I started this project because I wanted to see a lot of great films. Now, I've already seen all the films in the top 100. Just, this project is unfinished because 14 of those movies I didn't see this year.
Now I'm finding I'd rather explore out further both to discover directors and films from parts of the world that aren't included in the top 100 than to force myself to watch a lot of films I've already seen just to write about them.
So, I think for the remaining films I'm just going to briefly write my feelings about them from the last time I saw them.
But, if anyone would rather I go through with my original intentions and watch them all this year to write more detailed impressions of them, please comment on this post.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
#15: The Godfather, Part II
The Godfather: Part II (Coppola, 1974)
This one I haven't seen since I first saw it about ten years ago, in my first short lived attempt to get into classic film. (Back before the internet reduced the cost of movie rentals from $8/rental to $9/month, and my only source of income was allowance.) So, I had little or no memory of it and probably no residual understanding of what was really going on. The plot of Godfather II is interesting as it constitutes a study of game theory. Michael does what's in his best interest, assuming everybody else does what's in their best interest. He doesn't trust what people tell him: He trusts them to be greedy. That's how he knows Hyman Roth is lying to him, and that's how he knows Fredo was setting him up. The problem is, Michael is a gangster, so the game theory solution to every problem is to kill everyone. This makes the story a little bit predictable and kind of boring. In the first Godfather there's the genuine question of whether Michael is really capable of murder, and of how far he'll really go into the criminal life he resisted up to the point of his father's shooting to protect his family. In the sequel there's no question: We know he's capable of murder and that there are no boundaries to that capability.
More interesting than the present are the flashbacks to the past where Robert Deniro portrays Vito Corleone before he became the Godfather. As a child his father was murdered by an Italian gangster, and then the rest of his family. Don Ciccio insisted on killing Vito, because despite his mother's claim to the contrary, he knew Vito would one day come looking for revenge. (He was right.) Vito escapes to America, where they change his last name from Andolini to Corleone (The town where he was born) at Ellis Island because it sounds more American. We see a process of allowing immigrants to come over but trying to forcefully assimilate them before accepting them. We then see him first meeting the old men from the first Godfather and forming a criminal enterprise as a statement of pride and independence, all leading up to his first murder, of a local gangster trying to charge them for the right to do business in his territory, and then his belated revenge.
That part, however, only constitues about a third of the movie. The rest of the movie focuses on Michael's rather redundant attempt to make the Corleone family business legitimate. He's doing business with and protecting a businessman in order to own a large part of the casino business in Havana. This all happens during the communist takeover of Cuba. He pinned all his hope of becoming legitimate onto Hyman Roth, then found out Hyman was just as criminal as he was, forcing him to go on a killing spree just to defend himself.
Michael was drawn into the mob to protect his father from assassination. Then once in the mob, his actions to defend himself from other mobsters ended up destroying his family. This is the thesis of the film, and it's one I don't accept. I don't accept the mythology of gangster movies that a decent person could become a mass murderer out of circumstance. If Michael could become a murderer, I believe that's what he always was, even before he had murdered.
Rating: **** 1/2 / 5
85/100
Next: L'aventura, then random die roll the rest of the way.
One of the reason my update rate slowed way down from the start of the year is that now, all I've got left is films I've already seen, and I'm trying to watch films for the Director's Cup on Mubi, which has taken up most of my movie watching time. But since I came this far I'm going to finish it, with the possible exception of Wizard of Oz. Maybe in lieu of Wizard of Oz I'll write about #101 The Man With A Movie Camera.
This one I haven't seen since I first saw it about ten years ago, in my first short lived attempt to get into classic film. (Back before the internet reduced the cost of movie rentals from $8/rental to $9/month, and my only source of income was allowance.) So, I had little or no memory of it and probably no residual understanding of what was really going on. The plot of Godfather II is interesting as it constitutes a study of game theory. Michael does what's in his best interest, assuming everybody else does what's in their best interest. He doesn't trust what people tell him: He trusts them to be greedy. That's how he knows Hyman Roth is lying to him, and that's how he knows Fredo was setting him up. The problem is, Michael is a gangster, so the game theory solution to every problem is to kill everyone. This makes the story a little bit predictable and kind of boring. In the first Godfather there's the genuine question of whether Michael is really capable of murder, and of how far he'll really go into the criminal life he resisted up to the point of his father's shooting to protect his family. In the sequel there's no question: We know he's capable of murder and that there are no boundaries to that capability.
