film school!) allows for a greater appreciation of his work, scene by scene. (Note that I really, really wanted to go to bed beforehand.) The way the music becomes less and less well-edited, and more and more claustrophobic, moving from a minute of an intro here to a couple minutes of a chorus there, representing this drug addict’s increasing paranoia and warped state of mind, was much more interesting to me on this viewing. (More interesting than the first: “What the hell? This music is getting annoying.”)
What was particularly interesting was that “Mean Streets”, which I haven’t seen in its entirety, began immediately afterward, and showed me how little Scorsese has changed as a filmmaker. He appears to have grown more confident and less ambitious in his storytelling (the opening line in Streets reeks of indie inexperience…), but it looks like he’s been shooting the same scenes with the same camera set-ups for years. The biggest change has probably come as a result of Schoonmaker’s editing, who deserves almost as much credit as Marty.
It looks stunning on blu-ray. Kubrick originally intended a much grainier look than most of us saw in the censored version, where as you probably know, black robed men were inserted to cover certain spots of the orgy. What is less well-known is that in addition to this censorship, a great deal of noise was removed, I believe once the film was out on DVD. (Not sure if the theatrical run was also altered.) The blu-ray brings back this grainy effect and I think it looks fantastic.
Thanks for the link, Guillotine! (Also, thanks for everyone who’s posting paintings: I was up till 7 am last night going through every page of this forum, googling painters and paintings and reading up on what I don’t already know – a lot.)
Please watch “One Man Band” on your F for Fake disc 2, as well as the Toho Masterworks/Kurosawa interview on discs 2 and 3 of Seven Samurai. All of these are very informative, and “One Man Band” has clips of unreleased Welles films!!
(I know that’s already been said, but I thought I’d add to the hype and really convince you to watch it…)
I can usually only watch one film in a day. I like to turn it over in my mind for the rest of the day. (Or, other plans get in the way.) However, this rule changes if I’m re-watching any films, or if they’re of low quality. (Iron Man, Tropic Thunder – which wasn’t as bad – and Disaster Movie all in one night. It was a friend’s idea…)
@Justin: That’s one thing I’ve found unique about Marker’s body of work. For other directors, you find forums (especially on IMDB) where someone asks “What is he known for?” or “What’s good about him?” and people respond with the tracking shot, or snappy dialogue, or some other base technique not particularly relevant to that director (and certainly not all-encompassing of their virtues). Perhaps Marker is harder to pin down because he’s less discussed in film circles… at least every circle I’ve been in/observed. “Sans Soleil” must be experienced by each person to be understood. As far as I know, little has been written about it other than certain themes that run through it. I hope Chris receives more attention in the future; I hope his techniques are so over our head that it will take future, supposedly innovative directors to invent techniques that will make us go “Oh! Chris was doing it all along”.
Here: http://www.chrismarker.org/
is a site dedicated to him, which frequently posts his new videos, or DVD releases, or articles about his films (most of which I haven’t seen). Anybody who gets a chance to see his Tarkovsky documentary should do so.
Anybody who gets a chance should look at (and few people seem to know about this!! I’m excited to break the news to anyone who doesn’t) should check out his Youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Kosinki
“Pictures at an Exhibition” is brilliant; beautiful and hilarious.
I just posted this in the Chris Marker thread, but it seems especially relevant here:
To anyone who hasn’t seen it, Chris Marker has a Youtube channel, and one of his videos is called “Pictures at an Exhibition”.
I’m quite sure they’re his own photoshops, which are intriguing and (more often) hilarious, particularly when they touch upon your own personal knowledge of art history, film history, or world history!
“Pictures at an Exhibition”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PThypeEt1Y&feature=channel_page
I haven’t seen a whole lot of the canonical documentaries, but “F for Fake”, “Sans Soleil”, and “Salesman” are three of my favourite films, regardless of genre. (Not that documentary is necessarily a genre… but that’s a whole other topic…)
Oh, and “The Corporation” is the best horror movie of all time. ;)
This is a pretty pitiful top 30.. I’m going to assume these are the top 30 living directors. (Otherwise this list is quite biased!)
