Travelling Players
Ugetsu
Tokyo Story
Citizen Kane
Au Hasard Balthazar
Rules Of The Game
The Red and the White
In The Mood For Love
Sunrise
Through the Olive Trees
My biggest regret of last year was missing Kiarostamis art installation Looking at Tazieh at the Edinburgh Festival last year. I’m only familiar with Kiarostami, the Makhmalbafs, Ghobadi and Panahi: so I’ve lots to catch up on. The only one not mentioned that I particularly enjoyed was Hana Makhmalbaf’s Joy of Madness: a documentary on the making of At Five in the Afternoon that I enjoyed more than the feature film. It is available separately on UK DVD.
Ugetsu Monogatari
Sansho The Bailiff
Story of the Late Chrysanthemums
Chikamatsu Monogatori
Life of Oharu
Uwasa No Onna
Empress Yang Kwei Fei
Tales of the Taira Clan
The Water Magician
47 Ronin
Miss Oyu
Sisters of the Gion
Gion Bayashi
Lady of Musashino
Osaka Elegy
Street of Shame
Miyamoto Musashi
Woomen of the Night
Tokyo March
The only Japanese moving image shown in Godard’s Histoire(s) du Cinema was a shot of Chikamatsu Monogatori (Crucified Lovers).
Travelling Players by Angelopoulos: masterful camerawork including a 720 degree shot that tells a story, and a camera that moves in time as well as space. An opening shot of the players walking through a village starts in 1952 and ends in 1939. If you love character development and personal drama – dont bother. But if the camera moves of a Murnau or Mizoguchi or the contested space of a Jancso excite you, then give this a spin.
I really like Firemans Ball. I’ve only seen a few Czech films. Second Run imprints mainly. Marketa Lazarova is fantastic and love the weirdness of Valerie and her Week of Wonders.
I loved Three Monkeys. The film is slow, but constructed with great skill. An example. The dark clouds gathering over an argument by the river lead via a police interview, into a quiet reflective scene with creaking windows, ominous wind, barking dogs, crickets and minimal dialogue where the characters and the audience reflect. It is masterful, and as the train sounds fill the sensory space, with just some breathing and a little sobbing the tension builds until you see two characters on the terrace and one framed in the doorway, the thunder sounds again to pull the three monkeys back into one room facing each other. There has been one significant piece of dialogue and several possible actions have been wordlessly considered, and we as an audience feel them. It is an amazingly eloquent piece of filmmaking that is worth the price of admission on it’s own.
It isn’t a popular view but I think Heavens Gate is excellent. It was never going to make back its’ money, but it is beautifully shot and some of the sequences are breathtaking. Elements like the roller-skating and the dancing at the Harvard graduation sound strange, but integrate well within the movie. There are certainly flaws, but I love the film regardless.
Final Cut chronicles the production in a one-sided way, but Cimino certainly did some horrendous things like the land irrigation that Harry Long mentions, and I don’t think the directors telling of the tale would have him covered in glory either. It is a great read.
And out of it all comes my biggest regret: that Cimino never got to make The Yellow Jersey: the great cycling movie that never was.
The Witness: very funny satire on communist Hungary. An ordinary dyke keeper naively supportive of the party, saves an official from drowning and is given, by another official, several management jobs that don’t work out. It isn’t the most subtle of films, but it is very cutting.
It isn’t accurate and the Johnny Rotten character is appallingly portrayed, not much better in the McLaren dominated The Great Rock n Roll Swindle, but it is an interesting drama. Has anyone seen Who Killed Nancy?
There is a scene in Kim Ki-Duk’s The Isle where slices are cut out of a fish, which is returned to the water where it swims off. The scene was cut for UK release.
A snake stabbed in Marketa Lazarova.
Cock Fighting in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
I love Miklos Jancso and his use of offscreen space: the capture at the Beginning of My Way Home a wonderful example of constructing reality. The Round Up and The Red and The White slowly stripping away the individual stories and increasing the lengths of the shots. He went too far for my taste with Red Psalm and lost the human element, but the others are beautifully balanced. Strongly influencing Bela Tarr, who moves nicely from the claustrophobia of social housing out into the long tracking shots and slow space of Satantango. With a wonderful colour palate in a film that I love, but not many others do- Almanac of Fall.
The Witness: a wonderful Svejk like ordinary character caught up in party machinations. A Peter Basco film banned for years, but whose main character and some phrases have passed into the national lexicon.
