I’m new here. Am i too late? If not, here are my 10 faves.:
1.Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
2.Mirror (Tarkovsky)
3.Alice in the Cities (Wenders)
4.Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
5.The Green Ray (Rohmer)
6.Maborosi (Koreeda)
7.North by Northwest (Hitchcock)
8.Rules of the Game (Renoir)
9.2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
10.Sunrise (Murnau)
bubbling under: Paris Texas, Seven Samurai, Celine and Julie go Boating, Pather Panchali, Some Like it Hot, Abraham Valley, Vertigo, Mulholland Dr, Tale of Tales, Casablanca, Eternity and a Day, Spirit of the Beehive, The Band Wagon, L’Avventura, Late Spring, Aniki Bobo, The Colour of Pomegranates…
Sansho the Bailiff may be the greatest work of art of the 20th century, though most people have never heard of it or Mizoguchi. And Closely Watched Trains is certainly among the top Czech films, maybe second only to Marketa Lazarova. Menzel liked books by Hrabal, and i’d strongly recommend Hrabal’s Cutting it Short.
Reage, i mentioned Rohmer, and few directors have consistently given me so much pleasure. He has a wonderful lightness of touch and a feel for the seasons, summer especially.
Well, my favourite is the film chosen recently by Cahiers du Cinéma the single greatest in cinema history- Sunrise. Followed by The General, Metropolis, Man with a Movie Camera and Battleship Potemkin
Here’s an early French pioneer, first film 1896, who deserves more attention. Prolific short films; documentaries/ snapshots of life, comedies, dramas, adventures. She had a good eye, keen interest in travel, dance and different cultures (Spain, Romanies..), plenty of wit and her films have loads of charm.
Mainly as a result of Manoel de Oliveira’s Abraham Valley, set in Portugal’s beautiful Douro Valley, i upped sticks and went to buy a house in North Portugal, lost loadsamoney, returned tail between legs, but love the place and intend to try again. And by coincidence the place we (my wife and i) feel at home there and were centred on is facing across the river Minho to the college in Galicia he attended many many years ago, and where his film Journey to the Beginning of the World starts. The great man is now 100, still active and prolific with it, and if still working next year will have been making films in 10 different decades! (he started on Douro, Faina Fluvial in 1929)
Thanks for accepting me. I’m usual a punctual type but as i only heard of this site (from mention of this poll) yesterday….
I obviously need to see Synecdoche, New York!
Well, i’ve not seen Dodeska-den. The Painlevé shorts i’ve seen are well worth it. Criterion could do with more by Mizoguchi (to complement the selection of his later films at Masters of Cinema)
Mizoguchi wasn’t just a perfectionist like Kubrick, he also managed to be prolific. And though i agree with Musycks it’s too easy to criticise Kubrick as cold, i find Mizo’s films generally have more soul- Sansho the Bailiff touches me more emotionally than anything by SK. I would also rank Tarkovsky, Renoir, Ozu and Hitchcock higher than SK, but he was undoubtedly a great director.
The Art of Amalia- Amalia Rodrigues
2nd Symphony- Sibelius
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy- Elton John
Born to Run- Bruce Springsteen
My Way: The Best of..- Frank Sinatra
Le Pas du Chat Noir- Anouar Brahem
+
6th Symphony- Beethoven
Concierto de Aranjuez- Rodrigo
The Marriage of Figaro- Mozart
Vltava- Smetana
7th Symphony- Beethoven
Elephant- The White Stripes
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road- Elton John
Aman Iman- Tinariwen
La Boheme- Puccini
Violin Concerto- Sibelius
Com que Voz- Amalia Rodrigues
Home Before Dark- Neil Diamond
La Traviata- Verdi
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini- Rachmaninov
St Matthew Passion- Bach
Through the Windowpane- The Guillemots
Savane- Ali Farka Touré
Infected- The The
The Protecting Veil- John Tavener
Revolver- The Beatles
O.K Computer- Radiohead
Songs of Leonard Cohen- Leonard Cohen
Fleet Foxes- Fleet Foxes
The Queen is Dead- The Smiths
Abbey Road- The Beatles
2nd Piano Concerto- Rachmaninov
i’m an old grey fogey, with aching bones and decrepit taste, in a rickety rocking chair by the fire, long freed from being cool, but do venture from time to time to try- and even sometimes like- the adventurous stuff you young whippernappers throw up..
