Mini reviews of the 100 greatest films (according to Robert the List)

[Robert the List]

I have been criticised at times for not saying anything about the films which I think are the greatest, or explaining why they make my list.

So I thought it was about time that I did that.

I can't do it anywhere near the standard of someone like Ilove2viddyfilms or Captain Quint, and I wouldn't attempt to. That's not because I can't write, I'm confident that I can, but I simply don't have their depth of knowledge about film making. It's probably more than that, but that is a key aspect of what will put my reviews substantially below theirs in terms of depth and substance. Another factor I have realised is that I have not recently viewed the films in full; this makes a huge difference to being able to do a proper review of it!

What I do have though is a nose. I'm confident that I'm a good judge, and that quality combined with the absurd amount of time which I have spent putting this list together over the last few years, makes me confident that the actual films in my 100 are as good as any top 100 that has been assembled.

In fact I'm actually going to be bold, and I'm going to say that this list, this 100 films, is most likely the single greatest assembly of 100 films, ever created.

Not only that, but I also will include edited extracts from Wikipedia, providing information about each film which may be of interest.

I hope that you, reader, find something from the list new to you which like me you come to love, and some interesting information about the films as well.

The list is dedicated to the memory of Whitney Houston.


THE 100 FILMS (ANNOUNCED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)

1. The Great White Silence 1924 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539582#post2539582) UK Herbery Ponting

2. Strike 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein

3. The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539592#post2539592) Germany Lotte Reiniger

4. Sunrise 1927 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539610#post2539610) USA FW Mureau

5. The Passion of Joan of Arc 1927 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539611#post2539611) France Carl Theodor Dreyer

6. Man With a Movie Camera (doc) 1929 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539613#post2539613) Soviet Union Dziga Vertov

7. Salt for Svanetia 1930 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539618#post2539618) Soviet Union Mikhael Kalatazov

8. Limite 1931 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539646#post2539646) Brazil Mário Peixoto

9. Vampyr 1932 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539648#post2539648) Germany Carl Theodor Dreyer

10. Story of the Last Chrysanthemums 1939 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539651#post2539651) Japan Kenji Mizoguchi

11. Mr Smith Goes to Washington 1939 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539792#post2539792) USA Frank Capra

12. The Wizard of Oz 1939 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539795#post2539795) USA Victor Fleming

13. Day of Wrath 1943 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539797#post2539797) Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer ESSENTIAL

14. Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539801#post2539801) USA Maya Deren

15. Sanshiro Sugata 1943 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539806#post2539806) Japan Akira Kurosawa

16. La Belle et La Bete 1946 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539812#post2539812) France Jean Cocteau LINK ERROR

17. Panique 1946 France Julien Duvivier

18. Notorious 1946 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539853#post2539853) USA Alfred Hitchcock ESSENTIAL

19. Out of the Past 1947 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539855#post2539855) France Jacques Tourneur

20. Bicycle Thieves 1948 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539882#post2539882) Italy Vittorio De Sica

21. Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539915#post2539915) UK Robert Hamer

22. Stray Dog 1949 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2539935#post2539935) Japan Akira Kurosawa ESSENTIAL

23. The Third Man 1949 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540132#post2540132) UK Carol Reed

24. Late Spring 1949 [/URL] Japan Yasujirō Ozu ESSENTIAL

25. Little Fugitive 1953 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540134#post2540134) USA Morris Engel

26. On the Waterfront 1954 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540242#post2540242) USA Alfred Hitchcock

27. Rear Window 1954 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540389#post2540389) USA

28. Journey to Italy 1954 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540390#post2540390) Italy Roberto Rossellini

29. La Pointe Courte 1955 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540407#post2540407) France Agnès Varda

30. Pather Panchali 1955 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540413#post2540413) India Satyijat Ray

31. Bob the Gambler 1956 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540498#post2540498) France Jean Pierre Melville

32. Bridge On The River Kwai 1957 UK David Lean

33. Elevator to the Gallows 1958 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540525#post2540525) France Louis Malle

34. The Music Room 1958 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540570#post2540570) India Satyajit Ray

35. Touch of Evil 1958 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540573#post2540573) USA Orson Welles ESSENTIAL

36. North by Northwest 1959 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540577#post2540577) USA Alfred Hitchcock

37. The Naked Island 1960 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540959#post2540959) Japan Kaneto Shindô ESSENTIAL

38. Psycho 1960 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540960#post2540960) USA Alfred Hitchcock

39. La Notte 1961 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540967#post2540967) Italy Michelangelo Antonioni

40. Last Year at Marienbad 1961 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540975#post2540975) France Alain Resnais

41. Lola 1961 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540978#post2540978) France Jacques Demy

42. La Jetee 1962 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540980#post2540980) France Chris Marker ESSENTIAL

43. L'Eclisse 1962 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540984#post2540984) Italy Michelangelo Antonioni

44. Lawrence of Arabia 1962 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540988#post2540988) UK David Lean ESSENTIAL

45. High and Low 1963 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541126#post2541126) Japan Akira Kurosawa

46. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541142#post2541142) France Jacques Demy

47. Onibaba 1964 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=254115#post2541151) Japan Kaneto Shindô

48. For a Few Dollars More 1965 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541179#post2541179) Italy Sergio Leone

49. Alphaville 1965 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541318#post2541318) France Jean-Luc Godard

50. Le Bonheur 1965 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541319#post2541319) France Agnès Varda

51. Pierrot Le Fou 1965 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541330#post2541330) France Jean Luc Godard

52. The Sound of Music 1965 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541333#post2541333) USA Robert Wise

53. Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541337#post2541337) France Robert Bresson

54. Blow-up 1966 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541340#post2541340) UK Michelangelo Antonioni

55. Closely Watched Trains 1966 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541348#post2541348) Czech Jirí Menzel

56. Bonnie and Clyde 1967 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541528#post2541528) USA Arthur Penn

57. The Graduate 1967 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541529#post2541529) USA Mike Nichols

58. 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541531#post2541531) UK Stanley Kubrick ESSENTIAL

59. Kes 1969 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541547#post2541547) UK Ken Loach

60. A Touch of Zen 1970 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541921#post2541921) Taiwan King Hu

61. Walkabout 1971 UK Nicholas Roeg

62. McCabe and Mrs Miller 1971 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541943#post2541943) USA Robert Altman

63. The Godfather 1972 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542063#post2542063) USA Francis Ford Copolla

64. Le Cousin Jules (doc) 1973 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542072#post2542072) France Dominique Benicheti ESSENTIAL

65. Don't Look Now 1973 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542082#post2542082) UK Nicholas Roeg

66. Badlands 1973 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542063#post2542063) USA Terrence Malick

67. The Passenger 1975 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542105#post2542105) Italy Michelangelo Antonioni

68. Barry Lyndon 1975 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542128#post2542128) UK Stanley Kubrick

69. The Mirror 1975 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542132#post2542132) Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky

70. Taxi Driver (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542145#post2542145) 1976 USA Martin Scorsese

71. Apocalypse Now 1979 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542162#post2542162) USA Francis Ford Coppola ESSENTIAL

72. Alien 1979 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542179#post2542179) USA Ridley Scott

73. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial 1982 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542274#post2542274) USA Steven Spielberg

74. The King of Comedy 1982 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542280#post2542280) USA Martin Scorsese

75. Paris, Texas 1984 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542292#post2542292) USA Wim Wenders

76. Stranger Than Paradise 1984 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542299#post2542299) USA Jim Jarmusch

77. Taipei Story 1985 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542334#post2542334) Taiwan Edward Yang

78. Landscape in the Mist 1988 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542357#post2542357) Greece Theodoros Angelopoulos ESSENTIAL

79. A Short Film About Killing 1988 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542369#post2542369) Poland krzysztof kieślowski

80. The Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse 1991 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542422#post2542422) USA George Hickenlooper

81. Rebels of the Neon God 1992 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542423#post2542423) Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang

82. The Player 1992 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542427#post2542427) USA Robert Altman

83. Vive L'Amour 1994 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542509#post2542509) Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang ESSENTIAL

84. Voices Through Time 1996 Italy Franco Piavoli

85. Trainspotting 1996 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542523#post2542523) UK Danny Boyle

86. Flowers of Shanghai 1998 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?
anchor=1&p=2542532#post2542532) Taiwan Hou Hsiao-hsien

87. Saving Private Ryan 1998 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542539#post2542539) USA Steven Spielberg

88. In the Mood for Love 2000 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542775#post2542775) Hong Kong Wong Kar-Wai

89. Mulholland Drive 2001 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542786#post2542786) USA David Lynch ESSENTIAL

90. Donnie Darko 2001 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542800#post2542800) USA Richard Kelly

91. Uzak 2002 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542802#post2542802) Turkiye Nuri Bilge Ceylan ESSENTIAL

92. No Country for Old Men 2007 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542941#post2542941) USA Joel and Ethan Cohen

93. Wall-E 2008 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542942#post2542942) USA Andrew Stanton

94. Frances Ha 2012

95. Embrace of the Serpent 2015 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?
anchor=1&p=2542943#post2542943) Colombia Ciro Guerra LINK ERROR

96. La La Land 2016 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2543176#post2543176) USA Damien Chazelle ESSENTIAL

97. The Lighthouse 2019 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2543396#post2543396) USA Robert Eggers

98. Apollo 11 (doc) 2019 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2543418#post2543418) USA Todd Douglas Miller

99. Fire of Love (doc) 2022 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2544310#post2544310) France Sara Dosa

100. Whitney Houston: The Concert For a New South Africa (doc) 2024 USA Marty Caller

Some near misses:
Seven Chances 1924 USA Buster Keaton
The Lodger 1927
Port of Shadows 1938
My Darling Clementine 1946
Anatomy of a Murder 1959 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2540575#post2540575) USA Otto Preminger
Rio Bravo 1959
Le Mepris / Contempt 1963
Stolen Kisses 1968 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541530#post2541530) France François Truffaut
The Color of Pomegrantes
Cabaret 1972 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2541953#post2541953) USA Bob Fosse
The Day of the Jackal 1973
Chinatown 1974 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542100#post2542100) USA Roman Polanski
Blade Runner (Director's Cut) 1982 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542279#post2542279) USA Ridley Scott ESSENTIAL
Coup De Foudre/At First Sight 1983
The Terminator 1984
Withnail & I 1987 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542350#post2542350) UK Bruce Robinson
When Harry Met Sally 1989
Days of Being Wild 1990 (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2542419#post2542419) Hong Kong Wong Kar-Wai
The Commitments 1991
Short Cuts 1993
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia 2011
Drive 2011
The Master 2012
Virunga (doc) 2015
The Look of Silence (doc) 2015

[Robert the List]

1. The Great White Silence (doc) 1924 UK Herbery Ponting (silent)

We open with one of few documentaries in the list.
It’s an astonishing film, documenting the ill-fated journey of Sir Robert Falcon Scott and his team to the South Pole, in their efforts on behalf of The British Empire to be the first people to reach the pole.
The film mainly consists of live footage taken by a cameraman who accompanied Scott, as well as some graphic recreations charting the progress of the expedition as it attempted to make it back to base camp from the Pole.
The footage is often beautiful, and absolutely remarkable considering that it was shot in 1911/1912.
We see vast icebergs, seals up close getting out of the water, even killer whales hunting, as well as the tall sail ships cutting through the ice, ice caves and tunnels, a towering volcano, and Scott and his team preparing for their assault on the Pole, husky dogs, sledges and all. Nothing like this had ever been filmed before, and (notwithstanding Nanook of the North’s recreations of the Arctic in 1922) nothing like it seen before.
Towards the end as Scott’s final days are set out, it also builds quite a sense of tension and excitement, and of course ultimately sorrow.
Personally I find that the wildlife shots drag a little bit, and there are a lot of title cards interspersed with the footage, and – as a warning - one scene in which they reveal the name of the black dog accompanying them on the trip is unfortunately painfully racist to today’s audiences.
Overall however the film is a remarkable achievement, as well as a largely fascinating and engaging viewing experience.

Wikipedia:
“
The Great White Silence is a 1924 English documentary that contains brief cinematograph sequences taken during the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910–1913. The principal filmmaker was photographer Herbert Ponting….
Synopsis and production notes
The Terra Nova Expedition was an effort, by governments and concerned citizens of what was then the British Empire, to plant the Union Jack on the South Pole by means of men, ponies, dogs, and primitive snowmobiles hauling sledges from a base located on the Antarctic coastline. The documentary portrays expedition leader Robert Falcon Scott and his ship, the Terra Nova, and men as they leave Lyttelton, New Zealand, to sail into the Southern Ocean and its ice floes.
Safely landed on the icy coastline of Ross Island, the filmmaker follows the men as they set up tents, practice skiing, and prepare to probe southward toward the Pole. The film concludes with a sequence of the explorers pushing off from their base, and title cards reminding viewers of what, to the 1924 viewer, would have been the familiar story of the expedition's tragic conclusion. Scott and his immediate support group of four companions never returned from the Pole.
Pioneering cinematographer

The Great White Silence's director/cinematographer, Herbert Ponting
Filmmaker Herbert Ponting was the first known photographer to bring a cinematograph to the Antarctic continent and to take brief film sequences of the continent's killer whales, Adélie penguins, south polar skuas, Weddell seals and other fauna, as well as the human explorers who were trying to "conquer" it.
Scott did not choose cinematographer Ponting to accompany him to the South Pole. Ponting remained on base and survived with his film sequences, eventually returning to England.”


Run time 1 hr 45.

Full film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw8bSmAY2vw

[Robert the List]

2. Strike 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein

Soviet cinema is generally brushed under the carpet in the west, but in the early days much of the best cinema was coming out of the Soviet Union. And this is about the best of the lot. It’s incredible that this was Eisenstein’s first ever film, because it pioneers artistry and a variety of techniques which were inspirational to other creative directors and to the development of cinema. I can see Antonioni in this, Kurosawa, Welles, Lang. This is light years ahead of where cinema was in the US at the time, and looks years more advanced than for example the much heralded Metropolis two years later. There is also ingenuity in the plot, including a spy using a pocket watch as a secret camera, and tension in the drama unfolding, including a climax on a scale that D.W. Griffith would have been jealous of. This is a masterpiece by any definition.

Wikipedia:
“Strike…is a 1925 Soviet silent…film directed and edited by Sergei Eisenstein. Originating as one entry out of a proposed seven-part series titled "Towards Dictatorship of the Proletariat", Strike was a joint collaboration between the Proletcult Theatre and the film studio Goskino. As Eisenstein's first full-length feature film, it marked his transition from theatre to cinema, and his next film Battleship Potemkin emerged from the same film cycle.
Arranged in six parts, the film depicts a strike in 1903 by the workers of a factory in pre-revolutionary Russia, and their subsequent suppression…
Upon release, Strike received praise from critics, but many audiences were confused by its eccentric style. It received little international distribution until its reappraisal during the 1950s and 1960s…
Plot summary
…A micrometer is stolen, with a value of 25 rubles or 3 weeks pay. A worker, Yakov, is accused of the theft and subsequently hangs himself. Fighting ensues and work stops. The workers leave the milling room running and resistance is met at the foundry. The strikers throw rocks and loose metal through the foundry windows. Then locked within the gates of the complex, the crowd confronts the office. They force open the gates and seize a manager carting him off in a wheel barrow dumping them down a hill into the water. The crowd disperses.
A police officer conducts a raid on the workers (top) as a stockholder squeezes the juice of a lemon (bottom).
…The owner is frustrated by orders arriving and the frozen plant. Demands are formulated: an 8-hour work day, fair treatment by the administration, 30% wage increases, and a 6-hour day for minors. The shareholders get involved with the director and read the demands. They discuss dismissively while smoking cigars and having drinks. Presumably on the orders of the shareholders, the police raid the workers, and they sit down to protest. At their meeting the shareholders use the demand letter as a rag to clean up a spill, and a lemon squeezer metaphorically represents the pressure the stockholders intend to apply to the strikers.
…A posted letter publicly shows the administrators rejection of the demands. Using a hidden camera in a pocket watch, a spy named "Owl" photographs someone stealing the letter. The pictures are transferred to another spy. The man is beaten, captured, and beaten again.
….After a deal with a tsarist police agent, the "King" hires a few provocateurs from among his community to set fire, raze, and loot a liquor store. A crowd gathers at the fire and the alarm is sounded. The crowd leaves to avoid being provoked but are set upon by the firemen with their hoses regardless.
The governor sends in the military…Rioting commences, and the crowd is chased off through a series of gates and barriers heading to the forge, then their apartments. The crowd is chased and whipped on the balconies. A policeman murders a small child. The workers are driven into a field by the army and shot en masse. This is shown with alternating footage of the slaughtering of a cow.
Production
Development
Prior to Strike, Eisenstein had primarily worked in experimental theatre, as a designer and director with the Proletcult Theatre. Boris Mikhin, head of the First Goskino factory, wanted to recruit Eisenstein to work in cinema, but Proletcult wanted to keep him. They negotiated and decided on a joint collaboration…Strike was selected to enter production first as a joint production between Proletcult and Goskino…
Pre-production
Studio head Boris Mikhin introduced Eisenstein to cinematographer Eduard Tisse, who had started his career as a newsreel cameraman during the Civil War. Eisenstein spent several months researching labor struggles. He interviewed strikers and activists, visited factories, and read Émile Zola's novel Germinal. He worked on the script with Esfir Shub at her house; however, after it was officially accepted he removed her from the project.
Eisenstein cast many of the roles from the Proletcult Theatre. Actors and students from the studio filled other parts, and crowd scenes were populated by factory workers from Moscow.
Filming
Production began in early 1924…After two days of test shoots, the board decided to remove Eisenstein from the project. Only after Mikhin and Tisse personally guaranteed the film's completion was Eisenstein was given a third test shoot and allowed to continue with production. During filming, he continued to quarrel with the studio over enormous demands, such as a thousand extras to form a mob in a scene from part five….
Style and themes
…Eisenstein's editing is rapid, even compared to other Soviet filmmakers of the era. Strike has an average shot length of 2.5 seconds, less than half that of a typical Hollywood film. Dissolves, traditionally used to indicate the passage of time between shots, are used instead as a visual effect. In some scenes, the aspect ratio is dynamic, with masks in front of the camera being added or removed to change the framing of a shot. The film also makes use of multiple exposures and iris shots…
Release
Although Strike was completed in late 1924, its release was delayed because of a shortage of positive film stock. The film premiered in Leningrad on 1 February 1925….The film was re-released in 1967 with a musical score.
Legacy
…Francis Ford Coppola revives/quotes the slaughtering of the cow metaphor at the end of Apocalypse Now (1979).”


