Top tens of all time are impossibly silly enterprises there simply are too many great films for even a top 1,000 to not leave essential films off. That said I will offer my own silly top fifty films because I can’t imagine excluding any of them.
Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith- 1919)
Greed (Erich Von Stroheim- 1924)
Strike (Sergei Eisenstein- 1925)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer- 1928)
The Man With The Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov- 1929)
L’Atalante (Jean Vigo- 1934)
The Goddess (Yonggang Wu- 1934)
Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir- 1939)
His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks- 1940)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles- 1941)
Cat People (Jacques Tourner- 1942)
At Land (Maya Deren- 1944)
Paisan (Roberto Rossellini- 1946)
Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu- 1949)
Sansho The Baliff (Kenji Mizoguchi- 1954)
Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray- 1955)
Pyassa (Guru Dutt- 1957)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock- 1958)
Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard- 1960)
The Cloud-Capped Sky (Ritwik Ghatak- 1960)
Night and Fog in Japan (Nagisa Oshima- 1960)
Viridiana (Luis Bunuel- 1961)
The House is Black (Forugh Farrokhzad- 1963)
The Leopard (Luchino Visconti- 1963)
Muriel (Alain Resnais- 1963)
The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis- 1963)
Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha- 1964)
Barren Lives (Nelson Pierra Dos Santos- 1965)
Pierrot Le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard 1965)
The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo- 1966)
Oedipus Rex (Pier Paolo Passolini- 1967)
Out One: Noli Me Tengere (Jacques Rivette- 1971)
Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky- 1972)
A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavettes- 1974)
Ceddo- (Ousmane Sembene 1977)
Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett- 1977)
In a Year of 13 Moons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder- 1978)
Videodrome (David Cronenberg- 1983)
Vagabond (Agnes Varda- 1985)
The Horse Thief (Tian Zhaungzhaung 1986)
Yeelen (Souleymane Cisse- 1987)
Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata- 1988)
The Last of England (Derek Jarman- 1988)
A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang- 1991)
Destiny- (Youssef Chahine- 1997)
Flowers of Shanghai (Hou-Hsaio Hsein 1998)
The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami 1999)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul- 2004)
Bamako (Abderrahmane Sisako- 2006)
Still Life (Jia Zhangke- 2006)
Yilmaz Guney the great director from Turkey
Glauber Rocha box set with all the features.
Ruy Guerra box set including The Hustlers (1962), The Guns (1964), The Gods and the Dead (1970), The Fall (1976), and Mudea, Memory and Massacre.
There is nothing quite like his “Kiss Me Deadly” a wonderful and utterly weird film. I also highly recommend “Attack”, “The Longest Yard” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane”. “The Killing of Sister George” is also very interesting.
Seems like a lot of very interesting work is coming from all over the world during this decade. Germany, Turkey, Taiwan, China, Argentina, The Phillipines, South Korea, Thailand, France, Iran, to name a few spots have all produced exceptional cinema. Is this really a question about commercial US cinema production?
I am trying to think what the first film that changed how I looked at cinema was? I think Sidney Lument’s Network, Nicolas Roeg Don’t Look Now, Robert Altman’s California Split, Richard Lester’s Three and Four Muskateers, and Ken Russell’s Tommy all had major impacts on me. Later in high school I remember there was an arts network called CBS cable and it was here I first saw Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Betrolucci’s The Spider’s Strategem, Fellini’s The Clowns, and Claude Chabrol’s Ten Days Wonder all of which had deep impacts. Also on television as a teen I remember being extremely moved by Fred Zinnemann’s Julia, John Huston’s Key Largo, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and John Boorman’s Zardoz. In college I was able to see a wider range of contemporary and classic cinema. Souleymane Cisse’s Yeelen, Terrence Davies Distant Voices, Still Lives, the films of Derek Jarman, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, the films of Chantal Akerman, Jean Luc-Godard’s films, Bergman’s Persona, and Jacques Rivettes Out One all have been important eye opening experiences for me.
Steve I think the problem is with the capitalist distribution system in the United States and the demise of print film criticism as a cultural force (or even a reality) in the corporate media. The contemporary directors of the same stature of a Fellini, Godard, Bergman, Truffaut certainly exist but without mainstream conduits it is very hard for people to learn about them. Also we no longer have many of the art house cinemas, non-profit film presenters and university based film clubs that used to exist. The stupid regioning of DVD’s is also a problem. The internet provides some possibilities for cinema discourse, but, far too much of it is snarky. Still in a decade where the likes of Hou Hsaio-Hsein, Bruno Dumont, Carlos Reyaldes, Sally Potter, Tsai Ming-Liang, Abbas Kiarostami, Claire Denis, Chantal Akerman, Trinh T. Minh Ha, Richard Linklater, Abderrahmane Sissako, Arnaud Desplechin, Patrice Chereau, Alexander Sukorov, Darezhan Omirbayev, Nuri Bulge Ceylan, Lisandro Alonso, Jafar Panahi, Gianni Amelio, Marco Bellochio, Jean Luc-Godard, Pedro Costas, Manoel de Oliveira, Wong Kar-Wai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Alain Resnais, Christian Petzold, Micheal Haneke, Lucrecia Martel, Theo Angelopoulos, Hong Sang-Soo, Jia Zhangke, and well too many more to mention continue to turn out consistently amazing work (as did the recently departed Ousmane Sembene, Youssef Chahine, and Jun Ichikawa) I find it hard to be too dismissive. The problem is distribution and discourse not lack of quality.
Well anyone who loves cinema should be able to claim the name without feeling “unqualified”. Of course, it helps to have seen certain key films in order to follow some of the discussions.
I would say:
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
The Seven Samurai
Tokyo Story
Pather Panchali
Singin In the Rain
Persona
Psycho
Vertigo
Rules of the Game
Bicycle Thieves
Rome: Open City
Belle de Jour
Pickpocket
Sansho The Baliff
Sunrise
M
L’Avventura
The Godfather Parts I and II
Battle of Algiers
Nashville
The Searchers
Mother India
Passion of Joan of Arc
Breathless
8 1/2
The three colors Trilogy of Kieslowaki
Ju Dou
A Touch of Zen
Out of the Past
A Woman Under the Influence
Hirsoshima Mon Amor
Solaris
Battleship Potemkin
The Scarlet Empress
Man of Marble
The Wild Bunch
Once Upon a Time in the West
Suspiria
Los Oblivados
Dumbo
Steve
There is no other distribution system since we live under a global capitalist system. That said if socialism existed there certainly would be better ways of distributing films but that is really a theoretical discussion.
