1950s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[matrixschmatrix]

My God, people are already submitting their lists? I just saw a movie that's going to make my top ten for the first time tonight (Rebel Without a Cause, which fully justified Domino's support for it), and I've got at least a dozen more that I feel like I need to watch before I'd be happy sending mine in.

[knives]

We've only got about nine days. Can't see everything (though one will always try).

[matrixschmatrix]

Othello

This is one of those movies that, for me, languishes a bit in the middle only to come roaring out to a fairly astonishing climax. The cold opening works wonderfully, creating a sense of pomp and ominous power, and everything up to the departure for Cypress sets up Welles' visual strategy and his characterizations of Othello, Iago, and the social environment extraordinarily efficiently.

However, a lot of the actual operations of the play- nearly all of the parts where Iago schemes and everyone falls into place with whatever plan he's evolved- seemed a bit muddy, both in terms of organization and visually. I think Welles isn't terribly interested in some of the elements of the play that come out most strongly in those parts, namely the pressure Othello feels to uphold his honor and his reputation and the undercurrent of double standards as applied to him as a Moor- so that it's actually a bit dull, a series of actions predicted and then carried out as predicted. The visuals create an atmosphere of paranoia somewhat like that in Welles' Macbeth, but for whatever reason he doesn't have the scope to make the whole world reflect that, nor does it quite fit the text at that point.

As the film winds up, though, it flies off into the territory of an incredibly effective thriller- Welles stalking the halls, appearing around corners, displayed in shadow only, the shadows devouring everything but his face. The music is astonishing, too, occasionally totally overwhelming the dialogue- which is fine, as Welles seemed more constrained than inspired by it here- and creating of it a shadow play, some sort of archetypical working out of male aggression against a helpless and baffled woman. I happily didn't feel as though the racial undertones became problematic here- it doesn't come off as a white woman defiled by a violent black man, more some sort of a passion play, a working out of something that has little to do with race or class. We don't even really get all that much of Othello's regret or chest beating, just enough to realize that what he's destroyed is the part of himself he can love- and I think, in this version, that was the primary target of Iago's hatred.

[swo17]

For your consideration: the best beer commercial ever.

[knives]

I could have sworn I brought that one up before. I also recommend Adebar from him if you can find it.

[swo17]

Only five more days until the deadline, everyone.

Random observation for the day: With a few more lists now in, there's a major director whose generally most celebrated film (at least this was my impression) is currently an orphan, whereas what I would have thought was one of his less highly regarded films is currently in the top 10, with three people already putting it in their top 3. (Of course, maybe my impressions are just off the mark.)

[Tommaso]

I guess I have an idea which films you're talking about, and I hope that the most celebrated film won't be an orphan. After all, Adolf Wohlbrück is in both of them

[matrixschmatrix]

I'm wondering if it's Rebel Without a Cause, which mysteriously doesn't appear on the other lists.

[swo17]

By "generally most celebrated" I of course mean during the previous '50s project. Because what other list matters?

[Michael Kerpan]

By "generally most celebrated" I of course mean during the previous '50s project. Because what other list matters?

I'm not finding our prior list in any of the linked resources. Where SHOULD I be looking?

[swo17]

Partway through this post here.

[knives]

So my assumption that sight and sound skewed things seems right, harumph.

[the preacher]

Ballot sent for my favorite decade. Seeing the films I've left out is just depressing...

[Tommaso]

Not even my favourite decade, but the 50s are certainly as strong as the 20s and 30s. I could have easily listed 100 films, and what's worse, there are still many films from the decade that I didn't manage to see for this listmaking, even though I wanted to.

[knives]

That's always going to be a problem. There was a film that I thought was going to make my top ten as I was making the list that didn't even wind up on my final revision.

[Tommaso]

Yes. In my case it was "Singin' in the rain". Which I would still describe as a great film.

[swo17]

As I'm tabulating the lists, for most films I see included I have to say both "yeah, that's a great film" and "nope, didn't have room for it on my list." And when I need to make room for something new, canonical stuff for which I don't count myself among the top, say, 10% of supporters is always the first to go. (Sorry, Singin' in the Rain. It's doing just fine though without my vote.)

[matrixschmatrix]

Yeah, I kept feeling badly for the movies that are in the 40-50 range of my list right now- I think Singin' in the Rain and Ugetsu are down there- but honestly, this is such an amazing decade that I could make a list of 100 and everything on there would be a stone classic.

I wonder if Singin' in the Rain is going to suffer this time around.

[swo17]

honestly, this is such an amazing decade that I could make a list of 100 and everything on there would be a stone classic.

Yes, now perhaps more than ever, it's not a question of which 50 films are the classics but which of the classics are your favorite.

I wonder if Singin' in the Rain is going to suffer this time around.

Only in the way that billionaires suffer when they have to pay taxes.

[Gregory]

I wanted to review a really oddball film that will make my list: One Potato, Two Potato, which really stood out to me when revisiting the Free Cinema box set. Oddball in the sense that it wasn't by anyone in the Free Cinema group, wasn't in the main Free Cinema programs, and was a one-off by someone who brilliantly adapted his research and educational interests (children's play) to the film medium and then never directed again. I don't know if Leslie Daiken had seen the earlier The Singing Street (also excellent) before making his film, but in any case he effectively built upon that concept and took it somewhere else — an eerie place where children play in deserted urban spaces in London (bombsites), culminating in the unbelievable Hallowe'en and bonfire sequences near the end of the film. These children were too young to experience or recall the War but nonetheless were living among its remnants, and creating new things (as in the city's many "adventure playgrounds," in which children actively created new realities from the remaining junk and debris. I only wish some of those could have been properly included in a film like this).
An era in which children played in such skilled, intricate movements, rhyming etc. (and not in team sports) is alien to my own childhood experiences. It makes me feel sad and happy at the same time, and conveys a joy and spontaneity that I found almost totally lacking in the modern dance films of Martha Graham, for example.
But the real strength of the film (as with Singing Street) is the way it captures the form and motion of the activities so beautifully without abstracting them too much. Some of the feel of the earlier Free Cinema programs feels to me like it's here intact, yet perhaps more stylized, more as performances than documentary. To me, One Potato, Two Potato seems more carefully planned and executed than Singing Street: the former was filmed over the course of an entire year.
The Free Cinema set is a great purchase, for almost anyone who doesn't yet have it, and I hope anyone who does have it sitting around will give a few of these films another viewing so they don't all end up as orphans.

[Matt]

I had hoped Singin' in the Rain would suffer a little on the musicals list (I think I made a point of putting it at #50 on my list), but it still rang in at #1 with plenty of room to spare between it and #2.

[zedz]

Further to Gregory's comments, I'm trying my darnedest to find space for The Singing Street on my list. It's fluctuating between number 49 and number 52 as I shuffle things around it. At present, I've got a lot of short films in my top 50 (14), and numbers 51 to 70 are basically stone classics that were knocked out from my previous list by shiny new things.

[Tommaso]

I had hoped Singin' in the Rain would suffer a little on the musicals list (I think I made a point of putting it at #50 on my list), but it still rang in at #1 with plenty of room to spare between it and #2.

Oh, dear.... A pretty good list, but how it could end up before "The Band Wagon" and "Love me tonight" is beyond me. Not to speak of "Der Kongress tanzt", of course. But I digress...

[tarpilot]

Just remember The Lusty Men was my first first

[matrixschmatrix]

Hm, Tarpilot's comment that he linked to made me wonder- which directors have placed in every decades list thus far? Hawks, Ford, Lang, and Dreyer, I think? Did I miss any?