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Author | Topic: Old Movies | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Silent H Member (Idle past 5819 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
Kurasawa - Great but not that great. Get a grip and stop reading Sight and Sound. I was the first one here to call him great, perhaps the best, so I'll pick up the gauntlet on this one. I do realize art is subjective so anyone could say otherwise and be correct, however I was discussing his skill as a director. That can be analyzed to some degree. I don't see how an influence from westerns and an obsession with samurai (have you seen his nonsamurai films?) is a discussion of whether he was a brilliant filmmaker. His style was distinct and clean and consistent. Beyond use of B&W they don't feel old (dated) even when watched today. Best director ever is a totally different topic of course, but I am unsure of any other director who has the consistent quality of picture as Kurasawa. Whether you get tired of the genre, or simply don't like his style (slow pans to allow a viewer to see and make up there own minds what is happening) will effect whether you want to watch him, but not a discredit to his work. By the way I have not read Sight and Sound and in fact do not know what it is. I assume its a book on direction that praises him? I hope it does get around to some of the other greats too. If every film looked like Kurasawa's work the film world would admittedly become very dull very fast. Crash noted Leone (someone I would have mentioned if the topic was great directors), and your list is pretty good. I'd also mention Scorsese, Argento, Tati, Carpenter, Von Trier and the Scotts and the Cohens (though they have more mixed work they have great style). This is not to mention Takeshi Miike, Takeshi Kitano, Juzo Itami, and to some degree Jackie Chan. Diversity is wonderful. This message has been edited by holmes, 01-20-2006 06:31 AM holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1404 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
"Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" ????
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. |
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2319 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
The Petrified Forest (1936). A surprisingly intelligent and witty gangster siege movie starring Leslie Howard, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart.
Sib (The Apple) (1998). This Iranian film by Samira Makhmalbaf is about two young girls who have spent all their lives locked up by their parents. When I read the summary of the story I expected a serious, social-realist film about injustice and cruelty, but it's nothing like that. Makhmalbaf asked the parents and the children to play themselves in this movie, and she explores their lives without making the expected easy judgements. What you get as a result is an extremely moving film (I must admit I cried several times, as much at the old man's sense of humiliation as at the children's suffering - I also laughed a great deal, especially when Makhmalbaf follows the young girls outside the house). I can't recommend this film enough. Incidentally, if you haven't seen any modern Iranian films, I suggest you go and find some on DVD. In the last twenty years Iranian cinema has produced some really high quality films. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Sorry, I probably shouldn't have used the word 'great', but when I was a kid I sure thought he was. No, it's perfectly fine for you to call him great. I just had no idea he was in anything but The Thief of Bagdhad.
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2319 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
Yes Arsenic and Old Lace is one of my favourites too.
Three other pre-war American comedies I love are: The Philadelphia StoryBringing Up Baby The Thin Man (Actually Arsenic and Old Lace was mid-war, but it's close enough). The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5819 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
The Thin Man Smart, witty series. I watch them any time they are on. I still think one of the most underrated movie series of all time were the miss marple movies starring Margaret Rutherford. They were fantastic and it showed how powerful an old lady could be, never playing her for a fool. holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2319 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
I've only ever seen the original Thin Man film. Are the other films in the series just as good?
Being English, the Margaret Rutherford films were part of my childhood, inescapable on weekend afternoons. As soon as I read your message I could hear the music! The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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docpotato Member (Idle past 5047 days) Posts: 334 From: Portland, OR Joined: |
I could mention Lean, Hitchcock, Capra, Ford, Curtiz, Sturges(Preston), Walsh, Zinnemann, Lubitsch, Cukor amongst many others who espoused entertainment not self-serving self-agrandisement, and (nearly) all who valued plotting, scripting, storytelling over meaning and 'vision'. I find meaning and vision as entertaining as plotting, scripting, or storytelling. I don't really think film's primary purpose is to tell stories, though.
