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

[domino harvey]

High School

Though it didn't make my list, it's definitely worth tracking down at some point-- Wiseman's approach captures so many little moments that feel exactly right and show just how little things have changed from the period it was captured, from the English teacher selling pop music as poetry to the disbelief of parents in the wake of being called to the principal's office, the list goes on

[TMDaines]

The Enchanted Desna

I'm wondering if this is the most wanted non-lost film online. Someone must have a copy but no-one's sharing.

[bamwc2]

High School

Though it didn't make my list, it's definitely worth tracking down at some point-- Wiseman's approach captures so many little moments that feel exactly right and show just how little things have changed from the period it was captured, from the English teacher selling pop music as poetry to the disbelief of parents in the wake of being called to the principal's office, the list goes on

It's definitely something that I've wanted to see for a while now, but I really don't have the money to pay for the DVR from Wiseman's website (although I'd much rather support him directly than a third party). Does anyone know if any of his films are available elsewhere, preferably for rent?

[swo17]

You might try your local library. Mine has all of Wiseman's films. (And if they don't currently have it, ask them to buy it.)

[bamwc2]

I teach at a large state university, and Titicut Follies is the only Wiseman DVD on the entire campus. Sadly I've already seen this...but wait. Yes, interlibrary loan it is. Thanks for the suggestion, Swo. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it sooner.

Edit: Never mind. I tried about a dozen of his films and none are "requestable". I know that as faculty I can ask for a librarian to purchase an item. Perhaps I should ask Matt for advice on how to approach a librarian to purchase DVRs of an entire director's oeuvre for a film major that began two years ago when I'm not even a member of that department...

[thirtyframesasecond]

I work as a librarian and had to pay $500 to replace a copy of High School that had gone missing (stolen most likely). Needless to say I ripped it immediately. Haven't seen it yet for this project - I do intend to though.

[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.

Another title I'm only recently realizing is eligible as a '60s film is Pontecorvo's Burn!

[zedz]

I watched the highly touted Rapture last night, and I'm afraid I can't join in on the massed ecstasy. Some beautiful photography, to be sure, but I found the performances to be mismatched, and often awkward on their own terms, and the direction gauche.

The montage tended to pile up clunkily rather than build. Partly, this was due to the poor matching between shots. The obvious examples were things like the climactic scene on the rocks where the shots of the ocean show (beautifully shot) twenty foot waves crashing dramatically against the rugged shore, but the reverse angle close-ups show the characters getting a cup of water tossed in the vague direction of their faces. However, there was also a broader problem of tone / mood being jumbled / fumbled between shots, something not helped by the slapdash and generally overwrought acting. Gozzi's energy can't really be denied, but I never bought her as a character rather than as a bundle of theatrical or literary conceits.

The callowness of the direction was also exemplified by all those canted angles piled on towards the end, coming to a head in the self-consciously 'expressionistic' interlude in town. A subtle shift in the film's syntax to signal the character's dislocation might have been a good idea, but the florid execution here was like a student film from somebody who no doubt considered themselves "the next Orson Welles". Ugh.

All this wasn't enough to detract entirely from the good stuff on display, but I'm completely baffled as to how anybody could see this as one of the best films of the decade - or even the year. It's a potboiler with pretensions it can't entirely deliver on, which for me puts it on the level of a good Hammer film, but a sheer cliff-face below something like The Innocents.

[Gregory]

I don't like to focus on just one word, but I've long seen the term "potboiler" used pretty loosely and have not always had a clear sense of what it's meant to suggest. Basically a haphazardly created work with the main goal being to predictably turn a profit? Whatever criticisms one could make of Rapture, it seems to expect more of the viewer than something pandering to something that circumvents aesthetic criteria by appealing to base instincts to make a buck. Isn't it more an work of art cinema that was a step away from the more commercially driven works that Guillermin directed at other times?

[zedz]

By potboiler, I'm just talking about the pulpy predictability of the story. I could easily imagine the same material, with less ambitious execution, making for a perfectly ordinary Hammer programmer, or a television play, or an arc in a daytime soap. That's why I identified it as a "potboiler with pretensions," and it's the pretensions that lend the film its interest. But the problem I have with it is that Guillermin seems to be striving (and struggling) to get himself a piece of that sweet Bergman action - whether that be from a desire for critical kudos or some misguided commercial instinct I don't know - and the whole thing seems contrived and synthetic, and more than a little cynical.