More interesting than the present are the flashbacks to the past where Robert Deniro portrays Vito Corleone before he became the Godfather. As a child his father was murdered by an Italian gangster, and then the rest of his family. Don Ciccio insisted on killing Vito, because despite his mother's claim to the contrary, he knew Vito would one day come looking for revenge. (He was right.) Vito escapes to America, where they change his last name from Andolini to Corleone (The town where he was born) at Ellis Island because it sounds more American. We see a process of allowing immigrants to come over but trying to forcefully assimilate them before accepting them. We then see him first meeting the old men from the first Godfather and forming a criminal enterprise as a statement of pride and independence, all leading up to his first murder, of a local gangster trying to charge them for the right to do business in his territory, and then his belated revenge.
That part, however, only constitues about a third of the movie. The rest of the movie focuses on Michael's rather redundant attempt to make the Corleone family business legitimate. He's doing business with and protecting a businessman in order to own a large part of the casino business in Havana. This all happens during the communist takeover of Cuba. He pinned all his hope of becoming legitimate onto Hyman Roth, then found out Hyman was just as criminal as he was, forcing him to go on a killing spree just to defend himself.
Michael was drawn into the mob to protect his father from assassination. Then once in the mob, his actions to defend himself from other mobsters ended up destroying his family. This is the thesis of the film, and it's one I don't accept. I don't accept the mythology of gangster movies that a decent person could become a mass murderer out of circumstance. If Michael could become a murderer, I believe that's what he always was, even before he had murdered.
Rating: **** 1/2 / 5
85/100
Next: L'aventura, then random die roll the rest of the way.
One of the reason my update rate slowed way down from the start of the year is that now, all I've got left is films I've already seen, and I'm trying to watch films for the Director's Cup on Mubi, which has taken up most of my movie watching time. But since I came this far I'm going to finish it, with the possible exception of Wizard of Oz. Maybe in lieu of Wizard of Oz I'll write about #101 The Man With A Movie Camera.
#76: Amarcord
Amarcord (Fellini, 1973)
Not my favorite Fellini, Amarcord shows a cross section of the year in a life of an Italian village during Mussolini's reign. Although the symbols of fascism are there and in the background, they're mostly not part of the story. The villagers pay lip service to fascism, but it doesn't change the way they live very much. The story is very narrative and whimsical, following several different threads and going off on many different tangents. For instance, there's one part where the narrator stops and tells you a story about an Islamic diplomat who came to town with his thirty concubines, and shows up the story a street vendor made up about how the concubines invited them up into their rooms so he could make love to all of them. Another time, one of the main character's schizophrenic brother climbs up in a tree and starts throwing rocks at people screaming "I WANT A WOMAN!" The approach to the characters is pretty typical for Fellini. Eccentric characters, self-unaware of their idiosyncracy. All of it is more amusing than it is interesting. It's a film you should see if you're a fan of Fellini, but not essential.
Rating: *** 1/2 / 5
84/100
It looks like way back in March I skipped a number, so this makes 84, not 85.
Next: The Godfather Part II, L'aventura
Left:
#8 The Seven Samurai
#17 Casablanca
#21 Touch Of Evil
#28 Psycho
#29 Children Of Paradise
#33 Dr Strangelove
#35 Apocalypse Now
#40 Blade Runner
#45 It's A Wonderful Life
#53 The Seventh Seal
#60 Au Hasard Balthazar
#66 The Wizard Of Oz
#84 Barry Lyndon
#99 Blue Velvet
Not my favorite Fellini, Amarcord shows a cross section of the year in a life of an Italian village during Mussolini's reign. Although the symbols of fascism are there and in the background, they're mostly not part of the story. The villagers pay lip service to fascism, but it doesn't change the way they live very much. The story is very narrative and whimsical, following several different threads and going off on many different tangents. For instance, there's one part where the narrator stops and tells you a story about an Islamic diplomat who came to town with his thirty concubines, and shows up the story a street vendor made up about how the concubines invited them up into their rooms so he could make love to all of them. Another time, one of the main character's schizophrenic brother climbs up in a tree and starts throwing rocks at people screaming "I WANT A WOMAN!" The approach to the characters is pretty typical for Fellini. Eccentric characters, self-unaware of their idiosyncracy. All of it is more amusing than it is interesting. It's a film you should see if you're a fan of Fellini, but not essential.
Rating: *** 1/2 / 5
84/100
It looks like way back in March I skipped a number, so this makes 84, not 85.
