Jim_K

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Lew Crippen

I knew that you were a Sturges fan, but I thought I remembered a post where mentioned that ‘Eve’ did not work that well for you.

I’m happy to be corrected.

I do think that movies (of almost any type) that have some social commentary wind up being considered ‘better’ than ones that do not. This is true of almost any art form—but I think less so of movies. To be sure, there are a good many (comedies especially) where it is possible that the film was made with a deeper intent, or that (after the fact) social commentary can be thought to be a part of the film, but regardless, these films can be thoroughly enjoyed just for what is presented on the surface.

For example, Billy Wilder, who rarely made a film with entertainment only in mind, gave us Some Like it Hot, which very few viewers will watch for any message other than sheer fun. Perfectly constructed fun, of course. Is the shark in Jaws anything other than a shark, or should we consider it along the same lines that we do the big white whale? I have no doubt that someone has written a thesis on the subject, but I for one am just along for the ride.

I would suggest that a novel, written along similar lines, would quickly be discarded on the beach, along with an empty bottle of SPF 30 sunscreen and never make it on any prestigious ‘best’ list.

Put another way, movies are often considered great, even when they don’t address great themes, but are simply entertaining and technically well made. I think that this is mostly not true of other art forms.

But in the end, what is underneath any work of art, even when not necessarily intended helps to raise the worth of that work. Films, like fiction, may be at their very best when they successfully address entertainment and the human condition (or other issues).

¡Time is not my master!

Lew Crippen

To continue in the same vein as my last post, I think that too often you confuse critics like Pauline Kael or intellectual criticism from the likes of Jonathon Rosenbaum or pure academic criticism where a great emphasis is placed on the intellectual properties of a film, with real, considered ‘great’ lists. Or the body of work of respected critics as to what they consider ‘great’ films.

For example although one can make arguments as to deeper social intent on these films in the S&S list, most are just fun—and would make lists regardless of any deep meaning.

Singin’ in the Rain
Psycho
Some Like it Hot
The Gold Rush
Nashville
Pulp Fiction
Blue Velvet
Gone with the Wind
His Girl Friday
The Lady Eve
King Kong
Bonnie and Clyde
Jaws
M. Hulot’s Holiday
Meet Me in St. Louis
The Palm Beach Story
Star Wars
Trouble in Paradise
The African Queen
Bob le flambeur
Bride of Frankenstein
Bringing up Baby
The Lady Vanishes
Rosemary’s Baby
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Now to that list we could add twice that many from the S&S list that are vastly entertaining, even if the message is perhaps more present than those above. All of the Ford & Hawks westerns for example would probably make the list, even if they were not overtly presenting a message.

And my closing caveat (same as at the beginning)—I know that some of the above have been analyzed to death (King Kong is just one obvious example)—I just think that for the most part, these films would make the list based on entertainment and technical value alone.

And I probably left off a good many such as Rio Bravo and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

¡Time is not my master!

Lew Crippen

I would suggest that is not the only reason.

My question is why should a mindless comedy be considered great? Especially if the acting is average, the cinematography indifferent, the writing trite (even if occasionally amusing) and the direction routine.

Films that fall into a few of the above traps don’t get critical respect, not so much because of the genre, but because they just are not very good movies, with the exception of one or two elements.

But films like Ghostbusters and Ferris Buller’s Day Off get a lot of critical, respect as well as popular applause, not because they address any great, burning issue, but because they are very funny and (for the most part) are technically and artistically well done.

In the fantasy genre, I really can’t think of many films (other than Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings) that would meet any objective criteria of great. Perhaps, if one includes some Terry Gilliam films like Brazil, there are a couple of more. Not at all a challenge , as I’m curious, but which films in this genre are truly overlooked?

You did not mention Science Fiction, another often overlooked genre (and one with traditionally poor production values). It is my prediction that the recent Charlie Kauffman film may get some critical recognition next year. So perhaps we will see some real, deserved critical recognition of this genre as well.

I'm editing, as I am reminded that many critics really liked Solaris.

¡Time is not my master!

Dome Vongvises

That was the one I was thinking of as far as fantasy films are considered.



The funny thing about fantasy is that it's really hard to objectively say what are characteristics of the genre. Swords and sorcery is obvious, but a film like Brazil classifies as fantasy as well. I guess the best way of looking at it is a story based on imagined (hence fantasy) rules of its own making. That would apply to a lot of films, but I think what makes fantasy fantasy is the sure visceral imagination involved. Wookies to Oompa Loompas.

I wouldn't say this film is overlooked so much as excluded from this list of world greats, but I've looked up and down this list and even did a search function, and I can't find The Wizard of Oz anywhere.

And looking within the list, it's nice to see Spirited Away, Star Wars, and King King on there, but look at the list of films ahead or on par. Marnie!? That got grandfathered in if you ask me. Marnie ranks the same as KK, but I'll be damned if somebody could come up with reasons why Marnie is in the same league as KK.



I was thinking of 2001: A Space Odyssey for that one. Like fantasy, it's a very hard genre to classify. There's definitely a physical/chemical/biological science involved, but the more you look at it, it's more of a social science (that's not me, I read that somewhere and I just agree with it) and simply uses superficial means (most of them at least) as a vehicle for insights into the human condition. Blade Runner got its props and so did Metropolis. I would consider A Clockwork Orange science fiction in the sense that it's criminal and psychological science. Star Wars is somewhat Sci-fi, but it looks at people's fascination with simplicity of myth and heroes/villains more than it does with any specific component of humanity. I'd say Sci-Fi is well-represented.

