1980s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[colinr0380]

For a few years now The Falls has been my go-to film to play in the background while sorting through a pile of films deciding what to watch. I usually end up watching to the end of it instead! Some of the entries can be stronger than others but they're all interesting and accompanied by unique barrages of imagery, and are often very funny! I particularly love the description of the lady shedding water uncontrollably going around giving impromptu bodily weeping displays for admirers (I wonder if Shohei Imamura was inspired by that section for Warm Water Under A Red Bridge? Either way they make a good double bill!) and this reading from "The Cassowary"! That gets into a whole other layer of the film too, the way that particular entries allude to poems or books and then later (or earlier) entries feature extracts from them.

I haven't gotten to the stage of cross-referencing entries against each other, but it seems that Rappa Begol chap seems to have some sort of familial, extended family or friendship connection with almost all of the other characters! Is he a sinister figure pulling the strings of the VUE, or is this just a sly comment on 'experts and advisors' and how anyone brought in to consult on the making of a film inevitably filters the subject through their own research and connections, so if the filmmakers are not careful (or lazy enough to only use one expert as their authority) they can be seduced by a Svengali-type figure seemingly the key figure at the centre of a self-created web of intrigue!

That lady screeching out bird names close to the end of the film is intensely annoying though! But I like to think that character anticipates the similarly annoying soprano boy cook from Cook, Thief, Wife, Lover!

[Tommaso]

Well, The Cook, The Thief... is one of the few Greenaway full-length films from the decade that won't make my list, even though I admire it a lot and find Michael Gambon's performance outstanding. What the film lacks, however, is a certain playfulness that almost all his other films (not just from this decade) have. In other words, it's a very cold film - and an unusually violent one, even though Greenaway can be grim elsewhere, too - even by Greenaway's standards. I don't mean this as a criticism at all, but it might explain why I can't really love it, though I certainly like it. I don't find the soprano cook boy annoying, by the way, though Sarah Leonard's voice is certainly an acquired taste. But this extremely high singing is a good way to endow the boy with a quality of innocence, which of course is only to be corrupted by what's going on in the film.

Perhaps those who struggle with Greenaway's cinema should try The Belly of an Architect, which might be his most accessible film ever. It doesn't lack his usual penchant for systems of order and rational thinking leading itself ad absurdum, but it is infused with a little bit more emotion than in other films - perhaps because the architect was only a thinly veiled chiffre for himself, as Greenaway once revealed - and has a truly strong central performance by Brian Dennehy. And nobody has filmed Rome quite like this for sure.

And The Falls gives me the chuckles all the time for its sheer inventiveness and absurdity. It really feels like the 'heart' of Greenaway's cinema, in the sense that almost all that followed in this decade (and partly also later) can be traced back in some way to the concepts that govern it.

[colinr0380]

It's strange but I find the earlier films feature more humanly flawed characters, but are more upsetting in a way as they seem to show their characters trapped in a cycle, often of death, as in A Zed and Two Noughts or Drowning By Numbers. Once that cycle gets set into motion and is being ticked off with rigorous, almost monotonous numbering systems (that much like Vertical Features Remake have to be pursued to the bitter end) or films about decay in ever larger animals, then there is no escape from the inevitable ending. Except maybe leaving the movie theatre.

The characters in those films seem to be trying to understand or order what remains of their lives yet that just frustratingly just acts as hobby-style passing of what little time they have left or bluntly reveals the inevitable, inescapable end. Whereas The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is much colder, as you say, presented with the distanciation of a tragedy stage play (I haven't watched The Baby of Macon in a long time, but remember that dealing much more with that theatrical distanciation), full of bawdiness and bad behaviour and then a final, brutally cleansing revenge climax that with Mirren's final spat-out condemnatory line ends with bitterly dark retribution. I think it is one of the few Greenaway films that is perhaps intended to make the audience cheer at the end!

David Thomson in his Biographical Dictionary of Film entry on Greenaway describes those sliding shots from back street to kitchen to restaurant in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover as being "rat in the skirting board shots", which is a fun description suggestng the corruption in the seemingly flawless movement. Although that ignores the way that occasionally in the wipes through the wall between the different areas the character's clothing changes to better fit the different decor!

