Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club - Page 37

Brook K · 10-20-2003, 11:51 PM

Glad you enjoyed it so much Martin. In many ways, it, rather than one of Eisenstein's films is the best example of Russian Montage. IIRC, Dziga Vertov had something of a rivalry with Eisenstein and each had their own theories and disciples on the proper use of montage.

There is at least one other Vertov DVD: Three Songs Of Lenin which I've never gotten around to seeing.

Another important Russian director of the silent era is Vsevlod Pudovkin. His film, Mother, which is available on DVD, feels like a neo-realist film cut in montage style.

In the 70's Godard formed a filmmaking group called "The Dziga Vertov Group" and produced dense political/experimental films. I haven't managed to see any of those.

Lew Crippen · 10-21-2003, 09:49 AM

Good points on Breaking the Waves Brook.

Kirk Tsai · 10-22-2003, 03:24 AM

150 was Hiroshima, mon amour. This is a film I have yet to fully grasp, and a repeat viewing in the future is probably in order. As of now, I think it is a combination of moving and tedious moments. There are many closeups of the actress, and it reminded me of The Passion of Joan of Arc. It tells a lot. But then the beautiful flashbacks often get carried too long, even though the themes of memory and forgetting are well expressed.

Before I saw the film I read the Amazon.com video review. They referred to it as a soulful love story. Here I must disagree. Although there is a couple in the movie, and they are having an affair, I think the importance of the couple is not so much that they love each other; rather, it's that the Japanese man allows the women to express her self-absorption.

Pascal A · 10-22-2003, 03:20 PM

Regarding Hiroshima mon amour, I tend to agree with James Monaco's assessment in the book, Alain Resnais that the core of the film lies in the 'unfilmability' of something as tragic as Hiroshima, and he proposes that the film is a corollary to Night and Fog in the sense that you can 'film' the place and the ravages of that tragedy, but you can't truly 'capture' the horror of it. This is also the essence of that opening dialogue where He and She argue about 'knowing' Hiroshima.

Another interesting assessment in the Monaco book is how in Resnais' earlier films, his characters are representational and not individual (or even mathematical symbols, like X, A, M in Last Year at Marienbad). She, as an actress, is literally a "stand-in" witness, and not a true witness to the tragedy. Similarly, He is a surrogate for her lost love. By being denied identity, Resnais seems to further expound on the idea that there is no true intimacy between them, in the same manner that She has no intimate knowledge of (nor connection with) the tragedy of Hiroshima. You can never truly know something that you did not experience. (And by extension, Resnais seems to also be commenting on his impotence as a filmmaker to convey the depth of the tragedy.)

I agree though that the film is not intended to be a romantic love story. Marguerite Duras' interest lay more towards experimenting with narrative logic in film (in a similar vein that nouveau roman does with literature), so it seemed as though she wanted to take a premise that was quite conventional in order to illustrate that, despite the banality of the story, one could still create a compelling work through bold and novel narrative structures.

Brook K · 10-23-2003, 01:24 AM

Haven't seen the Resnais films yet. Nice to hear from you Pascal.

Look to the skies!

#221 is The Thing From Another World in which a group of scientists and military discover a UFO near the North Pole. While attempting to remove it from the ice, they destroy it, but find that one alien being has survived encased in ice. They bring it back to their base where the inevitable happens...

This is as impressive a 50's sci-fi/horror film as any I've seen from the era. Most American genre films of this period are either camp, had micro budgets that result in poor effects or actors, or are heavily stylized. The Thing plays it straight with effective performances from a large ensemble cast and solid direction. The script has a good deal of humor, but the characters and by extension the actors, take their situation seriously. Dmitri Tiomkin's typically effective score enhances the mood of isolation and suspense. And there is a very impressive for-the-time firewalk stunt scene which features the stuntman being lit on fire at least 3 separate times in one shot.

But most important is the script which goes beyond nuclear war or Communist paranoia to suggest that it is science itself that could bring about our destruction by constantly pushing the limits of knowledge with no regard for the welfare or safety of the humans the knowledge should benefit. I about fell out of my chair when the head scientist uttered this line while trying to keep the military from fighting the murderous alien:

Knowledge is more important than life. We have only one purpose: to think, to find out, to learn.

How often do you see a sci-fi movie where its the military that's the voice of reason?

Dome Vongvises · 10-23-2003, 02:11 PM

I just wrote my review for The Grapes of Wrath.

Click Here

Or click my sig file.

MartinTeller · 10-24-2003, 02:51 AM

I'm probably the last person in this thread to see Gone With the Wind, but I've finally seen it. Not sure how I managed to avoid it for so long.

On the one hand, it's epic human drama with compelling characters and marvelous performances. The four hours swept past in no time.

But... I cannot forgive the disgusting racism. I cannot forgive the romanticizing of the Old South, the glorification of the Confederation, the cartoon caricatures, the suggestion that slavery was not that bad. I cannot forgive a film which presents a cotton plantation as a symbol of hope and glory. Call me P.C. or whatever. I can't look past it. It sickens me.

And another thing:

Spoiler:

george kaplan · 10-24-2003, 08:07 PM

All that Heaven Allows

I've said my piece on this over in the Lew Crippen/George Kaplan thread, and hopefully there'll be some discussion of it over there, so I'll just summarize here, that I find this film, as well as Written on the Wind, to be horribly melodramatic soap operas that I don't like at all. They may have certain artistic aspects that deserve recognition, but for me, there's no way that such touches can redeem these cheesy flicks, and they would be very near the top of films I'd consider least deserving of their place on the S&S list.

156 watched

184 left

MartinTeller · 10-25-2003, 03:31 AM

When I saw my first Bunuel film, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, I liked it but I wasn't especially impressed or blown away. Having seen a few snippets of Un Chien Andalou, I was pretty sure I would appreciate his more surrealist work a great deal more.

Today I watched L'Age d'Or. Twice. I won't pretend that I understand all of it (cow in the bed?) but I liked it quite a bit. Besides, I'm certain that parts of it weren't meant to be understood. It is surrealism, after all. The stuff I didn't understand was still engaging and entertaining. And what I did understand was incisive, funny as hell, and audacious to a degree that puts John Waters to shame. A bold, fascinating, and enjoyable work packed with memorable moments.

Lew Crippen · 10-25-2003, 03:50 PM

What a husband doesn't know won't hurt his wife.

This said by the wife (Carol Lombard), which pretty much sums up the intended humor and confusion in To Be or Not to Be. As with most Ernst Lubitsch films, the audience is not sure where the film is going during the opening scene (which I won’t recap on the off-chance that some have not seen the film).

Lubitsch was not the only director to have made a comedy about Nazis during WWII. He only made the best, not excepting Chaplin’s Great Dictator, which suffers occasionally from self-importance. Lubitsch never falls into that trap, keeping a lighter (and funnier) touch throughout.