by Allan Fish
(France 1967 124m) DVD1/2
Aka. Les Demoiselles de Rochefort
Twins born in the sign of Gemini
p Mag Bodard, Gilbert de Goldschmidt d/w/ly Jacques Demy ph Ghislain Cloquet ed Jean Hamon m Michel Legrand art Bernard Evein
Catherine Deneuve (Delphine Garnier), Françoise Dorléac (Solange Garnier), George Chakiris (Etienne), Jacques Perrin (Maxence), Michel Piccoli (Simon Dame), Gene Kelly (Andy Miller), Danielle Darrieux (Yvonne Garnier), Grover Dale (Bill),
It was a film I avoided for a long time. It got slashed to pieces on its release forty years ago, and in North America at least it hasn’t recovered. It was only on when I got the DVD that I settled down to see why the reaction had been sorutal; some influential critics defended it, Jonathan Rosenbaum most notably. Besides, I’d warmed to Demy more as I grew older, his flimsiness and style over content not being the crimes I once prematurely accused them of being. So let’s take that plot, for it forms both the defence and the prosecution when the film is on trial. Its detractors point to its convenience, the predictability with which it resolves its various strands and episodes. The characters weave in and out of scenes like couples on the dance floor, the plot thus flows rather like the camera of Demy’s beloved Max Ophuls (and Darrieux’s appearance, with memories of La Ronde, Madame de… and Le Plaisir, only adds to that feeling).
There are two sisters, Delphine and Solange, who run their own dance classes in Rochefort, and the latter also has aspirations as a composer. They know a music store owner, Simon Dame, who once worked in Paris, and he offers to introduce Solange to a famous American composer, Andy Miller, who he once knew years ago. Simon has returned to Rochefort to try and relive a happy time in his life ten years ago when he was affianced to a woman, Yvonne, who left him at the last minute because she didn’t like his name – and the prospect of becoming Madame Dame. Unbeknownst to Simon, Yvonne is the mother of both Solange and Delphine, who has tried to forget Simon but wonders whether she made the right decision. She now runs a café on the main square in Rochefort, frequented by a sailor billeted nearby who likes to paint. Unbeknownst to him his painting of his ideal woman is effectively of Delphine, who is trying to find the man who painted it. Oh, and just to frame the whole thing, it takes place over a weekend centring around the visit of a touring troupe, led by Etienne and Bill, whose leading ladies run off with other men and leave them in need of two girls to take their place…
One only has to be half awake to know where it’s all leading, but the inexorable flow of the narrative towards its conclusion is part of what makes the film such a joy. In 1967 it just seemed behind the times as musicals then were all big budget spectaculars, adaptations of often elephantine stage shows. The musicals Demy and his collaborators were celebrating, the glory days of Arthur Freed personified by Gene Kelly, were gone, and though now there is a great nostalgia for the lost art-form, then American critics saw Demy as pretentious and even impudent to try and outdo Hollywood at their own game. Kelly may at first seem rather out of place, and yet his effervescence – even at 54 – is addictive, and his own screen history brings its own sense of time and place, a scene of him dancing down the street especially recalls An American in Paris. Darrieux and Piccoli enjoy themselves immensely, and even Chakiris and Dale, borrowed from West Side Story, somehow fit in effortlessly. At its heart, however, a heart throbbing to the immortal score of Michel Legrand, are those two sisters, Deneuve and Dorléac, both captivating, both magical, both sexy as hell without lifting a finger. Shattering it is then to see the spectre of Dorléac’s tragic passing before the year was out in a car crash. The tragedy affected Deneuve greatly, her sense of fun would forever be gone, but the failure of the film on top of that effectively finished Demy, and he never made another worthwhile film. His wife Agnès Varda would maintain his memory in a series of films, and rightly so, for when Demy and Legrand went away the musical didn’t just die, it rotted.
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I confess that not only have i NOT seen this film, I haven’t even heard of it. Shame on you Sam, you were supposed to be helping further my education on great film and ya didn’t even mention it to me. Thanks Allan, once again another one you brought to my attention. Dennis p.s. Allan, i’m getting the funny feeling from this countdown that you don’t have a single American film in your top ten..
Dennis, there are only so many films I can bring to your attention; as it is there have been hundreds. I like this film, but not as much as Allan, and don’t have it in my Top 100. I prefer two others by the director.
Rochefort is a love or loathe film. Less people like it than like Lola, La Baie des Anges or Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.
Count me as another who has not seen this film. I have seen the other three Allan mentions (Lola, La Baie des Anges or Les Parapluies de Cherbourg), but that is the extent of my Demy knowledge. I’ll have to check this out, I’m a huge Piccoli fan.
Dennis a list of the greatest movies of the 1960’s probably should not have an American film in it. (I of course would maybe put one or two, but that’s all on my opinion–this list appears more objective then mine).
Now that we are down to 8 I can’t wait for the final stretch run. Will the entire list be posted at the end (all 50)?
Hey Jamie: I am also a big fan of LOLA and LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG, and think LA BAIE DES ANGES is fine.
I agree with you that American cinema in the 60’s is at its lowest point, with only a select few sneaking through the cracks……..i.e……..WEST SIDE STORY, PSYCHO, BONNIE AND CLYDE and some others by Kubrick (co/British), Sidney Lumet and Billy Wilder. It’s a decade dominated by the likes of Bergman, Bresson, Bunuel, Fellini, the Czech New Wave, Tati, Loach, Tarkovsky, etc.
Allan’s Top 50 will indeed be printed in its entirety on the 60’s thread the day after his #1 is revealed.
Thank you.
I couldn’t disagree with you guys more on American Cinema in the ’60s. The ’60s had as much to offer as the ’70s and are certainly far better than the ’80s, in which corporations took over, the concept movie arrived, remakes and sequels were the order of the day, films were ‘inspired’ by toys, childrens cartoons and the target generation was teenagers….(most of which is still true).
Just because it was a wildly interesting decade for world cinema doesn’t distract from American movies. Film for film, they made as many interesting films as the 70s and certainly as many masterpieces, except that these films were by the old masters and by a younger generation that didn’t last into the next decade to become ‘the movie brats’, burning out for a variety of reasons.
Just off the top of my head; Hud, The Birds, Psycho, Bonnie and Clyde, Seven Days in May, 2001, Dr. Strangelove, The Apartment, The Swimmer, The Haunting, Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid, The Wild Bunch, Seconds, The Manchurian Candidate, Cool Hand Luke, One, Two, Tree, West Side Story, Funny Girl, Planet of the Apes, The Collector, Elmer Gantry, Spartacus, To Kill a Mockingbird, Charade, Wait Till Dark, Fail Safe, The Great Race, Rosemary’s Baby, Midnight Cowboy….ect, ect.
