The 1960s List: Discussion and Suggestions

[senseabove]

Ha—I thought the Altman was my orphan! Looks like it just barely got bumped off the bottom of my list, though. I intended to revisit it for a more firm estimation and haven't gotten to it yet.

One of my orphans:
All My Life (Baillie, 1966) TL;DR: it's 3 minutes, folks. Watch it for me once now, and then again, some time in the next few weeks whenever you're feeling especially elated or angry or tired or annoyed or pleased or frustrated or impatient or intoxicated or flat or...

This short is an unassuming Bay Area warhorse, programmed in just about any retrospective that aims to make a case for the importance of Bay Area experimental film, Canyon Cinema, or Baillie because, to a certain extent, those three things are synonymous; also because it's less than three minutes and, at the very least, politely charming, so it can be slotted at the end of any given program like a palate cleanser for eyes and minds that may have been assaulted or bored for some significant portion of the preceding hour. But Mekas correctly called it a koan, a brief, deceptively simple thing to contemplate and never resolve. Contrary to the wild visual experimentation for which 60s avante-garde shorts are typically appraised, those films exploring the limits of film's material (scratching, glueing, taping, marking), technical processes ([in-camera] editing, [double] exposure, [optical] printing), and human perception, All My Life is, quite possibly, the simplest film ever made: one pan, one song, one movement that, every time I see it, falls somewhere between the bluntest metaphor and the most ambiguous gesture, and never the same twice. I've seen it so many times now that it has become a kind of history of its medium, a précis of how from the marriage of image and sound, the magical, profound endowment of emotion springs inexplicably like consciousness from matter. Sometimes that emotion is a simple syrup, too concentrated and cloying for its own good, and sometimes it's a 7 course meal, overwhelming to the point of tears that are as likely from joy as from exhaustion.

[Rayon Vert]

Really surprised at Mouchette, Knife in the Water and Accattone being orphaned. (The latter didn't make my cut, unfortunately.)

[swo17]

If it makes you feel any better, I voted for four other Pasolinis

[domino harvey]

I don't have that many orphans, but obviously everyone needs to see Bedtime Story and remember that they've seen West Side Story and vote for it. Up the Down Staircase was my wacky 50 slot, but you probably will never realize how perfectly this film captures this specific kind of teaching experience unless you've lived it (as I have)

[therewillbeblus]

I felt guilty for not including either Bedtime Story or Tall Story or any Jerry Lewis films, but there are just too many great 60s films and my (sex) comedy slot went to the one I thought was the smartest on levels that I hadn't realized the first few times. Or maybe I just need to prioritize laughs

[Rayon Vert]

If it makes you feel any better, I voted for four other Pasolinis

It does, especially if that includes Oedipus Rex.

[senseabove]

Really surprised at Mouchette, Knife in the Water and Accattone being orphaned. (The latter didn't make my cut, unfortunately.)

I was more surprised by Mamma Roma being one of my orphans! It feels like such an astonishing stylistic leap forward. I liked Accattone a lot, and I wish I'd seen it for our first film list, but I can draw a line from Mamma Roma to Medea in a way I can't from Accatone.

[Rayon Vert]

They're both really strong. Pasolini has obviously so many strong films this decade that they end up eating votes from one another.

[nitin]

Missed out submitting a list due to RL issues but these orphans will be on my list when I submit it for the second round:

The Great Escape
Wings
This Sporting Life
Hud
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
The Producers
To Kill a Mockingbird

And it will not be on my list but also surprised to see Mouchette orphaned

[Rayon Vert]

but also surprised to see Mouchette orphaned

The donkey took all the votes.

[Michael Kerpan]

>> Mouchette orphaned

I feel guilty about not making a list -- but I think I've pretty much used up my lifetime supply of list-making energy...

[therewillbeblus]

Mouchette is miles better than the donkey, but I never understood why that film in particular is highlighted amongst Bresson’s oeuvre- I think it’s one of his weakest. Hud deserves a rescue though it’s another film I had to cut from my list..

[Rayon Vert]

I didn't mean to put the donkey down, though. He's resting comfortably at no. 4* for me!

(*no 4 in this list I mean; no 1 in Bresson's oeuvre)

[domino harvey]

Hud just missed mine, and Mouchette was on the short list. The donkey was nowhere to be found

[Rayon Vert]

I'm not entirely sure how the orphan rescue thing works though.

If I "sacrifice" a couple of my highest-ranking orphans (say Mouchette and Knife in the Water) and rescue other people's that are farther down my list, what happens if people end up saving "mine" (like those two)? Can I know this ahead of time so that I sacrifice the right ones? Or should I just be safe and sacrifice the orphans that rank lower on my list? (Hopefully this is clear.)

[domino harvey]

It's a bit of a gamble but you just do what you just did, only naming names ("I dropped War and Peace to rescue Psycho"). I think allowing orphan rescuers to know the exact number of votes for any non-orphan constitutes gaming the system, but you'll have to get a final call from swo on that

[swo17]

I mean, the idea is to give everyone a chance to improve their lists, if they are reminded of something they forgot, discover something new, or reevaluate anything. I'm not going to disclose any more statistics than I already have

[Matt]

Mouchette is miles better than the donkey, but I never understood why that film in particular is highlighted amongst Bresson’s oeuvre- I think it’s one of his weakest.

