The 1965 Mini-List

[therewillbeblus]

It's also available on DVD, as part of the film Six in Paris

Yeah I know, I should've mentioned that and probably would have if anyone could order, receive, and watch the DVD within the timetable left in the project. The ability to google and watch it in a quarter of an hour might get more views in on time, which was the purpose of plugging that resource

[knives]

The whole film is also on hoopla.

[domino harvey]

Jumping ahead again to get on folks’ radars while there is still time: I’m glad swo qualified La bugiarda for me, because this gender-reversed take on Boeing Boeing with Catherine Spaak’s “flight attendant” carrying on simultaneous romantic relationships is a screwball masterpiece, with an invigoratingly unexpected back half that feels both like a throwback AND progressive. Spaak’s role is daringly unapologetic, even as her behaviors become increasingly complicated solely for the purpose of complicating the situation (this film gives us one of THE great movie-going scenes) and it’s a testament to Spaak’s effervescence that she carries the film through these crueler moments. Will join Walkower near the top of my list in a refreshing reminder of why I cast the net wide, even when the rewards are often meager for so long in-between hauls like this

[ryannichols7]

I have a shorter list this year - I guess I feel fairly caught up with the year overall but there's still been some winners (and a loser)

the Knack (Lester): yet again I chose Lester to kick off the month, as something seemed weird about choosing Darling (which I still haven't watched yet, but swear I'm excited for). the choice didn't disappoint - this is somehow even more energetic, off the wall, and flat out insane than A Hard Day's Night was, and I'm told Help! goes even further. I certainly join the group who question how empty the film can be, but honestly its too much fun to even bother asking.

Man is Not a Bird (Makavejev): I don't know why I never watched this before, I love the Broadcast song named after it and I've never seen a film from Serbia (or any former Yugoslavian nation) before this. I admit that I couldn't get into (and didn't really care for) the central romance/plot of the film. there's been a lot of "men who have no idea how to deal with women" stories (see above) and I do enjoy them usually but I was far more compelled with getting to see 1965 in Yugoslavia. I'm a total sucker for the documentary realism type stuff like this, and its definitely something to see the industrial effect on the country at the time (much in the vein of Red Desert or Pitfall). I enjoy Makavejev's eye for unique visuals and avant garde flair, and I'm going to watch his other two sixties movies and then pull out before the 1970s.

the Coward (Ray): I'm starting to really believe this man made no minor works - this 68 minute film, tucked away as a supplement on The Big City (though deserved a spine number with The Holy Man, which its usually paired with) is well worth your time. Soumitra Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee are here again, this time taking on very different roles again and putting their acting to the real test, all exquisitely framed by Ray in his tight Academy compositions. a brilliant portrait of masculinity, lost love, the failures of our life and how we change based on them, and of course practicality and happiness in marriage. 68 minutes and it's all completely nailed - you don't even have to go further. what a gut punch of an ending too, but its more like a cool slap - I don't think overly devastating.

the Collector (Wyler): could not have worked for me less - I have resigned myself to dustybooks that these kinds of films just really aren't for me. I found both leads poorly acted, the dialogue ludicrous ("it looks like you've collected me"), and the score horribly off pace. it didn't have the atmosphere The Innocents had to make up for its shortcomings, which this film obviously has far more of for me. but hey, I seem to be in the minority, can't win em all..but I do have to wonder now if I'm going to enjoy Peeping Tom.

90 in the Shade (Weiss): watched the English version and loved it so much I watched the Czech one too. shouldn't be a shock - I've learned the most about the Czechoslovak and British New Waves (and prefer both to the one from a country in between the two) this project and seeing them molded together here was awesome. got a huge kick out of Rudolf Hrušínský (who I of course know from The Cremator) being here alone, but he brings such a great performance here too. he brings so much more nuance here and after a troubled film like the one I know him from, it's really interesting to see him play the character being troubled, which he naturally excels at. but this is Anne Heywood's show - what a performance. great rescue by Indicator and I'm gonna have to go through the extras and hear MichaelB's commentary too. the whole movie is really about disconnect and communication, and would honestly make a great double feature with...

