Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club - Page 31

george kaplan · 09-08-2003, 10:21 PM

L'Atalante

Ok, time to become unpopular once more.

I don't get it. This movie seems way more critically praised than it deserves. This is a film that strikes me as a student film made by a promising director to be, not a film worthy of top 25 status on a list like S&S. It reminded me a lot of Tarkovsky's The Killers in that regard. It's almost like since he died and never got a chance to fully develop that critics elevated this film way beyond what it deserves.

I'm sorry. I see nothing special here, even if there are germs of what might later become greatness. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

150 watched

190 left

Holadem · 09-08-2003, 10:43 PM

The Bicycle Thief

No time for a review, except to say that while good, it's possibly the most depressing film I have ever seen.

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Dome Vongvises · 09-11-2003, 12:14 AM

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No time for a review, except to say that while good, it's possibly the most depressing film I have ever seen.

I'll give it that. I liked the film a lot, and it's a good film, but it got predictable, and I think it's seriously overrated. What's the big deal with using non-actors? Of all the film periods in existence, neo realism is one I just simply don't care for. I don't care what Scorsese has to say about it.

looks at watch while patiently waiting for Lew, Walter, or somebody else to chime in

Barry Lyndon
Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

- cinematography
- costuming

- epilogue card

Movie Score: B-
Film Score: A
Overall Score with reviewer's tilt: A-

A whole lot of things have already been said about this film, so I'm not going to repeat many of them. If I can provide anything of interest, it's what was going through my head when I was watching this.

Two words pop into my head when I watched this film: Monty Python. Was it the music? Or was it the fact that Kubrick always had a knack for making a mockery of everything, in this case 18th century nobility. Actually, I was thinking Homer Simpson when somebody demanded satisfaction.

Oh wait, forgot the obligatory plot summary. The story concerns one Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal), and the plot follows his exploits as he goes from impetuous Irish youth to English high nobility.

Cinematography is beautiful, yadda yadda yadda, there's nothing I can add that's unique in its praise. But I like to point out a favorite part of mine. It happens in the pistol duel between Barry and Captain Quinn (?). It's obvious Barry is resolved in demanding satisfaction, and he stands proud and tall. Captain Quinn, on the other hand, looks scared shitless. After the two assume "satisfaction" positions, the film cuts to a medium/long shot of the duelists. Now I don't know if it was by intentional design or was just a stroke of coincidence, but you can clearly see Barry Lyndon standing tall and ready. On the other hand, you see the ripples of Captain Quinn's sleeve right underneath his arm, given an added effect of his fear. I may be overreading it, but I thought it was a nice effect nonetheless.

I guess I could say something else about the cinematography as well. Some people have noted how each composed scene looks like a painting from that era. I think Kubrick did an excellent job of not only conveying this sense, but in breathing life into it. It's like if you were looking at a Van Gogh and it suddenly came to life. Although frankly, I'd be scared of what a Van Gogh painting would have to say to me.

Wasn't a big fan of the epilogue card. It rambled mumbo jumbo to me.

I'm glad I finally saw this. It's fourth on my list of Kubricks.
1. The Shining
2. A Clockwork Orange
3. Paths of Glory
4. Barry Lyndon
5. Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb
6. Full Metal Jacket
7. Lolita
8. Spartacus
9. Eyes Wide Shut
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey

84 seen

Lew Crippen · 09-11-2003, 09:23 AM

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looks at watch while patiently waiting for Lew, Walter, or somebody else to chime in

I may wait a day or two for Brook. When I posted a few very short comments about this film, I merely commented that I did not think it quite so fine a film as I had many years ago (though still very fine indeed). Brook was on that like white on rice.

But one of the things he wrote still resonates with me (I’m too lazy to get his exact quote), where he said that since becoming a father, the last scenes affected him profoundly. While I can’t speak for all fathers, I agree 100% with Brook as to that point.

One of my favorite scenes from Barry Lyndon is the controlled chaos in the church, where he gets embroiled in a knock-down, drag-out fight. An absolutely brilliant piece of filmmaking.