Karoly Makk and the wonderful Love with the mother being told tall tales of her sons directorial career, when in reality he is languising in custody must have influenced the far inferior Goodbye Lenin. The characters return, or do they, for a Long Weekend in Pest and Buda. And the two women journalists in Another Way starting a spluttering affair. Lesbianism is underground, with messages passed in cigarettes, like spies, to make assignations. Certainties of sexuality along with unwillingness to compromise in one character is mixed with a more pragmatic line in both issues from another.
Szabo and his characters trying to fit into a social environment that don’t suit them. Colonel Redl is the wrong nationality, class and sexuality as he climbs up the military ladder under Archduke Ferdinand. Mephisto has an actor starring in left wing radical theatre and showing integrity in expelling a Nazi, changing his actions to match the rise of National Socialism and keep his career on path. And the family in Sunshine passing through the Royalist, Fascist and Communist eras as Jews, shows the compromises, defeats and little victories of the journey.
Hungarian cinema excites me at the moment, but I feel I’ve only just crossed the border and have many sights to see.
Theo Angelopoulos: only 1 film available on UK DVD. Absolutely scandalous.
Sticking to Japanese directors: Mizoguchi yes, Shimizu and Naruse too. Far too much attention given to Kurosawa and despite my username Ozu. They even got referenced on Extras.
Definitely fall into great swathes of watching similar films. I’m currently trawling through Hungarian, Czech and Polish films, led into them through Jancso and into him by Angelopoulos.
I’ve previously been hooked by one film into a director: my first watching of Tokyo Story was a revelation that forced me to gorge myself on his output as did Ugetsu with Mizoguchi and Raise the Red Lantern with Zhang Yimou. That first taste is so entrancing you want more.
Weeping Meadow is my least favourite of his works. Travelling Players is my favourite of his, and one of my favourite ever, with some incredible shots. The 720 degree shot in the square that shows contested space economically. There is a nice one in Days of 36 in a prison courtyard too. But this is combined with fixed camera shots: a depiction of civil war looking at one section of street particularly memorable.
The way the camera moves through time as well as space is noteworthy: two seamlessly patched tobether 180 degree shots show a woman seeing off her partner at the bottom of some steps, then the camera comes to find her back in her bedroom with her lover.
The mention of Kiarostami was interesting as he uses a couple of similar shots of hills traversed in zig zag. I also love the action happening offscreen in both The Travelling Players and Ulysses gaze, either through the camera staying fixed on a wall or not able to see through the mist.
In The Loop was pretty successful for me. Although the premise of taking your favourite characters (or favourite actors playing different characters) to another country is reminiscent of an On The Buses, Steptoe and Son or Are You Being Served movie, this works out pretty well.
The eloquent swearing of Malcolm and Jamie makes for some good moments, as in the TV series, as does the confusion of a minister trying to toe a party line he doesn’t quite get. I found it very funny. The reason a character gives for being unfaithful being particularly jaw dropping.
There are some modern UK TV shows that I really like: Peep Show for instance. But the stars appeared in awful film called Magicians which felt like the worst conversions of the Seventies. Written by the same people as did In The Loop as well.
Autumn Afternoon
L’Eclisse
Exterminating Angel
La Jetee
Lawrence Of Arabia
Mamma Roma
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Salvatore Giulano
Trial of Joan of Arc
Winter Light
What's your Top 10? about 3 years ago
Travelling Players
Ugetsu
Tokyo Story
Citizen Kane
Au Hasard Balthazar
Rules Of The Game
The Red and the White
In The Mood For Love
Sunrise
Through the Olive Trees
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Last movie you saw and rate it about 3 years ago
The Joke 8/10 Jaromil Jires directed filming of Milan Kunderas novel.
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Iranian Films about 3 years ago
My biggest regret of last year was missing Kiarostamis art installation Looking at Tazieh at the Edinburgh Festival last year. I’m only familiar with Kiarostami, the Makhmalbafs, Ghobadi and Panahi: so I’ve lots to catch up on. The only one not mentioned that I particularly enjoyed was Hana Makhmalbaf’s Joy of Madness: a documentary on the making of At Five in the Afternoon that I enjoyed more than the feature film. It is available separately on UK DVD.
Go to Comment
Top 5 (or rating) Mizoguchi about 3 years ago
Ugetsu Monogatari
Sansho The Bailiff
Story of the Late Chrysanthemums
Chikamatsu Monogatori
Life of Oharu
Uwasa No Onna
Empress Yang Kwei Fei
Tales of the Taira Clan
The Water Magician
47 Ronin
Miss Oyu
Sisters of the Gion
Gion Bayashi
Lady of Musashino
Osaka Elegy
Street of Shame
Miyamoto Musashi
Woomen of the Night
Tokyo March
The only Japanese moving image shown in Godard’s Histoire(s) du Cinema was a shot of Chikamatsu Monogatori (Crucified Lovers).