A Blonde in Love (Forman): a revisit but honestly it registered so much more with me this time. since coming back to the board in mid 2021 and taking on this project, the Czechoslovak New Wave has been an incredible treasure trove for me. many new favorite films, and deeper appreciation for directors who I didn't know everything about. I enjoyed both Black Peter and A Blonde in Love my first gothrough, the former being one of my first two Second Run titles (along with Intimate Lighting), and considered them male/female companion pieces. Peter is great, but you can totally tell its a director's debut and kinda primitive in its awkwardness. obviously intentional, the uncertainty isn't nearly as rewarding as what came after - but still incredible stuff all around, and nice to see Forman planting the seeds of his career. revisiting Blonde last night I was blown away and think I grossly undervoted the film - it's a full on masterpiece in my eyes, and Forman has total control of his directorial voice already. I think a big reason the film speaks to me is just how tonally perfect it is - it’s absolutely hilarious without going too ridiculous, awkward without hinging on cringing, melancholic without being miserable, and ends on just the right mix of happy and sad. incredible performances by the newcomer cast to bring out a certainly glorious premise. we have seen the "sheltered young women meet men" story so many times throughout history, but I honestly think this is the best take on such a story. it doesn't rely on virginity but rather communicative uncertainty in order to make its story compelling, and at times earth shattering. I really really love this film, and I love the opening "Hooligan" song even more - which is now in your head if you've seen the movie!!!

A few not to be missed:

Long Live the Republic (Karel Kachyňa)
There was a clip from this film included in the CzechMate documentary that prompted me to immediately seek it out. Anyone who's enjoyed Second Run's Kachyňa releases should run not walk to this visually arresting children-in-war film which occasionally veers into the realm of fantasy, as a respite for the children I think.

A Spring for the Thirsty (Yuri Ilyenko)
I very much lucked out several years ago and scored a copy of this director's films from the Dovzhenko Centre in Ukraine, but unfortunately they're still otherwise unavailable. For the uninitiated, Ilyenko was the cinematographer for Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and he certainly deserves to be at the front of the line of some discerning label's priority list along with Deville, Ruiz, and the like (plus, he has a much more manageable body of work). This was his already fully-formed debut feature. Most any of this would fit seamlessly into the Parajanov film, but for the fact that it was shot in gorgeous black & white.

I'd love to check out these. especially the Kachyňa which I was going to start 1966 with (for Coach to Vienna)

on the freeform roundup side of things - Tokyo Olympiad is not only my #1 for the year but also the entire decade, I plan to show it to my girlfriend and then finally write at length about it. it was a new-to-me film in October of last year and its been etched into my mind ever since. likewise, new to me Juliet of the Spirits dukes it out for my favorite Fellini film with La Dolce Vita, both are totally perfect but there is something to be said about the further surrealness and cinematic funhouse element that comes with Juliet. not to mention Giulietta Masina, who is incredible as always. I hope Intimate Lighting and Before Tonight is Over hit me even harder on rewatch like A Blonde in Love did. I haven't seen Repulsion in a good seven years and will probably go back to it too. anything else? vote for A Charlie Brown Christmas

PS: why must Arrow not release A Fugitive From the Past until a week after this poll closes? Indicator and Second Run have been getting discs in before their respective months come up!

[therewillbeblus]

Nice post, Ryan- Weiss' film has gotten little discussion or public love here, but I'm glad it may not be orphaned. I revisited it recently for the 60s project, and it's still great, if not quite the All-Timer I thought it was the first time. My initial thoughts:

A nice mix of English kitchen sink drama and Czech New Wave, with the latter’s style perfectly woven through the narrative, deliberately uneven in amplification based on our heroine’s emotional state. There is a depth to the relationship between the camera and Anne Heywood that can feel frighteningly claustrophobic one moment and beautifully intimate the next, depending on the mood of the scene, and made me feel more uncomfortable and yet cathartically close to, even blended with, her for most of the runtime. When this wasn’t happening, the curious character of the inspector was treated with a tender lens that while ambiguous somehow humanized him just as much as her. The strangeness here is that the camera is often clearly objective and yet the subjective involvement is piercing as the restraint serves an equally emotional purpose. There is a tragic disconnect present throughout this film, between people, within oneself, exemplified by struggles at communication and often literal objects blocking the camera’s ability to capture the action and achieve subjective alignment.

I liked The Collector far more than you on a recent revisit, though not so much on my first watch years ago. It's a bit dated, but Samantha Eggar is playing a less fleshed-out or cathartic version of Mary Elizabeth Winstead's intelligent heroine in 10 Cloverfield Lane. I can see how the film's disengagement from surrogate involvement with her can alienate (and risk boring) audiences, since this kind of rush really works outside of an objective portrait. Still, I thought Wyler balanced the diagnostic study of Stamp well with Eggar's acute stress response translated into tactical dynamic-shifting. It's not a list-maker, but well-worth seeing again someday with adjusted expectations. I think Stamp gets flack for his role when he's supposed to be antisocial, and plays into a character who seems bored because he had a lack of feelings well, without appearing bored himself with the role.

