Hi,
(very long and detailed!)
Episode 1Introduction (Seen and discussed or reviewed)
Saving Private Ryan (1998) dir. Steven Spielberg
Three Colors: Blue (1993) dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski
Casablanca (1942) dir. Michael Curtiz
Odd Man Out (1947) dir. Carol Reed
Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Taxi Driver (1976) dir. Martin Scorsese
The French Connection (1971) dir. William Friedkin
Comments:
"Three Colors" (3 films!) is neat ... but not at all as satisfying as the absolutely stunning and well written film before this one ... "The Double Life of Veronique" ... and dig how the music is woven into this film. It helped make Mr. Preissner famous. Irene Jacob is Veronique. "Two or Three Things" is the quintessential Godard that drives American audiences crazy. Bapu will never see it, even ripped! He knows the "shots" and "images" that studios love to create to get you to think/feel more about situations that you do not even consider or try with your wife or significant other. And he takes the camera for a joy ride. You have the discussion by the two folks on bar stools, the camera behind them doing pendulum shots all the way to the end of the counter -- behind the two folks -- the whole time still hearing their conversation, but the camera now is pretty much asking you to ... what's over there? ... anything ... ohh wait ... wow ... look at that ... and you "forget" about the story and those two until the pendulum comes back this way ... it's insane. And magnificent at the same time. But a very "distracting" thing that drives folks crazy. America, being so TV driven, where the shot/cross-shot is the norm, even if the conversation is not "direct" ... hates this, and mostly, can not handle the distraction ... not used to "literature" and "something" else ... that makes you think about ... hmmm ... movies ... where do they fit in my life? ... and this is something Hollywood, or Bollywood, do not want you to feel/know, or their fluff and beatoffs get wasted! Scorsese and Friedkin, are not "major" compared to others, and neither is Spielberg. But they are excellent story tellers and very clean and fairly good film makers. They deserve their accolades, but I would rather take a Godard, or a Bunuel ... because they created a "language" ... whereas these just made the Hollywood story stronger and more vivid than ever.
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1895-1918: The World Discovers A New Artform
Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895) dir. Louis Lumière
Cendrillon (1899) dir. Georges Méliès
La lune à un mètre (1898) dir. Georges Méliès
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) dir. Stanley Kubrick
The Sick Kitten (1903) dir. George Albert Smith
October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
There are some things here worth seeing ... when you check out Eisenstein, you can see the beginning of the handheld camera, more or less ... with the close ups and the camera making you feel like you are one of the folks. It scared a lot of people. With Kubrick's film, it created an immense visual treat for you to immerse yourself in ... but the effect of that film is not as good on the TV screen as it was in the Cinerama Dome. Today folks laugh at this, because the film is not a story like most top ten films. Lumiere is fun to catch ... and his burlesque thing is cute, but it is also quite sex'ist.
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Thrill Becomes Story:
Sherlock, Jr. (1924) dir. Buster Keaton
Vivre sa vie (1962) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Those Awful Hats (1909) dir. D. W. Griffith
The Mended Lute (1909) dir. D. W. Griffith
Ingeborg Holm (1913) dir. Victor Sjöström
The Phantom Carriage (1921) dir. Victor Sjöström
Shanghai Express (1932) dir. Josef von Sternberg
The Squaw Man (1914) dir. Oscar Apfel and Cecil B. DeMille
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) dir. Irvin Kershner
Cabiria (1914) dir. Giovanni Pastrone
Intolerance (1916) dir. D. W. Griffith
Souls on the Road (aka Rojo No Reikan) (1921) dir. Minoru Murata
Comments:
Kinda scary to see Godard mentioned here in a category with a "story" ... for he is, by far, the film maker that cares the least about a story ... EVER ... and it is a part of what he calls "anti-film". I really think, specially with D. W. Griffith, that he thought that film should be bigger than life ... and he photographed it like it ... and it was one of those things that made film look more glamourous than it really was, not only in the make up sense, btw, but it made it look like it was ... and then, if you look at things in a "historical way", you can see how Europe tried hard to get rid of this idea and make films more "personal", which was another way of saying they did not have the money ... but at least the films were more "real", if not more difficult for us (here in America!) to accept, because we love our fantasies and heroes here! The Star Wars thing, I reserve judgement, and I have not quite enjoyed them ... like I have other things.
