The Lists Project

[zedz]

As a respectable time has now passed, can I ask if anyone voted for Gus Visser and his Singing Duck?

[denti alligator]

As a respectable time has now passed, can I ask if anyone voted for Gus Visser and his Singing Duck?

No. Why do you ask?

[zedz]

As a respectable time has now passed, can I ask if anyone voted for Gus Visser and his Singing Duck?

No. Why do you ask?

I thought he might be a sentimental favourite. I guess it was too tough choosing between him and the Chinese banjo guy.

[zedz]

Yes sir, that's mAAH! baby.

If a few of us had colluded in the voting, we could have given Gus and his unhappy friend their best shot at immortality, sitting way up there among the Murnaus. Maybe next time.

[HerrSchreck]

Denti some additions to the DVD list:

the General - the superb MK2 (also available Region 4, AV Channel, both PAL)...

Dave didnt you post some superstunning caps from AV Channel on GENERAL which was far superior to the MK2 or is it just my memory.. cant remember the thread you posted it in. Or is it just a port of the MK2 with some fladoodling w contrast etc? Id miss the tinting on the Kino but I have been looking to upgrade some of my older classics here & there where its really compelling via fab releases (like KWAIDAN, FAUST, MABUSE, LAST LAUGH).

Viz GENERAL-- are these releases from newly discovered elements or are these just more modern telecine on the same preservation materials. You can see theprint used in the Kino/Shepard GENERAL is excellent, and they basically ran the thing thru telecine back then in a way which showed precisely what was on the print (I mean black levels & edges unenhanced; I know there is some cropping in the gate on those releases OAR) straight up with none of the modern day contrast boosting a la Criterion artificially pitch black levels. I could easily see them getting the results on these new discs w the deep rich blacks by going full progressive (I think the Kino is 5 to 1 interlacing, not a bad rate considering the very old age of the transfers before the age of progressive home units being standard eq) on that Shepard nitrate. The potential is there. But do you know the source on these editions?

By the way if anyone is interested in seeing Roland Wests hallucinatory ALIBI (I had it on my list, a SUPER bizarre early talkie from 29) in the only edition it will probably ever be available in for temporarily VERY cheap (along with a whole bunch of the silents on mine and many other peoples lists, plus presently unavailable-on-dvd masterpieces like Dassin's BRUTE FORCE in a rock solid transder) check out Kino's VHS clearance. Not everything, but quite a bit of stuff on sale for 4.99 a pop. Theres some real obscure stuff not available anywhere on dvd--not even Kino-- like Ince's CIVILIZATION (the flick what made Ozu wanna be a filmmaker), stuff like TOL'ABLE DAVID, Griffith's first feature (also Gish debuts) JUDITH OF BETHULA, obscure silents like TURKSUB, SALT FOR SVANETIA, avant head trips like ON TOP OF THE WHALE, Morris Engels follow up to THE LITTLE FUGITIVE called LOVERS & LOLLIPOPS. None of this stuff is on dvd (also Griffiths ISNT LIFE WONDERFUL, another film unlikely to make dvd, even viz Kino).

You gotta jump though because this shit is flying out the door-- I ordered some stuff on friday & they said they're overwhelmed. Obviously clearing stock from their huge catalog.

[zedz]

The 1930s List

Your lists are due by the end of the month (Saturday 30 September). Denti is snowed under and has arm-twisted me to compile the lists this time around.

Rules remain the same as before. Off the top of my head:
* Any film, long or short, sound or silent, released between Jan 1 1930 and December 31 1939 is eligible.
* IMDB date is the arbiter of release date (even if they're wrong).
* Every list must consist of no more and no less than 50 films, ranked in order. If you haven't seen 50 films from the 30s, do not submit a list!
* Films are ranked according to your personal preference, not received notions of 'importance' or 'popularity'. (Thus you have to have actually seen every film on your list)
* Lists need to be PMed to me by midnight 30 September (local midnight will do - I'm a day ahead of some of you anyway).

Any problematic cases should be raised in this thread before submitting your list so we can get consensus agreement on them.

I'll start the ball rolling by raising the spectre of Que Viva Mexico! My first instinct is that this film can't really be voted for in the 30s list as it doesn't exist in a form completed in the 1930s. (But you're welcome to vote for Thunder Over Mexico or Death Day, if so inclined, and I may well put Time in the Sun on my 40s list). Unfortunately, IMDB fudge the issue by having two listings for Alexandrov's much later reconstruction, one dated 1932, the other with the correct date of 1979. Any preferences for allowing / excluding it? Or redefining what a vote for QVM counts as (e.g. should we be able to vote for an unrealized project based on how good we think it would have been - a pretty slippery slope, I'd suggest)?

