My wife started to give me a hard time because every time I’d answer the question “What’s your favorite movie?” I’d have a different favorite. So I decided that I would just say “Play Time”. So, that’s what takes my number 1 spot, but after that this is a list that could change on a daily basis.
1. Play Time (Jacques Tati)
2. The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray)
3. Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)
4. Wagon Master (John Ford)
5. Mes petites amoureuses (Jean Eustache)
6. Limelight (Charlie Chaplin)
7. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)
8. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
9. Big Wednesday (John Milius)
10. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu)
My favorite film genre is “The Western”. Partly for medium specificity-related reasons. It’s not that there aren’t great western novels but the central question of the genre – how is life lived on the frontier between civilization and nature? – is one that lends itself to cinemamatic expression: it’s all about spaces and geography. And Westerns are also one of the best examples of a genre functioning as a dynamic conversation between artists & audience and artists & artists: in the way Rio Bravo answers High Noon, the way McCabe & Mrs. Miller revises My Darling Clementine (and other Fords), the way Once Upon a Time In the West creates a fantastical vision of the west out of images and characters from the entire history of western movies.
Reading this thread has made me realize that I still need to see many more samurai films before I could reliably say what the greatest one is, but my unreliable, contingent response would be: Seven Samurai.
It’s not just that Seven Samurai is a great movie that happens to be about samurai: it is a movie that is about the (end of the) samurai way of life. Each of the seven is a different version (or vision) of the samurai.
So, I’m not sure that I would say it is a greater movie than Ran or Yojimbo, but I would argue that it is the greater samurai movie.
While I enjoyed Mann’s “prestige” films – The Insider and Ali – when I saw them, I don’t think I ever need to see them again. But reading this thread has made me realize how much I want to see Collateral and Miami Vice again.
“I too had a bit of an issue with how close Rourke’s character was to himself. I think it’s a great character and performance, but can you really call it brilliant acting when someone is just pouring their own tragic heart out on the screen?”
I think you can. There’s a tendency to overvalue “being someone else” as a mark of a great performance. But acting is about playing a part, which doesn’t necessarily require that you pretend to be a completely different person: it just requries that you say and do and pretend to want the same things that the character is supposed to say and do and want.
So, I don’t think Rourke’s closeness to the character necessarily makes his performance any less worthy of praise.
Rather than thinking of good actors as people who can convincingly “be someone else,” I’d argue that good actors are people who can convincingly find themselves in the roles they play.
All that said, a big part of what’s impressive about Rourke’s performance here is all the physical work he does. Not just in terms of bulking up, but also in the way he carries himself in and out of the ring – in the way he uses that new bulk. And I thought the way that Rourke’s natural charisma managed to shine come through despite his beat-up face and freakish body was very moving and completely appropriate for the character.
I think the movie is very good – the best filmmaker from Aronofsky yet – although all of the scenes with the daughter and most of the scenes with Marisa Tomei are a lot weaker than the rest of the movie. Not that they’re badly done, but that they feel unecessary.
I think it’s always good to re-examine the canon and canonical: discussions about relative “greatness” are important because they help us figure out exactly what we value in cinema.
That said I suspect that the concept of “overrated” ends up obfuscating these conversations because the obvious reply is “Overrated by whom?” One could (for example) make the case that Howard Hawks is overrated by auteurist film buffs (I don’t think he is – he’s my favorite filmmaker), but that he’s underrated by more general film buffs/critics (who don’t take him as seriously as Welles, Renoir, Kurosawa, etc.).
Hawks is my favorite director. But none of his films – even my fave, Rio Bravo – really “blows me away”, like, say, Citizen Kane or Breathless or F for Fake. Rather, what I value in Hawks is the way he creates these very natural-feeling rhythms, both in terms of his images and of the way he directs performers. I’d agree with Harry that he’s probably underrated, because his style is so low-key.
“It makes sense that almost every director nowadays has the ability to be an auteur. But I’m always confused when the writer/director doesn’t edit their own films. There’s only been, to my knowledge, kiarostami, robert rodriguez, gus van sant, and uhhhh Kevin Smith, I guess really recently.”
The Coen Bros. also edit their own films.
I’m not sure if the inclusion of McG was supposed to be sarcastic, but (while I don’t like his films myself) I support the idea that there still might be auteurs out there working on disreputable commercial product (just like a lot of the original “underground” directors).