Movies made by literate men for adults.
Yes, the studios did make large scale musicals and epics to make or catch the public, only they failed through word of mouth. They didn’t have 10,000 screen releases to make opening weekends safe, nor the integration of media so that a studio owns the tv stations and print media to blitz kreig the masses.
Not to mention a slew of talent still toiling away on the last four or five years of the golden Age of US tv (up to approximately 1964).
Hello Bobby!
Bobby, I am and have always been a champion of American cinema, but that “transition” decade, the 60’s, was in my mind the weakest, as it came between the studio-dominated 50’s and the indes of the 70’s and beyond. (Yes I do realize that sequels, toys, corporations infiltrate the 80’s, but the very best films of that decade do shine through)
That list you just posted basically proves my point, as apart from WEST SIDE STORY, PSYCHO, THE APARTMENT, 2001 (which some regard as British) and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, there is nothing of greatness there at all, just solid films. Those films cannot hold a candle to the work of Fellini, Bergman, Bresson, Bunuel, Melville, Godard, Pontecorvo, Resnais, Ray, Vlacil, Loach, Truffaut, Tarkovsky, et al. (during that period)
By the way, Mel Brooks’s THE PRODUCERS, which you neglected to name, is actually one of the very best American films of the period, methinks.
Still, I admire your defense of American cinema, your typical insights and your wise and perceptive analogy of the period. I do like most of the films you mentioned there too, but I just feel that foreign cinema had a clear edge in the 60’s. But things begin to change again in the 70’s methinks.
Thanks very much Bobby.
Bobby J, I empathise but this is a difficult situation. Few of us have seen the wealth of films that Allan has, so the playing field is hardly level. My
exposure is heavily weighted towards American product, and my own list would be reflect this.
This said, I must say I am unsettled by WitD’s focus in this decade, firstly because I have seen so few of the films in this countdown, and secondly
since this focus on cinematic excellence neglects the other side of the equation, the audience. Whether rightly or wrongly, Hollywood product
defines for most viewers, in Europe and Asia as well as in America, the collective discourse for which movies in any decade are considered great.
As you rightly point out Bobby, there are many US films of the 60s that are as good or better than some of the films in Allan’s top 25 so far.
For example, Once Upon A Time in the West (11) is a great western, but there are many US films and some UK movies of the period that are much better. I would add the following to your off-the-cuff list: The Hustler, The Servant, In the Heat of the Night, Hombre, Easy Rider, Exodus, The Misfits, The Odd Couple, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Seven Up!, The Night of the Iguana, Underworld USA, The Pawnbroker, Lord of the Flies, Point Blank, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, If, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning…
We’ll agree to disagree there, Tony, of that list only six I consider in any way classics, and none within hailing distance of Leone’s film.
And as for catering for the audience, well two points.
1 The people who come here aren’t looking for audience favourites, there’s numerous worthless lists out there from popcorn magazines for that – or from the BFI.
2 An audience list would have The Sound of Music and other such films at the top, Titanic would win for the 90s, Star Wars for the 70s.
The difference is this. I am a cineaste and treat the readers as likewise; if they weren’t, they wouldn’t come to the site. The sort of approach you inquire of would be for everyday movie lovers who don’t know a subtitle from a subaltern. I love the cinema as an artform, not merely as simplistic entertainment. And maybe by idiots like me showcasing films like this on the site, it may make others seek them out as well. These films are not there to show off, they’re there because I believe they deserve to be. In other words, “if that jerk can know of these films, why can’t I?” Open people’s minds a bit, remove the blinkers…
Allan, I do think there is room for both points of view, and the poll results (which have blended the popular with the artistic) have proven this with the final lists. A quick scan of the ballots that have so far been submitted on the 60’s thread seems to show equal fervor for example for Godard’s CONTEMPT and Wise’s THE SOUND OF MUSIC. On eperson even questioned the relative absence of English-language films on the lists.
Furthermore, while the majority of the voters seem to embrace your philosophy (as I basically do) any list (as Tony points out) is an eye of the beholder exercise.
Both Tony and Bobby are supremely informed movie lovers, and their knowledge (despite Tony’s eternal modesty) is extensive. There is really no right answer here, only an opinion.
Allan, what a film says is to me more important than how it ranks as cinematic art. Otherwise, the appreciation of film is essentially sterile and irrelevant. Each of the films Bobby and I listed had something worth saying and achieved their purpose with elegance and skill.
Apropos, tonight I watched a b-movie that absolutely blew me away. It was not perfect but flawed by excessive melodrama and overt preachiness, but this did not detract from its power. The movie is The Sound of Fury (1950) directed by stringer Cy Endfield, who was later blacklisted thanks to HUAC. The stars were not big names: Frank Lovejoy and Lloyd Bridges. A typical b-noir story of an out-of-work ordinary Joe, who goes wrong, but so well-crafted and with a commitment to certain ideals, it is a wonderful movie. The climactic mesmerising mob scenes out-do those in Lang’s Fury, and the social critique brilliantly prefigures Wilder’s Ace in the Hole. Not necessarily art but great cinema.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines cineaste as “cinema enthusiast or devotee”… We are all singing from the same songsheet Allan.
For me, a film can b/w, colour, silent, academy, widescreen (even cinemrama), foreign (I just recently saw the only film (horror) ever made in Esparanto, weird but fun and by the crew from ‘The Outer Limits’),…..I don’t care.
My question is always, did it engage me. Emotionally, physically, intellectually.
I personally enjoyed ‘The Sound of Music’ when I saw it the first time as a teenager, though I can imagine how it might grate on me now, having worked in retail in the past and been exposed to the innate sweetness of the songs from the film. looped…torture.
‘Titanic’ was shit, ‘Star Wars’ has dated badly but was astonishing for it’s time (probably like ‘Birth of a Nation’).
I don’t care if the maker is auteur or a master craftsman, or even a journeyman who has stumbled and been inspired by a great script for possibly the only time in his life.
In fact, it’s probably better for me not to know about the makers of the film, so that a positive or negative bias doesn’t creep in. Afterwards, great.
I just think, by and large – that great film for film, the ’60s stands at least the equal of the ’70s. But I understand the myth, too. There are barren years in the ’70s just as their were in the ’60s. Large scale, big budget films like ‘Heaven’s Gate’ ‘1941’, ‘New York, New York’ that were as moribound as ‘Dr. Doolittle’, ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’, ect, ect.
I find generally Leone’s films silly and pretentious…I love the music, the widescreen operatic visuals, the broad melodramtic stiving for emotion and my favourite is ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ (perhaps because it’s based on ‘Yojimbo’ and the plot holds his style in place, whereas, I can’t for the life of me remember any of the plot of the other follow-ups to that trilogy). I remember one scene from ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ where a character shoots another with a gun concealed in his cowboy boots as the boot comes through a window. I found it childish and silly. The same as I find three-way gun stand-offs.
