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10-04-2004, 10:24 PM
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#2341 of 3711 
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Member
Join Date: Mar 2001
Local Time: 11:45 AM
Local Date: 08-30-2008
Posts: 14,291
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Quote:
| There's a conscious superficiallity to the film...George - looks like I dug the societal message of the film quite a bit more than you did. |
"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder
"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.
"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock
"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk
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10-05-2004, 01:31 AM
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#2342 of 3711
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Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Local Time: 10:45 AM
Local Date: 08-30-2008
Posts: 118
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Bigger than Life was like Happy Days from Hell for me. Follows all the trappings for a 50s melodrama, white picket fences, smiles all around, dress for dinner, and have the Dad a drug addled maniac. This I like.
Johnny Guitar, I wouldn't use the word campy to describe it, the actors are all so 50s straight up earnest that makes it such a hoot.
Sterling Hayden: "The name's Johnny....Guitar", then ripping a guitar solo leaves me in stitches. Joanne Crawford delivering her lines like she's in seedy crime drama, whew.
To say nothing of pistol packin' mommas 
S&S Film Club: 336 viewed; last watched -> Kaagaz ke phool (Gutt, 1959)
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10-05-2004, 05:45 AM
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#2343 of 3711
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Member
Join Date: Mar 2001
Local Time: 11:45 AM
Local Date: 08-30-2008
Posts: 14,291
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Quote:
| Bigger than Life was like Happy Days from Hell for me. Follows all the trappings for a 50s melodrama, white picket fences, smiles all around, dress for dinner, and have the Dad a drug addled maniac. |
"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder
"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.
"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock
"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk
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10-05-2004, 09:32 AM
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#2344 of 3711
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Member
Location: St. Louis, MO
Join Date: Feb 2000
Local Time: 04:45 PM
Local Date: 08-30-2008
Posts: 10,405
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The Apartment is a melodrama with comedic elements. Just like Written On The Wind or In A Year With 13 Moons. Most films are melodrama, it is the basic form of cinema expression. Halloween is a melodrama, Lord of the Rings is melodrama, High Noon is melodrama, Rebecca is melodrama, Citizen Kane is melodrama, etc....
All use music to heighten the "reality" (whatever the reality of a movie really means) and emotion of the story elements, which is Sirk's definition, Music+Drama. The Webster's definition (since you are fond of definition's George) is a drama with exaggerated conflict and emotions. That definition is almost all-encompassing of film since even most documentaries tend to exaggerate for dramatic effect.
Sirk achieves emotional truth through more or less exaggerated characters. I would say the vast majority of directors who are interested in expressing some sort of emotional and/or human truth, including Mr. Wilder, do this.
I know what I'm gonna do tomorrow, and the next day, and the next year, and the year after that. - George Bailey
2002 Sight & Sound Challenge: 313 Last Watched: Time of the Gypsies
Last 10 Films Watched:
Dial M for Murder - B+ / I Confess - A-
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - C+ / Brand Upon the Brain! - B+
Stage Fright - B / Rope - B+
Lifeboat - B / The Dark Knight - B+
Suspicion - B / The Deal - B
DVD BEAVER My Collection
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10-05-2004, 01:15 PM
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#2345 of 3711
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Member
Join Date: Mar 2001
Local Time: 11:45 AM
Local Date: 08-30-2008
Posts: 14,291
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Well Brook, you make some good points. But, taking the dictionary definition, "a drama with exaggerated conflict and emotions", I guess I'm using the term melodrama in such a way that the emphasis is on "exaggerated". If you want to say that all drama is melodrama, and everything is exaggerated, then fine, but I certainly see a difference between the dramatic aspects of The Apartment and the soap opera of Written on the Wind. I might not be able to adquately define it, but I certainly know what I would call 'soap-opera melodrama' when I see it, and if you watch films by Sirk or Ray or watch daytime soap operas, you're seeing it.
"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder
"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.
"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock
"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk
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10-08-2004, 03:55 PM
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#2347 of 3711
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Member
Join Date: Mar 2001
Local Time: 11:45 AM
Local Date: 08-30-2008
Posts: 14,291
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Gertrud
I'm obviously not a big Dreyer fan, since even his best film Ordet, didn't quite work for me, and isn't in my collection. But all of the ones I've seen (Ordet, Joan of Arc, Day of Wrath, Vampyr), were at least interesting in some ways, taking on either interesting metaphysical issues, or otherwise interesting stories, although all were flawed, to one degree or another, in their execution. But while I didn't like any of them enough to buy, I didn't really actively dislike any of them either.
Gertrud is another story. Here, Dreyer chooses not to deal with something interesting, but rather takes on a melodramatic soap opera.  Our leading lady has all of the emotional maturity of a teenage girl. As a matter of fact, her whole life is driven by her prepubescent beliefs as laid out in a poem she wrote when she was 16. She thinks "love is all", but the truth is "pride is all" is her real motto. She is so proud that even though she professes to believe that love is all, she'd rather be alone and in an emotional wasteland, than have to give up her pride and actually feel some real emotion and love. She'll never give of herself to another, not really. In other words, she's just an emotional fuck-up, completely immature, and not someone I have any empathy or sympathy for, or any interest in.
Dreyer really took a nose-dive on his final film. Oh well, the last film Dreyer made, the last one on this list, and I guess the last one I'll be seeing.
187 down
154 left
"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder
"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.
"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock
"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk
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10-08-2004, 07:44 PM
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#2348 of 3711
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Thi Them
Member
Location: GG, CA
Join Date: Apr 1999
Local Time: 09:45 AM
Local Date: 08-30-2008
Posts: 5,545
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ATTENTION
I was informed that the list I used was missing 3 films that received 2 votes each, so I've added these to the list: High and Low, Pandora's Box, and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.
~T
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10-08-2004, 09:03 PM
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#2349 of 3711
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Member
Location: Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexíco
Join Date: May 2002
Local Time: 11:45 AM
Local Date: 08-30-2008
Posts: 11,395
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I'm seen (probably along with everyone else, High and Low, but not the other two. So although this raises myh count by one, I have two more to see.
¡Time is not my master!
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