Go to Comment
recommend me a film! about 3 years ago
Travelling Players by Angelopoulos: masterful camerawork including a 720 degree shot that tells a story, and a camera that moves in time as well as space. An opening shot of the players walking through a village starts in 1952 and ends in 1939. If you love character development and personal drama – dont bother. But if the camera moves of a Murnau or Mizoguchi or the contested space of a Jancso excite you, then give this a spin.
Go to Comment
Czech/Slovak films about 3 years ago
I really like Firemans Ball. I’ve only seen a few Czech films. Second Run imprints mainly. Marketa Lazarova is fantastic and love the weirdness of Valerie and her Week of Wonders.
Go to Comment
Top 5 (or rating) Mizoguchi about 3 years ago
Godard had a still shot of Ozu in there as well, but is a paltry return for the glories of Japanese cinema.
Go to Comment
Favorite auteurs missing from the profile selection box. about 3 years ago
Bill Douglas
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Finally coming out about 3 years ago
I loved Three Monkeys. The film is slow, but constructed with great skill. An example. The dark clouds gathering over an argument by the river lead via a police interview, into a quiet reflective scene with creaking windows, ominous wind, barking dogs, crickets and minimal dialogue where the characters and the audience reflect. It is masterful, and as the train sounds fill the sensory space, with just some breathing and a little sobbing the tension builds until you see two characters on the terrace and one framed in the doorway, the thunder sounds again to pull the three monkeys back into one room facing each other. There has been one significant piece of dialogue and several possible actions have been wordlessly considered, and we as an audience feel them. It is an amazingly eloquent piece of filmmaking that is worth the price of admission on it’s own.
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When you see yet again that Citizen Kane is the best film ever. What film do you secretly think of? about 3 years ago
They are both in my top ten, and I love bothof them
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who is the greatest living filmmaker? about 3 years ago
Chalk up another vote to Angelopoulos.
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is film your only love? about 3 years ago
Wife, daughter, music, Heart of Midlothian Football Club, Cycling (Lemond over Armstrong), Space Exploration and cinema.
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my ex roommate bleeped eddie murphy about 3 years ago
Patted Park Chan Wook on the back.
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How could such a great director make such a lousy movie? about 3 years ago
I really do not like:
Fellini, Voice of the Moon
Hitchcock, Juno and the Paycock
Antonioni, The Oberwald Mystery
Go to Comment
HEAVEN'S GATE about 3 years ago
It isn’t a popular view but I think Heavens Gate is excellent. It was never going to make back its’ money, but it is beautifully shot and some of the sequences are breathtaking. Elements like the roller-skating and the dancing at the Harvard graduation sound strange, but integrate well within the movie. There are certainly flaws, but I love the film regardless.
Final Cut chronicles the production in a one-sided way, but Cimino certainly did some horrendous things like the land irrigation that Harry Long mentions, and I don’t think the directors telling of the tale would have him covered in glory either. It is a great read.
And out of it all comes my biggest regret: that Cimino never got to make The Yellow Jersey: the great cycling movie that never was.
Go to Comment
Recommend a Movie about 3 years ago
The Witness: very funny satire on communist Hungary. An ordinary dyke keeper naively supportive of the party, saves an official from drowning and is given, by another official, several management jobs that don’t work out. It isn’t the most subtle of films, but it is very cutting.
Go to Comment
Where are you from? about 3 years ago
Edinburgh in Scotland
Go to Comment
What do Sex Pistols fans think of this? about 3 years ago
It isn’t accurate and the Johnny Rotten character is appallingly portrayed, not much better in the McLaren dominated The Great Rock n Roll Swindle, but it is an interesting drama. Has anyone seen Who Killed Nancy?
Go to Comment
Remember that poor ox in APOCALYPSE NOW? The treatment of animals in film. about 3 years ago
There is a scene in Kim Ki-Duk’s The Isle where slices are cut out of a fish, which is returned to the water where it swims off. The scene was cut for UK release.
A snake stabbed in Marketa Lazarova.
Cock Fighting in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Go to Comment
Merry Go Round and the joyful delights of Hungarian Cinema about 3 years ago
I love Miklos Jancso and his use of offscreen space: the capture at the Beginning of My Way Home a wonderful example of constructing reality. The Round Up and The Red and The White slowly stripping away the individual stories and increasing the lengths of the shots. He went too far for my taste with Red Psalm and lost the human element, but the others are beautifully balanced. Strongly influencing Bela Tarr, who moves nicely from the claustrophobia of social housing out into the long tracking shots and slow space of Satantango. With a wonderful colour palate in a film that I love, but not many others do- Almanac of Fall.