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Episode 21918-1928: The Triumph of American Film...
Citizen Kane (1941) dir. Orson Welles
The Thief of Bagdad (1924) dir. Raoul Walsh
Gone with the Wind (1939) dir. Victor Fleming
Singin' in the Rain (1952) dir. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
The Maltese Falcon (1941) dir. John Huston
The Scarlet Empress (1934) dir. Josef von Sternberg
Limelight (1952) dir. Charlie Chaplin
City Lights (1931) dir. Charlie Chaplin
The Kid (1921) dir. Charlie Chaplin
Bad Timing (1980) dir. Nicolas Roeg
Sunset Boulevard (1950) dir. Billy Wilder
Some Like It Hot (1959) dir. Billy Wilder
I Flunked, But... (1930) dir. Yasujirō Ozu
Ozu is massive and major in history of Japanese film. BUT, not as important as Akira Kurosawa became later. Weird to see "spectacle" mentioned and his "Seven Samurai" is not listed ... his visual sense, makes that film even more of a spectacle than some of those listed here. Orson Welles, goes without saying ... but his film came at a time, when ... this guy was going against the fiber of society and government ... and it was a very strong ... STRONG ... indictment of the media, movies included ... and to this day, that film is strong and controversial ... because of the media control over the public. Chaplin is Chaplin, and his politics are ... less of an issue ... but the films were terribly fun to watch. Roeg's film is an "artistic" painting ... done in the same style as the artist Kempf that he shows in there ... it is a tapestry of a film happening consequently ... which make up the full story. It is a visual treat, and magnificent. Check out Nicholas' use of music in the film, which is one of his strongest points, and a continuation of his "music in film" work that helped define MTV, 10 years earlier when he was a part of "Performance". Billy Wilder ... I don't think is that important, but his films helped the world see/find a California that eventually became the center for the hippie era ... the only thing the films lacked was music, that Billy was not good with, and Hollywood would not show any of, unless it was from its stars! John Huston deserves some credit ... for being the strong individual he was and some very nice films. GWTW is over rated ... but caused a sensation because of its backshots that made their characters stand out of the set and bigger than the picture itself. I like to say about that film ... frankly, I don't give a damn! "Singing in the Rain" is fabulous ... and Gene Kelly was one of a kind. Between him and Fred Astaire they captured a whole generation as well, as The Beatles and Rolling Stones 10 years later!
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...And the First of its Rebels
Blind Husbands (1919) dir. Erich von Stroheim
The Apartment (1960) dir. Billy Wilder
Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) dir. Yakov Protazanov
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
Vampyr (1932) dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
Vivre sa vie (1962) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Comments:
Godard is a "rebel" all the way ... and still at it. Billy Wilder was not ... but the lady in that apartment was one for a long time, along with her brother. Carl T. Dreyer ... is not a rebel, but his visualization and lighting in that film, made her look bigger and more important, and also ... just like a Hollywood film ... but with a little story story thrown in! The lighting in this film helped define a lot of lighting for photography for the next 40 to 40 years!
