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Shoah - Claude Lanzmann, 1985 I had a harder time getting through this than I expected to. It consistently became too emotionally stressful to watch for more than an hour at a time. So it took me over two weeks to finish, watching mostly in 30-60 minute spurts. I'm not ashamed of this, as I think it added something to the experience. The Holocaust has been in my mind ceaselessly for these two weeks, which I think perfectly goes hand in hand with what this film is all about. What Lanzmann has done is make the Holocaust feel ever present. By revisiting the camps in present day (1985 present day, that is), accompanied by the stories of the real people who were there, we get the impression that the Holocaust is as real and relevant now as it was in the early 1940s. The lives which were destroyed are still destroyed, and they always will be. I think what made this so difficult for me was how real it felt. Throughout the film Lanzmann does this technique where, as his interviewee is describing the horrific events of a particular location, we're simultaneously seeing his camera explore that location. For example, as we hear a witness describe the "gas vans" and how they drove into the woods while the people in the back suffocated, we follow the very path that the truck took. The combination of words and visuals got me as close to actually experiencing this poo poo as I ever want to be. There are many great fiction (non-documentary) films about the Holocaust, but, as they're all viewed through the filter of a staged movie production, none of them is able to match the horrifying reality the way Shoah does. The Holocaust is simply not something that needs to be dramatized to pack an emotional punch. All I need to see is the numb face of a broken man describing what it was like to discover his wife and child dead among a heap of bodies. The reality is more horrifying than anything Hollywood can produce. Whenever I give out movie recommendations I'm always careful to consider the audience I'm talking to. Some movies should only be seen by certain people. But Shoah is a rare example of a movie that should be viewed at least once by every single human being. It's as much a warning as a reflection on history. 447/1000
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Mar 31, 2017 21:11
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Gertrud - Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1964 It feels more like a series of staged soliloquies than a motion picture. Characters gaze vacantly as they deliver their dry, melancholic lines. I think I counted only four times in the entire film that two characters actually made eye contact with one another. Comprised of only 89 shots, it's an exercise in unstylized filmmaking. That isn't to say it's not nice looking - it totally is. Dreyer's fluid camerawork is subdued but impressive. In fact the look of the film is about the only thing that I felt invested in. The characters' incessant, droll, melodramatic musings on life and love sure didn't do it. You remember in Ordet (a much better Dreyer film), the character of Johannes who suffered a mental breakdown and thought he was Jesus? And the way all he did was stare off into space and ramble on about god knows what? That's pretty much this entire movie. 448/1000
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Apr 5, 2017 02:47
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Even the greats gently caress up. I struggled to get through Boudu Saved From Drowning by Renoir this weekend and I love Renoir.
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Apr 5, 2017 03:21
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Yeah, it's too bad Gertud was his final film. He really had a great track record going.
