This just might be Yamada's best film ever. Though there are a number of others that come close.Steven H wrote:Speaking of which, his Home From The Sea is a great 70s film to check out, for those interested.
1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)
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Michael Kerpan
- Spelling Bee Champeen
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 5:20 pm
- Location: New England
- Contact:
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Cold Bishop
- Joined: Wed May 31, 2006 1:45 am
- Location: Portland, OR
sidehacker wrote:Great to see Terayama getting some respect. I've been championing Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets for a long time now. I don't get the Fellini comparisons, though. His debut reminds me more of early-WKW than anything else. Then again, I have yet to see anything else he's done.
It's not just the surreal aspect, there is also the heavy aestheticization and artificiality to the mise-en-scene, color, costumes, sets, atmosphere, etc. which I feel post-8 1/2 Fellini and Terayama have in common, as well as the psycho-analytical (and more often psycho-sexual) and phantasmagorical aspects they share, with a complete breakdown between the subconscious and conscious, reality and dreams, memories and the present occuring. Namely, I refuse to believe Terayama wasn't influenced by Juliet of the Spirits (Just compare the endings between that film and Grass Labyrinth and you'll see strong similarities).Steven H wrote:Very interesting comparison with early WKW and early Terayama. I think the Fellini comparisons are more for post 8 1/2 stuff and the surreal aspect they share. I think its much more appropriate comparing him to Jodorowsky, but even there you're missing something. From what I've read, there might be a couple of Polish directors that share some of his sensibilities as well.
Granted, I was speaking on his more 'magical realist/surreal' films, and not so much Throw Away Your Books, which from the 15 or so minutes I've seen does appear to be much different. I would surely recommend tracking down his later films, and I am going to be certain to see the rest of his 70s output (with the exception of The Boxer which has yet to show up with subtitles.
As far a Jodorowsky go, I feel they share a strong similarity in there form, their reliance on symbolism and poetic-imagery as opposed to narrative, and some of their 'avant-garde' techniques. however you are right that there films are different in content, with Jodorowsky often having much more of an occult, religious and mystic aspect to his films, as well as the sort of drug-fueled headiness we often associate with the 60s and 70s, both I feel absent from Terayama (well there may be a little of the former apparent, but in a different way). Honestly, I feel he's closest akin to Sayat Nova and the previously mention Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (another film that should be considered for this list) at times.
I'd be interested in hearing the Polish directors you've heard compared to him though.
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Steven H
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 7:30 pm
- Location: NC
Very well put, I think. Juliet of the Spirits was *exactly* what I was thinking about when I said "post 8 1/2", and that film maybe resembles Pastoral or Grass Labyrinth more than anything. I'm not sure where Farewel to the Ark fits into all this (and I never watched his other 80s film, which sounded like he'd hit a decline, though I suppose I'll have to see it to find out.) I have The Boxer without subtitles, but I haven't given it a go yet. Maybe for this upcoming list I will.Cold Bishop wrote:It's not just the surreal aspect, there is also the heavy aestheticization and artificiality to the mise-en-scene, color, costumes, sets, atmosphere, etc. which I feel post-8 1/2 Fellini and Terayama have in common, as well as the psycho-analytical (and more often psycho-sexual) and phantasmagorical aspects they share, with a complete breakdown between the subconscious and conscious, reality and dreams, memories and the present occuring. Namely, I refuse to believe Terayama wasn't influenced by Juliet of the Spirits (Just compare the endings between that film and Grass Labyrinth and you'll see strong similarities).
I would never dismiss Terayama as drug addled.
I know that I had Wojciech Has in mind, specifically (but maybe Lech Majewski as well). MichaelB would be the one to check with.I'd be interested in hearing the Polish directors you've heard compared to him though.
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Cold Bishop
- Joined: Wed May 31, 2006 1:45 am
- Location: Portland, OR
I was actually talking about the possible use of religious and mystic symbols. I really don't see Terayama referencing religion as anything other than damaging (In Pastoral, it seems religion is treated like all the other customs and traditions, as a part of Japan's history which needs to be destroyed), but some of his symbols are so cryptic to me, as is the history of Japanese religion and folklore, I wouldn't be suprised that there in there, if used in a completely different way than Jodorowsky.Steven H wrote:I would never dismiss Terayama as drug addled.
Interesting... a Lech Majewski retrospective is playing this month, and all the things I'm reading about this guy has me gone from not having heard of him a few weeks ago to thinking he may be one of the great directors working today.Steven H wrote:I know that I had Wojciech Has in mind, specifically (but maybe Lech Majewski as well). MichaelB would be the one to check with.
And speaking of Wojciech Has, The Hour-Glass Sanitorium is one of my top-sees for this decade, fortunately, since there appear to be decent bootlegs. Are there any other Eastern-European films that are essential to the decade, which aren't already a no-brainer? It appears that the region may be the most over-looked, even more so than the Japanese New Wave, and other than Second Run and a few here and there, there is almost absolutely nothing unavailable.