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Episode 31918-1935: The Great Rebel Filmmakers Around the World
Napoléon (1927) dir. Abel Gance
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) dir. Robert Wiene
Metropolis (1927) dir. Fritz Lang
Entr'acte (1924) dir. René Clair
Un Chien Andalou (1929) dir. Luis Buñuel
Blue Velvet (1986) dir. David Lynch
L'Age d'Or (1930) dir. Luis Buñuel
Battleship Potemkin (1925) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Comments:
Abel Gance's biggest rebellion was that he decided that a film should be as real as life and last longer! And "Napoleon" is too big for 99.9% of us to ever sit through ... and I doubt that any of us has that much patience, including myself! Robert Wiene and Fritz Lang ushered in the style of the Beyruth Opera sets into film ... though missing the color. But the imagery they created had us worried and scared all the time, because we never saw life like that and kept thinking it was evil ... I wonder if they knew it was a sign of things to come, instead of anything else. The great rebels here, were, of course, Luis Bunuel, who is one of the main names in "surrealism". I seriously doubt that "surrealism", as an art, would have taken hold, without his film with Salvador Dali, that blew out the conception of what you could, or should, do with film, and Luis Bunuel was all over that idea until the end of his life, and the last film he made was ... you got it ... "Le Phantome de la Liberte" ... the phantom of liberty, and its start is ... a painting! ... it will blow you away and it was NOT the first time that he pulled that off, as his films created the image of Jesus of Nazareth laughing ("Nazarin") and the famous last supper in the film "Viridiana" ... and this guy was the son of very religious folks and was brought up in a monastery. A close friend of his, a Dominican Monk, always stated that he never felt that Luis was "testing" him ... he said in most cases, he could see how people got sidetracked from the real faith, and now could help them, instead of quoting blank this and that which might or might not make sense at the moment! Even surrealism can help religion! Do not go see "El" ... or some of the stronger films later ... this guy is as strong, if not stronger, than Godard, and pulls punches hard ... and his lines are deadly!
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[edit] Episode 4The 1930s: The Great American Movie Genres...
Frankenstein (1931) dir. James Whale
Eyes Without a Face (1960) dir. Georges Franju
Scarface (1932) dir. Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson
Seven Samurai (1954) dir. Akira Kurosawa
Walt Disney
Comments:
America, was, for the most part, just like "Bollywood" ... just a copy, and then a rehash of the same thing. Getting original work done was a hassle until the "independents" took hold in the late 80's ... and it hurt the development of film in America, unles you had an odd one out there ... like Frances Ford Coppola, but like him, some got hurt, like Michael Cimino. American media (see Citizen Kane) does not like things that don't agree with them, or their state of the money! This is the state of Hollywood and the films they make. Howard Hawks was very much in the middle of this and his "Scarface" was his way of rebelling against an institution that he could not break at all. "Frankenstein" (and "Dracula") were excellent, but American's never knew they were a part of a literary tradition ... and for America, that is ... a bad joke ... we only have Hollywood traditions and that means copies of the same cartoon hero. Some of them are better than the others, but all in all ... forget'able compared to the original. Walt Disney might be the exception, but the work was original and pretty, unless you wanna get into their wars with Warner Brothers ... and it is believed that Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny fights were simply ... about that! I don't think these copies are great and mostly they are not "film worthy" other than that they made more money than the originals ... because ... no one likes films with subtitles in America to see a foreign film!
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...And the Brilliance of European Film
The Blood of a Poet (1931) dir. Jean Cocteau
If.... (1968) dir. Lindsay Anderson
Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) dir. Marcel Carné
La Grande Illusion (1937) dir. Jean Renoir
Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958) dir. Roman Polanski
The 39 Steps (1935) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
The Wizard of Oz (1939) dir. Victor Fleming
Gone with the Wind (1939) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. Victor Fleming
Comments:
Jean Vigo andmarcel Carne are a part of the French history of film, as literature. Jean Renoir also fits there, specially as he is quite detailed and clear/clean about the story. Jean Cocteau, was about the same thing as Luis Bunuel, but done with a more literary aspect to it, rather than the personal and dream like weirdness that Luis Bunuel puts forth. I like Jean Cocteau, but even his work is sometimes really hard to take ... he reads better than his film or theater. Alfred Hitchcock, is film history ... but not really for only one thing, and I don't think it was his directing ... he is not that good a director, but he knew how to scare you a bit more by surprising you ... and that camera would snap that shot when you least expected .. he was the bad kid with a camera in his hands, that you always pointed at, and told him to take that thing outta here! There was one thing that MADE his films, and if you ever take out this part, the films fall apart ... which tells you that he decided to work some of the fottage to fit it! One of these days ... try this exercise, so you can see the power of the many different things that make "film" work. Alfred knew that the music was excellent, and he made it work with it and for it. it became an excellent combination, but if you take the music out, the visuals do not come off as good, and actually look to be indulgent ... if you take the visual out (buy the CD) the music stands up magnificently without it! Victor Fleming is not the kind of film maker I enjoy, and I attribute this to the fact that I was a son of WW2 and these fantasies did not work for me, or made any sense. I thought they were all about kids playing with make up ... so what? ... and I have never enjoyed them. GWTW has one thing ... that is unusual in it, which Victor Fleming may have been the one that put it there, and it was something that was downplayed for a long time, until it became very famous ... and the history of American Black Film (and Actors) is officially started, and this film was one of the first, though it used a stereotype, it made them visible. Inadvertantly, this film ends up mentioned on all compendium of American Black Film History.
