1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[Finch]

Cold Bishop, there is a Taiwanese DVD of The Invincible Fist on ebay. It has the same or near identical cover as the OOP R3 disc so I'm thinking this may be a straight port. My copy shipped last week, I'll let you know if the disc is worth getting.

[Gregory]

Barrier (Jerzy Skolimowski)
I have no idea what is supposed to be happening at any point during this movie but you need to watch it immediately.

I wish Second Run's edition of this had come to pass and that better materials were available for this and many other films like it. I've heard really bad things about the Polish DVDs.

[knives]

Yeah, as much as I love Skolimowski outside of his shorts I've decided not to watch his early films until SR releases them in the year 2525. That said he will be making a massive showing on my next two lists. I'll bring up some of my own potential orphans in a few days. I think I've changed the bottom ten of my list forty times with old favorites in the last month.

[swo17]

There is sadly no good DVD release of Barrier yet but there is a perfectly watchable version available through back channels. knives, especially if you are that big a fan of Skolimowski, I can basically guarantee that you will be kicking yourself in 2525 for leaving it off your '60s list this year.

[thirtyframesasecond]

The Cremator and the Goddess will feature very highly in my lists. I stopped watching too many of Ray's 60s films as he'd occupy too much of my list! One of the decade's finest directors, easily.

[Finch]

Just finished watching the Taiwanese DVD of The Invincible Fist: I haven't seen the Hongkong disc but this would appear to be a port as suspected. It is a good print and I only spotted one typo and grammar mistake regarding the English subtitles. Delivery from Taiwan was quick so I can absolutely recommend that retailer.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shaw-Brothers ... 338172c329" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[zedz]

The Cremator and the Goddess will feature very highly in my lists. I stopped watching too many of Ray's 60s films as he'd occupy too much of my list! One of the decade's finest directors, easily.

Don't stop before you get to Charulata!

[Michael Kerpan]

Don't stop before you get to Charulata!

Seconded. Though, I loved Mahangar almost as much when I finally got to see it.

[knives]

Honestly I'd say don't stop at all. A top ten of Ray is nothing to be embarrassed of. So much of the last fifty years of cinema owe him a tremendous debt.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Charulata's there, don't worry!

The Cremator and the Goddess will feature very highly in my lists. I stopped watching too many of Ray's 60s films as he'd occupy too much of my list! One of the decade's finest directors, easily.

Don't stop before you get to Charulata!

[swo17]

Here's your friendly reminder that lists are due exactly one month from today. Feel free to PM me your lists at any time, and if you need to make any revisions between the time you submit a list and the deadline, just let me know and I will happily accommodate you. Before assembling your list, it's strongly encouraged that you go back and review the "eligibility" section of the first post to refresh your memory about which films are or aren't eligible*, as well as the "spotlight" section to catch up on any recommendations that you might have missed.

Please refrain from posting your full lists here until after the deadline, but please do post passionate defenses of your supposed orphans to try and win them some converts before the deadline. It's also never too late to name a new spotlight title.


*I'm actually just noticing that the release date for Lorenza Mazzetti's Together has finally been corrected to be in the '50s. Letter Never Sent has also recently been reclassified as a '50s film as well. Since these were ineligible during the '50s project, and were classified as '60s films at the beginning (and likely throughout most) of the '60s project, I'm willing to still call them eligible for this round of the '60s project. (I swear I checked LNS a few weeks ago and it was still showing up as a 1960 release at that time.)

[knives]

With that reminder in mind I guess I should start promoting potential orphans. There's a few Crit released titles like Warrendale and Innocent Unprotected I'll probably vote for, but won't do a full write0up because I figure they're at least on people's minds.

The Death of a Bureaucrat---R2 Network
Fortunately it seems that this bizarre Cuban satire has increased in popularity lately, but all the same it really needs to be said that this is one of the funniest and sharpest films ever made. From the opening scroll treating a dedication to some of cinema's greatest comedy minds as a bureaucratic report the tone refuses to settle in a comfortable way bouncing in tone unlike anything else. The tone jumping isn't with seriousness though. In fact the heftier this Kafka-esque journey weighs on the lead the closer to a cartoon the film becomes. Instead the tone deals with these influences where we'll get a replay of The Music Box before falling into the world of Keaton.