The Cook, The Thief... is definitely a film that thoroughly intermingles high and low culture, appropriating and sullying everything from esoteric literature to ostentatious furnishings to transcendental song to gourmet cuisine. There also feels as if there is a dichotomy in play too: a vibrant siezing of life as if every moment counts, but this involves casual abuse and cruelty and total lack of appreciation for anything outside of here and now satisfaction of urges. This is contrasted against the intellectual and romantic, yet also too distant and detached approach, with the main couple almost seeming to be embodying a kind of death wish doomed love narrative from the outset and the violence when it arrives being much more thought through and bitterly ironic.

It seems about the difference between 'appreciation' and 'consumption' - appreciating without consuming, and consuming without appreciating. Both lacking in their own way. Can you force someone to do both? In a way Bohringer's cook is the ideal mid-point, creating for the purposes of others to do what they wish with his creation.

[domino harvey]

I'm curious, would people be willing to stick their neck out and say a few words about the film they're planning to pick for Number One (as of now)? I'd like to be sure I see as many of the films my fellow members consider to be THE best of the decade, even if it's an obvious choice. You could even spoiler tag just the title if you feel like it breaks some kind of tradition within the thread, I just am curious about the films we all feel most passionate about. Off the top of my head, the only one I know is zedz' because he literally said "This is a lock for my number one and is also my favorite film." To start, we have an entire thread about my number one, and I started the "Swapsies" trend with it last round (now the Spotlight since no one really swaps anymore), and I wrote a book about it. So, you know, They All Laughed is okay I guess

[swo17]

That's not a bad idea, though I would encourage people to say more about their #1 picks than just to list the title. Particularly if it's a well-known film that most people will have probably already made up their minds about.

Personally, I have no idea at this point what mine will be.

[domino harvey]

That's not a bad idea, though I would encourage people to say more about their #1 picks than just to list the title. Particularly if it's a well-known film that most people will have probably already made up their minds about.

Me too, in case that wasn't clear. I just wanted to give those who are less verbose an option to get their pick out into the world as well

As far as Number Ones go, I fortunately/unfortunately know exactly what films will top my lists for all of our upcoming decades lists, though I'd love for that to change because it would mean a truly tremendous film will have come into my life in the process!

[Cold Bishop]

It's either Come and See or Heaven's Gate. The former did pretty well during the last go-around, so I don't know how much of a boost it needs (although, perhaps it'll suffer, being the sort of film that doesn't inspire very many rewatches). If people aren't checking out the latter even after the Criterion bump, I don't know what to say...

[colinr0380]

I'm afraid I cannot remember what my previous number 1 in the 80s list but I'd certainly highly recommend two Japanese films:

Death - Japanese Style (aka The Funeral) by Juzo Itami is a wonderful Altman-esque ensemble drama surrounding the rituals of a wake and cremation of a family patriarch. Much more amusing than it really should be but also nicely melancholic at times too. I'd certainly recommend this to Brian, since you liked Tampopo.

and:

The Wings of Honneamise, an anime film which in the current climate of unanimous praise for Miyazaki's The Wind Rises is almost its mirror image: an alternate history sci-fi story in which our hero, obsessed with flying but not fit enough to join his nation's air force, gets involved with the fledgling space programme instead, which is currently a national laughing stock. In the build up to the (perhaps one way) trip into space, the potential Yuri Gagarin also gets involved with a religious woman and her young daughter who has pretty strong anti-technology and space flight views. It is a fascinating, strange, emotionally messy film (especially the attempted rape scene, that was originally edited from the UK release, which pretty bluntly shifts the audience's sympathies for the characters around), which all builds towards a moment of religious spacial epiphany encompassing the entirety of humanity that I'm still not sure if I like or am disturbed by. It certainly has an impact though!

[knives]

My top will probably also be Japanese; Imamura's Black Rain which is one of the most potent films about violence and all possible human reactions to it made all the better by using the narrative trappings of stories without violence. On one hand it's the ultimate perversion of his old master Ozu's style while on the other hand showing a peace between them as it goes through the ugliness such a story could reveal. It's also probably the apex of cinematic concerns with the effects of war developing an intimacy to those effects both physical and mental that not even Klimov nor Rossellini achieved all while limiting the war off screen like Sebastian in Suddenly. Last Summer.