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sidehacker
- Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2007 6:49 am
- Location: Bowling Green, Ohio
- Contact:
I guess he just gets a lot more strange?Steven H wrote:Very interesting comparison with early WKW and early Terayama. I think the Fellini comparisons are more for post 8 1/2 stuff and the surreal aspect they share. I think its much more appropriate comparing him to Jodorowsky, but even there you're missing something. From what I've read, there might be a couple of Polish directors that share some of his sensibilities as well.
Anyway, there's a scene in Happy Together where Tony Leung and bunch of his friends are playing soccer and (at least from what I remember) it's filmed almost in the exact same way as the soccer sequences Throw Away Your Books...
Heh, you picked out all of my least favorites. Go Go Second Time Virgin has a great concept but it's bogged down by all that goofy violence. The whole "doomed romance" set up is one of my favorites in all of cinema but is seemed like the film ruined a lot of the promise it showed within the first few minutes. Shinjuku Mad is just too plot-heavy for me to take seriously. I barely even got through it.Steven H wrote:I've been trying to wrap my head around Wakamatsu's films for a while, since they're *unforgettable* but I have a hard time describing why I like them. Two from the 70s that I definitely enjoyed were Shinjuku Mad and Ecstasy of the Angels (though my favorite is from the 60s, Go Go Second Time Virgin.)
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
Jansco gets really ambitious in the early years of the decade, but only Red Psalm is available. Elektreia is particularly spectacular, involving sequence shots that choreograph wild horses, dancing peasants, helicopters and sunsets - oh, and the classical drama in the foreground. There's a lot more I haven't seen. Makk's Love is exquisite, but you presumably know about that.Cold Bishop wrote:Are there any other Eastern-European films that are essential to the decade, which aren't already a no-brainer? It appears that the region may be the most over-looked, even more so than the Japanese New Wave, and other than Second Run and a few here and there, there is almost absolutely nothing unavailable.
From Poland, Wajda, Zanussi and Kieslowski were all doing solid work, though my experience of the first two is patchy. A lot of this material seems to be available from Poland with subtitles (check out the Kieslowski Documentaries thread), and don't forget the indispensable Polish Animation set while you're at it. I can certainly recommend Man of Marble, Promised Land, Illumination and Camera Buff, though I don't know if any of them will be making my list. Zulawski's Third Part of the Night is prettty impressive, too, and I'm no big fan of his work.
Lesser-known Russians: Shepitko's The Ascent and Muratova's Long Goodbye (good luck!), any Norstein, especially Tale of Tales. Immediately post-New Wave Czech cinema is a bit of a dark continent for me, so I'd be grateful for recommendations beyond the obvious holdovers (Valerie, The Ear) as well. The Ossuary is currently the only Czech film guaranteed pride of place on my list.
Not Eastern-European, but easily overlookable, is Roy Andersson's wonderful first feature A Swedish Love Story, which should appeal to fans of the Czech New Wave. The stacked Swedish disc is completely English friendly, and fans of Andersson's later, more unhinged stuff have the benefit of an illustrated filmography that, in addition to extracts from all of his later features, includes several of his brilliant, bizarre commercials.
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
As threatened:
The Man Who Left His Will on Film – This is a film which has much of the stylistic diversity of Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, but harnessed to a propulsive, if mysterious, storyline. In the first few minutes we experience straight documentary filmmaking, extreme point-of-view footage, highly distanced ‘paranoia perspective' shots (roll over and beg, The Parallax View and The Conversation, Oshima was there first), and reasonably straight dramatic filmmaking. The opening sequence holds all of these different modes together to deliver a simply brilliant action sequence: the filmmaker flees, our hero in hot pursuit. Cut from frantic shaky-cam to dispassionate, objective shots of the pursuer scanning the neighborhood for him. Cut to implicitly sinister long shots of same: the observer observed? Our hero finally locates his quarry on top of a building, just before he crashes to the pavement below, body smashed but camera intact. A crowd gathers, the police arrive. Our hero seizes the camera and runs for his life. The camera is wrestled off him and he chases the police car through the streets until we all black out.
The film's action centres around a radical cell – along with the incestuous family a key social unit of the Japanese New Wave, as seen in Eros Plus Massacre and Ecstasy of the Angels – but devolves to the slightly dissociated couple of Motoki (our hero) and Yasuko, the deceased cameraman's girlfriend. The film preserves the earnest discussions of the young radicals, and even namechecks the New Wave filmmakers, including Oshima, who are presumed to support them, but with each of these discussions Oshima slyly undercuts their dogma by introducing ‘refined' classical music partway through, then slowly messing it up electronically. (The fantastic score is one of Takemitsu's best, its main components being ominous industrial clangs and jazz that sounds like the ‘In a Silent Way' sessions crashed by Alice Coltrane.)