As for his worthiness: I’ve only seen a couple Wong Kar-Wai films, and his unrequited love reminds me of Petrarch. And as someone I know justifiably responded to Petrarch’s romanticism: “Patrarch, shut the…”
(As an aside, I wish more people were posting at 5:30 am. That’s Eastern Daylight Time. Isn’t this website visited from people all over the world? Surely it’s a reasonable hour somewhere.)
My Top 5:
1. A Geisha
2. Street of Shame
3. Sansho the Bailiff
4. Ugetsu
5. Osaka Elegy
Though I’ve seen a lot of his films, I haven’t had a chance to see Taira Clan, Chrysanthemums, or Oharu. Given the popularity of those among everyone else, I’d say my list is far from definitive…
If with age you also find maturity and an increased body of knowledge, then I think your critics were correct (though perhaps not in their assessment of you, personally). If with age you’re exposed to more films, and gain more knowledge of other art forms, and their history, or really any other area of study, then this will only help in your appreciation of a film. Kubrick is the perfect example to prove this, because everyone has seen his films and almost everyone loves them – or, if you don’t love them, you likely loved them when you first saw them, if you were less intelligent than you are now. Kubrick works on all levels, shallow or deep, and its for his shallow virtues (the overarching mood, his perfect marriage of image and sound) that he’s often called “deep”; that he’s often called a genius. These initially attract us.. I found that as I knew more about cinema and cinema theory, I grew more and more fond of his work, discovering at every step that “Kubrick’s been doing that this whole time!” Now that I’m beginning to focus on art history in general, I’m finding more and more layers in his films. (He once laughed at the suggestion that he’d purposely referenced his own films within his later films, but I am positive that there are many outside references to be found.) That man had quite the body of knowledge underneath him. (Please see the documentary “Kubrick’s Boxes”.)
Other films will Benjamin Button you: I think ‘The Graduate" will never quite live up to the masterpiece I perceived at the age of 14. It’s still hilarious, and solidly written, but a dawning inability to relate to the character will remove what was once my favourite part of the picture.
So it’s not really age, but maturity and experience (but by that I mostly mean increased knowledge, which I suppose might one day translate to wisdom). However, everyone should keep in mind that most of us here at The Auteurs thought we were geniuses at 12 and 14, and some of us sadly think we’re geniuses now. (It usually takes a couple years to want to slap myself for whatever state of mind I’m in at one point in time, so I’ll let you know what 20 year-old Patrick thinks of 18 year-old Patrick.) So while “maturity”, rather than age, is undoubtedly the better word for this rule of thumb – as has been duly noted on this board – it’s still a relatively safe bet to just accept the shortcomings of youth. :)
@Fredo: Yes, but we should probably warn first time viewers that the narrator’s pronunciation of the word “Boxes” will haunt their worst nightmares afterward. It’s not his accent, but his natural tone of voice, and the sheer number of times he repeats that word… * shiver *
Grey Gardens about 3 years ago
Why is the Criterion box set suddenly selling so well on Amazon?
Is it about to go OOP, or is this because of the HBO special?
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What a wonderful site but not for Austrians about 3 years ago
Canadians have the same problem on this site. Thankfully the Criterion festivals are open to us, but very few of the other films :(
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"The only film worth watching... twice" about 3 years ago
TCM.com and the Masters of Cinema DVD of “Vampyr” state that this is how Alfred Hitchcock felt about the film.
Does anyone know the original source of the quote? The interview? The book? I’d like to see if he expands on this.
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The Auteurs' Fake Criterion Covers about 3 years ago
Hey guys these covers are awesome. Here’s a link to a Criterion Photoshop template to help you out:
http://www.zshare.net/download/57900247bad23a75/
Pretty sure that’s the exact Criterion form. No more oversized "C"’s or Microsoft Paint, k? :D I’ll post my own designs soon.