Such as…? Take her Danses Gitanes; there’s a little girl in there who should be defying the hatred of Romanies, the holocaust etc. Compare with the awful anti-Romany racism of Rescued by Rover, and so many films that have followed, up to the present. Well, i’ve only seen about 15-20 by Guy but any stereotyping in there is as nothing set against much of what went towards the foundations of cinema and the continued appalling racism in our supposedly advanced and more aware societies today
Yes, but it’s just that i haven’t noticed the same sort of racism in Guy’s work as in Birth of a Nation or some other pioneering efforts (well and many later films scattered throughout cinema history too)- maybe you’ve seen some by her that i haven’t. The one scene which concerned me in a film by her was a pig having its ear pulled, in an otherwise excellent chase involving a dog and string of sausages, if memory serves.
My faves- and so many more wonders to discover no doubt!:
Apu trilogy (Ray)
Pakeezah (Amrohi)
Cloud-Capped Star (Ghatak)
Mughal-e-Azam (Asif)
Charulata (Ray)
Subarnarekha (Ghatak)
Paper Flowers (Dutt)
Days and Nights in the Forest (Ray)
Biaju Bawra (Bhatt)
The Postmaster (Ray)
The Music Room (Ray)
Calcutta 71 (Sen)
Rat Trap (Gopalakrishnan)
Guide (Anand)
Umrao Jaan (Muzaffar Ali)
Pyaasa (Dutt)
Salaam Bombay (Nair)
it’s time the West took proper notice of India’s fine tradition. Perhaps Slumdog Millionaire’s Oscar may help just a little, if only as a superficial fashion?
Though i’m an Isabelle Adjani fan, i didn’t like Possession at all, but Third Part of the Night is a fascinating and at times surreal Kafkaesque film that seems to poke at Communist bureaucracy in a setting of resistance to the Nazis and scientific work involving leeches.
Now i’ve had to subtly disguise the name of the man in question, for fear of irrevocable harm to his reputation and ensuing court action. But i can no longer desist, so great has been the pain which i endured and which still plagues me day and night though many moons have passed.
Werther Hedgehog is one prickly customer. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. No sir, he does not! As i found to my cost. One day- was it in a February? (it was bleak, it was grey, i have not forgotten the weather then, though my mind has been dazed since)- he certainly made me look foolish on an internet question + answer session. Some cynic might say he didn’t need to work hard to do so! Oh how i came to wish they’d chosen one of the alternative questions i’d sent (some of which were asked by others + appreciatively received by him). But such is fate, for all is predestined and free will is but a myth.
Now i made the mistake of using the word “adventures” in connection with his life. A mistake indeed, for he connects that word with colonialism. I’d merely intended it to mean unusual experiences (as is only right and proper, according to my dictionary, i must hasten to add). But there i was, shamed before a multitude for inadvertently promoting colonialism.
My other error; well yes sir, i admit i must have been dumb. Mindful of his statement that his well-known character Kipper Hauter’s lack of spiritual-religious awareness proves God doesn’t exist, taken together (quite intriguingly, i thought) with Hedgehog having just done a documentary on Buddhist monks, i asked what expectations he had of an after-life- to which he simply replied “how should i know?”.
Now usually i try not to take offence, am quite an easy-going chap, but in this case i’m sure you’ll understand. Oh, the derisive hoots of laughter his reply must have caused, replicated at so many thousands of computers, and all at my expense! The porter in Murnau’s Last Laugh had an easy time of it in comparison. Well of course such ignominy is far too much for any self-respecting fellow, however thick his skin, to bear. It will come as no surprise to the discerning reader that i slept not a wink for a week.