I completely agree with Allan about most people having blinkers on. The younger generation, by and large, don’t watch black and white, foreign and now – films before they were born. No matter what language they are in or what their reputations are….it’s very sad.
Tony list shows just what a rich decade it was, some classic, some excellent, some middling, but not a sequel, or a remake. Even the mid-list films are good.
Oh the ones Tony lists were original, definitely, but as I said to another friend last night, the theatrical versions of films are now the accountant’s cut, the director’s cut comes later. Money is all that matters in Hollywood, and that’s why since the 70s any decent studio film had been as much out of luck as intelligence. They have been the exceptions that prove the rule. You want proper cinema, challenging cinema, forget Hollywood. They#ve even contaminated the independent scene with their tacky mediocrity.
Getting back to Tony and Bobby J., both of whom gave an impassioned argument for what is tantamount to ‘personal taste’ I completely agree. Bobby’s key contention was this:
“My question is always, did it engage me. Emotionally, physically, intellectually…”
That is the bottom line.
I loved Franco Zeffirelli’s BROTHER SUN SISTER MOON, in large measure for its indellible images, Ennio Guarnieri’s lush cinematography and Donovan’s lyrical score, which embraced the hippie culture of the period. It’s a stunning blend of ravishing painterly visuals (shot on location) and music.
What does Allan say to this?
He is clamouring for my execution by firing squad.
And Tony is right on when he says this:
“The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines cineaste as “cinema enthusiast or devotee….”
Indeed, that is precisely what this love and respect for cinema translates to!
Allan will appreciate these Donovan lyrics from the Zeffirelli film: LOL!!!!!!!!!
“On This Lovely Day”
Birds are singing sweet and low
From the trees that gently grow,
Soft and soothing breezes blow
On this lovely day.
To the meadows there go I
To wander as the butterfly
How the flowers please me eyes
On this lovely day.
I wish it could be always
Life is easy on such a day
I wish this peace on everyone
On this lovely day,
(movie stuff break)
On this lovely day.
I wish this peace on everyone
On this lovely day.
I didn’t realise sick bags were issued as standard at WitD. The reason Zeffirelli made Jesus of Nazareth is because the Pope threatened bell, book and candle if he didn’t make amends for putting the Catholic faith back 500 years.
Film-making is a business, so yes it is about money, always has been, and not only in Hollywood. What is wrong with Hollywood is the cult of celebrity and the obscene earnings of a few. Accomplished directors work within the system and deliver product that is not only popular but great.
The funding model in Europe and to an extent in Asia, is based on public subsidy, ie. the ordinary mugs who pay taxes. You get a lot of art-house but few mainstream movies. I call this regressive taxation, where the masses subsidise the obsessions of a cineaste elite.
Guess which model I prefer?
Oh goody, another meaty thread to attack…
OK, here goes:
1. Have not seen this movie. (Have only seen Umbrellas of Cherbourg of Demy’s work.) As usual, the film is only a starting-point for a fascinating tangential discussion in the comments thread, which is quickly becoming one of the most involving on the Internet. My only problem is that (especially after being out a week and having to catch up) I read these so eagerly I sometimes find myself racing through and missing a point here and there. Ah well. On with it…
2. The American Cinema in the 60s Debate
The point is this: Hollywood entered the decade with a bang on the strength of its 50s style, which took a few years to dissipate. It exited with a bang, on the strength of what was to become its 70s style. In between, it suffered its worst creative crisis since the early days of the talkies. The films most frequently mentioned as America’s best from this decade are all bunched between 1960-62 and 1967-69. The years 1963-66, the middle years at the height of the sixties were largely a dead zone as far as Hollywood was concerned. Think of it as an awkward adolesence as it shook off the Code, the old formal style (master shots, slower editing, studio shooting), and (mixed blessing here) the underpinning of old hands who were aging and dying off.
Hence, I agree with Sam and Allan that the sixties was one of America’s weakest decades; I would also say it was one of European cinema’s greatest (and perhaps Asian cinema’s as well, though that point’s more debatable and not one for me to debate as much of that region’s output remains unexplored by me). Given this combination, one should not be surprised to see a “best of the sixties” list which contains few American films and a great many from outside its borders…though even I have been somewhat taken aback (in a good way, though, in a good way) by the zeal with which Allan has followed this path! Speaking of which…
3. I agree with Allan that his approach is correct if for no other reason than by dint of the fact that it’s HIS approach, and is, hence, honest in his own hands. I suppose we could quibble about whether or not these lists should be classified as “favorites” or “best” but I like that he takes the latter route, as so many seem to focus on the former (which both Bobby and Tony make a good case for here) and as he really does seem to be seeking (however successfully, we can debate) a “greatness” quotient, an admiration for a film’s own achievement which can, admittedly, only be filtered through his own sensibility. At any rate, the statement, “if that jerk can know of these films, why can’t I?” is a gem. I knew there was some humility hiding away beneath the gruff surface, Allan… 😉
4. “Allan, what a film says is to me more important than how it ranks as cinematic art.” A compelling statement. At the risk of straddling the fence, but with full honesty, let me say that both are extremely important to me. On the one hand, without the personal connection, one’s thinking on and appreciation of films runs the risk of being, as Tony puts it, “essentially sterile and irrelevant.” On the other hand, ignoring a film’s artistic achievement or lack thereof runs the risk of degenerating criticism into cheerleading. As a fan of various dialectics, and an eternal adherent to the appeal of tensions, I like to set these two values in opposition and interplay and it is only by doing so, by provoking both one’s emotional and intellectual responses, that I think one can fully engage with the work. At least this is true for me.
Personal plug here: my upcoming “150” series stems from this very question. Rather than deal with a hundred-and-half of my exclusively personal favorites, running the gamut from guilty pleasures to movies whose subject appeals to me (say, a documentary on the sixties) to movies who have nostalgic value – movies I would love to watch at any given moment, but which have little to offer in terms of thoughtful provocation or grand emotional involvement – and rather than explore a cold canon of classics whose plastic qualities are fully admirable, whose unities and structures are impeccable, whose contributions to film language are essential, yet whose achievements fail to move me (because lets face it, few of us “get” every single great work of art on a fundamental level, especially after just one experience with it), rather than either of these two options, I plan to write on a series of “favorite great movies.”
These are movies I think can be considered great works of cinema (some of my choices will surprise my readers, especially when we approach recent history, but since I’m taking my time with this series, those choices are now years away from being revealed…) but which also strike a chord with me. For whatever reason, I find this to be the most interesting approach to take, at least for myself, when composing a personal canon.