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Apr 5, 2017 05:10
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Wavelength - Michael Snow, 1967 It's a 43 minute single shot of what looks to be the wall of an apartment. Throughout the run time two primary things are happening: the shot is pushing in SLOWLY, and a non-diagetic tone is becoming increasingly higher pitched. Both of these things happen so gradually that you barely notice the changes. There are a few moments where people enter the frame, and at one point a man collapses on the floor. The lighting and color grading will shift in flashes, and previous sections of the film are sometimes superimposed over the shot. This sounds boring, but I became rather hypnotized by it. Despite the lack of narrative, the push-in and the changing tone gives an abstract sense of forward momentum. Like it's building to something. I found myself interested to see what sort of film effects and color changes would happen next. I can't say I'd want to sit through more than 43 minutes of this, but I wasn't bored. 449/1000
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Apr 5, 2017 17:50
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Seasons of the Year - Artavazd Peleshian, 1975 A 30 minute dialog-free documentary film about Armenian farmers, a wedding ceremony, and animals being mistreated. It's well shot and scored, but the subject didn't do much for me. 450/1000
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Apr 5, 2017 21:08
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Elephant - Alan Clarke, 1989 Absent plot, characters or dialog, it depicts a series of murders. In each case the perpetrator(s) and victim(s) are nobody we've seen so far. Each killing has a few things in common: we're given zero explanation, everyone is a white male, and the killers use a gun. Each death is structured similarly. We start by seeing somebody walking, then a gun is pulled, someone gets shot, the perp walks away, and we get a shot of the dead guy. This is the entire movie. After the second or third killing I recognized the pattern. At that point you've got the movie figured out and there's not a lot left to anticipate. All that changes from kill to kill is the location and type of gun used. Rather than suspense, what we're left to contemplate through the film's running time is the burning question (the elephant in the room, if you will) - why? Who are these people and why are they killing each other? It's the same question I ask myself when I watch the news. While the lack of context in the film is disconcerting, it's actually the more realistic portrayal, as it's precisely the way we digest real life violence. We hear that some dude shot another dude, we think to ourselves "drat, why would he do that?", and then we move on to the next story. 451/1000
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Apr 8, 2017 02:44
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Close-Up - Abbas Kiarostami, 1990 It's part documentary, part reenactments, but the genius of the film is that all of the real people play themselves in the reenactments. It's an ingenious technique because it forces you to constantly analyze who's acting and who isn't. In the courtroom scenes, Sabzian is accused of just putting on another type of performance for the judge. That's when it all really clicked for me. The film brilliantly blurs the line between acting and non-acting, as well as between fiction and non-fiction. Consider this: in the documentary sections, Kiarostami's cameras are rolling and Sabzian is acting the part of himself; and in the non-documentary sections, Kiarostami's cameras are rolling and Sabzian is acting the part of himself. What's the difference, really? 4.5/5 (e: I'm gonna start including my ratings.) 452/1000 Spatulater bro! fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 15:38
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Stop watching all this dumb poo poo and go watch They Live! Close Up is insanely good though
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Apr 11, 2017 03:43
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DeimosRising posted:Stop watching all this dumb poo poo and go watch They Live! They Live and Escape from New York are real near the top of my watchlist. Too bad they're not on the tspdt list.
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Apr 11, 2017 04:13
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Spatulater bro! posted:They Live and Escape from New York are real near the top of my watchlist. Too bad they're not on the tspdt list. They Live! is better than most of the actual list, EfNY...is not.
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Apr 11, 2017 05:19
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Yeah, I still don't think EFNY is that good. But it is absolutely iconic.
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Apr 11, 2017 14:43
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Yeah, I still don't think EFNY is that good. But it is absolutely iconic. I love the cast/characters. It carries the whole movie's extremely basic plot. Also the "Everyone's Coming to New York" song is awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy_lOEHu_Z0
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Apr 11, 2017 15:40
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It's a mess and either that or Precinct 13 is his worst pre 90s movie, but there's a lot to like about it anyway.
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Apr 11, 2017 15:41
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The Double Life of Veronique - Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1991 You could cut out every shot not of Irene Jacob's beautiful face and you'd still come away with one of the most watchable movies ever. But luckily we get a lot of other great stuff too, including some stunningly beautiful, thoughtful cinematography. The film is god drat gorgeous. It's a metaphysical exploration of doppelgängers, yet it's not of the cerebral Christopher Nolan school of puzzle films. This journey is an emotional one. There's nothing to untangle here. You either get swept up in the dreamlike contemplation or you don't. I did, and I loved every second of it. Maybe not quite as great as the Three Colors films, but pretty close. 453/1000
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Apr 21, 2017 05:30
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I just recently hit 300, and holy poo poo is Duel in the Sun nuts. I have absolutely no idea what message it was trying to get across. Come for the evil cowboy Gregory Peck, stay for the priest talking about a pendant keeping the protagonist "sweet and clean as milk".