The problem is that there are not currently many conduits for people to be able to develop more “alternative” cinematic tastes. By conduits I mean organizations and associations that help people feel comfortable watching things other then just what the market is selling them. If we really wanted people to become interested in these kinds of films it would be easier then ever to simply fund community based arts organizations to become these kinds of conduits. We could also reinstitute via private funding college film associations and encourage the creation of micro-cinema partnerships with major institutions. It is really quite doable but we would have to really want it and be focused on doing it. By we I guess I mean the cinemaphile “community” that is always complaining about the death of film culture and the end of film criticism. Let’s take some action steps! It would be in the best business interests of DVD and film dustributors to help fund this kind of work.
We strongly disagree about Godard- his work is as strong as it has ever been in my opinion. By the way I am definitely not alone in that opinion. I would say that the critics treated Notre Musique quite well? Resnais’ wok seems more accessible this decade then it has ever been? Private Fears in Public Places is about as accessible as you can get. Richard Linklater has consistently been turning out great work in my opinion; the Sunrise/Sunset films alone would warrant his addition. I would stand behind Waking Life, Tape, Scanner Darkly and School of Rock as some of the most impressive offerings from the past decade.
I agree with David that this is a bit more related to someone like Raul Ruiz. I also thought of some of Richard Lester’s more experimental narratives (How I won the War? The Bed-Sitting Room etc) and of the work of Nic Roeg. It also conjures up Fellini to a certain degree.
Brecht and Godard tend to have a greater political analysis at work and I felt that this film was primarily rooted in a more purely psychological space. I liked the film. I didn’t like it as much as Adaptation or Being John Malcovich but it is quite impressive as a first film.
Rodney, I certainly agree with your statement if we are talking about politics and the rise of hyper-consumerism in the United States in the 1980’s. I also would agree that US film production suffered greatly in the 1980’s b/c of the rise of blockbuster mania in hollywood. That said there are some truly remarkable films from the 1980s.
Rodney, What I was trying to get at with my comments is that while I agree that there was a lessening in the general quality/experimentation of US commercial filmmaking I also think other regions had great vitality during the 1980’s. The People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, for example, produced some remarkable work. I think it’s hard to define any decade globally b/c things shift from region to region.
A great deal of cinema coming from the Arab World and from Africa has complicated female characters and addresses issues of gender justice. Iranian cinema is particularly strong in this area Jafar Panahi, Abbas Kiarostami, Mosen Makhlabaf, Samira Makhlabaf, Tahmineh Milani all consistently create powerful and complex female characters. Women are often the protagonists of Iranian films. The late Ousmane Sembene’s final two films continued his interest in exploring complex representations of women. The titular character in his Faat Kine (2000) is a remarkably rich character and his final film Moolaade is a powerful exploration of gender in a rural village.
Of course in Europe there are a host of women/transexual directors who explicitly define as feminists and make feminist films. Sally Potter is a great example from the English language cinema.
JP- what is interesting is that the directors (with the exception of Malick) that you highlight from the 2000’s all broke onto the international film scene in the 1980’s with major works Edward Yang (That Day on the Beach, Tapei Story), David Lynch (Blue Velvet), Wong Kar-Wai (As Tears go By), Guy Maddin (Tales from the Gimli Hospital), Pedro Almovodar (Pepi, Luci, Bom, Matador, Law of Desire, What Have I Done to Deserve This?, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown).
Some other directors to emerge visibly into the international film scene in the 1980’s Peter Greenaway, Terrence Davies, Souleymane Cisse, Abbas Kiarostami, Moshen Makhlabaf, Claire Denis, Julie Dash, Jeanine Meerapfel, Euzhan Palcy, Lars Von Trier, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Jane Campion, Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Clara Law, Patrice Chereau, Mani Ratnam, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, John Woo, Maria Luisa Bemberg, Nancy Savoca, Kathryn Bigelow, Susan Seidelman, Zhang Yimou, Ketan Mehta, Bela Tarr, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Hector Babenco, Abel Ferrara, Alex Cox, Hou Hsaio-Hsein, David Hare, Leos Carax, Joe Dante, Gus van Sant, Stanley Kwan, Atom Egoyan, etc.
Directors like Raul Ruiz made remarkable films during the 1980’s as did Godard, Varda, Altman, Satyajit Ray, Alain Resnais, Straub and Hulliet, Yvonne Rainer, Wim Wenders, Wes Craven, Dario Argento, Ridley Scott, Louis Malle, Jonathan Demme, Stanley Kubrick, Jon Jost, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Mike Leigh, Terry Gilliam, Kieslowski, Wadja, Sembene, Oshima, Ichikawa, Kurosawa, Alan Rudolph, David Cronenberg, Gillian Armstrong, Ivan Passer, Sam Fuller, and Clint Eastwood.
Amen Adam! It is silly and impossible to even attempt to answer that question in a definitive manner. Still, silly questions often are the jumping off point for fascinating reflection and discussion.
What interests me about the discussion is why do many of us have the impression that cinema is “failing” at one time or another? Why do we have the impression that there are time of “greatness” (usually long lost that we can seemingly never recapture)? What is up with all of that?
Christopher, for example, raises interesting points about the decline of the US commercial film production since the 1960’s. Is it really true, however, that things were so great in the US commercial film industry from 1900 – 1960? It might seem that way to us when we watch networks like TCM but we have to remember that we are only seeing the films that have survived the test of time (in most cases) on that network. If we think of only the greatest and/or most culturally significant films from a post 1960 year it would seem as if film culture was pretty strong. The problem for more recent decades is that many of us have lived through them and we have experienced all the crap along with the good stuff.
All this said I also think we need to be careful not to fall into some kind of nihilistic space that says people used to be more talented, risk-taking, and socially conscious then they are today. This is why looking at the distribution system and entry points for people to engage with global cinema are so important. That’s why I have to disagree with Alanedit. If Bergman, Fellini, Kurosawa or Antonioni were starting out today they would not have access to the same audience base they had during their time. They could be making films of the same quality but these films would not carry the same cultural capital in this country because the University film societies, community based film center, small art house cinemas no longer exist. Also, if you study the success of a film like Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde you can understand how important a different kind of distribution system and a different kind of critical establishment was for this film to become a cultural landmark of US commercial cinema. Arguing about films was for a period of time considered a major cultural activity. To my mind we still have as much to argue and discuss as we ever did. The films of Raul Ruiz, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsaio-Hsein, Sally Potter, Claire Denis, Catherine Brillet, Gus Van Sant, Bela Tarr, Lars Von Trier, Alfonso Cuarón, Tsai Ming-Liang, Guy Maddin, and countless others cry out for discussion and have important things to offer global political culture. The question is figuring out how to create the space for this to happen
Justin, I think your onto something about “feeling more free” although i don’t think people actually felt “free” in the 1970’s. I think many people felt even more trapped but they believed that the trap would end. This makes sense since there was a global recession in 1973. People thought that capitalist hegemonic organization of the world economic system would end. Instead, it became ever “stronger”. My guess is that many directors in the “communist” block countries were well aware that they weren’t really living under anything that remotely resembled socialism and directors in the “west” recognized that the economic system they lived under was cruel and dysfunctional. What many people failed to understand was that the economic system had truly become global. This is really what 1973 meant. Of course, they also couldn’t realize that soon the Soviet Union would fall or that something called HIV/AIDS was around the corner.