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The Auteurs' Fake Criterion Covers about 3 years ago
I feel it’s incomplete, but here’s one I worked at, side of the box and all:
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Can Colored Folks Get Some Love at Criterion too? almost 3 years ago
I must admit to doing very little research on non-Western or Japanese films. However, I saw Sembene’s “The Wagon” and pieces of Kiarostami’s “And Life Goes On…” in film history class, thought the former was particularly powerful, and the latter more real than most of the famous Italian works. So despite the bias that many of us have, I can assure you we don’t feel the West exclusively makes films of quality! A select few have written the history of film’s development, and too many of us have bowed to them without question. Hopefully The Auteurs can help to right this…
Go to Comment
Quick Question About The Passion of Joan of Arc almost 3 years ago
Please watch it silent. The damned thing is only available to watch because of a near-miracle, so don’t tarnish it with a soundtrack inspired by (not created for) the film, placed on top of it without Dreyer’s approval. Yes, we’re all guilty of watching silent movies with new soundtracks, but in this case, the director directly stated that he wanted it to be seen silent.
The “Voices of Light” version is valuable when one wants to appreciate “Voices of Light”.
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Andrei Rublev Criterion Re-Issue? almost 3 years ago
@Matt: Yes but, while I don’t know the technical terms for the issue, it cuts off the subtitles if the image is re-sized to fit a widescreen TV.
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The best deals (purchase wise) you've come across almost 3 years ago
Due to a labeling error, I saved about $600 on my 36-inch, widescreen, HD TV! (Yeah, it’s not a DVD deal, but I watch DVD’s on it…)
Other than that, I guess it was pretty cool getting the $90 Varda box for free from B&N’s current sale.
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One time Criterion directors that deserve another shot? almost 3 years ago
Orson Welles is a two-timer whose films deserve the best DVD editions possible. I’ve sent quite a few e-mails to Criterion, begging them to sift through the legal issues and put out a Welles box…
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Movie's you just don't like. almost 3 years ago
Garden State and Requiem for a Dream are both so painful…
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noteable continuity errors in films almost 3 years ago
I once told my girlfriend that “Barry Lyndon” is the most perfect film ever made. (I still almost agree with myself.) So we finally sat down to watch it together, and hours into this epic we find ourselves at a scene where Lord Bullingdon sits and writes with his eager little half-brother. As it cuts between the two my girlfriend shouts “The writing on their papers changes! There’s less now than before! It’s not perfect! It’s not perfect!”
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The Gultiest of Guilty Pleasures. almost 3 years ago
I thought “Kung-Pow!!” was funny in the fifth grade and I still think it’s funny.
If just one famous director would come out of the closet with their love for this film, and if I could just write one auteur-theory driven paper on Oedekerk, I’m sure this Satire on the Failings of Commercialism: A Certain Tendency of Tonguey could one day earn credit in the art film community… Ahem.
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LET'S TALK FRANKLY ABOUT MARTIN SCORSESE almost 3 years ago
I never thought much of him until last night, when a 2 am “GoodFellas” on TCM sucked me into its incredibly fun story. I think new knowledge of film form (thanks, film school!) allows for a greater appreciation of his work, scene by scene. (Note that I really, really wanted to go to bed beforehand.) The way the music becomes less and less well-edited, and more and more claustrophobic, moving from a minute of an intro here to a couple minutes of a chorus there, representing this drug addict’s increasing paranoia and warped state of mind, was much more interesting to me on this viewing. (More interesting than the first: “What the hell? This music is getting annoying.”)
What was particularly interesting was that “Mean Streets”, which I haven’t seen in its entirety, began immediately afterward, and showed me how little Scorsese has changed as a filmmaker. He appears to have grown more confident and less ambitious in his storytelling (the opening line in Streets reeks of indie inexperience…), but it looks like he’s been shooting the same scenes with the same camera set-ups for years. The biggest change has probably come as a result of Schoonmaker’s editing, who deserves almost as much credit as Marty.
