S&S 100 Films HTF Forum Challenge (1 Viewer)

[Darren H]

Stephen, check out this thread over in the software section for info on screen captures. Lots of good advice over there.
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[Gary Tooze]

Girlfiend working late the next few nights... Hopefully I can bang a couple off my S&S 100 Films HTF Forum Challenge list.. CAN'T WAIT !!
I tried the capture stuff, but I have an ATI DVD player on my computer and it is impenatrable... argggg
I will post some questions in the other Forum... thanks for the link...
Cheers,
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[Brook K]

My fears were confirmed. The Bicycle Thief was the disc lost in the mail. Now I have to wait a few more days for Jules et Jim to get here so I can start the challenge.
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[Pascal A]

I just posted L'Argent (Robert Bresson) on my website, so I thought I'd include it here as well. It is one of the Bresson VHS titles from New Yorker Video. The film is #91 on the S&S Poll (#91-2, to be precise):
L'Argent (Money)
A young man unsuccessfully asks his father for an advance in his allowance. He visits a friend and is goaded into passing a forged 500 franc note at a photography shop. The photographer censures his business partner for accepting the forged banknote - the third counterfeit bill for the week - and decides to pass off the forged notes to an unsuspecting victim. When the serviceman from the oil company, Yvon Targe, arrives to resupply their fuel tank, he is paid with the counterfeit bills. Yvon attempts to use the money to pay for a meal, and is detained by the police for forgery. In order to clear his name, Yvon hires an attorney to sue the photographer for fraud. But the photographer, unwilling to recant his false testimony despite the dire consequences it bears on the innocent Yvon, enlists his assistant to validate his claim and deny recognition of the serviceman as well. As a result of their perjured testimony, Yvon loses his job. Unable to find another job because of his tainted employment history, he descends into a life of crime, despair, and eventually, murder.
Robert Bresson creates a harrowing, caustic and socially relevant indictment of materialism and amorality in his final masterpiece, L'Argent. The protagonist, Yvon, is first introduced through a shot of his hands as he connects the fuel supply line. As in Bresson's earlier film, Pickpocket, the image suggests a figurative fracture between the body and the soul. However, in L'Argent, the body is not a biological entity, but rather, a representation of a material one: the universal mechanism of money - created, utilized, circulated. In the impersonal detachment of contemporary society, money serves as the surrogate for human emotion - love, guilt, shame, devotion, trust - are frivolously expressed through its casual exchange. But money also exihibits a biological behavior in its virulence - the forged banknotes, in essence, contaminate everyone who comes into contact with them. Inevitably, the pursuit of money serves as a symbolic means for the destruction of the soul. As the counterfeit note serves as an imitation of money, so too does money, in turn, represent an artificiality - a false soul.
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[Rich Malloy]

Wonderful review, Jung! I think the pitiful lack of Bresson on DVD is only matched by the pitiful lack of Max Ophuls on DVD. Speaking of...

My first copy of Lola Montes (Ophuls) was actually blank...

Pascal, I know you're referring to your VHS copies of this film, but I wonder if you've seen the Image DVD? I've heard that it's a mess, a horrible transfer. Have you seen it? Can you confirm this?
Also, I know the studio pulled a 'Magnificent Ambersons' on Ophuls film, and I'm assuming that the available versions are the hacked ones, but am I wrong? Is there a 'director's cut' available? Could one be recreated?
A lotta questions, I know! Just wonderin' if anyone knew...

 

[JungWoo]

Wonderful review, Jung!

I wish I could take a credit for this great review, but it's Pascal's
I've been slack with this S&S challenge lately, but hopefully, I'll be on track shortly.
I am wondering the same thing about Lola Montes. Ophuls really need to be represented better on DVD.
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[Rich Malloy]

Er...I must have been affected by unseen subliminable forces. (And you've certainly offered your share of tasty reviews, Jung!) Anyway...
Great review, Pascal!
For anyone who hasn't seen a Max Ophuls film, you are missing out on one of the few, true masters of cinema. I was lucky to catch a number of his films at a recent retrospective here in Boston. Here's a link to a wonderful article about that Ophuls retrospective and his films. I think it would be a great introduction for anyone unfamiliar with his work - check it out!

 

[Pascal A]

Pascal, I know you're referring to your VHS copies of this film, but I wonder if you've seen the Image DVD? I've heard that it's a mess, a horrible transfer. Have you seen it? Can you confirm this?