And so, I challenged Hedgehog to a duel with Conquistador pistols at an agreed spot on the Matterhorn, for having spitefully and egotistically caused me such deep public embarrassment (he at least condescended to afford me a brief discussion on the merits of Barry Lyndon, and i can tell you at that moment i was less sympathetic than usual to Ryan O’Neal’s come-uppance from the snivelling step-son), but the coward never turned up. Yeah, that’s right, Macho man didn’t show. I didn’t even get to enjoy the views and the famous shape of the mountain cos it was in cloud. My second, a local i’d chanced to meet, a fearless ski-jumper of unusually hirsute appearance, miniature stature, limited mental development, with one eye and poor hearing, 2 projecting canine teeth possibly developed during his upbringing by wolves in Transylvania (how i’d all too briefly relished the delicious irony of it all!) was not amused. And who could blame him? He was so upset he flung himself off that narrow ridge without checking his hang-glider properly (i’d very considerately thought it would be a fitting end for Hedgehog + his precious image if we conducted the duel airborn from our hang-gliders, strapped on the backs of ponies). He, the second, left behind him not only a grieving widow, who i later learned was a mute albino sculptress of Guatemalan Indian extraction he’d somehow rescued from a gang of Hanover pimps on the day of the Mount St Helens eruption, but also, imagine the bad luck of it!, quintuplet babes. And Hedgehog has carried on his illustrious career without so much as a backward glance. A cad and a bounder if ever there was one.
And now we come to the most painful part of this tale, an act of ignominious betrayal. The Puzzle of Kipper Hauter has for several years been one of my wife’s favourite films. A very sore point between us i can tell you! She, and i know this will take some believing, she actually refused to accompany me up the Matterhorn, on the grounds (how those piercing words still ring in my ears!) that “well darling of course i love you, you know that, but would it really be proper to cut down such a daring visionary? And mightn’t you catch cold?”. Well i hardly need add that since then, you only have to bring to mind that famously edited sequence of marital breakfast scenes in Citizen Kane to imagine the frosty descent of our relationship! Kane was lucky to have such a long table.
I was only glad Hedgehog didn’t agree to my original suggestion of Macchu Picchu, that would have been an expensive trip – he has the cunning of a fox, that one (his refusal led me into thinking he was serious about the Matterhorn!) Give him credit for wit + ingenuity if not for honour. I sent him 3 white ostrich feathers (had to be big to mark the extent of his cowardice) and i heard later he was allergic to ostriches, had come out in a rash, couldn’t stop sneezing for weeks, and his intended film on a tribe of head-hunting pygmies in the Congo was cancelled as a result. Take that, smart arse. And it proves there is a God after all.
The true father of Italian neo-realism is Jean Renoir and his film Toni. Renoir took on Visconti as an assistant, influenced his political conversion and the choice of story on which Ossessione was based. Of course there were other previous films with “neo-realist” elements from a range of countries, e.g An Inn at Tokyo by Ozu, and the charming Aniki Bobo by the great, still active Portuguese Manoel de Oliveira which came out in 1942 like Ossessione,
The best writer on films i.m.o is David Bordwell, e.g Figures Traced in Light.
After the disappointments of his updated editions of the once admired Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson has redeemed himself somewhat with his recent book Have you Seen? with his comments on 1000 films. I’ve liked the writing of Geoff Andrew, Gilbert Adair (eg Flickers) and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Jonathon Romney who writes for The Independent in the UK (having replaced Gilbert Adair) is fine too. I’ve not read Anthony Lane for years but liked his columns- i think it was The Independent too- years ago. And (like most if not all the above) he really admires Sansho the Bailiff.
More on Vertigo: Chris Marker a great fan- see Sans Soleil. Its influence can also be seen in Mulholland Dr (which also brought to mind Persona and Celine + Julie go Boating) and Basic Instinct. I guess Dieterle’s Portrait of Jennie was in turn some sort of influence on Vertigo. Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black is very Hitchcockian, and using typical Herrmann score- and of course Kill Bill took its main plot from the Truffaut….
Whether coincidentally or not, I don’t think Bernardo Bertolucci or Wim Wenders have ever been quite the same without Vittorio Storaro and Robbie Muller respectively- those 2 cinematographers have done sterling work elsewhere too. But the #1 cinematographer for me is Miyagawa, best known and outstanding with Mizoguchi, eg Sansho the Bailiff, but also worked well with Kurosawa, Ichikawa, Ozu…
Well, Cahiers du Cinéma usually come up with plenty of goodies that are undervalued or relatively neglected in the West, and of course (like Positif) they recognise Mizoguchi’s greatness. Any such list is likely to have a few surprise inclusions in the lower reaches- as unless there’s a huge number of voters it doesn’t take much for a film to squeeze in. For that reason Moonfleet also just made the top 100 in John Kobals’ Top 100 Movies in his critics’ poll of the late 80s- it’s long been admired by the French.
