The best way to learn about movies isn’t reading about them in a book. Of course books and guides help, they cannot be discounted but if you want to know Fellini you should probably watch La Dolce Vita. If you feel an uncontrollable urge to understand Woody Allen have a look at Hannah and Her Sisters or Manhattan. To know movies you have to watch movies. To this end I decided to watch a film, from a different country, every night,for as long as could manage to do it. I didn’t do any research, just watched the movies. Some of them I knew something about and some I had seen. Others were totally new.
In fact I came up with the justifications after the fact. Really, I just started doing it. I was sick of Two and a Half Men and Family Guy reruns I suppose. I did set a couple of guidelines for this project:
- The film had to be a widely acknowledged classic.
-The film had to be from between the years 1930 and 1960
The dates were somewhat arbitrary but I refuse to call a film a "classic" within a decade of its release. Saturday Night Fever is not a classic, sorry it is not. Yet, everyone said it was in the 70s. Some people still do. They are wrong. If you do not believe me I suggest you watch it. Sure, some of the music holds up from a production standpoint if nothing else, but the movie, while not bad, is not a classic. The films I picked, I do not think there is a great deal of debate over, some I had seen before and some I had not.
I began in Sweden with Ingmar Bergman although I think I went with a less obvious title, rather than The Seventh Seal I chose Smiles on a Summer Night.
Who says Bergman films are depressing? If anything this one is kind of sweet. His early movies are all funny in some way and uplifting. I include The Seventh Seal in this statement; all those weary of life die and the young family escapes. The Knight who wants to do one meaningful thing to make up for the dubious sum total of his life is able to accomplish just that. But there I go, watching one movie and talking about another. Smiles on a Summer Night is a romantic comedy. The basic plot about a repressed son and a vaguely hedonistic and world-weary father could be transported into this century and star Kate Hudson. Some of today’s directors could likely even make THIS suck I suppose. Dad cheats on beautiful young wife with actress, son secretly loves his stepmom. And then they all go away for the weekend. Hell, this sounds French, not Swedish! In the context of the run of the mill current romantic comedy this illustrates that such films need not be terrible.
The next film on the menu was French, Jean Vigo’s L'Atalante. Vigo died in his twenties and part of his mystique lies in that. His three efforts are elevated into the pantheon of “greatness”, in part because of his untimely demise. To under praise Vigo is to commit a heresy. L’Atalante is a technically great movie both brilliantly shot and edited. It also functions in the same way silent films did. Not so far removed from a time when there was no sound (date) the actors use expression and motion as much as dialogue to move the plot. In the film a woman marries a canal-boat captain and takes up life on his boat, along with his curmudgeonly mate. Tension ensues as their worlds collide and the boat, the “L’Atalante” moves slowly through France.
It may be that the incompleteness of Vigo's catalog that leaves us with a feeling of his promise rather than simply what we see on the screen. This is his only full length movie.
Boy oh boy, I had forgotten about Amachord (Italy). Fellini made two of my personal favorite movies (La Dolce Vita and La Strada) and this one is as good as either. I write these are personal favorites because some quibble about Fellini’s best films and they may have points to score on my choices!
Regardless, Fellini made great black and white films. He made dazzling color films.
This movie is a plot-less slice of life. It is made up of pieces of memory. He doesn't give commentary about Fascists in the film. They are, mostly, just normal small town people. He sees them with the eyes of someone growing up, someone not totally cognizant of the wider currents of what was happening around him. He gets into the minds of people from the past and made them his voice. I would be shocked if anyone who likes film at all didn't like this movie. It meanders, has no specific plot (as noted), some characters talk to the camera, others don’t and it is inconsistent. It is also a work of absolute, transcendent, brilliance.
If you like westerns, you like Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (Japan). I confess. I own Yojimbo and I forgot how much I like it until I watched it again. The box says it was remade as A Fistful of Dollars in fact it was remade as Sergio Leone's entire career and a good chunk of Clint Eastwood's early career as well. It is also a remake, and homage to, the American Western.