1. Profit motive and the whispering wind
2. Burn After Reading
3. The Flight of the Red Balloon
4. Wall-E
5. A Christmas Tale
6. In Bruges
7. Ballast
8. Boarding Gate
9. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
10. The Happening
Just missing the cut: The Wrestler, The Dark Knight, Gran Torino, Appaloosa, Rambo, Paranoid Park, Rachel Getting Married, and Milk.
Why I thought Burn After Reading was “top tier”:
I think it is among the Coens best work: it feels a little more open than their earlier movies, though: the performances aren’t as tightly controlled, the compositions are a little looser, the Rube Goldbergisms of the plot aren’t quite as emphasized.
I think Fargo is a movie (partly) about the impossibility of communicating with each other. I think Burn After Reading follows in that vein: a blackly comic allegory about the failure of the American intelligence system. Communication here is a problem only in as much as no one ever really knows what anyone else is really thinking, which means that everyone is operating with a severe lack of information. The Preston Sturges influence comes through in that the absence of understanding doesn’t stop anyone from making their moves, when just standing still would solve all their problems. Of course, standing still is not the American Way.
Anthony Mann is one of those directors where almost any one of his films would belong on a thread like this.
That said, I think The Naked Spur is his best movie, but I’d add another great movie (with another great Robert Ryan performance) to the list: Men in War.
Anthology Film Archives (my favorite despite occasional projection disasters)
MoMA
Walter Reade at Lincoln Center
BAM in Brooklyn
The American Museum of the Moving Image in Long Island City (where I had one of the great movie going experience of my life: seeing Tati’s Play Time for the first time)
“I’m probably going to catch hell for this, but I don’t think 8 1/2 is about filmmaking as much as it’s about the women in the director’s life and his obsessive/unhappy relationships with them. Mastroianni could almost be a novelist or an orchestra conductor and it wouldn’t hurt the film very much.”
Except that he has that big set sitting right there and he doesn’t know what to do with it. Plus he’s got all these people (actors, producers, etc.) depending on him. Not the kind of problems faced by a novelist/conductor/etc.
Joseph McBride’s “Whatever Happened to Orson Welles?” and Jonathan Rosenbaum’s “Discovering Orson Welles” are worth reading on this topic.
The movie Spielberg wouldn’t help Welles get money for was called “The Cradle Will Rock” (about the same events as the Tim Robbins movie, but told from a different – autobiographical – POV).
David E.’s comment that Welles treated movies as something he could pick up and put down is very insightful.
I don’t like that definition at all. For one thing, it ignore the historical meaning of “auteur” and limits granting auteur status to directors who work within/around studio/producer/investor constraints (like Joe Dante, for example). For another, to the extent that it’s even true that the studios/producers/etc. leave Daldry (and guys like him) alone to do whatever he wants (and I’m not sure that it is true), it’s only because Daldry isn’t going to do anything but serve up Oscar bait. It’s not like there was any danger of Daldry turning in something that looked like a Takashi Miike film (an extrenme example, but hopefully one that gets my point across).
In some ways, there’s more to admire and appreciate in PART II: it’s a more serious, somber movie and more deeply explores the ideas about capitalism, America, politics, and gangsterism brought up in the first one. But I do think it loses some of the original’s vitality (partly because, as the OP notes, there aren’t as many lively characters around). I’m impressed by PART II, but I don’t really love it.
I agree with Brad S. and would add: the old movie monster was part of a story, with a real plot, and themes (Karloff gets at this in his big speech). But the sniper’s action don’t add up to that kind of story: his violence is random and meaningless. By having Karloff face down the killer, though, Bogdanovich is asserting the power of form/meaning/narrative over the chaos of the modern world.
I think Curb is actually getting better over time. The show has gone from being just about the awkwardness of dealing with other people because of all the unwritten rules and hidden obligations of social interactions to something that has a more expansive, even cosmic sense of comedy. In this last season (and the previous one), it’s like it isn’t just other people who are out to get Larry, but the universe itself. (Not surprisingly one of Resnais’ favorite current shows!)
I don’t think there is any Amerson’s footage left to be found. We’re much more likely, though, to see one of Welles’ other unfinished projects brough to some stage of completion. Joseph McBride’s Whatever Happened to Orson Welles? and Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Discovering Orson Welles deal with this subject in great detail, and I’d recommend them to anyone who is interested in Welles’ “lost” work.