Spring in a Small Town (Fei Mu, 1948)
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou, 1987)
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou, 1991)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 20000)
Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, 2007)
Daybreak (Sun Yu, 1933)
Goddess (Wu Yonggang, 1934)
Two Stage Sisters (Xie Jin, 1964)
Street Angel (Yuan Mushi, 1937)
2046 (Wong Kar-wai, 2004)
Still Life (Jia Zhangke, 2006)
Suzhou River (Lou Ye, 2000)
A Touch of Zen (King Hu, 1969)
Rouge (Kwan, 1987)
To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994)
Little Toys (Sun Yu, 1933)
The Horse Thief (Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1986)
Raining in the Mountain (King Hu, 1979)
Platform (Jia Zhangke, 2000)
The Lin Family Shop (Zhang Shuihua, 1959)
Life on a String (Chen Kaige, 1991)
House of the Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004)
i’ve included Taiwanese King Hu and Ang Lee’s mainland China-set films, and also Hong Kong.
The Auteurs "Sight & Sound" Poll about 4 years ago
I’m new here. Am i too late? If not, here are my 10 faves.:
1.Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
2.Mirror (Tarkovsky)
3.Alice in the Cities (Wenders)
4.Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
5.The Green Ray (Rohmer)
6.Maborosi (Koreeda)
7.North by Northwest (Hitchcock)
8.Rules of the Game (Renoir)
9.2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
10.Sunrise (Murnau)
bubbling under: Paris Texas, Seven Samurai, Celine and Julie go Boating, Pather Panchali, Some Like it Hot, Abraham Valley, Vertigo, Mulholland Dr, Tale of Tales, Casablanca, Eternity and a Day, Spirit of the Beehive, The Band Wagon, L’Avventura, Late Spring, Aniki Bobo, The Colour of Pomegranates…
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Your 5 Favourite Directors about 4 years ago
Mizoguchi
Tarkovsky
Renoir
Ozu
Hitchcock
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who is the greatest living filmmaker? about 4 years ago
Possibly Angelopoulos, ahead of Rohmer, Rivette and Oliveira. A pity there aren’t many young uns challenging strongly
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Sancho the Bailiff and Closely Watched Trains about 4 years ago
Sansho the Bailiff may be the greatest work of art of the 20th century, though most people have never heard of it or Mizoguchi. And Closely Watched Trains is certainly among the top Czech films, maybe second only to Marketa Lazarova. Menzel liked books by Hrabal, and i’d strongly recommend Hrabal’s Cutting it Short.
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who is the greatest living filmmaker? about 4 years ago
Reage, i mentioned Rohmer, and few directors have consistently given me so much pleasure. He has a wonderful lightness of touch and a feel for the seasons, summer especially.
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Richard Jenkins Appreciation Thread about 4 years ago
Er, i thought this was might be a Richard Burton (born Jenkins) appreciation thread!
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YOUR FAVORITE SILENT FILM, PLEASE. about 4 years ago
Well, my favourite is the film chosen recently by Cahiers du Cinéma the single greatest in cinema history- Sunrise. Followed by The General, Metropolis, Man with a Movie Camera and Battleship Potemkin
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Alice Guy-Blaché about 4 years ago
Here’s an early French pioneer, first film 1896, who deserves more attention. Prolific short films; documentaries/ snapshots of life, comedies, dramas, adventures. She had a good eye, keen interest in travel, dance and different cultures (Spain, Romanies..), plenty of wit and her films have loads of charm.
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Films that made you take action about 4 years ago
Mainly as a result of Manoel de Oliveira’s Abraham Valley, set in Portugal’s beautiful Douro Valley, i upped sticks and went to buy a house in North Portugal, lost loadsamoney, returned tail between legs, but love the place and intend to try again. And by coincidence the place we (my wife and i) feel at home there and were centred on is facing across the river Minho to the college in Galicia he attended many many years ago, and where his film Journey to the Beginning of the World starts. The great man is now 100, still active and prolific with it, and if still working next year will have been making films in 10 different decades! (he started on Douro, Faina Fluvial in 1929)
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The Auteurs "Sight & Sound" Poll about 4 years ago
Thanks for accepting me. I’m usual a punctual type but as i only heard of this site (from mention of this poll) yesterday….
I obviously need to see Synecdoche, New York!