The Beast Must Die---R2 Arrow
As I go on I find that Chabrol speaks more closely to me than any of the other New Wave guys, but it's not really until his '70s work that he blows the competition out of the water for me. That said this master work is such a horrible creeping moral play that poses impossible questions in such impossible ways that even without showing his hand Chabrol makes one heck of a disturbing feature; the sort of film that Haneke was ratcheted up over the years. That the end result seems to owe more to theater than cinema only seems to put the film more on edge and the situation the lead puts himself in all the more pointless.

Good Times, Wonderful Times---Milestone
I know this isn't the Rogosin that everyone is in love with, but it's the one that has made the most powerful effect upon myself. Honestly I'm mostly impressed because it succeeds better than could be imagined where Godard failed so badly with A Film Like the Others. The milky cuts from the party, so lost in time and its own world resulting in a sickly reflection, to images captured invisibly, free from Rogosin's own jibber jabber, is such a damning uncomfortable beast naked from the comforts of character and story. It really does damn everybody in the most honest way.

Story of a 3-Day Pass---R1 Xenon
van Peeples got his most prominent and personal work done next decade, but as a start to the film side of his career this rather humble tale manages to deal with the issues of racism more deftly and more complexly than any film made before it. At the same time while more traditionally shot than where he would later go one can already see a graphic dismissal of traditional filmic story telling techniques which in this case I feel helps one get into the lead's head much more effectively. The freedom and disappointment he feels over the course of the three days is palpable to the degree of feeling as if it was one's own experience.

Two For the Road----R1 Fox
This is probably the best Donen film I've ever seen with typical luscious cinematography and a story telling technique that never let's its own novelty get in the way. Yet for all of these daring steps I must admit my favorite aspect of the enterprise is the characters which populate this world. Especially great is William Daniel's Buffoon of a friend. It's a performance so hilariously waspy that any it really becomes the definitive form of this sort of character. There's no better comedic performance this decade.

[Tommaso]

Eros + Massacre (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1969): this one - along with some of Yoshida's other films from the 60s - is probably my greatest personal discovery in this round of the listmaking. Ostensibly about a Japanese anarchist from the 1920s and his love affairs with three different women, there's also a second story, set in the present, about a young student filmmaker who is investigating the life of that anarchist. And via the medium of film (and of dreams) characters from the past occasionally enter the present time, or a crime can be acted out in several alternative ways. A very complex film reflecting on political theories, love, and filmmaking itself. But Yoshida's work is never bluntly 'therorising'; instead the filmmaker crafts images of a stunning beauty that will resonate a long time after viewing. If Oshima was called the 'Godard of the East', then Yoshida reminds me a little of a Japanese equivalent to Rivette perhaps. He brings a similar lyrical quality to his films and has an extraordinary sensitivity when it comes to directing women (in this and other films, Mariko Okada, his wife).

Perhaps Eros + Massacre is not the best way to start with Yoshida - I would recommend The Affair (1968) for a beginning - due to its complexity and length (3 1/2 hours, but it doesn't feel one second too long), but it certainly deserves its status as one of the most often mentioned - but rarely seen - Japanese New Wave films. This shot into my Top 10 immediately, and so I follow swo's reminder and make this my spotlight film for this round. I hope you can find English subs for the only Western release that the film has, an excellent dvd from France.

[the preacher]

One month? I guess it's time to remember the often-forgotten Spanish language cinema (unfortunately not all of these are available with subtitles):

Macario (Roberto Gavaldón, 1960)
For fans of Death on the big screen

Los hermanos Del Hierro (Ismael Rodríguez, 1961)
Chili-western

Plácido (Luis García Berlanga, 1961) & El verdugo (Luis García Berlanga, 1963)
The wedding in "The Executioner" is perhaps the best scene of the entire decade, enough said

Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961) & El ángel exterminador (Luis Buñuel, 1962)

El mundo sigue (Fernando Fernán Gómez, 1963) & El extraño viaje (Fernando Fernán Gómez, 1964)
Both films ran into trouble with censors and subsequently received marginal distribution (in fact, the first one was never released)
Murder, jealousy, repression and escape, "Strange Voyage / The Strange Trip" IS Franco's Spain, my number 1

Tiburoneros (Luis Alcoriza, 1963)
Mexican Dersu Uzala

La tía Tula (Miguel Picazo, 1964)
Superb literary adaptation (Unamuno)

Viento negro (Servando González, 1965)
Sand-blown desert epic

La caza (Carlos Saura, 1966)
Parable of the Spanish Civil War

La muerte de un burócrata (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1966) & Memorias del subdesarrollo (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1968)
Heed knives' spotlight!