Run time 1 hour 28
Full move: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG_yM7We0C8

[Robert the List]

3. The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Germany Lotte Reiniger (silent, with score)

You might have heard of Prince Achmed from the story of Alladin? Well in this earlier version, the Prince is the star and Alladin one of the supporting roles.

It’s an enchanting and absorbing tale, beautifully and elegantly animated.

Wikipedia:

“
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (German: Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) is a 1926 German animated fairytale film by Lotte Reiniger. It is the oldest surviving animated feature film.
…The Adventures of Prince Achmed features a silhouette animation technique Reiniger had invented that involved manipulated cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead under a camera. The technique she used for the camera is similar to Wayang shadow puppets, though hers were animated frame by frame, not manipulated in live action. The original prints featured color tinting…The story is based on elements from the One Thousand and One Nights written by Hanna Diyab, including "Aladdin," "The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Perī-Bānū", and "The Ebony Horse."

Production
…Reiniger required three years, from 1923 to 1926, to make this film. Each frame had to be painstakingly filmed, and 24 frames were needed per second….

Restoration
While the original film featured color tinting, prints available just before the restoration had all been in black and white. Working from surviving nitrate prints, German and British archivists restored the film during 1998 and 1999, including reinstating the original tinted image by using the Desmet method.
…

Legacy
An homage to this film can be spotted in Disney's Aladdin (1992); a character named Prince Achmed has a minor role in the film. The art style also served as inspiration for the Steven Universe episode "The Answer".

Score
The original score was composed by German composer Wolfgang Zeller in direct collaboration with the animation of the film. Reiniger created photograms for the orchestras, which were common in better theatres of the time, to follow along the action.”


Run time 65 minutes.
Full film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RlnylV5lQk

[Gideon58]

Never heard of this movie

[Robert the List]

4. Sunrise FW 1927 USA FW Murnau

[Robert the List]

5. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) France Carl Theodore Dreyer

[Robert the List]

6. Man With a Movie Camera (doc) 1929 Soviet Union Dziga Vertov (silent)

It’s just a real ride. There’s some stunning shots and images, a lot of hugely inventive camerawork, and some interesting things to see about life in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s.

This film is so influential it's ridiculous. I've just watched about a 2 minute clip and I've seen the following influences:

[email protected] a Louise Brooks flapper look
[email protected] the camera rising between floors, ala Marcel Carne c1940 (although Hitchcock also used this in 1929 in Blackmail)
-@ 29.53 the balloons in The Third Man
[email protected] the superb scene in Stray Dog where Kurosawa imposes the character's eyes on him -roaming the streets looking for his gun
[email protected] the whole concept of Nightcrawler



aside from innovative shots in their own right, the fast cutting and editing is like nothing else.

Wikipedia:
“Man with a Movie Camera…is an experimental 1929 Soviet silent documentary film, directed by Dziga Vertov, filmed by his brother Mikhail Kaufman, and edited by Vertov's wife Yelizaveta Svilova. Kaufman also appears as the eponymous Man of the film.
Vertov's feature film, produced by the film studio All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration (VUFKU), presents urban life in Moscow, Kiev and Odessa during the late 1920s. It has no actors.
…Man with a Movie Camera is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invented, employed or developed, such as multiple exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, match cuts, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, reversed footage, stop motion animations and self-reflexive visuals (at one point it features a split-screen tracking shot; the sides have opposite Dutch angles).
…In 2015, the film received a restoration using a 35mm print of the only known complete cut of the film equipment.
…Despite claiming to be without actors, the film features a few staged situations…

…Analysis…
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote that the work "is visibly excited about the new medium's possibility, dense with ideas, packed with energy: it echoes Un Chien Andalou, anticipates Vigo's À propos de Nice and the New Wave generally”

That’s interesting to read as I had also identified it as an influence on New Wave!


Run time 65 minutes.
Full film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GyNB4-eN1E

[Robert the List]

7. Salt for Svanetia 1930 Soviet Union Mikhael Kalatazov (silent)

Note, although regarded as a documentary, the later parts of the film are clearly not documentary at all. It is a fictional story. The earlier parts are in a documentary or docufiction style.

I love the camerawork, and the fast flow of the film. Some of the documentary/docu-fiction scenes are also interesting.
The scenes shot in the mountains are groundbreaking too.

Not why it's included but I have been to Ushguli, and it hasn't changed much!!

Wikipedia:
“Salt for Svanetia…is a 1930 Soviet-Georgian silent documentary film directed by Mikhail Kalatozov. As one of the earliest ethnographic films, it documents the life of the Svan people in the isolated mountain village of Ushguli in Svanetia, in the northwestern part of the Georgian Soviet Republic.

Synopsis
Most of Salt for Svanetia describes and explores the daily life of the Svan people, who are living isolated from civilisation in a harsh natural environment in the mountainous region of Svanetia. …
The film then concentrates on the lack of salt supplies….The solution to the salt shortage is presented in the climax of the film where the young Soviet power builds a road that connects the isolated region to the outside world...

Production
…Svanetia was an underdeveloped region, and thus Soviet planners tried to make it a showcase of Soviet modernization during the first five-year plan between 1928 and 1932. During this time roads were built, an air service was established and industries such as mining and lumbering were developed. It was against this background of Svanetia as a showcase of Soviet modernization that Salt for Svanetia was produced.
…Originally the film was planned to be a fictional feature film, but ultimately Viktor Shklovsky edited the footage Kalatozov had shot in Svanetia into a documentary film. The authenticity of some scenes has been disputed by the Svan people who deny that some of the customs shown have ever existed. The cinematography of Mikhail Kalatozov and the cinematographer Shalva Gegelashvili has been described as expressionistic due to its use of dramatic shadows, silhouettes against a dramatic skyline and Dutch angles….
Responses
After the film was finished it was criticized by Stalinist authorities as being unbalanced and unfair towards Svanetia. It was claimed that the director was too fascinated by the backwardness and superstition of Svanetia, and only superficially interested in socialist modernization. Kalatozov fell out of favor, culminating in a ban of his next film Nail in the Boot…
Despite the negative immediate reaction, Salt for Svanetia has been praised by film historians and other film directors. The Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky called it an "amazing film". The American film historian Jay Leyda described it as a "masterpiece".


Runtime 47-62 minutes

Full movie (62 minutes version) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNzyB3e1LXo

[Robert the List]

8. Limite 1931 Brazil Mário Peixoto (silent)

For me this film is a dream. Like a precursor to the likes of Meshes of the Afternoon and Mulholland Drive. It’s beautifully filmed. The soundtrack is mesmeric, really you will do well to stay awake through the film but in a good way! It’s just a highly original, beautiful piece of film making. There are 3 films by one-off directors I’m aware of which are masterpieces, and this is one.

Wikipedia:
"Limite…is a 1931 Brazilian silent experimental psychological drama film directed, written, and produced by Mário Peixoto….It is often considered one of the earliest experimental feature films.
The film tells the story of two unnamed women and an unnamed man drifting in a small boat. As they float aimlessly, they reflect on their pasts through flashbacks. One woman escaped from prison but is still being pursued, the other left an unhappy marriage, and the man is grieving the loss of a lover. Tired and without hope, they stop rowing and let the boat drift.
Limite was restored between 1966 and 1978 from a single damaged nitrate print, though one scene remains missing….
…
…Peixoto died in 1992, aged 83, leaving a substantial body of literary work, unproduced screenplays and scenarios, and a fragment of a planned second feature film, Onde a Terra Acaba, which never was completed and mostly lost in a fire.
Peixoto continued to promote Limite throughout his life. …
Preservation status
By 1959, the single nitrate print of Limite had deteriorated due to poor storage conditions and could no longer be screened, a situation that contributed to its near-mythical status in Brazilian film history. …Former FNF student Pereira de Mello managed to retrieve the print (in 1966) The restoration process then began with photographic reproductions of every single frame, which was completed in 1978. The most recent version, based on that restoration, was made with the assistance of the Mário Peixoto Archives and Cinemateca Brasileira. It had its American premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York on 17 November 2010, as part of the World Cinema Foundation's Film Festival. One scene of the film remains missing and was replaced by an intertitle.”


Runtime 1 hour 58 minutes

Full movie here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2BZcBiT38k

[Robert the List]

9. Vampyr 1932 Germany Carl Theodor Dreyer

I just love the shadows and some of the imagery, as well as the general creepiness of it, and - perhaps a little bit like Limite - the dreamlike vibe.

Wikipedia:
“Vampyr (or)… 'Vampyr: The Dream of Allan Gray'…is a 1932 gothic horror film directed by Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer (in which the character of) Allan Gray, a student of the occult who wanders into the French village of Courtempierre, which is under the curse of a vampire…
The film presented a number of technical challenges for Dreyer, as it was his first sound film and was recorded in three languages. To simplify matters, he decided to use very little dialogue in the film, and much of the story is told with title cards, like a silent film.
The film was shot entirely on location, and to enhance the atmospheric content, Dreyer opted for a washed out, soft focus photographic technique. The soundtrack was created in Berlin, where the characters' voices, the sound effects, and the score were recorded.
…
Most members of the cast of Vampyr were not professional actors. Jan Hieronimko, who plays the village doctor, was found on a late night metro train in Paris. When approached to act in the film, Hieronimko reportedly stared blankly and did not reply, but he later contacted Dreyer's crew and agreed to join the film. Many of the other non-professional actors in the film were found in similar fashion in shops and cafés. The only professional actors in the film were Maurice Schutz, who plays the lord of the manor, and Sybille Schmitz, who plays his daughter Léone.
…
Filming
…
Dreyer originally wanted Vampyr to be a silent film, and, indeed, no sound was captured during filming and it uses many techniques from the silent era…because three different versions of the film were planned, so the scenes with dialogue had to be filmed with the actors mouthing their lines in German, French, and English during separate takes so that their lip movements would correspond to the voices that were going to be recorded in post-production.
Critic and writer Kim Newman described the style of Vampyr as being more like that of experimental features such as Un Chien Andalou (1929)

Post-production
…When asked about his intention with the film at the Berlin premiere, Dreyer replied that he "had not any particular intention. I just wanted to make a film different from all other films. I wanted, if you will, to break new ground for the cinema. That is all." Asked if he succeeded, he replied:"Yes, I have broken new ground"…”

Runtime 1 hour 13 minutes
Full movie here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi3LFy6vhsg
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1P7Q2JRBic

[Robert the List]

10. Story of the Last Chrysanthemums 1939 Japan *Kenji Mizoguchi

A charming and beautiful film which is just a pleasure to become a part of. It has some incredible Kabuki (Japanese theatre) scenes, I think the best I have seen in a Japanese film.
The chrysanthemum, which grows in the garden of one of the lead characters, is I understand known as the flower of death. But don't let that put you off watching.

Wikipedia:
“The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums..also titled The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum…follows an onnagata (male actor specialising in playing female roles) struggling for artistic mastery in late 19th century Japan.
…
Legacy
Many critics regard the film as Mizoguchi's major pre-war achievement, if not his best work, lauding its cinematography, marked by the use of long takes and frequent dolly shots, and emphasising its theme of female concern.
…John Pym praised the film's sets, which were "crammed with human detail," and, when "sometimes offset by shots of notably uncluttered spaces," highlighted "the isolation of the two principles in a teeming world dominated by class prejudice, harsh economics, and sheer blank human indifference"


Runtime 2 hours 23 minutes
Full movie here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Miyc2q5T04w

[Robert the List]

11. Mr Smith Goes to Washington 1939 USA Frank Capra

I’m surprised this film ever got made, bearing in mind the way it portrays corruption and privilege in the US Senate. Whether you believe that’s realistic or not, is for you to decide. My thoughts are that whilst it may be an exaggeration, I suspect it might have an element of truth about it. I find that sort of thing interesting to watch.
But it’s an engaging and gripping story. The acting is first rate. I’m not generally a Stewart fan, but the young Stewart in this was striking in his performance, and also clearly quite the dashing figure. Jean Arthur makes a brilliant drunk in one scene, and the hugely under rated Claude Rains puts in another excellent performance, to go with Casabalanca and Notorious, as well as The Adventures of Robin Hood. He’s overlooked but he really was on of the leading actors of the day.
Anyway, it’s a terrific film.

Wikipedia:
“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a 1939 American political comedy-drama film directed by Frank Capra, starring Jean Arthur and James Stewart, and featuring Claude Rains and Edward Arnold. The film is about a naive, newly appointed United States senator who fights against government corruption…
The film was controversial in the US when it was first released, with attacks from many politicians claiming that it brought Washington into disrepute…
…
Impact
..one of the ways that some senators attempted to retaliate for the damage they felt the film had done to the reputation of their institution was by pushing the passage of the Neely Anti-Block Booking Bill, which eventually led to the breakup of the studio-owned theater chains in the late 1940s.”

Runtime 2 hours 4 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXoF7w6IWAc

[Robert the List]

12. The Wizard of Oz 1939 USA Victor Fleming

Wikipedia:
“The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, it was primarily directed by Victor Fleming, who left production to take over the troubled Gone with the Wind….
The Wizard of Oz is celebrated for its use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling, musical score, and memorable characters…
Production
Development
Production on the film began when Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) showed that films adapted from popular children's stories and fairytales could be successful.

In January 1938, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to L. Frank Baum's popular novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from Samuel Goldwyn.
…
Much attention was given to the use of color in the production, with the MGM production crew favoring some hues over others. It took the studio's art department almost a week to settle on the shade of yellow used for the Yellow Brick Road.

Casting
…Several actresses were reportedly considered for the part of Dorothy, including Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox, at the time, the most prominent child star; Deanna Durbin, a relative newcomer, with a recognized operatic voice; and Judy Garland, the most experienced of the three. Officially, the decision to cast Garland was attributed to contractual issues.
…
Filming
..The production faced the challenge of creating the Tin Man's costume. Several tests were done to find the right makeup and clothes for Ebsen. Ten days into the shoot, Ebsen suffered a toxic reaction after repeatedly inhaling the aluminum dust…in the aluminum powder makeup he wore, though he did recall taking a breath one night without suffering any immediate effects. He was hospitalized in critical condition and was subsequently forced to leave the project. In a later interview (included on the 2005 DVD release of The Wizard of Oz), he recalled that the studio heads appreciated the seriousness of his illness only after he was hospitalized. Filming halted while a replacement for him was sought.
No footage of Ebsen as the Tin Man has ever been released – only photos taken during filming and makeup tests.
His replacement, Jack Haley, assumed Ebsen had been fired.
…To keep down on production costs, Haley only rerecorded "If I Only Had a Heart" and solo lines during "If I Only Had the Nerve" and the scrapped song "The Jitterbug"; as such, Ebsen's voice can still be heard in the remaining songs featuring the Tin Man in group vocals.

George Cukor's brief stint
…George Cukor temporarily took over (as director) under LeRoy's guidance. Initially, the studio had made Garland wear a blonde wig and heavy "baby-doll" makeup, and she played Dorothy in an exaggerated fashion. Cukor changed Garland's and Hamilton's makeup and costumes, and told Garland to "be herself". This meant that all the scenes Garland and Hamilton had already completed had to be reshot.

Cukor did not shoot any scenes for the film, but acted merely as a creative advisor to the troubled production. His prior commitment to direct Gone with the Wind required him to leave on November 3, 1938, when Victor Fleming assumed directorial responsibility...