The other thing that can’t be discounted about the 1970’s is the incredible sense of possibility eminating from the post-colonial “third world” movements. Of course, the 1970’s wasn’t a free time at all. We had the overthrow of Chile and the establishment of US backed dictatorships in several Latin American countries, the souring of many of the third world “socialist” projects into authoritarian states, the beginning of a resurgence of identity based rightwing fundamentalist movements, the continuing colonization of Palestine, the growth of terrorism as a response to these trends etc. Still, people had a greater sense of hope mixed with the desperation.
Atlantic City (Louis Malle- 1980)
Bad Timing (Nicolas Roeg- 1980)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder- 1980)
Kagemusha (Akira Kurosawa- 1980)
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick- 1980)
Marianne and Julianne (Margarethe Von Trotta- 1981)
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Robert Altman- 1982)
Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman- 1982)
Identification of a Woman (Michelangelo Antonioni- 1982)
The King of Comedy (Martin Scorcese- 1982)
On Top of the Whale (Raoul Ruiz- 1982)
Passion (Jean-Luc Godard- 1982)
A Question of Silence (Marleen Gorris- 1982)
Sans Soliel (Chris Marker- 1982)
Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder- 1982)
Victor/Victoria (Blake Edwards- 1982)
Wend Kuuni (Gaston Kabore- 1982)
Born In Flames (Lizzie Borden- 1983)
The Dead Zone (David Cronenberg- 1983)
Three Crowns of the Sailor (Raoul Ruiz- 1983)
Videodrome (David Cronenberg- 1983)
Love Streams (John Cassavettes- 1984)
Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders- 1984)
Hail Mary (Jean Luc-Godard- 1985)
Mrs. Soffel (Gillian Armstrong- 1985)
Navaho Talking Picture (Arlene Bowman- 1985)
Vagabond (Agnes Varda- 1985)
Wetherby (David Hare- 1985)
Devil in the Flesh (Marco Bellochio- 1986)
The Horse Thief (Tian Zhaungzhaung 1986)
Life is a Dream (Raoul Ruiz- 1986)
The Dead- (John Huston- 1987)
Housekeeping- (Bill Forsyth 1987)
She Must Be Seeing Things (Shelian McLaughlin- 1987)
Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders-1987)
Yeelen (Souleymane Cisse- 1987)
Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terrence Davies- 1988)
Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata- 1988)
The Last of England (Derek Jarman- 1988)
A Short Film About Killing (Krzysztof Kiesloeski- 1988)
Mystery Train (Jim Jarmusch- 1989)
Surname Viet, Given Name Nam (Trinh T. Minh Ha 1989)
HIV/AIDS has actually moved away from being a “homosexual disease”. The spread of the virus stabilized in the gay/bisexual male community by the early 1990’s and the dramatic spread of the disease has primarily been among heterosexuals in the West who fail to practice safe sex measures and people from lands that don’t have access to even basic safe sex items such as condums. Of course, the gay community in some two-thirds world nations are extremely at risk b/c of a lack of access to safe sex materials and education and because of the social/political restrictions on openly living a homosexual lifestyle.
It doesn’t really shock me when artists diminish the work of other artists. Welles actually said some pretty banal things about Antonioni and Bresson. I am kind of surprised he is more positive concerning Godard. One wonders what Welles would have thought about Godard today? Godard is a mixed bag intellectually but i actually think his much maligned work since the 1980’s has been incredibly rich in terms of intellectual rigor. The justly celebrated films of the 1960’s often do seem less grounded in terms of ideas. They certainly work as cinema and are dazzling. Le Chionese and Les Mepris are early exceptions as I do think he gets at some profound ideas with these films. His work after partnering with Anne Marie-Meiville seems to open up intellectually perhaps because he seems to have developed a deeper understanding of gender and sexuality.
Marco Bellochio’s remake of Devil in the Flesh has a remarkable obviously not faked oral sex scene. It works very well within the overall intellectual/emotional structure of that film.
Mr Arkadian is fascinating and one of Criterion’s best efforts. You get multiple versions of the film. In someways this project becomes the ultimate Welles project because of it’s unfinished/open text. Definitely recommend you buy this one. I have Scenes From a Marriage and haven’t watched it yet. It seems like a interesting set.
There was no “communist” threat at the time of McCarthyism. In fact, truth be told by the time of the witch hunts anything resembling actual communist socialism no longer existed in the Soviet Union. Joseph McCarthy used ignorant people’s ideas about a “mythological” thing called communism. This is some evil force that has no relationship to Marx/Engels or any later socialist writer and even very little relationship to anything that ever happened under “real lived” socialism. It was just a rightwing ploy to entrench a more ruthless form of conservative capitalism and roll back post-WW II advances in civil/human rights. Kazan’s actions were selfish and cruel. He may have convinced himself that he was doing the right thing, but, he wasn’t.
The only people who would be threatened by “real” communism would be the super rich exploiting class. Really in a capitalist nation as advanced as the United States was after WWII it would only be “real” communism that could possibly have taken root. The Soviet Union was communist initially in terms of aspiration, but, by this time period the USSR was not in the least bit interested in creating a global communist movement. In fact, they generally betrayed organic communist populist movements and suppressed all real socialists in their own borders. Russia had not sufficently established capitalism to be able establish socialism so the early Bolshevicks had to industrialize the nation and fend off capitalist subversion at the same time. Was there espionage in the West? Yes, but it posed no real threat and was primarily motivated by defensive and/or economic interests.
Many of the people who actually self-identified as Communists in Hollywood had become disenchanted with the authoritarian nature of the Soviet Union and were interested either in Trotskyism or some other form of socialism. The idea that there was a strong pool of pro-Stalinist types in Hollywood is silly. Most of the people who were black listed weren’t even remotely interested in communism but were liberals or progressives of one shade or another. Most were liberal capitalists that simply had a distaste for unfairness, cruelty and greed.
All this said Kazan was a great filmmaker. Many of his films are wonderful and even the least among them has interesting qualities. On The Waterfront is from an ideological analysis idiotic! However, in terms of acting and some of it’s formal qualities it is an important addition to cinema history. His films should be watched and studied. His conduct as a citizen/intellectual should be criticized.