5. Sam, if it’s any consolation, Brother Sun Sister Moon is one of my mother’s favorite movies…it made her personal top 10 on the Mother’s Day list inspired by the Mad Hatter’s blog…
Movie Man:
I am absolutely astounded Sir!!!! It is about midnight here (just got back from a German thriller called JERICHOW at the Film Forum–it was fairly good..a 3.5 of 5) but I will address every single comment you’ve made tomorrow morning.
You sir, are incomparable. And your mother has great taste!!!!
Sam, thanks, and take your time! (I’m presently coming off a 15-hour drive; you’d think that would make me tired, but instead it’s like I’m a cannonball still soaring through the air after being fired from a cannon…gravity hasn’t quite caught up with me yet…)
I may do that WitD post at Dancing Image sooner rather than later, to lead up to Allan’s top 5, but I may still have you hold back on posting the link to my site until I can take full advantage of it (i.e. have some fresh posts ready to piggyback on increased traffic). We shall see.
(And my mother will be happy to know you concur with her love of Zefferelli, Donovan, flower power, medeival Catholicism, and all combinations thereof…)
MovieMan, at the risk of appearing tendentious, I didn’t say a film’s aesthetic should be ignored. I was talking about the relative importance I place on it vis-a-vis its theme.
Let me elaborate, and I know this is heresy, but I love smashing shibboleths. Ophuls’ Thoughts on Letter From An Unknown Woman (1948) has an exquisite aesthetic, but its theme is hardly original and veers dangerously close to melodrama. The story’s conceit is that the pianist never recalls the day of passion with the heroine. This is hard to swallow, as he is no shallow cad, but a man of deep melancholy, whose dissipation is an almost inevitable response to his angst and not a fault of character. Joan Fontaine is luminous and this blinds one to the banality of her infatuation. I can think of a dozen noirs that Allan would not give the time of day that explore amour fou with more originality.
Tony, this sounds like a concern with screenwriting more so than with theme (since presumably the writer could have dealt with the same theme more convincingly, at least by your lights). It’s a fair point, at any rate, but I find that, given the right treatment I will more than accept themes and stories which could seem trite at first glance.
Anyway, as to the specific example you offer (one of my favorites) I recall the man as being quite the cad, however shallow or melancholy. And while Fontaine’s infatuation could seem banal from the outside, the beauty of the movie is that it takes us inside, so that we see it all from her perspective (at least if it works for us – it seems it does for me, and not so much for you).
Think of Mulholland Drive, which by taking the form of a semi-mythic dream, allows us to see the pathos and tragedy in what could otherwise be perceived as an E! True Hollywood Story. This, to me, is where the importance of form comes in.
Hey Movie Man, I am just now figuring how to respond. Where shall I begin? LOL!!!!!!!!
To last night’s comments. Hmmm…I dropped in on the majority of the recent additions to the countdown and also tried to resume the “2001” thread in your Shakespeare post, which does not seem to have worked yet (that was my last, and most epic, comment of the night I think…on the subjects of canons, etc.)
By the way, I think I’m going to put up the Wonders in the Dark post today, leading into Memorial Day weekend and the top 5 of Allan’s countdown. But if you get wait until after the sixties countdown is finished to link up to my post, that will give me enough time, putting up another post or two so that people have something to see when they pay me a visit. Thanks.
Yes Movie Man, we can absolutely wait those few days. Go to it! I saw that awesome submission on canons at the Shakespeare thread and will be responding momentarily.
You are quite the romantic Movie Man… Mulholland Drive was a turgid nightmare and a supreme folly…
Oh Good Lord, Tony…the defense of the greatest film of the decade and one of the greatest films of all time will definitely have to wait for another day!
Maybe I am having the nightmare?
Have you seen the press conference from Cannes? Lynch and his stars were even more vapid than the movie. They were as clueless as the morons in the press gallery.
As an almost sane person with critical faculties not totally compromised by SSRI’s, I am certain it was the Emperor’s new clothes all over again.
One of the greatest films of all time? Give me a few of the pills they’re poppin’ in What Just Happened?
Oh, Tony, let’s not go there…Movieman is quite right…
So Tony is Nick and Nick is Tony!
Welcome back my very good friend. I have been away from the PC since around 5:50 P.M. last night and it’s now Sunday at 1:00 P.M. It appears that the kids have me in for a double feature this afternoon with TERMINATOR SALVATION and NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2……..torture for sure, but when you need to keep five kids happy that takes precedence!
Sorry Mr Fish, sir! Which rule have I broken this time? Where should I not go? Should I go straight to the headmaster’s office?
[Aside:] Friggin’ teachers, ‘do what I say, don’t do what I do’. You know what I HATE about film class? Like, you gotta sit through two hours of some BS movie that is supposed to be a classic, you know THE movie of the decade, the greatest film since Clara Bow, and well the flick ends. Man you think the picture sucks, and big time. So you say so, and it hits the wall, like a Tarantino gut-fest. The film-fascists are all over you. You get hit with the goo gun. You’re wrong, because they’re right. No arguments.
Hey Sam. Hope you had fun. Give me a bunch of kids over adults any time.
Nick, I will grant you this: the film is not universally beloved. In fact, I know few people who kinda like it or weren’t that into it but respected it. No, people seem to either love it or hate it. Clearly, I’m in the “love it” crowd, but I’d like to point out one thing: while its the films’ detractors that cry foul and claim to be victims of “film-fascists” I almost always witness the reverse – its the Mulholland-haters who throw down the gauntlet, challenging not just the opinions of those who disagree, but the authenticity of their opinions – the emperor has not clothes, everyone’s just pretending to like it, etc. It’s a bit of having your victim-cake and eating it too. (I’ve never met a Mulholland-lover who’s nearly as vicious and narrow-minded about the movie as a dozen or so Mulholland-haters who come to mind.)
Anyway, don’t be fooled by Lynch’s babe-in-the-woods act. He’s vapid like a fox – and I don’t mean that to be entirely complimentary.
As for your opinions in the (apocryphal?) film class the important thing is not so much if you think the film was the greatest since Clara Bow or sucked big-time, but why. If you just say that the film “sucked” without backing yourself up, that could be why your classmates get offended. Saying a film sucked as if it’s self-evident is no better than saying you’re wrong because I say so…
(And before I get scolded for calling Mulholland Dr. a great film without backing it up, two rejoinders: a) this is not film class; b) I will be happy to dig up my arguments pro-MD which have been strewn across the internet here and there over the past few years; just say the word….)
So, wait, Nick actually does = Tony (I thought Sam was joking…)?
Ironically given Tony/Nick’s apparent loathing of Lynch, he’s making me feel like I’m in a Lynch movie (ever see Lost Highway Tony, I mean Nick…)
Since you previously said that you did not study film academically I now KNOW that film class example was apocryphal, or should I say fictional, in keeping with the new persona…
MovieMan, please don’t be so earnest. It’s just a movie and I was making a lame attempt at satire… Allan playing the schoolmaster and all.