...Cumbersome makeup and costumes were made even more uncomfortable by the daylight-bright lighting the early Technicolor process required, which could heat the set to over 100 °F (38 °C), which also had the side effect of bringing the production's electricity bill to a staggering estimate of $225,000 (equivalent to $5,086,184 in 2024).
…
On-set treatment and abuse allegations
In the decades since the film’s release, credible stories have come out indicating that Judy Garland endured extensive abuse during and before filming from various parties involved.The studio went to extreme lengths to change her appearance, including binding her chest and giving her Benzedrine tablets to keep her weight down, along with uppers and downers that caused giggling fits. There were claims that various members of the cast pointed out her breasts and made other lewd comments. Victor Fleming slapped her during the Cowardly Lion's introduction scene when Garland could not stop laughing at Lahr's performance. Once the scene was done, Fleming, reportedly ashamed of himself, ordered the crew to punch him in the face. Garland, however, kissed him instead. She was also forced to wear a cap on her teeth due to the fact some of her teeth were misaligned and also had to wear rubber discs on her nose to change its shape during filming. Claims have been made in memoirs that the frequently drunk actors portraying the Munchkins propositioned and pinched her. Garland said that she was groped by Louis B. Mayer.
…
Post-production
…Oz initially ran nearly two hours long. In 1939, the average film ran for about 90 minutes. LeRoy and Fleming knew they needed to cut at least 15 minutes to get the film down to a manageable running time...Among the many cuts were "The Jitterbug" number, the Scarecrow's elaborate dance sequence following "If I Only Had a Brain", reprises of "Over the Rainbow" and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead", and a number of smaller dialogue sequences. This left the final, mostly serious portion of the film with no songs, only the dramatic underscoring.
"Over the Rainbow" was almost deleted. MGM felt that it made the Kansas sequence too long, as well as being far over the heads of the target audience of children. The studio also thought that it was degrading for Garland to sing in a barnyard. LeRoy, uncredited associate producer Arthur Freed and director Fleming fought to keep it in, and they eventually won. The song went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and came to be identified so strongly with Garland herself that she made it her signature song.
…
Legacy
The film was not the first to utilize color, but the way in which the film was saturated with Technicolor proved that color could provide a magical element to fantasy films. The film is iconic for its symbols such as the Yellow Brick Road, ruby slippers, Emerald City, Munchkins, and the phrase "There's no place like home". The film became a global phenomenon and is still well known today.
…
In 2018, it was named the "most influential film of all time" as the result of a study conducted by the University of Turin to measure the success and significance of 47,000 films from around the world using data from readers and audience polls, as well as internet sources such as IMDb.”

Runtime 1 hour 42 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNugTWHnSfw
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSZxmZmBfnU

[Robert the List]

13. Day of Wrath 1943 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer

This is in my top 10. The atmosphere crackles. It's often visually wonderful. The story twists and grabs you. It draws you in. The performance of Movin is one of my favourites; she's as perfectly cast as any actor in any role. It sets the benchmark for a dramatic thriller/horror.


Wikipedia:

"Day of Wrath (Danish: Vredens dag) is a 1943 Danish drama film directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and starring Lisbeth Movin, Thorkild Roose and Preben Lerdorff Rye.
It is an adaptation of the 1909 play Anne Pedersdotter by Hans Wiers-Jenssen, based on a 16th century Norwegian case.
The film tells the story of a young woman who is forced into a marriage with an elderly pastor after her late mother was accused of witchcraft. She falls in love with the pastor's son and also comes under suspicion of witchcraft.
…
Production
…
Day of Wrath was Dreyer's first film since Vampyr (1932). He had spent the previous eleven years working as a journalist…
…In one scene, Anna Svierkier's character is burnt at the stake. To depict it, Svierkier was tied to a wooden ladder, and Dreyer left her there while the rest of the cast and crew went for lunch, over the objections of Preben Lerdorff Rye and Thorkild Roose. When they returned, Svierkier was perspiring profusely, which is visible in the film.”

Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ddk11bzMys

[Robert the List]

14. Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 USA Maya Deren

Groundbreaking. It’s the blueprint for the horror/shalsher genre. It adopts various inventive techniques which were later repeated, for example Deren’s character’s position on the staircase moving through a series of cuts, which you can imagine the sound effect from the Pyscho shower scene being played to. In another moment, the cloaked figure suddenly appears inside her apartment on the staircase and it really makes the viewer jump. I hadn’t seen anything like that prior to this film. It also uses time in a non-linear way, which Rashomon (1950) is often credited as having introduced. There’s also some great imagery in the film.

Wikipedia:

“Meshes of the Afternoon is a 1943 American experimental silent short film directed by and starring wife-and-husband team, Maya Deren and Alexandr Hackenschmied.
…
Background and production
The film was the product of Deren's and Hammid's desire to create an avant-garde personal film that dealt with complex psychology…
…
The original print had no score. However, a musical score influenced by classical Japanese music was added in 1959 by Deren's third husband, Teiji Ito.
…Analysis…
Deren explained that Meshes "...is concerned with the interior experiences of an individual. It does not record an event which could be witnessed by other persons. Rather, it reproduces the way in which the subconscious of an individual will develop, interpret and elaborate an apparently simple and casual incident into a critical emotional experience."
…Legacy…
Maya Deren was a key figure in the development of the New American Cinema. Her influence extends to contemporary filmmakers like David Lynch, whose film Lost Highway (1997) pays homage to Meshes of the Afternoon in his experimentation with narration. Lynch adopts a similar spiraling narrative pattern, sets his film within an analogous location and establishes a mood of dread and paranoia, the result of constant surveillance….”

Runtime: 14 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwbcgRYGlK4

[Robert the List]

15. Sanshiro Sugata (1943) Japan Akira Kurosawa

[Robert the List]

14. La Belle et La Bete 1946 France Jean Cocteau

I find the opening scenes to be not very impressive, but once the fantasy begins it’s magical. For those who have seen some of Cocteau’s earlier experimental work such as Blood of a Poet, you will see signs of that here, but more integrated into the film rather than looking like stand alone tricks. It’s a beautiful love story above all else, but it creates this wonderland of fairytale with gorgeous and striking imagery, and narrative delivered like poetry.

Wikipedia:
“Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête – also the UK title) is a 1946 French surrealist romantic fantasy film directed by French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau...it is an adaptation of the 1757 story Beauty and the Beast...published as part of a fairy tale anthology.
…
Reception in the U.S.
Upon the film's December 1947 New York City release, critic Bosley Crowther called the film a "priceless fabric of subtle images...a fabric of gorgeous visual metaphors, of undulating movements and rhythmic pace, of hypnotic sounds and music, of casually congealing ideas"; according to Crowther, "the dialogue, in French, is spare and simple, with the story largely told in pantomime, and the music of Georges Auric accompanies the dreamy, fitful moods. The settings are likewise expressive, many of the exteriors having been filmed for rare architectural vignettes at Raray, one of the most beautiful palaces and parks in all France. And the costumes, too, by Christian Bérard and Escoffier, are exquisite affairs, glittering and imaginative."…
"


Runtime: 1 hour 33 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsXkv1mpRUk
Mark Kermode review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctl_85UwZuc

[Robert the List]

15. Panique 1946 France Julien Duvivier

It’s a crime drama/mystery with echoes of noir or poet realism. It’s a very well crafted film with some beautifully lit close up shots and an atmosphere which draws the viewer in, and has one of the most dramatic and absorbing endings of a film that I can think of, in which the sounds of exhaustion are briefly as telling as the pictures. The film prompts questions about group behaviour in society and justice, and highlights the macabre way that we treat the demise of others as entertainment, as well as examining conscience. It doesn't have the stunning outdoor shots that Carne provided in Port of Shadows (1938) which no doubt inspired On the Waterfront and also provided an early preview of neo-realism in some of the live action shots of the port in that earlier film, but it hangs together better as an overall picture. It’s a great watch; the pace and the cuts are perfect. Well played by Michel Simon, Viviane Romance, and Paul Bernard.


Wikipedia:
“Panique, also released as Panic, is a 1946 French film directed by Julien Duvivier starring Michel Simon and Viviane Romance….
Alice is a young woman who has just been released from prison after taking the rap for a robbery committed by her boyfriend, Alfred. She arrives in town the night after a woman's murder. The next morning, Alice and Alfred pretend they are meeting for the first time, as the police know she covered up a crime for someone and are eager to discover the real criminal. Alice's neighbor, the eccentric and misanthropic loner Monsieur Hire, immediately falls for her. He warns her about Alfred, advising that she should ask him about the murder.
Although Alfred is not initially forthcoming, he admits to Alice that he is the murderer. He was sleeping with the woman and killed her for her money. When Alice tells him that Hire knows of his crime, he quickly sets a plan into action. He begins planting suspicions among the locals, who already dislike and distrust Hire. Meanwhile, Alice leads Hire on and plants the murdered woman's handbag in his apartment. Then Alfred tells his friends to gather Hire's neighbors, who search the apartment and find the handbag.
After his friends incite a violent mob, Alfred urges Alice to call Hire and beg him to leave work and return home. When he arrives and is confronted by the bloodthirsty crowd…
…
[V]ery few postwar films attempted to explain why people collaborated…In the years immediately following World War II, filmmakers were judged according to how their films reflected their implicit judgement of the behavior of the French under German occupation. The tale of "mob misrule" and "scapegoating" is played out in a setting that includes all the prototypical elements that identify it as a microcosm of French society: the cafe bar and terrace, small shops, church, modest hotel, "the selling of veal cutlets and Camembert". Panique has been described as "a strong and memorable screen denunciation of the relations between French people in the confused aftermath of the war" and "a harsh but thoughtfully delineated portrait of a society riven by mistrust and suspicion". Duvivier commented with respect to the film that "we are far from people who love each other". …Later critics have appreciated how the film makes references to the French Revolution as well as to the very recent past with playful puns and allusions rather than forthright statements, allowing the viewer to make the connections…”

Runtime 1 hour 40 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXpddF9qBFA

[Robert the List]

16. Notorious 1946 USA Alfred Hitchcock

It's a cracking thriller, a good romance, and a stylish film fantastically acted by a star cast.

Wikipedia:

"[I]Notorious is a 1946 American spy film noir directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation.
…
Notorious is considered by critics and scholars to mark a watershed for Hitchcock artistically, and to represent a heightened thematic maturity. His biographer, Donald Spoto, writes that "Notorious is in fact Alfred Hitchcock's first attempt—at the age of forty-six—to bring his talents to the creation of a serious love story, and its story of two men in love with Ingrid Bergman could only have been made at this stage of his life."
…
Cast notes
…Biographer Patrick McGilligan writes that "Hitchcock rarely managed to pull together a dream cast for any of his 1940s films, but Notorious was a glorious exception."
…
Themes and motifs
The predominant theme in Notorious is trust—trust withheld, or given too freely.
Critical response
…Writing in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther praised the film, writing, "Mr. Hecht has written, and Mr. Hitchcock has directed in brilliant style, a romantic melodrama which is just about as thrilling as they come—velvet smooth in dramatic action, sharp and sure in its characters, and heavily charged with the intensity of warm emotional appeal."…
Roger Ebert also praised the film, adding it to his "Great Movies" list and calling it "the most elegant expression of the master's visual style". Notorious was Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell's favorite of her father's pictures. "What a perfect film!", she told her father's biographer.
Film critic Roger Ebert included Notorious on his "Ten Greatest Films of All Time" list in 1991, citing it as his favorite of Hitchcock's films…


Runtime 1 hour 41 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG3XiUf9Pdg

[Robert the List]

18. Out of the Past 1947 USA Jacques Tourneur

“Out of the Past (billed in the United Kingdom as Build My Gallows High) is a 1947 American film noir directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas. …Its complex, fatalistic storyline, dark cinematography, and classic femme fatale garnered the film critical acclaim and cult status….
…
Reception
….
Decades later, in his 2004 assessment of the film for the Chicago Sun-Times, critic Roger Ebert noted:
“Out of the Past is one of the greatest of all film noirs, the story of a man who tries to break with his past and his weakness and start over again in a town, with a new job and a new girl. The film stars Robert Mitchum, whose weary eyes and laconic voice, whose very presence as a violent man wrapped in indifference, made him an archetypal noir actor. The story opens before we've even seen him, as trouble comes to town looking for him. A man from his past has seen him pumping gas, and now his old life reaches out and pulls him back.”
With regard to the production's stylish and moody cinematography, Ebert also dubbed the film "The greatest cigarette-smoking movie of all time" ”

For me this film is the ‘definition’ of film noir. Mitchum’s character is the perfect lead. The drop dead gorgeous Greer (who should have had a far greater career than she did) the perfect foil. The bad guy? Just, Kirk Douglas! Mitchum’s rain coat and trilby, the perfect noir outfit. I’m in love when Greer and Mitchum are, and broken hearted when they aren’t. There are so many gorgeous shots in this film. It’s as noir as noir. Love it.

Runtime: 97 minutes
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pMT3uQ4Y6k

[Robert the List]

19. Bicycle Thieves 1948 Italy Vittorio De Sica

“Bicycle Thieves (Italian: Ladri di biciclette), also known as The Bicycle Thief, is a 1948 Italian neorealist drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It follows the story of a poor father searching in post-World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job which was to be the salvation of his young family.
…
Production
Bicycle Thieves is the best-known work of Italian neorealism, a movement that informally began with Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945) and brought a new degree of realism to Italian cinema. De Sica had just made Shoeshine (1946), but was unable to get financial backing from any major studio for the film, so he raised the money himself from friends.
…Following the precepts of neorealism, De Sica shot only on location (that is, no studio sets) and cast only untrained actors. (Lamberto Maggiorani, for example, was a factory worker.) That some actors' roles paralleled their lives off screen added realism to the film.
…
Title
The original Italian title is Ladri di biciclette. It literally translates into English as "thieves of bicycles"…When the film was screened in the United States in 1949, Bosley Crowther referred to it as The Bicycle Thief in his review in The New York Times, and this came to be the title by which the film was known in English.”

It’s tough, but it’s just a classic. As classic as classic gets. Some great scenes. You have to have seen The Bicycle Thief.

Runtime: 89 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQkDYXzsHJE

[Robert the List]

20. Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949 UK Robert Hamer

The film in which Alec Guinness plays 9 (nine) characters. I’m not a Guinness fan. Normally one of him is too much for me, let alone 9. But it’s just a very very funny film.

Wikipedia:
“Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British crime black comedy film directed by Robert Hamer. It features Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson and Alec Guinness; Guinness plays eight characters. The plot…concerns Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini, the son of a woman disowned by her aristocratic family for marrying out of her social class. After her death, a vengeful Louis decides to take the family's dukedom by murdering the eight people ahead of him in the line of succession to the title.
…
Production
Pre-production
…According to the British Film Institute (BFI), the novel is "self-consciously in the tradition" of Oscar Wilde, which is reflected in the snobbery and dandyism portrayed in the film.
The head of Ealing Studios, Michael Balcon, was initially unconvinced by the idea of the film, stating that "I'm not going to make a comedy about eight murders"; the studio's creative staff persuaded him to reconsider.
…Hamer saw the potential of the story and later wrote: ‘What were the possibilities which thus presented themselves? Firstly, in that of making a film not noticeably similar to any previously made in the English language. Secondly, that of using this English language ... in a more varied and, to me, more interesting way than I had previously had the chance of doing in a film. Thirdly, that of making a picture which paid no regard whatever to established, although not practised, moral convention’
…
Alec Guinness was originally offered only four D'Ascoyne parts, recollecting "I read [the screenplay] on a beach in France, collapsed with laughter on the first page, and didn't even bother to get to the end of the script. I went straight back to the hotel and sent a telegram saying, 'Why four parts? Why not eight!?'"
Filming
…
The costumes were designed by Anthony Mendleson, who matched Louis's rise through the social ranks with his changing costumes. When employed as a shop assistant, Louis's suit was ill-fitting and drab; he is later seen in tailored suits with satin lapels, wearing a brocade dressing gown and waiting for his execution in a quilted-collar velvet jacket. Mendleson later recounted that to dress Guinness in his many roles, the costumes were of less importance than make-up and the actor's nuances.
In one shot Guinness appears as six of his characters at once in a single frame. This was accomplished by masking the lens. The film was re-exposed several times with Guinness in different positions over several days. Douglas Slocombe, the cinematographer in charge of the effect, recalled sleeping in the studio to make sure nobody touched the camera.”"

Runtime: 106 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTOeAGSV5Ro

[Robert the List]

21. Stray Dog 1949 Japan Akira Kurosawa

Whilst I think Out of the Past is the archetypal noir, I would have to say that Stray Dog is the best noir film. It’s beautifully shot. The scene at the baseball stadium is just…amazing haha, love it. There’s some stunning camerawork. The seuence from 18minutes to 22 minutes in the link below as Mifune scours the neighbourhood for signs of his gun, including the double exposure with his eyes, and culminating with the shot of the prostitute through the gate, is cinematic genius.
Some great little plot ideas and details too. Toshiro Mifune is superb, and there’s a lovely performance by a young siren played by someone called Keiko Awaji (who apparently was only 16!). The tension keeps going throughout. It’s a great film.

Wikipedia:

“Stray Dog (野良犬, Nora inu) is a 1949 Japanese crime drama noir film directed and co-written by Akira Kurosawa, starring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura…
The film is also considered a precursor to the contemporary police procedural and buddy cop film genres, based on its premise of pairing two cops with different personalities and motivations together on a difficult case.
Plot
The film takes place during a heatwave in the middle of summer in post-war Tokyo. Murakami (Toshiro Mifune), a newly-promoted homicide detective in the Tokyo police, has his Colt pistol stolen while riding on a crowded trolley. He chases the pickpocket, but loses him. A remorseful Murakami reports the theft to his superior, Nakajima, at police headquarters. After Nakajima encourages him to conduct an investigation into the theft, the inexperienced Murakami gets a lead from one of the ladies who traveled in the trolley and goes undercover in the city's backstreets for days, trying to infiltrate the illicit arms market…”

Run time 2 hours 2 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbvHpGxWVwo

[iluv2viddyfilms]

Regarding The Third Man, blame the cat.