Colossal Youth- Pedro Costa (2006)
Tropical Malady- Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2004)
Yi Yi- Edward Yong (2000)
My Mother’s Smile- Marco Bellochio (2002)
Regular Lovers- Phillipe Garrel (2005)
Faat Kine- Ousmane Sembene (2000)
Y tu Man Tambien- Alfonso Cuaron (2001)
Yes- Sally Potter (2004)
Esther Kahn- Arnaud Desplechin (2000)
Elephant- Gus van Sant (2003)
Runners Up
Magic Mirror- Manoel de Oliveira (2005)
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone- Tsai Ming-Liang (2006)
Madame Sata- karin Ainouz (2002)
Bad Education- Pedro Almovodar (2004)
Moolade- Ousmane Sembene (2004)
Nortre Musique- Jean-Luc Godard (2004)
Odete- Joao Pedro Rodrigues (2005)
Father and Son- Aleksander Sokurov (2003)
Syndromes and a Century- Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2006)
Still Life- Jia Zhangke (2006)
The World- Jia Zhangke (2004)
The Tracker- Rolf de Heer (2002)
The Last Mistress- Catherine Breillat (2007)
Werckmeister Harmonies- Bela Tarr (2000)
Austin, I appreciate your challenge to the “cinema is dead” school of thought that mourns the passing of the greater days of film. However, I have to say that while I think there are some fine films/new media being created today I think only time (and critical discourse) will determine what films have the “staying power” of The Passion of Joan of Arc or Battleship Potemkin.
Some of the narrative filmmakers working today that seem clearly to be breaking new territory include; Abderrahmane Sisako, Apichatpong Weerasethhakul, Bela Tarr, Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsaio-Hsein, Tsai Ming-Liang, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Raoul Ruiz, Jia Zhangke, Claire Denis, Sally Potter, Micheal Heneke, Richard Linklater and Bruno Dumont. There are certainly many more and one of the great frustrations of our time is the inability to watch work that sounds extremely interesting (scores of filmmakers from The Philippines, Germany, Turkey, Argentina, China etc. are not distributed in the US and tend to only play at International Festivals outside of their home countries. This is where a site like this might become extremely influential in revitalizing film culture. It does open up the possibility of watching quite a few hard to find films (although the US region offerings seem like such a small fraction of the overall films I guess because of legal copyright reasons).
I don’t think film has reached it’s limit by a long shot!
Age 6 – The Red Balloon (1956) Albert Lamorisse
Age 14- Citizen Kane (1941) Orson Welles
Age 15- Julia (1977) Fred Zinnemann
Age 16- Coming Home (1978) Hal Ashby
Age 17- The Spider’s Strategem (1970) Bernardo Bertolucci
Age 17- Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Age 20- Wetherby (1985) David Hare
Age 23- Yeelen (1987) Souleymane Cisse
Age 24 Jeanne Dielmann, 23 Quai du Commerce. 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Age 24 The Last of England (1988)
This is all certainly interesting. I kind of don’t know where to start. First, when someone says “communism has never existed outside of these books…” I wonder if s/he has ever read any of “these books”? Marx’s theory of communism is that it can only happen in the most advanced and powerful capitalist nation (in his time Germany, France, UK) because if it happened anywhere else the more powerful capitalist nations would surely destroy it. In “real life” revolutionaries inspired by the ideas of communism lived in poor countries with limited capitalist development. So, from Marx’s point of view revolutions in places like Russia, China, Cuba etc. would have never stood a chance of establishing communism.
OK. So this brings us back to the framing question for this post. Leftists are not necessarily people who believed that the Soviet Union was ever really a communist country. For example, Louise Bryant, in her landmark study Mirrors of Moscow makes it very clear that Lenin did not (because he could not) establish communism in the Soviet Union. People who consider themselves Marxists or are influenced by the thinking of Marx and other socialist writers do not necessarily endorse the governments that call themselves socialist. Blaming every Leftist for the atrocities of “Stalin” is rather akin to blaming every christian for the atrocities of the holocaust or the crusades. Obviously, many people who are christians do not support genocide or tyranny but there have been political uses of christianity that lead to these situations.
Now the other confusion is with your use of the word liberal. A liberal by definition is a kind of capitalist. S/He simply believes that capitalism should be less cruel and more democratic then a conservative capitalist. Both liberals and conservatives are supporters of the rule of small elite classes. It is just that liberals believe that the rest of us should be treated more fairly and humanely. Socialists/Communists/Anarchists believe that power should be actually transfered from the elite and eventually be spread out to all people democratically. The only way to make sure we have real democracy is to make sure that there is a clear redistribution of wealth and resources so that everyone can participate with full power and dignity in society. Liberals don’t want anything this radical.
Finally what makes this such a hard discussion for people from the US to engage in is that our political landscape is much narrower then in most industrialized countries. We actually don’t have a viable Left in this country. We haven’t had one since WWII. During the late 1960’s to the 1970’s we did have some growth of an independent left but it never really played a role in the political system. Most countries in Europe, for example, have more then two parties. So they often are governed by coalitions. These coalitions can be center-left or center-right. This means there really are left parties that have a role in governance. We don’t have that in the US so we often get confused and think that the Democrats are “leftists”. They are not the Democratic Party is a capitalist party just like the Republican party. It is just that the Democrats believe that people should be given a little bit more of a safety net and a little bit more say so in governance. They don’t want to share power with everyone anymore then the Republicans do. Both of these capitalist parties answer to the wealthy corporations and powerful capitalists.
Now it is hard to know what people would be like if we could establish a broader political system in the US? Would many people actually be socialists/social democrats that today consider themselves liberals? Probably. Would some become more radically leftwing? Probably. Maybe one day we can create a society that has a broader and more democratic political system.
WHICH DIRECTORS...NOT...CURRENTLY REPRESENTED IN THE CRITERION COLLECTION DO YOU WANT TO SEE INCLUDED? over 3 years ago
Youssef Chahine, Pedro Costas, Marguerite Duras, Glauber Rocha, Lino Brocka, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Humberto Mauro, Patricio Guzman, Raul Ruiz, Sun Yu, Lav Dias and Souleymane Cisse
Go to Comment
Here it is... Top 10 films of all time? over 3 years ago
Top tens of all time are impossibly silly enterprises there simply are too many great films for even a top 1,000 to not leave essential films off. That said I will offer my own silly top fifty films because I can’t imagine excluding any of them.
Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith- 1919)
Greed (Erich Von Stroheim- 1924)
Strike (Sergei Eisenstein- 1925)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer- 1928)
The Man With The Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov- 1929)
L’Atalante (Jean Vigo- 1934)
The Goddess (Yonggang Wu- 1934)
Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir- 1939)
His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks- 1940)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles- 1941)
Cat People (Jacques Tourner- 1942)
At Land (Maya Deren- 1944)
Paisan (Roberto Rossellini- 1946)
Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu- 1949)
Sansho The Baliff (Kenji Mizoguchi- 1954)
Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray- 1955)
Pyassa (Guru Dutt- 1957)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock- 1958)
Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard- 1960)
The Cloud-Capped Sky (Ritwik Ghatak- 1960)
Night and Fog in Japan (Nagisa Oshima- 1960)
Viridiana (Luis Bunuel- 1961)
The House is Black (Forugh Farrokhzad- 1963)
The Leopard (Luchino Visconti- 1963)
Muriel (Alain Resnais- 1963)
The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis- 1963)
Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha- 1964)
Barren Lives (Nelson Pierra Dos Santos- 1965)
Pierrot Le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard 1965)
The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo- 1966)
Oedipus Rex (Pier Paolo Passolini- 1967)
Out One: Noli Me Tengere (Jacques Rivette- 1971)
Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky- 1972)
A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavettes- 1974)
Ceddo- (Ousmane Sembene 1977)
Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett- 1977)
In a Year of 13 Moons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder- 1978)
Videodrome (David Cronenberg- 1983)
Vagabond (Agnes Varda- 1985)
The Horse Thief (Tian Zhaungzhaung 1986)
Yeelen (Souleymane Cisse- 1987)
Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata- 1988)
The Last of England (Derek Jarman- 1988)
A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang- 1991)
Destiny- (Youssef Chahine- 1997)
Flowers of Shanghai (Hou-Hsaio Hsein 1998)
The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami 1999)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul- 2004)
Bamako (Abderrahmane Sisako- 2006)
Still Life (Jia Zhangke- 2006)
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What films would you like to see included in future ECLIPSE releases? over 3 years ago
Yilmaz Guney the great director from Turkey
Glauber Rocha box set with all the features.
Ruy Guerra box set including The Hustlers (1962), The Guns (1964), The Gods and the Dead (1970), The Fall (1976), and Mudea, Memory and Massacre.
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ALDRICH over 3 years ago
There is nothing quite like his “Kiss Me Deadly” a wonderful and utterly weird film. I also highly recommend “Attack”, “The Longest Yard” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane”. “The Killing of Sister George” is also very interesting.
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2000's worst decade in cinema? over 3 years ago
Seems like a lot of very interesting work is coming from all over the world during this decade. Germany, Turkey, Taiwan, China, Argentina, The Phillipines, South Korea, Thailand, France, Iran, to name a few spots have all produced exceptional cinema. Is this really a question about commercial US cinema production?
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Films that changed how you looked at cinema over 3 years ago
I am trying to think what the first film that changed how I looked at cinema was? I think Sidney Lument’s Network, Nicolas Roeg Don’t Look Now, Robert Altman’s California Split, Richard Lester’s Three and Four Muskateers, and Ken Russell’s Tommy all had major impacts on me. Later in high school I remember there was an arts network called CBS cable and it was here I first saw Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Betrolucci’s The Spider’s Strategem, Fellini’s The Clowns, and Claude Chabrol’s Ten Days Wonder all of which had deep impacts. Also on television as a teen I remember being extremely moved by Fred Zinnemann’s Julia, John Huston’s Key Largo, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and John Boorman’s Zardoz. In college I was able to see a wider range of contemporary and classic cinema. Souleymane Cisse’s Yeelen, Terrence Davies Distant Voices, Still Lives, the films of Derek Jarman, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, the films of Chantal Akerman, Jean Luc-Godard’s films, Bergman’s Persona, and Jacques Rivettes Out One all have been important eye opening experiences for me.
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2000's worst decade in cinema? over 3 years ago
Steve I think the problem is with the capitalist distribution system in the United States and the demise of print film criticism as a cultural force (or even a reality) in the corporate media. The contemporary directors of the same stature of a Fellini, Godard, Bergman, Truffaut certainly exist but without mainstream conduits it is very hard for people to learn about them. Also we no longer have many of the art house cinemas, non-profit film presenters and university based film clubs that used to exist. The stupid regioning of DVD’s is also a problem. The internet provides some possibilities for cinema discourse, but, far too much of it is snarky. Still in a decade where the likes of Hou Hsaio-Hsein, Bruno Dumont, Carlos Reyaldes, Sally Potter, Tsai Ming-Liang, Abbas Kiarostami, Claire Denis, Chantal Akerman, Trinh T. Minh Ha, Richard Linklater, Abderrahmane Sissako, Arnaud Desplechin, Patrice Chereau, Alexander Sukorov, Darezhan Omirbayev, Nuri Bulge Ceylan, Lisandro Alonso, Jafar Panahi, Gianni Amelio, Marco Bellochio, Jean Luc-Godard, Pedro Costas, Manoel de Oliveira, Wong Kar-Wai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Alain Resnais, Christian Petzold, Micheal Haneke, Lucrecia Martel, Theo Angelopoulos, Hong Sang-Soo, Jia Zhangke, and well too many more to mention continue to turn out consistently amazing work (as did the recently departed Ousmane Sembene, Youssef Chahine, and Jun Ichikawa) I find it hard to be too dismissive. The problem is distribution and discourse not lack of quality.
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10 films you MUST have seen to even be in with a chance of being a true Cinephile over 3 years ago
Well anyone who loves cinema should be able to claim the name without feeling “unqualified”. Of course, it helps to have seen certain key films in order to follow some of the discussions.
I would say:
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
The Seven Samurai
Tokyo Story
Pather Panchali
Singin In the Rain
Persona
Psycho
Vertigo
Rules of the Game
Bicycle Thieves
Rome: Open City
Belle de Jour
Pickpocket
Sansho The Baliff
Sunrise
M
L’Avventura
The Godfather Parts I and II
Battle of Algiers
Nashville
The Searchers
Mother India
Passion of Joan of Arc
Breathless
8 1/2
The three colors Trilogy of Kieslowaki
Ju Dou
A Touch of Zen
Out of the Past
A Woman Under the Influence
Hirsoshima Mon Amor
Solaris
Battleship Potemkin
The Scarlet Empress
Man of Marble
The Wild Bunch
Once Upon a Time in the West
Suspiria
Los Oblivados
Dumbo
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2000's worst decade in cinema? over 3 years ago
Steve
There is no other distribution system since we live under a global capitalist system. That said if socialism existed there certainly would be better ways of distributing films but that is really a theoretical discussion.
The problem is that there are not currently many conduits for people to be able to develop more “alternative” cinematic tastes. By conduits I mean organizations and associations that help people feel comfortable watching things other then just what the market is selling them. If we really wanted people to become interested in these kinds of films it would be easier then ever to simply fund community based arts organizations to become these kinds of conduits. We could also reinstitute via private funding college film associations and encourage the creation of micro-cinema partnerships with major institutions. It is really quite doable but we would have to really want it and be focused on doing it. By we I guess I mean the cinemaphile “community” that is always complaining about the death of film culture and the end of film criticism. Let’s take some action steps! It would be in the best business interests of DVD and film dustributors to help fund this kind of work.