I think there is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here. I just gave an opinion. Perhaps the claim that a film is “one of the greatest films of all time” is a more heavy assertion, and more deserving of substantiation.
I know I am a hack and have said so many times, but a hack with the right to an opinion.
I don’t know you from Adam, and you don’t know me, so please don’t infer that I am vicious and narrow-minded.
Btw, the new persona has been forced on me. My normal self has been marked as SPAM by the WordPress nazis.
Anyway, as the great Jimi Hendrix said: “Peace brother”.
Bless me father for I have sinned………
In a rare display of independence, I deserted Lucille and the kids this afternoon, so I could negotiate a solo trip to Manhattan to see two films back-to-back in the Sunshine Cinemas–the new Sherman brothers documentary, which was utterly magnificent, and a rather problematic THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE by Stephen Soderburgh.
Tony, you are quite the opposite of a hack. Your work has been lauded far and wide, your writing talents are fabulous and your knowledge of film, particularly film noir, is peerless.
Tony, while we are Lynch here, what did you think of BLUE VELVET, if I may ask? I’m curious.
Sam, I know where to come when I am down :))
Blue Velvet? Great soundtrack.
Nick/Tony, I figured there was some reasonable explanation for the name-change, though I kind of like the idea of a Lynchesque mind-melding in which a new person emerges from the shell of the other…
As for “vicious” and “narrow-minded”, again, two points: 1) I wasn’t really thinking of you so much when writing this, as I was of other people I know; 2) even to the extent that you & your opinions would be included in this categorization, I don’t mean it as an overall indictment. To quote the old canard, some of my best friends are MD-haters! In fact, I once jokingly joined an online group started by fellow movie buffs who actively despised the film – it was called “The Mulholland Drive Haters’ Club” and I was listed as the mole… In other words, it should all be in good fun even when we have daggers at each other’s throats…
As for my justification for Mulholland Drive being one of the great films of the decade, that is fair enough. As I indicated, I’ve dropped comments like breadcrumbs here, there, and everywhere across the net and I will make an effort in the next day or two to round them up and deposit them here, willy-nilly. For a while I hoped to do a big post on Mulholland Drive, Persona, and 3 Women but that idea – like many others – has died on the vine.
Oh – and no more referring to yourself as a “hack” – what does that make those of us who enjoy your writing…hacolytes? (Drumroll, cymbal, crickets chirp, even pun-loving Andrew Sarris can be heard groaning…)
Sam, how was Glenn Kenny’s sleazy cameo? It’s the only reason I’ve felt at all compelled to see that movie, not that I have any particular hostility towards it, so much as indifference…
Movie Man: You are a class act!
As to that “sleazy Glenn Kenny cameo” I’ll admit I got a charge out of that, even if the film was a noble misfire. I just accessed an interview response from Kenny that you would be most interested in Movie Man, methinks:
Question: What impact did the Kael-Sarris brand of movie criticism have on you?
Glenn: As someone whose fascination with film was initially based in a genre, and hence, as someone who was attracted to film qua film rather than film as a manifestation of the larger popular culture, I was something of a Sarrisite by disposition. Before delving deeper into this potentially vexed subject, I want to talk about the first book on film I ever read, which was Carlos Clarens’ An Illustrated History of Horror and Science Fiction Films. I stole my school friend Allen Siegel’s copy back in 1969 or so, when I was ten. I devoured the book and was obsessed with the idea of seeing, if not every film discussed in the book, then at least every film there was a still from in the book. (A quest that continues to this day–as I write this, I’m about an hour away from embarking to BAM Rose Cinema to catch a screening of Tod Browning’s 1936 The Devil Doll!). Clarens still strikes me as an exemplary critic–informative, clear-eyed, authoritative in his judgments but never ostentatious in his pronouncements of them, possessed of an enormous erudition that he wears quite lightly. J. Hoberman is absolutely right, in the introduction he wrote for the 1997 Da Capo edition of the book, to call it “a beginner’s history of the movies.” A single sentence could set you off on the journey of a lifetime, e.g., “Obviously, Roger Corman is no Ingmar Bergman nor is he Luis Bunuel, both of whom he openly admires.” Who’s this Bergman, who’s this Bunuel, and why does Corman admire them, my ten-year-old self asked. Clarens’ passages on Lang and Dreyer were also fascinating, exhilarating. Years, in some cases decades, would pass before I would be able to see Vampyr or Day of Wrath or Lang’s Dr. Mabuse films. But Clarens’ book placed them at the forefront of my cinematic consciousness. As we know, Kael wasn’t big on horror, and I doubt she would even take vaguely seriously the surrealist critics, whose ideas concerning the cinema as narcotic also influenced my sensibilities. Sarris’ Americanization of the politique des auteurs created a critical atmosphere somewhat more sympathetic to those sensibilities–although I’m sure André Bazin would disapprove.
But let me try to back out of this particularly murky swamp of cerebration I seem to be wading into and address the immediate matter at hand. While I aver that my disposition made me more attracted to Sarris than Kael, the whole question of preference is sometimes merely a matter of who got to you first. (The Jesuits, of course, understand just how crucial this is.) I was chatting with a critic friend just the other night about your question, and he remembered being 14 and reading Kael’s essay “Circles and Squares: Joys And Sarris” and seeing it as such a convincing demolition of Sarris that it was years before he even approached The American Cinema–which I was immersed in at probably exactly the same time he was reading Kael. While American Cinema didn’t exactly convert him, on reading it he did see that Kael’s piece, like so much of her “Raising Kane,” was largely based on deliberate misreading and malicious speculation. (The apogee of the latter as Kael practiced it is this sentence from “Raising Kane”: “There’s a scene of Welles eating in the newspaper office, which was obviously caught by the camera crew, and which, to be ‘a good sport,’ he had to use.” Which of course is complete bullshit, it was called as complete bullshit, and Kael never budged on it.) All that notwithstanding it was Kael who had been the galvanic experience of criticism for him. (I understand that by taking issue with Kael I’m in danger of getting a verbal flaying from Greil Marcus in a future “Real Life Rock Top Ten” column, but that’s something I’m just gonna have to live with.) As for the politique des auteurs, although it could be argued that it enlarged the sorry cult of the director, and hence helped create the sorry state of affairs in which The Mighty Ducks got advertised as “A Film By Stephen Herek,” it should be remembered that Sarris himself never proposed it as an absolute–he wasn’t like Schoenberg saying that the twelve-tone system was the answer to all musical challenges and that no other method could be considered acceptable from that point on. He offered it as a perspective. There’s this old TV documentary about what it calls the auteur theory which opens with Robert Mitchum telling a story of working with Raoul Walsh, who is one of Sarris’s “Far Side of Paradise” directors, I believe. The picture was 1947’s Pursued, with Teresa Wright, and Mitchum describes with great relish how Walsh would turn away from the camera and roll a cigarette as a take began, and so on, really highlighting Walsh’s seeming indifference to the proceedings. Mitchum’s punchline is pretty much, “So there’s your auteur theory.” And he’s Robert Mitchum, so of course he’s persuasive to the point of being seductive, and the reflex reaction is, “Har dee har har, them egghead critics sure are a bunch of jackasses,” or something to that effect. The only problem is, logic dictates that one arrives at an estimation of Raoul Walsh’s films by actually watching the films–all or at least most of the films–rather than acting in precisely one of them. Which is not to say that one can automatically assume that whatever’s up on the screen which is of value was put there by the director. I have a couple of screenwriter friends who told me that a couple of the lines that were singled out by critics and audiences for being particularly lame within a generally well-received picture they wrote were in fact the interpolations of, yes, the director. I’m still glad to have auteurism in my tool kit. “
Well, Sam, that’s one hell of an answer.