[Robert the List]

22. The Third Man 1949 UK Carol Reed

I had to watch this several times, and only did so because I kept on seeing so much hype about it. I find the first third of the film nothing special at all. But by goodness does it improve. The last 45 minutes or so is just magnificent. The settings (a huge ferris-wheel, post-war Vienna’s crumbled streets and most magnificently the city sewers), the camera work and lighting, the pace, is just sublime. Reed had practised his street silhouettes in earlier films, but pulls it off as a feature to perfection here. The final chase is one of the great sequences in the movies. Welles is great; in fact I think he’s a better actor than director. Some find the repetitive musical refrain annoying, although personally I don’t mind it.

Wikipedia:
“The Third Man is a 1949 film noir directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene, and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles and Trevor Howard. Set in post-World War II Allied-occupied Vienna, the film centres on American writer Holly Martins (Cotten), who arrives in the city to accept a job with his friend Harry Lime (Welles), only to learn that he has died. Martins stays in Vienna to investigate Lime's death…
The use of black-and-white German expressionist-influenced cinematography by Robert Krasker, with its harsh lighting and Dutch angles, is a major feature of The Third Man. Combined with the use of ruined locations in Vienna, the style evokes exhaustion and cynicism at the start of the Cold War.
…
Production
...In 1948, Greene met Elizabeth Montagu in Vienna; she gave him tours of the city, its sewers, and some of its less reputable nightclubs. She also introduced Greene to Peter Smolka, the central European correspondent for The Times, who gave Greene stories about the black market in Vienna.
…
Through the years there was occasional speculation that Welles was the de facto director of The Third Man rather than Reed. Jonathan Rosenbaum's 2007 book Discovering Orson Welles calls this a "popular misconception…(”and) in a 1967 interview…Welles said that his involvement was minimal: "It was Carol's picture".
…
Principal photography
Six weeks of principal photography were shot on location in Vienna…
The scenes of Harry Lime in the sewer were shot on location or on sets built at Shepperton; most of the location shots used doubles for Welles. However, Reed claimed that, despite initial reluctance, Welles quickly became enthusiastic and stayed in Vienna to finish the film.
…
Differences between releases
As the original British release begins, the voice of director Carol Reed (uncredited) describes post-war Vienna from a racketeer's point of view. The version shown in American cinemas cut eleven minutes of footage and replaced Reed's voice-over with narration by Cotten as Holly Martins. Selznick instituted the replacement narration because he did not think American audiences would relate to the seedy tone of the original.
…
Roger Ebert wrote that "…It was a rainy day in Paris in 1962, and I was visiting Europe for the first time. A little cinema on the Left Bank was showing The Third Man, and I went, into the humid cave of Gauloise smoke and perspiration, and saw the movie for the first time. When Welles made his entrance, I was lost to the movies." He added it to his canon of "Great Movies" and wrote, "Of all the movies that I have seen, this one most completely embodies the romance of going to the movies." In a 1994 episode of Siskel & Ebert, Ebert named Lime as his favourite film villain. "


Runtime: 108 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9yyDEDGlr0
Mark Kermode review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia5GGD4zCtU

[Robert the List]

23. Late Spring 1949 Japan Yasujirō Ozu ESSENTIAL

Late Spring is the ultimate family feelgood movie. The upbeat score plays an important role in the mood as does the often beaming smile of the lead actress Setsuko Hara.
There are many wonderful scenes and moments in this film, which wraps you up like a bowl of warm porridge by the fireside after stepping in from a cold night. It also has a soft sense of humour, as a part of the warmth.
The imagery is masterful, beautiful and stunning. No director has achieved a sense of depth and perspective as Ozu did, and never more than in this film. I’ve seen it pointed out that in some scenes there are I think 5 layers from foreground to background. Some of the shots and images are amongst the greatest and most iconic in film history.
If there is a Kabuki/Japanese theatre performance to rival that in ‘Chrysanthemums’ then it’s the pivotal scene in this film.
The ending is a small slice of genius, the poignance of which suddenly becomes apparent in the final moment.
It’s a simply wonderful film.

Wikipedia:
“Late Spring (晩春, Banshun) is a 1949 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu and written by Ozu and Kogo Noda, based on the short novel Father and Daughter (Chichi to musume) by the 20th-century novelist and critic Kazuo Hirotsu. The film was written and shot during the Allied Powers' Occupation of Japan and was subject to the Occupation's official censorship requirements. Starring Chishū Ryū, who was featured in almost all of the director's films, and Setsuko Hara, marking her first of six appearances in Ozu's work, it is the first installment of Ozu’s so-called "Noriko trilogy", succeeded by Early Summer (Bakushu, 1951) and Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari, 1953); in each of which Hara portrays a young woman named Noriko, though the three Norikos are distinct, unrelated characters, linked primarily by their status as single women in postwar Japan.
Late Spring belongs to the type of Japanese cinema known as shomin-geki, a genre that deals with the ordinary daily lives of working class and middle class people of modern times.
…
Production
The Occupation censorship
Censorship problems with Late Spring
The central event of Late Spring is the marriage of the heroine to a man she has met only once through a single arranged meeting. This immediately presented a problem for the censors of the American Occupation. According to film scholar Kyoko Hirano, these officials "considered feudalistic the Japanese custom of arranged meetings for prospective marriage partners, miai, because the custom seemed to them to downgrade the importance of the individual." Hirano notes that, had this policy against showing arranged marriages onscreen been rigidly enforced, Late Spring could never have been made. In the original synopsis (which the filmmakers were required to submit to the censorship before production could be approved), Noriko’s decision to marry was presented as a collective family decision, not an individual choice, and the censors apparently rejected this.
The synopsis explained that the trip to Kyoto by father and daughter, just prior to Noriko’s marriage, occurs so she can visit her dead mother’s grave. This motivation is absent from the finished film, possibly because the censors would have interpreted such a visit as “ancestor worship,” a practice they frowned upon.
Any reference in the script to the devastation caused by the American bombings was removed.
The censors at first automatically deleted a reference in the script to the Hollywood star Gary Cooper, but then reinstated it when they realized that the comparison was to Noriko’s (unseen) suitor Satake, who is described by the female characters as attractive, and was thus flattering to the American actor.
At the script phase of the censorship process, the censors demanded that the character of Aunt Masa, who at one point finds a lost change purse on the ground and keeps it as a kind of good-luck charm, should be shown handing over the purse to the police. Ozu responded by turning the situation, in the finished film, into a kind of running gag in which Shukichi repeatedly (and futilely) urges his sister to turn the purse in to the police. This change has been called "a mocking kind of partial compliance with the censorship."
Ozu's alleged "subversion" of censorship
One scholar, Lars-Martin Sorensen, has claimed that Ozu's partial aim in making the film was to present an ideal of Japan at odds with that which the Occupation wanted to promote, and that he successfully subverted the censorship in order to accomplish this…
…
On the other hand, Late Spring, more than any other film Ozu made, is suffused with the symbols of Japanese tradition: the tea ceremony that opens the film, the temples at Kamakura, the Noh performance that Noriko and Shukichi witness, and the landscape and Zen gardens of Kyoto.
Sorensen argues that these images of historical landmarks "were intended to inspire awe and respect for the treasures of ancient Japan in contrast to the impurity of the present."
…Sorensen concludes that such censorship may not necessarily be a bad thing. "One of the positive side effects of being prohibited from airing one's views openly and directly is that it forces artists to be creative and subtle in their ways of expression."
…
Narrative, themes and characterization
Narrative strategies
The films of Yasujirō Ozu are well known for their unusual approach to film narrative. Scenes that most filmmakers would consider obligatory (e.g., the wedding of Noriko) are often not shown at all, while apparently extraneous incidents (e.g., the concert attended by Hattori but not Noriko) are given seemingly inordinate prominence. Sometimes important narrative information is withheld not only from a major character, but from the viewer, such as the news of Hattori’s engagement, about which neither Noriko’s father nor the audience has any knowledge until Noriko, laughing, informs him. And at times, the filmmaker proceeds, within a scene, to jump from one time frame to another without transition, as when two establishing shots of some travellers waiting for a train on a platform lead to a third shot of the same train already on its way to Tokyo.
…
Major themes
The following represents what some critics regard as important themes in this film.
Marriage
The main theme of Late Spring is marriage: specifically, the persistent attempts by several characters in the film to get Noriko married. The marriage theme was a topical one for Japanese of the late 1940s. On January 1, 1948, a new law had been issued which allowed young people over twenty to marry consensually without parental permission for the first time…
Marriage in this film, as well as many of Ozu’s late films, is strongly associated with death… The comparison between weddings and funerals is not merely a clever device on Ozu’s part, but is so fundamental a concept in Japanese culture that these ceremonies as well as those surrounding births have built-in similarities… The sadness arises because the marriage of the younger generation inevitably reflects on the mortality of the older generation."
…
Tradition vs. modernity
The tension between tradition and modern pressures in relation to marriage—and, by extension, within Japanese culture as a whole—is one of the major conflicts Ozu portrays in the film. Sorensen indicates by several examples that what foods a character eats or even how he or she sits down…reveals the relationship of that character to tradition…Throughout most of the film, Noriko wears Western clothing rather than a kimono, and outwardly behaves in up-to-date ways. However, Bordwell asserts that "Noriko is more old-fashioned than her father, insisting that he could not get along without her and resenting the idea that a widower might remarry… she clings to an outmoded notion of propriety."
The other two important female characters in the film are also defined in terms of their relation to tradition. Noriko’s Aunt Masa appears in scenes in which she is associated with traditional Japan, such as the tea ceremony in one of the ancient temples of Kamakura. Noriko’s friend Aya, on the other hand, seems to reject tradition entirely. Aya had taken advantage of the new liberal divorce laws to end her recent marriage. Thus, she is presented as a new, Westernized phenomenon: the divorcee. She "takes English tea with milk from teacups with handles, [and] also bakes shortcake (shaato keeki)," a very un-Japanese type of food.
…
Sorensen has summed up the ambiguous position of both father and daughter in relation to tradition as follows: "Noriko and [Professor] Somiya interpolate between the two extremes, between shortcake and Nara-pickles, between ritually prepared green tea and tea with milk, between love marriage/divorce and arranged marriage, between Tokyo and Nara. And this interpolation is what makes them complex characters, wonderfully human in all their internal inconsistencies, very Ozu-like and likable indeed."
The home
…
The season and sexuality
Late Spring is the first of several extant Ozu films with a "seasonal" title… The "late spring" of the title refers on the most obvious level to Noriko who, at 27, is in the "late spring" of her life, and approaching the age at which she would no longer be considered marriageable.
…However, there may be another meaning to Ozu's title derived from ancient Japanese culture. When Noriko and Shukichi attend the Noh play, the work performed is called Kakitsubata or "The Water Iris." (The water iris in Japan is a plant which blooms, usually in marshland or other moist soil, in mid-to-late-spring.) In this play, a traveling monk arrives at a place called Yatsuhashi, famous for its water irises, when a woman appears….The monk stays the night at the humble hut of the woman, who then appears in an elaborate kimono and headdress and reveals herself to be the spirit of the water iris. …
As Norman Holland explains in an essay on the film, "the iris is associated with late spring, the movie’s title", and the play contains a great deal of sexual and religious symbolism. The iris' leaves and flower are traditionally seen as representing the male and female genitalia, respectively. The play itself is traditionally seen, according to Holland, as "a tribute to the union of man and woman leading to enlightenment."
…
Major characters
Late Spring has been particularly praised for its focus on character, having been cited as "one of the most perfect, most complete, and most successful studies of character ever achieved in Japanese cinema."…
…Robin Wood…states that "Noriko" "has managed to retain and develop the finest humane values which the modern capitalist world… tramples underfoot—consideration, emotional generosity, the ability to care and empathize, and above all, awareness."
…
Ozu's use of the camera
Low angle
…
There has been no critical consensus as to why Ozu consistently employed the low camera angle. Bordwell suggests that his motive was primarily visual, because the angle allowed him to create distinctive compositions within the frame and "make every image sharp, stable and striking."… Another critic believes that the ultimate purpose of the low camera position was to allow the audience to assume "a viewpoint of reverence" towards the ordinary people in his films, such as Noriko and her father.
Static camera
Ozu was widely noted for a style characterized by a frequent avoidance of the kinds of camera movements—such as panning shots, tracking shots or crane shots—employed by most film directors.
… Bordwell notes that, of all the common technical practices that Ozu refused to emulate, he was "most absolute" in refusing to reframe (for example, by panning slightly) the moving human figure in order to keep it in view; this critic claims that there is not a single reframing in all of Ozu's films from 1930 on. In the late films (that is, those from Late Spring on), the director "will use walls, screens, or doors to block off the sides of the frame so that people walk into a central depth," thus maintaining focus on the human figure without any motion of the camera.
The filmmaker would paradoxically retain his static compositions even when a character was shown walking or riding, by moving the camera with a dolly at the precise speed at which the actor or actors moved. He would drive his devoted cameraman, Yuharu Atsuta, to tears by insisting that actors and technicians count their steps precisely during a tracking shot so that the movements of actors and camera could be synchronized.
Speaking of the bicycle ride to the beach early in the story, Peña notes: "It’s almost as if Noriko [on her bicycle] doesn’t seem to be moving, or Hattori’s not moving because his place within the frame remains constant… These are the sort of visual idiosyncrasies that make Ozu’s style so interesting and so unique in a way, to give us movement and at the same time to undercut movement."

Ozu's use of actors
Virtually all actors who worked with Ozu—including Chishu Ryu, who collaborated with the director on almost all his films—agree that he was an extremely demanding taskmaster. He would direct very simple actions by the performer "to the centimeter." As opposed to those of both Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, Ozu's characters, according to Sato, are "usually calm... they not only move at the same pace but also speak at the same measured rate."
He insisted that his actors express emotions through action, even rote action, rather than by directly expressing their innermost feelings. Once, when the distinguished character actress ...
Editing
…overriding tempo even determined how the sets were constructed…he would measure the number of seconds it took someone to walk upstairs and so the set had to be constructed accordingly…Sato says about this tempo that "it is a creation in which time is beautifully apprehended in conformity with the physiology of daily occurrences."
A striking fact about Ozu's late films (of which Late Spring is the first instance) is that transitions between scenes are accomplished exclusively through simple cuts. According to one commentator, the lost work, The Life of an Office Worker (Kaishain seikatsu, 1929), contained a dissolve, and several extant Ozu films of the 1930s (e.g., Tokyo Chorus and The Only Son) contain some fades. But by the time of Late Spring, these were completely eliminated, with only music cues to signal scene changes.
…”

Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSpQkqFM7U0

[Robert the List]

24. Little Fugitive 1953 USA Morris Engel

Wikipedia says it all really, and I’m especially taken by the fact that the film is cited as the inspiration for the French New Wave. I’d also observe that the fact that Engel was a photographer is apparent from some of the gorgeously framed and lit shots in the movie.

Wikipedia:
“Little Fugitive is a 1953 American independent drama film co-written and co-directed by Raymond Abrashkin (credited as Ray Ashley), Morris Engel, and Ruth Orkin, which tells the story of a child alone on Coney Island. It stars Richie Andrusco as the title character, and Richard Brewster as his older brother. …
An acknowledged influence on the French New Wave, the film is considered by modern-day critics to be a landmark film because of its naturalistic style and groundbreaking use of nonprofessional actors in lead roles. …
…Production notes
The film was filmed on location at Coney Island and in Brooklyn using a unique concealed strap-on camera, which made it possible for Engel to work without a tripod or a large crew and allowed him to have thousands of beach-going New Yorkers as extras without their knowing it…The camera could be seen as a prototype for the Steadicam and was designed by Engel and his friend the inventor Charlie Woodruff, a fellow World War II combat photographer who Engel called a "mechanical and engineering genius." Over the years, filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick and Jean-Luc Godard reportedly were eager to borrow this unique camera.
…
Film teacher Joel Schlemowitz says, "The film’s storyline, about a young boy gone on the lam among the boardwalk, beach, and amusements of Coney Island, provided the opportunity to film in situations well matched to this unobtrusive camera's virtues. The Rolleiflex-inspired chest-level configuration also assisted in giving the film its sense of visual rapport with the film's child actor, placing the camera at eye level with the youngster's view of the world."

...Critical response
…François Truffaut was inspired by its spontaneous production style when making The 400 Blows (1959), and he said years later that "Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn't been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with [this] fine movie."
Modern critics have also praised the film. Dennis Schwartz called it "A remarkable indy classic, made on a shoestring budget by a group of still photographers. It's an affecting lyrical comedy-drama that fully captures the flavor of urban childhood innocence of the 1950s. [...] The dialogue was sparse, the story was unambitious, the film lacked drama, the children were very ordinary and their problem was only a minor one, nevertheless this beautifully realized film caught the world through the innocent eyes of a curious and scared child and left an impression that was hard to shake. It was uplifting to watch because the effort was so genuine."