Next: The Godfather Part II, L'aventura
Left:
#8 The Seven Samurai
#17 Casablanca
#21 Touch Of Evil
#28 Psycho
#29 Children Of Paradise
#33 Dr Strangelove
#35 Apocalypse Now
#40 Blade Runner
#45 It's A Wonderful Life
#53 The Seventh Seal
#60 Au Hasard Balthazar
#66 The Wizard Of Oz
#84 Barry Lyndon
#99 Blue Velvet
Thursday, October 21, 2010
#44: Rear Window
Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1959)
Maybe the most famous Hitchcock movie, Rear Window takes place almost entirely from a perspective within the main character's apartment. He's a journalist who spends all his time in poor countries with harsh conditions. But now he's got a broken leg, and he's trapped inside his apartment. The film takes place long before the internet age, but in terms of social norms it's eerily predictive of it. He lives in a big apartment complex all of which have windows open to a huge courtyard. His neighbors all watch each other but never interact with each other. They all live their own separate lives, watch and be watched, with a tacit feeling of superiority and contempt for them, and the one with the telescope, he feels in control of them all.
That's the psychology of the movie, but the main plot revolves around a murder. When he's watching one of his neighbors, he sees him fighting with his invalid wife. Then, he falls asleep, wakes up later, and hears a scream. Throughout the night, he sees the husband leaving the apartment several times. He comes to the conclusion that he murdered his wife, and tries to enlist his friends and associates to help him prove it. They try to convince him he's imagining things. He starts to lose his feeling of control and superiority, and his isolation and helplessness is exposed.
The murder plot of the film makes it entertaining and accessible, and the psychological themes make it interesting as well. It's also cinematically interesting in the way the behavior of the neighbors is presented from a distance, controlling the viewer's perspective and knowledge to the perspective and knowledge of the main character.
Rating: **** 1/2 / 5
84/100
Maybe the most famous Hitchcock movie, Rear Window takes place almost entirely from a perspective within the main character's apartment. He's a journalist who spends all his time in poor countries with harsh conditions. But now he's got a broken leg, and he's trapped inside his apartment. The film takes place long before the internet age, but in terms of social norms it's eerily predictive of it. He lives in a big apartment complex all of which have windows open to a huge courtyard. His neighbors all watch each other but never interact with each other. They all live their own separate lives, watch and be watched, with a tacit feeling of superiority and contempt for them, and the one with the telescope, he feels in control of them all.
That's the psychology of the movie, but the main plot revolves around a murder. When he's watching one of his neighbors, he sees him fighting with his invalid wife. Then, he falls asleep, wakes up later, and hears a scream. Throughout the night, he sees the husband leaving the apartment several times. He comes to the conclusion that he murdered his wife, and tries to enlist his friends and associates to help him prove it. They try to convince him he's imagining things. He starts to lose his feeling of control and superiority, and his isolation and helplessness is exposed.
The murder plot of the film makes it entertaining and accessible, and the psychological themes make it interesting as well. It's also cinematically interesting in the way the behavior of the neighbors is presented from a distance, controlling the viewer's perspective and knowledge to the perspective and knowledge of the main character.
Rating: **** 1/2 / 5
84/100
Saturday, October 16, 2010
#86: Voyage In Italy
Voyage In Italy
Voyage In Italy follows an English couple taking a vacation in Italy. They don't speak the language, don't understand the culture, and have a typical tourist attitude. They want to see the interesting sights, but stay in their own comfort zone the whole time.
During the trip, you see the characters' marriage falling apart. We see no love and no chemistry between them, and they're constantly critical of each other's faults and defensive about their own. As they handle the affairs of her uncle's estate and travel around the country, they constantly bicker, and the shots let us see things about Italy even if they're not what the ignore characters are paying attention to. The film can be a bit boring to get through, but it all comes together to a nice payoff at the end.
Rating: *** / 5
83/100
I think I won't watch On The Waterfront. I switched it out for L'age Dor, which it replaced in the last TSPDT update, because I really didn't feel like watching it again, especially now that I've discovered a whole lot of other directors I need to explore more deeply.
Next: Rear Window, Amarcord, The Godfather Part II, L'aventura
Voyage In Italy follows an English couple taking a vacation in Italy. They don't speak the language, don't understand the culture, and have a typical tourist attitude. They want to see the interesting sights, but stay in their own comfort zone the whole time.