[Brian Oblivious]

Thanks for taking on this project, zedz!

I hate to be obnoxiously anti-democratic, but I would like to encourage anyone who has not seen at least 100 films (including shorts) from the 1930s to abstain from voting in this project.

The Que Viva Mexico issue is indeed problematic. If I'm not mistaken, I refrained from picking it last time around in either my 30s or my 70s lists, at least in part because it doesn't seem to belong to either decade.

My instinct is to say, save it for the 70s (will we remember?), but then I look at the (pretty much necessary) "IMDB is arbiter, even when wrong" rule and start to reconsider. But then I notiece that the 1979 imdb listing is the one with all the activity on it, while the 1932 listing is still "awaiting five votes" and I start to fall back to my original position again. As long as its clear before the 30th, I'm fine with whatever is decided. But I think I cast my vote for holding it until the 1970s list.

Another problematic case is Oskar Fischinger's Alegretto. The imdb calls it a 1936 film, but I don't think anyone's likely to have seen anything but the version he re-edited in 1943, that is available on the Center For Visual Music DVD released earlier this year.

[GringoTex]

I hate to be obnoxiously anti-democratic, but I would like to encourage anyone who has not seen at least 100 films (including shorts) from the 1930s to abstain from voting in this project.

Actually, I'm going to ask for anybody who hasn't seen at least 250 films from the 1930s to abstain. That's about how many 30s films I've seen. Of all the people's opinion I respect on this forum, I respect mine the least, so the 250 number appears to me a logical cut-off.

[HerrSchreck]

Which leads me to to OCTOBER and why this film was allowed to score on the 20's list? That's another Grigory reconstruction from Sergei's editorial schematic, as well as his memory of "what" the film "was" back in 27-8. The fact is that the committee thought Eisenstein's hyperintellectual excercise was a flat out confusing piece of shit signalling Eisensteins greater concern with his Awe-Inspiring-International-Regard (which Stalin had no problem with so long as he could grasp what the fuck was going on) than making a pleasing film about the revolution. At the films release Trotsky was no longer a welcome part of the fish barrell, so the scenes recounting his involvement in the Revo had to be excised (and SE preferred this original cut)... upon screening of this modified version to the party, all found the film so confusing that it was drained of huge sequences and shown around the world in butchered form called TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD. And still the world consensus was-- impressive, but not entertainment.

At last in 1967 folks decided that it was time to say Eisenstien was wronged, and that it was time to do history justice-- whereby Alexandrov was prompted to 'reconstruct' the film from "notes" and "memory"... forty years later... saying nothing about what remained laying around from the original 1927 nitrate butcher shop what ruined SE's original film. The idea that what we all watch nowadays is what Eisenstein assembled in '27, or even 75% accurate, is highly dubious.

[HerrSchreck]

I was going to ask for a list of all of Henri's basic human qualities, so we can all broadly apply them & use these for Forum Guidelines.

Aw pish posh -- yeah im inna cranky fucking mood tonite but furchrissakes!

I'm going to ask for anybody who hasn't seen at least 250 films from the 1930s to abstain. That's about how many 30s films I've seen.

Let the kids play too. Coming on with arbitrary numbers up inna hundreds is simply relative... someone can always come on who's seen double or triple what I or Henri or Dave has seen and stomp us down into the carpet saying the same shit. We have no control over this anyhow and they're gonna lie based on what they heard about really really great flicks they secretly never saw. I have my doubts some of the characters around here saw some of the silents they say they did.

Just don't enter the fucking list if you haven't seen more than 51 films.

[godardslave]

Apart from anything else, who actually keeps track in their head of how many films they have seen from a particular decade?

Seems somewhat Absurd.

[zedz]

Actually, I'm going to ask for anybody who hasn't seen at least 250 films from the 1930s to abstain. That's about how many 30s films I've seen. Of all the people's opinion I respect on this forum, I respect mine the least, so the 250 number appears to me a logical cut-off.