I greatly enjoy Kenny’s site and in point of fact he’s run here with an idea that I’ve been humoring for months. I hesitate to say what it is exactly out of overzealous fear that someone will steal it before my lazy ass executes it, but it involves influential books. I plan to tag Glenn in the exercise, and as he’s generally pretty good at responding to these queries (despite good-natured grumbling) I expect a response from him. His description of his experience with that sci-fi book pegs EXACTLY my own childhood immersion in the mystery and adventure and excitement of cinema which I’m sometimes convinced owes more to books than movies.
As to the larger point, he’s on to something. Kael got to me WAY first, though upon reading her I was already familiar with the auteur theory. As a result, I’ve been in the perhaps odd position of being an auteurist Paulette, but then it’s not such a contradiction. Sometimes it seems like we’re auteurists now. Kael won adherants to her personal style, while Sarris won adherents to an ethos. Despite their mutual animosity, their worldviews are not really antithetical to one another.
Anyway, the “auteur” theory is something that has waxed and waned for me over the years. I’m far less likely to be primarily concerned with – or rather conscious of – the director’s expression of his vision in a given movie I’m watching than I would have been several years ago. But of all the ways of systematizing and partaking in cinema, the auteur theory strikes me as the most stimulating. All the other approaches, to varying degrees, tend to blur boundaries – which can be valuable – and sometimes to subvert and ignore film’s unique qualities – which is unfortunate – but auteurism highlights a film’s individual qualities (by isolating it within the pantheon of a director, a far more narrow and particular range then, say, the annals of genres or nations or ideologies, etc.) and brings to the forefront both formal and narrative qualities (and most importantly, the interaction between the two) which are central to the richest viewing experience.
Oh, and something else Glenn Kenny said, which I intended to mention in my previous comment, and which is a home run as far as I’m concerned:
“A single sentence could set you off on the journey of a lifetime, e.g., “Obviously, Roger Corman is no Ingmar Bergman nor is he Luis Bunuel, both of whom he openly admires.” Who’s this Bergman, who’s this Bunuel, and why does Corman admire them, my ten-year-old self asked.”
I really don’t like it when people complain about using terms like “mise en scene” and about name-dropping various directors and films, about talking to your audience like they know what you’re talking about. Some will have you believe this is arrogant and elitist, blah blah blah. Bull. OK, true, this sort of inside-baseball talk can be done in an overbearing, overly smug way. We all know that tone. But using certain terms, evoking certain names without explanation, are not in and of themselves exclusive.
What ever happened to curiosity – especially in this day of the instant Google? Reading about movies I hadn’t seen, hearing comparisons evoked with films and directors (and, for that matter, books, authors, artworks, cultural/historical incidents, etc.) I didn’t know about, which caused me to draw conclusions and investigate (sometimes in that order…) But I’m been vague and broad here, Glenn’s specific example cuts right to the heart of what I’m alluding to. THIS, to me, is the best way to introduce people to movies, not to spoon-feed them but to let them catch up and treat them as an equal. (And I know – because he’s said as much recently – that Allan will agree.)
Sam, you and anyone else reading this has to believe me when I say these thoughts have been circulating through my mind for months, and that my upcoming post is not derived from this Glenn Kenny interview, but was planned by me far in advance! I swear! It was my idea! Mine! Mine!
So I’d better get on it soon…
MovieMan I to a degree empathise with what you are saying, but there is a misc-conception on what the web and particularly blogging is all about.
If you define your audience narrowly, fine you will reach a small elite, but if you want to share your obsession more widely, be it film, books, or babes, you have to meet the market.
Most blog-readers want short to-the-point copy that attracts their attention with a snappy headline and arresting graphics. If you don’t get your essential message across in one screen, you have lost most of them. They dislike arcane jargon and posturing. You have to engage your reader as a friend who is expert yet on her level. Your language has to be accessible, no better than high school English, and your ideas have to be fairly definitive.
A blog like FilmsNoir.Net has a readership of mainly film noir fans, who in the main are looking to read about film noir and not films aesthetics and the esoteric. So, I met them half-way, and I believe that explains it’s success.
Yet Tony should a blog be purely about numbers, as that’s rather like cinema being all about the box office. We savour cinema not what the public want. What the public want has been proved to be, let’s say intellectually underwhelming fodder. I’m not interested in dumbing down to reach a target audience. I’m interested in writing off the cuff without thinking too much about it. If people like it, great. If not, fine, they can go to another blog more suitable for them. This blog is not one for the masses, it has eclectic taste, that’s part of the purpose of me getting involved with it, to show people there’s more out there than the average so-called expert would have you believe who would say their idea of an old classic is Spartacus and who think Murnau is a make of German car.
As for no better than high school English, you’re actually proving the point. You’re saying, let’s dumb down to meet the needs of people who can’t understand criticism and writing less teen-geek orientated (catering for the “whatever…it’s still cool” generation). It’s saying that the target audience is generally ill-educated, and in that case, should we accept that status quo and dumb down to them, or aim to bring something a bit different…
I for one say bollocks to the masses, here’s to individuals. An individual conversion to something a little bit different is far more important.
I fully respect your position Allan, and as I said, such a focus is fine if that is your goal.
My only quibble is that using clear plain language is not “dumbing down”. Indeed, your own prose is a shining example of such clarity.
Well, it’s my goal, Tony. I t wouldn’t be many people’s. Some people judge success purely by hits and comments. I judge it by doing your own thing and offering something different. If this was just another blog, I wouldn’t be on here. There’s enough blogs out there that are bland in their conformity to populist garbage.
