Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club - Page 69

Lew Crippen · 06-28-2004, 03:40 PM

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But with Resnais it was the other way around wasn't it?

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Also rented My Little Chickadee which I haven't gotten to yet but can't wait to see,

[best Fields accent] During one of my treks through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew. Compelled to live on food and water ... [/[best Fields accent]

Jim_K · 06-29-2004, 06:30 PM

Greed

The destructive power of greed shatters the lives of three people. Splendid drama on par with Sunrise as one of the finest films of the silent era. One can only wonder what the 9 ½ hour cut would’ve been like.

Nanook of the North

Interesting documentary about the harsh life of the Inuit tribes. Historically important though many of the scenes seem staged.

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Adam_S · 06-29-2004, 11:40 PM

The Great Dictator -

½

A flawed dream/pet project of sorts, I thought the film was overlong, unevenly paced, and never sure if it was going to use silent or talkie aesthetics. For the most part, the only major sequence I didn't like was the opening in which all the dialogue felt tremendously like intertitles (at least this wasn't so for the rest of the film or I was acclimated to the ghetto sections by that time) and was really annoying at how it immediately killed the silent filmmaking magic that was just getting going. Overall, I'm wondering why this (and Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight) are on this list at the expense of some of his other legendary silents like The Kid and The Circus. So I guess I'll just have to watch those as well and decide which chaplin I prefer.

Chris_Richard · 06-30-2004, 02:19 AM

A Woman under the Influence – I really like Cassavetes work and this is his only major film I’ve not seen. I was not disappointed. Both Rowlands and Falk turn in wonderful performances. This film is like viewing two random hours of their relationship and it is very interesting to have what details of their marriage unfold in front of us. I can understand why people don’t enjoy films on family dysfunctions or Cassavetes work. But for people that do this is one to see.

Puppetmaster – As much as the above film was for me this is not. This film is a long biography of puppetmaster Li Tien-lu and interweaves this with the history of Taiwan in the first part of the 20th century in a somewhat confusing manner.

The film’s style does not help the viewing experience. It is told through a mostly static camera in quite a few longs shots. The narrative is mostly told though voiceovers from the 84 year old puppermaster with many sequenced segued by him appearing in an interview format. I’m sure I missed something but after two and a half hours I didn’t care.

Jim_K · 06-30-2004, 06:43 AM

Orpheus

Poet falls in love with Death as this Greek myth gets the art-house treatment. Some interesting camera tricks but overall not as magical as his Beauty and the Beast.

Cocteau films seen
Beauty and the Beast ***
Orpheus **

All that Heaven Allows

Heavy-handed 50’s melodrama in which an older woman falls for a younger man of a lesser social status. Probably a staple theme on every TV soap opera for the past 40 years. Not as cheesy as Written on the Wind, though that film was at least good for a few laughs.

Sirk films seen
All that Heaven Allows **
Written on the Wind *

221 films down

george kaplan · 06-30-2004, 07:21 AM

Regarding the Great Dictator, I like it more than you do, and I think some of the 'flaws' you see are understandable historically. Chaplin was torn about sound, and even though he had incorporated it at the end of Modern Times four years earlier, he still hadn't fully embraced it. But then again, neither did Jacques Tati, and that doesn't make his even later films any less good. Frankly, the almost silent start of Great Dictator into a sound film kind of reminds me of the way Hitchcock's Blackmail begins, when he was segueing from silent to sound.

Still, I can understand your questioning of the film on the list. I think it belongs here (it's vastly superiour to tons of other films on the list), but I can see where you're coming from. Still, as with other films on this list, history and importance play a role, and I think Great Dictator gets extra points for having the balls to be anti-Hitler not only before it was fashionable, but when it was unpopular to be so.

Lew Crippen · 06-30-2004, 10:16 AM

I was quit when I come in here, Bryant, I'm twice as quit now.

But of course men such as Rick Deckhard (Harrison Ford) never get to quit—even when they no longer believe (if indeed they ever did) in their mission. In Blade Runner, Ridley Scott provides a perfect setting for Ford to carry out his mission of desperation and despair. Though overlong, I do like the director’s cut (actually the first film was too long also) the movie no longer insults the audience’s intelligence by explaining too many things and I find that we don’t know if Deckhard is himself a Repilca very satisfying.

For me much of the film is about what it means to be human—and the new, ambiguous ending does a much better job of asking the question than the previous one.

Lew Crippen · 06-30-2004, 10:17 AM

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Interesting documentary about the harsh life of the Inuit tribes. Historically important though many of the scenes seem staged.

They were.

Pascal A · 06-30-2004, 12:44 PM

Regarding Puppetmaster, I'm surprised by its inclusion in the S&S list because, of Hou's Taiwan trilogy, this is perhaps his most elliptical in interweaving national and personal history and also the most impenetrable. I can only imagine that either: 1. this film was probably the voters' first introduction to Hou so it remains the most "relevant" to them (this was the film released on the heels of A City of Sadness, which cemented Hou's international reputation), or 2. they consider the film to be the encapsulation of the Taiwan trilogy since it is the concluding film. The film is also the most indicative of his elliptical style, so perhaps people were voting on its merit as a stylistically "quintessential" Hou film.

Anyway, while I do like the film, I prefer the first two parts of the trilogy much more, A City of Sadness (my favorite Hou film) and Good Men, Good Women.