I think Dr. Frank raises an interesting aesthetic question: she may be intentionally grating, but she’s still grating. I mean, I like her performance in the show, but I definitely sympathize with people who find her hard to take, because, well, she is.
There are probably other examples of intentionally “bad” performances that, despite their being done on purpose, are legitimate turn offs.
I think Taxi Driver is a real mess, albeit a powerful mess, with many expressive sequences. While I think it is, ultimately, about Bickle’s descent into madness, there’s a way that Schrader/Scorsese (and some audience members) seem to get off on his actions in a way that doesn’t seem to me to be completely ironic. Funnily enough, on another comment thread today I wrote that I thought the movie was most interesting as a look at Schrader and Scorsese’s fantasies and pathologies.
One of the great things about Johnnie To is that there’s a lot of variety in his movies.
Here are some of my favorites:
Running Out of Time is a really entertaining comic action movie.
The Mission is a stylish, Leone-esque crime movie. (Exiled is it’s “in spirit only” sequel).
Throw Down is a judo movie, made in homage to Akira Kurosawa, with a strong French New Wave/Wong Kar-wai vibe.
Running on Karma is a weird, gonzo action movie, featuring Andy Lau in a bizarre muscle suit.
Election and Election Triad are, perhaps, the most conventional of his “personal” films. They’re a straightforward, but really well made pair of crime movies.
And my favorite: Sparrow – a lightly comic pickpocket movie, that feels a bit like a musical.
Bill Krohn’s excellent book Hitchcock at Work is the required reading on this subject. (It’s also one of the best examples of how to “do auteurism” right).
Harry – I think it’s pretty rich to suggest that the guy who made Vertigo and Rear Window was afraid of being experimental and unconventional. He did have one of the best “audience senses” of any filmmaker ever (i.e., he had a practical grasp of the psychology behind how we react to nrarrative films), but he used that knowledge – ultimately – to push his audiences, and not simply to make the experience more palatable to them (as Spielberg often does).
@Frank – I think he’s using “experimental” in a more colloquial sense, although it relates to Bordwell’s notion of stylistic evolution through problem solving. I.e. Hitchcock has a particular problem in front of him – how to film those scenes – and figures out a new way to film that expands upon existing conventions.
@Harry – I get what you’re saying about Whale, but I don’t think that “subversion” is at all a necessary quality of greatness or that “more subversive” = “better”. Is this something you feel applies across the board – i.e. do you think that “subversive” Westerns like The Shooting or The Wild Bunch are necessarily better than classical ones like Stagecoach and Fort Apache?
@Harry – I’m not trying to put you on the defensive: I just find the topic interesting and am asking these questions in a spirit of inquiry. I don’t think any artist, no matter their reputation, should be above criticism or even outright dismissal. These kinds of discussions are healthy and necessary! And even if I don’t agree with you about Whale, I do understand what you are saying and get why you value his films over Hitchcock’s. Me – somedays I think Raoul Walsh is better than Jean Renoir, but that’s a judgment I’d expect to have to defend on a site like this, simply because of Renoir’s “pantheon” status.
Here it is... Top 10 films of all time? over 3 years ago
My wife started to give me a hard time because every time I’d answer the question “What’s your favorite movie?” I’d have a different favorite. So I decided that I would just say “Play Time”. So, that’s what takes my number 1 spot, but after that this is a list that could change on a daily basis.
1. Play Time (Jacques Tati)
2. The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray)
3. Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)
4. Wagon Master (John Ford)
5. Mes petites amoureuses (Jean Eustache)
6. Limelight (Charlie Chaplin)
7. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)
8. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
9. Big Wednesday (John Milius)
10. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu)
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How would you describe your favorite genre? over 3 years ago
My favorite film genre is “The Western”. Partly for medium specificity-related reasons. It’s not that there aren’t great western novels but the central question of the genre – how is life lived on the frontier between civilization and nature? – is one that lends itself to cinemamatic expression: it’s all about spaces and geography. And Westerns are also one of the best examples of a genre functioning as a dynamic conversation between artists & audience and artists & artists: in the way Rio Bravo answers High Noon, the way McCabe & Mrs. Miller revises My Darling Clementine (and other Fords), the way Once Upon a Time In the West creates a fantastical vision of the west out of images and characters from the entire history of western movies.