…
When the film was screened in New York after Engel's death in 2005, film critic Joshua Land wrote: "Little Fugitive shines as a beautifully shot document of a bygone Brooklyn—any drama here resides in the grainy black-and-white cinematography, with its careful attention to the changes in light brought on by the inexorably advancing sun [...] Filled with 'Aw, fellas!' period ambience and the mythic imagery of cowboys and horses, comics and baseball, it's a key proto-vérité slice of urban America.""

Runtime 1 hour 20 minutes
Full movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L71TrMj0BA

[Robert the List]

25. On the Waterfront 1954 USA Elia Kazan

It’s a riveting drama. The cinematography/camerawork is often stunning. Lauded for introducing an American version of neo-realism to Hollywood, it provides a gritty realism that American filmgoers weren’t used to. I find some of the acting of some of the smaller parts to be not all that great, but Brando and Saint are both excellent.

Wikipedia:
“On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning and Eva Marie Saint in her film debut. The musical score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The black-and-white film was inspired by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November–December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting…The film focuses on union violence and corruption among longshoremen, while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.,,,
Plot
New York prizefighter Terry Malloy's career was cut short when he purposely lost a fight at the request of mob boss Johnny Friendly. Terry now works for Friendly's labor union as a longshoreman while his older, more educated brother Charley is Friendly's right-hand man. Terry is coerced into luring fellow worker Joey Doyle onto a rooftop, where he believes Friendly's henchmen want to talk Joey out of testifying to the Waterfront Crime Commission. When they instead murder Joey by throwing him off the roof, Terry confronts Friendly, but is threatened and bribed into acquiescence.
Joey's sister Edie and priest Father Barry try to inspire the dockworkers to stand up to Friendly. Terry attends the meeting as a snitch, but when it is violently broken up by Friendly's men, he helps Edie escape and misses Father Barry convincing one worker to testify. After the testimony, the worker is killed in a staged workplace accident.
Terry's unwillingness to testify is softened by his growing feelings for Edie, and her and Father Barry’s pursuit of justice. He confesses his role in Joey's death to both. Shocked by this, Edie distances herself from him.
Friendly sends Charley with a job offer to keep Terry quiet. Knowing refusal will get Terry killed, Charley urges him to comply. When Terry expresses regret about throwing his best fight and blames Charley for setting up the fix, Charley hands him a gun and tells him to run. Terry finds Edie and they kiss. After hearing someone in the street, they find Charley murdered.
Determined to kill Friendly, Terry is convinced by Father Barry to instead testify in court. Following the hearing, Friendly loses his powerful connections and faces indictment.
When he is excluded from the next hiring call at the harbor, Terry confronts Friendly together with the other workers, saying that he is proud of testifying and no longer betraying himself. After seeing Terry get beaten severely by Friendly’s thugs, the longshoremen refuse to work without him and renounce Friendly, wishing to run the union "on the up-and-up". Encouraged by Edie and Father Barry, Terry stumbles to the warehouse. The men follow him inside and the door closes, leaving Friendly outside, ignored by the workers and shippers.
Production
…The film is widely considered to be Elia Kazan's answer to those who criticized him for identifying eight Communists in the film industry before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1952. One of Kazan's critics was his friend and collaborator, the noted playwright Arthur Miller, who had earlier written the first version of the script, originally titled The Hook. Kazan had agreed to direct it, and in 1951 they met with Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures about making the picture. Cohn agreed in principle to make The Hook, but there were concerns about the portrayal of corrupt union officials. When Cohn asked that the antagonists be changed to Communists, Miller refused. Cohn sent a letter telling Miller it was interesting he had resisted Columbia's desire to make the movie "pro-American". Kazan asked Miller to rewrite the script; Miller declined due to his disenchantment with Kazan's friendly testimony before the HUAC. Kazan then replaced Miller with Budd Schulberg. The screenwriter later recalled how he had researched the story on the docks: "I spent two years down there. I sat in on meetings the rebels held and roamed about the waterfront bars. I saw what a shapeup was like. I would report back to Kazan on what I had seen. Kazan made many suggestions in the course of my writing."
Cobb's character of Johnny Friendly was partly modeled on Johnny Dio, a real-life mobster known for involvement in labor racketeering.
Casting
According to Richard Schickel in his biography of Kazan, Marlon Brando initially declined the role of Terry Malloy, and Frank Sinatra (a native of Hoboken, where the film was being made) then had "a handshake deal" – but no formally signed contract – to play the part, even attending an initial costume fitting. But Kazan still favored Brando for the role, partly because casting Brando would assure a larger budget for the picture…. Brando's agent, Jay Kanter… convinced Brando to reconsider his refusal. Within a week, Brando signed a contract to perform in the film. At that point, a furious Sinatra demanded to be cast in the role of Father Barry, the waterfront priest. It was left to Spiegel to break the news to Sinatra that Malden had been signed for this role.
Filming locations
On the Waterfront was filmed over 36 days on location in various places in Hoboken, New Jersey, including the docks, workers' slum dwellings, bars, littered alleys, and rooftops. The church used for exterior scenes in the film was the historic Our Lady of Grace, built in 1874, while the interiors were shot at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul at 400 Hudson Street.
Reception
…Praising Brando in 2004, director Martin Scorsese noted: "Everything that we know about the power of great screen acting relates back to him: when you watch his work in On the Waterfront ... you're watching the purest poetry imaginable, in dynamic motion". Kazan, the director of the film, would later write in his book, "If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film in America, I don't know what it is."
Al Pacino, recounting his own memories on first seeing On the Waterfront, told Playboy in a 1979 interview that he concentrated more on the lead actor than the film itself, "I couldn't move. I couldn't leave the theatre. I'd never seen the like of it."…In a eulogy for Brando, Jack Nicholson described his display "probably the height of any age", and added that, "You just couldn't take your eyes off the guy. He was spellbinding."


Runtime 1 hour 48 minutes
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOOI2Cnhgdk

[Robert the List]

26. Rear Window 1954 USA Alfred Hitchcock

It’s a classic. It looks great. The tension builds fantastically. It’s a tough ask getting sexual tension out of James Stewart, but by got Grace Kelly nearly manages it.

Wikipedia:
“Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes, based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder”
…
Analysis
Rear Window is filmed almost entirely within Jeff's apartment and from his near-static point-of-view at his window. ...
Voyeurism
John Fawell notes in Dennis Perry's book Hitchcock and Poe: The Legacy of Delight and Terror that Hitchcock "recognized that the darkest aspect of voyeurism ... is our desire for awful things to happen to people ... to make ourselves feel better, and to relieve ourselves of the burden of examining our own lives."
Hitchcock challenges the audience, forcing them to peer through his rear window and become exposed to, as Donald Spoto calls it…the "social contagion" of acting as voyeur.
…
Filming
The film was shot entirely at stage 17 at Paramount Studios which included an enormous indoor set to replicate a Greenwich Village courtyard, with the set stretching from the bottom of the basement storeroom to the top of the lighting grid in the ceiling. The lighting was rigged with four interchangeable scene lighting arrangements: morning, afternoon, evening, and night-time. Set designers Hal Pereira and Joseph MacMillan Johnson spent six weeks building the extremely detailed and complex set, which ended up being the largest of its kind at Paramount. One of the unique features of the set was its massive drainage system, constructed to accommodate the rain sequence in the film…
In addition to the meticulous care and detail put into the set, careful attention was also given to sound, including the use of natural sounds and music that would drift across the courtyard and into Jefferies' apartment. …”

Runtime 1 hour 51 minutes
Clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRxla_BS3rI

[Robert the List]

27. Journey to Italy 1954 Italy Roberto Rossellini

I find it visually beautiful. The overall appearance seems somehow exceptional, and there are many gorgeous shots.
I enjoy the atmosphere of it, which seems to be a step towards slow cinema. It has a clean and pleasant simplicity about it. Bergman is fabulous as always. The study of the failing relationship and their feelings of boredom yet emotional dependency on one another is interesting and contemplative. It's difficult to identify, but it is somehow one of my favourites.

Wikipedia:
"Journey to Italy, also known as Voyage to Italy, is a 1954 drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini. Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders play Katherine and Alex Joyce, a childless English married couple on a trip to Italy whose marriage is on the point of collapse… Although the film was an Italian production, its dialogue was in English. The first theatrical release was in Italy under the title Viaggio in Italia; the dialogue had been dubbed into Italian.
Journey to Italy is considered by many to be Rossellini's masterpiece, as well as a seminal work of modernist cinema due to its loose storytelling.
…
Production
…
Rossellini's directorial style was very unusual. The actors did not receive their lines until shortly before filming of a particular scene, which left them little if any chance to prepare or rehearse…

Theatrical releases
…The receipts and critical reception were poor. The film had been dubbed into Italian, and now is used as an example of "monstrous" difficulties with dubbing. In April 1955, an 88-minute version of the film, in English, was released in France as L'Amour est le plus fort. There was little interest in the film in the U.S. and Britain despite the fact that the film had been made in English with noted actors in the leads. An American version, with an 80-minute running time, had a limited release in 1955 with the title Strangers. In Britain, a cut version (70 minutes) was released in 1958 under the title The Lonely Woman.

Reception and significance
….It had a profound influence, however, on New Wave filmmakers working in the 1950s and 1960s. As described six decades later by film critic John Patterson: "French critics at the Cahiers du Cinéma – the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol – all saw it as the moment when poetic cinema grew up and became indisputably modern. Journey to Italy is thus one wellspring of the French New Wave. A film convulsed by themes of sterility, petrification, pregnancy and eternity, it finds its echo in such death-haunted Nouvelle Vague masterpieces as Chabrol's Le Boucher and Truffaut's La Chambre Verte."
…Today, Journey to Italy generally is regarded as a landmark film. Critic Geoff Andrew referred to it as "a key stepping stone on the path to modern cinema" in its shift away from neorealism, and A.O. Scott notes Rossellini's "way of dissolving narrative into atmosphere, of locating drama in the unspoken inner lives of his characters"; because Alex and Katherine are not developed through a conventional plot but instead spend lengthy amounts of time in boredom and dejection, the film frequently is cited as a major influence on the dramas of Michelangelo Antonioni and later works about modern malaise.”

Runtime 1 hour 25 minutes
Full movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDoF3uk9aWY

[Robert the List]

28. La Pointe Courte 1955 France Agnès Varda

Experimental, imaginative, influential and beautiful. All on a shoe string.

Wikipedia:
“La Pointe Courte is a 1955 French drama film directed by Agnès Varda (in her feature film directorial debut). It has been cited by many critics as a forerunner of the French New Wave, with the historian Georges Sadoul calling it "truly the first film of the nouvelle vague". The film takes place in Sète in the south of France. The Pointe Courte ("short point") is a tiny quarter of the town known as the fisherman's village.

Plot
A young woman arrives on the Paris train at the port of Sète, where she is met by her husband who grew up there. Not sure whether she wants to continue their marriage, she has come to talk it through. As the couple wander around the fishermen's quarter, the film shows the life of its inhabitants..
Themes
...In the magazine Cineaste, movie journalist Jonathan Kirshner pointed out themes in La Pointe Courte that Varda would revisit in later films, namely "a blend of documentary and fiction, detailed attentiveness to the economic conditions of the working class, subtle observations about the gender dynamics of social and familial relations, and, of course, the notable presence of cats."

Production
Varda originally visited La Pointe Courte to take pictures for a friend who could no longer visit her home. After seeing the footage she took there, she rented a camera to shoot a film about a couple from Paris who were visiting La Pointe Courte, the husband's home town. Varda set up her own co-op and began production. The budget for the film was $14,000; roughly one quarter the budget of other feature films of the era including The 400 Blows and Breathless. No members of the cast or crew were paid during the production. Varda left the artistic direction of the film in the hands of her friend and artist Valentine Schlegel. "


Runtime: 1 hour 26 minutes
Full movie (en francais) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nliCyGIVA_0
Trailer/preview (en anglaise) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yI6eE1kHT8

[Robert the List]

29. Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyijat Ray

I like the simplicity, the rhythm, the imagery, and the sounds. And it's a great achievement to create a masterpiece of cinema on a very low budget.

Wikipedia:

"Pather Panchali (Bengali…transl. Song of the Little Road) is a 1955 Indian Bengali-language drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray in his directoral debut and produced by the Government of West Bengal….The first film in The Apu Trilogy, Pather Panchali depicts the childhood travails of the protagonist Apu and his elder sister Durga amid the harsh village life of their poor family.
The film was shot mainly on location, had a limited budget, featured mostly amateur actors, and was made by an inexperienced crew. Lack of funds led to frequent interruptions in production, which took nearly three years, but the West Bengal government pulled Ray out of debt by buying the film for the equivalent of $60,000, which it turned into a profit of $700,000 by 1980.
The sitar player Ravi Shankar composed the film's soundtrack and score using classical Indian ragas. Subrata Mitra was in charge of the cinematography while editing was handled by Dulal Dutta. Following its premiere on 3 May 1955 during an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art, Pather Panchali was released in Calcutta the same year to an enthusiastic reception. A special screening was attended by the Chief Minister of West Bengal and the Prime Minister of India.
Critics have praised its realism, humanity, and soul-stirring qualities, while others have called its slow pace a drawback, and some have condemned it for romanticising poverty. Scholars have commented on the film's lyrical quality and realism (influenced by Italian neorealism), its portrayal of the poverty and small delights of daily life...
...Pather Panchali is described as a turning point in Indian cinema, as it was among the films that pioneered the Parallel cinema movement, which espoused authenticity and social realism. The first film from independent India to attract major international critical attention...

Production
…The Bengali word path literally means path, and pather means "of the path". Panchali is a type of narrative folk song that used to be performed in Bengal…

Filming
….The technical team included several first-timers, including Ray himself and cinematographer Subrata Mitra, who had never operated a film camera….
…As the 21-year-old Mitra had no prior filmmaking experience, the choice was met with scepticism by those who knew of the production. Mitra himself later speculated that Ray was nervous about working with an established crew.
Funding was a problem from the outset. No producer was willing to finance the film, as it lacked stars, songs and action scenes….Ray thus had to borrow money to shoot enough footage to persuade prospective producers to finance the whole film. To raise funds, he continued to work as a graphic designer, pawned his life insurance policy and sold his collection of gramophone records.
Production manager Anil Chowdhury convinced Ray's wife, Bijoya, to pawn her jewels. Ray still ran out of money partway through filming, which had to be suspended for nearly a year. Thereafter shooting was done only in intermittent bursts. Ray later admitted that the delays had made him tense and that three miracles saved the film: "One, Apu's voice did not break. Two, Durga did not grow up. Three, Indir Thakrun did not die".
Bidhan Chandra Roy, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, was requested by an influential friend of Ray's mother to help the production. The Chief Minister obliged, and government officials saw the footage. The Home Publicity Department of the West Bengal government assessed the cost of backing the film and sanctioned a loan, given in instalments, allowing Ray to finish production. The government misunderstood the nature of the film, believing it to be a documentary for rural uplift, and recorded the loan as being for "roads improvement", a reference to the film's title.
Monroe Wheeler, head of the department of exhibitions and publications at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), who was in Calcutta in 1954, heard about the project and met Ray. He considered the incomplete footage to be of very high quality and encouraged Ray to finish the film so that it could be shown at a MoMA exhibition the following year. Six months later, American director John Huston visited India for some early location scouting for The Man Who Would Be King (eventually made in 1975). Wheeler had asked Huston to check the progress of Ray's project. Huston saw excerpts of the unfinished film and recognised "the work of a great film-maker". Because of Huston's positive feedback, MoMA helped Ray with additional money….

Soundtrack
…The soundtrack of the film was composed by the sitar player Ravi Shankar, who was at an early stage of his career, having debuted in 1939. The background scores feature pieces based on several ragas of Indian classical music, played mostly on the sitar…

Release and reception
…Ray and his crew worked long hours on post-production, managing to submit it just in time for Museum of Modern Art's Textiles and Ornamental Arts of India exhibition of May 1955. The film, billed as The Story of Apu and Durga, lacked subtitles…
…On 4 May 2015, the restored Pather Panchali premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, a little more than 60 years to the day after the film's world premiere at the same venue.
…
Themes
Author Andrew Robinson, in the book The Apu Trilogy: Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic (2010), notes that it is challenging to narrate the plot of Pather Panchali and the "essence of the film lies in the ebb and flow of its human relationships and in its everyday details and cannot be reduced to a tale of events". …”

Runtime: 2 hours 5 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDjmAhp2r8k

[Robert the List]

Bob Le Flambeur (1956) France Jean Pierre Melville

[Robert the List]

30. The Bridge On The River Kwai 1957 UK David Lean

It’s 99% baloney. The British say it insults them, the Japanese say it insults them. But as it’s Lean it’s very nice to look at. And in spite of the British stiff upper lip stuff which I find gets more annoying and embarrassing on each watch, it ratchets up the tension masterfully to an iconic climax. By the end we care about these individuals as we do about their mission, and it really hits with a punch. Edge of the seat stuff.