Edit: If it's what I'm thinking of, isn't The Thief of Baghdad fantasy as well? Ranks pretty low if you ask me.

Lew Crippen

I actually think that Science Fiction is easier to classify than Fantsy. But regardless when I wrote that it was an overlooked genre by many rankings, I somehow forgot completely about ‘2001’, which would be somewhere on almost every list.

I gave up worrying about where on a list a film was ranked and am more interested in if it made the list or was left off. This is because the ranking on a list like the S&S is really a function of how many critics are predisposed towards a genre (or, in the case of some films) have even seen it.

So films like the Apu trilogy may make the list because they are indeed great films, but won’t rank that highly, simply because even among knowledgeable critics, many won’t have seen them. Of course they probably get automatic votes from critics who are South Asian-biased.

I personally don’t rate Marnie that highly (especially in comparison to some other by Hitchcock), but I’ll acknowledge that there is a core of critics who find great complexity and psychological depth in the movie. For me, the Dali-inspired dream sequence does not work that well, but the parallel shot of Marnie and the cleaning lady in the otherwise deserted office, is by itself almost enough to qualify the film to be on some kind of list. Simply brilliant.

As for the Wizard, two things: one, many, many critics don’t think it is all that good (they have legitimate reasons, with which I disagree) and two, I think that overall the S&^S list is deficient in musicals. True, we have a predictably high placement for Singin’ in the Rain and some would consider Duck Soup a musical, though I think it a comedy with music, rather than a musical comedy. Grur Dutt’s Kaagaz ke phool is a musical, but extremely obscure---perhaps even more so than his Pyaasa. A Star is Born might be considered a musical, but is really melodrama, but at least The Young Girls of Rochefort makes the cut. The Red Shoes is about ballet—music is a necessary consequence, but I could consider Topsy-Turvy to be a true musical.

The list comes down to five, two of which are Indian. Not very many when you consider 340 entries. And there are a lot of valid arguments to be made for musicals missing the list.

But I never thought that this was a perfect list—but it is a very good one.

In any case, I think that Dorothy and Toto miss out, not because of wicked witches and tin men, but becuase she sings and dances too much.

¡Time is not my master!

Lew Crippen

You can rest easy for a few days Dome. My wife and I are going to San Antonio for a long weekend and I probably won’t be looking over your shoulder.

¡Time is not my master!

Seth Paxton

Jim,

Alright sir.

To be clear, I wasn't demanding your enjoyment of the film either. But its definitely a lot less "random" than Un Chien Andalou, for example.

Walter,

I don't know for sure about Dome, but I was definitely saying that OLDER comedies get a lot more breaks in terms of greatness than newer comedies.

IMO, many critics give higher regard to older films as artistic simply because of their age. Chaplin was not really doing things that much different than Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler, neither was Keaton. Maybe better perhaps, hard to be 100% sure when the styles are so different.

But is Gold Rush really that more "important" than The Jerk? I sure don't think its funnier. Maybe as funny in a different way, or at least in the ballpark of each other, but Martin used satire and parody to comment on social structure just as much as Chaplin did in City Lights.


I like that Animal House was also brought up as another example of great comedy, one that does speak to counter-culture ideals and elitist cliques (not to mention the liberal student/prof relationship sometimes found on a campus ) and yet because of its low-brow comedy it is not even considered in the same breath as a film like Chariots of Fire.


Besides age, you know another factor that improves a comedy's chances of being respected...animation. Animated films rise to the top of critics list far quicker than if the same material had been live action.


One thing that made me happy about Depp's nomination this year was that it was the acknowledgement that a great comedic effort can affect how enjoyable a film is, and more importantly how memorable a film is. If only the films themselves could now get the same respect.



Scores - seems like a lot of us agree that a score becomes critical to enhancing our enjoyment of a silent, maybe even in keeping our attention. However, it seems like a tricky situation in evaluating films made before a score could be recorded with the film, and even more so when a written score is not available. On top of that we see many interpretative scores, like those found on Joan of Arc, Caligari, and even the opera on Beauty and the Beast.

To me those border on found-art rather than the original piece, reinterpreting the original work in some new light. How can we say the original version of the film is great if it takes a new addition to it for us to enjoy it.

Pushing it further consider a film like Mother Dao: The Turtlelike which actually edits together original imperialism era Dutch films and creates via these edits, and more importantly through the use of a soundtrack that did not exist with the original footage, to create a condemnation of the very imperialism the original filmmakers were promoting. I'm not talking about hard juxtopositioning here or the cutting in of new footage. In most ways the original films are shown as they were made. It is the score/soundtrack that alters their theme.

And if it is happening there, can it not also happen when we watch Joan of Arc with the Voices of Light score?

I enjoy many of these new scores and I'm not condemning them or the idea of watching the film with them. But I do think it makes for a tenuous situation when evaluating a silent film's quality.

In fact I would add that I am not against a filmmaker revisiting/reinterpreting the work of a previous filmmaker precisely because I view it as NEW art and not the original work, ala Apoc Now: Redux. But if I see Redux as a new work based on an old work then doesn't a Voices of Light Joan of Arc become a "new" work also?



Typical of my S&S timing you guys are talking about Clementine and I can't join in because I just now got the DVD in.

I'll be back to it in a week and everyone will be on to some other damn film I haven't seen.

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