been watching more things
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
this beats the hell out of It's a Wonderful Life in terms of being an old-timey, feel-good christmas classic, and it's just about as effective and affecting as romantic comedies can be. it's a perfect depiction of the friction that can arise between potential lovers because of how alike they are. reminds me of that truthful Hermann Hesse quote: "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." it plays every angle between sad and sweet and nails every one of them.
The Cranes Are Flying (1957)
if there's one thing you can say about Russian filmmakers, it's that they tend to be irreproachable technicians. Soy Cuba was a cinematographic marvel and this one's no different. some of the shots here are
beyond incredible and it sets the bar high for personal stories set against the backdrop of a terrible war. Dr. Zhivago is nothing compared to this.
Roma (1972)
no one does nostalgia like Fellini. it's in accordance with the episodic structure of La Dolce Vita and Satyricon and it sets the stage for the very personal Amarcord, but it's still very much its own movie. a very impressionistic vision of 20th century Rome that's both reverential and critical of both the past and the present. the whorehouse and ecclesiastic fashion show scenes are the height of Fellini delirious comedy; the episode in the underground tunnel is one of the most beautiful things he's done. i could watch this man's movies every day.
Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
endowed with the spirit of creative collaboration and joyous low-budget experimentation, this is weird, wild and wonderful. most of all it's totally unpredictable. i think it's axiomatic for a good movie to sport good performances but i gotta hand it to the two leading ladies: this is acting taken to another level.
and some rewatches
8 1/2 (1963) (4th viewing)
i have seen this 3 times over the course of two months and it still gets better every time. there is so much happening here that i'm enticed to do some serious reading on it, but i'm holding that off until i've seen it many more times because i love finding out stuff by myself. this time, one of the things i realised is that the kid at the end is wearing the same outfit as young Guido, except for that it's white instead of black, which probably connects to the character of Claudia, who also wears white in Guido's fantasies but black in 'real life'. the dvd has some audio problems which pissed me off and i need to buy a new one but i still sat thru the whole thing because it's just that good. 2+ hours that go by in a heartbeat.
Nashville (2nd viewing)
oooooh man this was even better the second time around. the first time i saw this i was busy trying to keep up with everything that was happening. i guess when you know all the pieces of a puzzle, you start to take a better look at the whole picture. what was a comedy with dramatic elements has now turned into a drama with comedic elements. most of the characters' story arcs are just so sad. and i think
this shot is probably the most gorgeous ever filmed.
Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948) (3rd viewing)
this has got to be my second favourite movie. and like my #1 it's haunting and sad without being melodramatic. the first time i saw it i thought it was a great examination of monomaniac love, but it's become more than that with subsequent viewings. it's about two people of lifestyles and mindsets so different that they're not at all compatible, but would have been had the circumstances been just a bit different. there's more to the woman than her longing and there's more to the man than his apathy, but the story never allows for them to show it. i found a great piece of writing that seems to support this and starts off with a great quote by the director that says all the things i want to say about cinema.
"The masters of our profession, Rene Clair or Jean Renoir, for example, Jacques Becker in his late work, or John Ford in many of his early films, in their best moments of "in-sight" transcend both dramatic structure and dialogue, and create a new kind of tension which, I believe, has never existed before in any of the other forms of dramatic expression: the tension of pictoral atmosphere and of shifting images. They have the same impetus and produce the same beauty and excitement that can be found in the pure procession of words in the classical theatre, where logic is thrown overboard, over the footlights, so that it is the sound and rhythm of the words alone which inspire and maintain the spectators' belief in the action. Just as in the theatre the lighting, the set, faithfulness to nature and other incidentals must play a subordinate role to the word, so in films the words, the technology and the technique and the logic of the visible must be secondary to the image, subordinate to the vision containing untold wonders within it, which, in the cinema, can be the bearer of artistic truth."
- Max Ophuls
i have also been meaning to rewatch Once Upon a Time in the West since it's been a few years, but my dvd seems to have gone missing. i hope it'll turn up soon.