[domino harvey]

I'm afraid I cannot remember what my previous number 1 in the 80s list

I just checked and somewhat surprisingly it was

Spoiler

[colinr0380]

I'm more of a cat-person!

[Tommaso]

It's strange but I find the earlier films feature more humanly flawed characters, but are more upsetting in a way as they seem to show their characters trapped in a cycle, often of death, as in A Zed and Two Noughts or Drowning By Numbers. Once that cycle gets set into motion and is being ticked off with rigorous, almost monotonous numbering systems (that much like Vertical Features Remake have to be pursued to the bitter end) or films about decay in ever larger animals, then there is no escape from the inevitable ending. Except maybe leaving the movie theatre.

The characters in those films seem to be trying to understand or order what remains of their lives yet that just frustratingly just acts as hobby-style passing of what little time they have left or bluntly reveals the inevitable, inescapable end. .

Excellent post, colin. Very briefly: the (for me) lighter character of those other films, especially Drowning by Numbers (which is on my list) lies in how Greenaway reveals the absurdist nature of the systems the protagonists follow. We see a deadly mechanism moving to its inevitable end, but it's foremost the people in the films who are obsessed by it and follow it. We're invited to take them for granted, for sure, but the absurd nature of those systems also distances us from them (The Falls with its totally random choice of a statistic sample - which however gets a second meaning through the implication of the word 'fall' - is a prime example). I'm sure Greenaway himself was/is equally fascinated by these systems, but at the same time he is clearly very ironical about their deadly impact. Many of his films feel like great scientific experiments on how far you can take such patterns of thought, and as he takes them to their logical conclusion, they reveal their absurdity. Greenaway seems to be the most rational of filmmakers, for sure. But if so, he's so aware of his rationality that he can't take it seriously at all anymore. I think his films are basically a critique of all notions of too self-assured forms of enlightenment. And I think there's much more humour in his films than is sometimes acknowledged.

And as to domino's question about the #1 film: I think I should get a very heavily padded cap to alleviate the heavy hits on my head I will certainly get from Michael Kerpan, but the film that was indisputably my number 1 even before I started to think about this round of listmaking - and I have not the slightest reason now to reconsider - was and will probably always be Kurosawa's Ran. This is the film that for me shows most intensely Kurosawa's humanism and despair, the culmination of all that his cinema stands for. As an adaptation of "King Lear" it has no comparison even though it may be a loose one, but that only makes it more personal. Its imagery is unforgettable: Hidetora walking out of the burning castle is one of those scenes that carved itself into my cinematographic memory like little else (perhaps only Jean Marais walking through the underworld in "Orphee" or Moira Shearer dancing the "Red Shoes" ballet can compare to it); and also the scene with the fool in those wind-swept fields. This is pure perfection from one of the greatest filmmakers ever, and its poetic beauty makes me weep. Ran is a perfect statement about the madness of this world, but shot in the most iconic and grandiose style imaginable. But the visual beauty it has doesn't take away a iota of its overwhelming and devastating impact. A very strong contender for the greatest film I've ever seen.

[Michael Kerpan]

I've never told anyone he/she _shouldn't_ love Ran -- but I will always find it utterly unpalatable (in virtually every respect).

I'm just glad that this was not my first Japanese film, instead of Rashomon. As I probabl;y never would have given Japanese movies a second chance 25 years later. My grudge would almost surely have been eternal ;~}

[knives]

Not a fan of Ran, but I feel obligated to mention that according to Kurosawa himself Ishiro HONDA had a lot to do with the scene (and general look) you point out.

[Michael Kerpan]

Some interesting Japanese contenders (almost) no one will see -- as no subbed releases. Shinji SOMAI's The Catch (tuna fishing was never so terrifying) and Typhoon Club (mostly low-key high school angst -- as students loitering about at school get trapped for the duration of a typhoon). Jun Ichikawa's BuSu (old lady -- actually about an unhappy high school girl beginning to create connections).

[FerdinandGriffon]

I strongly, strongly second that recommendation of The Catch and Typhoon Club, and would add Love Hotel to the mix too. Somai is a top tier director waiting for international rediscovery, notable for his extraordinary use of long takes, amongst many other things. And recently fan subs for The Catch started floating around the internet.

