Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club - Page 33

Lew Crippen · 09-21-2003, 03:31 PM

Chungking Express was only the second Wong Kar-Wai I had seen—and it is the one that confirmed for me what a fine filmmaker we had in our midst. Decidedly not a film for those who wish a straight narrative, but full of humanity and hope for those who will put up with unannounced shifts in time, place and reality—but thoroughly grounded in the reality of missed connections and elusive love.

Christopher Doyle lends stylish cinematography. A great film.

Kirk Tsai · 09-22-2003, 06:12 AM

Lew, there is indeed a great variance in Chinese opera. Almost every province has their own style, each based on the same fundamentals and stories (at least a dozen stories are well known to every Chinese), but completely different in performance and language use, which is understandable once you consider every province has a different dialect. The dialects are much denser than accents Americans would think of. On a side bar: the first emperor of China, a subject of many Chinese films including The Emperor and the Assasin and Zhang's Hero, contributed greatly to China as a whole because he unified the written language. So while every other Chinese may speak differently, we all read the same language.

The diversity of language is actually shown in Wong Kar Wai's films. In The Mood For Love features both Cantonese (Tony Leung) and Shanghainese (Maggie Cheung and her landlord), an important divide that I think Westerners might have missed. Chungking Express has Cantonese, Mandarin, and Taiwanese. The same is true for Days of Being Wild and Fallen Angels, not to mention the occasional English and Japanese in his films.

I've been reading David Thomson's new Biographical Dictionary of Film, and he makes a similar argument regarding Griffith as Seth. In a unrelated note, you guys should read some of the criticisms he has, including Hitchcock and Scorsese. His book is fascinating.

My local video store has Contempt, Band of Outsiders, and My Life to Live on DVD. What should be next after Breathless?

Lew Crippen · 09-22-2003, 10:18 AM

Thanks for the view into Chinese Opera Kirk. I used to see it on the street in Singapore during the ‘Hungry Ghost Festival’, but I never knew which style I was seeing.

I don’t speak Chinese, but I am pretty aware of the dialect differences—for example in Chungking Express, when the cop (the first one) is trying to initiate conservation with the girl in the blonde wig, he tries what I presume to be Cantonese and Mandarin. I think that when he tires English (could be wrong here) she says that he speaks very good Mandarin (surprising for someone living in Hong Kong) and he comments that he was born in Taiwan (which explains why, as the one thing the mainland Communist government and the Republic agreed upon was that Mandarin should become universally spoken (often called Standard by some of my Chinese friends).

I’ve often wondered how much I missed in the language part of In the Mood for Love, as I was quite aware of the food preferences (Singapore is a great city to get a lot of different Chinese cooking styles) of each—and they were quite different. Since I could pick up on one pretty big difference, I was pretty sure that I was missing several others.

Switching cultures, I’d go with:
Contempt
My Life to Live
Band of Brothers

Of these, I like My Life to Live the best, but it is perhaps a bit less accessible than Contempt. My Life to Live is a film where we know from the opening shot that Godard is making a film—the scene at the café counter is very ‘artsy’—deliberately so. Godard also makes it clear that Contempt is a film about film, but as we have Fritz Lang playing a director and the opening credits roll over a location shoot, we are told all of this directly.

Lew Crippen · 09-22-2003, 01:16 PM

Quote:

There is so much more I could write on Star Wars, arguably the most underranked film on this list...

I must say that it was a pleasure to read favorable comments on Star Wars that had some obvious thought and logic. However to discuss the ‘most underranked’ statement, consider some of the other films that are tied (with Star Wars at #157) in this poll:

· Aguirre, Wrath of God
· Badlands
· Belle de jour
· Berlin Alexanderplatz
· The Best Years of Our Lives
· Bonnie and Clyde
· Brazil
· Broken Blossoms
· The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
· Chungking Express
· The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
· Do the Right Thing
· Fear Eats the Soul
· The Great Dictator
· In the Mood for Love
· Jaws
· Kind Hearts and Coronets
· The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
· M. Hulot's Holiday
· La Nuit américaine
· One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
· The Palm Beach Story
· Paths of Glory
· Playtime
· Pyaasa

While I am sure that you can find many films ranked above Star Wars that you think are not deserving of their place (certainly I can), I can make a case for any of these to be ranked further up the list as well. To be sure many of the films above have flaws, but then so too does Star Wars

Dome Vongvises · 09-22-2003, 03:23 PM

I can write about Star Wars too, Lew, but then I'd end up gushing over it more than saying anything intelligible (sp?).

All I can say is that Star Wars is the most derivative piece of cinematic work on the planet...and that's not a bad thing.

Everybody's got their own taste and paradigm's of thought when it comes to films. I agree with Adam_S in that it's underranked, but Lew also makes a good point that there are several films in that same company that are underranked as well. IMHO, Star Wars ranks ahead of Sunset Boulevard by as many miles as possible. Casablanca is underrated as well.

Oh, and I really promise I'll have Tokyo Story watched by this weekend. Physiology and Physics are getting in the way.

george kaplan · 09-22-2003, 05:21 PM

Lew,

I certainly hold some of those films in high esteem, but don't consider any to be as good as Star Wars. For myself, I consider the African Queen to be the most underranked (of those that made the list), while I consider Raiders of the Lost Ark to be the most underranked overall (by virtue of it's not making the list)

Adam_S · 09-22-2003, 05:23 PM

Excellent point Lew. It brings to mind a discussion I had in the cinema library with my co worker the other day. He's also working down the AFI movies list and we were comparing the merits of the Entertainment weekly list, the AFI and the Sound and Spirit lists. He brought up the good point that if you're going to say such and such movie should be higher/on the list you have to ask what it is that film is going to replace. I've seen at least eight of those films, and several I would argue for being ranked higher. But if I stop and think about it, it becomes difficult when you decide what film, precisely, it is you're going to replace or move down--which is much harder than many people think it is.

Adam

Lew Crippen · 09-22-2003, 06:15 PM

Actually George, I think that Star Wars is better than a couple myself(Jaws, for example). My point was that there are many films for which a case can be made for shuffling the ranking.

But for many (I expect) who responded to this poll, would have criteria for judging films that would automatically exclude Star Wars from being included at all. Any voter putting a high premium on dialogue or acting would be quite harsh in considering where Star Wars should be placed. Factor that in with any voters with an opinions like mine (which is that it should be included because of the impact that it had when released and because it is so much fun, but not ranked very high because of what I consider its considerable deficiencies) and I think that you would find that the overall ranking will necessarily be diluted.

Some more random examples. If I were considering films from a purist perspective, I would put the two Tati films far ahead of Star Wars because they have almost no flaws. What they do, they do perfectly. Of course this does not mean that anyone might not dislike them, or that they might not like other, more flawed films more, but simply that by using one valid criteria, one can arrive at a different ranking.

Or if one were judging character development, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a wonderful example of truly understating a man’s life and accomplishments.

Etc.

MartinTeller · 09-22-2003, 10:15 PM

Jules et Jim - I just finished watching this about an hour ago, and I almost feel like I should give it more time to sink in before I comment on it. It's one of those films that I feel will grow on me, come back to haunt me, linger in my memory for weeks. But, here's my gut reaction: some really really marvelous parts, but they don't add up to much more than their sum. Perhaps it's a French New Wave thing, but it felt a bit disjointed.

And what's up with the French and narration? I hate narration. Is it just me, or does it seem like a lot of French films have it?

Overall, I liked it, but it didn't blow me away. But like I said, I think it will grow on me over time.