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Criterion Coming Soon and Discussion about 4 years ago
Well, i’ve not seen Dodeska-den. The Painlevé shorts i’ve seen are well worth it. Criterion could do with more by Mizoguchi (to complement the selection of his later films at Masters of Cinema)
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Who's better than Stanley Kubrick? about 4 years ago
Mizoguchi wasn’t just a perfectionist like Kubrick, he also managed to be prolific. And though i agree with Musycks it’s too easy to criticise Kubrick as cold, i find Mizo’s films generally have more soul- Sansho the Bailiff touches me more emotionally than anything by SK. I would also rank Tarkovsky, Renoir, Ozu and Hitchcock higher than SK, but he was undoubtedly a great director.
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Greatest Albums of All-time about 4 years ago
The Art of Amalia- Amalia Rodrigues
2nd Symphony- Sibelius
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy- Elton John
Born to Run- Bruce Springsteen
My Way: The Best of..- Frank Sinatra
Le Pas du Chat Noir- Anouar Brahem
+
6th Symphony- Beethoven
Concierto de Aranjuez- Rodrigo
The Marriage of Figaro- Mozart
Vltava- Smetana
7th Symphony- Beethoven
Elephant- The White Stripes
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road- Elton John
Aman Iman- Tinariwen
La Boheme- Puccini
Violin Concerto- Sibelius
Com que Voz- Amalia Rodrigues
Home Before Dark- Neil Diamond
La Traviata- Verdi
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini- Rachmaninov
St Matthew Passion- Bach
Through the Windowpane- The Guillemots
Savane- Ali Farka Touré
Infected- The The
The Protecting Veil- John Tavener
Revolver- The Beatles
O.K Computer- Radiohead
Songs of Leonard Cohen- Leonard Cohen
Fleet Foxes- Fleet Foxes
The Queen is Dead- The Smiths
Abbey Road- The Beatles
2nd Piano Concerto- Rachmaninov
i’m an old grey fogey, with aching bones and decrepit taste, in a rickety rocking chair by the fire, long freed from being cool, but do venture from time to time to try- and even sometimes like- the adventurous stuff you young whippernappers throw up..
Go to Comment
Alice Guy-Blaché about 4 years ago
Such as…? Take her Danses Gitanes; there’s a little girl in there who should be defying the hatred of Romanies, the holocaust etc. Compare with the awful anti-Romany racism of Rescued by Rover, and so many films that have followed, up to the present. Well, i’ve only seen about 15-20 by Guy but any stereotyping in there is as nothing set against much of what went towards the foundations of cinema and the continued appalling racism in our supposedly advanced and more aware societies today
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The Auteurs "Sight & Sound" Poll about 4 years ago
Ah you may be muddling me with the other latecomer Anthony N, who picked Playtime- and (like someone else) Synecdoche New York.
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Alice Guy-Blaché about 4 years ago
Yes, but it’s just that i haven’t noticed the same sort of racism in Guy’s work as in Birth of a Nation or some other pioneering efforts (well and many later films scattered throughout cinema history too)- maybe you’ve seen some by her that i haven’t. The one scene which concerned me in a film by her was a pig having its ear pulled, in an otherwise excellent chase involving a dog and string of sausages, if memory serves.
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Anybody seen films from India? about 4 years ago
My faves- and so many more wonders to discover no doubt!:
Apu trilogy (Ray)
Pakeezah (Amrohi)
Cloud-Capped Star (Ghatak)
Mughal-e-Azam (Asif)
Charulata (Ray)
Subarnarekha (Ghatak)
Paper Flowers (Dutt)
Days and Nights in the Forest (Ray)
Biaju Bawra (Bhatt)
The Postmaster (Ray)
The Music Room (Ray)
Calcutta 71 (Sen)
Rat Trap (Gopalakrishnan)
Guide (Anand)
Umrao Jaan (Muzaffar Ali)
Pyaasa (Dutt)
Salaam Bombay (Nair)
it’s time the West took proper notice of India’s fine tradition. Perhaps Slumdog Millionaire’s Oscar may help just a little, if only as a superficial fashion?
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Andrzej Zulawski. about 4 years ago
Though i’m an Isabelle Adjani fan, i didn’t like Possession at all, but Third Part of the Night is a fascinating and at times surreal Kafkaesque film that seems to poke at Communist bureaucracy in a setting of resistance to the Nazis and scientific work involving leeches.