Wikipedia:
“
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean and based on the novel The Bridge over the River Kwai, written by Pierre Boulle. Boulle's novel and the film's screenplay are almost entirely fictional, but use the construction of the Burma Railway, in 1942–1943, as their historical setting. The cast includes William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa.
…
Production
Screenplay
The screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, were on the Hollywood blacklist and, even though living in exile in England, could only work on the film in secret. The two did not collaborate on the script; Wilson took over after Lean was dissatisfied with Foreman's work. The official credit was given to Pierre Boulle (who did not speak English), and the resulting Oscar for Best Screenplay (Adaptation) was awarded to him. Only in 1984 did the Academy rectify the situation by retroactively awarding the Oscar to Foreman and Wilson, posthumously in both cases….
…
Casting
Although Lean later denied it, Charles Laughton was his first choice for the role of Nicholson. Laughton was in his habitually overweight state, and was either denied insurance coverage or was simply not keen on filming in a tropical location…

Filming
…Many directors were considered for the project, among them John Ford, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, Fred Zinnemann, and Orson Welles (who was also offered a starring role).

…Director David Lean clashed repeatedly with his cast members, particularly Guinness and James Donald, who thought the novel was anti-British.
…
The film was made in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka)…
…The filming of the bridge explosion was to be done on 10 March 1957, in the presence of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, then Prime Minister of Ceylon, and a team of government dignitaries. However, cameraman Freddy Ford was unable to get out of the way of the explosion in time, and Lean had to stop filming. The train crashed into a generator on the other side of the bridge and was wrecked. It was repaired in time to be blown up the next morning, with Bandaranaike and his entourage present.
…
Historical accuracy
The River Kwai railway bridge in 2017. The arched sections are original (constructed for the Empire of Japan during the Second World War); the two sections with trapezoidal trusses were built by Japan after the war as war reparations, replacing sections destroyed by Allied aircraft.
The plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay were almost entirely fictional….The conditions to which POW and civilian labourers were subjected were far worse than the film depicted....
Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey of the British Army was the real senior Allied officer at the bridge in question….Toosey strove to delay construction. While Nicholson disapproves of acts of sabotage and other deliberate attempts to delay progress, Toosey encouraged this: termites were collected in large numbers to eat the wooden structures, and the concrete was badly mixed.
…Julie Summers, in her book The Colonel of Tamarkan, writes that Boulle, who had been a prisoner of war in Thailand, created the fictional Nicholson character as an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers…
…
Some Japanese viewers resented the movie's depiction of their engineers' capabilities as inferior and less advanced than they were in reality. Japanese engineers had been surveying and planning the route of the railway since 1937, and they had demonstrated considerable skill during their construction efforts across South-East Asia….
The major railway bridge described in the novel and film did not actually cross the river known at the time as the Kwai. However, in 1943 a railway bridge was built by Allied POWs over the Mae Klong river—renamed Khwae Yai in the 1960s as a result of the film—at Tha Ma Kham, five kilometres from Kanchanaburi, Thailand.
Boulle had never been to the bridge. He knew that the railway ran parallel to the Kwae for many miles, and he therefore assumed that it was the Kwae which it crossed just north of Kanchanaburi. This was an incorrect assumption. The destruction of the bridge as depicted in the film is also entirely fictional. In fact, two bridges were built: a temporary wooden bridge and a permanent steel/concrete bridge a few months later. Both bridges were used for two years, until they were destroyed by Allied bombing. The steel bridge was repaired and is still in use today...” "


Runtime: 2 hours 41 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5WlzJvBKQs

[Robert the List]

31. Elevator to the Gallows 1958 France Louis Malle

Maybe best known for its groundbreaking jazz score by Miles Davis, but the film itself is also very worthwhile. There’s some beautiful images (my favourite of the abandoned sports car with the bridge in the background, is an awesome shot), and some shots with unusual camera angles which could be seen as a pre-cursor to New Wave (for example looking down from the top of the telephone box on the callers). The sequences of Jeannie Moreau scouring the town at night looking for her man, are iconic. It’s also an engaging suspense.

Wikipedia:
“[I]Elevator to the Gallows (French: Ascenseur pour l'échafaud), also known as Frantic in the US and Lift to the Scaffold in the UK, is a 1958 French crime thriller film directed by Louis Malle. The film stars Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as illicit lovers whose murder plot starts to unravel after one of them becomes trapped in an elevator.
Associated by some critics with film noir and introducing new narrative, cinematographic, and editing techniques, the film is considered an important work in establishing the French New Wave and the New Modern Cinema. The improvised soundtrack by Miles Davis and the relationship the film establishes among music, image, and emotion were considered groundbreaking.
…
Production
This low-budget black-and-white production was 24-year-old Louis Malle's first feature film…
Malle cast Jeanne Moreau after seeing her in the Paris stage production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She had already been in a number of films, but her role in this film is often considered her breakthrough. Malle filmed her without the heavy makeup and extreme lighting that previous directors had demanded. Scenes of Moreau wandering down the Champs Elysees at night were shot on fast film from a baby carriage using only available light from the street and shop windows.
…Miles Davis's score for the film is considered by many to be groundbreaking, with jazz critic Phil Johnson describing it as "the loneliest trumpet sound you will ever hear, and the model for sad-core music ever since. Hear it and weep."
Richard Brody, film critic and writer for The New Yorker, wrote that the score itself is "better than the film, by far".
Organising the recording
In 1957, Davis, an already well known and highly regarded jazz performer and composer, received an invitation to perform in a three-week tour of Europe as a solo artist. Davis had just abandoned his first great quintet of 1955–56, including saxophone player John Coltrane, due to their addiction to heroin. He was beginning to try and live a healthier life, although he was still using cocaine. Additionally, Davis, during his time performing, had been experiencing an immense amount of racism and enjoyed the chance to leave the United States for a while.
Marcel Romano, promoter and jazz enthusiast, picked Davis up from the airport in November 1957 with the initial intention of telling him he would feature in a film about jazz. However, this plan fell through before Davis even arrived. Instead, film technician Jean-Claude Rappeneau…mentioned that he had been working on a feature film with young director Louis Malle who had an interest in jazz music. Romano told Davis about the film and said Davis seemed interested in the project, so they organised a private screening for him. Davis took notes, asking questions about the relationships between the characters and explanations of the plot. He later wrote in his autobiography that he agreed to the job because he had never written music for a film before and it would be "a great learning experience"
While touring Europe, Davis asked that a piano be brought to his hotel room. Over the next two weeks, he began to improvise some themes that would be used in the film. Davis chose to use musicians he had been performing with on his European tour…

On 4 December 1957 at 10 p.m., Davis and his band went to the Le Poste Parisien studios to record the score. The band drank together for an hour, played for four hours, then took two hours of editing, and left the studio by 5 a.m. the next day having finished the film score.
…
Legacy of the score
…This style of music would influence not only future jazz musicians but the sound of film noir itself. Richard Brody highlights this in his article, writing, "The use of jazz and jazz-derived soundtracks became so predominant, that jazz came to seem like the natural backdrop for high-speed chases, mass mayhem, and cold-blooded murder, because the films for which jazz players were enlisted were uniformly violent.""

Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euB6PWW6tcI
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OKQdp6iGUk

[Robert the List]

32. The Music Room 1958 India Satyajit Ray

The film is set in the fading palace of a Prince who is descended from several generations of nobility, who are accustomed to great wealth and taking opulence for granted. The film opens with the Prince being told by his loyal manservant that the bank has declined to offer additional credit, leaving him to finance his affairs by selling off the remaining items of the family’s valuable jewellery. A potential opportunity of salvation arrives in the form of a neighbour whose business activities have brought him ‘new money’ and who is eager to win favour with the Prince whose heritage he greatly admires. The Prince however squanders the chance, preferring to compete with the neighbour over which of them can host the parties with the most expensive musical performers. Various family tragedies also occur.
It's a tale of morality, spliced with performances of traditional Indian music and dance.
The lead actor is perfectly cast as the arrogant Prince, in fact all play their parts excellently, down to the dancers and various extras at the parties, and the film is rich with striking visuals.

Wikipedia:
“Jalsaghar[1] (Bengali: জলসাঘর Jalsāghar, lit. 'The Music Room') is a 1958 Indian Bengali drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, based on a popular short story by Bengali writer Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay, and starring Chhabi Biswas. The fourth of Ray's feature films…
…
Production
…Ray desperately needed a hit, and he decided to make a film that both was based on a popular piece of literature and would incorporate Indian music. It was his first film to extensively incorporate classical Indian music and dancing…”

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQYVtTzXRQg
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atIt8sW23Co

[Robert the List]

Touch of Evil 1958 USA Orson Welles

I have never really ‘got’ Welles as a director. I respect Citizen Kane, but I don’t see it as the greatest film ever made as many do, or even the greatest black and white talkie made before 1942. I don’t get the fuss about Ambersons. I rate The Third Man very highly, but he didn’t direct that. I like parts of The Lady From Shanghai, and the final scene in the fairground is sensational, but there are some very weak parts to the film as well I find. I’ve rated him as an actor, apart from that appalling Irish accent in Shanghai, and also recognised that his performance in Touch of Evil was excellent (quite aside from the astonishing amount of weight he put on for it), and that it is an excellent film.
But it’s only watching it on the big screen that I’ve realised how excellent it is.

Nobody else barely clapped. I clapped above my head and even appreciating the pointlessness of doing so nearly 70 years after it was made and all involved long gone, I still wanted to give it a standing ovation.

Touch of Evil is a masterpiece without question.
In fact right now I think that Touch of Evil is probably the greatest American movie ever made.
I have it as a viable candidate amongst a very small number of films, for the greatest film ever made.

It was very close to making my 100 list (which is going to require some amendments), but I ruled it out because of the receptionist guy in the hotel which I thought was so hammed up to be laughable. But as I'll mention below I recognise now that the film is part caricature, and I can just about accept that role now as its played within that part of the style.

In fact in that context, I can recognise it as a well played part. And that's about the lowest praise I would have for any of the cast. If you put these performances together I'd struggle to think of a film to compare with it for acting prowess. Heston I don't think is anything special, I'd put him down as OK. But Dietrich is excellent and Leigh is fantastic; she could have had so much more of a career in acting if she’d prioritised it. Harry Shannon as Welles’ sidekick Chief Gould is superb. Akim Tamiroff as Uncle Joe is sensational. But its still not the best performance in the film, because Orson Welles - whilst directing it too - delivers one of the most iconic and one of the greatest acting performances in the history of the movies. Outstanding doesn't cover it.

In terms of styles, I’d say masters at least 3 individually, and also as a combination, so we could call that 4. There’s the On the Waterfrontesque ‘documentary-like realism’, for example in the scene when Heston and Shannon are in the records office, where I’m thinking of something like Mississippi Burning. There’s the pop art like caricatures. And there’s the technical artistry; the tracking camera shots, the long take in the industrial mill or whatever it is at the end, which reminds of both the big wheel/fairground scene and also the sewers scene in The Third Man. I’m also reminded of of Kalatozov’s Soy Cuba, which I’m sure it influenced. There huge variety in techniques, from the close ups kind of in the style of A Passion of Joan of Arc, to the continuous take traipsing through the mill, to finding ourselves squashed in the elevator with Welles looking through a shaky hand held camera.
All of it works individually, and it works as a whole as well. Like he’s chucked everything he can think of into the cooking pot, given it a stir, and delivered a 5 star Michelin meal.

It’s not just a movie for people who study film making either, it’s a brilliant thriller, building up the tension, with jump out of the seat moments like looking up to see Uncle Joe’s tongue sticking out.

The poignant sign off with Dietrich having the final line bidding adieu, is the last second beautiful garnish or dressing applied to the side of one of the most wonderful tasting dishes ever cooked. Orson Welles was indeed, an arch-genius of film making.

[Robert the List]

33. Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger

Its attitudes to women are at times cringeworthily dated to the 2020s viewer, but if you can get passed that it’s a dynamite courtroom drama, that rollocks along at a cracking pace throughout.

Wikipedia:
“Anatomy of a Murder is a 1959 American legal drama film produced and directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Wendell Mayes was based on the 1958 novel of the same name written by Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker…Voelker based the novel on a 1952 murder case in which he was the defense attorney.
The film stars James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Eve Arden, George C. Scott, …It has a musical score by Duke Ellington, who also appears in the film. It has been described by Michael Asimow, UCLA law professor and co-author of Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies (2006), as "probably the finest pure trial movie ever made".
…
Legal aspects
…
The film examines the apparent fallibility of the human factor in jurisprudence. In various ways all of the human components—the counsel for defense and prosecution, the defendant and his wife, and the witnesses—have their own differing positions on what is right or wrong, and varying perspectives on integrity, justice, morality and ethics. The reliance on credibility of witnesses, and the "finding of facts" based upon those determinations, is the "Achilles heel" of the judicial process.
One controversial legal issue in this film is possible witness coaching, a violation of legal canons...

Reception and legacy
….Variety claimed that the film contained words never before heard in American films with the Motion Picture Production Code seal such as "contraceptive", (sexual) "climax" and "spermatogenesis".
…Anatomy of a Murder has been well received by members of the legal and educational professions. In 1989, the American Bar Association rated this as one of the 12 best trial films of all time. In addition to its plot and musical score, the article noted: "The film's real highlight is its ability to demonstrate how a legal defense is developed in a difficult case. How many trial films would dare spend so much time watching lawyers do what many lawyers do most (and enjoy least) – research?" The film has also been used as a teaching tool in law schools, as it encompasses (from the defense standpoint) all of the basic stages in the U.S. criminal justice system from client interview and arraignment through trial.

…Film critics have noted the moral ambiguity, where a small town lawyer triumphs by guile, stealth and trickery. The film is frank and direct. Language and sexual themes are explicit, at variance with the times (and other films) when it was produced….
…The jazz score of Anatomy of a Murder was composed by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn and played by Ellington's orchestra…”

Running time: 2 hour 40 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwX8NiXv9Hw

[Robert the List]

34. North by Northwest 1959 USA Alfred Hitchcock

There are times where it probably pays not to overthink the plot but to just go with the flow, but it's a gorgeous looking film famed for the best gentlemens' suits in the movies. It's also a ripping yarn and adventure, which ends with a chase across the giant heads of Mount Rushmore. Contains a memorable scene in which Cary Grant is divebombed by a crop dusting aeroplane.

Wikipedia:
“North by Northwest is a 1959 American spy thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason. The original screenplay written by Ernest Lehman was intended to be the basis for "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures".
North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity: an innocent man is pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization that aims to prevent him from blocking their plan to smuggle microfilm containing government secrets out of the country…
Costuming
A panel of fashion experts convened by GQ in 2006 said the gray suit worn by Cary Grant throughout almost the entire film was the best suit in film history, and the most influential on men's style, stating that it has since been copied for Tom Cruise's character in Collateral and Ben Affleck's character in Paycheck. This sentiment has been echoed by writer Todd McEwen, who called it "gorgeous" and wrote a short story, "Cary Grant's Suit", that recounts the film's plot, featuring the suit.
There is some disagreement as to who tailored the suit; Vanity Fair magazine claimed it was Norton & Sons of London, although according to The Independent, it was Quintino of Beverly Hills. Another article states that Grant used his Savile Row tailor, Kilgour French and Stanbury for the suit. A label reading "Quintino" is visible on one of the suits in the film, but this is because Quintino made duplicate suits for scenes involving more activity or stunts.

Editing and post-production
In François Truffaut's book-length interview, Hitchcock/Truffaut (1967), Hitchcock said that MGM wanted North by Northwest cut by 15 minutes so the film's length would run under two hours. Hitchcock had his agent check his contract, learned that he had absolute control over the final cut, and refused.
One of Eva Marie Saint's lines in the dining-car seduction scene was redubbed. She originally said, "I never make love on an empty stomach", but it was changed in post-production to "I never discuss love on an empty stomach", as the censors considered the original version too risqué.
…
Sign near Mount Rushmore
Hitchcock planned the film as a change of pace after his dark romantic thriller Vertigo a year earlier. In his book-length interview Hitchcock/Truffaut (1967) with François Truffaut, Hitchcock said that he wanted to do "something fun, light-hearted, and generally free of the symbolism permeating his other movies." Writer Ernest Lehman has also mocked those who look for symbolism in the film. Despite its popular appeal, the film is considered to be a masterpiece for its themes of deception, mistaken identity, and moral relativism in the Cold War era.
…Hitchcock explained in an interview with Peter Bogdanovich in 1963: "It's a fantasy. The whole film is epitomized in the title—there is no such thing as north-by-northwest on the compass." (The similar "northwest by north" is indeed one of 32 points of the compass.)
Lehman states that he used a working title for the film of In a Northwesterly Direction because the film's action was to begin in New York and climax in Alaska. Then the head of the story department at MGM suggested North by Northwest, but this was still to be a working title. Other titles were considered, including The Man on Lincoln's Nose, but North by Northwest was kept because, according to Lehman, "We never did find a [better] title."
…North by Northwest has been referred to as "the first James Bond film" because of its splashily colorful settings, secret agents, and an elegant, daring, wisecracking leading man opposite a sinister yet strangely charming villain. The crop-duster scene inspired the helicopter chase in From Russia with Love…”

Running time: 2 hour 16 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPNiwc3ogIo

[SpelingError]

Pretty good list so far. Man With a Movie Camera, Vampyr, Meshes of the Afternoon, Out of the Past, Late Spring, and The Bridge on the River Kwai are my favorites of what's been listed so far. I wasn't a fan of Day of Wrath, but it's been awhile since I've seen it. In terms of essential films, I'd say The Passion of Joan of Arc is Dreyer's most important film, even if I prefer Vampyr by a bit. Limite is the biggest surprise of what I've seen so far since it isn't brought up that much.