But Tony, how does this explain Glenn Kenny and I (at 10!) eating up books with references we didn’t understand? There’s nothing wrong with an audience playing catch-up to a certain extent. If that’s all they’re doing, it’s boring, but if that’s part of what they’re doing, great! If they’re really interested, they will appreciate that aspect of discovery.
I think you give yourself short shrift as a writer, because I don’t at all see you as an example of dumbing down (and I hope you do not see me as an example of arcane writing – I might get dense in comments sections, but I attempt to write straightforwardly as a blogger).
Your populist streak is something I have to disagree with to a certain extent, particularly as it applies to filmmaking. Don’t get me wrong; the vast majority (in fact, virtually all save one or two) of my friends and family are either mostly disinterested in cinema or casual film buffs. I would like to reach them with any work I do in the future (although I am not blogging for money, and hence to try and suck up to some imaginary wide audience is bizarrely self-defeating).
So I get the not wanting to be exclusionary. But difficulty is not exclusionary. It may winnow out the lazy, who are just looking for a distraction, but so what? Would I deny some of the greatest books I’ve read, some of the greatest movies I’ve seen existence simply because they didn’t hit majority saturation and because people who were looking for the mental equivalent of a Big Mac (something I don’t think is terrible – it’s not like I’ve never had fast food) didn’t find satisfaction?
And heck, even supposedly audience-unfriendly works can connect with casual filmgoers. Look at There Will Be Blood. I had my own problems with the movie, but it was undoubtedly an expression of a unique vision, in many ways a “difficult” or “challenging” movie. I’ve heard all kinds of people extolling the virtues of the movie. It caught on and you’ll see kids whose other favorite movies may be Mall Cop (literally: I was behind a couple college kids on a bus and they went from praising Blood as cool because it was “weird” to wanting to see Paul Blart because it looked “mad funny”).
The point is, I think, don’t talk down to your audience. They don’t deserve it, and if they do, you deserve better yourself.
It’s complicated Movie Man. I would need to lay on a shrink’s couch to make sense of it myself. Let me try anyway.
At 10 I was living in a roach-infested tenement atop my parents’ fruit store. I was a dago kid where the only distraction was a 40s tube radio and a b&w TV set. There were no books. When I wasn’t at school I was working in the store or playing on the streets. TV was an escape into a fantasy world populated by the people from Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, and My Three Sons.
I am a populist because those I love and have loved, with souls bigger than a house, would find a film like There Will Be Blood as ugly and incomprehensible as the people it depicts. Who am I to say the quality of the feelings my mother felt when she watched Waterloo Bridge, or those of my father when he watched an Audie Murphy western, are any less profound than those of a cineaste watching Tokyo Story?
As to my writing: it don’t come easy and I am never really satisfied with it. And one of the reasons is the awe I have for young people like you who are so articulate and confident. The closest I have come to expressing who I am is from a piece I wrote for WitD a while back: “I often wonder how it feels to be at home in your country of birth. As a child of immigrant parents, and though an Australian by birth, I have never been confident that I ever will. There is a discontinuity, and bridging it is as unlikely as me flying to the moon. It is a strange feeling that I am in a place but not of it – a stranger in the only home I know. Perhaps it is me and not my situation, but the feeling of estrangement is always there under the surface, dormant, but ever-ready to puncture that rare sensation that I may have found that elusive threshold to a life unhindered by a feeling of not belonging… I imagine this is how Slumdog Jamal feels. A Muslim in a hostile Hindu nation, first as an orphan eking out an existence on a refuse heap, living little better than a dog, later as a hustler on the edge of society, and then as a lowly chah-wallah in a Mumbai office tower. He has no home and belongs nowhere.”
This is where I will always be coming from…
Well, first of all, the above is proof that you are not a hack writer. Hacks are bland and generic. You are neither.
As for what you are saying, you raise many interesting points. I agree with some of them, to a certain extent. Your perception of film as an escape is quite common, and one I do not dismiss. I think it is other things as well, but I do not deny that central experience of finding a gateway into another existence, or into higher emotions. Pauline Kael once wrote that she did not trust people who discovered movies as “art” first – the ones who dismissed it for years, and then decided it was worth something when they saw Hiroshima, Mon Amour in an arthouse in their thirties. She was suspicious of their motives and of the level of their committment and emotional involvement in movies.
That judgement’s a bit harsh, but I agree with the general sentiment behind it. One should discover the potentials of film, navigate the difficulties, and so forth, coming from a place of sheer pleasurable enjoyment of the world onscreen. For myself, it was the Indiana Jones films (which I still consider tremendous examples of entertainment, and great film for that – at least the first one), Disney movies, biblical spectacles…and it was certainly the fantasy element, the larger-than-life aspect of it. (At the same time, I was fascinated with home movies my father took, and I think this fostered my appreciation of the Bazinian aspect of cinema today.)
For myself, I do not think an appreciation of this populist, escapist aspect should preclude appreciations of more esoteric, complex, or harsher enjoyments. Nor should it suspend critical judgement (at least if that is what one is more interested in persuing). In other words, joy at the positive message and kinetic energy of Slumdog Millionaire need not mean that one can’t also respond to the dark, warped imagery and mood of There Will Be Blood, nor that one can’t stand back from the emotional experience and notice flaws in the narratives of both (and I definitely had problems with both films, particularly their endings).
“Who am I to say the quality of the feelings my mother felt when she watched Waterloo Bridge, or those of my father when he watched an Audie Murphy western, are any less profound than those of a cineaste watching Tokyo Story?”
This is a crucial point. I can’t know, but I highly doubt that the feelings of your mother watching Waterloo Bridge or your father watching Audie Murphy were any less profound, less richer, or less transformative than those of the most erudite cineaste partaking in Ozu. But emotional involvement is a highly individual experience, and often barely contingent with the work in question.
Were I to discover some artifact from my childhood that is meaningless to you or someone else, I would be deeply moved and you were not. This is just one example of the way we can invest qualities in a work that have much more to do with us than the work in question. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. But it doesn’t have much to do with film criticism.
I don’t really consider myself a critic anyway but I do consider myself, as someone who wants to make films and thus understand how and why they work and to explore what works for me, and as someone who loves movies and wants to delve further and further into that love, a person who harbors and fosters certain critical sensibilities. That includes the ability, or the attempt anyway, to sift out contingent elements like nostalgia, personal interest, wishful thinking, etc. from qualities which are more firmly lodged in the work itself – hence the difference between saying I liked the film and saying it was good.
Among other things, the latter has more staying power; how often do we return to works we loved at one point to discover that, with a change in our own circumstances, we no longer respond the same way? And how often have we continued to explore a challenging work, one we may initially have been cold or even hostile towards, discovering unexpected riches, and gifts that keep on giving, long after the bright flame of infatuation with a “lesser” film has burned out.
