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Tarkovsky/Bresson over 2 years ago

Just stumbled on this and would like to add:

I may be mistaken, but Tarkovsky did not avoid editing or cuts. However, I think he tried more and more structure his shots in long takes, as in “pieces” of time, so to speak. Basically this is Nostalghia in a nut shell. The editing was important, but not to get from point A to B, but to separate the isolated moments of time, that woven together, would make the entire experience. And of course, he moves the camera around quite a bit to stress these moments of time. That’s my take, anyway.

As for Bresson, he wasn’t one for very long takes, but in some shots you can see his influence on Tarkovsky. Take for instance, Pickpocket, where he focuses on a door for a few seconds before Michel opens it. Or the way he moves from a longshot to a close up of Michel’s hand, to another object, etc. I think Tarkovsky drew from this idea and expanded it greatly.

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Bergman vs. Godard over 2 years ago

Cassavetes all the way.

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Bergman vs. Godard over 2 years ago

PS>

I’m perhaps uneven here, as I’ve seen twice as many Bergman as I have Godard. From my exposure, Bergman is better for many reasons. Bergman can be overwrought and stodgy (not a huge fan of Seventh Seal, for example), but he at least tried to dig deep at emotional and spiritual conflicts.

Godard is a genius with form, but he always kept himself at arms length. For me, Godard is a poor man’s Chris Marker. I’ll always be fond of Breathless and admired Contempt, but by the time I got around to Pierrot Le Fou (which I blind bought from Criterion), I was fed up. He was basically just jerking his brain off in my face.

And Bergman made Cries and Whispers. Godard did not.

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What is the greatest film title ever? over 2 years ago

Gayniggers from Outer Space

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayniggers_from_outer_space

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Tarkovsky/Bresson over 2 years ago

I don’t think it was fantasy Tarkovsky filmed. As he put it “I’m interested in Man’s inner struggle”. Tarkovsky’s reality is just as real and fake as Bresson’s.

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Tarkovsky/Bresson over 2 years ago

Bresson is a master to be sure, and has influenced me. I love his directness, his misdirection, his paring down to bare essentials.

But Tarkovsky is much closer to me. By miles. He is certainly not as direct or bare, but I never feel like he’s trying to mystify or decorate things, I feel like he’s searching, so sometimes he drifts off in all directions, similar to Antonioni. Watching Tarkovsky is like trying to recall a seemingly important dream you just had: you enter the dream, trying so hard to find the meaning and strangeness, and it all just slips through your fingers, leaving you with more questions. Stalker and Mirror do this the most to me.

But again, if someone said “I prefer Bresson over Tarkovsky”, I wouldn’t think them crazy.

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Best 3 Consecutive Films by a Director over 2 years ago

AKA Name your favorite directors and all the movies they made.

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Best 3 Consecutive Films by a Director over 2 years ago

Life is a Bed of Roses (which should really be Life is a Fairytale, no?) was actually OK. I very much enjoyed the “modern day” storyline concerning the people in the school. The creepy millionaire in his mansion storyline worked somewhat for me too, but the fairytale one seemed kind of tacked on and pointless. Also, the “half-musical” approach did not work in any conceivable way whatsoever. Overall the film felt stilted but I didn’t hate it, just based on the good performances.

From what I remember of it, The War is Over is really great and overlooked in favor of Last Year at Marienbad, which after 4 viewings seems a bit empty to me. So I can’t say he has 3 in a row with that.

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can you name a truly great american film in the last 5 years... over 2 years ago

PTA bores me times infinite. There Will Be Blood was the only film that captivated me, and for obvious reasons. He created a hell of an atmosphere, but I felt like the second half needed to do more than be pessimistic about life. I don’t think PTA is great. At all.

I’ll echo Alva and say “Old Joy”. Certainly one of the greatest films to come from the USA in some time.