Go to Comment
Greatest samurai film of all time? over 3 years ago
Reading this thread has made me realize that I still need to see many more samurai films before I could reliably say what the greatest one is, but my unreliable, contingent response would be: Seven Samurai.
It’s not just that Seven Samurai is a great movie that happens to be about samurai: it is a movie that is about the (end of the) samurai way of life. Each of the seven is a different version (or vision) of the samurai.
So, I’m not sure that I would say it is a greater movie than Ran or Yojimbo, but I would argue that it is the greater samurai movie.
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Michael Mann over 3 years ago
While I enjoyed Mann’s “prestige” films – The Insider and Ali – when I saw them, I don’t think I ever need to see them again. But reading this thread has made me realize how much I want to see Collateral and Miami Vice again.
Go to Comment
The Wrestler over 3 years ago
Brandon wrote:
“I too had a bit of an issue with how close Rourke’s character was to himself. I think it’s a great character and performance, but can you really call it brilliant acting when someone is just pouring their own tragic heart out on the screen?”
I think you can. There’s a tendency to overvalue “being someone else” as a mark of a great performance. But acting is about playing a part, which doesn’t necessarily require that you pretend to be a completely different person: it just requries that you say and do and pretend to want the same things that the character is supposed to say and do and want.
So, I don’t think Rourke’s closeness to the character necessarily makes his performance any less worthy of praise.
Rather than thinking of good actors as people who can convincingly “be someone else,” I’d argue that good actors are people who can convincingly find themselves in the roles they play.
All that said, a big part of what’s impressive about Rourke’s performance here is all the physical work he does. Not just in terms of bulking up, but also in the way he carries himself in and out of the ring – in the way he uses that new bulk. And I thought the way that Rourke’s natural charisma managed to shine come through despite his beat-up face and freakish body was very moving and completely appropriate for the character.
I think the movie is very good – the best filmmaker from Aronofsky yet – although all of the scenes with the daughter and most of the scenes with Marisa Tomei are a lot weaker than the rest of the movie. Not that they’re badly done, but that they feel unecessary.
Go to Comment
Are posts on overrated films and directors also overrated? over 3 years ago
I think it’s always good to re-examine the canon and canonical: discussions about relative “greatness” are important because they help us figure out exactly what we value in cinema.
That said I suspect that the concept of “overrated” ends up obfuscating these conversations because the obvious reply is “Overrated by whom?” One could (for example) make the case that Howard Hawks is overrated by auteurist film buffs (I don’t think he is – he’s my favorite filmmaker), but that he’s underrated by more general film buffs/critics (who don’t take him as seriously as Welles, Renoir, Kurosawa, etc.).
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Who else thinks that Howard Hawks is vastly overrated? over 3 years ago
Hawks is my favorite director. But none of his films – even my fave, Rio Bravo – really “blows me away”, like, say, Citizen Kane or Breathless or F for Fake. Rather, what I value in Hawks is the way he creates these very natural-feeling rhythms, both in terms of his images and of the way he directs performers. I’d agree with Harry that he’s probably underrated, because his style is so low-key.
Go to Comment
Comprehensive list of modern Auteur Directors over 3 years ago
Aoaijea wrote:
“It makes sense that almost every director nowadays has the ability to be an auteur. But I’m always confused when the writer/director doesn’t edit their own films. There’s only been, to my knowledge, kiarostami, robert rodriguez, gus van sant, and uhhhh Kevin Smith, I guess really recently.”
The Coen Bros. also edit their own films.
I’m not sure if the inclusion of McG was supposed to be sarcastic, but (while I don’t like his films myself) I support the idea that there still might be auteurs out there working on disreputable commercial product (just like a lot of the original “underground” directors).
Go to Comment
Top Ten Films of 2008 over 3 years ago
1. Profit motive and the whispering wind
2. Burn After Reading
3. The Flight of the Red Balloon
4. Wall-E
5. A Christmas Tale
6. In Bruges
7. Ballast
8. Boarding Gate
9. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
10. The Happening
Just missing the cut: The Wrestler, The Dark Knight, Gran Torino, Appaloosa, Rambo, Paranoid Park, Rachel Getting Married, and Milk.
Why I thought Burn After Reading was “top tier”:
I think it is among the Coens best work: it feels a little more open than their earlier movies, though: the performances aren’t as tightly controlled, the compositions are a little looser, the Rube Goldbergisms of the plot aren’t quite as emphasized.