Go to Comment
The Enigmatic Ecstasy of Werther Hedgehog about 4 years ago
Now i’ve had to subtly disguise the name of the man in question, for fear of irrevocable harm to his reputation and ensuing court action. But i can no longer desist, so great has been the pain which i endured and which still plagues me day and night though many moons have passed.
Werther Hedgehog is one prickly customer. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. No sir, he does not! As i found to my cost. One day- was it in a February? (it was bleak, it was grey, i have not forgotten the weather then, though my mind has been dazed since)- he certainly made me look foolish on an internet question + answer session. Some cynic might say he didn’t need to work hard to do so! Oh how i came to wish they’d chosen one of the alternative questions i’d sent (some of which were asked by others + appreciatively received by him). But such is fate, for all is predestined and free will is but a myth.
Now i made the mistake of using the word “adventures” in connection with his life. A mistake indeed, for he connects that word with colonialism. I’d merely intended it to mean unusual experiences (as is only right and proper, according to my dictionary, i must hasten to add). But there i was, shamed before a multitude for inadvertently promoting colonialism.
My other error; well yes sir, i admit i must have been dumb. Mindful of his statement that his well-known character Kipper Hauter’s lack of spiritual-religious awareness proves God doesn’t exist, taken together (quite intriguingly, i thought) with Hedgehog having just done a documentary on Buddhist monks, i asked what expectations he had of an after-life- to which he simply replied “how should i know?”.
Now usually i try not to take offence, am quite an easy-going chap, but in this case i’m sure you’ll understand. Oh, the derisive hoots of laughter his reply must have caused, replicated at so many thousands of computers, and all at my expense! The porter in Murnau’s Last Laugh had an easy time of it in comparison. Well of course such ignominy is far too much for any self-respecting fellow, however thick his skin, to bear. It will come as no surprise to the discerning reader that i slept not a wink for a week.
And so, I challenged Hedgehog to a duel with Conquistador pistols at an agreed spot on the Matterhorn, for having spitefully and egotistically caused me such deep public embarrassment (he at least condescended to afford me a brief discussion on the merits of Barry Lyndon, and i can tell you at that moment i was less sympathetic than usual to Ryan O’Neal’s come-uppance from the snivelling step-son), but the coward never turned up. Yeah, that’s right, Macho man didn’t show. I didn’t even get to enjoy the views and the famous shape of the mountain cos it was in cloud. My second, a local i’d chanced to meet, a fearless ski-jumper of unusually hirsute appearance, miniature stature, limited mental development, with one eye and poor hearing, 2 projecting canine teeth possibly developed during his upbringing by wolves in Transylvania (how i’d all too briefly relished the delicious irony of it all!) was not amused. And who could blame him? He was so upset he flung himself off that narrow ridge without checking his hang-glider properly (i’d very considerately thought it would be a fitting end for Hedgehog + his precious image if we conducted the duel airborn from our hang-gliders, strapped on the backs of ponies). He, the second, left behind him not only a grieving widow, who i later learned was a mute albino sculptress of Guatemalan Indian extraction he’d somehow rescued from a gang of Hanover pimps on the day of the Mount St Helens eruption, but also, imagine the bad luck of it!, quintuplet babes. And Hedgehog has carried on his illustrious career without so much as a backward glance. A cad and a bounder if ever there was one.
And now we come to the most painful part of this tale, an act of ignominious betrayal. The Puzzle of Kipper Hauter has for several years been one of my wife’s favourite films. A very sore point between us i can tell you! She, and i know this will take some believing, she actually refused to accompany me up the Matterhorn, on the grounds (how those piercing words still ring in my ears!) that “well darling of course i love you, you know that, but would it really be proper to cut down such a daring visionary? And mightn’t you catch cold?”. Well i hardly need add that since then, you only have to bring to mind that famously edited sequence of marital breakfast scenes in Citizen Kane to imagine the frosty descent of our relationship! Kane was lucky to have such a long table.
I was only glad Hedgehog didn’t agree to my original suggestion of Macchu Picchu, that would have been an expensive trip – he has the cunning of a fox, that one (his refusal led me into thinking he was serious about the Matterhorn!) Give him credit for wit + ingenuity if not for honour. I sent him 3 white ostrich feathers (had to be big to mark the extent of his cowardice) and i heard later he was allergic to ostriches, had come out in a rash, couldn’t stop sneezing for weeks, and his intended film on a tribe of head-hunting pygmies in the Congo was cancelled as a result. Take that, smart arse. And it proves there is a God after all.