[Michael Kerpan]

I strongly, strongly second that recommendation of The Catch and Typhoon Club, and would add Love Hotel to the mix too. Somai is a top tier director waiting for international rediscovery, notable for his extraordinary use of long takes, amongst many other things. And recently fan subs for The Catch started floating around the internet.

Have fans subs for Typhoon Club shown up? (I've only seen these unsubbed).

I think I like Jun Ichikawa (who, like Somai, also died prematurely, before being "discovered" in the West) even better than Somai overall. But Ichikawa's best work would come later.

Another 80s film worth checking out (albeit more a "fun" film) is Negishi's Detective Story. With super-star Yusaku Matsuda playing an unusually low-key role as a washed-up private detective -- pushed into doing real investigating by Hiroko Yakushimaru (who he was hired to guard -- to keep out of trouble in the month before her departure to the US for college).

[ohtani's jacket]

Here's the first batch of films I've watched for this poll:

Yol (Serif Goren and Yilmaz Guney) -- Compelling look at Turkey in the aftermath of the 1980 coup. The film follows a group of prisoners on furlough who are each returning to problems in their home towns. The plot is slightly manipulated for dramatic effect, but each of the prisoner's stories highlights a significant social problem; problems which are still pertinent today, especially the story of the woman who faces death for shaming her family. Visually, it's similar to other films made under difficult political circumstances. A somewhat neo-realistic style that uses a lot of non-professional actors in minor roles. It's a style that reflects the difficulty in shooting conditions as much as an aesthetic choice. Apparently, Guney 'dedicated' the entire shoot to Goren while in prison, so it's an interesting collaboration in that respect as well.

Gregory's Girl (Bill Forsyth) -- I don't know if it was the print I watched, but this looked kind of dated. The choice in music didn't help much. Aside from that, it had a lot of characteristics typical of British cinema -- a good yarn, strong characterisation and solid acting. As a coming of age story, it was a bit slight compared to a lot of other films, but it was a charming enough comedy that captured a particular moment in adolescence with good humour.

My Dinner with Andre (Louis Malle) -- this was interesting if nothing else. I didn't always agree with what Andre was saying, but that's part of the film's tapestry as neither does Wally. I admired the way they took what were supposedly real conversations and organised them into a clear structure without which the film would have fallen apart. I did find it interesting, though, that after such a long conversation the scene where he's riding in the taxi at the end is amazingly refreshing and possibly the best thing in the film. I'm not surprised that people are so divided over this. I didn't find it pretentious, but I did agree with the criticisms of how often Andre makes analogies to Nazis, the SS and concentration camps. That was a bit much.

Who's Singin' Over There? (Slobodan Sijan) -- solid comedy about a group of passengers traveling on a bus to Belgrade on the eve of the German invasion. I often find that comedies lose a lot in translation and that many of them have great premises but lose steam as the narrative demands of film take their toll, but this film suffered from neither of those pitfalls. A lot of the humour was visual and the film had a strong dramatic ending with a memorable closing sequence.

The Big Red One (Samuel Fuller) -- I watched the theatrical release of this since the reconstructed version doesn't necessarily follow Fuller's vision. This had some obvious tropes and the repeated motifs weren't so clever. In fact, it was probably little more than a B-film in terms of the script (not that I have anything against B-films), but it was an easy watch and entertaining. Was it a great war film? I dunno. For a film based on Fuller's personal experiences, it didn't seem to add anything to the genre that countless other war films hadn't covered in the past. I actually kind of thought Fuller's Steel Helmet was a better overall film, but I did enjoy it and watched it twice in fact.

Muddy River (Kohei Oguri) -- having just finished up a 50s poll, the idea of a film that deals with people living on the fringes of post-war Japanese society was hardly the most enticing proposition. Aside from certain aspects of the war that they could be more open about in the early 80s, the strength of this film wasn't really as an insight into post-war Japan. Instead, it's a beautiful film about childhood friendship, the loss of innocence, and all that. The portrayal of the children is excellent and the subtlety and restraint is beautiful. I don't know if it's as good as The 400 Blows, Spirit of the Beehive, Forbidden Games, Pather Panchali or other films of that ilk, but the ending sequence was up there with those films and a moving piece of cinema. Probably the strongest film I've watched thus far.