The radical cell's understanding of recent events is curiously at odds with that of the protagonist (and ours, since we experienced those events from his perspective): they claim the filmmaker simply dropped the camera, but didn't die. You start to wonder: are you watching a ghost story, a political thriller, or something much stranger and unprecedented? The answer is yes.
When the film is recovered, everybody's surprised to see, not the record of protest actions that were meant to be covered, but in their place seemingly innocuous shots of ordinary Tokyo streets. The central sequence in which the newly-formed couple go in search of the nondescript locations recorded on the film is another bravura sequence, the kind of detective film Greenaway or Lynch would appreciate, especially when the investigative process leads Motoki to his own front door.
That's the second iteration of the ‘landscape' material (and the film includes several other layers of Oshima-esque ritualistic repetitions), and the third one brings the film to its climax. Although the action has become exceedingly ritualised and abstract by this point, I find a genuine emotional resonance in it. Motoki is trying to refilm the film created by the dead filmmaker; Yasuko is trying to disrupt this process by entering his shots (i.e. by making herself, not the landscape, the subject of the film, thereby frustrating the cyclic repetition). Even though we have only a vague idea of the significance of these abstracted actions, something tells us that Motoki's project is dangerous and self-destructive, and we want Yasuko to succeed in interrupting it. At each site, however, third parties frustrate her attempts at frustration, with increasing violence. This ends up in an abduction and gang-rape that I'm not sure Yasuko survives. She continues to appear after this sequence, but
The film ends the only way it can, closing the loop that Motoki has forged. This hardly resolves everything in conventional terms, but it offers an extremely satisfying structural closure, encasing the film's action in a beautiful symmetrical Escherian design.
The Man Who Left His Will on Film – This is a film which has much of the stylistic diversity of Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, but harnessed to a propulsive, if mysterious, storyline. In the first few minutes we experience straight documentary filmmaking, extreme point-of-view footage, highly distanced ‘paranoia perspective' shots (roll over and beg, The Parallax View and The Conversation, Oshima was there first), and reasonably straight dramatic filmmaking. The opening sequence holds all of these different modes together to deliver a simply brilliant action sequence: the filmmaker flees, our hero in hot pursuit. Cut from frantic shaky-cam to dispassionate, objective shots of the pursuer scanning the neighborhood for him. Cut to implicitly sinister long shots of same: the observer observed? Our hero finally locates his quarry on top of a building, just before he crashes to the pavement below, body smashed but camera intact. A crowd gathers, the police arrive. Our hero seizes the camera and runs for his life. The camera is wrestled off him and he chases the police car through the streets until we all black out.
The film's action centres around a radical cell – along with the incestuous family a key social unit of the Japanese New Wave, as seen in Eros Plus Massacre and Ecstasy of the Angels – but devolves to the slightly dissociated couple of Motoki (our hero) and Yasuko, the deceased cameraman's girlfriend. The film preserves the earnest discussions of the young radicals, and even namechecks the New Wave filmmakers, including Oshima, who are presumed to support them, but with each of these discussions Oshima slyly undercuts their dogma by introducing ‘refined' classical music partway through, then slowly messing it up electronically. (The fantastic score is one of Takemitsu's best, its main components being ominous industrial clangs and jazz that sounds like the ‘In a Silent Way' sessions crashed by Alice Coltrane.)
The radical cell's understanding of recent events is curiously at odds with that of the protagonist (and ours, since we experienced those events from his perspective): they claim the filmmaker simply dropped the camera, but didn't die. You start to wonder: are you watching a ghost story, a political thriller, or something much stranger and unprecedented? The answer is yes.
When the film is recovered, everybody's surprised to see, not the record of protest actions that were meant to be covered, but in their place seemingly innocuous shots of ordinary Tokyo streets. The central sequence in which the newly-formed couple go in search of the nondescript locations recorded on the film is another bravura sequence, the kind of detective film Greenaway or Lynch would appreciate, especially when the investigative process leads Motoki to his own front door.
That's the second iteration of the ‘landscape' material (and the film includes several other layers of Oshima-esque ritualistic repetitions), and the third one brings the film to its climax. Although the action has become exceedingly ritualised and abstract by this point, I find a genuine emotional resonance in it. Motoki is trying to refilm the film created by the dead filmmaker; Yasuko is trying to disrupt this process by entering his shots (i.e. by making herself, not the landscape, the subject of the film, thereby frustrating the cyclic repetition). Even though we have only a vague idea of the significance of these abstracted actions, something tells us that Motoki's project is dangerous and self-destructive, and we want Yasuko to succeed in interrupting it. At each site, however, third parties frustrate her attempts at frustration, with increasing violence. This ends up in an abduction and gang-rape that I'm not sure Yasuko survives. She continues to appear after this sequence, but
Spoiler
she seems to be much more in the ‘world' of the boy, even to the extent of glimpsing her own dead body from the rooftop.