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Best 3 Consecutive Films by a Director over 2 years ago

I liked Muriel, especially the structure that completely rattles your brain. I haven’t seen it in so long, but I kind of remember it being like a more human version of Last Year at Marienbad. I actually loved Marienbad the first time I saw it, but the more I watch it the more it seems like humans are replaced with ideas…I gotta get back into Resnais though.

Wasn’t Bergman’s faith trilogy officially Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence? Persona wasn’t really part of it, so technically those 3 movies still count for this.

And while I absolutely love all of Tarkovsky’s work, as far as important contributions to cinema, it’s hard to beat Mirror, Stalker and Nostalghia (which seems to be either loved or hated with extreme passion by Tarkovsky fans).

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can you name a truly great american film in the last 5 years... over 2 years ago

“If we could assume that when one says “Great American film” images and memories of…”

ah, but right there you’ve gone into the subjective. This will always be subjective. I wouldn’t even put The Dark knight on a list. Any list. In fact, 90% of your movies I would barely call watchable! it’s all very very subjective (at least at first), which is the point of the discussion, I would guess, so of course we will start with opinions.

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Your Top 10 Favorite Lists over 2 years ago

List your favorite lists of all time.

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No Criterion for Internationals? over 2 years ago

Listen, Criterion is the only thing we have in America. America, on the whole, hates good films. We invented Hollywood. The popular attitude here is to not only ignore good/different/challenging/independent art films, but suppress and destroy them.

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greed for money killed cinema (and art in all its forms): yay or nay? over 2 years ago

Nay. You can’t “kill” the art forms or art. If someone banned all independent films somehow and made it against the law, the need for art would grow tenfold and explode out of the underground in insanely violent ways.

Look, some businessmen long ago saw a way to make money with technology. You can’t be surprised at that, but it’s seperate from actual art. The problem is when people confuse the two. They made a factory, a conveyor belt of shit to make money off of. That’s what America does with lots of stuff.

The problem is the people that worship it. The people that pay money to see Avatar in 3-D instead of paying to see an independent film. Or the ones that go and pay to see stuff they know will suck, shrug and say there’s nothing better. OF COURSE THERE IS.

If all I looked at were the wall-decorating paintings hanging up in a McDonald’s (note: I haven’t been in a McDonald’s in about 7 years) and said “There are no more great painters!” people would think I was mad.

I used to get mad at studios because they were the guys with big money, the ones that deemed what movies everyone saw. But now we have digital information. It’s not too hard to dig around and find some good stuff. But people are too lazy. So now, I put all the blame on the people. It’s everyone’s fault, even mine from time to time (at least in the past, anyway).

I say keep doing what you’re doing and ignore all the greed. Unless you’re a businessman. Then, I ask you, if you must make tons of money off shitty movies, please please please donate a good portion to needy charities. Seriously. Do something a tiny bit positive. Please?

Oh, and, I don’t know about the whole “make movie for other people to see it” thing. If I was stuck on a desert island with a video camera, some batteries, and a bunch of tapes, I would be using it until it (or I) died.

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If You Could Have a Criterion Title Tattooed on Your Penis, Which Would It Be and Why? over 2 years ago

Sorry, just thought of another one.

OPENING NIGHT

EDIT: Also, BLACK ORPHEUS may be appropriate for some.

ALSO, I THINK IT WOULD BE COOL IF A WOMAN GOT “THRONE OF BLOOD” TATTOOED ABOVE HER VAGINA

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blu-ray is kinda bullshit over 2 years ago

From what I understand, 35mm film can hold somewhere to the equivalent of 6000 clear lines of resolution. Current HD is 1080, and digital cameras like RED can shoot up to 4000 lines of resolution.

So 35mm film (or I guess 70mm if you want it on a giant screen) is still the clearest stuff and always has been. but obviously it will change in the future.

The human eye already sees in HD. But yeah, there will be a point where technology will surpass our eyes. It’s already happened with our ears (which can technically hear frequencies 20hz-20 megahertz, but from the minute we’re born our hearing isn’t that good and begins deterioration). These companies will never stop using all this as a SELLING POINT though. Blu-Ray could have been done for years. They trickle this stuff out, it’s what the market is about and it’s how research and development works. It’s how companies keep going.

