Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 26, 2007 21:26:09 GMT
I've enjoyed reading this thread, the old posts in it. I cringe at some of the things I've said, though. What a boring prig.
Anyway, made with much pain and effort (though it should be noted that I made it quite instinctively, and re-watches will constantly cause a shuffle), here's my new top ten:
_1. Blue Velvet David Lynch | 1986 | USA _2. Lost In Translation Sofia Coppola | 2003 | USA / Japan _3. Damnation Béla Tarr | 1987 | Hungary _4. Irreversible Gaspar Noé | 2002 | France _5. Taxi Driver Martin Scorsese | 1975 | USA _6. Eraserhead David Lynch | 1976 | USA _7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Michel Gondry | 2004 | USA _8. Don't Look Now Nicolas Roeg | 1973 | UK _9. Manhattan Woody Allen | 1979 | USA 10. Rear Window Alfred Hitchcock | 1954 | USA
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Post by svsg on Nov 26, 2007 22:56:16 GMT
Taxi driver always enters my top 10 when I watch it. After some days, its effect fades away for me!! Glad we have two films, Irreversible and Damnation common in our list!
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 1, 2007 2:59:08 GMT
(In response to a delete post):Once again (as with mine), Godard is too much in a league of his own to even be ranked alongside these people.
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Post by Michael on Dec 1, 2007 4:39:47 GMT
1. Stalker (Tarkovsky; 1979) 2. Mat i Syn (Sokurov; 1997) 3. Dead Man (Jarmusch; 1995) 4. Paris, Texas (Wenders; 1984) 5. Pierrot le Fou (Godard; 1965) 6. Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (Herzog; 1972) 7. Journal d'un cure de Campagne (Bresson; 1951) 8. Vivre sa Vie: Film en Douze Tableaux (Godard; 1962) 9. Krótki Film o Zabijaniu (Kieslowski; 1988) 10. Zerkalo (Tarkovsky; 1975)
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Post by svsg on Dec 1, 2007 18:26:13 GMT
Agreed. He's in his own league - the league of overratedness. Kidding!!!!!! I was happy until I read the word "Kidding" I have seen only one film of his, "breathless" and it was a strong enough deterrent for me to watch any more. To hell with jump cuts or whatever cool thing he used, it was boring, or that is how my (not-so-reliable) memory has stored it
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 1, 2007 20:36:50 GMT
I feel that to really get to grips with Godard's oeuvre (not individual films), you need to familiarise yourself with Marxism and Maoism (I haven't, really). His cinematic radicalism goes hand-in-hand with his political radicalism. From La Chinoise (1967): "When making political art, one should never neglect the art." His essay films (those made with the Dziga Vertov Group) are essential viewing for anyone interested in his politics in particular, and the growing concerns of the time (May '68, the growth of Maoism, cultural and economical concerns coming to the foray for many intellectuals), but I feel he does indeed neglect the art. And that's not because I rate art and propaganda as mutually exclusive (they're not, for me), but because they are, quite literally, "essays with pictures". They're very difficult, often impenetrable, in their cool detachment between the visual and the auditory. Weekend (1967), though, is the point at which his political radicalism comes to the foray of his work, but is still accessible enough to be of much aesthetic interest. There's a great essay by Brian Henderson (called "Toward a Non-Bourgeois Camera Style", which I have in this book), on his use of the single-plane track (I've always called it a 'crab shot', or 'crab track'), whereby the camera moves from left to right without changing its axis. If you have access to the academic website JSTOR through your educational institution, you can read the essay here.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 1, 2007 21:13:55 GMT
(In response to a delete post):Ideally, yes, I'd explore his career as a whole in terms of contextualising what comes where and how it's developing towards the 1967 explosion and retreat thereafter into obscurity and political radicalism. For me, he's far too important a director to only watch selectively. As early as 1960 in Le petit soldat you can see genuine political concerns (and even Breathless, I would argue, is very political too), and in Les carabiniers (1963) he's even more forceful. Masculine Feminine, and for me, his first overtly political film (overtly as in the subject matter is dealing with politics, not just the aesthetic being politically motivated), presenting a film about the "Children of Marx and Coca-Cola" and the problematic interrelationships of Gender and Politics - on the one hand, the spectrum from Male to Female, and on the other hand, Left to Right. I'm not sure how familiar you are with him (were you asking your question out of ignorance of him, or to take up some discussion with me?), but I'd need to see a lot of his films again in order to give more comprehension. I tend to have a Godard retrospective once a year or so.
On an unrelated note, I see Berlin Alexanderplatz is in your Top Films already, having just seen it. Have you seen Heimat?
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 1, 2007 21:57:40 GMT
(In response to a delete post):
Regarding Breathless, no, there's little in the subject matter to do with Marxism. But there is in its aesthetic an ideological subversion of traditions (subtle and post-modern subversions) which aligns it to a Leftist point of view.
But I should concede at this point that all style is ideologically motivated, and none of this is particular to Godard (or at least I don't think it is).
FWIW, I look at Breathless now as a very Existentialist film. In the crude sense, I see the jump-cuts as a way of keeping things "in the moment", of cutting out otherwise significant meaning so as to place importance on the insigificant, to question the very notion of what it means to be - which takes on a rather profound significance considering the fictionality of character.
But that's for another post entirely, I think; and I'd need to watch it again and think about it more to be of more interest and conviction.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 1, 2007 21:59:15 GMT
(In response to a delete post):
By the way, was there some truth to your "Godard as overrated" suggestion? How would you rate his films (post in the director thread if you haven't already; I'll check it now actually).
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 1, 2007 23:15:08 GMT
There are several versions accounting for the jump-cuts in Breathless. I think Godard said the producers said it was too long so he simply took to the print with a pair of scissors, cutting randomly at will.