[FerdinandGriffon]

Have fans subs for Typhoon Club shown up? (I've only seen these unsubbed).

They've been around for years, but those for The Catch and Love Hotel only showed up recently.

[Michael Kerpan]

Muddy River (Kohei Oguri) -- having just finished up a 50s poll, the idea of a film that deals with people living on the fringes of post-war Japanese society was hardly the most enticing proposition. Aside from certain aspects of the war that they could be more open about in the early 80s, the strength of this film wasn't really as an insight into post-war Japan. Instead, it's a beautiful film about childhood friendship, the loss of innocence, and all that. The portrayal of the children is excellent and the subtlety and restraint is beautiful. I don't know if it's as good as The 400 Blows, Spirit of the Beehive, Forbidden Games, Pather Panchali or other films of that ilk, but the ending sequence was up there with those films and a moving piece of cinema. Probably the strongest film I've watched thus far.

This would make an interesting double feature, alongside Naruse's Approach of Autumn (from 20 or so years earlier), which covers some similar territory.

[Gropius]

I'm curious, would people be willing to stick their neck out and say a few words about the film they're planning to pick for Number One (as of now)?

Last time I put The Falls at No. 1, evidently enthralled by its combination of systematic complexity and digressive absurdity (as discussed by Colin and Tommaso), but wouldn't place it so highly again. At the moment there's no obvious totemic replacement, although I still regard Greenaway as one of the quintessential directors of the decade.

Need to revisit the Yangs: only seen Taipei Story and The Terrorizers once each, and remember preferring the former to the latter (of which I have only confused recollections), but am prepared to revise these opinions. (As Zedz said, these are not films you can 'get' in one go.)

One of the interesting things about looking at one's former ballots is the sense of 'enthusiasm decay': plenty of titles which knocked one out at the time but have faded in the memory; a sense that rewatching would rejuvenate some impressions, but not others. (The canon-making impulse as a feeble struggle against entropy.)

[thirtyframesasecond]

If I was voting today, I think my number one film would be

Spoiler

Au Revoir Les Enfants - up some places since the last poll (and a recent rewatch probably helps influence things), but I'm not sure I've seen a film as devastating and Julien's maturation from a spoilt, pampered mummy's boy to protective friend (with its ironic consequences) is stunningly handled by Malle, for whom it must have been a pretty cathartic experience

[Lemmy Caution]

Lemme see -- Veronika Voss is definitely a contender for my top spot.
A very striking b&w film, quite polished and sleek late Fassbinder. A sort of bleak Sunset Blvdesque noir, with Fassbinderian power dynamics, and a caustic political subtext.
I'd say more but have a kitten sleeping on my typing shoulder.
Fortunately, it's the Film Club spotlight for this fortnight, and you can read my and others thoughts on it here.

[bamwc2]

I'm sure that I'll have zero problem coming up with 50 full masterpieces, but I doubt that I'll find a film to pick over Shoah, Claude Lanzmann's testament of Holocaust survivors. The combination of humanity and inhumanity, beauty and horror is an astounding pairing that I've never seen elsewhere. I voted for it in the number one spot in my documentary list, and I simply can't imagine voting for anything else here.

Oh, and I'll use my powers of white liberal guilt to force you to watch it, Domino. Look into my eyes.

[Red Screamer]

As for my number one slot, I'm planning on there being quite a few earth-shattering masterpieces I have yet to see, including many of the titles mentioned above. Off the top of my head, I'd say that Sans Soliel and Brazil are my two top contenders for now. Both are examples of filmmakers so confident and excited about their works that they vibrate with life.

Brazil is a personal and epic vision of humans at odds with their environment to the point where it could be Playtime's cranky nephew. The experience of watching this film is completely exhilarating, and the parts you laughed at during the last viewing become the most horrifying parts the next time and vice versa. Sans Soliel is a film with more ideas than I can comprehend. It is a film that affects me very deeply and one that changes the way I perceive just about everything. I think about Sans Soliel at least once a week and when I start I can't stop. Both of these films have a wealth of cinematic moments and images and ideas that continually reverberate in my mind.

and I wrote a book about it. So, you know, They All Laughed is okay I guess

If you don't mind, where could I find your book?