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Steven H
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 7:30 pm
- Location: NC
I'll really need to break these films out to compare.sidehacker wrote:Anyway, there's a scene in Happy Together where Tony Leung and bunch of his friends are playing soccer and (at least from what I remember) it's filmed almost in the exact same way as the soccer sequences Throw Away Your Books...
Go Go... has this really amazing sense of space, with the hotel and rooftop locations. In fact, I don't really find this in any of Wakamatsu's other stuff, which just seems all over the place (maybe except for the aptly titled Affair Within Walls.) Maybe its Wakamatsu's most theatrical film, as it's almost an avant garde minimalist play (and could probably be effectively adapted as such.) Shinjuku Mad *IS* plot-heavy, but its just so dirty and violent in a nutzo way that just makes Suzuki look conservative and flat (speaking of which, how about Suzuki's only 70s film of note A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness?) I've seen, but don't remember Sex Jack (I watched it along with the fairly dismal Running in Madness, Dying in Love (which struck me as lazy in almost every way.) I'll give it another go for the list, thanks for the reminder.sidehacker wrote:Heh, you picked out all of my least favorites. Go Go Second Time Virgin has a great concept but it's bogged down by all that goofy violence. The whole "doomed romance" set up is one of my favorites in all of cinema but is seemed like the film ruined a lot of the promise it showed within the first few minutes. Shinjuku Mad is just too plot-heavy for me to take seriously. I barely even got through it.
I've also seen his truly bizarre documentary PFLP Red Army, co-directed with the soon expatriate-repatriated Adachi Masao, who as you know co-wrote some of Wakamatsu's best stuff, and did a few amazing films himself (like AKA Serial Killer, a sister film to Tokyo senso sengo hiwa).
Speaking of which, great post zedz! I adore that film like few others. But I think the same message preceding Eros Plus Massacre should have come before it, "don't get involved in the characters, etc" (I'm not saying the story is meaningless, just I'm sure it's full of intentional and unintentional red herrings.) If ever there was a metafilm that belongs on some strange higher plane, that's it. Its like an essay film without words... I mean what the hell.
Cold Bishop, one of my favorite 70s films is a short called Living by Franz Zwartjes (Netherlands, 1971) which I think you would really like. Its mysterious, compact, slightly surreal, and beautiful (as an imdb.com review spouts "non-narrative expression of domestic sexual anxiety" I guess). Maybe I'll try and upload it onto google video this weekend or something (I also want to get some trailers I have on there, but I'm always running around, etc.)
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
In the spirit of the current sales and oncoming Christmas, I thought I'd put in some recommendations for easily overlooked films that are actually available in English-friendly editions. (OR I've just been thinking about what I need to rewatch over the next few months)
The Noah (Bourla) - A bizarre US indie from the 70s, pretty much a solo psychosis showcase for a soldier stuck on a desert island. I don't think this will come anywhere near my own list, but it's certainly unique and worth a rent.
Scum (Clarke) - The BBC version is the way to go. As far as I know, this is the only 1970s Clarke available, but he was doing some remarkable work at the time. Actually, British TV was much more fertile territory than British cinema in the 1970s. I tend to prefer Leigh's TV films than his later work (and if I don't find a place for Abigail's Party on my list I'll be forever haunted by the ghost of Demis Roussos), and there's the whole Potter oeuvre to consider: Blue Remembered Hills is superb and his Casanova mini-series is a much more ambitious undertaking than Fellini's film (which is easily my favourite late Fellini). And then there's The Black Stuff.
The Abominable Dr Phibes / Dr Phibes Rises Again (Fuest) - Ridiculous and highly contagious grand guignol camp, rare films where the scenery threatens to chew Vincent Price. Fuest was also behind the smart pre-Chainsaw rural chiller And Soon the Darkness.
Cockfighter (Hellman) - In my opinion a much better film than Two Lane Blacktop (which is no denigration of that film), with possibly Warren Oates' greatest performance. A film that Werner Herzog would appreciate, which brings us to -
Herzog documentaries - I'm sure his fiction features will get plenty of attention, but his non-fiction output may be even more impressive, so don't overlook Fata Morgana (a one-of-a-kind film if ever there was one), Land of Silence and Darkness, La Soufriere and The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, to name a few highlights.
The Ear (Kachnya) - Superb paranoia thriller from the dog-end of the Czech New Wave.
Tree of Wooden Clogs (Olmi) - Given how many of you voted for the Criterion Olmis in the 60s list, how can you not afford to check out this masterpiece?
The Parallax View (Pakula) - I'm assuming that Pakula's other great paranoia-fests, Klute and All the President's Men, will attract plenty of attention, but this is my favourite of the three, with obscure plots, threatening architecture and, at its dark heart, an incursion of experimental filmmaking into big Hollywood that would be unimaginable nowadays.
