What films did you watch last week? 4th - 11th May

Old Pro Joined: 10 Jan 2007 Posts: 3068 Location: Bangkok

Ironic wrote:

M (1931) - creaky old film about the widespread paranoia that followed the rampage of "The Beast Of Dusseldorf". This is one of those films i watched thinking "i should like this, but i just don't". I found it very flat, dull in places and very unevenly paced. The acting's horrid, mostly and the print i watched was distinctly sub-par. Not one i'll be returning to soon.

Rashomon Good film, but not one i'd say was great - although that's just down to personal taste of course. I ended up confused as to who was lying and who was telling the truth (if any) about what actually happened in the woods. Great photography though: Rashomon Screenshots

I'm with you on these - don't like either of them. I don't find the psychology nearly as deep as everyone makes out, and as I remember, both seem to suffer from lapses in pacing - I mean pacing within a scene - between two lines of speech even - often just a split second's pause where there shouldn't be one - that always kills my emotional involvement in a film. It's worst in the early talkies.

Old Pro Joined: 10 Jan 2007 Posts: 3068 Location: Bangkok

Ganymed wrote:

the major themes of his film, La Notte, death and the mind as the enemy of life

Surprised you didn't mention the architecture. Very Happy

I still say the theme here is pretty basic Antonioni: people unable to connect, but not because of inhibition, intellectual distance, physical impotence, or anything you can put your finger on, but simply as an inscrutable symptom of modern life.

I'm still puzzled by Antonioni. He's got some big secret which has sent his emotional life askew and which is at the root of all this - but I don't think it's the usual one. Probably it's quite prosaic - penile warts or something... Confused

Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 10:45 am

fed said:
Surprised you didn't mention the architecture.
I still say the theme here is pretty basic Antonioni: people unable to connect, but not because of inhibition, intellectual distance, physical impotence, or anything you can put your finger on, but simply as an inscrutable symptom of modern life.

What architecture? I didn't notice any and I watched it expecting great things.
Antonioni must have had a weird circle of friends that were in perpetual funk
if his films are anything to go by.
One aspect of modern life that he thinks is at the root of it, is the lingering notions of morality inconsistent with modern mans lack of faith. Was he alone in chronicaling this malaise? Doing a quick Wiki review, both Bergman and Kubrick loved La Notte What do you make of that? It might be a matter of technique they admired. Dunno. But it has put me off any more of his films for now. Though I did love The Passenger and especially Maria Schneider

Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 1:05 pm

fed wrote:

[Factotum (Bent Hamer, 2005)
Pedestrian adaptation of Bukowski in which both director and Matt Dillon struggle to hit the right tone. The expected scenarios are here â€“ the bar, racetrack, lousy jobs, fights - and thatâ€™s the problem â€“ by relying on the these it missed out on the essential characteristic of Bukowski â€“ that he was beat because he was miserable because he was ugly. Physical appearance is key, and without getting down to that bedrock of hopelessness youâ€™ll fail to find the level on which the bitter humour lies pure and poignent.

I found this a very funny, entertaining movie and it even inspired me to read the book. Great performances by Dillon and Lili Taylor. It's true that Bukowski was one of the ugliest men to ever walk the earth (he looked as if he'd descended from a race of ogres), but that didn't figure into the novel at all. I thought the guy's misfortune was being way too intelligent and creative for the jobs he was working and to me, anyway, Dillon was very good at portraying a man who hasn't lost his humor and dignity in spite of his sordid circumstances. This made him very likeable. There were touches in the film that struck me as hilarious because they were so true; the struggle of having to feign enthusiasm for a totally crap job, for example. Why do those bastards who are hiring even expect that? But they do as if it's an added touch of sadism and debasement.

Quote:

Love in the Afternoon (Billy Wilder, 1957)
Wilder heaps loving care on everything and Traunerâ€™s lavish sets add ambience to this. The humour is mainly weak though, and every scene seems to like itself too much to want to end. Much repetition also (way too much of the gypsy band). Cooper might have got away with it â€“ he grows into it a little - but it is Chevalier who ruins it for me: the most unconvincing father of a teenage girl youâ€™ll ever see, as well as the most unconvincing private detective. Beautifully shot though, and Audrey is a shimmering pearl.

Really one of the dreariest, most pretentious movies I've ever seen. Completely implausible that a lovely, vibrant young girl would fall for that exhausted, burnt-out bon vivant except in Billy Wilder's wet dreams. Gary Cooper seemed to need a nap in the afternoon, not love.

Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 8:21 am

CentaursFeast wrote:

Ironic wrote:

CentaursFeast wrote:

Ironic wrote:

Rashomon I ended up confused as to who was lying and who was telling the truth (if any) about what actually happened in the woods.

please tell me you're being ironic (with a small i).

I dont know, that would depend on what the point of the film was. Confused

that there are different interpretations of the same event.

Remember when the Simpsons went to Japan?
Homer: I don't like anything Japanese
Marge: You liked Rashomon
Homer: That's not how I remember it

Laughing

The more i think about it, the more i think i totally missed the point of The Usual Suspects. Laughing

Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:51 am

Ironic wrote:

The more i think about it, the more i think i totally missed the point of The Usual Suspects. Laughing

care to give us your take on Mulholland Drive..? Laughing

Old Pro Joined: 10 Jan 2007 Posts: 3068 Location: Bangkok

vigcyn wrote:

fed wrote:

[Factotum (Bent Hamer, 2005)

I found this a very funny, entertaining movie and it even inspired me to read the book. Great performances by Dillon and Lili Taylor. It's true that Bukowski was one of the ugliest men to ever walk the earth (he looked as if he'd descended from a race of ogres), but that didn't figure into the novel at all. I thought the guy's misfortune was being way too intelligent and creative for the jobs he was working and to me, anyway, Dillon was very good at portraying a man who hasn't lost his humor and dignity in spite of his sordid circumstances. This made him very likeable. There were touches in the film that struck me as hilarious because they were so true; the struggle of having to feign enthusiasm for a totally crap job, for example. Why do those bastards who are hiring even expect that? But they do as if it's an added touch of sadism and debasement.

I thought I'd like it more, but having recently read a volume of his letters I'm feeling possessive about the man. Buke doesn't go on about it explicitly - after his ten-year Lost Weekend I think he got used to it - but you can sense that his appearance is at the root of everything - his anti-social reclusiveness is a legacy of those teenage years when he felt a complete outcast, and even later in life it bothered him to have people looking at him. The film just treated him as a drunken bum who happened to be a bit of a genius, and as it didn't touch on the soul of the man, the humour and his crass behaviour came across as superficial. It's like making a film of Tennessee Williams without reference to the fact that he was gay.
As to the subject matter though - hell, I was cheering. The self-degradation of simply turning up to work... the slow sucking sound of your soul being extracted through your nostrils - it's one of my favourite subjects.

vigcyn wrote:

fed wrote:

Love in the Afternoon (Billy Wilder, 1957)

Really one of the dreariest, most pretentious movies I've ever seen. Completely implausible that a lovely, vibrant young girl would fall for that exhausted, burnt-out bon vivant except in Billy Wilder's wet dreams. Gary Cooper seemed to need a nap in the afternoon, not love.

Hmmm... I got over-laboured and absurd but not dreary and pretentious. I think I'd made a point of getting over the Cooper miscasting before I watched it (unfortunately Chevalier picked up the baton) - and I didn't mind him so much - he made a good wealthy businessman, and therefore a passable playboy. I'm surprised you took it so seriously because there was quite a bit of absurdity along the way - too much, in fact - it was that which bothered me more than the implausibility of it, although it served well enough as a kind of self-mockery... an example: the gypsy band plays in the sauna and the violinist tips water out of his instrument - just daft, and Wilder doesn't usually stoop to such things. In that sense, Sabrina, which was also about womanising, hit the tone much better.
My guess is you also saw this on TV panned and scanned, which would be a tragedy because every frame is so beautifully composed in widescreen, you'd really miss a lot - and perhaps the essence of it: a photograph album of Audrey.

Old Pro Joined: 10 Jan 2007 Posts: 3068 Location: Bangkok

Ganymed wrote:

What architecture? I didn't notice any and I watched it expecting great things.
Antonioni must have had a weird circle of friends that were in perpetual funk
if his films are anything to go by.
One aspect of modern life that he thinks is at the root of it, is the lingering notions of morality inconsistent with modern mans lack of faith. Was he alone in chronicaling this malaise? Doing a quick Wiki review, both Bergman and Kubrick loved La Notte What do you make of that? It might be a matter of technique they admired. Dunno. But it has put me off any more of his films for now. Though I did love The Passenger and especially Maria Schneider

Trevor was persuasive about architecture being part of the subject matter last week.