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Roman Holiday
Orfeu Negro Never on Sunday The Bank Dick Animal Crackers Sons of the Desert Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5819 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
I've only ever seen the original Thin Man film. Are the other films in the series just as good? I would say pretty much yes. As the series gets to the end (6 in all) it is fair to say that the formula gets well trod, though honestly I still find it working, even if not as immediately snappy as the earlier ones. Interestingly, I think it may be the second in the series which I find the least interesting (less interesting case?), though I still watch it as well. I went through the list at imdb to try and remind me if there was any I just wouldn't recommend, and I couldn't fine one. holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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bobbins Member (Idle past 3613 days) Posts: 122 From: Manchester, England Joined: |
late reply - sorry
Film is not to tell stories !!!! - you are just trying to wind me up? Meaning and vision only matter when the story holds up, or do you watch Warhol films all day? As for entertainment and meaning and vision, completely different concepts. You can have both. But to separate them, then you are in dire straits. My post was to try and emphasise the intellectualisation of film and it's detrimental effect on pure entertainment. Hitchcock thought the audience were dumb, so did Raoul Walsh (he had no problem calling himself dumb), Michael Curtiz directed Casablanca with a very poor command of the english language, Ernst Lubitsh ditto, and yet all delighted their audiences for decades, all accepted the lousiest scripts, plots and scenarios, and yet produced great films. None of these guys had any agenda to pitch, any angle or any hidden message. They turned up 9-5 and directed films, sure in the knowledge that they knew what would interest, excite and overall entertain the audience. To me that is the essence of a great film-going experience. To Holmes, from reading your posts for over a year I know you are not a good bullshitter, but never heard of 'Sight and Sound', it's the NME of film? To anyone else, the list I did was off the top of my head and was biased towards the Hollywood studio era, as an update Scorsese ,the Cohen brothers, Kubrick, Ridley Scott and Peter Jackson amongst others would be on any good list I could produce.
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Coragyps Member (Idle past 734 days) Posts: 5553 From: Snyder, Texas, USA Joined: |
I've only ever seen the original Thin Man film. Are the other films in the series just as good?
They're all good, and Myrna Loy was one of the hottest, wittiest things ever to be put on celluloid! Hotcha!
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docpotato Member (Idle past 5047 days) Posts: 334 From: Portland, OR Joined: |
Film is not to tell stories !!!! - you are just trying to wind me up? Not trying to wind you up and I'm not saying that film has no business telling stories. Actually, I think that because of the way film uses juxtaposition and the way the human mind works, it can't help but tell stories. But is plot, or narrative, the most important thing about film? To my mind, not really. I've seen Bunel films that have stories even though I know the director had no narrative intent in making the film. I've seen films that I loved even though, honestly, I felt the story was trite.
My post was to try and emphasise the intellectualisation of film and it's detrimental effect on pure entertainment. Again, I don't have any problem reconciling intellectualization with entertainment. I suppose the question here is, what do you mean by pure entertainment? I find the Ingmar Bergman films I've seen to be purely entertaining. I find them intellectually, emotionally, and technically engaging. Bergman is a darling of the art house. Is he guilty of adding to the detriment of pure entertainment?
None of these guys had any agenda to pitch, any angle or any hidden message. Hitchcock did have a message to pitch, an angle, and a hidden message. That's what makes his films so good. He may have been personally unaware of it, but if you watch a succession of his movies, it's pretty clear that certain concepts interested him. Many of his films are based on the same themes or use similar techniques to get at character. Sure, he worked in a less abstract, more representative filmic language than, say, Bergman, but his obsession with the innocent man on the run isn't much different than Bergman's obsession with dopplegangers. Anyway, back to my point: I don't think story should be the primary purpose in making a film any more than I think novels should be the primary purpose when one sits down to write something. I mean, what about poems? And just to keep this more on topic: I just watched a film called Rififi. It's a great French heist movie from the 50s with one of the best robbery sequences I've ever seen. "In Heaven, everything is fine." The Lady in the Radiator Eraserhead One Movie a Day/Week/Whenever
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5819 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
To Holmes, from reading your posts for over a year I know you are not a good bullshitter Not sure if I should take that as a compliment or what.
but never heard of 'Sight and Sound', it's the NME of film? Honestly I never heard of it. I just looked it up and am now certain I had not heard of it. Others may have discussed it, perhaps in front of me, and I must have just let it go in one ear and out the other. Then again to be honest I have been focused on the screenwriting end of things for a while (my transition away from science). If you know screenwriting mags I'd likely have heard of them. Then again maybe I just live under a rock. I didn't know what NME was either. I notice your updated list of directors included Kubrick which I think I forgot to put on mine. I knew I wanted to place him on it, but for some reason in trying to think of others I pushed him out of my mind. Should I take it that S&S promotes Kurasawa too much? Being british I'd figure they'd choose someone like Kubrick more. holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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