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette) - What business do you have composing a best-of-the-70s list if you haven't seen this film? I recall some critic rashly calling this the most important movie since Citizen Kane. I could certainly go for "the most important French film of the 1970s", which is not necessarily the same thing as "the best" or "the most influential" (which I'd argue is Passe ton bac d'abord). Beg, borrow or steal (or buy, if you're faint-hearted) the BFI disc and, if necessary, a region-free player.
Johnny Got His Gun (Trumbo) - I don't think this quite lives up to its high concept, but few American films of the decade were more daring in their conception: awful America as seen by an inert lump of flesh. Obviously relevant to the Vietnam War, but still creepily topical and brutally effective.
Desert of the Tartars (Zurlini) - The earlier Zurlinis released by NoShame attracted stray votes in the last couple of rounds, but this, from the little I've seen of his work, is his masterpiece, and all of them are films you could imagine as world cinema axioms, had patterns of distribution been slightly different. This one is an excellent historical drama in a setting so striking (a remote desert fort, on the very edge of the known world) that it acquires a hallucinatory edge. The final scene is unforgettable.
The Noah (Bourla) - A bizarre US indie from the 70s, pretty much a solo psychosis showcase for a soldier stuck on a desert island. I don't think this will come anywhere near my own list, but it's certainly unique and worth a rent.
Scum (Clarke) - The BBC version is the way to go. As far as I know, this is the only 1970s Clarke available, but he was doing some remarkable work at the time. Actually, British TV was much more fertile territory than British cinema in the 1970s. I tend to prefer Leigh's TV films than his later work (and if I don't find a place for Abigail's Party on my list I'll be forever haunted by the ghost of Demis Roussos), and there's the whole Potter oeuvre to consider: Blue Remembered Hills is superb and his Casanova mini-series is a much more ambitious undertaking than Fellini's film (which is easily my favourite late Fellini). And then there's The Black Stuff.
The Abominable Dr Phibes / Dr Phibes Rises Again (Fuest) - Ridiculous and highly contagious grand guignol camp, rare films where the scenery threatens to chew Vincent Price. Fuest was also behind the smart pre-Chainsaw rural chiller And Soon the Darkness.
Cockfighter (Hellman) - In my opinion a much better film than Two Lane Blacktop (which is no denigration of that film), with possibly Warren Oates' greatest performance. A film that Werner Herzog would appreciate, which brings us to -
Herzog documentaries - I'm sure his fiction features will get plenty of attention, but his non-fiction output may be even more impressive, so don't overlook Fata Morgana (a one-of-a-kind film if ever there was one), Land of Silence and Darkness, La Soufriere and The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, to name a few highlights.
The Ear (Kachnya) - Superb paranoia thriller from the dog-end of the Czech New Wave.
Tree of Wooden Clogs (Olmi) - Given how many of you voted for the Criterion Olmis in the 60s list, how can you not afford to check out this masterpiece?
The Parallax View (Pakula) - I'm assuming that Pakula's other great paranoia-fests, Klute and All the President's Men, will attract plenty of attention, but this is my favourite of the three, with obscure plots, threatening architecture and, at its dark heart, an incursion of experimental filmmaking into big Hollywood that would be unimaginable nowadays.
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette) - What business do you have composing a best-of-the-70s list if you haven't seen this film? I recall some critic rashly calling this the most important movie since Citizen Kane. I could certainly go for "the most important French film of the 1970s", which is not necessarily the same thing as "the best" or "the most influential" (which I'd argue is Passe ton bac d'abord). Beg, borrow or steal (or buy, if you're faint-hearted) the BFI disc and, if necessary, a region-free player.
Johnny Got His Gun (Trumbo) - I don't think this quite lives up to its high concept, but few American films of the decade were more daring in their conception: awful America as seen by an inert lump of flesh. Obviously relevant to the Vietnam War, but still creepily topical and brutally effective.
Desert of the Tartars (Zurlini) - The earlier Zurlinis released by NoShame attracted stray votes in the last couple of rounds, but this, from the little I've seen of his work, is his masterpiece, and all of them are films you could imagine as world cinema axioms, had patterns of distribution been slightly different. This one is an excellent historical drama in a setting so striking (a remote desert fort, on the very edge of the known world) that it acquires a hallucinatory edge. The final scene is unforgettable.
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domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 6:42 pm
All three will figure prominently on my list, Pakula is one of the great unsung masters of cinema.zedz wrote:The Parallax View (Pakula) - I'm assuming that Pakula's other great paranoia-fests, Klute and All the President's Men, will attract plenty of attention, but this is my favourite of the three, with obscure plots, threatening architecture and, at its dark heart, an incursion of experimental filmmaking into big Hollywood that would be unimaginable nowadays.
BTW I'm pretty sure the C+J "some critic" was everyone's favorite Chicagoan Jonathan Rosenbaum
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Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
- Contact:
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
I've started on Fassbinder (but I'll make those comments in the Fassbinder thread) and mopped up some unwatched 70s films that have been sitting on my shelves for some time.