We will all have to discuss this sometime. I’m of the completely opposite opinion: Balthazar is near the top for me and Mouchette near the bottom (especially after having read the marvelous source novel). And yet they are very similar films.

[Mr Sausage]

I run hot and cold on Bresson, but Au Hasard, Balthazar was a tremendously moving experience and I’m surprised people are being so dismissive of the movie.

[therewillbeblus]

To be clear, I don’t think it’s a bad film, nor am I saying it’s not “moving”- but I’m surprised it’s highlighted as his best by popular opinion when he has (in my opinion) several other far more powerful and better films (I feel the same way about the hailing for A Man Escaped, but I like both movies!)

[Mr Sausage]

It's the opposite for me: Au Hasard, Balthazar and A Man Escaped were powerful experiences for me, where the other Bressons I've seen left me cold. Not that I'm all that well versed in Bresson or anything.

[therewillbeblus]

I think that fits most people’s experience, at least from what I’ve observed. Pickpocket and Diary of a Country Priest all the way for me, which is entirely on-brand even if I admittedly disliked Priest on first watch

[Nw_jahrles]

My orphans fall into two categories; Japanese New Wave and Mario Bava.

I see that myself and other(s) split votes amongst the titles in the Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties Eclipse set (I voted for Violence at Noon). I am also a fan of Sing a Song of Sex, so maybe I will revisit both.

One film I would really encourage people to check is Koreyoshi Kurahara’s The Warped Ones, which is viewable on The Criterion Channel. It’s a youth film that feels so full of rage, anarchy and pessimism that it takes on a unique energy all it’s own. Kurahara isn’t as consistent as some of his contemporaries such as Oshima and Imamura, but this feels like the film of his that really belongs with the best of other Japanese filmmakers of this period.

I also encourage board members (particularly horror fans) to visit/revisit Mario Bava’s 60’s output, particularly Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, Blood and Black Lace and Kill Baby Kill!.

Black Sunday and Kill Baby Kill! are excellent examples of the Italian spin on what Hammer was doing, only more baroque and with Bava you always get his distinct camerawork and use of colour (where applicable).

This is probably best exemplified in Blood and Black Lace, a proto-giallo that is one of most gorgeously shot murder-mysteries on film.

Black Sabbath for me is one of the best anthology horror films ever made (our own Domino Harvey had praise for it’s middle story The Wurdulak if I recall) but I find the other two segments equally effective and it to be an anthology without a weak link. Bava really gets to flex his visual muscles here and each story is both suspenseful and has it’s own flair and style.

Anyways, those are my recommended orphans for anyone looking for stuff to consider.

[nitin]

I think that fits most people’s experience, at least from what I’ve observed. Pickpocket and Diary of a Country Priest all the way for me, which is entirely on-brand even if I admittedly disliked Priest on first watch

In solidarity with twbb although I liked Priest right from first watch My 3rd favourite Bresson is the less talked about Les Dames Du Bois De Bologne for which I am hoping we get a CC upgrade soon.

[dekadetia]

A quick plug for Žebriūnas's The Beauty as it's my #1 of the decade and an orphan. I was initially alerted to its existence by Sean Baker, who had this to say:

Wow! What a find. This is a gorgeous film.

Lucky enough to find out about it on my trip to Lithuania. It's one of the classics of Lithuania cinema. The gorgeous restoration was sent to me on an HD Vimeo link so unfortunately it's very difficult for most people to find. But this really should be a Criterion release.

Gorgeous B&W cinemascope shot by Algimantas Mockus. Framing, lighting and camera moves are tight as tight can be.

This is honestly one of the best films about children that I've ever seen. Incredible performance by Inga Mickyte who I believe was 8 when they shot.

And some thoughts of my own:

Featuring one of the most lovely, uplifting opening sequences I've ever seen, Arūnas Žebriūnas' The Beauty drops us immediately into the world of childhood, specifically that of a girl named Inga (the excellent child actress Inga Mickytė), whose perspective will be shared with the audience for the duration, and it's this maintenance and purity of perspective that gives the film its unique power.

As the film opens, she's improvising a dance and looking wide eyed directly into the camera, grinning as her fellow children shower her with compliments (it's a game they play with one another). The world goes on in this simple, pleasant way; we meet her mother, her neighbors, get to know the other children a bit more, and it's all depicted very naturally and realistically. The film's only real conflict is that one day, another child tells Inga that she's not beautiful. That's it, but for a child, this is a paradigm shift, and we see it alter the way Inga interacts with the world.

The whole film is shot in an unadorned but careful way, focusing on closeups, allowing for the young actors to directly regard the camera as it suits them, and as such the realism feels completely unrehearsed and crystallized in the moment.

I feel like I'm underselling its importance because of how nothing about it draws attention to itself; I reach for the typical discourse on technique and it eludes me here. Just know that it's worth your while to seek out.