[Robert the List]

Pretty good list so far. Man With a Movie Camera, Vampyr, Meshes of the Afternoon, Out of the Past, Late Spring, and The Bridge on the River Kwai are my favorites of what's been listed so far. I wasn't a fan of Day of Wrath, but it's been awhile since I've seen it. In terms of essential films, I'd say The Passion of Joan of Arc is Dreyer's most important film, even if I prefer Vampyr by a bit. Limite is the biggest surprise of what I've seen so far since it isn't brought up that much.
Thanks for the comment Speling, and thanks very much for all the likes! It's much appreciated, thank you. Am glad you're approving/enjoying.

On Joan of Arc, I absolutely appreciate the technical excellence of the film. The close up on the face thing had been done by Griffith in Broken Blossoms, but not with the same art or with nearly the same emotional impact. There's some little bits I love, like the torturer with his menacing wheel, the bad guy looking into her cell, and 3 of them positioned back to back side to side in a forerunner of new wave and which I'm sure influenced Agnes Varda. Just for me, I find the whole thing somewhat boring to watch as a whole movie. I find it too samey. Not enough happens (and that's from someone who loves 'slow cinema'). Just my personal feeling although I fully recognise that it could easily belong in a list of 100 greatest films.

The one I am having more 2nd thoughts about leaving out is On the Waterfront.

By the way, in terms of the longshots, as well as (the gorgeous) Limite, I'd also suggest Little Fugitive and Paniue, and maybe La Pointe Courte as coming in that category? And The Great White Silence. Although overall I agree it's fairly conventional.

[Robert the List]

I'm probably at my most unorthodox in the 80s.
I'd say 7 or 8 out of my 12 films are 'unusual'picks.

And in the 70s in terms of what I leave out.

Meanwhile, I currently have 102 films and something of a dilema.

[Robert the List]

I have replaced The Passenger with On the Waterfront.

[Robert the List]

35. The Naked Island 1960 Japan Kaneto Shindô

One of my leading contenders for the greatest movie of all time. You need a good copy as the cinematography is stunning. You might not notice, but it’s a silent film. There’s no spoken dialogue. It’s a story of the life of a hard working family on a remote Japanese island. The parents toil every day to grow (and ultimately) the crops. It’s a story of love, devotion, determination, loss and resilience.

Wikipedia

“The Naked Island (Japanese: 裸の島, romanized: Hadaka no Shima) is a Japanese black-and-white film from 1960, directed by Kaneto Shindō. The film is notable for having almost no spoken dialogue.
Plot
The film depicts a small family, a husband and wife and two sons, struggling to get by on the Seto Inland Sea's Sukune Island [ja] in Mihara, Hiroshima, over the course of a year. They are the island's only occupants, and survive by farming. They must repeatedly carry fresh water for their plants and themselves in a row boat from a neighboring island.
When the boys catch a large fish, the family travels to Onomichi by ferry, where they sell it to a fishmonger, then eat at a modern restaurant, see a television and travel in a cable car.
Later on, while the parents are away from the island, the older son falls ill. The desperate father runs to find a doctor to come to treat his son…
Production
Director and scriptwriter Kaneto Shindo decided to make this film because he wanted to make a film without any dialogue. The independent production company Kindai Eiga Kyokai was close to bankruptcy at the time this film was made, and Shindo sank his last funds into making the film. The film's financial success saved the company.
The lead actor Taiji Tonoyama was suffering from severe liver disease due to alcohol dependence, but recovered his health because there was no alcohol available near the filming location.
...
Shindo deliberately made the actors carry heavily-loaded buckets of water so that the yokes they were using would be seen to bend, symbolizing the harshness of their lives.”

Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GrLWObrHkA
Clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNNl435BIVE

[Robert the List]

36. Psycho 1960 USA Alfred Hitchcock

Wikipedia
“Psycho is a 1960 American horror film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock…
Psycho was seen as a departure from Hitchcock's previous film, North by Northwest (1959), as it was filmed on a small budget in black-and-white by the crew of his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Initially, the film divided critics due to its controversial subject matter, but audience interest and outstanding box-office returns prompted a major critical re-evaluation.
…It has been hailed as a major work of cinematic art by international film critics and scholars who praise its slick direction, tense atmosphere, impressive camerawork, memorable score and iconic performances. It is regarded as "the most heavily analyzed film in the long career of the most investigated director in the history of American film"[ and often ranked among the greatest films of all time. It set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films, and has been considered to be one of the earliest examples of the slasher film genre. …

Production
Development
Psycho is based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same name, loosely inspired by the case of convicted Wisconsin murderer and grave robber Ed Gein. Both Gein, who lived only 40 miles (64 km) from Bloch, and the story's protagonist Norman Bates, were solitary murderers in isolated rural locations. Each had deceased, domineering mothers, had sealed off a room in their home as a shrine to them and dressed in women's clothes. Gein was apprehended after killing only twice.
…
Screenplay…
The screenplay is relatively faithful to the novel, with a few significant changes by Hitchcock and Stefano. Stefano found the character of Norman Bates unsympathetic—in the book, he is middle-aged, overweight and more overtly unstable—but became more intrigued when Hitchcock suggested casting Anthony Perkins. Stefano eliminated Bates' alcoholism, which necessitated removing Bates' "becoming" the mother personality when in a drunken stupor. Also removed was Bates' interest in spiritualism, the occult and pornography. Hitchcock and Stefano elected to open the film with scenes in Marion's life and not introduce Bates at all until the twenty-minute mark, rather than open with Bates reading a history book as Bloch does. Writer Joseph W. Smith observes that Marion's story "occupies only two of the novel's 17 chapters. Hitchcock and Stefano expanded this to nearly half the narrative".
…Stefano was in therapy dealing with his relationship with his own mother while writing the script. The novel is more violent than the film: Marion is decapitated in the shower rather than being stabbed to death. Minor changes include changing Marion's telltale earring found after her death to a scrap of paper that failed to flush down the toilet. This provided some shock effect because toilets were almost never seen in American cinema at the time of the film's release….
Pre-production
Paramount Pictures, whose contract guaranteed another film by Hitchcock, did not want Hitchcock to make Psycho. Paramount was expecting No Bail for the Judge, but Hitchcock scrapped the production after star Audrey Hepburn became pregnant and bowed out. The studio's official stance was that Bloch's book was "too repulsive" and "impossible for films", and nothing but another of Hitchcock's star-studded mystery thrillers would suffice. Paramount did not like "anything about [the book] at all" and denied Hitchcock his usual budget.
….The original Bates Motel and Bates house set buildings, which were constructed on the same stage as Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera (1925), are still standing at the Universal Studios backlot in Universal City near Hollywood and are a regular attraction on the studio's tour.
As a further result of cost-cutting, Hitchcock chose to film Psycho in black-and-white, keeping the budget under $1 million. Among other reasons for shooting in black-and-white were Hitchcock's desire to prevent the shower scene from being too gory.
As a further cost-cutting measure, and because he was most comfortable around them, Hitchcock took most of his crew from his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents…
…Filming
…Nearly the whole film was shot with 50 mm lenses on 35 mm cameras. This provided an angle of view similar to human vision, which helped to further involve the audience.
…Lead actors Perkins and Leigh were given the freedom to interpret their roles and improvise as long as it did not involve moving the camera.
An example of Perkins' improvisation is Norman's habit of eating candy corn. Throughout filming, Hitchcock created and hid various versions of the "Mother corpse" prop in Leigh's dressing room closet. Leigh took the joke well, and wondered whether it was done to keep her in suspense or to judge which corpse would be scarier for the audience.
…Hitchcock was forced uncharacteristically to do retakes for some scenes. The final shot in the shower scene, which starts with an extreme close-up on Marion's eye and zooms in and out, proved difficult for Leigh because the water splashing in her eyes made her want to blink, and the cameraman had trouble as well because he had to manually focus while moving the camera…
…Filming the murder of Arbogast proved problematic, owing to the overhead camera angle necessary to hide the film's twist. A camera track constructed on pulleys alongside the stairway together with a chair-like device had to be constructed and thoroughly tested over a period of weeks.
…Shower scene
...The finished scene runs some three minutes, and its flurry of action and edits has produced contradictory attempts to count its parts. Hitchcock himself contributed to this pattern, telling Truffaut that "there were seventy camera setups for forty-five seconds of footage…Leigh herself was so affected by this scene when she saw it that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to; she would lock all the doors and windows and would leave the bathroom and shower door open.
…
Critical reception
….In his 1998 review of Psycho film critic Roger Ebert summarised the film's enduring appeal, writing:
What makes Psycho immortal, when so many films are already half-forgotten as we leave the theater, is that it connects directly with our fears: Our fears that we might impulsively commit a crime, our fears of the police, our fears of becoming the victim of a madman, and of course our fears of disappointing our mothers.
…
Themes and style…
Light and darkness feature prominently in Psycho....
The film often features shadows, mirrors, windows, and, less so, water....
….
Psychoanalytic interpretation
Psycho has been called "the first psychoanalytical thriller" The sex and violence in the film were unlike anything previously seen in a mainstream film….

Legacy
…The shower scene has become a pop culture touchstone and is often regarded as one of the most iconic moments in cinematic history, as well as the most suspenseful scene ever filmed. Its effectiveness is often credited to the use of startling editing techniques borrowed from the Soviet montage filmmakers, and to the iconic screeching violins in Bernard Herrmann's musical score.
…Psycho is considered by some to be the first film in the slasher film genre, though some critics and film historians point to Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, a lesser-known film with similar themes of voyeurism and sexualized violence, whose release happened to precede Psycho's by a few months….…”

Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz719b9QUqY

[Robert the List]

37. La Notte 1961 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni

It's not a dream in the Mulholland Drive sense, but in the sense that we just watch and listen to things drifting along. One of my favourite sequences is where we follow Moraeu drifting around Milan, a little bit how she drifted around Paris in Elevator to the Gallows. There's some lovely cinematography, including an obviously off the cuff clip of Moreau rubbing her hand on some flaky heavily rusted metal, which Antonioni liked the texture of. There are several well considered and attractive shots of buildings and architecture. In one shot of Moreau crossing the road, Antonioni copies Ozu's shot in Late Spring where his protagonist crosses the road, and the buildings are used to show depth on the shot. In others he uses reflections in glass to create depth and optical illusions. There's a shot of Vitti and Mastroianni where in fact both of them are reflections.
It's a film about atmosphere as much as anything, as well as a study of this married couple, and the use of images in film making.

Wikipedia
“La Notte ([la ˈnɔtte]; English: "The Night") is a 1961 drama film co-written and directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau and Monica Vitti. Filmed on location in Milan, the film depicts a single day and night in the lives of a disillusioned novelist (Mastroianni) and his…wife (Moreau) as they move through various social circles. The film continues Antonioni's technique of abandoning traditional storytelling in favor of visual composition, atmosphere, and mood.
…
Production…
Censorship
When La Notte was first released in Italy in 1960, the Committee for the Theatrical Review of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities rated it as VM16: not suitable for children under 16. In addition, the committee made the following censorship recommendations: 1) the scene at the hospital with Mastroianni and the young lady must end at the moment when the two start to kiss each other; 2) the scene in the dressing room in which it is possible to see the naked breasts of Moreau; 3) the word "whore", said by one of the two ladies walking in the park, must be removed; 4) the final scene in which Mastroianni and Moreau hug each other and start rolling down the grass, the scene can resume when the panning shot shows the landscape without displaying the two actors….
Critical response
…
In his review in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther wrote: "...it is not the situation so much as it is the intimations of personal feelings, doubts and moods that are the substance of the film…Even boredom is made interesting by him. There is, for instance, a sequence in which a sudden downpour turns a listless garden party into a riot of foolish revelry, exposing the lack of stimulation before nature takes a flagellating hand. Or there's a shot of the crumpled wife leaning against a glass wall looking out into the rain that tells in a flash of all her ennui, desolation and despair.”

Running time: 2 hour 02 minutes
Full movie (hard subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDIPFFbmJQ

[Robert the List]

38. Last Year at Marienbad 1961 France Alain Resnais

There is nothing else like it (other than a few similarities in Resnais’s Hiroshima film 1957). It’s gorgeous. It’s thought provoking. It does surprisingly suddenly become an impactful story near to the end, in a similar way to a horror film. The first watch feels like it takes forever (I actually recommend watching in instalments) presumably because your mind is working hard to work out what is going on, but the second viewing flies by.

Wikipedia:
“Last Year at Marienbad (French: L'Année dernière à Marienbad), released in the United Kingdom as Last Year in Marienbad, is a 1961 French New Wave avant-garde psychological drama film directed by Alain Resnais…
Set in a palace in a park that has been converted into a luxury hotel, the film stars Delphine Seyrig and Giorgio Albertazzi as a woman and a man who may have met the year before and may have contemplated or begun an affair, with Sacha Pitoëff as a second man who may be the woman's husband. The characters are unnamed.
Plot
In an ornate baroque hotel populated by wealthy individuals and couples who socialize with one another, a man approaches a woman and claims they met the previous year at a similar resort (possibly Frederiksbad, Karlstadt, Marienbad, or Baden-Salsa) and had an affair. He asserts that she responded to his request to run away together by asking him to wait a year. The woman, however, insists she has never met the man. He attempts to remind her of their shared past, while she rebuffs him and contradicts his accounts. Between interactions with the woman, a second man, who may be her husband, asserts his dominance over the first by repeatedly defeating him in a game of Nim.
Through ambiguous flashbacks and disorienting shifts in time and location, the film explores the relationships among the three characters. Conversations and events are repeated in different parts of the building and grounds, accompanied by numerous tracking shots of the hotel's corridors with ambiguous and repetitive voice-overs. The film offers no definitive conclusion regarding what is real and what is imagined…

Production
Last Year at Marienbad was created out of an unusual collaboration between writer Alain Robbe-Grillet and director Alain Resnais. Robbe-Grillet described its basis:
Alain Resnais and I were able to collaborate only because we saw the film in the same way from the start; and not just in the same general outlines but exactly, in the construction of the least detail as in its total architecture. What I wrote might have been what was already in his mind; what he added during the shooting was what I might have written. ... [P]aradoxically enough, and thanks to this perfect identity of our conceptions, we almost always worked separately.
The screenplay Robbe-Grillet wrote was very detailed, specifying not only the dialogue and gestures and décor, but also the placement and movement of the camera and the sequencing of shots in the editing. Resnais filmed the script with great fidelity, and when Robbe-Grillet, who was not present during the filming, saw the rough cut, he said he found the film just as he had intended it, while recognizing how much Resnais had added to make it work on the screen and fill out what was absent from the script. Robbe-Grillet published his screenplay, illustrated by shots from the film, calling it a "ciné-roman" (ciné-novel).
Despite the close correspondence between the written and filmed works, numerous differences between them have been identified. Two notable examples are the choice of music in the film (Francis Seyrig's score introduces extensive use of a solo organ), and a scene near the end of the film in which the screenplay explicitly describes a rape, whereas the film substitutes a series of repeated overexposed tracking shots moving towards the smiling woman.
…
Filming took place, using black-and-white film and the Dyaliscope widescreen process, over a period of ten weeks between September and November 1960. Most of Delphine Seyrig's dresses in the film were designed by Chanel. The locations used for most of the interiors and the gardens were the palaces of Schleissheim and Nymphenburg (including the Amalienburg hunting lodge) and the Antiquarium of the Munich Residenz, all in Munich. Additional interior scenes were filmed in the Photosonore-Marignan-Simo studios in Paris. No filming was done in Mariánské Lázně (Marienbad)…
Style
…In determining the visual appearance of the film, Resnais said he wanted to recreate "a certain style of silent cinema"…Resnais…asked members of his team to look at other silent films, particularly G. W. Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929), as he wanted Seyrig's appearance and manner to resemble that of Louise Brooks in that film. The style of silent films is also suggested by the manner in which the characters who populate the hotel are mostly seen in artificial poses rather than behaving naturalistically.
The film creates ambiguity in the spatial and temporal aspects of what it shows and creates uncertainty in the mind of the spectator about the causal relationships between events. This is achieved through editing by giving apparently incompatible information in consecutive shots, or within a single shot that seems to show impossible juxtapositions, or by means of repetitions of events in different settings. These ambiguities are matched by contradictions in the narrator's voice-over commentary. Among the notable images in the film is a scene in which two characters (and the camera) rush out of the château and are faced with a tableau of figures arranged in a geometric garden; although the people cast long dramatic shadows (which were painted on the ground), the trees in the garden do not (and are, in fact, not real trees, but constructions).
The manner in which the film is edited creates a highly nonlinear narrative. It allowed the themes of time and the mind and the interaction of past and present to be explored in an original way. As spatial and temporal continuity is destroyed by the methods of filming and editing that are used, the film offers instead a "mental continuity", a continuity of thought.
While films that immediately preceded and followed Marienbad in Resnais's career showed a political engagement with contemporary issues, Marienbad focused principally on style.