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Apr 21, 2017 06:05
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City Lights For a while I had this confused with Modern Times in my head- that one I HAD already seen, this one I hadn't. Obviously there's a bit of formula (or at least familiar elements) in Chaplin's Little Tramp movies, not that this is a bad thing; that's the expectation, here's this character again, here's a loving and sweet poor girl, here are some rich assholes, etc. It's about the setpieces and there are quite a few good gags in this. Nothing is dragged out too long, you get a few beats and then on to the next thing, so it all works. There's a short bit with a cigar I really like, and the whistle gag is a good job of playing with sound (though this is still technically a silent movie- I guess. Kinda blurs the line a little.) And yes, the ending is legitimately really touching with a good double meaning in the last line. Definitely one of the great silent comedies. 359/1461 Next in the queue is Panther Panchali. I have heard so much good about Sayajit Ray, I'm pumped.
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Apr 28, 2017 06:21
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Power of Pecota posted:I just recently hit 300, and holy poo poo is Duel in the Sun nuts. I have absolutely no idea what message it was trying to get across. Come for the evil cowboy Gregory Peck, stay for the priest talking about a pendant keeping the protagonist "sweet and clean as milk". "Lust In The Dust"
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Apr 28, 2017 20:31
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Maxwell Lord posted:Next in the queue is Panther Panchali. I have heard so much good about Sayajit Ray, I'm pumped. It's one of those movies that really transports you to a different place and time than what you'd ever get a chance to experience in real life. It feels incredibly real, but also cinematic because of Ray's eye for dynamic shots. There's so much heart in all the characters, you will get to know them and root for them. Definitely check out the two sequels as well.
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Apr 28, 2017 20:37
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In The Heat of the Night This happened to be on TCM, didn't even know it was on the list but it was a notable film I haven't seen. As a mystery, it's solid. Obviously the main hook is its handling of racism, and simply the tension of placing an assertive, educated black man in an environment that hates such people simply for existing; it's at its best when Tibbs decides he's going to get out of a police car and walk away, at night, when white people won't talk about a woman's sexuality with him in the room. The sense of pure danger is excellent and Poitier fully deserved all the praise and accolades he won for capturing a man who knows that danger, who knows what kind of place this is, but refuses to bend to it. The story behind the murder seems slight in comparison, and the contrivances of the genre sometimes show through, but overall, quite a good movie. 360/1461
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May 13, 2017 20:36
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I want to keep this thread moving as it has been a boon for my movie-watching since it introduced me to the list back in December. I love films and had long ago made my way through the IMDB top 250 as well as deep into a few heavyweights (Bergman, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, et al.), but I was finding myself stumped when I wanted to sit down in front of a film without thinking too hard about deciding what to watch. Now that I have the list, the decision making process is streamlined! I had seen around a quarter of the films on the list as of December, and now I'm up to about a third. I've almost cracked the top 100. Thanks to this thread for bringing the films of Jean Renoir and Yasujiro Ozu into my life, among many others that I've so far enjoyed. Last night I watched a double-feature of Jacques Tourneur's Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. At 73 and 69 minutes they are perfect for sitting down with some snacks and a few beers and watching back-to-back. It doesn't hurt that they are also contiguous in his fimography, which may appeal to the historian in any of you as it does to me. Both are horror films and contain some of the most wonderful shadowy black and white photography. The former was shot by Nicholas Musuraca, who might as well be credited with the invention of film noir's predominating aesthetic. The blacks are so black, and what little is lit is crisp and moody. Shadows cut obliquely across the actors' faces practically in defiance of Hollywood's traditional insistence on stars and looks. Neither film is scary, though horror buffs may be interested to know that Cat People contains the first (or at least most memorable) use of a jump scare. If anything, the plot of Cat People comes across as silly in this day and age. I Walked with a Zombie has a little more of the grotesque and a somewhat more believable plot. Having said all that, if you haven't seen anything by Tourneur yet, I have to point you first to Out of the Past, also shot by Musuraca; I first saw it in 35mm at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, NY, and not knowing anything about it other than that it was opening a film noir series that they programmed a few years ago, it remains one of the most captivating and engaging films noir that I've seen. An instant classic, imminently watchable in 2017.