As indicated in previous qualities, I’m personally quite interested in the intersection between these two qualities, at least for the moment. There have been other times when, for whatever reason, I needed and wanted film as a comfort food, movies as a complete escape or a nostalgic reminder of times and experiences past. And yet others when I responded most to the “greatness” of the work, almost as a tactile experience, seeing what the director achieved and taking inspiration and a kind of visceral thrill from this, a kind of emotion shot through the intellect, strengthened instead of weakened by the cerebral aspect. Right now, I’m sort of oscillating between the two. And I suspect I’ll go back and forth all of my life.
The movies are many things. I don’t see any reason to deny any of these aspects – nor to entirely privilege one over the other. The best thing we can do is be honest and direct in expressing ourselves, in putting aside all of the filters except those which we most need and want, which society tells us we need to use to make ourselves and our expressions more palatable to others.
This is one of the great things about blogging, its individualized, nonconformist character, and it is something I hope and suspect will be coming to filmmaking too down the line. With all the shitty aspects of the modern world, I believe this is one aspect we can take heart from.
This discussion brings to mind books that I browsed/read over the years and the BFI and my local library.
There is a brand of film writer who seems to try to make the something simple into something complex, arcane and obscure.
I like references that I have to research for or that give greater meaningful richness to the film. I hate references that have nothing to do with the movie at hand and are just the boorish bleetings of a windbag.
There are words that I had never heard before but which I construed the meaning of by context of how it was used in the sentence.
As for the discussion of what the public wants, for my two cents, the films that survive and endure are the good ones. How many of MGM’s ’40s films have lingered on and grown in reputation or are like to capture the imagination and rapt attention of anyone catching it on the telly.
The cream rises to the top over time. Hence the success of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘The Terminator’, ‘Citizen Kane’.
I think that good films will find a way. They can either make them low-brow, what the public wants films or artistically adventurous ones. And as time robs them of their innovations and their permissiveness, they will still grasp a new audience.
Fortunately, 10,000 screens openings are a relatively new trend (mid ’70s). If the old system was still in place, most of the crap would die at the box-office.
The chat about autuerism brought to mind two pieces; one was a book about Jack Arnold that tried to denigrate Richard Matheson, the writer of the novel and screenplay, plus Twilight Zones, Duel, Thriller, Star Trek, Corman’s Poes, Night of the Eagle, ect, ect. The reason, I think, was that the writer couldn’t comprehend a movie as collaborative art. His simple-minded reading meant that it was either/or. A binary reading more suited to computing. Denigrate the writer and director of course becomes the premier artist.
The second was an old copy of Cinefantastique magazine, a brillant magazine. It had an interview with Jacques Tourner in which the writer was disappointed that the director was only talking about how he crafted the film ‘Night of the Demon’, the huge fans used, ect, ect, and not his (autuerist vision).
Tony, I think your parents would probably have enjoyed a film like ‘Toyko Story’, ‘The Bicycle Thieves’ and ‘Cinema Paradisco’ – if they had a chance to catch it. I think, if it’s good enough – it will transcend generations and cultures. I’ve had friends cuss b/w, SF, b/w tv, Bilko, ect, ect and even a niece who hated Star Trek and Star Wars but flipped to the other side. A friend from work who thought b/w was rubbish and I handed him ‘Citizen Kane’ and ‘Double Indemnity’ and he became obbsessive. My brothers missus who love BBC costume dramas and Cary Grant, a nephew who loves rap, Mtv, Simpsons, who became fantantical about Buster Keaton after watching the two-reeler ‘One Week’.
‘There Will Be Blood’ is a good movie in terms of photography, music, production design, direction but there’s some essential part missing. The coldness of the central character, the abject cruelty of the ending, the lack of emotional frisson I get when watching a tragedy unfold (such as ‘Citizen Kane’)….maybe I just don’t care that much for sociopaths. Or maybe the director missed a trick. His ‘Magnolia’ was magnificent. Maybe, ‘There Will Be Blood’ is one of those films to coldly admired for its surface.
PS: “There are words that I had never heard before but which I construed the meaning of by context of how it was used in the sentence.” – is a compliemnt and something that I approve of.
MovieMan, a brilliant riposte, and I can’t disagree with you.
There is just one thing I would like to take up. You said: “how often do we return to works we loved at one point to discover that, with a change in our own circumstances, we no longer respond the same way?”
Like it or not we get older, and I have 30 years of living over you. I am not saying those 3o years give me some advantage, but that as you approach the reality that there is no more time for second chances, and that for most of us, where you are is at best a fading gray image of what you wanted to achieve 30 years before, what sustains you and what you value is markedly different from when you were younger.
At this point in your life, the films that are important to you are those you recall vividly and with feeling. For me these just happen to be more popular movies.
Great stuff Bobby!
I believe a film should stand on its own. It is good or bad, strictly on its own terms, and while an enthusiast’s knowledge of the director’s oeuvre, the directors’ influences, the circumstances surrounding its production etc., may enrich her appreciation, it should not detract from the film-maker’s obligation to make an interesting movie that can be appreciated by the ordinary film-goer.
What particularly rankles me is the common cineaste conceit of identifying how such and such a scene is a homage to this director or this movie, ad nauseam. This seems to be particularly the case in the childish fascination with pastiche artists like Tarantino.
I am just now (finally) getting to this thread. It is absolutely remarkable, and I hope Allan, and some of the readers here find the time to read it. It’s fascinating sociological stuff, and I will comment now on Tony’s submission:
I didn’t quite have that same upbringing in that second-story over a fruit market, but I can well relate with the “dago” thing as I was the same, albeit in an Italian-American community, Fairview (which has now turned heavily Hispanic and to a lesser extent Arab-American), and the tube radio and black and white TV ownership rings too. I am 54 years old now and I remember we had far less then. But there is nothing wrong with being a populist especially when you inform with that admission that there’s little difference between a popular choice and that of a cineaste who loves TOKYO STORY.
Yes Bobby J.’s piece here is fascinating! The cream does rise to the top, and yes I also prefer MAGNOLIA to THERE WILL BE BLOOD, in part for the reasons you elaborate on. Th eargument that “if films are good enough, they will trascends culture” is hard to refute as well.
Bobby, it is interesting that you say my parents may have enjoyed Tokyo Story.
The pathos for me emotionally was inextricably linked to the grandmother who so reminds of my late mother. This I think highlights what, for me anyway, makes a great film: that emotional connection which resonates deep within your psyche, and the experience of which remains with you always. This can happen in any film and this is why we should not be bound by a demarcation between high art and popular art.
Talking of the 60’s, Cool Hand Luke is one of those movies that stay with you forever. The scene when Luke’s dying mother visits, and you know she knows he is doomed, and the ending…