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[edit] Episode 51939-1952: The Devastation of War...And a New Movie Language
Rome, Open City (1945) dir. Roberto Rossellini
Chimes at Midnight (1965) dir. Orson Welles
The Maltese Falcon (1941) (introduced in Episode 2) dir. John Huston
Un Homme et une Femme (1966) dir. Claude Lelouch
Raging Bull (1980) dir. Martin Scorsese
Bicycle Thieves (1948) dir. Vittorio De Sica
Double Indemnity (1944) dir. Billy Wilder
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) dir. Fritz Lang
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) dir. Arthur Penn
Blade Runner (1982) dir. Ridley Scott
Titanic (1997) dir. James Cameron
The Third Man (1949) dir. Carol Reed
Comments:
There is a lot here that is missing. Namely Polish film, and some Japanese film, both of which went on to describe the ravage of war in a way that had us hiding and scared ... but the atrocities still went on, and still do today. Roberto Rossellini's film is worth it, and is in every film 101 class as is "Citizen Kane". Orson Welles improbable mix of 3 or 4 Shakespeare plays to concentrate on one character only (Falstaff) is a magnificent film ... that few have seen, and even fewer will appreciate because it is not a true bard film, and it got pasted hard by academics that did not like the idea of a character being the same in more than one story! That alone is amazing, and the film is a lot of fun, and strange, and crazy and has some nice images. Claude Lelouch's film is one of those that closes with a magnanimous crash ... life is so good and such and all of a sudden it's over! Martin Scorsese's film is over rated, with the exception that the performances are excellent and Martin's use of his experience as a film maker of rock music (one of Woodstock's camera folks) is put to use in boxing, which makes it look better and more impressive than it really is in reality. "Bonnie and Clyde" set a standard for gore in film, that is still in vogue. "Blade Runner" is one of my favorite films of all time, and the one that describes me, more than anything else ... and Roy's tears in the end, is what ALL OF THIS is about for me! "Titanic" is a nice movie, but in the end, I would rather sit through "RAN" than a Hollywood film. Carol Reed's film is a part of Film 101 in any school.