[therewillbeblus]

Jumping ahead again to get on folks’ radars while there is still time: I’m glad swo qualified La bugiarda for me, because this gender-reversed take on Boeing Boeing with Catherine Spaak’s “flight attendant” carrying on simultaneous romantic relationships is a screwball masterpiece, with an invigoratingly unexpected back half that feels both like a throwback AND progressive. Spaak’s role is daringly unapologetic, even as her behaviors become increasingly complicated solely for the purpose of complicating the situation (this film gives us one of THE great movie-going scenes) and it’s a testament to Spaak’s effervescence that she carries the film through these crueler moments.

Thanks for putting this joyous romp on my radar. Like the best sex comedies, this is social humor at its ceiling- and not just manipulations and misunderstandings, but as absurdist antisocial discord in over/under-reactions like the confessional scene, which has the audacity to bleed the extremes of Spaak and the priest's respective dispositions until neither has any more steam left. In general, the script isn't afraid to go for broke at every single intersection, a heartening change of pace for 60s Italian comedy which typically runs dry for being either safely tempered or overly interested in some idea that doesn't seem like the ripest fruit to juice. Anyways, I'm not sure how much credit is owed to Diego Fabbri's source play or Marcello Fondato's adaptation, but the zippy direction and bold performances sell it strong, especially during the script's dips that abstain from hysterical interplay (notably in the last act once bygones are bygones and everyone's cohabitating, though this petering-out seems designed to mirror exhaustion, since the adrenaline pumping through these characters' panic cues can finally stall). Walkower was a cool exercise in technique that made an impression and will land somewhere on my list, but this will make a serious mark. It's right up there with Sex and the Single Girl as one of the best sex comedies of the 60s, only liberated from the specifically-situated sexual politics that film demands deeper analysis of, and freedom is a part of the in-joke both broadly and specifically for this film anyways- so it works reflexively that way as well!

[therewillbeblus]

King Rat will probably be a top ten for me.

Thanks for saying so in time for me to get this from my library before submissions. This may be the best wartime prison camp movie I've ever seen, stripped-down Hobbes vs Locke philosophies perversely presented in raw form without lending credence to either usurping the other, because that would necessitate transcending the survivalist exhaustion these soldiers have been conditioned to by their context. Forbes instead respects his characters and their predicaments, and balances several ambitions with deftness and restraint. He paints a fair and brutal portrait of the immature stages of socially-constructed systems, draws rich characterizations that develop without a clear or direct narrative structure, and concocts his pathway of delivering information around a series of wild and entertaining episodes that weave in and out, existing on their own merits of diversity that funnel into homogenous tangible sensations to indicate its umbrellaed theme. This last piece of irregularity was so effectively implemented that at times I felt Forbes was intentionally taking a surrealistic approach to temporal nonlinearity, as some running plots seemed out of order which only heightened the fever dream of Sisyphean existence we're being acclimated to for two-plus hours (and as long as this film is, the length is necessary to drench us in the atmosphere to the point where we're vicariously depleted right along with the principals in the camp).

Even in the film's last act, when it postures at taking an ethical stance, Forbes (and presumably Clavell's source) subvert their own established expectations. If anyone thinks Forbes wants us to take a particular 'side' here, notice how Courtney's character is cheekily left to the sidelines and elided from the narrative's most crucial moments only to show up as a post-incident finger-wagger. Or take Fox's final lines to Courtney, when he balks at the latter's moralism only to issue a formulation on what Segal provided Courtney that's equally obtuse if we look at it objectively. Each man is seeing in emotional tunnel vision, and neither is right nor wrong. What does right and wrong even matter when the circumstances you're in necessitate self-preservation? And -what I think Forbes and Clavell are really getting at with their coy ending of combative perspectives- when we are finally freed from that reptilian state, what do right and wrong matter when the situation demands emotional -rather than logical- release?

[swo17]

VOTE HERE UNTIL SEPTEMBER 18

As a reminder, there are only three more days to vote!

[DarkImbecile]

"It's a free prison..."