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May 18, 2017 19:20
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1000 umbrellas posted:I want to keep this thread moving as it has been a boon for my movie-watching since it introduced me to the list back in December. I love films and had long ago made my way through the IMDB top 250 as well as deep into a few heavyweights (Bergman, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, et al.), but I was finding myself stumped when I wanted to sit down in front of a film without thinking too hard about deciding what to watch. Now that I have the list, the decision making process is streamlined! I had seen around a quarter of the films on the list as of December, and now I'm up to about a third. I've almost cracked the top 100. Thanks to this thread for bringing the films of Jean Renoir and Yasujiro Ozu into my life, among many others that I've so far enjoyed. Great to hear the thread has been a help. My TSPDT watching has dwindled in the past couple months as I've been caught up in a horror phase. But I've not given up! (only three more left in the top 100) Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie are both excellent. If you haven't seen other Val Lewton-produced stuff it's all great, even the ones not directed by Tourneur. I especially like The Body Snatcher and Bedlam, both with Boris Karloff. I think I've seen all of Lewton's horror, and there's not a single one not worth watching.
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May 18, 2017 20:14
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Speaking of Lewtons, The Curse of the Cat People is also excellent, even if isn't a horror film in the traditional sense. I also liked The Seventh Victim- kind of feels like a prototype for some of the cult stuff in Eyes Wide Shut.
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May 19, 2017 07:55
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Today I got ahold of a copy of Krasznahorkai's novel Satantango; I'm going to read it this week in preparation to sit down with the film adaptation. I read his most recent novel Seiobo There Below a couple of years ago and enjoyed just about every page. So it should be a good week, getting deeper into a great novelist's oeuvre and capping it off with what I've read is a Tarkovsky-ish kind of movie, which is my favorite kind of movie. Speaking of, I'm going to a screening of Stalker tomorrow night and I couldn't be more excited. I know the 4k restoration that Mosfilm did is currently on YouTube in its entirety, but I've held off from watching it. I've seen that film only as a kind of crappy, pixel-laden DVD rip (albeit four or five times) and it still managed to become one of my all-time favorites. I feel like I know every shot so well, and yet I was getting goosebumps watching just the 4k trailer. Can't wait to see it on the big screen tomorrow.
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May 30, 2017 03:00
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1000 umbrellas posted:Speaking of, I'm going to a screening of Stalker tomorrow night and I couldn't be more excited. I know the 4k restoration that Mosfilm did is currently on YouTube in its entirety, gently caress, thanks! Soon as I finish my move here in a couple days that'll be my first movie in the new house.
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May 30, 2017 06:03
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Yeah and it's through an official account... Leave it to the USSR to make all of their films publicly available! You might have to look up the Cyrillic and paste that into YouTube's search, but it's there along with a ton of other Soviet-era films.
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May 30, 2017 15:06
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1000 umbrellas posted:Today I got ahold of a copy of Krasznahorkai's novel Satantango; I'm going to read it this week in preparation to sit down with the film adaptation. I read his most recent novel Seiobo There Below a couple of years ago and enjoyed just about every page. So it should be a good week, getting deeper into a great novelist's oeuvre and capping it off with what I've read is a Tarkovsky-ish kind of movie, which is my favorite kind of movie. I'm extremely interested to hear your thoughts after you've read the novel and finished the movie. I love the movie (haven't read the book) but the plot was never one of its bigger draws for me. Maybe reading the text will open up yet another level of appreciation.