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[edit] Episode 61953-1957: The Swollen Story: World Cinema Bursting at the Seams
Rebel Without a Cause (1955) dir. Nicholas Ray
Pather Panchali (1955) dir. Satyajit Ray
Devi (1960) dir. Satyajit Ray
Ikiru (1952) dir. Akira Kurosawa
Seven Samurai (1954) (introduced in Episode 4) dir. Akira Kurosawa
Throne of Blood (1957) dir. Akira Kurosawa
The Godfather (1972) dir. Francis Ford Coppola
The Wild Bunch (1969) dir. Sam Peckinpah
Los Olvidados (1950) dir. Luis Buñuel
Fireworks (1947) dir. Kenneth Anger
Scorpio Rising (1964) dir. Kenneth Anger
On the Waterfront (1954) dir. Elia Kazan
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) dir. David Lean
...And God Created Woman (1956) dir. Roger Vadim
Satyajit Ray, put Hindu film on the map, where it was always considered just a 2nd rate copy of English B films with the left over equipment from Hammer Studios. And Ray made his stories and visuals stand out, and tell his domineering English folks at the time that their poop also stank and that spreading it around the streets of ________ was not cool! As such, these had an edge, that Ray hid really well, and when he got international acclaim, it was almost at the same time that India said goodbye to the Western Imperialist. It was a sign of their "identity" taking hold on its own. Akira Kurosawa speaks for himself, and was an extremelly independent film maker for most Japanese standards and his films are always unusual and different, while Ozu's were more operated by the studios themselves. By the 60's Akira Kurosawa had real issues with financing for his films and he started depending on European and American money to do his films. His greates benefactors? Luis Bunuel, Jean Luc Godard and Jean -Claude Carriere, who wrote a lot of things for many folks, including the "Mahabharatta" for Peter Brook. And when Akira made a million or two on a film ... the Japanese folks got mad at him, and he laughed in their faces ... the shogun were still jerks! Francis Ford Coppola deserves the accolades as major film maker ... although I think that "Apocalypse Now" is far more worthy of mention than "The Godfather", and his "Dracula" brought out the sexuality inherant in the stories, that only Ann Rice in her 2nd life and name writes about. "The Godfather" is all about acting ... not a film. It's a directing and acting class for the masters! ... and thus its appreciation! Sam Peckinpah, took violence to another level ... the slo-motion kind! And "The Wild Bunch" is one of the best westerns ever made, because for once, none of the characters were heroes finding injums and such ... they were normal folks like all of us! And we all believed in something or other, and went after it! Luis Bunuel, has already been mentioned and "Los Olvidados" is one of those films that you see in Film School, and come out saying ... I hate that! ... and forget about it. But it is a "small film" in the middle of the filth in Mexico City ... that brings out a side ... that depends on you and your inner person. Good luck on that one! Kenneth Anger ... is very tough to discuss on a "popular board". Elia Kazan, tried to duplicate his success on the stage with the Actor's Stuido folks on film, and it never worked because television fancy crap and comedy was a lot more fun than Tennessee Williams and William Inge and Arthur Miller ... whose work many of us can't stand! American TV is not capable for showing Blance, unless she is nude, so the folks in the audience get tittilated! Defeats the purpose of the work, and its beauty! David Lean, is magnificently vivid and lucid and visual ... and two of his closest friends and admirers were just as much a part of these films ... a cinematographer and a music composer. Somehow these films don't look as good without Conrad Hall or Maurice Jarre ... but we still hum Lara's Theme, and we still remember the desert! Roger Vadim, was ... just about threesomes and sex in general, and I don't think that he was important, although he was the first that gave you Brigitte Bardot's breasts! And everyone went to see the movie!
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Episode 71957-1964: The Shock of the New - Modern Filmmaking in Western Europe.
The Seventh Seal (1957) dir. Ingmar Bergman
Nights of Cabiria (1957) dir. Federico Fellini
8½ (1963) dir. Federico Fellini
The 400 Blows (1959) dir. François Truffaut
À bout de souffle (1959) dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Accattone (1961) dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Rocco and His Brothers (1960) dir. Luchino Visconti
L'eclisse (1962) dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
Viridiana (1961) dir. Luis Buñuel
I Am Curious (Yellow) (1967) dir. Vilgot Sjöman
Knife in the Water (1962) dir. Roman Polanski
Andrei Rublev (1966) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
In the Realm of the Senses (1976) dir. Nagisa Oshima
A Hard Day's Night (1964) dir. Richard Lester
Blow Job (1963) dir. Andy Warhol
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) dir. Mike Nichols