The Witness: a wonderful Svejk like ordinary character caught up in party machinations. A Peter Basco film banned for years, but whose main character and some phrases have passed into the national lexicon.
Karoly Makk and the wonderful Love with the mother being told tall tales of her sons directorial career, when in reality he is languising in custody must have influenced the far inferior Goodbye Lenin. The characters return, or do they, for a Long Weekend in Pest and Buda. And the two women journalists in Another Way starting a spluttering affair. Lesbianism is underground, with messages passed in cigarettes, like spies, to make assignations. Certainties of sexuality along with unwillingness to compromise in one character is mixed with a more pragmatic line in both issues from another.
Szabo and his characters trying to fit into a social environment that don’t suit them. Colonel Redl is the wrong nationality, class and sexuality as he climbs up the military ladder under Archduke Ferdinand. Mephisto has an actor starring in left wing radical theatre and showing integrity in expelling a Nazi, changing his actions to match the rise of National Socialism and keep his career on path. And the family in Sunshine passing through the Royalist, Fascist and Communist eras as Jews, shows the compromises, defeats and little victories of the journey.
Hungarian cinema excites me at the moment, but I feel I’ve only just crossed the border and have many sights to see.
Go to Comment
Favorite underseen/unknown directors about 3 years ago
Theo Angelopoulos: only 1 film available on UK DVD. Absolutely scandalous.
Sticking to Japanese directors: Mizoguchi yes, Shimizu and Naruse too. Far too much attention given to Kurosawa and despite my username Ozu. They even got referenced on Extras.
Go to Comment
Film Moods about 3 years ago
Definitely fall into great swathes of watching similar films. I’m currently trawling through Hungarian, Czech and Polish films, led into them through Jancso and into him by Angelopoulos.
I’ve previously been hooked by one film into a director: my first watching of Tokyo Story was a revelation that forced me to gorge myself on his output as did Ugetsu with Mizoguchi and Raise the Red Lantern with Zhang Yimou. That first taste is so entrancing you want more.
Go to Comment
YOUR FAVORITE SILENT FILM, PLEASE. about 3 years ago
Sunrise and I Was Born…But
Also
The Passion of Joan of Arc
The General
Metropolis
Napoleon
The Phantom Carriage
The Last Laugh
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HEAVEN'S GATE about 3 years ago
Interesting podcast about this on www.leftfieldcinema.com
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Angelopoulos condensed about 3 years ago
Weeping Meadow is my least favourite of his works. Travelling Players is my favourite of his, and one of my favourite ever, with some incredible shots. The 720 degree shot in the square that shows contested space economically. There is a nice one in Days of 36 in a prison courtyard too. But this is combined with fixed camera shots: a depiction of civil war looking at one section of street particularly memorable.
The way the camera moves through time as well as space is noteworthy: two seamlessly patched tobether 180 degree shots show a woman seeing off her partner at the bottom of some steps, then the camera comes to find her back in her bedroom with her lover.
The mention of Kiarostami was interesting as he uses a couple of similar shots of hills traversed in zig zag. I also love the action happening offscreen in both The Travelling Players and Ulysses gaze, either through the camera staying fixed on a wall or not able to see through the mist.
Go to Comment
IF WE IGNORE 81/2 AND DOLCE VITA, WHAT'D BE THE BEST FELLINI MOVIE? about 3 years ago
Nights of Cabiria
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YOUR FAVORITE SILENT FILM, PLEASE. about 3 years ago
What about Juha?
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British film comedy is dead, isn't it? about 3 years ago
In The Loop was pretty successful for me. Although the premise of taking your favourite characters (or favourite actors playing different characters) to another country is reminiscent of an On The Buses, Steptoe and Son or Are You Being Served movie, this works out pretty well.
The eloquent swearing of Malcolm and Jamie makes for some good moments, as in the TV series, as does the confusion of a minister trying to toe a party line he doesn’t quite get. I found it very funny. The reason a character gives for being unfaithful being particularly jaw dropping.
There are some modern UK TV shows that I really like: Peep Show for instance. But the stars appeared in awful film called Magicians which felt like the worst conversions of the Seventies. Written by the same people as did In The Loop as well.
Go to Comment
TOP 10 FILMS FROM YOUR "BIRTH YEAR" about 3 years ago
Autumn Afternoon
L’Eclisse
Exterminating Angel
La Jetee
Lawrence Of Arabia
Mamma Roma
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Salvatore Giulano
Trial of Joan of Arc
Winter Light
Go to Comment
FILM COMMENT, MARCH/APRIL 2009 about 3 years ago
Kenji – you are saying Bresson is Geoff Boycott? Now thems fighting words.
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