King Rat is an absolutely first-rate POW film, just as grimly cynical and well-constructed as others have indicated, and the setting is so well-realized that you almost feel the tropical humidity prompting the perpetual beads of sweat on every actor's face. But what really won me over to Bryan Forbes' script was experiencing it as a withering critique of capitalism — possibly an unintended reading, at least on the part of source novelist James Clavell, who I believe was a devotee of unbridled, Atlas Shrugged-style free enterprise.

While the film's treatment of the characters and their choices is very much evenhanded and even generous in the way twbb describes, Forbes' depiction of the system in which they are forced to live is pointedly critical in a way I have a hard time believing wasn't intentional. Even the most 'successful' prisoners — exemplified by the very good George Segal's Corporal King — are endlessly hustling for basic comforts and protections in a system of enforced artificial scarcity and violent repression, and those on the losing end of their scams and ploys are not the actual overseers of the camp but their fellow malnourished prisoners. Even the scam involving the titular rats — presented as enlisted men getting one over on the officers — is still targeting people who should be their compatriots, were those officers not also cheating their countrymen out of food even as they literally starve to death all around them. The only thing that might actually change their circumstances is solidarity, but instead they eat each other to scratch out a life as the least miserable prisoner.

Tom Courtenay's Grey is a fascinating character — the story presents him as an irritant, an arrogant hall monitor who just doesn't get it, but he's also one of the only men who seems bothered that what King and his accomplices and enablers are doing by stealing and selling food is literally killing other men. And yet he too becomes complicit because he's unwilling to defy the absurd military hierarchy within the camp to bring attention to what he correctly recognizes is a gross injustice; James Fox's Marlowe nonsensically accuses Gray of surviving on his hatred for King, when he himself literally survives intact only because King uses money acquired at least partially from stealing from other prisoners to buy medicine that less connected sick and dying men can't access.

That gangrene sequence also hints at a more emotional, potentially romantic connection between Marlowe and King that I also quite enjoyed as subtext — the way Segal grips Fox's head when he hears the latter might lose his arm is by far the most intimate moment he shares with any other person in the whole film. There's a lot happening on multiple levels in King Rat, and I can't believe it doesn't have more recognition as a hidden gem than it does.

I'll express more gratitude to knives for bringing this to our attention: from orphan to likely final list finisher in two short weeks! This is the only Forbes film I've seen outside of The Stepford Wives long ago, but I'll be checking out his other '60s work as we go along; any other secret top-five-of-the-year candidates hidden in his filmography that anyone can highlight?

[swo17]

Maybe not top-5-of-the-year for me, but these are all strong films:

Whistle Down the Wind (my orphan during the 1961 list )
The L-Shaped Room
Séance on a Wet Afternoon
The Whisperers

Two of his other '60s films have good editions from Indicator and Signal One, though I didn't care for those as much

[therewillbeblus]

The L-Shaped Room
Séance on a Wet Afternoon
The Whisperers

These would be my recs as well. I'd start with Séance as most in-line with King Rat's willing approach to engage with characters' moral complexity under a humanistic umbrella of unconditional interest

[ryannichols7]

Swo, really dumb question (I'm thrown off by the date change) - this closes late night tonight or late night tomorrow?

[swo17]

It's always going to be end of the weekend/end of the day Sunday, with results compiled early Monday

[ryannichols7]

beautiful, the best model. thank you!!! going to fit in a last few - Long Live the Republic being one

[domino harvey]

I submitted my list yesterday, which means about half of my viewing list remains unseen by deadline… which is actually pretty good for me! Here are the last six I got to before submitting:

Intimní osvětlení / Intimate Lighting (Ivan Passer)
I find the Czech New Wave one of the least interesting of the various New Wave movements, and a small scale comedy like this goes a long way towards explaining why (even though I marginally enjoyed this one): this is too thinly sketched, too slight to resonate, and too inconsequential. There’s not enough here, no matter how many times I gave the film the equivalent of a shake of an upturned glass.

Journal d'une femme en blanc (Claude Autant-Lara)
A young female gynecologist faces the consequences of her insecurities as a young woman who she earlier declined to direct to birth control information later arrives at her hospital suffering from the after-effects of a hotel room abortion. I have no earthly idea what Godard could possibly have seen in this to rank it among his ten best films of the year (though at one point the doctors talk about how birth control is ushering in a “nouvelle vague” in medicine), as it is quite an awkward, over-lit, mainstream “serious” film with conflicted messaging via offering a proto-feminist stance in a misogynistic narrative. This film was apparently so commercially successful that Autant-Lara directed a sequel the following year. And Godard didn’t submit a list for 1966 so for all I know he loved that one too!