I don't know. It could be a deliberate misnomer. I tend to discard any intentions regarding it because they're all contradictory and to an extent play on myth because they're so famous by now. I think people should approach them by means of whether or not they like them (wetdog doesn't, he thought they were intrusive to the most interesting aspects of the film), and then take them from there and say particularly what they might mean to them personally.
Since I read the film from an Existentialist point-of-view, I find that even if the jump-cuts do intrude upon interesting conversations (which they might), it's in line with the "in-the-moment" philosophy of the film (Belmondo's the very embodiment of living in the moment. Seberg must come to terms with her own freedom, must realise she cannot escape her own freedom, and then that results in her betraying Belmondo to force Hazard into the equation by means of constructing one's own Fatalism.
(Horrid sentence there. Sorry about that.)
Nor me, really, but that's because I disagree with this:
I find ideology a problematic term, because in my experience it's been thrown around quite a lot in my education without the term itself really ever being defined. People think it's synonymous with "political activism", which I don't think it is.
Essentially, though, I think all Art is ideologically informed, but that's based on my belief (or assumption) that ideological incorporation doesn't have to be (and often isn't) a conscious decision.
Somebody making a mainstream film by the numbers, for instance, is still pertaining to a certain, specific ideology; it's just less conscious, or more ignorant ("This is the way films are made," said by somebody who's seen nothing but Hollywood films.)
But perhaps I've misunderstood you. I find it difficult to relate to theoretical opinions sometimes when they're not grounded with examples. Could you think of an example to back your point up?
(There's no rush; I find this discussion very interesting.)
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Post by Michael on Dec 2, 2007 0:12:26 GMT
My freestyle Top 33 Greatest Films: (in my opinion) If it were a top 100, it would probably look different as some films might drop further down, but here I tried to be as wide-ranging as possible. My criteria: try to think about the best examples of the many different faces of cinema (montage, German Expressionism, French Impressionism, long takes, classical, avant-garde, documentary, animation, martial arts!). At #16, the amazing A Brighter Summer Day, is where I sort of stopped making concessions to be inclusive w/ a few exceptions like the greatest action film (Seven Samurai), and European art cinema (Last Year At Marienbad and Persona), a film noir, a documentary, a musical, a martial arts. This is off the top of my head, too. If I had labored over this for a week or few days, it would look different. I sure as hell wouldn't overlook more genres, subgenres, "movements," and other idiosyncratic directors. 1. The Mirror (Tarkovsky) 2. The Rules of the Game (Renoir) 3. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer) 4. Early Summer (Ozu) 5. Playtime (Tati) 6. The Color of Pomegranates (Paradzhanov) 7. L'avventura (Antonioni) 8. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi) 9. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman) 10. The General (Bruckman; Keaton) 11. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein) 12. Sunrise (Murnau) 13. Tale of Tales (Norstein) 14. Optical Poem (Fischinger) 15. Fall of the House of Usher (Epstein) 16. A Brighter Summer Day (Yang) 17. The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa) 18. Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette) 19. Berlin Alexanderplatz (Fassbinder) 20. Night of the Hunter (Laughton) 21. Last Year At Marienbad (Resnais) 22. Citizen Kane (Welles) 23. A Man Escaped (Bresson) 24. M (Lang) 25. Menilmontant (Kirsanov) 26. Persona (Bergman) 27. Rear Window (Hitchock) 28. Force of Evil (Polonsky) 29. Les Vampires (Feuillade) 30. Titicut Follies (Wiseman) 31. Open City (Rossellini) 32. Young Girls of Rocherfort (Demy) 33. A Touch of Zen (Hu) It would make me very very very very happy if you made a list like this in the music forum with albums.
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Post by connor on Dec 3, 2007 2:47:14 GMT
The first two are pretty much glued to their spots, but the rest could easily be completely different tommorow.
1. 8 1/2 (Fellini; 1963) 2. Vivre sa Vie: Film en Douze Tableaux (Godard; 1962) 3. L'Avventura (Antonioni, 1960) 4. Såsom i en spegel (Bergman; 1961) 5. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick; 1964) 6. La Dolce Vita (Fellini; 1960) 7. Killer of Sheep (Burnett; 1977) 8. Les Quatre Cents Coups (Truffaut; 1959) 9. La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Dreyer; 1928) 10. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Reisz, 1960)
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Post by Michael on Dec 3, 2007 2:49:39 GMT
2. Vivre sa Vie: Film en Douze Tableaux (Godard; 1962) You're already the best poster on this board.
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Post by connor on Dec 3, 2007 3:17:32 GMT
Thank you for the very warm welcomes DVC and Kino! I feel at home already.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 3, 2007 3:20:23 GMT
How did you find us, Connor?
Stick around.
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Post by connor on Dec 3, 2007 3:23:29 GMT
A post on the Facebook group called the "Jean-Luc Godard Appreciation Society."
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 3, 2007 3:25:10 GMT
Ah, my advertisement (back in November last year!) worked!!!
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Post by connor on Dec 3, 2007 3:27:22 GMT
Kino: They've included high schools now.
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Post by connor on Dec 3, 2007 3:30:24 GMT
(In response to a delete post):
Yep, it all started with a curious renting of The 400 Blows at Blockbuster roughly two years ago. (Damn, that's another one that should go on my list).
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Post by connor on Dec 3, 2007 3:42:14 GMT
(In response to a delete post):
I'm not familiar with the article you speak of, but Little Rock does have (for its size) a decent arts scene (Speaking of, it was at the newly-formed Little Rock Film Festival last June that I saw Killer of Sheep).
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