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May 30, 2017 15:24
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Satantango talk: it's hard to call them "spoilers" but information abounds, if you tend to avoid that kind of thing. Wow, what a film. It's the only film based on a book I've seen that feels exactly how the experience of reading the book felt. I'd even guess that its runtime was about how long I spent reading it across four days this past week. I briefly considered watching the film in segments as I read the segments of the book, but I read somewhere that Tarr intended for it to be seen without interruption, and in retrospect I'm glad that I watched it from start to finish in one sitting today; the vibe that gradually becomes amplified and normalized would have been ineffectual if I'd interrupted it repeatedly. I hesitate to say "based on" the book because having experienced both of them, they seem inextricable from one another. I know that Krasznahorkai and Tarr are longtime collaborators, and the film feels more attached to the book than say something like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Spatulator, if you loved the film I have to recommend that you read the book right away; the plot is not any more defined, but the characters are. The book is funnier, albeit as dark as the film. But there's more room in the narrative to offer absurdist and surreal descriptions of the players involved, and it robs them of some of the gravitas that the film imparts through its plodding slowness. Some key things that stuck out to me: the book does a much more thorough job of setting up the emotional punch of the young girl's suicide. The film doesn't demonstrate nearly the extent to which she is abused by her mother and manipulated by her shithead brother. It makes her scene with the cat and ultimate demise a hair more understandable, and it's much more heartbreaking for it. I had to set the book down for the day after reading that section. The extra development in the text lends that moment, which is just about the only pivoting point for the entire plot, a lot more grip on which to pivot. The book is also more surreal (and more Krasznahorkai) in its ending. When the doctor returns to his house after finding the "homunculus," as it's described, he has a kind of deranged episode where he comes to imagine that all the notes he is taking on the townspeople are actually causing their actions. He starts to write what are the first lines of the book and goes on for three pages, all word for word from the first three pages, whereupon the novel ends. The effect on the reader is disorienting and introduces the possibility of some existential purgatory wherein the characters really are being manifested over and over again by the demented doctor and forced to remain on the dilapidated estate (which could be an explanation for why they were just waiting around for 18 months for Irimias to arrive in the first place). In the film after he boards up his window he does start to transcribe the opening narration of the film, but it's not as extensive or as much of a carbon-copy of the narration, and so I think you lose that transcendence upward into a meta-narrative circling the primary narrative. I was never bored. I think it's because I knew the extent of each scene and what was coming after it. I even cross-referenced my book at times to refresh my memory and help with identifying the characters. I can't imagine how excruciating it would be to watch some of the scenes in this film and not know when they are going to end or have a good grip on the individual characters. That's not to say that I didn't find the film excruciating at times, which seems to be the point of everything I've read by Krasznahorkai so far, but I was never bored. I'm only a couple hours past finishing it and I can't say enough. I can't stress how uncanny the book and the film are in generating practically the same physical unease. It was an amazing way to spend the day, I hope I get to see it again some time and on a bigger screen. The photography is obviously gorgeous, I don't feel I can say anything that elevates it any more. I understand the Tarkovsky parallel with the long takes, but I personally felt more of an Eraserhead vibe with the strange organ/synth soundtrack and the awesome sound design. Feel free to hit me with your impressions, I'm the only person I know who has now seen or even heard of this film, and after today I'm dying to talk about it.
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Jun 8, 2017 04:01
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1000 umbrellas posted:The book is also more surreal (and more Krasznahorkai) in its ending. When the doctor returns to his house after finding the "homunculus," as it's described, he has a kind of deranged episode where he comes to imagine that all the notes he is taking on the townspeople are actually causing their actions. He starts to write what are the first lines of the book and goes on for three pages, all word for word from the first three pages, whereupon the novel ends. The effect on the reader is disorienting and introduces the possibility of some existential purgatory wherein the characters really are being manifested over and over again by the demented doctor and forced to remain on the dilapidated estate (which could be an explanation for why they were just waiting around for 18 months for Irimias to arrive in the first place). In the film after he boards up his window he does start to transcribe the opening narration of the film, but it's not as extensive or as much of a carbon-copy of the narration, and so I think you lose that transcendence upward into a meta-narrative circling the primary narrative.