I picked up the Fox Lorber edition (I think that's the one that you mean), and it's not as atrocious as most people say it is (granted, comparatively speaking to a blank tape and a subsequent 90 minute public domain VHS version

). The biggest problem with the film is that the colors are very faded. Unlike Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, there was no restoration performed on the film. So you can see Ophul's intent in the lushness of color and texture, but they are not at all vibrant. I picked this DVD up during the golden age of coupons, and paid a little over $12 for it, so in that sense, it's acceptable. I wouldn't pay retail for it though.
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[Evan Case]

I just had my first foray into Indian cinema (not counting Temple of Doom or those bizarre music videos on the International Channel ). Wow.
Pather Panchali is tied for 6th place on the S&S list. As I prefer to let the others discover the film for themselves, I'll take the box-cover approach to film review.
"Amazing, simple yet powerful, heartfelt and truthful, tragic, touching, the exotic setting does not obscure the universal human truths contained within." How's that for selling a film without really saying anything at all?
Four stars out of four. Parts two and three to be viewed soon.
Evan
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AFI List: 2 to go
S&S: 55 films left
DVD Tracker

 

[Gary Tooze]

Down to 62 Jung, after watching ( and reviewing ) Renoir's Grand Illusion
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[Brook K]

Finally got to my 1st S&S film and review:
Jules et Jim: The story of two men Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) who meet in the Paris of 1912 and quickly become inseparable friends. Jim is a ladies man, while Jules is quiet, shy, and given to quoting philosophy. He has trouble meeting women, despite Jim's best efforts. While at an artist's home, looking at slides of ancient statues, they see one, a woman's face, that entrances them. They vow that if they ever meet a woman with such a face they will never let her go.
Enter Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), she is introduced and shot in a simlar way to the statue, letting us know that she is, indeed, this idealized woman. Catherine is wild and unpredictable, they both admire her liveliness and freedom. Jules begins a relationship with her and asks that Jim not interfere. He agrees, even though he knows that Jules will not be able to hold onto a free spirit like Catherine, and that he is in love with her as well. But WWI and the further passage of years will bring changes to their friendship and their relationship to Catherine, as she begins to assert herself more and more, with often painful results.
This is only the 2nd Truffault film I have watched, and while I was not impressed as much as with The 400 Blows, I did find this to be quite beautiful, if a bit frustrating. The style is at once very noticeable, freeze-frames, isolations, aerial shots, and fast pans, all offer a wealth of interesting images. I especially liked the use of old footage from other films to make this movie seem more realistic and a part of the early 1900's. The cineamtography and lighting are extremely well done. There are several fog-shrouded scenes that must have been very difficult to light, but enhance the mood of the film tremendously. The score is simple, but beautiful, I would love to own a CD of it.
The acting of the 3 leads is uniformly excellent, especially the outstanding performance of Oskar Werner. He is beaten down over the course of the film, yet his obsession with Catherine remains unaltered. He is completely within her spell. My frustration lies in that Catherine is such an unloveable character, she is totally selfish and depressed. But I know first hand that we often fall in love with people who are wrong for us. The power she holds over both men may be exasperating to me, but it is certainly realistic. Pity poor Sabine (their daughter) that kid is going to be in therapy her whole life. I would recommend this film to anyone, and it leaves me anxious to see more Truffault and other French New Wave films.
3.5 out of 4

 

[DonaldB]

RE: Status of RW Fassbinder Films
On the commentary track to Whity, Ulli Lommel and Michael Ballhaus mention that a major retrospective of Fassbinder's films is being prepared for 2002, the 20th anniversary of his death, with some restoration work being done. I suspect DVD releases for most of his films will be put off until then, so we'll have just two or three releases from Fantoma to tide us over in the meantime.

 

[Pascal A]

Continuing with Robert Bresson's films, Au Hasard Balthazar is #63-3 on the S&S Poll. It has been known to pop up on Australian TV, and is available in the UK, but for some unknown reason, it was never released in the US.
Au Hasard Balthazar
Balthazar is a farm animal, a donkey, born into a life of servitude: a beast of burden destined to work the land, carry bales of hay, provide occasional transportation. His harsh, often exploited existence is paralleled through the life of Marie, a reticent young woman whose father has been asked to maintain a friend's farm after tragedy compels the owners to leave. Years later, the owner's son, Jacques, returns to the farm to profess his support for Marie's father, whose reputation has been ruined by persistent debt and rumors surrounding the unresolved ownership and usage of the farm. Jacques is devoted to Marie, but his declaration of love is received with complacent resignation. Instead, Marie is drawn to Gerard, a cruel young man whose participation in the church choir is a facade for his activities as a thief and smuggler. As Balthazar's ownership changes hands, his utility and purpose evolve from children's pet, to farm animal, to transportation, to circus attraction. Through the course of the film, Marie's emotional involvement - her figurative "possession" - also transfers: from Jacques, to Gerard, and finally, to an abusive merchant. In the process, Marie’s life experience evolves from the innocence of young love, to infatuation, to betrayal, and eventually, to dishonor and humiliation.
Au Hasard Balthazar is a poignant and thematically uncompromising portrait of man's innate cruelty and destructive impulses. Through the transfiguration of a mistreated animal as an allegorical symbol of virtue, purity, and redemption, Robert Bresson creates a visually spare and indelible film of startling intensity. As in Bresson's subsequent film, Mouchette, Marie searches for a means to escape her banal existence, only to be led further down a path of hopelessness and despair.
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[Evan Case]