I think Fargo is a movie (partly) about the impossibility of communicating with each other. I think Burn After Reading follows in that vein: a blackly comic allegory about the failure of the American intelligence system. Communication here is a problem only in as much as no one ever really knows what anyone else is really thinking, which means that everyone is operating with a severe lack of information. The Preston Sturges influence comes through in that the absence of understanding doesn’t stop anyone from making their moves, when just standing still would solve all their problems. Of course, standing still is not the American Way.
Go to Comment
Best Anthony Mann movies over 3 years ago
Anthony Mann is one of those directors where almost any one of his films would belong on a thread like this.
That said, I think The Naked Spur is his best movie, but I’d add another great movie (with another great Robert Ryan performance) to the list: Men in War.
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A List of Good Repertory/Specialty Theatres in Your Various Cities over 3 years ago
More NYC venues:
Anthology Film Archives (my favorite despite occasional projection disasters)
MoMA
Walter Reade at Lincoln Center
BAM in Brooklyn
The American Museum of the Moving Image in Long Island City (where I had one of the great movie going experience of my life: seeing Tati’s Play Time for the first time)
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Best Film About Film? over 3 years ago
“I’m probably going to catch hell for this, but I don’t think 8 1/2 is about filmmaking as much as it’s about the women in the director’s life and his obsessive/unhappy relationships with them. Mastroianni could almost be a novelist or an orchestra conductor and it wouldn’t hurt the film very much.”
Except that he has that big set sitting right there and he doesn’t know what to do with it. Plus he’s got all these people (actors, producers, etc.) depending on him. Not the kind of problems faced by a novelist/conductor/etc.
My addition to the thread:
(nostalgia)
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IT'S ALL TRUE - THE ORSON WELLES STORY over 3 years ago
Joseph McBride’s “Whatever Happened to Orson Welles?” and Jonathan Rosenbaum’s “Discovering Orson Welles” are worth reading on this topic.
The movie Spielberg wouldn’t help Welles get money for was called “The Cradle Will Rock” (about the same events as the Tim Robbins movie, but told from a different – autobiographical – POV).
David E.’s comment that Welles treated movies as something he could pick up and put down is very insightful.
Go to Comment
Oscars for Auteurs? over 3 years ago
I don’t like that definition at all. For one thing, it ignore the historical meaning of “auteur” and limits granting auteur status to directors who work within/around studio/producer/investor constraints (like Joe Dante, for example). For another, to the extent that it’s even true that the studios/producers/etc. leave Daldry (and guys like him) alone to do whatever he wants (and I’m not sure that it is true), it’s only because Daldry isn’t going to do anything but serve up Oscar bait. It’s not like there was any danger of Daldry turning in something that looked like a Takashi Miike film (an extrenme example, but hopefully one that gets my point across).
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Top 5 De Palma over 3 years ago
1. The Fury
2. Blow Out
3. Mission to Mars
4. Carlito’s Way
5. Body Double
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Oscars for Auteurs? over 3 years ago
I haven’t seen The Reader, but based on his other two movies, I would happily argue that Stephen Daldry is a much worse filmmaker than Michael Bay.
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'Auteur producers' over 3 years ago
When this topic comes up I always think of Val Lewton.
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Part II: Is It Over-rated? over 2 years ago
In some ways, there’s more to admire and appreciate in PART II: it’s a more serious, somber movie and more deeply explores the ideas about capitalism, America, politics, and gangsterism brought up in the first one. But I do think it loses some of the original’s vitality (partly because, as the OP notes, there aren’t as many lively characters around). I’m impressed by PART II, but I don’t really love it.
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The 60s by Rifle Scope over 2 years ago
I agree with Brad S. and would add: the old movie monster was part of a story, with a real plot, and themes (Karloff gets at this in his big speech). But the sniper’s action don’t add up to that kind of story: his violence is random and meaningless. By having Karloff face down the killer, though, Bogdanovich is asserting the power of form/meaning/narrative over the chaos of the modern world.
Go to Comment
best dark comedies? over 2 years ago
Goodfellas
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Curb Your Enthusiasm over 2 years ago
I think Curb is actually getting better over time. The show has gone from being just about the awkwardness of dealing with other people because of all the unwritten rules and hidden obligations of social interactions to something that has a more expansive, even cosmic sense of comedy. In this last season (and the previous one), it’s like it isn’t just other people who are out to get Larry, but the universe itself. (Not surprisingly one of Resnais’ favorite current shows!)