Holadem · 09-11-2003, 09:31 AM

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Brook was on that like white on rice.

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Lew Crippen · 09-11-2003, 09:40 AM

Around her neck, she wore a yellow ribbon,
She wore it in the winter and the merry month of May;
When I asked her, why the yellow ribbon?
She said it's for her lover in the U.S. Cavalry.

It its troopers on horseback, Indians and Monument Valley, what else should we expect but a John Ford film starring John Wayne? She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is a strange film as it seems to not really have an ending, as the end is really the depiction of the ongoing, American westward expansion, a theme often found in Ford films, but never so directly addressed as in this one.

Wayne gives one of his best performances as the retiring Captain and the cinematography won a deserved Oscar.

Brook K · 09-11-2003, 05:01 PM

Neo-Realism is about things happening to Real people. If you want to say these films suck (which upon re-reading you didn't say Dome, but I'm not sure how you "like the film alot" but don't like neo-realism) or are depressing or what have you, that's your call. Me, I find they have a unique emotional power because they are both about events in a specific time and place, but are universal in their themes.

Aren't Star Wars or Indiana Jones (to use some of Dome's favorites) just as predictable? But could I ever be Indiana Jones and battle Nazis and jump over rocks? No I can't, it's entertaining, but its bullshit. Being driven to corrupt your own moral values so that your wife and child don't starve to death? That's reality.

Neo-Realist films like The Bicycle Thieves, Germany Year Zero, Paisan, Umberto D, etc. are about the things we lose when man chooses to go to war. They are documents of suffering, inhumanity, pain. In some the human spirit may triumph, in some the human spirit is broken. Right offers no particular reward over wrong, both may suffer equally or unequally and evil is not someone in a black mask, but the emptiness in the pit of your belly.

Non-actors give an honesty and commitment in their performance that a "star" can not reproduce. Stars have their own good qualities, but when you use an Anthony Quinn or Marcello Mastrianni, it produces a very different effect than when we see someone who we don't know and do not have a history with or an instant identification.

These are not films that seek to entertain. They have a deeper purpose, one of informing and moving an audience. You should be uncomfortable when you watch them. If you are depressed, then the film was successful.

I could talk more specifically about the other films, or about thematically different films like La Terra Trema or The Children Are Watching Us but better you discover those on your own.

Lew Crippen · 09-11-2003, 05:16 PM

Well-written Brook—of course it helps that I agree with you.

I will only add that stars (and real actors) usually have a quality that allows the audience to forgive them for their transgressions. This I think is something that De Sica was trying to avoid. He did not want to let the audience off the hook as the moral choices were made.

As Brook has already introduced Quinn, consider how we feel about him in La Strada. Not that he is necessarily trying to get the audience on his side (as it were), and not that he does not give an honest performance, but a certain charisma just comes across and I think that we (rightly) feel his humanity a bit more. But for this film we already identify with the father so much that should any of the ‘star quality’ come through at all, it would be detrimental to film.

george kaplan · 09-11-2003, 05:34 PM

I agree with a lot of what Brook says. However, I disagree with some of it, such as

These are not films that seek to entertain. They have a deeper purpose, one of informing and moving an audience.

I would strongly disagree that they have a deeper purpose. They have a different purpose, but I personally don't find it any better, deeper, or more meaningful a purpose than the purpose of films to entertain.

Of course this is the core of our disagreement about film aesthetics. To me 'to entertain' is the primary criteria by which all films should be judged. It is the ultimate purpose of a film. That is not to say that a film can't be deep or depressing or touch upon human suffering and still be entertaining. For me films such as Open City, M, Rear Window, 2001, Vertigo, Citizen Kane, Modern Times, The Seventh Seal and many others have important messages, but more importantly, they are entertaining.

MartinTeller · 09-11-2003, 06:16 PM

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It is the ultimate purpose of a film.

Only the filmmaker can dictate what the purpose of the film is. I'm sure some of them do not seek to entertain.