I admire the solipsism of your logic - or vice versa - but I'm happy to take any list of fifty, however many more the compiler has seen (but I hope they feel really sheepish about submiting one if they've only seen 51). My main concern was the chance that, as per last time, I'd get "I've only seen 21 films from the 30s, can I just vote for them?" requests.

Everyone's got a month's notice, and there's lots of great material out there, so there's time for immersion. I've just calculated that I've got more than a dozen unseen contenders waiting in the wings, and dozens more that I really ought to revisit.

In terms of lobbying for favourites, I would urge anybody who seriously wants to get a grasp on the best films of the decade and hasn't seen the films on this disc to track it down!

[yoshimori]

For me, any single still from Bezhin Meadow is better than any other entire extant movie from the 30s!

I'm going to count this and Eisenstein's unfinished Mexico project as 1930s films. Judges are welcomed to overrule or disqualify, but I'd never put an Eisenstein movie in my 70s list.

[scotty]

So as part of my official pro-250 minimum snotiness I want to encourage every interesting new Euro poster whose turned up on these pages in the last couple of months to contribute:

Knappen
La Cle de Ciel
Scharphedin

I'm sure there's a touch of playfulness here, but why not just start a new thread for those forum members whose lists would allow them past your personal velvet rope? It would only be open by PM invitation. You could have all kinds of qualifications, from 250 films watched to proper geographical distribution and so on so that in the end, the Super Special Film Club's final list will exactly mirror your own except for a few choice items that "you've always wanted to see." It might be more satisfying than soliciting the lists of "interesting" contributors whose taste you respect via PM after the polling is over.

Are you really worried that Gone With the Wind is going to crack the Top Ten? The only 1930s film to crack the critics' S&S top ten was Rules of the Game. Problems with that? I just saw La Chienne and liked it a lot, but it isn't going to bother me if more people have seen Rules and rank it higher. Hell, I'll probably rank it real high. So what? What is the real concern here? The rules of this game were laid down a while ago. You could always simply turn the list upside down to shake out the overblown reputations.

[Steven H]

This is going to be a really hard decade for me. With films from France (Gremillon will rank, there are enough of us to put him pretty high I think), US (why isn't Sylvia Scarlett available in R1 yet?), and especially Japan (last year's NYFF retrospective had some gems) vying for spots.

I wonder how Chinese films from the 30s will fare? If anyone is looking for some from this era and country, there's a useful thread concerning the availability of them on DVD. Regarding Japan, the Panorama Ozu DVDs from this decade are definitely in need of viewing, as is the MoC disc of Yamanaka Sadao's Humanity and Paper Balloons (along with the cheap eBay bootleg of The Million Ryo Pot, as funny and brilliant as they come). At least some of Mizoguchi's early work should be familiar, but other masters from this country remain unrepresented (especially Shimizu, whose Arigato-san, at least, should make the list.)

[Scharphedin2]

Just as there are bound to be forum members posting that have seen "only" a hundred '30s films, and certainly some that have seen many more than 250, I think it is also important to remember that there are many forum members, who will look at these lists from the vantage point of having not even seen 50. This/these lists can become truly valuable points of departure for exploring the decade of '30s film for anyone, regardless of prior viewing experience. If coming to the films of the '30 as a neophyte, there is something to be said for visiting the films habitually included in the canon; for the very cine-literary forum members, the specilized lists based on decades of film viewing experience will naturally be of greater value. So, why not have our cake and eat it too?

Once the final list have been compiled, I would personally really appreciate that a separate thread be created, where the individual top 50s be posted with annotations as to DVD availability (as was done for the silents -- I have personally purchased a whole shedful of films based on that list, which I am looking forward to go through over the next several years), and preferably even a brief comment or two from the authors of the lists as to what makes each of the specific films on their lists valuable in his/her opinion.

There will be forum members who will qualify their selections based on academic/historical aspects of the films, others will qualify his/her selections based on the joy and entertainment a given title has provided, and, others still will have even more personal reasons for valuing a given film. Any one of the above "types" of lists has its value, as I see it. In any event, at this point, much more than the ranking of titles, it is the brief personal endorsements that truly encourage me to see a film.

The above approach will make room for everyone (meeting the 50 film criteria) to participate, while still not watering out the many gems that are left out off the final top 50 list due to the chorus of many voices.

[zedz]

Once the final list have been compiled, I would personally really appreciate that a separate thread be created, where the individual top 50s be posted with annotations as to DVD availability (as was done for the silents -- I have personally purchased a whole shedful of films based on that list, which I am looking forward to go through over the next several years), and preferably even a brief comment or two from the authors of the lists as to what makes each of the specific films on their lists valuable in his/her opinion.