Lack of faith? Can't recall Antonioni making too much of that, he mainly seems to want to show life in a void, which I've always read as a social thing rather than a spiritual thing - people carry an untouchable forcefield around them. Morality? When people do come together they tend to get down on the ground, often on bare dirt, like animals. He's punishing them for that, I suppose, but I can't see a religious angle there.
Pretty unique though I should think in showing this failure to connect. Don't know if he was the first to do alienation though. Kubrick probably liked the cold formality of the camerwork, and Bergman would have got off on the relationship thing. My ex-wife loves this film because she identifies with Moreau's character Confused

My reading is usually that alienation from others springs from alienation from the self - hence in The Passenger, Nicholson changes his identity - presumably to 'escape himself'.

Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:47 pm

fed wrote:

[As to the subject matter though - hell, I was cheering. The self-degradation of simply turning up to work... the slow sucking sound of your soul being extracted through your nostrils - it's one of my favourite subjects.

Like being lobotomized without the surgery.

Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 3:01 pm

from Fed

Quote:

Lack of faith? Can't recall Antonioni making too much of that, he mainly seems to want to show life in a void, which I've always read as a social thing rather than a spiritual thing - people carry an untouchable forcefield around them. Morality? When people do come together they tend to get down on the ground, often on bare dirt, like animals. He's punishing them for that, I suppose, but I can't see a religious angle there.

This from Wiki:
In a speech at Cannes about L'Avventura, Antonioni said that in the modern age of reason and science, mankind still lives by "a rigid and stereotyped morality which all of us recognize as such and yet sustain out of cowardice and sheer laziness".

One of the themes that tend to appear among Latin directors of a certain age, is their early Catholic education. Malle, Fellini, AlmodÃ³var, SchlÃ¶ndorff, to name a few, at some point acknowledge the experience. Indeed, Fellini has been portrayed as unable to escape that influence, particularly in his Satyricon. I can find nothing of that in Antonioni
but the quote above seems to me to place him that group though perhaps because of his avowed Marxism, he couched his terms in secular fashion. But if the morality he mentions is not from faith, whence is it?. In the simpilist terms, if a second life is no longer an option, than what will take it's place as a sustainer of vitality? Rigid and stereotyped only means religion to me.

Old Pro Joined: 10 Jan 2007 Posts: 3068 Location: Bangkok

Ganymed wrote:

This from Wiki:
In a speech at Cannes about L'Avventura, Antonioni said that in the modern age of reason and science, mankind still lives by "a rigid and stereotyped morality which all of us recognize as such and yet sustain out of cowardice and sheer laziness".

One of the themes that tend to appear among Latin directors of a certain age, is their early Catholic education. Malle, Fellini, AlmodÃ³var, SchlÃ¶ndorff, to name a few, at some point acknowledge the experience. Indeed, Fellini has been portrayed as unable to escape that influence, particularly in his Satyricon. I can find nothing of that in Antonioni
but the quote above seems to me to place him that group though perhaps because of his avowed Marxism, he couched his terms in secular fashion. But if the morality he mentions is not from faith, whence is it?. In the simpilist terms, if a second life is no longer an option, than what will take it's place as a sustainer of vitality? Rigid and stereotyped only means religion to me.

How about the morality of the group? Simple conformity as an ethical force in itself - certainly a kind of weakness or laziness.
The quote sounds more like something Pasolini would say... as if he's lamenting the lack of some mild behavioural rebellion. And I still can't see how it fits... Antonioni's characters are not morally tormented, nor even socially backward, they're not malign misfits, mainly they're quite sophisticated, even avant-garde, but still unable to approach intimacy... they're afraid of something in themselves rather than something from on high or even from the group...

Fellini, Bunuel, Pasolini, et al do seem to have been almost traumatised by religion - they can't resist bringing in priests, visits to the confessional etc... Can't recall any of that sort of thing in Antonioni though. Nor even guilt.

Consider the scene in "Beyond the Clouds" which I think really sums him up: a young guy finally gets the girl of his dreams naked on the bed in front of him; he moves his hands slowly over her body without touching her (echoing the fountain scene in La Dolce Vita perhaps) - but then gets up and walks out without a word. What's going on there? Woman worship, and the inability to consummate. That's him in a nutshell. I wouldn't assume he was pathologically shy. Ergo... there's something wrong with his dick.

I don't know. The man's a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an architectural metaphor.

Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 4:36 pm

L'Avventura-amazing

Mr. Arkadin- Wow, I was expecting maybe that this wouldnt be amazing because Welles never really edited the way he wanted to but my god! This is easily the worst Welles film Ive seen. Outside of some pretty nifty shots, its bland, unoriginal, and just plain boring.