The Serpent's Egg was bad, but not as bad as I expected. Useful fuel for a "Curse of the Zoom Lens" thread: some otherwise accomplished directors and DPs just go to pieces when they've got one, and it completely undermines their mise en scene. I had the same issue with Visconti's Ludwig when I saw it recently. Another thing to appreciate in Altman.
Bird with the Crystal Plumage, like most Argento, demonstrates his strengths (a good eye, deft assemblage of set pieces) and weaknesses (hopeless with actors and more extended narrative arcs) in equal measure, but was a lot of fun. Storaro and Morricone don't hurt, of course.
The Missouri Breaks was the most interesting of the three.
Well I was prepared for a train wreck and got it, but was nevertheless pleasantly surprised. Granny Brando's performance is everything they say it is, but the film still manages to be enjoyable, and it's not as if the Incurable Ham is the only thing amiss.
You've got a clear half hour before Brando enters, hugging his horse (he gets to second base later on), so you can see both how good the film could be and also where it's likely to come to grief. The Kathleen Lloyd character is really problematic, and she provides an interesting counterpart to Verna Bloom in The Hired Hand. Where the latter film manages to find an independent woman within its historical setting, Lloyd is simply a modern independent woman plopped down in a wild west setting. She gives a fine performance, but the character is all wrong, and it adds to the bizarre effect of Jack Nicholson (and Harry Dean Stanton) being the most normal and sane characters in an eccentric freakshow – now, how many films can you say that about?
The story is actually pretty good, and even the Lee Clayton character is fine in conception – a killer so good at his job that he's able to parade his eccentricities even in so conformist an environment – but, oh, the execution! In an interesting auteurist deathmatch, it's as if Brando has strolled onto the set and pissed all over Penn's film, marking his territory in so potent a way that no scrubbing in the editing room can get rid of the aroma (is that lilacs?). The big problem is not that Brando's performance is bad (it's beyond that sort of evaluation), but that it's so wildly incompatible with the film that neither can come out alive. On the rare occasions when Brando tones it down to eleven, as in his nasty scenes with Randy Quaid, you can see just how brilliantly the whole film could have worked. The rest of the time, he's moving through this gritty western like a psychedelic, pulsating special effect, farting, lisping, cross-dressing or up to his double chin in bubbles. Nicholson and Stanton are excellent, but they might as well be up against a heavily-latexed Dr Who villain.
The Serpent's Egg was bad, but not as bad as I expected. Useful fuel for a "Curse of the Zoom Lens" thread: some otherwise accomplished directors and DPs just go to pieces when they've got one, and it completely undermines their mise en scene. I had the same issue with Visconti's Ludwig when I saw it recently. Another thing to appreciate in Altman.
Bird with the Crystal Plumage, like most Argento, demonstrates his strengths (a good eye, deft assemblage of set pieces) and weaknesses (hopeless with actors and more extended narrative arcs) in equal measure, but was a lot of fun. Storaro and Morricone don't hurt, of course.
The Missouri Breaks was the most interesting of the three.
Well I was prepared for a train wreck and got it, but was nevertheless pleasantly surprised. Granny Brando's performance is everything they say it is, but the film still manages to be enjoyable, and it's not as if the Incurable Ham is the only thing amiss.
You've got a clear half hour before Brando enters, hugging his horse (he gets to second base later on), so you can see both how good the film could be and also where it's likely to come to grief. The Kathleen Lloyd character is really problematic, and she provides an interesting counterpart to Verna Bloom in The Hired Hand. Where the latter film manages to find an independent woman within its historical setting, Lloyd is simply a modern independent woman plopped down in a wild west setting. She gives a fine performance, but the character is all wrong, and it adds to the bizarre effect of Jack Nicholson (and Harry Dean Stanton) being the most normal and sane characters in an eccentric freakshow – now, how many films can you say that about?
The story is actually pretty good, and even the Lee Clayton character is fine in conception – a killer so good at his job that he's able to parade his eccentricities even in so conformist an environment – but, oh, the execution! In an interesting auteurist deathmatch, it's as if Brando has strolled onto the set and pissed all over Penn's film, marking his territory in so potent a way that no scrubbing in the editing room can get rid of the aroma (is that lilacs?). The big problem is not that Brando's performance is bad (it's beyond that sort of evaluation), but that it's so wildly incompatible with the film that neither can come out alive. On the rare occasions when Brando tones it down to eleven, as in his nasty scenes with Randy Quaid, you can see just how brilliantly the whole film could have worked. The rest of the time, he's moving through this gritty western like a psychedelic, pulsating special effect, farting, lisping, cross-dressing or up to his double chin in bubbles. Nicholson and Stanton are excellent, but they might as well be up against a heavily-latexed Dr Who villain.