Comments:
Ingmar Bergman had nice stuff. However, none of it came alive when he did not have Sven Nykvist with him. Sven "made" his films come up with a charm that ... made them acceptable, and appreciated. In the hands of someone else, these might not have shined as much, and not noticed. Mostly, these films are about acting, and they tend to be slow, something that American audiences do not like or can handle, very well, and it always gets mentioned on the reviews at USA Today! Fellini, is the ultimate bad boy film maker. His introduction to "Intervista" is the quintessential man ... little boy is taking a pee in the river, and as the camera comes out some, you see a helicopter fly by in the distance carrying a statue of the madonna ... and yeah ... the boy is innocent and the viewers are the criminals ... and he let them have it when he "made it" and by the time you get to Fellini's Roma, you have to see the Papal Fashion Show to go crazy! You know he knows he has made it and doesn't care anymore ... but the little boy is still pulling the pop guns out and shooting ... and still taking a pee when he has to take a pee! Francois Truffaut, was a little more conservative than Godard, but he was known for letting his actors run a much all over .... and they always loved him, because they could "continue" scenes, when ... they were needed to continue according to the actors. Jeanne Moreau came from there, and one of the greatest moments that you can see of her is with James Lipton in his series ... absolutely brilliant! Michelangelo Antonioni is tough to discuss, but his "reality" style was hard to appreciate as it had a tendency to make you feel like you were in the middle of it. Vilgot Sjoman, put nakedness and actual folks having sex on the screen and in various places, where before a lot of the "sex'y" stuff was just teasing, and peep'holery and mostly burlesque-like stuff as in American movies ... !!! Roman Polansky ... very hard and very harsh, and he developed a hand held style of camera that drives you nuts. Two examples (one in Visions of LIght): 1. The scene in Rosemary's Baby is almost one of the best examples how film/cinema has you so well indoctrinated ... and you fall for it every time! If you don't know the scene, you are punished with having to see "Visions of Light". The other is the rape scene in "Tess", and it is done with a handheld from the start ... guess what ... it's like YOU are the rapist ... the audience is the rapist! ... you can expand this quite far ... with our glut for these things! ... it's disconcerting to say the least, but his films are usually really well done and detailed and have value. If you want some fun, dig the grand ball room scene in the "Fearless Vampire Killers" ... not to mention the gay vampires! This same thing with the camera, has also been adapted by Gaspar Noe, who also uses the camera as the first-person ... and makes things really uncomfortable for the audience. He also uses sound effects to throw people off ... as the sound track can easily suplant the visual and surprise you.
Tarkovsky's film is really slow, but it is trully pretty and done with a lot of care to detail and the work. Nagisa Oshima almost ("almost") a part of the "sexual" revolution in the late 60's and early 70's. The film is not that great ... but the conclusion is ... ok guys ... you have been warned! Richard Lester is not as great as he thought ... Spike Milligan in an interview almost cried, when he said that the Goons had been asking the BBC to film some things and they never spent a nickel on it ... and the end result was a movie with the Beatles that had all the things that The Goons did on radio in their sound effects, complete with speeding things up and slowing them down and such ... and when I went back to see that film after knowing the Goons, it was not funny, or that good ... in fact, it was just a cheap video, that made pop music be even more pop music, complete with screaming fans to help create a myth ... that the BBC folks screwed up on, and were too cheap and idiotic to invest in and on! However, these films only validate the English comedy scene in that time, that no one heard in America. Andy Warhol ... film wise, he is not important, but a couple of his films are something that makes people go ... hmmm ... so he went out and filmed 2 folks sleeping for more than an hour ... and then showed it ... and of course, the NY critics thought it was brilliant, since even garbage on a platter looks good in there, right? You got the idea! Not valid as film per se in terms of its historical significance, other than an "artist" making fun of the medium! Mike Nichols ... made his fame bringing the hard drinking couples to the screen, and made Edward Albee famous, in what is one of the harshest and most nightmarish plays to direct on stage! But it was just perfect conclusion to the previously well known English version of the "Angry Young Men" ... that gave rise to so much theater and film!
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[edit] Episode 91967-1979: New American Cinema.