Go to Comment
Lost Movies over 2 years ago
I don’t think there is any Amerson’s footage left to be found. We’re much more likely, though, to see one of Welles’ other unfinished projects brough to some stage of completion. Joseph McBride’s Whatever Happened to Orson Welles? and Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Discovering Orson Welles deal with this subject in great detail, and I’d recommend them to anyone who is interested in Welles’ “lost” work.
Go to Comment
Curb Your Enthusiasm over 2 years ago
I think Dr. Frank raises an interesting aesthetic question: she may be intentionally grating, but she’s still grating. I mean, I like her performance in the show, but I definitely sympathize with people who find her hard to take, because, well, she is.
There are probably other examples of intentionally “bad” performances that, despite their being done on purpose, are legitimate turn offs.
Go to Comment
THEY. CANNOT. TOUCH. HER over 2 years ago
I think Taxi Driver is a real mess, albeit a powerful mess, with many expressive sequences. While I think it is, ultimately, about Bickle’s descent into madness, there’s a way that Schrader/Scorsese (and some audience members) seem to get off on his actions in a way that doesn’t seem to me to be completely ironic. Funnily enough, on another comment thread today I wrote that I thought the movie was most interesting as a look at Schrader and Scorsese’s fantasies and pathologies.
Go to Comment
Johnnie To Kei-Fung over 2 years ago
One of the great things about Johnnie To is that there’s a lot of variety in his movies.
Here are some of my favorites:
Running Out of Time is a really entertaining comic action movie.
The Mission is a stylish, Leone-esque crime movie. (Exiled is it’s “in spirit only” sequel).
Throw Down is a judo movie, made in homage to Akira Kurosawa, with a strong French New Wave/Wong Kar-wai vibe.
Running on Karma is a weird, gonzo action movie, featuring Andy Lau in a bizarre muscle suit.
Election and Election Triad are, perhaps, the most conventional of his “personal” films. They’re a straightforward, but really well made pair of crime movies.
And my favorite: Sparrow – a lightly comic pickpocket movie, that feels a bit like a musical.
Go to Comment
Alfred Hitchcock - a true Auteur? over 2 years ago
Bill Krohn’s excellent book Hitchcock at Work is the required reading on this subject. (It’s also one of the best examples of how to “do auteurism” right).
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What am I not Getting About Hitchcock? over 2 years ago
Harry – I think it’s pretty rich to suggest that the guy who made Vertigo and Rear Window was afraid of being experimental and unconventional. He did have one of the best “audience senses” of any filmmaker ever (i.e., he had a practical grasp of the psychology behind how we react to nrarrative films), but he used that knowledge – ultimately – to push his audiences, and not simply to make the experience more palatable to them (as Spielberg often does).
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What am I not Getting About Hitchcock? over 2 years ago
How appropriate:
http://sallitt.blogspot.com/2009/12/experimentalism-in-man-who-knew-too.html
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What am I not Getting About Hitchcock? over 2 years ago
@Frank – I think he’s using “experimental” in a more colloquial sense, although it relates to Bordwell’s notion of stylistic evolution through problem solving. I.e. Hitchcock has a particular problem in front of him – how to film those scenes – and figures out a new way to film that expands upon existing conventions.
@Harry – I get what you’re saying about Whale, but I don’t think that “subversion” is at all a necessary quality of greatness or that “more subversive” = “better”. Is this something you feel applies across the board – i.e. do you think that “subversive” Westerns like The Shooting or The Wild Bunch are necessarily better than classical ones like Stagecoach and Fort Apache?
Go to Comment
What am I not Getting About Hitchcock? over 2 years ago
@Harry – I’m not trying to put you on the defensive: I just find the topic interesting and am asking these questions in a spirit of inquiry. I don’t think any artist, no matter their reputation, should be above criticism or even outright dismissal. These kinds of discussions are healthy and necessary! And even if I don’t agree with you about Whale, I do understand what you are saying and get why you value his films over Hitchcock’s. Me – somedays I think Raoul Walsh is better than Jean Renoir, but that’s a judgment I’d expect to have to defend on a site like this, simply because of Renoir’s “pantheon” status.
Go to Comment