[Tommaso]

I would like to thank zedz for his recommendation and thorough analysis of Susumu Hani's Inferno of First Love here. I had never heard about this film before, but now I'm mightily impressed, too. However, I didn't find it as disturbing as zedz apparently did but rather saw it as a very convincing psychological study which definitely has a lyrical character for me. The child molestation doesn't seem to have been carried out in the scene with the little girl and might well have been just a fantasy of the by-standers, although of course we later learn that the protagonist is likely to have paedophiliac leanings indeed. But it's much more interesting to find out why he might have them, and the film certainly gives its explanations.

Same for Nanami's story: even though this is probably historically the first film I know of which more or less explicitly shows the production of S/M porn, I got the impression that the director never takes sides and presents this material in a certain matter-of-fact, documentary way (twisted camera angels notwithstanding), just as a portrait of the irritations of young sexuality - that the lecherous makers of these porn films have other intentions can't be denied, of course - and also its accompanying sadness. In any case, there's a lot of sensitivity between the two protagonists which I found really endearing. So in spite of its social commentary, for me this is basically a love story in unfortunately too modern times.

[swo17]

It's an indisputable masterpiece. I just can't decide if everyone in the world should see it or no one. In any case, this guy on ebay (link NSFW) has a couple of copies for sale of the original bootleg JNWC release.

Also:

Gare du Nord (Jean Rouch, fr. Paris vu par... 1965) The best portmanteau segment I've ever seen, and a strong contender for my Top 10 this decade. The less said about this fictive one-shot short from documentarian Rouch in advance, the better, but in brief the film juxtaposes conventional domestic discord with something far more unsettling

domino may be on to something here, guys...

[knives]

That the film has two shots (if memory holds up)?

[swo17]

Other than the start and finish, it's all one shot (as far as I know--it does go dark at one point). But no, I was referring to the fact that the film is spectacular, obviously.

[knives]

I got that, just bad humour on my part. The short didn't make my list obviously, but I seriously considered it. Eventually I decided I was having tough enough a time with limiting to full films that voting for part of a film was out of the question.

[the preacher]

Just voted. Apparently I've seen all the spotlights available with subtitles and I'm ashamed to say that only 3 of those are on my ballot. Stiff competition.

[swo17]

Let the totally cryptic clues commence!

With eight lists in, only two of the films currently in the top 10 have not been released on Blu-ray somewhere in the world. Both are by the same director.

[knives]

Clearly this was a good sign to vote Japan.

[TMDaines]

Let the totally cryptic clues commence!

With eight lists in, only two of the films currently in the top 10 have not been released on Blu-ray somewhere in the world. Both are by the same director.

Well, you'd get short odds on them being two films by Antonioni.

[knives]

Over Pasolini?

[TMDaines]

Which two Pasolinis not released on Blu-ray would they be?

[Tommaso]

Is there a "Medea" blu?

Or an "Eyes without a face" or "Judex" blu? Please don't forget voting for Franju, folks. These two films are among the most poetical and visually stunning works of this entire period.

And all three films I've just mentioned are in my Top Ten.

[swo17]

Is there a "Medea" blu?

Yes, from BFI in the UK and E1 in the US.

[zedz]

I've submitted my own, hopelessly inadequate list too, disgruntledly. I was interested to see that less than a third of my films were from the first half of the decade, and half of those were shorts or experimental films.

France and Japan dominated, with nine films each on my final list. Next up was the USA with six (but only one of those films was a narrative feature), then Czechoslovakia (five) and the USSR (four).

EDIT: Oh, and swo totally influenced* my fraught choice for the number fifty position.
* without his knowledge

[Camera Obscura]

Submitted my list as well, with only one (French) director managing to appear three times. The rest of the list heavily leaning toward Czech and Slovak films with Stefan Uher taking the honors with two of his films (one of 'em in the top ten).

Sort of passively followed the 60s thread, but didn't really weigh in, so it's probably a bit late to spotlight some favorites that might have been overlooked. Jack Gold's The Reckoning (1969) is one of those, easily my biggest 'discovery' of the decade. And I'm probably the last on the boards to have caught Pierre Etaix's string of masterpieces. Definitely a case of love at first sight and considered putting up his entire sixties' output, but decided to go with 'just' two of his features.

My top East German pick - though it probably won't reach my top fifty - is Traces of the Stones. Seems to be in print in R1. The stills make it look like a Kaurismaki film -- Leningrad Cowboys Go Construction - but it's actually a surprisingly nuanced social realist film that deals with Party influence with considerable ambivalence. Hence its suppression for several decades.

Well, this one did reach my top 50 and seems to have quite a few fans here, so this might even stand a chance of cracking the final list! (a first for any GDR film on a decade list?)