During the trip, you see the characters' marriage falling apart. We see no love and no chemistry between them, and they're constantly critical of each other's faults and defensive about their own. As they handle the affairs of her uncle's estate and travel around the country, they constantly bicker, and the shots let us see things about Italy even if they're not what the ignore characters are paying attention to. The film can be a bit boring to get through, but it all comes together to a nice payoff at the end.
Rating: *** / 5
83/100
I think I won't watch On The Waterfront. I switched it out for L'age Dor, which it replaced in the last TSPDT update, because I really didn't feel like watching it again, especially now that I've discovered a whole lot of other directors I need to explore more deeply.
Next: Rear Window, Amarcord, The Godfather Part II, L'aventura
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
#42: Persona
Persona (Bergman, 1967)
Bergman is one of my favorite directors, and Persona is my favorite Bergman film. The story focuses on two women. One, Elisabet Volger, is a stage actress who has recently inexplicably shut down and stopped talking and been sent to a mental institution. The other, Alma, is a nurse at that institution. The director of the mental institution presents Elisabet with a theory that she doesn't feel emotions for anyone and spends her life faking the emotions, and she stopped talking so she could stop lying. Her solution is to send Elisabet with Alma to her summer home to relax.
Alma at first is completely open with Elisabet, and identifies with her, almost forming a crush. Then, she reads a letter Elisabet wrote to the hospital director in which she says she is manipulating Alma into using her for a character study. At this point she blows up, and starts to see her as cold and manipulative. At the same time she secretly wonders if she's as cold and manipulative as Elisabet.
My interpretation of the film the first time I saw it was completely different from my interpretation the second time. The first time, I thought Elisabet was the cold, manipulative psychopath and Alma was losing her sense of identity because she was worried she couldn't show love for the child she was pregnant with. The second time, I had a different interpretation. Elisabeth didn't shut down because she was cold and manipulative. She shut down because she had trouble dealing with the violence in the world. When the director gave her the story of the cold, manipulative actress, she adopted it as her persona and starting playing that part, so she could use it as a coping mechanism. When Alma caught her playing that part to the director, she decided to project her own coldness, that she does not like to admit, onto Elisabet. Through her actions we see Alma is the real sociopath. She saw a shard of broken glass on the ground, and Elisabet walking around barefoot, and said nothing so she would cut her foot. She threatened to throw boiling water on Elisabet to get her to talk and break her persona. Alma is the cold, manipulative one, who knows she'll now have to play the part with her child, and receive emotion she can't return.
The movie is heavily open to interpretation but not in a way that seems vague. It uses dreams and tacit emotion in a way that's distinctly Bergman. In a way that invites you to examine and form your own ideas rather than just spelling everything out. It raises the themes of the difference between our inner psychology and the personae we choose to show to others. It's an all around beautiful film.
Rating: ***** / 5
82/101
Next: Voyage In Italy, Rear Window, Amarcord
Bergman is one of my favorite directors, and Persona is my favorite Bergman film. The story focuses on two women. One, Elisabet Volger, is a stage actress who has recently inexplicably shut down and stopped talking and been sent to a mental institution. The other, Alma, is a nurse at that institution. The director of the mental institution presents Elisabet with a theory that she doesn't feel emotions for anyone and spends her life faking the emotions, and she stopped talking so she could stop lying. Her solution is to send Elisabet with Alma to her summer home to relax.
Alma at first is completely open with Elisabet, and identifies with her, almost forming a crush. Then, she reads a letter Elisabet wrote to the hospital director in which she says she is manipulating Alma into using her for a character study. At this point she blows up, and starts to see her as cold and manipulative. At the same time she secretly wonders if she's as cold and manipulative as Elisabet.
My interpretation of the film the first time I saw it was completely different from my interpretation the second time. The first time, I thought Elisabet was the cold, manipulative psychopath and Alma was losing her sense of identity because she was worried she couldn't show love for the child she was pregnant with. The second time, I had a different interpretation. Elisabeth didn't shut down because she was cold and manipulative. She shut down because she had trouble dealing with the violence in the world. When the director gave her the story of the cold, manipulative actress, she adopted it as her persona and starting playing that part, so she could use it as a coping mechanism. When Alma caught her playing that part to the director, she decided to project her own coldness, that she does not like to admit, onto Elisabet. Through her actions we see Alma is the real sociopath. She saw a shard of broken glass on the ground, and Elisabet walking around barefoot, and said nothing so she would cut her foot. She threatened to throw boiling water on Elisabet to get her to talk and break her persona. Alma is the cold, manipulative one, who knows she'll now have to play the part with her child, and receive emotion she can't return.