We strongly disagree about Godard- his work is as strong as it has ever been in my opinion. By the way I am definitely not alone in that opinion. I would say that the critics treated Notre Musique quite well? Resnais’ wok seems more accessible this decade then it has ever been? Private Fears in Public Places is about as accessible as you can get. Richard Linklater has consistently been turning out great work in my opinion; the Sunrise/Sunset films alone would warrant his addition. I would stand behind Waking Life, Tape, Scanner Darkly and School of Rock as some of the most impressive offerings from the past decade.
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Synecdoche, New York, Brecht and Godard over 3 years ago
I agree with David that this is a bit more related to someone like Raul Ruiz. I also thought of some of Richard Lester’s more experimental narratives (How I won the War? The Bed-Sitting Room etc) and of the work of Nic Roeg. It also conjures up Fellini to a certain degree.
Brecht and Godard tend to have a greater political analysis at work and I felt that this film was primarily rooted in a more purely psychological space. I liked the film. I didn’t like it as much as Adaptation or Being John Malcovich but it is quite impressive as a first film.
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2000's worst decade in cinema? over 3 years ago
Rodney, I certainly agree with your statement if we are talking about politics and the rise of hyper-consumerism in the United States in the 1980’s. I also would agree that US film production suffered greatly in the 1980’s b/c of the rise of blockbuster mania in hollywood. That said there are some truly remarkable films from the 1980s.
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2000's worst decade in cinema? over 3 years ago
Rodney, What I was trying to get at with my comments is that while I agree that there was a lessening in the general quality/experimentation of US commercial filmmaking I also think other regions had great vitality during the 1980’s. The People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, for example, produced some remarkable work. I think it’s hard to define any decade globally b/c things shift from region to region.
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ARE THERE STRONG & REALISTIC FEMALE CHARACTERS OUT THERE AND WHAT ARE FEMALE FILMMAKERS DOING TO ADVANCE THE FEMINIST CAUSE? over 3 years ago
A great deal of cinema coming from the Arab World and from Africa has complicated female characters and addresses issues of gender justice. Iranian cinema is particularly strong in this area Jafar Panahi, Abbas Kiarostami, Mosen Makhlabaf, Samira Makhlabaf, Tahmineh Milani all consistently create powerful and complex female characters. Women are often the protagonists of Iranian films. The late Ousmane Sembene’s final two films continued his interest in exploring complex representations of women. The titular character in his Faat Kine (2000) is a remarkably rich character and his final film Moolaade is a powerful exploration of gender in a rural village.
Of course in Europe there are a host of women/transexual directors who explicitly define as feminists and make feminist films. Sally Potter is a great example from the English language cinema.
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2000's worst decade in cinema? over 3 years ago
JP- what is interesting is that the directors (with the exception of Malick) that you highlight from the 2000’s all broke onto the international film scene in the 1980’s with major works Edward Yang (That Day on the Beach, Tapei Story), David Lynch (Blue Velvet), Wong Kar-Wai (As Tears go By), Guy Maddin (Tales from the Gimli Hospital), Pedro Almovodar (Pepi, Luci, Bom, Matador, Law of Desire, What Have I Done to Deserve This?, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown).
Some other directors to emerge visibly into the international film scene in the 1980’s Peter Greenaway, Terrence Davies, Souleymane Cisse, Abbas Kiarostami, Moshen Makhlabaf, Claire Denis, Julie Dash, Jeanine Meerapfel, Euzhan Palcy, Lars Von Trier, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Jane Campion, Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Clara Law, Patrice Chereau, Mani Ratnam, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, John Woo, Maria Luisa Bemberg, Nancy Savoca, Kathryn Bigelow, Susan Seidelman, Zhang Yimou, Ketan Mehta, Bela Tarr, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Hector Babenco, Abel Ferrara, Alex Cox, Hou Hsaio-Hsein, David Hare, Leos Carax, Joe Dante, Gus van Sant, Stanley Kwan, Atom Egoyan, etc.
Directors like Raul Ruiz made remarkable films during the 1980’s as did Godard, Varda, Altman, Satyajit Ray, Alain Resnais, Straub and Hulliet, Yvonne Rainer, Wim Wenders, Wes Craven, Dario Argento, Ridley Scott, Louis Malle, Jonathan Demme, Stanley Kubrick, Jon Jost, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Mike Leigh, Terry Gilliam, Kieslowski, Wadja, Sembene, Oshima, Ichikawa, Kurosawa, Alan Rudolph, David Cronenberg, Gillian Armstrong, Ivan Passer, Sam Fuller, and Clint Eastwood.
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2000's worst decade in cinema? over 3 years ago
Amen Adam! It is silly and impossible to even attempt to answer that question in a definitive manner. Still, silly questions often are the jumping off point for fascinating reflection and discussion.
What interests me about the discussion is why do many of us have the impression that cinema is “failing” at one time or another? Why do we have the impression that there are time of “greatness” (usually long lost that we can seemingly never recapture)? What is up with all of that?
Christopher, for example, raises interesting points about the decline of the US commercial film production since the 1960’s. Is it really true, however, that things were so great in the US commercial film industry from 1900 – 1960? It might seem that way to us when we watch networks like TCM but we have to remember that we are only seeing the films that have survived the test of time (in most cases) on that network. If we think of only the greatest and/or most culturally significant films from a post 1960 year it would seem as if film culture was pretty strong. The problem for more recent decades is that many of us have lived through them and we have experienced all the crap along with the good stuff.
All this said I also think we need to be careful not to fall into some kind of nihilistic space that says people used to be more talented, risk-taking, and socially conscious then they are today. This is why looking at the distribution system and entry points for people to engage with global cinema are so important. That’s why I have to disagree with Alanedit. If Bergman, Fellini, Kurosawa or Antonioni were starting out today they would not have access to the same audience base they had during their time. They could be making films of the same quality but these films would not carry the same cultural capital in this country because the University film societies, community based film center, small art house cinemas no longer exist. Also, if you study the success of a film like Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde you can understand how important a different kind of distribution system and a different kind of critical establishment was for this film to become a cultural landmark of US commercial cinema. Arguing about films was for a period of time considered a major cultural activity. To my mind we still have as much to argue and discuss as we ever did. The films of Raul Ruiz, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsaio-Hsein, Sally Potter, Claire Denis, Catherine Brillet, Gus Van Sant, Bela Tarr, Lars Von Trier, Alfonso Cuarón, Tsai Ming-Liang, Guy Maddin, and countless others cry out for discussion and have important things to offer global political culture. The question is figuring out how to create the space for this to happen
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FILMS OF THE SEVENTIES over 3 years ago
Justin, I think your onto something about “feeling more free” although i don’t think people actually felt “free” in the 1970’s. I think many people felt even more trapped but they believed that the trap would end. This makes sense since there was a global recession in 1973. People thought that capitalist hegemonic organization of the world economic system would end. Instead, it became ever “stronger”. My guess is that many directors in the “communist” block countries were well aware that they weren’t really living under anything that remotely resembled socialism and directors in the “west” recognized that the economic system they lived under was cruel and dysfunctional. What many people failed to understand was that the economic system had truly become global. This is really what 1973 meant. Of course, they also couldn’t realize that soon the Soviet Union would fall or that something called HIV/AIDS was around the corner.