As per previous iterations, I'll post a list of also-rans (any films that attract 2 or more votes) - Generally, I find this list much more interesting than the official Top 100. I don't think I'm knowledgeable (or mad) enough to volunteer for the annotated 'best-available-editions' version of the list, but would gladly invite any public-spirited masochist to undertake that.

Plus, after the main event, everyone is encouraged to Defend Their Darlings in the dedicated thread. As far as I'm concerned, this is where the real action is each time we do one of these lists. Actually, considering that the Darlings thread is the evil twin of this one, should it also be made a sticky?

I don't know if we've come to a consensus on Que Viva Mexico! Should we allow people to vote for this as an entity (assuming that they're referencing the Alexandrov version, the rushes and whatever other fragments they've seen) and leave it ambiguous as to what is signified in each individual case?

I do think it's a different situation than October, however, where there was a finished version by Eisenstein and we have a later approximation of it (however unreliable or partial). Same with Bezhin Meadow, where what survives is radically different from the original version, but still the best approximation available. There are lots of instances where the surviving versions of a film are not the original director's cut, and they're perfectly eligible - though I think they can only realistically be judged on their intrinsic merits (hence I personally won't go for Bezhin Meadow, even though it looks like it might once have been a great film). The difference with QVM is the non-existence of any completed Eisenstein version: all we have is conjecture. It's sort of the same question as asking where Smile ranks among the greatest albums of the 1960s.

[HerrSchreck]

I actually, as I'd mentioned on the Silents list, support the idea of voting for Bezhin or Oktober or MEXico; in the case of Stroeheim, to allow one to regard these films, particularly GREED, as lukewarm as the existing cut excises all the tour de force, shadowy, expressionistic scenes of degenerate nutcases, alcholics & sadsacks, is to allow the studios an unwarranted victory. Although it's true we do not have those scenes in hand, one can view thru reconstruction via stills, the absolute magnificence of von's work in this film, which may have surpassed absolutely everybody from the silent era if we could see them today. Melding the grand cinematic control of huge-scale composition of Lang's 5 & 6 hour epics, with the visual poetry of Murnau, and the avant garde topical decadence of French Impressionism and surrealism, von may genuinely have been the greatest master of the entire decade-- if we could see films such as GREED or FOOLISH WIVES in their original multipart, hyper-poetic conception.

Okay, we cannot see them as they were-- but we know what they were, how bold, beautiful, and towering wildly over peers the conception & mise en scene were. To leave such masterpieces off of our lists because we are not technically viewing proper cuts is to allow those homogenous forces attacking our finest artists the victory they so desperately wanted-- to neuter the genius and bring him to heel.

Look at how our lists influence one another. We have intelligent folks going out and quickly grabbing those works regarded as excellent; disqualifying a film due to extant versions remaining as the only cuts available, due to a corporate or political attack on it's creator, de-emphasizes the greatness of a work. It neuters von stroeheim, relegates him to the merely"good", and those forces win. If a work originates from the corresponding era, and you think it's great-- then vote for it, I say.

When BLADE RUNNER is rereleased with an actual director's edit, is that film going to be regarded as a film "made" in 2006, and be left off of 80's lists? Particularly when we know that the 80's version of the film ran completely contrary to the director's wishes?

[zedz]

If a work originates from the corresponding era, and you think it's great-- then vote for it, I say.

Definitely. I think it's futile trying to separate out later constructions / reconstructions from released- or unreleased-at-the-time versions. (At least the Bladerunner dilemma is moot in my case!)

Personally, I can only vote for the film as I've seen it. I'd be very uncomfortable voting speculatively on a version I've never (and can never see). Thus, when I voted for Queen Kelly last time (my favourite Stroheim), I wasn't voting for a hypothetical complete version. I actually really like the weird, fragmentary form in which it's come down to us (and, who knows, maybe von Stroheim's ideal version, with a more traditional structure, wouldn't have worked for me to the same degree.)