One of the best elements of the film is how fight scenes take ten seconds. Modern day action movies make the mistake of drawing these out. If you want to show someone is a badass; demonstrate it visually. It always bugs me how, in many Westerns, the "badass" always takes so long to dispatch the evil doers once they start fighting. Two warring clans live in a town and a lone, mysterious Samurai wanders in to upset the balance of power. It is perfect (and the DVD looks great).
The Bridge on the River Kwai (UK) is one of my favorite movies. I have practically memorized it so it was something of a cheat to include it here. Sure I had seen all the movies up to this point but I hadn’t seen them 20 times. I recall once acting out the last scene for a friend of mine who claimed to never have seen it.
"What have I done?" says Alex Guinness as he falls on the explosives
"Madness...MADNESS"....
Maybe the best of David Lean's movies and William Holden and Guinness are fantastic. There is a larger point about obsession and fate in here. The film is doom laden, people “escape” but they are drawn back into the path no matter what they do, no matter how they try to avoid it. I need another word for “brilliant.” How about Stupendous? How about I want to look like William Holden in this movie?
I asked for suggestions for American films. Casablanca was discussed but who hasn’t seen that 20 times? The suggestion, nonetheless, inspired me to watch Key Largo, a film I thought I had seen but I hadn’t (there is a possibility I totally forgot it of course). It is a hard movie not to like--like most John Huston films. I thought it was interesting because they actually seemed to take the time to know a little hurricane history. Getting facts straight was not a priority in that era (hell, when is it in movies?).
There is an interesting line where Mr. Templeton says of the Seminoles (and I paraphrase) "Even when we go to help these people we wind up harming them" which is a pretty interesting statement for the time. There are good guys and bad guys but the Seminoles pretty much get screwed by all of them. I suppose that is a bit of reality. Although I also think Seminoles might know better than to hang out right by the ocean during a HURRICANE.
For the next film I, once again, picked a film I had never seen: Black Orpheus (Brazil). The film is a co-production so it is ALSO a French film but the setting, actors and ethos of the film is Brazilian. It is an outstanding film. It is always MOVING. It is like a two hour dance party and yet it is more than that. Ostensibly, it is the retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, but set at Carnival. It is simply done and the characters are likeable and alive. But it is also tragic, like the mythology it is based on. The best thing about the film may be trying to think of anything else you have ever seen SIMILAR to it.
Part 2 soon.
In fact I came up with the justifications after the fact. Really, I just started doing it. I was sick of Two and a Half Men and Family Guy reruns I suppose. I did set a couple of guidelines for this project:
- The film had to be a widely acknowledged classic.
-The film had to be from between the years 1930 and 1960
The dates were somewhat arbitrary but I refuse to call a film a "classic" within a decade of its release. Saturday Night Fever is not a classic, sorry it is not. Yet, everyone said it was in the 70s. Some people still do. They are wrong. If you do not believe me I suggest you watch it. Sure, some of the music holds up from a production standpoint if nothing else, but the movie, while not bad, is not a classic. The films I picked, I do not think there is a great deal of debate over, some I had seen before and some I had not.
I began in Sweden with Ingmar Bergman although I think I went with a less obvious title, rather than The Seventh Seal I chose Smiles on a Summer Night.
Who says Bergman films are depressing? If anything this one is kind of sweet. His early movies are all funny in some way and uplifting. I include The Seventh Seal in this statement; all those weary of life die and the young family escapes. The Knight who wants to do one meaningful thing to make up for the dubious sum total of his life is able to accomplish just that. But there I go, watching one movie and talking about another. Smiles on a Summer Night is a romantic comedy. The basic plot about a repressed son and a vaguely hedonistic and world-weary father could be transported into this century and star Kate Hudson. Some of today’s directors could likely even make THIS suck I suppose. Dad cheats on beautiful young wife with actress, son secretly loves his stepmom. And then they all go away for the weekend. Hell, this sounds French, not Swedish! In the context of the run of the mill current romantic comedy this illustrates that such films need not be terrible.