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The Enigmatic Ecstasy of Werther Hedgehog about 4 years ago
Apologies for anyone who’s already read this regurgitated nonsense elsewhere
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Bookshelf about 4 years ago
Are you wanting recommended books on films here?
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Italian Neorealism and the Auteur's that built cinema. about 4 years ago
The true father of Italian neo-realism is Jean Renoir and his film Toni. Renoir took on Visconti as an assistant, influenced his political conversion and the choice of story on which Ossessione was based. Of course there were other previous films with “neo-realist” elements from a range of countries, e.g An Inn at Tokyo by Ozu, and the charming Aniki Bobo by the great, still active Portuguese Manoel de Oliveira which came out in 1942 like Ossessione,
Go to Comment
Which Film Critics Do You Read? about 4 years ago
The best writer on films i.m.o is David Bordwell, e.g Figures Traced in Light.
After the disappointments of his updated editions of the once admired Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson has redeemed himself somewhat with his recent book Have you Seen? with his comments on 1000 films. I’ve liked the writing of Geoff Andrew, Gilbert Adair (eg Flickers) and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Jonathon Romney who writes for The Independent in the UK (having replaced Gilbert Adair) is fine too. I’ve not read Anthony Lane for years but liked his columns- i think it was The Independent too- years ago. And (like most if not all the above) he really admires Sansho the Bailiff.
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The Enigmatic Ecstasy of Werther Hedgehog about 4 years ago
Well, i thought fans of the director in question might recognise and possibly enjoy some aspects of this sad tale….
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Hitchcock's Influence about 4 years ago
More on Vertigo: Chris Marker a great fan- see Sans Soleil. Its influence can also be seen in Mulholland Dr (which also brought to mind Persona and Celine + Julie go Boating) and Basic Instinct. I guess Dieterle’s Portrait of Jennie was in turn some sort of influence on Vertigo. Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black is very Hitchcockian, and using typical Herrmann score- and of course Kill Bill took its main plot from the Truffaut….
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The Great Cinematographers about 4 years ago
Whether coincidentally or not, I don’t think Bernardo Bertolucci or Wim Wenders have ever been quite the same without Vittorio Storaro and Robbie Muller respectively- those 2 cinematographers have done sterling work elsewhere too. But the #1 cinematographer for me is Miyagawa, best known and outstanding with Mizoguchi, eg Sansho the Bailiff, but also worked well with Kurosawa, Ichikawa, Ozu…
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Cashiers du Cinema's 100 Greatest Film List about 4 years ago
Well, Cahiers du Cinéma usually come up with plenty of goodies that are undervalued or relatively neglected in the West, and of course (like Positif) they recognise Mizoguchi’s greatness. Any such list is likely to have a few surprise inclusions in the lower reaches- as unless there’s a huge number of voters it doesn’t take much for a film to squeeze in. For that reason Moonfleet also just made the top 100 in John Kobals’ Top 100 Movies in his critics’ poll of the late 80s- it’s long been admired by the French.
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Films from China about 4 years ago
My faves:
Spring in a Small Town (Fei Mu, 1948)
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou, 1987)
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou, 1991)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 20000)
Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, 2007)
Daybreak (Sun Yu, 1933)
Goddess (Wu Yonggang, 1934)
Two Stage Sisters (Xie Jin, 1964)
Street Angel (Yuan Mushi, 1937)
2046 (Wong Kar-wai, 2004)
Still Life (Jia Zhangke, 2006)
Suzhou River (Lou Ye, 2000)
A Touch of Zen (King Hu, 1969)
Rouge (Kwan, 1987)
To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994)
Little Toys (Sun Yu, 1933)
The Horse Thief (Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1986)
Raining in the Mountain (King Hu, 1979)
Platform (Jia Zhangke, 2000)
The Lin Family Shop (Zhang Shuihua, 1959)
Life on a String (Chen Kaige, 1991)
House of the Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004)
i’ve included Taiwanese King Hu and Ang Lee’s mainland China-set films, and also Hong Kong.
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The Enigmatic Ecstasy of Werther Hedgehog about 4 years ago
I’ve never recovered from the slight.
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The Enigmatic Ecstasy of Werther Hedgehog about 4 years ago
I’ve never recovered from the slight.
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