Mash (1970) dir. Robert Altman
The Graduate (1967) dir. Mike Nichols
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) dir. Miloš Forman
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) dir. Robert Altman
Mean Streets (1973) dir. Martin Scorsese
Annie Hall (1977) dir. Woody Allen
City Lights (1931) dir. Charlie Chaplin
The Last Picture Show (1971) dir. Peter Bogdanovich
The Wild Bunch (1969) dir. Sam Peckinpah
Cabaret (1972) dir. Bob Fosse
This is a wonderful list of the strength of the American film, with the exception of Milos Forman who was not an American at the time, but he did most of his films here. "MASH" ended up becoming the TV series, and in many ways the TV series was better, but the original had some very good bits that we still remember. "The Graduate", was, and still is, a perfect vision of what things are in America ... still screwed up and we can not come to grips with our ideas and realities, and are suspect and prey to every thing you can think of, because of the lack of the desire to define, understand and process that knowledge ... education is meaningless as a valid tool to help you, because a Hollywood fun film is better for you! It is not a good representative of the old days, or the hippie days, but it makes that generation seem stupid and pathetic, and I do not appreciate that. Ken Kesey's story is a perfect and complete examle of American Literature at that time. He should have also filmed "On The Road". Robert Altman, is the originator of "MASH" above, and "McCabe and Mrs Miller" was a project that he took on because he was asked, and the project was already on its way before he came along ... and he made it look better and stronger, and the credit probably goes to Julie Christie for making the film come alive and work ... it wasn't perfect, but it was a great example of ... let's hack it ... Warren Beatty style, while having dinner, and sex in the evenings and wondering what they will film in the morning! Perfect example of Hollywood opulence and riches. But in the end, it worked ... but I think it was lucky that it did, and that Robert Altman was the reason why it worked, not Warren Beatty. Robert forced it to have something more than was originally being shown ... and what he brought to it was the unity of the various details that helped make a film, one film! Woody Allen is by far, one of the best and most innovative American Directors ... and he will only get his credit later. Because of the infatuation with fads and top ten, folks like Woody rarely get appreciated ... even in NY ... but he will not be forgotten ... and you know that behind these words a Greek Chorus is coming on ... and ... Bob Fosse, for me, was just an extention of the same old thing in America ... burlesque disguised in meaning ... !!! Because America will never see and watch Kurt Weill or Bertold Brecht, even on television! But we can handle the pastiches that make fun of those "serious" things!
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Episode 101969-1979: Radical Directors in the 70s - Make State of the Nation Movies.
Fox and His Friends (1975) (aka Faustrecht der Freiheit) dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) (aka Angst essen Seele auf) dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Alice in the Cities (1974) (aka Alice in den Städten) dir. Wim Wenders
Arabian Nights (1974) (aka Il fiore delle mille e una notte) dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
The Spider's Stratagem (1970) (aka Strategia del ragno) dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
The Conformist (1970) (aka Il conformista) dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Taxi Driver (1976) (introduced in Episode 1) dir. Martin Scorsese
Women in Love (1969) dir. Ken Russell
Performance (1970) dir. Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg
Walkabout (1971) dir. Nicolas Roeg
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) dir. Peter Weir
My Brilliant Career (1979) dir. Gillian Armstrong
Comments: Rainer W. Fassbender was hard to appreciate in many ways ... it was living theater and the camera just happened to be turned on and catch this or that moment ... it was quite cinema verite ... so to speak and the actors lived or died with the camera on! Later Mike Leigh did the same thing in London. Wim Wenders is a part of the group that brought us "krautrock" along with playwright Peter Handke, Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski and many others. They "were" the revolution of the arts in Germany in the late 60's and early 70's and the amount of work, is still appreciated and loved today. Of all these, Amon Duul 2 is the only person/group that has not opened up and appreciated the compliments and discussions about their work, and so much of it is being wasted when they could so easily say hello to many of us ... but their music has always been independent, and totally unafraid, and totally "reckless" in the sense that they did not care what anyone thought ... but it gave those days the immense individuality that is also visible in theater and film. Pier Paolo Pasolini, did the unthinkable ... a version of the passion without actors and just picking up bums from the street ... and you will be damned ... because it is good and susprisingly clever. Bernardo Bertolucci is the one that everyone questions his politics and he turns around and does something non-political that everyone thinks is just a fun film ... but it gave him and his film more than one Oscar. Ken Russell started with famous artists' biographies in the BBC, and ultimately got onto film. He was known for his extravaganzas and one was always wondering where it would show ... his best film is the most insane orgy of them all ... "The Devils" from the novel by Aldous Huxley. "Performance" is one of the best films ever made, and one of the hardest to define and understand and work with ... they really should try to "restore" this film, because the use of music and the film style, became what MTV defined later. Nicholas Roeg was, originally a film maker for Joseph Losey, another English film maker known for his literary style of work. ... Peter Weir was the quieter version of Ken Russell, IF you did not see "The Cars that Ate Paris", or "The PLumber"! Gillian Armstrong is still around and making very personal and films that are very subtle and nice.