Greed, on the other hand, I'd only seen in the footage-plus-stills TCM version, which I think is a great piece of scholarship that definitively makes the case for the film's genius in its original form, but works much less successfully as a viewing experience. On the basis of this highly compromised form, Greed made my Silent Era list, but not the top 50. On similar grounds, I don't think any of the compromised forms in which I've seen QVM (with the possible exception of Time in the Sun, which is a 40s film) add up to a best-50 choice for me, even though there's plenty of evidence that a finished Eisenstein version would have featured on my list. To each their own: vote however you wish!

Another quandary I've encountered and on which I'm prepared to make an arbitrary pronouncement is Joseph Cornell. Several of the films attributed to him on the Unseen Cinema discs, and given oh-so-helpful dates like (1938-1970?), aren't listed on IMDB at all, so I'm declaring any un-IMDBed Cornells eligible according to the earliest of the Unseen Cinema dates and sticking my favourite on my list.

[Brian Oblivious]

HerrSchreck, you've almost convinced me. These are films, and they are from the 1930s. Perhaps they were not finished then, but they certainly were made then. Perhaps they were not released then, but they certainly were seen then. They retain their importance despite their enemies and if they, in however partial or compromised form, are important enough to an individual voter, why shouldn't they be voted for?

The only minor reservation I have is the fogginess of the line between voting for a film seen in a compromised state factoring in extratextual knowledge, and voting for a film never seen at all based on extratextual knowledge. To follow your lead of using examples from the silent era to avoid prejudicing an impending vote, why shouldn't I have voted for Orlac's Hands, which I've been waiting years for an opportunity to view with no success, but sometimes think of as a favorite film simply because I've imagined what it might be like so often? Or Napoleon, a film only available to me in hacked-up VHS editions I refuse to watch? I consider that situation to be nearly as tragically manipulated by "homogenous forces attacking our finest artists" (even long after their death) as what happened to Stroheim's films while he was alive. I'd have loved to have voted for the Gance as a blow against well-heeled conspiratorial cinematic forces, but didn't because I hadn't seen it.

I just realized I may taking this all a bit too seriously. Despite foggy lines, I think I'm now completely neutral on the issue.

[HerrSchreck]

To follow your lead of using examples from the silent era to avoid prejudicing an impending vote, why shouldn't I have voted for Orlac's Hands, which I've been waiting years for an opportunity to view with no success, but sometimes think of as a favorite film simply because I've imagined what it might be like so often?

Vote along those lines & zedz will leave a hatchet sticking out the top-rear of your occiput.

Absurd extrapolation. Use a comb and a brush and gel and hairspray and a wet head and a blowdryer and a mirror when you're trying to be cute.

And ORLACS HANDE is good but only just. And NAPOLEON is available on disc via Australia/R4, via a rights-loophole.

[Brian Oblivious]

Vote along those lines & zedz will leave a hatchet sticking out the top-rear of your occiput.

Don't worry I've never truly been tempted to vote for something I haven't seen in one of these things. I like what I have seen too much to resort to that.

Absurd extrapolation. Use a comb and a brush and gel and hairspray and a wet head and a blowdryer and a mirror when you're trying to be cute.

Good advice, if only I weren't completely, prematurely, bald.

After rereading my prior post I realized that the first paragraph reads like its completely coated in sarcasm. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that it was not intended in that spirit at all.

[Brian Oblivious]

Absolutely. I wasn't trying to be difficult or obstructionist, but to tease out ideas. I guess I got a little out of hand, off point, etc.

I've never had much interest in "American release dates" either (well, yes when it comes to upcoming releases, but certainly not in regard to film history). In my personal database I file everything by the year of its first public showing worldwide, if I can determine it. And I can happily go along with whatever is decided upon.

[zedz]

Brian and Schreck

lets simply use the classically academic idea of THE YEAR THE FILM WAS MADE.

It's simply absurd to relegate masterpieces that we have seen like Bezhin Meadow or whatsis to the very American idea of "american release date".

Please guys - do we agree on this?

The rule is IMDB date, which is generally original release date (or unrelease date - Bezhin Meadow is listed as 1937, for example), not American release date. Since Que Viva Mexico! has a 1932-dated entry (even though it's apparently for the same version of the film that has a separate 1979 entry!), it's eligible. Anything not on IMDB (e.g. the Cornells - one of which has already been officially voted for) include on your list and I'll bring it up in this thread if there's any doubt about it.

[GringoTex]

How did you arrive at the figure of 250?

I pulled it out of my butt.

But seriously, the long-held guideline is 50 films a decade, and any attempt to impose a minimum number of films seen requirement to participate just seems extra arbitrary.