By the way, is he really on this site?
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What's your stance on bluray? almost 3 years ago
It’s worth having a blu-ray player just to see the original, grainy version of “Eyes Wide Shut”.
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What's your stance on bluray? almost 3 years ago
It looks stunning on blu-ray. Kubrick originally intended a much grainier look than most of us saw in the censored version, where as you probably know, black robed men were inserted to cover certain spots of the orgy. What is less well-known is that in addition to this censorship, a great deal of noise was removed, I believe once the film was out on DVD. (Not sure if the theatrical run was also altered.) The blu-ray brings back this grainy effect and I think it looks fantastic.
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Our favourite paintings: the great Auteur Gallery almost 3 years ago
I read somewhere that Rembrandt didn’t actually paint the beautiful “Man in Gold Helmet”.
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Our favourite paintings: the great Auteur Gallery almost 3 years ago
Thanks for the link, Guillotine! (Also, thanks for everyone who’s posting paintings: I was up till 7 am last night going through every page of this forum, googling painters and paintings and reading up on what I don’t already know – a lot.)
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Criterion Question almost 3 years ago
Please watch “One Man Band” on your F for Fake disc 2, as well as the Toho Masterworks/Kurosawa interview on discs 2 and 3 of Seven Samurai. All of these are very informative, and “One Man Band” has clips of unreleased Welles films!!
(I know that’s already been said, but I thought I’d add to the hype and really convince you to watch it…)
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HOW MANY FILMS CAN YOU WATCH IN A DAY? DEPENDING ON YOUR MOOD almost 3 years ago
I can usually only watch one film in a day. I like to turn it over in my mind for the rest of the day. (Or, other plans get in the way.) However, this rule changes if I’m re-watching any films, or if they’re of low quality. (Iron Man, Tropic Thunder – which wasn’t as bad – and Disaster Movie all in one night. It was a friend’s idea…)
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The Creative Limitations of this Site almost 3 years ago
I’ve seen people italicize on these forums before, but I don’t know how. Anybody who does, feel free to let us know…
UPDATE: Ah, thank you.
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CHRIS MARKER almost 3 years ago
@Justin: That’s one thing I’ve found unique about Marker’s body of work. For other directors, you find forums (especially on IMDB) where someone asks “What is he known for?” or “What’s good about him?” and people respond with the tracking shot, or snappy dialogue, or some other base technique not particularly relevant to that director (and certainly not all-encompassing of their virtues). Perhaps Marker is harder to pin down because he’s less discussed in film circles… at least every circle I’ve been in/observed. “Sans Soleil” must be experienced by each person to be understood. As far as I know, little has been written about it other than certain themes that run through it. I hope Chris receives more attention in the future; I hope his techniques are so over our head that it will take future, supposedly innovative directors to invent techniques that will make us go “Oh! Chris was doing it all along”.
Here: http://www.chrismarker.org/
is a site dedicated to him, which frequently posts his new videos, or DVD releases, or articles about his films (most of which I haven’t seen). Anybody who gets a chance to see his Tarkovsky documentary should do so.
Anybody who gets a chance should look at (and few people seem to know about this!! I’m excited to break the news to anyone who doesn’t) should check out his Youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Kosinki
“Pictures at an Exhibition” is brilliant; beautiful and hilarious.
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Our favourite paintings: the great Auteur Gallery almost 3 years ago
I just posted this in the Chris Marker thread, but it seems especially relevant here:
To anyone who hasn’t seen it, Chris Marker has a Youtube channel, and one of his videos is called “Pictures at an Exhibition”.
I’m quite sure they’re his own photoshops, which are intriguing and (more often) hilarious, particularly when they touch upon your own personal knowledge of art history, film history, or world history!
