Progress on the Rosenbaum front has been a little slow this month. Only a handful of films I was able to cross off, so it’ll be some time before I polish that one off. Of the films I watched however, I was quite impressed with Alex Cox’s Highway Patrolman and Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue. The Hopper film was certainly a downer but it makes me wonder just why he was kept from directing movies for so long. An interesting time capsule that still seems surprisingly in touch. Granted Hopper’s character might easily win worst parent of the year awards (the mother coming in a close second) but as a film of troubled youth it’s very solid.
The Cox film has that slightly surreal dark comedy vibe that makes several of his films worthwhile. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a masterpiece, but as a tale of how simple corruption can be it gets comical without ever really being a “laugh-out-loud” type of film. For fans of Walker and Repo Men this would be right up your alley. Too bad it doesn’t seem nearly as easy to find as those others.
I'm also trying to appreciate Manoel de Oliveira but that's for another blog.
Now the new project I’m unofficially working on will help explain why I’ve been watching what I’ve been watching. I’ve blogged before about The National Society of Film Critics A-List, going so far as to offer my own alternative group of 100. Now perhaps I’m discrediting my own selection but after looking over the original book I realized that me and my girlfriend have watched a whole hell of a lot of them. So I started thinking, wouldn’t it be something if we watched ALL of them? We’re a long way away, and it frankly doesn’t help that she likes to fall asleep during every single movie, but we are making progress.
Considering I first found the book in late 2001-early 2002, it’s been nearly a decade or more since I’ve seen some of these films. Many of the films I only remember segments of, forgetting large chunks of plot and in some cases it feels like a whole new movie to me. Just this past month we watched L’atalante, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Nosferatu, Chinatown, The Seventh Seal, The Thief of Bagdad, Unforgiven, Written on the Wind, 42nd Street, The Passion of Joan of Arc, La Strada, Ugetsu, and Pandora’s Box. I’ll post on each of these now:
L’atalante (1934)
I finally get it! Wow after a decade and three viewings I finally seem to understand just why every damn critic whoever lived loves Jean Vigo and this film in particular. I was also amazed that Kate happened to enjoy the film, but I think the absurd abundance of cats had a whole hell of a lot to do with that. There is a just slightly off kilter almost surreal quality to everything in the film. Nothing seems to be grounded in reality, from the random clutter Jules has in his cabin, to the cats that have overrun the ship, to the famous “love scene”, everything has a dream like edge to it. There is also a humorous undertone to everything, again not a comedy in any direct sense, but nothing should be taken too seriously here.
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978)
The A-Lists’s lone Australian film was the bane of my existence for years. This was the last film on the list I was able to see, and it wasn’t until I found it had been released on DVD that I purchased it and finally crossed off my final film. Well after a couple years I felt it wouldn’t be a bad film to sit through again. The film is sort of an Australian version of the Nat Turner story, especially considering most of the victims are women and children. Obviously slavery is different than Jimmie’s brand of discrimination. There’s something that seems downright rewarding when awful people get what’s coming to them, but rather than make this film be about Jimmie’s retribution it paints him as a rather complicated character that isn’t entirely sympathetic throughout. We can understand the initial outburst but things quickly go off the dark end where even his closest friend can’t stand by him. Still a landmark in Australia’s “new wave” and thankfully it is no longer the hardest film on earth to find.
Nosferatu (1922)
You know what? I don’t think this is quite a masterpiece. Murnau’s unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel is incredibly slow paced and through no fault of Murnau Kino’s DVD has two horrible musical scores to choose from. We had to laugh when the villagers warn of the werewolf and there’s a cutaway to what looks like a cross between a dog and a fox with a fluffy tale, and anything but a menacing werewolf. I do think the film is fantastic and there are some wonderful touches that I love, I can’t help but be a total dork for silent movie special effects, but I think from start to finish this just lacks that little something extra.
Chinatown (1974)
The last time I watched Chinatown I proceeded to talk through the first hour of it and realized that although I knew what was going on, my friend probably didn’t. This time I kept my mouth shut, but well Kate was none too impressed, and actually went so far as to say “nothing happened”, to which I nearly pulled out my hair wondering if we spent the last two hours watching the same film. Some people love mysteries where a little detail leads to another clue, which unravels another mystery, and so on, and other people well just don’t seem to have the attention span to keep all those little details together and stick with the unraveling process. As a neo-noir mystery Chinatown is probably the greatest of all time, it is Roman Polanski’s masterpiece, and that’s saying something considering how many excellent films he’s directed. This is probably the fourth or fifth time seeing it, and well it never ceases to amaze me even if I was the only one impressed this time.