Yawar mallku (Jorge Sanjinés, 1969)
Greatest Bolivian film ever

Also some other highly acclaimed titles (not among my favorites):
Soy Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964)
Leonardo Favio's films
Lucía (Humberto Solás, 1968)
El chacal de Nahueltoro (Miguel Littin, 1969)

[swo17]

Before assembling your list, it's strongly encouraged that you go back and review the "eligibility" section of the first post to refresh your memory about which films are or aren't eligible.

One more fairly high profile title that I just realized is eligible for the '60s list despite some sources (such as Criterion) citing it as a '70s film: Ken Loach's Kes.

[domino harvey]

Shored up my final list. My top three were all by the same director, and no prizes awarded for "guessing" who that might be! Seven total appearances from that director, followed by three from Bergman and two from Antonioni, Demy, Rossen, Wilder, and... Richard Brooks?!

[Mr Sausage]

Shored up my final list. My top three were all by the same director, and no prizes awarded for "guessing" who that might be!

Too easy. Stanley Kramer.

[swo17]

As the list tabulator, I can confirm that domino voted for all seven of Kramer's '60s films.

[TMDaines]

Shored up my final list. My top three were all by the same director, and no prizes awarded for "guessing" who that might be! Seven total appearances from that director, followed by three from Bergman and two from Antonioni, Demy, Rossen, Wilder, and... Richard Brooks?!

Don't know how you could hand in a list over three weeks early. I know I'm still going to have a 1000 films I want to watch when the deadline strikes for sure!

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

As the list tabulator, I can confirm that domino voted for all seven of Kramer's '60s films.

That's pretty good going since imdb list only 6. Unless sleight of hand has been employed to include The Domino Killings.

[swo17]

I count 7 if you include the film for which Kramer is listed on IMDb as an uncredited director, as domino did.

As for people submitting lists this early, I greatly appreciate it, as it saves me a lot of work during the last week of the project. And anyone that does so is of course welcome to send me revised lists closer to the deadline if they encounter anything else in the meantime that simply must make their list.

[domino harvey]

I just realized I could vote for the trailers as well, which should at least double my Kramer representin'. Go ahead and bump off all those actually good films from my list, swo

[bamwc2]

I'd been holding out on submitting my list under the hope that I might catch something that would find a spot in it before the deadline, but in the interest of making Swo's life easier have just submitted it. A few interesting points about my list:

1. Sorry Domino, but only one Kramer work made it to my list. Fortunately, it was in the top ten.

2. No director got more than two films on my list. Those that had at least two on my list were: Sidney Lumet, Agnes Varda, Sergio Leone, and François Truffaut.

3. Three different Stanleys made it with a single entry each.

4. Jeez, my tastes really match up with Criterion's since 24 out of my 50 choices were or are in the collection (counting the LD days).

5. My next ten (51-60). Near misses in alphabetical order: au hasard Balthazar, Band of Outsiders, Manji, A Patch of Blue, Peeping Tom, Psycho, The Servant, Shock Corridor, The Virgin Spring, The Wild Bunch.

6. Top ten films that I wanted to see before the deadline, but never located or otherwise missed out on: The Enchanted Desna, Eros Plus Massacre, Go, Go Second Time Virgin, High School, The Housmaid, The Oldest Profession, The St. Vallentine's Day Massacre, A Wife Confesses, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Virgin of Nuremberg

[knives]

Don't start talking about your list seriously until after the deadline. We've been joking about the Kramers given Dom's infamous dislike of the man's films. I presume the seven is with Godard in reality.

[bamwc2]

Don't start talking about your list seriously until after the deadline. We've been joking about the Kramers given Dom's infamous dislike of the man's films. I presume the seven is with Godard in reality.

Ah, I ha no idea about that. I thought that it was meant in sincerity.