La Métamorphose des cloportes (Pierre Granier-Deferre)
Odd revenge comedy with Lino Ventura hunting down his former crew after they let him rot in jail for a heist they all participated in. The comedy is sometimes broad (Charles Aznavour dresses in quasi-drag as a guru at one point, and another member of the crew is literally executed via riding a caterpillar amusement park ride to death) but never funny, and I didn’t find the serious elements too compelling either. I did learn a new obscure French word though (“cloportes” are wood lice), so I guess there’s that.

La 317ème section (Pierre Schoendoerffer)
An uncompromising day in the life portrait of a disintegrating French-Laotian platoon in the final days of the Indochina war, this gritty war film gives us many scenes, situations, and sequences that anticipate countless Vietnam pics soon to come. Strong on believable, lived-in details, and a general sense of hopelessness of being caught on a conveyor belt headed straight to the abattoir. Recommended.

Les copains (Yves Robert)
As someone who watches more obscure French films than almost anyone else alive, I do occasionally recognize that some films are just not going to resonate for me as an American, and I suspect a large portion of this film is just targeting an audience I can never fully belong to. A ragtag group of adult pals host a special vacation getaway in which they all compete with and against each other to see who can create the most chaos. The targets of these attacks seem geographically region-specific in a way that went well over my head, but I’m not sure what’s there beneath them is all that amusing either way. There is, however, one actually funny sequence, and it naturally belongs to Philippe Noiret’s turn at bat to create chaos: Posing as a visitor from the Vatican, Noiret gives a sermon in which he twists biblical verses into a mandate for people to fuck with carnal abandon, culminating in the entire congregation chasing each other around like a Benny Hill skit. Some of Noiret’s lines are incredible (“Men, just like Moses, you have a hard staff that summons wetness”), but that comic energy is oddly vacant from the other allegedly amusing antics here. [P]

Nattmara (Arne Mattsson)
A hitman concocts an elaborate way to kill his target, only to bungle it and kill the wrong woman. The rest of the film follows the intended target being gaslit and terrorized by both the hitman and her husband, who ordered the hit. This is a frequently stylish film that is perhaps a bit too silly for its own good and definitely about twenty minutes too long, but I enjoyed Ulla Jacobsson’s performance as the deteriorating woman, and the film has a cheeky final shot that lives somewhere between Psycho and the Great Train Robbery.

[alacal2]

Have to agree with you about Intimate Lighting. I felt a little let down.

Maybe we shouldn't have a 1966 List in memory of Godard.

[Rayon Vert]

Him topping the list in 66 like he'll do in 65 would be a better honor.

[therewillbeblus]

Considering Pierrot le fou and Masculin Féminin are in permanent competition for my all-time favorite film, hopefully that happens, especially since the ‘66 has the edge right now

[Rayon Vert]

Considering Pierrot le fou and Masculin Féminin are in permanent competition for my all-time favorite film, hopefully that happens, especially since the ‘66 has the edge right now

Those are my favorite two JLGs as well. (You have good taste. ) But I've got a handful of films ahead of MF in '66. That's the strongest year of the decade for me going by the number of highest-ranking favorites.

[knives]

Oh, I thought Alphaville was the choice of the year.

[swo17]

If nothing else, it's #1 on the alphabetical list!

[therewillbeblus]

Considering Pierrot le fou and Masculin Féminin are in permanent competition for my all-time favorite film, hopefully that happens, especially since the ‘66 has the edge right now

Those are my favorite two JLGs as well. (You have good taste. ) But I've got a handful of films ahead of MF in '66. That's the strongest year of the decade for me going by the number of highest-ranking favorites.

Oh for a second there I thought you wanted Godard to top the '66 list..

[Rayon Vert]

I'd still like it, it just won't be because of me!

[Rayon Vert]

I don't know if Godard ever posted his top ten for 66, but I'd venture a guess that he wouldn't disagree with my first pick, as evidenced here.

c’est un film que devraient aller voir les gens qui vont voir d’habitude les films de Chaplin ou les films de Tati, les gens qui vont une fois par an au cinéma (…) ; ce film c’est le monde, en 1h30 on voit le monde depuis l’enfance jusqu’à la mort, avec tout. Je trouve ça absolument merveilleux

[domino harvey]

I mean, he married its star, I don't think there was any doubt he loved the film!