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Jun 8, 2017 04:29
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1000 umbrellas posted:Satantango talk: it's hard to call them "spoilers" but information abounds, if you tend to avoid that kind of thing. Man I really need to watch Satantango in one sitting. My only viewing was spread out over a few days. During the days between sessions my mind couldn't leave the film, which actually made it feel much lengthier. But evidently seeing it in one sitting has an entirely different effect, one which, as a huge fan of the film, I should definitely experience.
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Jun 8, 2017 17:27
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Pather Panchali Powerful stuff. An intimate look at a childhood in a poor Indian village, this film aims for a feeling of authenticity from the opening credits, written on paper with a notable crease down the middle. There's a ton of detail in almost every shot and scenes have all sorts of unstated things going on in them; there are probably cultural nuances I didn't catch. Ravi Shankar's score is a good assist, though, not overbearing but definitely pointing up the emotion of each scene. From the start you can tell there's a tension in this household and community, that things aren't that innocent or pastoral; something's wrong and has been for a while, and it's bound up with people's expected roles as well as just some plain old character flaws. It all goes rather tragically, and it's very affecting since we've come to know the characters quite well, but it's never quite melodramatic. A very frank film, not necessarily pointed or accusatory, just honest, and quite beautiful. 361/1461 Not sure what'll be next. (Tokyo Story is in my queue but at Very Long Wait which is Netflix-speak for "yeah we don't have any copies and don't know when we ever will have any.")
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Jun 16, 2017 05:33
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Maxwell Lord posted:Not sure what'll be next. (Tokyo Story is in my queue but at Very Long Wait which is Netflix-speak for "yeah we don't have any copies and don't know when we ever will have any.") Go to your library.
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Jun 16, 2017 19:35
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Or get a Filmstruck account. It's very useful for going through this list.
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Jun 17, 2017 04:07
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1000 umbrellas posted:Last night I watched a double-feature of Jacques Tourneur's Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. At 73 and 69 minutes they are perfect for sitting down with some snacks and a few beers and watching back-to-back. It doesn't hurt that they are also contiguous in his fimography, which may appeal to the historian in any of you as it does to me. Both are horror films and contain some of the most wonderful shadowy black and white photography. The former was shot by Nicholas Musuraca, who might as well be credited with the invention of film noir's predominating aesthetic. The blacks are so black, and what little is lit is crisp and moody. Shadows cut obliquely across the actors' faces practically in defiance of Hollywood's traditional insistence on stars and looks. Neither film is scary, though horror buffs may be interested to know that Cat People contains the first (or at least most memorable) use of a jump scare. If anything, the plot of Cat People comes across as silly in this day and age. I Walked with a Zombie has a little more of the grotesque and a somewhat more believable plot. tourneur is a really good director, maybe the director who did the most with the least during the studio era, his only competition being joseph h. lewis. and in terms of success over breadth of work, basically the only director he can compare to is hawks. although, i am still unsure of the efforts to place him in pantheon (mostly by chris fujiwara, although i've seen a resurgence in auteurist interest in him because pedro costa has cited i walked with a zombie as an influence) - while he has a very idiosyncratic, almost abstract visual style, over the twenty or so movies of his ive seen i haven't really been able to identify a central thematic coherence that would put him in league with say, hitchcock, ford, and hawks. the leopard man, the other tourneur movie for the lewton rko unit might be my favorite tourneur, and is just about tied with the seventh victim for the best movie that unit produced. it's actually scary imo and incredibly desolate and bleak other essentials would be: night of the demon / curse of the demon (goes by both names, one is us and one is uk although i don't remember which is which) which is a great continuation of his horror work into actual british folk horror rather than north american / caribbean. nightfall, which doesn't have the greatest script in the world but is an incredible winter noir featuring a brutal death sequence (sound familiar?) stars in my crown, which is like a miniature version of a how green was my valley / sun shines bright style fordian community movie with a horribly misleading poster that makes it look like it's going to be a standard western canyon passage, which i found to be a really bizarre western shot in muted technicolor that plays almost like a miniature version of heavens gate anne of the indies and the flame and the arrow are both solid adventure pictures, and wichita / stranger on horseback / great day in the morning are a solid trio of westerns the rest i've seen have been inconsequential but i certainly don't regret watching them.