The other thing that can’t be discounted about the 1970’s is the incredible sense of possibility eminating from the post-colonial “third world” movements. Of course, the 1970’s wasn’t a free time at all. We had the overthrow of Chile and the establishment of US backed dictatorships in several Latin American countries, the souring of many of the third world “socialist” projects into authoritarian states, the beginning of a resurgence of identity based rightwing fundamentalist movements, the continuing colonization of Palestine, the growth of terrorism as a response to these trends etc. Still, people had a greater sense of hope mixed with the desperation.
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Best Films of the 80's? over 3 years ago
Atlantic City (Louis Malle- 1980)
Bad Timing (Nicolas Roeg- 1980)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder- 1980)
Kagemusha (Akira Kurosawa- 1980)
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick- 1980)
Marianne and Julianne (Margarethe Von Trotta- 1981)
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Robert Altman- 1982)
Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman- 1982)
Identification of a Woman (Michelangelo Antonioni- 1982)
The King of Comedy (Martin Scorcese- 1982)
On Top of the Whale (Raoul Ruiz- 1982)
Passion (Jean-Luc Godard- 1982)
A Question of Silence (Marleen Gorris- 1982)
Sans Soliel (Chris Marker- 1982)
Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder- 1982)
Victor/Victoria (Blake Edwards- 1982)
Wend Kuuni (Gaston Kabore- 1982)
Born In Flames (Lizzie Borden- 1983)
The Dead Zone (David Cronenberg- 1983)
Three Crowns of the Sailor (Raoul Ruiz- 1983)
Videodrome (David Cronenberg- 1983)
Love Streams (John Cassavettes- 1984)
Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders- 1984)
Hail Mary (Jean Luc-Godard- 1985)
Mrs. Soffel (Gillian Armstrong- 1985)
Navaho Talking Picture (Arlene Bowman- 1985)
Vagabond (Agnes Varda- 1985)
Wetherby (David Hare- 1985)
Devil in the Flesh (Marco Bellochio- 1986)
The Horse Thief (Tian Zhaungzhaung 1986)
Life is a Dream (Raoul Ruiz- 1986)
The Dead- (John Huston- 1987)
Housekeeping- (Bill Forsyth 1987)
She Must Be Seeing Things (Shelian McLaughlin- 1987)
Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders-1987)
Yeelen (Souleymane Cisse- 1987)
Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terrence Davies- 1988)
Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata- 1988)
The Last of England (Derek Jarman- 1988)
A Short Film About Killing (Krzysztof Kiesloeski- 1988)
Mystery Train (Jim Jarmusch- 1989)
Surname Viet, Given Name Nam (Trinh T. Minh Ha 1989)
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movies that shake you to the core over 3 years ago
Ben,
HIV/AIDS has actually moved away from being a “homosexual disease”. The spread of the virus stabilized in the gay/bisexual male community by the early 1990’s and the dramatic spread of the disease has primarily been among heterosexuals in the West who fail to practice safe sex measures and people from lands that don’t have access to even basic safe sex items such as condums. Of course, the gay community in some two-thirds world nations are extremely at risk b/c of a lack of access to safe sex materials and education and because of the social/political restrictions on openly living a homosexual lifestyle.
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Dreyer Recommendations over 3 years ago
Passion of Joan of Arc, Day of Wrath, Ordet and Gertrude are must sees. I like all of his films that I have seen.
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Herzog, Welles, and Bergman on Godard over 3 years ago
It doesn’t really shock me when artists diminish the work of other artists. Welles actually said some pretty banal things about Antonioni and Bresson. I am kind of surprised he is more positive concerning Godard. One wonders what Welles would have thought about Godard today? Godard is a mixed bag intellectually but i actually think his much maligned work since the 1980’s has been incredibly rich in terms of intellectual rigor. The justly celebrated films of the 1960’s often do seem less grounded in terms of ideas. They certainly work as cinema and are dazzling. Le Chionese and Les Mepris are early exceptions as I do think he gets at some profound ideas with these films. His work after partnering with Anne Marie-Meiville seems to open up intellectually perhaps because he seems to have developed a deeper understanding of gender and sexuality.
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Non-Simulated Sex in Film vs. Pornography over 3 years ago
Marco Bellochio’s remake of Devil in the Flesh has a remarkable obviously not faked oral sex scene. It works very well within the overall intellectual/emotional structure of that film.
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QUICK! Help me decide what film to watch tonight! over 3 years ago
Those are all magnificent films (I haven’t seen Tales of Hoffman yet). Ordet is a great choice!
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Are these films worth buying? over 3 years ago
Mr Arkadian is fascinating and one of Criterion’s best efforts. You get multiple versions of the film. In someways this project becomes the ultimate Welles project because of it’s unfinished/open text. Definitely recommend you buy this one. I have Scenes From a Marriage and haven’t watched it yet. It seems like a interesting set.
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ELIA KAZAN AND THE HOLLYWOOD WITCH HUNT over 3 years ago
There was no “communist” threat at the time of McCarthyism. In fact, truth be told by the time of the witch hunts anything resembling actual communist socialism no longer existed in the Soviet Union. Joseph McCarthy used ignorant people’s ideas about a “mythological” thing called communism. This is some evil force that has no relationship to Marx/Engels or any later socialist writer and even very little relationship to anything that ever happened under “real lived” socialism. It was just a rightwing ploy to entrench a more ruthless form of conservative capitalism and roll back post-WW II advances in civil/human rights. Kazan’s actions were selfish and cruel. He may have convinced himself that he was doing the right thing, but, he wasn’t.
The only people who would be threatened by “real” communism would be the super rich exploiting class. Really in a capitalist nation as advanced as the United States was after WWII it would only be “real” communism that could possibly have taken root. The Soviet Union was communist initially in terms of aspiration, but, by this time period the USSR was not in the least bit interested in creating a global communist movement. In fact, they generally betrayed organic communist populist movements and suppressed all real socialists in their own borders. Russia had not sufficently established capitalism to be able establish socialism so the early Bolshevicks had to industrialize the nation and fend off capitalist subversion at the same time. Was there espionage in the West? Yes, but it posed no real threat and was primarily motivated by defensive and/or economic interests.
Many of the people who actually self-identified as Communists in Hollywood had become disenchanted with the authoritarian nature of the Soviet Union and were interested either in Trotskyism or some other form of socialism. The idea that there was a strong pool of pro-Stalinist types in Hollywood is silly. Most of the people who were black listed weren’t even remotely interested in communism but were liberals or progressives of one shade or another. Most were liberal capitalists that simply had a distaste for unfairness, cruelty and greed.