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Well clearly the time to introduce Kate to Ingmar Bergman was now. This is actually the first Bergman film I ever saw and well considering how much I love his work, I’d say it was a good first impression. After being unimpressed with Chinatown, I admit I was a little suspicious to try this film, where it is anything but “action packed”. However Bergman is a little better at getting your mind working, and with questions of faith to go along with a plague, a game of chess, and even a troupe of actors who are always the same any time or place gives the viewer more than enough to contemplate. I may lean towards Persona as his greatest film, but I’ll never turn down a chance to watch this again.
The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
A few years back I decided to watch a bunch of Douglas Fairbanks films. The first one I had ever seen was this gem. So it had been a good decade since, and it was interesting returning to it with a knowledge not just of Fairbanks other epics, but of his early comedies as well. The film is great because as I mentioned before I’m a total nerd for silent movie special effects and this was loaded with them. For the NSFC it also doubled as a representation for Raoul Walsh, although calling this a Walsh film seems something of misrepresentation. Not because the film is soft whereas Walsh’s other films were known for being masculine, no this is a misrepresentation because it is Fairbanks film. He wrote (under his real name Elton Thomas) and produced the film and is making a point of chewing as much scenery as allowed. It is his show start to finish, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Unforgiven (1992)
Almost forgot about this one. I’ve seen a lot of Clint Eastwood films. As a director though, I would say this is still his best. Granted it’s been awhile since I last watched Million Dollar Baby, but well even after 3-4 viewings Unforgiven still ranks as one of the all time greats. It serves the distinction of being one of the most recent films on the list and a rare film that also happened to win best picture. To be honest the list is fairly Western heavy (we still have to watch High Noon, Winchester ‘73, and the Wild Bunch), but I wonder if any film has ever shown the difference between the legend of the West and the “real” West better than this. What’s interesting really is that Eastwood’s William Munny is a horrible person, and he’s the first to admit it, yet somehow we can’t help but feel like he’s in the right. I can’t think of any film that breaks down the real life guilt associated with killing someone however justified.
Written on the Wind (1956)
Douglas Sirk was the master of melodrama. Written on the Wind was one of the first times I was introduced to his work. Like All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life I found this film to be too melodramatic for my tastes, but I recognized that it might be the best of the bunch. Well a decade later and several other Sirk films seen, I guess my frame of reference was expanded. Watching it again perhaps I felt that some of the problems were more relatable. Sure Robert Stack’s character’s alcohol abuse is the type of thing that you’d find only in melodrama, but the never ending string of triangles keep things interesting, and well did any director in the 50s have as much style as Sirk?
42nd Street (1933)
I always loved this film. Hell when posting about 1933 I just mentioned how much I loved it, but also threw in that I hadn’t seen it for a long time. Watching it again I was still enamored with is primitive charm. Sure this is more advanced than say The Broadway Melody, but in terms of plot this is as formulaic as it gets. Over the next three musicals featuring similar cast members and Busby Berkley choreography things would get more complex, particularly the dance numbers but here things seem just as simple as can be. Basically a show is put on, people are worked like dogs, a temperamental star breaks her ankle, and a newcomer has to step in and become a star over night. Well throw this out and you have a story about a lecherous and incredibly creepy sugar daddy, a tyrannical boss willing to sacrifice his own health because he lost all his money in the stock market crash, a chorus girl who only said no once, and she didn’t hear the question, and well those dance numbers still are fantastic even if they could never take place on a real stage. Doesn’t hurt that the trio of songs in the Pretty Lady musical are still memorable numbers, particularly the title track.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Few films in the history of cinema are as blatantly brilliant as Dreyer’s ultimate masterpiece. Hailed upon it’s premiere as possibly the greatest film ever made, and considered by many to still rank among the all time greats, I wonder if anyone alive thinks this film isn’t a masterpiece. So much has been said about the shot selection, the framing, the claustrophobic feel of it, but well at the end of the day it is just a powerful film. I like the fact that Dreyer cast the ugliest people imaginable for his would be executioners, and the only person that doesn’t seem to be cartoonishly monstrous is the one sympathetic character who seems to genuinely feel for Joan’s plight. I also watched Otto Preminger’s much maligned Saint Joan this month and I wondered why? Why have so many directors good and bad taken a stab at telling the tale of Joan of Arc? I mean all of these directors know of Dreyer’s version, and I wonder how anyone can have the audacity to think they could possibly do a better job?