The next film on the menu was French, Jean Vigo’s L'Atalante. Vigo died in his twenties and part of his mystique lies in that. His three efforts are elevated into the pantheon of “greatness”, in part because of his untimely demise. To under praise Vigo is to commit a heresy. L’Atalante is a technically great movie both brilliantly shot and edited. It also functions in the same way silent films did. Not so far removed from a time when there was no sound (date) the actors use expression and motion as much as dialogue to move the plot. In the film a woman marries a canal-boat captain and takes up life on his boat, along with his curmudgeonly mate. Tension ensues as their worlds collide and the boat, the “L’Atalante” moves slowly through France.
It may be that the incompleteness of Vigo's catalog that leaves us with a feeling of his promise rather than simply what we see on the screen. This is his only full length movie.
Boy oh boy, I had forgotten about Amachord (Italy). Fellini made two of my personal favorite movies (La Dolce Vita and La Strada) and this one is as good as either. I write these are personal favorites because some quibble about Fellini’s best films and they may have points to score on my choices!
Regardless, Fellini made great black and white films. He made dazzling color films.
This movie is a plot-less slice of life. It is made up of pieces of memory. He doesn't give commentary about Fascists in the film. They are, mostly, just normal small town people. He sees them with the eyes of someone growing up, someone not totally cognizant of the wider currents of what was happening around him. He gets into the minds of people from the past and made them his voice. I would be shocked if anyone who likes film at all didn't like this movie. It meanders, has no specific plot (as noted), some characters talk to the camera, others don’t and it is inconsistent. It is also a work of absolute, transcendent, brilliance.
If you like westerns, you like Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (Japan). I confess. I own Yojimbo and I forgot how much I like it until I watched it again. The box says it was remade as A Fistful of Dollars in fact it was remade as Sergio Leone's entire career and a good chunk of Clint Eastwood's early career as well. It is also a remake, and homage to, the American Western.
One of the best elements of the film is how fight scenes take ten seconds. Modern day action movies make the mistake of drawing these out. If you want to show someone is a badass; demonstrate it visually. It always bugs me how, in many Westerns, the "badass" always takes so long to dispatch the evil doers once they start fighting. Two warring clans live in a town and a lone, mysterious Samurai wanders in to upset the balance of power. It is perfect (and the DVD looks great).
The Bridge on the River Kwai (UK) is one of my favorite movies. I have practically memorized it so it was something of a cheat to include it here. Sure I had seen all the movies up to this point but I hadn’t seen them 20 times. I recall once acting out the last scene for a friend of mine who claimed to never have seen it.
"What have I done?" says Alex Guinness as he falls on the explosives
"Madness...MADNESS"....
Maybe the best of David Lean's movies and William Holden and Guinness are fantastic. There is a larger point about obsession and fate in here. The film is doom laden, people “escape” but they are drawn back into the path no matter what they do, no matter how they try to avoid it. I need another word for “brilliant.” How about Stupendous? How about I want to look like William Holden in this movie?
I asked for suggestions for American films. Casablanca was discussed but who hasn’t seen that 20 times? The suggestion, nonetheless, inspired me to watch Key Largo, a film I thought I had seen but I hadn’t (there is a possibility I totally forgot it of course). It is a hard movie not to like--like most John Huston films. I thought it was interesting because they actually seemed to take the time to know a little hurricane history. Getting facts straight was not a priority in that era (hell, when is it in movies?).
There is an interesting line where Mr. Templeton says of the Seminoles (and I paraphrase) "Even when we go to help these people we wind up harming them" which is a pretty interesting statement for the time. There are good guys and bad guys but the Seminoles pretty much get screwed by all of them. I suppose that is a bit of reality. Although I also think Seminoles might know better than to hang out right by the ocean during a HURRICANE.
For the next film I, once again, picked a film I had never seen: Black Orpheus (Brazil). The film is a co-production so it is ALSO a French film but the setting, actors and ethos of the film is Brazilian. It is an outstanding film. It is always MOVING. It is like a two hour dance party and yet it is more than that. Ostensibly, it is the retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, but set at Carnival. It is simply done and the characters are likeable and alive. But it is also tragic, like the mythology it is based on. The best thing about the film may be trying to think of anything else you have ever seen SIMILAR to it.
Part 2 soon.
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