All this said Kazan was a great filmmaker. Many of his films are wonderful and even the least among them has interesting qualities. On The Waterfront is from an ideological analysis idiotic! However, in terms of acting and some of it’s formal qualities it is an important addition to cinema history. His films should be watched and studied. His conduct as a citizen/intellectual should be criticized.
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3 Favourite Movies From 5 Favourite Directors over 3 years ago
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
In a Year of 13 Moons
Veronika Voss
Kenji Mizoguchi
Osaka Elegy
Life of Oharu
Sansho the Baliff
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Hawks and Sparrows
Oedipus Rex
Arabian Nights
Ousmane Sembene
la Noire de….
Ceddo
Faat Kine
Agnes Varda
La Pointe Courte
Lion’s Love
Vagabond
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TOP TEN 2000 - 2008 over 3 years ago
Colossal Youth- Pedro Costa (2006)
Tropical Malady- Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2004)
Yi Yi- Edward Yong (2000)
My Mother’s Smile- Marco Bellochio (2002)
Regular Lovers- Phillipe Garrel (2005)
Faat Kine- Ousmane Sembene (2000)
Y tu Man Tambien- Alfonso Cuaron (2001)
Yes- Sally Potter (2004)
Esther Kahn- Arnaud Desplechin (2000)
Elephant- Gus van Sant (2003)
Runners Up
Magic Mirror- Manoel de Oliveira (2005)
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone- Tsai Ming-Liang (2006)
Madame Sata- karin Ainouz (2002)
Bad Education- Pedro Almovodar (2004)
Moolade- Ousmane Sembene (2004)
Nortre Musique- Jean-Luc Godard (2004)
Odete- Joao Pedro Rodrigues (2005)
Father and Son- Aleksander Sokurov (2003)
Syndromes and a Century- Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2006)
Still Life- Jia Zhangke (2006)
The World- Jia Zhangke (2004)
The Tracker- Rolf de Heer (2002)
The Last Mistress- Catherine Breillat (2007)
Werckmeister Harmonies- Bela Tarr (2000)
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What underappreciated filmmaker deserves an eclipse release? about 3 years ago
Glauber Rocha
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Evolution of Art in Cinema about 3 years ago
Austin, I appreciate your challenge to the “cinema is dead” school of thought that mourns the passing of the greater days of film. However, I have to say that while I think there are some fine films/new media being created today I think only time (and critical discourse) will determine what films have the “staying power” of The Passion of Joan of Arc or Battleship Potemkin.
Some of the narrative filmmakers working today that seem clearly to be breaking new territory include; Abderrahmane Sisako, Apichatpong Weerasethhakul, Bela Tarr, Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsaio-Hsein, Tsai Ming-Liang, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Raoul Ruiz, Jia Zhangke, Claire Denis, Sally Potter, Micheal Heneke, Richard Linklater and Bruno Dumont. There are certainly many more and one of the great frustrations of our time is the inability to watch work that sounds extremely interesting (scores of filmmakers from The Philippines, Germany, Turkey, Argentina, China etc. are not distributed in the US and tend to only play at International Festivals outside of their home countries. This is where a site like this might become extremely influential in revitalizing film culture. It does open up the possibility of watching quite a few hard to find films (although the US region offerings seem like such a small fraction of the overall films I guess because of legal copyright reasons).I don’t think film has reached it’s limit by a long shot!
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10 that blew my mind in order of my ages 4-62 about 3 years ago
Ten that blew my mind. This is a great thread.
Age 6 – The Red Balloon (1956) Albert Lamorisse
Age 14- Citizen Kane (1941) Orson Welles
Age 15- Julia (1977) Fred Zinnemann
Age 16- Coming Home (1978) Hal Ashby
Age 17- The Spider’s Strategem (1970) Bernardo Bertolucci
Age 17- Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Age 20- Wetherby (1985) David Hare
Age 23- Yeelen (1987) Souleymane Cisse
Age 24 Jeanne Dielmann, 23 Quai du Commerce. 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Age 24 The Last of England (1988)
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Is there a liberal bias in the film community? about 3 years ago
This is all certainly interesting. I kind of don’t know where to start. First, when someone says “communism has never existed outside of these books…” I wonder if s/he has ever read any of “these books”? Marx’s theory of communism is that it can only happen in the most advanced and powerful capitalist nation (in his time Germany, France, UK) because if it happened anywhere else the more powerful capitalist nations would surely destroy it. In “real life” revolutionaries inspired by the ideas of communism lived in poor countries with limited capitalist development. So, from Marx’s point of view revolutions in places like Russia, China, Cuba etc. would have never stood a chance of establishing communism. OK. So this brings us back to the framing question for this post. Leftists are not necessarily people who believed that the Soviet Union was ever really a communist country. For example, Louise Bryant, in her landmark study Mirrors of Moscow makes it very clear that Lenin did not (because he could not) establish communism in the Soviet Union. People who consider themselves Marxists or are influenced by the thinking of Marx and other socialist writers do not necessarily endorse the governments that call themselves socialist. Blaming every Leftist for the atrocities of “Stalin” is rather akin to blaming every christian for the atrocities of the holocaust or the crusades. Obviously, many people who are christians do not support genocide or tyranny but there have been political uses of christianity that lead to these situations. Now the other confusion is with your use of the word liberal. A liberal by definition is a kind of capitalist. S/He simply believes that capitalism should be less cruel and more democratic then a conservative capitalist. Both liberals and conservatives are supporters of the rule of small elite classes. It is just that liberals believe that the rest of us should be treated more fairly and humanely. Socialists/Communists/Anarchists believe that power should be actually transfered from the elite and eventually be spread out to all people democratically. The only way to make sure we have real democracy is to make sure that there is a clear redistribution of wealth and resources so that everyone can participate with full power and dignity in society. Liberals don’t want anything this radical. Finally what makes this such a hard discussion for people from the US to engage in is that our political landscape is much narrower then in most industrialized countries. We actually don’t have a viable Left in this country. We haven’t had one since WWII. During the late 1960’s to the 1970’s we did have some growth of an independent left but it never really played a role in the political system. Most countries in Europe, for example, have more then two parties. So they often are governed by coalitions. These coalitions can be center-left or center-right. This means there really are left parties that have a role in governance. We don’t have that in the US so we often get confused and think that the Democrats are “leftists”. They are not the Democratic Party is a capitalist party just like the Republican party. It is just that the Democrats believe that people should be given a little bit more of a safety net and a little bit more say so in governance. They don’t want to share power with everyone anymore then the Republicans do. Both of these capitalist parties answer to the wealthy corporations and powerful capitalists. Now it is hard to know what people would be like if we could establish a broader political system in the US? Would many people actually be socialists/social democrats that today consider themselves liberals? Probably. Would some become more radically leftwing? Probably. Maybe one day we can create a society that has a broader and more democratic political system.Go to Comment