La Strada (1954)
Ever since I saw a Fellini film he’s been one of my favorite directors. Now I may say that 8 ½ should have been on this list rather than La Strada/Nights of Cabiria, but well would I have revisited it this month? Probably not. I liked La Strada when I first saw it, but I didn’t think it was a masterpiece. I much preferred Nights of Cabiria, and still thought his later more surreal films were better. Now after seeing this again I was blown away. There’s a reason many regard this as Fellini’s first masterpiece. It was the first of two films in a row to win a best foreign language film Oscar, which I know isn’t that wonderful, but it still says something. It’s not a very likeable film, but neither is Nights of Cabiria. The film is great, if not heartbreaking, its characters are sympathetic and yet Zampano is still a monster, but there’s a slight bit of redemption somewhere in the end. Nearly everyone is pathetic in some way, but well there’s that wonderful beauty in suffering that characterizes Fellini’s early films.
Ugetsu (1953)
Last month I revisited Sansho the Bailiff so why not give Ugetsu a third try? Now I’ve always loved this film and well depending on what day it is I may say it’s Mizoguchi’s best. Thanks in part to this book it was the first film I had ever seen from Mizoguchi. His style and ever roaming camera were somewhat lost on me the first time around. After all his sense of style is so subtle that you hardly notice it the first or even second time around. The more you know of his work the better all his films seem to be by comparison. Ugetsu is heartbreaking but there is a redemptive quality about it. Sansho seems more like a film of loss and suffering, and well let’s not even mention Life of Oharu, but here the women do suffer as a result of their husband’s ambition but at least one is reconciled and well things seem like they just might be alright again. Interesting how supernatural the film is, considering Mizoguchi removed all supernatural elements from the Sansho Dayu legend.
Pandora’s Box (1928)
G. W. Pabst is a personal favorite of mine. This was the first film of his I had seen and although I liked it I wasn’t sure it was a masterpiece. Even after watching several other films I wondered if this really was his best. Well as you’ve noticed there is a trend with many of these films, they were early first impressions and revisited years later with a greater frame of reference. This gets at the heart of what the A-List was all about. It is meant to be a starting point where you can venture from there. Louise Brooks performance is one of the wonder’s of silent cinema. Her range from childish brat to long suffering self-sacrificing is remarkable. Even towards the end she maintains that lovely smile and you get the sense that through it all she really was an innocent that just happened to ruin the lives of nearly all the men she came in contact with. This film is even better than I remembered it and so is Brooks, too bad I can’t say the same for Diary of a Lost Girl which I found severely disappointing.
Well enough about that, here’s the rundown of what I watched:
4/1
The Exile (1947) 6/10
L’atalante (1934) 10/10
4/2
Porgy and Bess (1959) 6/10
Komedie om Geld (1936) 6/10
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) 10/10
4/3
Divine (1935) 8/10
Rain or Shine (1930) 4/10
Romeo und Julia im Schnee (1920) 6/10
4/4
Nosferatu (1922) 9/10
A Great Day in Harlem (1994) 8/10
4/5
Out of the Blue (1980) 9/10
4/6
Major League (1989) 10/10
4/8
Chinatown (1974) 10/10
The Seventh Seal (1957) 10/10
4/11
The Famine Within (1990) 6/10
4/12
The Anderson Platoon (1967) 7/10
Towards the Light (1919) 6/10
4/13
Pennies From Heaven (1981) 9/10
Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979) 6/10
Saint Joan (1957) 5/10
4/15
Big Trouble in Little China (1986) 10/10
4/16
Highway Patrolman (1993) 9/10
4/17
Thief of Bagdad (1924) 10/10
4/18
Obsession (1976) 7/10
4/19
Unforgiven (1992) 10/10
4/22
Written on the Wind (1956) 10/10
4/23
A Walk in the Sun (1945) 6/10
4/24
42nd Street (1933) 10/10
4/25
The Strange Case of Angelica (2011) 7/10
Douro, Faina Fluvial (1931) 8/10
Bonjour Tristesse (1958) 6/10
4/26
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) 10/10
4/28
Party (1996) 5/10
Inquietude (1998) 7/10
La Strada (1954) 10/10
4/29
Ugetsu (1953) 10/10
4/30
Pandora’s Box (1928) 10/10
Best Film of the Month - The Passion of Joan of Arc
Worst Film of the Month - Rain or Shine
No comments:
Post a Comment