“Pictures at an Exhibition”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PThypeEt1Y&feature=channel_page
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What are the best documentary films ever? almost 3 years ago
I haven’t seen a whole lot of the canonical documentaries, but “F for Fake”, “Sans Soleil”, and “Salesman” are three of my favourite films, regardless of genre. (Not that documentary is necessarily a genre… but that’s a whole other topic…)
Oh, and “The Corporation” is the best horror movie of all time. ;)
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Who do you read? almost 3 years ago
Dostoevsky and Flannery O’Connor are my current favourites. Poe was who inspired me to read and write more, as I’m sure he was for most of us.
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Best director of the 21st century... Wong Kar-Wai?? almost 3 years ago
This is a pretty pitiful top 30.. I’m going to assume these are the top 30 living directors. (Otherwise this list is quite biased!)
As for his worthiness: I’ve only seen a couple Wong Kar-Wai films, and his unrequited love reminds me of Petrarch. And as someone I know justifiably responded to Petrarch’s romanticism: “Patrarch, shut the…”
(As an aside, I wish more people were posting at 5:30 am. That’s Eastern Daylight Time. Isn’t this website visited from people all over the world? Surely it’s a reasonable hour somewhere.)
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Best director of the 21st century... Wong Kar-Wai?? almost 3 years ago
Oh dear, my mistake. I’ll blame it on the hour (and yes I’m still awake).
Or I could shamelessly defend myself with “Oh, but of course I meant Bergman and Antonioni”.
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Top 5 (or rating) Mizoguchi almost 3 years ago
My Top 5:
1. A Geisha
2. Street of Shame
3. Sansho the Bailiff
4. Ugetsu
5. Osaka Elegy
Though I’ve seen a lot of his films, I haven’t had a chance to see Taira Clan, Chrysanthemums, or Oharu. Given the popularity of those among everyone else, I’d say my list is far from definitive…
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do you have to have to be a certain age to enjoy certain films? almost 3 years ago
If with age you also find maturity and an increased body of knowledge, then I think your critics were correct (though perhaps not in their assessment of you, personally). If with age you’re exposed to more films, and gain more knowledge of other art forms, and their history, or really any other area of study, then this will only help in your appreciation of a film. Kubrick is the perfect example to prove this, because everyone has seen his films and almost everyone loves them – or, if you don’t love them, you likely loved them when you first saw them, if you were less intelligent than you are now. Kubrick works on all levels, shallow or deep, and its for his shallow virtues (the overarching mood, his perfect marriage of image and sound) that he’s often called “deep”; that he’s often called a genius. These initially attract us.. I found that as I knew more about cinema and cinema theory, I grew more and more fond of his work, discovering at every step that “Kubrick’s been doing that this whole time!” Now that I’m beginning to focus on art history in general, I’m finding more and more layers in his films. (He once laughed at the suggestion that he’d purposely referenced his own films within his later films, but I am positive that there are many outside references to be found.) That man had quite the body of knowledge underneath him. (Please see the documentary “Kubrick’s Boxes”.)
Other films will Benjamin Button you: I think ‘The Graduate" will never quite live up to the masterpiece I perceived at the age of 14. It’s still hilarious, and solidly written, but a dawning inability to relate to the character will remove what was once my favourite part of the picture.
So it’s not really age, but maturity and experience (but by that I mostly mean increased knowledge, which I suppose might one day translate to wisdom). However, everyone should keep in mind that most of us here at The Auteurs thought we were geniuses at 12 and 14, and some of us sadly think we’re geniuses now. (It usually takes a couple years to want to slap myself for whatever state of mind I’m in at one point in time, so I’ll let you know what 20 year-old Patrick thinks of 18 year-old Patrick.) So while “maturity”, rather than age, is undoubtedly the better word for this rule of thumb – as has been duly noted on this board – it’s still a relatively safe bet to just accept the shortcomings of youth. :)
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do you have to have to be a certain age to enjoy certain films? almost 3 years ago
@Fredo: Yes, but we should probably warn first time viewers that the narrator’s pronunciation of the word “Boxes” will haunt their worst nightmares afterward. It’s not his accent, but his natural tone of voice, and the sheer number of times he repeats that word… * shiver *
Go to Comment