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Cold Bishop
- Joined: Wed May 31, 2006 1:45 am
- Location: Portland, OR
I actually like The Serpent's Egg. No, it's not Scenes from A Marriage or Cries & Whispers, its not even Autumn Sonata, but if you follow Marc Gervais' advice, and look at it like a pulpy Mabuse-esque film, with the very unpulpy knowledge of the holocaust in mind, its at least enjoyable. Yes, its still Bergman out of his element, and it shows, but its still good - not great, but not a trainwreck or mediocre.zedz wrote:The Serpent's Egg was bad, but not as bad as I expected. Useful fuel for a "Curse of the Zoom Lens" thread: some otherwise accomplished directors and DPs just go to pieces when they've got one, and it completely undermines their mise en scene. I had the same issue with Visconti's Ludwig when I saw it recently. Another thing to appreciate in Altman.
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
Two more chewed up and spat out:
Figures in a Landscape – Presumably based on Losey's past form (e.g. the post-Resnaisisms of Accident), this film has acquired something of a reputation as an existential puzzler (men on the run from the unknown, to the unknown), but it can just as easily be appreciated as an action film stripped of expository dialogue: Shaw and McDowell never stop to explain to one another (and why should they?) where or who they've escaped from, or wax didactic about the socio-political context of their plight.
In place of set-up and tired plot mechanics, we get pure action: the guys being chased across unidentified terrain by an anonymous helicopter (this is surely the film Spielberg was ripping off in Duel, but Losey's scenario is much more elegant and sinister, plus we get lots of stunning aerial footage), killing their way into the possession of steadily more sophisticated weapons, winding one another up and freaking out. About halfway through the invention starts to flag – hordes of footsoldiers are a much less photogenic menace than the lone black helicopter – but the film is extremely resourceful in wringing the maximum intensity from its ultra-minimalist scenario.
The Suspended Vocation – An absolutely fascinating film, but one of my least favourite Ruizes. The structural conceit is exquisite: this film was made, and then remade, and the finished product combines footage from both versions (I'd accuse of Greenaway of ‘borrowing' the idea for Vertical Features Remake from this film like he ‘borrowed' from Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting for The Draughtsman's Contract, but he'd have to have been pretty quick off the mark, as VFR was out the following year). The film's key structural idea is mind-messingly embodied in the opening crawl, which explains the history of the project. The problem is (and this reflects the issues at play in the body of the film) that the on-screen text of the explanation does not match the narration, and we're not sure whether the many differences between the two simultaneous texts are a matter of casual paraphrase or some deeper ideological rift.
The same is true of the film. The film follows its narrative in strictly linear fashion, but we bump back and forth between the old, black-and-white version of the story and the new colour one (with completely different casts). There are subtle differences of emphasis between the two versions (the remake has a more Marxist tinge, for example), but because the subject matter is so extremely esoteric and semantically charged (doctrinal rifts within the church, presented as a kind of desultory spy thriller) it's hard to say whether the differences are merely circumstantial or subtly ideological. I strongly suspect the latter, but that could well be another layer of Ruiz's joke (since he's operating in a field where minutiae is relentlessly interrogated).
It's brilliantly original, but unlike the esoteric conspiracies of Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, I don't really engage with the content, and unlike most of Ruiz's films it's often visually pedestrian. The black-and-white footage at times achieves an austere elegance (and generously quotes Bresson), but the colour material is fairly nondescript. Don't blink, or you might miss an early appearance by Haneke favourite Maurice Benichou.
Figures in a Landscape – Presumably based on Losey's past form (e.g. the post-Resnaisisms of Accident), this film has acquired something of a reputation as an existential puzzler (men on the run from the unknown, to the unknown), but it can just as easily be appreciated as an action film stripped of expository dialogue: Shaw and McDowell never stop to explain to one another (and why should they?) where or who they've escaped from, or wax didactic about the socio-political context of their plight.
In place of set-up and tired plot mechanics, we get pure action: the guys being chased across unidentified terrain by an anonymous helicopter (this is surely the film Spielberg was ripping off in Duel, but Losey's scenario is much more elegant and sinister, plus we get lots of stunning aerial footage), killing their way into the possession of steadily more sophisticated weapons, winding one another up and freaking out. About halfway through the invention starts to flag – hordes of footsoldiers are a much less photogenic menace than the lone black helicopter – but the film is extremely resourceful in wringing the maximum intensity from its ultra-minimalist scenario.
The Suspended Vocation – An absolutely fascinating film, but one of my least favourite Ruizes. The structural conceit is exquisite: this film was made, and then remade, and the finished product combines footage from both versions (I'd accuse of Greenaway of ‘borrowing' the idea for Vertical Features Remake from this film like he ‘borrowed' from Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting for The Draughtsman's Contract, but he'd have to have been pretty quick off the mark, as VFR was out the following year). The film's key structural idea is mind-messingly embodied in the opening crawl, which explains the history of the project. The problem is (and this reflects the issues at play in the body of the film) that the on-screen text of the explanation does not match the narration, and we're not sure whether the many differences between the two simultaneous texts are a matter of casual paraphrase or some deeper ideological rift.
