S&S 100 Films HTF Forum Challenge (1 Viewer)

[Stephen R]

Just saw:
Ikiru (4/4), Breathless (3.5/4), and Rules of the Game (3.5/4, though this rating could most definatly rise if someone could help me to understand more deeply what it's about...don't know a whole lot about French social classes in the 30's )
Reviews coming once I get a chance to sit down and think about them...
92 , 91 , 90 , 89 left

 

[JungWoo]

Stephen, you had quite a day, he?
A few words about the Rules of the Game.
The important thing about this movie is that it is a farce in the best tradition of Beaumarchais's farces like "The Marriage of Figaro", whose adaptation this movie is more or less. In fact, the Rules of the Game is often called Mozartian. It has truly charming, lighthearted approach yet leading to darker moments of the truth.
The Rules of the Game, like Grand Illusion, is a study of social class, whose dividing line Renoir always felt was stronger than national divisions. (In Grand Illusion, Marechal connects to Else even though she's German and cannot understand French, while he cannot do the same with de Boieldieu.) In this movie, too, the world of the bourgeois class (the new face of aristocracy) and the servant class is strictly kept separate.
But this is not your average indictment of the bourgeosie and the their rules of the society. In fact, most of the characters that appear in the movie are quite sympathetic characters (though there are some stock figures of the frivolous rich, they are lovable in their own ways).As Renoir, who plays Octave in the movie (a key role which serves as a bridge between two classes), says everyone has reason for doing what they do. But in this gallery of likable bourgeois chracters, Renoir depicts the folly and abrupt bouts of cruel violence(hunt scene and the ending) behind the facade, so potent that it was banned by the French government and nearly caused a riot in the theater at the time of release.
The servant class has parallel world in which similar situation(love triangle) goes on. However, this parallel aspect of the movie reflects that the point of the movie is not so much about a social criticism of a class and its mannerism but the study of human nature and behavior in a given setting. This is one of most sophisticated look at how people behave in their milieu. You laugh at the situation and what the characters do, but not at the characters themselves.
But what makes this movie so refreshing is not only its ability to condense complex issues in a comparatively simple terms but its technical mastery. In many scene(especially in the mansion scene and the masquerade) we have multiple planes where different actions are going on. Yet they are not done in any confusing way. Like Mozart opera, there is appearance of chaos yet the structure of balance. You'll see one of most ingenious tracking shots and beautifully staged composition with deep-focus (This is before Citizen Kane). The tempo, fludity, elegance, it's all perfect.
Breathless is another movie that I really like.
I think this movie really would serve well as a textbook case of what not to do when you make a garden-variety Hollywood movie because it intentionally breaks all kinds of the moviemaking rules.
And in this case, the form suits the subject very well since the spirit of the movie is that of rebellion.
As it is known, the New Wave began as a rebellion against the mainstream French cinema. Likewise, Belmondo is rebelling against the norms of society except that he doesn't know it.
I think this is one of the first so-called modern movies - that is, movies that tries to look "modern"(that is, trying to look completely different from previous movies) and in this case, it is breathtakingly modern.
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[Stephen R]

JungWoo:
Thanks for the explanation. I picked up a lot of that in the movie, but couldn't tie it together, so your thoughts really helped. One thing I really thought worked well in the film was the contrast in the scene involving the hunt. It's like the entire movie is flowing along, light-hearted, dialogue-heavy, and then all of the sudden, BANG!: fast-cuts, loud bangs, no dialogue, rabbits falling down dead. Really makes an impact.
Anyway, I'll have to watch it again after reading your comments.
Just rented THE BICYCLE THIEF, THE THIRD MAN, and PERSONA, though...but I think I can squeeze in another viewing of RULES OF THE GAME before its due back.

 

[Darren H]

JungWoo,
Do you plan to keep checking up with this thread and updating totals, or should I start crossing out numbers in my signature like others are doing? I watched The Third Man last night, and plan to write up my response this weekend when I have more time and an opportunity to go through the supplements on that great Criterion disc.
By the way, thanks for going to the effort of color-coding the list. Yesterday I skimmed quickly through and added every red title I haven't seen to my NetFlix queue.
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"Peace is our profession."

 

[Ike]

Well,
While hooking up my VCR, it decided it was going to break. Spitting tapes out, locking, sticking, and having trouble ejecting. So, hooking up the other VCR to watch some on the list, I was treated to lines through the picture. Going through the extremes of tracking, I decided to clean both. I've cleaned both probably about 5 times or more each. Both, still broke. One is over two or three years old, but the other can't be more than a year old.

I'll have to pick up a new VCR before I can even hope to continue.
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Was this guy trying to be a jackass?
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[JungWoo]

Darren H,
just mention it here, and I'll update the list.
And about the color coding, Ivan the Terrible is actually available as Image DVD. I gave it purple color becuase Criterion is going to release it in Nov. I don't know about the transfer quality of this DVD. The same goes for His Girl Friday (d3k dvd; Columbia coming up in Nov.), but in this case, I suggest you wait for Columbia because the present disc is unwatchable travesty of a great movie. Have fun.
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My Life to Live
"Cinema is truth 24 frames per second." - Godard
My DVD Collection
Cinema: seventh art

 

[Pascal A]

I just wanted to caution people against picking up the Ivan the Terrible DVD that is available right now (Image). It really is in bad shape--fuzzy detail, lots of defects and wear. This film would also fall under the "rent now, buy later" category, when the Criterion set comes out.
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Strictly Film School

 

[Brook K]

Jung, I seem to have miscounted, I've only seen 28 of the movies on this list.
I've watched 6 of the 10 episodes of Decalogue but I really don't want to put up a review. You can't talk about these episodes without revealing things, and I would like everyone to discover these amazing works of art on their own. I hope to watch the other 4 soon, but I haven't had a chance to watch any of my Aug. 29th discs either.
The Bicycle Thief is on it's way from Netflix.
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[Evan Case]

