Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club - Page 63

Brook K · 06-04-2004, 03:46 PM

I liked Walkabout but I haven't seen Performance or Don't Look Now so you'll get no flames from me.

Thanks Lew, I'd forgotten that info is also in the Tokyo Story extras.

We're taking the kids to my parents tomorrow to stay for a couple of weeks so I have 3 days ahead of me with lots of extra movie-watching time in advance of attending our annual sales meeting Wednesday. 3 days of struggling to stay awake during irrelevent meetings followed by nights of planned group activities....I can't wait!

Lew Crippen · 06-04-2004, 03:50 PM

Quote:

3 days of struggling to stay awake during irrelevent meetings followed by nights of planned group activities....

Dome Vongvises · 06-04-2004, 05:14 PM

The only criticism I have of Don't Look Now was that the pacing was on the slow side, and the twist was semi-lame. Otherwise, one of those beautifully photographed films that people go ga-ga over. It's unfortunate people can't combine beautiful photography and great story. It's called Barry Lyndon.

Lew Crippen · 06-04-2004, 05:38 PM

Perhaps Kubrick's most unappreciated film.

Seth Paxton · 06-04-2004, 06:50 PM

Yeah, Barry Lyndon is definitely the Kubrick film I was most cool to originally but have grown to really love with each viewing. It used to seem dry I guess though I'm not sure why I felt that way now. I know it goes slow by some respects and several scenes begin with intentional picture framing (speak of the devil) with little movement, but at the same time the character is wonderfully deep and his adventures go far and wide, all the while with incredible cinematography.

Okay, 3 more down for me. First are 2 Rossellini films. I was not up on him until S&S, but I've taken the time to read up on him a little bit. I don't know what to think of him exactly since he was a guy that was making fascist propoganda before swapping it for anti-facist propoganda like Rome, Open City after the war. I find it semi-insincere, although I realize that during war people have to do what they can I also can look at people like Dietrich or Eisenstein who walked away from those situations and sometimes went as far as risking being condemned in the homeland.

Also, a lot of Rossellini's Neo-Realist style is born out of the lack of funds, as were pretty much all the Neo-Realist works, so it's tricky when assigning style to some things that were really not choices that were made at all, but just the way it was.

The most notable issue with Rome, Open City and Paisa is the lack of quality actors. While its true that Neo-Realism went to the streets to capture real life and often used non-actors in supporting roles, the fact is that the best of these films still had good actors working on the fly in real locations. These two films are less blessed with such talent, although Open City does have a couple of major roles that are well-filled. Paisa is really an acting mess.

On the other hand the writing of Paisa is much better, which only made me wish that the production had been able to afford better technology and better performers to really bring those moments to life instead of stumbling through them. Open City is for the most part a very good story, but I wasn't fond of the rather heavy-handed rant by the "self aware" German toward the end who "drunkenly" codemns the fascist movement.

I credit Rossellini for creating the stories and getting the films right on the heels of the real devestation of war, and that had to be an incredibly difficult task. I only wish that these two films could have somehow had healthy studio backing.

When you think about how much the studios in Italy, Germany and France suffered during both world wars it is rather upsetting. Such a waste in countries that were so strong in the film industry before the war. Add to it the isolationism of Russia post revolution, especially as Stalin grew more dictatorial.

Anyway, both films were good, not quite great to me, and I wonder if some of Rossellini's rep isn't due as much to the support of Cahiers du Cinema as his own work. After all while many Neo-Realists felt that he betrayed the cause, CduCin championed him as being the best of the Neo-Realists, perhaps partly due to his style fitting more in line with what French film in general, New Wave in particular, thought film should be.

For me De Sica is a much better Neo-Realist filmmaker.

On to The Magnificent Ambersons which at times soars to perfection in the area of direction as well as score. The sound editing often also has that unique style that makes Kane such a great film. Unfortunately, the script for Ambersons is not so lovingly smoothed out and the tends to lurch forward from time to time with very little to signal such a transistion, something that also makes Kane one of the greatest films ever. Don't get me wrong, some of the transistions are just as inspired as the best stuff in Kane, but at other times some scenes or transistions just seem to have not had a lot of time devoted to figuring them out and it stands out in filmmaking that is otherwise so good.

I haven't read the history behind the film or its making, so I don't know if Welles was pushed to finish the script/film or what, but the film just doesn't quite keep that same perfection of forward progression that Kane has, despite the two films being about a very similar character following a similar line of tragedy created by arrogance.

Of course Amberson and Kane would hate each other, despising what each other stood for (although Kane becomes more like Amberson as he goes along and Amberson in the end looks a lot more like a young Kane, albeit without the money anymore).

Not quite true greatness with this film, it still shows Welles as one of the very finest directors ever. And I love his credits style and wish more films followed this method.

All of this puts me at 173 down, still a long way to go. Right now I'll be happy to hit 200.

Seth Paxton · 06-04-2004, 06:56 PM

On Ambersons, I had forgotten some of the stories behind it that I had heard in Welles documentaries. I assume that much of what felt like unfinished scripting was really just terrible studio editing on par with Brazil. Having seen both Brazil cuts, I'd say that the current version of Ambersons does have that awkward "what?" feel to several sections, so I can believe that a film as great as Kane was butchered and then permanently destroyed. What a tragedy.

Dome Vongvises · 06-05-2004, 12:08 AM

Oh, so nobody misses what I mean, I love Barry Lyndon. Great story, beautifully photographed, and a great narrative.

I just got my first three DVD's in the mail, and it's a doozy.

Dome Vongvises · 06-05-2004, 12:13 AM

Re: Ambersons

Five buck says we'll find the director's cut in an insane asylum. By the time I'm sixty.

Adam_S · 06-05-2004, 02:04 AM

most likely not Dome.

The cuts were made to the negative, and the cut negative footage was almost immediately dumped in the LA harbor, there was one print sent to Brazil for Welles to vet, but the chances of it surviving the climate are only a hair better than nothing.

Most likely it's as lost as a more complete version of Greed.

------
Metropolis -

Wow! What an incredible experience. EVerything about this film was staggering to watch. Completely blows away the low budget universal films of the thirties--it's amazing what a difference money can make.

I was somewhat familiar with the story, having seen the animé remake. I was delighted at how different the original is and I definitely prefer Lang's vision. I like the optimistic ending. What I found most interesting was the juxtaposition of Christian end times imagry with a full scale workers revolution straight out of Marx. But Lang pushes the message of the film, to my delight, of finding a moderate way of reconciling and compromising on both sides. Well Done a powerful film. I loved the many double exposure effects. Especially the one of three streams of workers coming in from the top and upper corners of the frame in a high long shoot, then in the point where they would merge there's a disssolved double exposure over it of the workers from a medium shot almost face on--the effect of this shot was just tremendous. I absolutely loved all the similar expressionistic techniques used throughout the film in this manner, I definitely will have to investigate german expressionism further.

Adam