Well, I tried to take out Un Chien Andalou from the library tonight but, for the second straight week, some evil professor is using it for his class.
So then I tried to watch the 16mm copy of it (doubled-billed with Land Without Bread) but it's reel was missing. Instead I got "treated" to one of the most depressing films I've ever seen, Land Without Bread. I knew nothing about it save for the fact that it was Bunuel's only documentary.
At first it seemed like your normal travelogue (of the Spanish countryside) with tales of local wedding customs and crumbling monasteries. Suddenly though, we're taken into the midst of living conditions that are no less than shocking - far worse than any I could have imagined for a "civilized" country in the 20th century.
Perhaps most shocking is the matter-of-factness with which the material is handled. Paraphrased examples (and "spoilers"):
"Goats are used only for milk. Unless this happens." We see a real goat fall off a cliff to its death.
"We found a girl who the locals claimed had been lying there for three days. She had swollen and infected tonsils. We had no medical equipment to help. We were told by the locals that she died two days later."
A baby has died and we are shown its lifeless face. "There are no cemeteries within miles. The child must be carried to the nearest settlement with a cemetery." More shots of the dead baby and it's burial.
All of this without the slightest hint of emotion from the narrator (though that could be because it was in english and not the original Spanish) and filmed in unflinching detail.
And unlike Schindler's List or Kids, this is real footage.
Suffice to say this film isn't the one to watch with a date on a Saturday night.
Evan
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AFI List: Meesa finished!
S&S: 55 films left
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[Evan Case]

Un Chien Andalou
Thank God Bunuel claimed that this short film wasn't supposed to make sense because if I tried to make any out of it, I would do serious damage to my brain.
The editing and camerawork was excellent in a surrealistic way, almost making sense out of senselessness. The film reminded me of, strangely enough, that scene in The Simpsons where Homer eats that super-spicy pepper and goes crazy for a few minutes. Where as the Simpsons bit lasted for two minutes, this film is 25 minutes of sheer wackiness interspersed with random (and of course, senseless) violence. All around an enjoyable 25 minutes - certainly more so than the uber-depressing Land Without Bread.
This is one case (Man With a Movie Camera is another) where S&S definitely picked a film for its form rather than its content.
And for the squeamish, be sure and turn away as soon as you see the closeup of an eyeball.

(Get my smilie joke?)
Evan
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AFI List: Meesa finished!
S&S: 54 films left

 

[Scott Harris]

You can count me in in this compitition. I've seen a whoppin' 6 of the films that are on the list, so don't be jelous I'll maybe see 4 more this weekend.
So here it is
Scott Harris
S&S Megacount : 6
PS what does S&S mean?
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[Gary Tooze]

Strike off another one for me Jung.. saw Jules and Jim for the first time last night...
Cheers,
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[Brook K]

I saw The Seventh Seal, my thoughts are in another thread. Next up is Breathless. My local Blockbuster actually had it.
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S&S Challenge: 72 71 70

 

[JungWoo]

Scott,
Welcome to the challenge!
S&S stands for the monthly movie magazine from British Film Institute. This magazine holds every decade a poll of ten best movies from over 100 critics and academics worldwide. This list shows 131 movies with most votes.
There are more discussion on the nature of this poll in the first page of this thread.
I need to finish Intolerance and just received the "In the Realm of the Senses" in the mail.
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"Cinema is truth 24 frames per second." - Godard
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S&S 100 Films Forum Challenge

 

[Ike]

I've seen 16 now. I can't tell you the new ones, but I know one is The Seventh Seal, and I don't think I originally counted Singin' In The Rain. I don't know what the third title is, since I don't remember the original 13 I had seen.
Is The 400 Blows not on the list? I don't see it. Suprising.
Sorry it's taking longer for me to see titles than many of you-my local video store has hardly any of the ones I need to see, so I'm forced to buy them. THat's a slow process, but I'm trying. I'm not sure I'll have seen all 100 by the deadline (though I will try) but I want to stay in because this is a great template for a lot of great films.
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Was this guy trying to be a jackass?
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Film Is The Greatest Form Of Expression.
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