Is the Criterion version of Alexander Nevsky going to have a redone version of Prokofiev's score? I rented a Video Yesteryear (you know, those videos from the late 70's that came in the yellow box) copy of the film last year and the performance of the score was terrible! It sounded like a 5-piece orchestra/chorus combination and it absolutely slaughtered the music (which is among the best scores of all-time when performed by a competent, decent-sized orchestra).
I've heard stories that this was due to both the film's limited musical budget plus the poor sound recording techniques in the Soviet Union at the time (it was made during the Great Purge).
Anyone know if we'll be treated to a forceful adaption of the score on DVD? The Video Yesteryear music made the battle scenes seem cartoonish. With good music, they'd be as epic as intended.
It's a great movie nonetheless and eerily prophetic of things that were soon to come (replace the film's Teutonic knights with the German army of WWII).
Evan "who can't believe he's actually excited to be getting a new VCR" Case
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AFI List: 3 to go (and it'd be 1 if my crappy VCR worked)
S&S: 56 films left
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[JungWoo]

From Criterion Collection homepage:

ALEXANDER NEVSKY
Eisenstein drew on history, Russian folk narratives and the techniques of Walt Disney to create this epic tale of Teutonic knights vanquished by Prince Alexander NevskyÕs tactical brilliance. Widely imitated, the Battle on the Ice scene remains one of the most famous audio-visual experiments in film history, perfectly blending action with the rousing score of Sergei Prokofiev.
ALEXANDER NEVSKY -SPECIAL FEATURES
New transfer, with extensive digital image and sound restoration • Audio essay by film scholar David Bordwell, author of The Cinema of Eisenstein • Multimedia essay on the Eisenstein-Prokofiev collaboration by Russell Merritt • Scholar Naum KleimanÕs reconstruction of the unfinished film Bezhin Meadow, plus Jay LeydaÕs photos and documents from the set Sketches and storyboards • New English subtitle translation More!

Sounds really good. I have VHS version released by RCA, which was not a restoration of soundtrack but an altogether new recording of Prokoviev's music. It may not please the purists, but I found its image fabulous and sound stunning. I'm curious what Criterion will do with this movie - my secret hope is that it contain both original soundtrack and a new recording.
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My Life to Live
"Cinema is truth 24 frames per second." - Godard
My DVD Collection
Cinema: seventh art
S&S 100 Films Forum Challenge

 

[Pascal A]

Regarding Video Yesteryear films (not that I remember the late 70's all that well

), they're not exactly premium quality (just premium priced) when it comes to transfers: usually any public domain that they can get their hands on, no restoration or master transfer enhancements, no quality control. My first copy of Lola Montes (Ophuls) was actually blank, and their transfer of Wild Strawberries (Bergman) cut off every second line of dialogue

. There are better transfers of Alexander Nevsky out there, but no one has ever done a restoration until now. I'm looking forward to it on DVD.
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Strictly Film School

 

[Jarod M]

Regarding Ivan:
I agree with Pascal. Having seen Image's mediocre version, there's no doubt in my mind that the Criterion version will look much better, which is important since that movie depends a lot on its look.
Regarding Alexander:
Since Criterion has made no allusion to it, it is almost a certainty that this version will not contain the redone version of the score. The Image version that was released quite a while ago also only had the original version. It would be great if both the original and the "remake" were on the disc, but I don't see it happening. I have noticed that very rarely are DVDs given more than one score or more than one version of the score, even when they exist. One notable exception is City Lights, and apparently another is the upcoming release of Legend.
-Jarod

 

[Gary Tooze]

Hey Jung !
Hate to be picky but:
Number 91 ( one of them ) is:
In the Real of The Senses...
am attempting to get further on my watchings... purhcased 4 more from the list... now I just have to watch them ( the fun part )...
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[Gary Tooze]

Sorry thats Realm
going to bed now...

 

[Stephen R]

Just saw "The Bicycle Thief" (****/****), "The Third Man" (****/****), and "Persona" (***/****).
Short write-ups with my thoughts will come tomorrow, along with the others that I haven't done yet, "Rules of the Game", "Ikiru", and "Breathless".
88 , 87 , 86 , 85 Left

 

[Tim Raffey]

Jung,
I've delayed long enough. I'm ready to enter the S&S Forum challenge. At 18 viewed (113 to go) I'm afraid I've got a lot of watching to do, but I've got 2 years though, right? .

 

[JungWoo]

Tim, you only need to see 82 more films.
I myself have been going slow, having seen only one movie. However, I did see Bicycle Thief over the weekend. Very powerful stuff.
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My Life to Live
"Cinema is truth 24 frames per second." - Godard
My DVD Collection
Cinema: seventh art
S&S 100 Films Forum Challenge

 

[Brook K]

AAARRRGGHH!! Today I looked in my mailbox and saw the cover sheet of a netflix DVD, but not the disc package itself. Lost in the mail!! There is a 50-50 chance that it was The Bicycle Thief. This is going to set me back awhile.

That's only the 2nd time I've had a disc lost from them.

 

[JungWoo]

No, didn't see a new movie yet, but yesterday I learned to use "screen capture" program properly at last. I'm very excited. Expect to see the onslaught of screenshots from now on.
Here are some of screenshots I got:

Pierrot le fou
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My Life to Live
"Cinema is truth 24 frames per second." - Godard
My DVD Collection
Cinema: seventh art
S&S 100 Films Forum Challenge

 

[Stephen R]

JungWoo:
What DVD software player do you use? I use CineMaster and can never seem to take a screenshot.
S&S Movies Left to Watch 85 84