The same is true of the film. The film follows its narrative in strictly linear fashion, but we bump back and forth between the old, black-and-white version of the story and the new colour one (with completely different casts). There are subtle differences of emphasis between the two versions (the remake has a more Marxist tinge, for example), but because the subject matter is so extremely esoteric and semantically charged (doctrinal rifts within the church, presented as a kind of desultory spy thriller) it's hard to say whether the differences are merely circumstantial or subtly ideological. I strongly suspect the latter, but that could well be another layer of Ruiz's joke (since he's operating in a field where minutiae is relentlessly interrogated).
It's brilliantly original, but unlike the esoteric conspiracies of Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, I don't really engage with the content, and unlike most of Ruiz's films it's often visually pedestrian. The black-and-white footage at times achieves an austere elegance (and generously quotes Bresson), but the colour material is fairly nondescript. Don't blink, or you might miss an early appearance by Haneke favourite Maurice Benichou.
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domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 6:42 pm
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
So what about Suspended Vocation impressed you so much? Were you (unlike me) highly engaged by the content, or just mightily impressed (like I was) by the conceptual framework? And how did it compare for you with Hypothesis, which works for me 110% on all levels: conceptually dazzling, narratively fascinating (I'm a sucker for close reading and literary / artistic conspiracy theories, the fruitier the better), and visually magnificent.domino harvey wrote:I knew nothing about Ruiz before watching the Hyp/Susp double feature disc this summer and Suspended Vocation blew me away. I can't believe it's considered "a bonus feature" rather than serving side by side with the "main" movie.
On a side note, I think the "bonus feature" aspect of the Facets disc is just a side-effect of the lazy porting of the original French BlaqOut release, which was a three-film 'box set' on two discs, with the equally promoted Hypothesis and Vocation economically housed on the first disc because the former was so short. Hypothesis being the better-known film (i.e. it's been heard of by six people instead of four), Facets promoted that one.
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ogygia avenue
- Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2005 8:51 pm
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
This is working towards the next 'List Project' (due early 2008) in which you rank your 50 favourite 70s films (see the other Lists Projects threads for more info) and we put together an aggregate list.ogygia avenue wrote:Are we posting our favorite overlooked films of the 1970s here, or is this for a larger list? Please advise before I go forth and embarrass myself.
This thread is for general discussion / recommendations of eligible films. In some cases it takes the form of "For Your Consideration" promotions of overlooked or favourite films. I've taken my lead from Scharphedin (in the 40s or 50s Discussion List) by recording impressions of interesting films as I trawl through them, whether or not they're likely to end up on my finished list (they might end up on somebody's).
So it's pretty freeform: embarrass away.
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ogygia avenue
- Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2005 8:51 pm
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domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 6:42 pm
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ogygia avenue
- Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2005 8:51 pm
Well, disappointed they haven't been mentioned. (Almost all of those are on DVD, and that was kind of a placeholder for my "For Your Consideration" post.)domino harvey wrote:I don't know what that means, does it mean you haven't seen them yet or they aren't available on DVD (I know that at least Wanda and Jeanne Dielman are) or you're just upset that they haven't been mentioned?
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
Well, there is no list at the moment. That won't happen until the vote is held next year, so if you want your favourites to be considered, do some proselytizing. I know the Akerman has some strong supporters, and Brewster gets trotted out as a fetiche on a semi-regular basis, but female directors tend to get ignored, so Loden and Silver could certainly do with some passionate arguments.ogygia avenue wrote:This list is worthless to me without Ganja & Hess (Gunn | US | '73), Wanda (Loden | US | '73), Hester Street (Micklin Silver | US | '75), Brewster McCloud (Altman | US | '71), and Jeanne Dielman (Akerman | Brussels | '75). Just for starters.
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sidehacker
- Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2007 6:49 am
- Location: Bowling Green, Ohio
- Contact:
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
Based on past scheduling, it would look like this:sidehacker wrote:So, uh yeah, when are we going to make a list?
March 2008 - 1970s
July 2008 - 1980s
November 2008 - 1990s
March 2009 - 2000s
But I suggested in the Lists thread that we reorganise these so that the 2000s list actually coincides with the end of the 2000s (i.e. January 2010), which attracted only one comment (in support). This would be something like:
May 2008 - 1970s
December 2008 - 1980s
June 2009 - 1990s
January 2010 - 2000s
Unless there's strong opposition, let's make this the timetable. In the meantime, there seem to be several other possible lists (e.g. Anti-AFI, Anti-BFI) cropping up to fill the gaps.
List voting rules and regulations can be found at the start of the Lists Project thread.