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Jul 8, 2017 17:58
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Why do you think that having thematic coherence across films is an unalloyed good/prerequisite for canonization? Not that I think canon/pantheon are a very useful or illuminating concept but still Leopard Man is my second favorite Lewton produced flick btw
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Jul 9, 2017 02:00
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IIRC Stars in My Crown was also an inspiration on To Kill a Mockingbird.
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Jul 9, 2017 02:08
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Intolerance My first D.W. Griffith film, and I will make it a point to see more. I had only seen a handful of silent films before starting into this list, and although I can now count a few more, I can't say that I've ever seen such monumental production from that time period. I had no idea what an epic film it is, from the ambitiousness of telling four interweaving storylines with only title cards to the elaborate costuming and set design. The one crane shot of Babylon in particular looks as crisp and enormous as any CGI'd Gladiator-type schlock. Took a break to take a nap about halfway through because it is long, but otherwise an afternoon well-spent.
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Jul 12, 2017 23:39
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Don't know if anyone is thinking about this thread anymore, but given the good results I had with the Satantango book/movie pairing the other month, this week I'm doing the same thing with The Melancholy of Resistance/Werckmeister Harmonies, which is a much shorter film. I will report back.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:59
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Heat (1995, though I don't think the other movies with that title are on the list anyway) So yeah I'm not sure why I slept on this one either. Earns its running time with a genuinely epic feel- that sense that they're really telling you all of the story, all the people whose lives are impacted if only briefly, like this is some sort of definitive statement on the genre by Mann (not that he was going to move on anytime soon.) And it's beautifully structured so that all this poo poo going on comes down, as it so often does, to that last desperate chase between two men. The photography is also interesting- it's sort of de rigeur with digital color grading for thrillers to ratchet up the blues and maybe yellows and tone down other shades, but this goes farther than most films of the era and pulls it off with some real subtlety. Good job on the color timing. And of course, yeah, Pacino / De Niro actually sharing a scene or two and both pretty much killing their parts. A really absorbing and worthwhile experience and I feel like I wanna watch all the supplemental stuff to see how this came about. 362/1461
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Aug 26, 2017 05:52
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 23:31 |
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Werckmeister Harmonies My second Tarr/Krasznahorkai collaboration with slightly different results. This is a movie thread, but I have to talk about the book for a moment: on par or surpassing Satantango, it is a classic L.K. experience. Slow to read, arduous for most of the time (there are no paragraph breaks, barely any dialogue, and only a few chapter breaks throughout the 314-page book). In a word, painful, but in the very mellow, itching, purgatorial way that he is known for. I was surprised that the film felt so different from the book, considering Satantango was practically shot page-for-page. Or page-for-shot; whatever. Granted, the result is 7.5 hours long, but with that same palpable deadness that the book has. The characters rot on screen in real time. WH felt like it was rushed along in comparison; the characters felt one-dimensional and lost much of the nuance that the book spent tens of pages establishing. I was watching with my partner who hasn't read the book, and I felt the need to explain the reason for so many situations that the movie spends no time at all setting up. It's not going to stop me going with the Tarr films; his style is right up my alley. But Satantango felt like a masterpiece, and WH feels like "just" an arty film. There's not a lot to take away once the credits roll, but then again, the book is much the same way. Once it is over, you're almost glad.
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Sep 8, 2017 15:57
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