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Episode 111970s and Onwards: Innovation in Popular Culture - Around the World.
Enter the Dragon (1973) dir. Robert Clouse
The Matrix (1999) dir. Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski
Jaws (1975) dir. Steven Spielberg
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) dir. Steven Spielberg
Jurassic Park (1993) dir. Steven Spielberg
Comments:
The "popular" thing is based on sales only ... and a film that did really well, and everyone thinks its good because "everyone" saw it. It does not mean they are good ... but they have some fun. "Enter the Dragon" was for the longest time the film that brought the martial arts to America ... and the glut of film since then ... never mind that Bruce Lee was in "The Green Hornet" and did the same things there! And no one saw it. "The Matrix" was an interesting film until the only thing left in it is a love story ... a concept wasted, but the illusion was cool!And the glasses made millions more for many opticians ... 30 cents worth of plastic for $120 dollars! Perfect economy! Just like the film, a rip-off! Steven Spielberg is not a great director ... for the most part he is just like a ride at Disneyland, or the old rides at Magic Mountain ... you took the dope, or the drink, and you screamed your way along while having some fun with your girlfriend! When he got serious he did some nice things, sometimes more emotionally important to this country's history than valid film making itself! While fun, Steven Spielberg is not a great film maker ... but with the budgets he gets, not making a very good film would be ... very bad!
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[edit] Episode 12The 1980s: Moviemaking and Protest - Around the World.
Yellow Earth (1985) dir. Chen Kaige
Raise the Red Lantern (1991) dir. Zhang Yimou
Top Gun (1986) dir. Tony Scott
Blue Velvet (1986) dir. David Lynch
A Zed & Two Noughts (1986) dir. Peter Greenaway
Jesus of Montreal (1989) dir. Denys Arcand
Chen Kaige's film is outstanding. It's vivid ness is close to David Lean's style. Zhang Yimou, relying on Gong Li in the early days, to whom he was married, was very methodical and the cinematography was very rigid and almost measured scientifically (my words) inch per inch. As time goes by and I think his budgets loosened up some, he became more interesting and his shooting style changed. It is totally different in "To Live" but he did something there that was interesting ... in the days of Mao, the camera was still. In the later days it was handheld! Peter Greenaway, is a very literate and difficult director to appreciate and enjoy. His films often defy description anywhere. His "Tempest" ("Prospero's Books") version is unreal, with Sir John Gielgud making those lines shine and make sense like it was the easiest child's play in your tongue! And then you catch "The Pillow Book" you get the characters mind (or thinking) running on the corner concurrently with the film, and that drives you nuts and throws you off ... but it is neat, far out ... and totally out there! It is film experimenting with what "is it really saying?" ... and in that sense spectacular because there are not many of us that can handle that insane stream of consciousness or unconsciousness. It's a massive overload ... but an insane one with magnificent music and visuals. Denys Arcand is the Canadian version of an opinionated director ... and some of his films are hard to catch on ... but this one is surprising, to the end, and then rips you and the audience a brand new one! The wording can be considered down right vicious complete with a priest abusing his position and then some!
Enough for now ... not sure anyone will read this far!
post edited by Moshkiae - 2013/01/06 16:58:09