Also, the jump from DVD to Blu-Ray is MUCH MUCH more dramatic (as far as sound and picture goes) than VHS to DVD. It’s a bigger quality leap.

Me personally? I watch plain old DVDs on an 8 year old Panasonic CRTV with 480i resolution and a 4:3 aspect ratio. YUP, AN OLD TV. I don’t have the luxury of spending money on the newest, greatest hi-def tv which will become obsolete in a year. I don’t have money for Blu-Rays. To me, it seems silly anyway. I’d rather spend money to go to a revival at a cinema and see it projected in a nice 35mm print anyway.

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Artsy-Fartsy over 2 years ago

“Artsy-Fartsy”, “artsy” or even “arty” should be banned from the English language. I’ve never heard intelligent people utter this without irony or mocking it (and the people that use it seriously), and even in those cases my blood boils. I don’t even like typing it. Forgive me.

The phrase usually translates into “I HATE ART” or “THIS MOVIE MADE ME FEEL STUPID” or “I CAN’T TELL IF I LIKE DAVID LYNCH”. Look, if you don’t like something or think it’s pretentious trash, why not actually dissect it? And just because someone likes art films (a category of films that actually tries to elevate the medium towards its, you know, purpose as an art) and doesn’t like BIG BUDGET ADVENTURE TRILOGY or BORING HOMOPHOBIC SEXISM COMEDY 2 doesn’t mean you have to mock them. As a film critic once noted, we don’t have to say “art poem” or “art painting” or “art sculpture”, yet we have to specify and hang our head if we, gulp, take a subject seriously without cynicism.

Very pointless, broken record thread and kind of a weird site to post it on, but I’ve seen it used on here just a few minutes ago. I’m just getting sick of the “AW SHUCKS!” mentality because people are tired of hearing about goofy bullshit like 3-D being passed off as serious film discussions.

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Artsy-Fartsy over 2 years ago

I banned that guy

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Artsy-Fartsy over 2 years ago

No way bro L’Avvatar is sweeping the Oscars this year. tee-hee Im so bad

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Artsy-Fartsy over 2 years ago

No it wasn’t that guy Cal it was some other guy. Look, I hate the attitude that’s generally behind it, but I hate it even more because it’s so lazy. This kind of shit eating grin behind the idea like, rolling your eyes because someone tried something you don’t like. It’s just too lazy. If something’s disingenuous that’s one thing. But when I see some moron, or worse, someone who seems to have a decent grasp on film call Bresson’s work “artsy-fartsy” boring stuff, I want to shoot the world. It’s just…Jesus, is that how much contempt people have for films as an art form?

Besides that the word is just irritating. Annoying. Stupid. “Pretentious” is overused a lot, but at least it’s a word that means something and is used by humans.

But anyway, this whole thread is negated because I forgot the one free pass in the world for the use of the word is Werner Herzog in Julian Donkey-Boy. So never mind, ya’ll.

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Meaningless Thread (Absmurdity) over 2 years ago

Just wanted to add

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

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The Auteurs' Fake Criterion Covers over 2 years ago

Did anyone do Nostalghia, Zerkalo or the Sacrifice yet? I can’t sift through 133 pages!

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The Auteurs' Fake Criterion Covers over 2 years ago

Also, do Dead Man wheres dead man now

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STOP THE LISTS! over 2 years ago

The fuck is this thread so long for. how about stop this god damn thread.

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STOP THE LISTS! over 2 years ago

Are we allowed to post horse porn in this thread then?

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Where are we in film history? over 2 years ago

Where are we in origami history

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STOP THE LISTS! over 2 years ago

Minimalist? More like Criminimalist!!!!

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STOP THE LISTS! over 2 years ago

because there are criminals in those movies

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