The movie is heavily open to interpretation but not in a way that seems vague. It uses dreams and tacit emotion in a way that's distinctly Bergman. In a way that invites you to examine and form your own ideas rather than just spelling everything out. It raises the themes of the difference between our inner psychology and the personae we choose to show to others. It's an all around beautiful film.
Rating: ***** / 5
82/101
Next: Voyage In Italy, Rear Window, Amarcord
Sunday, October 10, 2010
#10: Battleship Potemkin
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
Battleship Potemkin is a difficult film to discuss, because it's an important film for good reasons, but it's difficult to enjoy with modern eyes. Stylistically the movie is beautiful. The cuts and the camerawork are brilliant, and really focus on and highlight the emotion of the characters in a way few films can do. But content-wise, it's a communist propaganda piece.
The story is very simple. The crew of a warship are forced to sleep in unsanitary conditions and eat disgusting low-grade meat. The commanders decide to execute crew members who refuse to eat the meat, and the workers rebel against their oppressive leaders. This leads to the civilian population back home joining the rebellion. When the military strike back against the population, this one battleship declares war on the whole system, their only hope for victory to rally all the workers on the other warships to their cause.
The way they present the idealized new system is very well done. Everybody is crowding together in a mob chanting that everybody will be equal. One man yells out "AND WE'LL SMASH THE JEWS!", and everybody shouts him down. There are no divisions, not even by religion. But, therein lies the hypocrisy of the message of the film. The ruling class are presented unilaterally as cold hearted, lazy, murderous tyrants. There's one scene where the military comes in and starts shooting people arbitrarily, which ends with a baby carriage rolling down a staircase because a soldier shot the baby's mother. One woman is carrying her wounded child, begging for mercy, and the soldiers shoot her down on the spot. So, in the revolution everybody is equal -- except for the prior ruling class, who are barely human, and should all be destroyed.
To me, the foremost expert on communist revolutions in history is George Orwell. Battleship Potemkin plays out the first two or three chapters of Animal Farm, where the oppressed workers cast out their tyrannical oppressors. What it leaves out is the ensuing corruption, and the leaders of the revolution who turn into the new ruling class. It's a propaganda piece for a cause that has been proven by history to lead to disaster.
So, if you're a cinema buff who watches films for cinematography and such, I would highly recommend it. Otherwise, avoid it.
Style rating: ***** / 5
Substance rating: * / 5
Overall rating: *** 1/2 / 5
81/101
Next: Persona, Voyage In Italy, Rear Window
Battleship Potemkin is a difficult film to discuss, because it's an important film for good reasons, but it's difficult to enjoy with modern eyes. Stylistically the movie is beautiful. The cuts and the camerawork are brilliant, and really focus on and highlight the emotion of the characters in a way few films can do. But content-wise, it's a communist propaganda piece.
The story is very simple. The crew of a warship are forced to sleep in unsanitary conditions and eat disgusting low-grade meat. The commanders decide to execute crew members who refuse to eat the meat, and the workers rebel against their oppressive leaders. This leads to the civilian population back home joining the rebellion. When the military strike back against the population, this one battleship declares war on the whole system, their only hope for victory to rally all the workers on the other warships to their cause.
The way they present the idealized new system is very well done. Everybody is crowding together in a mob chanting that everybody will be equal. One man yells out "AND WE'LL SMASH THE JEWS!", and everybody shouts him down. There are no divisions, not even by religion. But, therein lies the hypocrisy of the message of the film. The ruling class are presented unilaterally as cold hearted, lazy, murderous tyrants. There's one scene where the military comes in and starts shooting people arbitrarily, which ends with a baby carriage rolling down a staircase because a soldier shot the baby's mother. One woman is carrying her wounded child, begging for mercy, and the soldiers shoot her down on the spot. So, in the revolution everybody is equal -- except for the prior ruling class, who are barely human, and should all be destroyed.
To me, the foremost expert on communist revolutions in history is George Orwell. Battleship Potemkin plays out the first two or three chapters of Animal Farm, where the oppressed workers cast out their tyrannical oppressors. What it leaves out is the ensuing corruption, and the leaders of the revolution who turn into the new ruling class. It's a propaganda piece for a cause that has been proven by history to lead to disaster.
So, if you're a cinema buff who watches films for cinematography and such, I would highly recommend it. Otherwise, avoid it.
Style rating: ***** / 5
Substance rating: * / 5
Overall rating: *** 1/2 / 5
81/101
Next: Persona, Voyage In Italy, Rear Window
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