Reception
Critical response
Contemporary critical response to the film was polarized. The controversy was fuelled when Robbe-Grillet and Resnais appeared to give contradictory answers when asked whether the man and woman had actually met at Marienbad last year or not, as this was used as a means of attacking the film by those who disliked it.
…

Interpretations
Numerous explanations of the film's events have been put forward, among them: that it is a version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, that it represents the relationship between patient and psychoanalyst, that it all takes place in the woman's mind, that it all takes place in the man's mind and depicts his refusal to acknowledge he has killed the woman he loved, and that the characters are ghosts or dead souls in limbo. Some have noted the film has the atmosphere and the form of a dream, and claim the structure of the film may be understood by the analogy of a recurring dream, or even that the man's meeting with the woman is the memory (or dream) of a dream.
Others have heeded, at least as a starting point, the indications given by Robbe-Grillet in the introduction to his "ciné-novel" of the screenplay: "Two attitudes are then possible: either the spectator will try to reconstitute some 'Cartesian' scheme—the most linear, the most rational he can devise—and this spectator will certainly find the film difficult if not incomprehensible; or else the spectator will let himself be carried along by the extraordinary images in front of him ... and to this spectator, the film will seem the 'easiest' he has ever seen: a film addressed exclusively to his sensibility, to his faculties of sight, hearing, feeling." As a suggestion of how one might view the work, he offered, "The whole film, as a matter of fact, is the story of a persuasion: it deals with a reality which the hero creates out of his own vision, out of his own words."
Resnais, for his part, gave a more abstract explanation of the film's purpose: "For me this film is an attempt, still very crude and very primitive, to approach the complexity of thought, of its processes."
Influence
The impact of Last Year at Marienbad upon other filmmakers has been widely recognized and variously illustrated, extending from French directors such as Agnès Varda, Marguerite Duras, and Jacques Rivette to international figures such as Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini.
…The film inspired a brief craze for the variation of Nim played by the characters.
Marienbad served as the main inspiration for Karl Lagerfeld's Chanel spring–summer 2011 collection, as Coco Chanel designed the costumes for the film…”

Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Tvl1Fuxt8

[Robert the List]

39. Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy

Oh lala, Lola. So. There are 2 stories going on here, with the minor story foreshadowing and mirroring the minor major story.
Roland bumps into and has a crush on Lola the nightclub dancer, who he knew as children by her real name Cecile. Lola’s backstory which she explains to Roland is that when she was 14 she met and fell in love with Michel, but who left after getting her pregnant (yes, I know).
Lola currently has a lover who is briefly in town, an American sailor called Frankie, who reminds her of Michel (she does not initially disclose this to Roland).
In separate scenes, Roland also meets a 14 year old girl called Cecile and her mother, and makes friends with them after he helps them to find a book they were looking for when they were all customers in a small bookshop. The 14 year old Cecile then meets Frankie, who (innocently) befriends her.
Frankie leaves town due to being reassigned by the Navy.
Michel returns to town and surprises Lola.
We find out that the younger Cecile has run off to find Frankie.
The main focus of the film though is in the delightful Lola, played by the gorgeous Anouk Amie.
There is a connection between this film and some of Demy’s later works including Les Dameoiselles de Rochefort, which references a dancer called Lola.
The story of the 14 year old girl becomes weird at the end when it’s become apparent that she has run off after Frankie, apparently in some kind of fate/destiny mirroring Lola (also Cecile)’s romantic fling with Michel when she was 14. That’s particularly weird as the actress playing Cecile is just a child. So it seems a bit creepy to say the least. But if you can get past that it’s overwise a delightful film, with some lovely camerawork, and just a fun atmosphere to it with some cute music. It is very French.

Wikipedia:
“Lola is a 1961 romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy (in his feature directorial debut) as a tribute to director Max Ophüls, described by Demy as a "musical without music". Anouk Aimée stars in the title role. The film was restored and re-released by Demy's widow, French filmmaker Agnès Varda.
The names of the film and title character were inspired by Josef von Sternberg's 1930 film The Blue Angel, in which Marlene Dietrich played a burlesque performer named Lola Lola.
Plot
In the seaside French town of Nantes, a young man, Roland Cassard, is wasting his life away until he has a chance encounter with Lola, a woman he knew as a teenager before World War II, who is now a cabaret dancer. Although Roland is quite smitten with her, Lola is preoccupied with her former lover Michel, who abandoned her after impregnating her seven years earlier. Also vying for Lola's heart is American sailor Frankie…
Struggling for work, Roland gets involved in a diamond-smuggling plot with a local barber. Cécile, a 13-year-old girl, crosses paths with Roland; in many ways she reminds him of Lola, whose real name is also Cécile.
Critical reception
Lola received moderate reviews from critics. Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote it was "among the most neglected major works of the French New Wave" and "in some ways [Demy's] best feature."

Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59tEF7Oo6DE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll8GH-QbjJ0

[Robert the List]

40. La Jetee 1962 France Chris Marker

Probably makes my top 10. A magnificent short story. Apparently the still images were due to budget constraints but they were still an idea at some point, and they work brilliantly. The selection of the images, and their presentation is masterful. The score and narration (whether the French or English version) also work wonderful well.

Wikipedia
“La Jetée…is a 1962 French science fiction featurette directed by Chris Marker and associated with the Left Bank artistic movement. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the stable time loop story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. It is 28 minutes long and shot in black and white.
…
Plot
A man is a prisoner in the aftermath of World War III in post-apocalyptic Paris, where survivors live underground in the Palais de Chaillot galleries. Scientists research time travel, hoping to send test subjects to different time periods "to call past and future to the rescue of the present." They have difficulty finding subjects who can mentally withstand the shock of time travel. The scientists eventually settle upon the protagonist; his key to the past is a vague but obsessive memory from his pre-war childhood of a woman he had seen on the observation platform ("the jetty") at Orly Airport shortly before witnessing a startling incident there. He did not understand exactly what happened, but knew he had seen a man die.
After several attempts, he reaches the pre-war period. He meets the woman from his memory, and they develop a romantic relationship. After his successful passages to the past, the experimenters attempt to send him into the far future. In a brief meeting with the technologically advanced people of the future, he is given a power unit sufficient to regenerate his own destroyed society.
Upon his return, with his mission accomplished, he discerns that he is to be executed by his jailers. He is contacted by the people of the future, who offer to help him escape to their time permanently; but he asks instead to be returned to the pre-war time of his childhood, hoping to find the woman again. He is returned to the past, placed on the jetty at the airport, and it occurs to him that the child version of himself is probably also there at the same time. He is more concerned with locating the woman, and quickly spots her.”
(SPOILER) “However, as he rushes to her, he notices an agent of his jailers who has followed him and realizes the agent is about to kill him. In his final moments, he comes to understand that the incident he witnessed as a child, which has haunted him ever since, was his own death.”
…
Production
La Jetée is constructed almost entirely from optically printed photographs playing out as a photomontage of varying rhythm. It contains only one brief shot (of the woman mentioned above sleeping and suddenly waking up) originating on a motion-picture camera, this due to the fact that Marker could only afford to hire one for an afternoon.
The stills were taken with a Pentax Spotmatic and the motion-picture segment was shot with a 35 mm Arriflex. The film has no dialogue aside from small sections of muttering in German and people talking in an airport terminal. The story is told by a voice-over narrator….

The editing of La Jetée adds to the intensity of the film. With the use of cut-ins and fade-outs, it produces the eerie and unsettling nature adding to the theme of the apocalyptic destruction of World War III…”

Running time: 28 minutes.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WstrUci5Fbg
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO21XtLOsD4

[Robert the List]

41. L'Eclisse 1962 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni

Firstly the bad. There is a scene in which a guest character makes very racist comments about Kenyan people. There were references in a couple of the films of the 1920s which today are offensive, but it’s clear that they were not included in the film gratuitously or on the basis that they would cause offence. The brief offending dialogue in L’Eclisse though is gratuitous, it’s completely unnecessary and it’s just Antonioni being a racist *******, just as Blow Up shows him being a sexist *******. I suspect this is a mjor reason why the film has been largely forgotten today, because it simply isn’t acceptable (and rightly so) to show this scene to international audiences. The scene – which is otherwise beautiful, not least as it displays gorgeous printed images from Kenya – isn’t vital and could be cut, which I think it ought to be if the film is resurrected.

That’s the major negative issue with it, although I also find some of the scenes in the noisy stock exchange where Delon works, slightly
irritating without really adding anything.

That’s the bad. But there’s a lot of good. The cinematography is gorgeous. Many scenes just look lush. Amongst others, we have another great city ‘wandering’ scene, this time with Vitti instead of Moreau. There’s an interesting method of camera tracking, where the camera follows the subjects above their heads, which creates an interesting sense of their movement and perspective. This is used a couple of times. The light soundtrack, with a little jazz infusion, is also very effective.

But the final parts of the film in which Vitti and Delon are courting are just beautiful. They don’t actually have personal sexual chemistry, like Delon had with Cardinale in The Leopard, but the narration of the developing relationship is perfectly framed, with a surprise first kiss, and one terrific shot where a coy Vitti has kept him waiting for more, and kisses him through a glass window they are standing either side of. The cutting and lighting, and the reactions of the actors really capture the excitement and fun of a new sexual relationship, and all this interspersed with suggestive images and sounds such as wind rushing through leaves on a tree; it’s just a wonderful translation of courtship onto camera.

The ending of the film is also memorable, as Antonioni ends with a shot showing the folly of the risk of nuclear war which the world was in at that point, against the backdrop of the excitement of life which he had just depicted. For me, the film works – flaws and all - as an advertisement for living.

Wikipedia:
“
L'Eclisse (English: "The Eclipse") is a 1962 romantic drama film co-written and directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Alain Delon and Monica Vitti,...Filmed on location in Rome and Verona, the story follows a young woman (Vitti) who pursues an affair with a confident young stockbroker (Delon). Antonioni attributed some of his inspiration for L'Eclisse to when he filmed a solar eclipse in Florence. The film is considered the last part of a trilogy and is preceded by L'Avventura (1960) and La Notte (1961)…

Reception
…
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called the film "visionary" and argued "Antonioni opens up a sinkhole of existential dismay in the Roman streets and asks us to drop down into it. What a strange and brilliant film it is".
…Director Martin Scorsese, in his documentary about Italian films titled My Voyage to Italy, describes how the film haunted and inspired him as a young moviegoer, noting it seemed to him a "step forward in storytelling" and "felt less like a story and more like a poem". He adds that “…The final seven minutes of Eclipse suggested to us that the possibilities in cinema were absolutely limitless".
…Susan Doll wrote that if Antonioni's works are "out of vogue with movie goers captivated by postmodern irony and fast-paced editing...we are the worse for it. His work reflected not only a major change in Italian society but also a profound shift in film culture. His visually driven style and provocative approach to narrative raised the bar of what constituted popular filmmaking"

Runtime: 2 hours 6 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHUapLYEi4s
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR3i_nUEplQ

[Robert the List]

42. Lawrence of Arabia 1962 UK David Lean

Simply epic.

Wikipedia:
“Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 epic biographical adventure drama film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence and his 1926 book Seven Pillars of Wisdom…It was directed by David Lean…The film stars Peter O'Toole as Lawrence with Alec Guinness playing Prince Faisal. The film also stars Jack Hawkins, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Claude Rains and Arthur Kennedy….
The film depicts Lawrence's experiences in the Ottoman provinces of Hejaz and Greater Syria during the First World War, in particular, his attacks on Aqaba and Damascus and his involvement in the Arab National Council. Its themes include Lawrence's emotional struggles with the violence inherent in war, his identity, and his divided allegiance between his native Britain and his new-found comrades within the Arabian desert tribes.
…
Cast
Albert Finney was a virtual unknown at the time but he was Lean's first choice to play Lawrence. Finney underwent a successful screen test but turned down the part as he did not want to sign a long-term contract with producer Sam Spiegel. Marlon Brando was also offered the part, while Anthony Perkins and Montgomery Clift were briefly considered before O'Toole was cast.
…Faisal was originally to be portrayed by Laurence Olivier. Guinness had performed in other David Lean films, and he got the part when Olivier dropped out. Guinness was made up to look as much like the real Faisal as possible; he recorded in his diaries that while shooting in Jordan he met several people who had known Faisal who actually mistook him for the late prince. Guinness said in interviews that he developed his Arab accent from a conversation that he had with Omar Sharif….
(author’s note: incredible that Guinness could actually believe who knew Prince Faisal mistook him for the Prince because he had put some make up on and adopted a daft inflection in his voice. The man must have been beyond delusion)
…Jack Hawkins as General Edmund Allenby. Spiegel pushed Lean to cast Cary Grant…Hawkins shaved his head for the role and reportedly clashed with Lean several times during filming....Hawkins became close friends with O'Toole during filming, and the two often improvised dialogue during takes, to Lean's dismay…
Omar Sharif as Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish. The role was offered to many actors before Sharif was cast…. Alain Delon had a successful screen test but ultimately declined because of the brown contact lenses he would have had to wear....
…Claude Rains as Mr. Dryden. Like Sherif Ali and Colonel Brighton, Dryden was an amalgamation of several historical figures…
…
Historical accuracy
Most of the film's characters are based on historical figures, but to varying degrees. Some scenes were heavily fictionalised, such as the Battle of Aqaba, and those dealing with the Arab Council were inaccurate since the council remained more or less in power in Syria until France deposed Faisal in 1920…The second half of the film presents a fictional desertion of Lawrence's Arab army...
…Lawrence's involvement in the Arab Revolt prior to the attack on Aqaba is absent, as are his involvement in the seizures of Yenbo and Wejh.
…The film shows the Hashemite forces consisting of Bedouin guerrillas, but the core of the Hashemite force was the regular Arab Army recruited from Ottoman Arab prisoners of war. They wore British-style uniforms with keffiyehs and fought in conventional battles.
…assacre, but most current biographers accept the film's portrayal as reasonably accurate.
Representation of Lawrence
Many complaints about the film's accuracy concern the characterisation of Lawrence. The perceived problems with the portrayal begin with the differences in his physical appearance — the 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) Peter O'Toole was almost 9 in (23 cm) taller than the 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m) Lawrence — and extended to his behaviour.

…Production
Pre-production
…
Lean reportedly watched John Ford's 1956 film The Searchers to help him develop ideas as to how to shoot the film...Lean biographer Kevin Brownlow noted a physical similarity between Wadi Rum and Ford's Monument Valley.
…In an interview with The Washington Post in 1989, Lean said that Lawrence and Ali were written as being in a gay relationship…Lean also compared Ali and Lawrence's romance in the film to the relationship of the two main characters in his 1945 film Brief Encounter.

Filming
… desert scenes were shot in Jordan and Morocco and Almería and Doñana in Spain…
Lean planned to film in Aqaba and the archaeological site at Petra, which Lawrence had been fond of as a place of study. The production had to be moved to Spain due to cost and outbreaks of illness among the cast and crew before these scenes could be shot. The attack on Aqaba was reconstructed in a dried river bed in Playa del Algarrobico, southern Spain…
…O'Toole was not used to riding camels and found the saddle to be uncomfortable. During a break in filming, he bought a piece of foam rubber at a market and added it to his saddle. Many of the extras copied the idea and sheets of the foam can be seen on many of the horse and camel saddles. The Bedouin nicknamed O'Toole Abu-'Isfanj (أبو إسفنج), meaning "Father of the Sponge"....

Super Panavision technology was used to shoot the film, meaning that spherical lenses were used instead of anamorphic ones, and the image was exposed on a 65 mm negative, then printed onto a 70 mm positive to leave room for the soundtracks. Rapid cutting was more disturbing on the wide screen, so film makers had to apply longer and more fluid takes…
O'Toole did not share Lawrence's love of the desert and stated in an interview "I loathe it".

Music
The film score was composed by Maurice Jarre, little known at the time... Jarre was given just six weeks to compose two hours of orchestral music for Lawrence. The score was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Sir Adrian Boult is listed as the conductor of the score in the film's credits, but he could not conduct most of the score, due in part to his failure to adapt to the intricate timings of each cue, and Jarre replaced him as the conductor…it is now considered one of the greatest scores of all time…
Producer Sam Spiegel wanted to create a score with two themes to show the 'Eastern' and British side for the film. It was intended for Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian to create one half and British composer Benjamin Britten to write the other.
Release
…Jordan banned the film for what was felt to be a disrespectful portrayal of Arab culture. Egypt, Omar Sharif's home country, was the only Arab nation to give the film a wide release, where it became a success through the endorsement of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who appreciated the film's depiction of Arab nationalism.
The original release ran for about 222 minutes (plus overture, intermission, and exit music). ...In January 1963, Lawrence of Arabia was released in a version edited by 20 minutes… When it was re-released in 1971, an even shorter cut of 187 minutes was presented….
A restored version was undertaken by Robert A. Harris and Jim Painten under the supervision of David Lean. It was released in 1989 with a 216-minute length (plus overture, intermission and exit music). “

Running time: 3 hours 42 minutes (full version)
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiZu5C6lCo

[Robert the List]

CUT Le Mepris / Contempt 1963 France Jean Luc Godard

THIS MOVIE HAS BEEN DROPPED

I think it's fun. The very repetitive music grates with me a little (much more so than say The Third Man), but I can handle it.
It just squeaks into the 100. Something not mentioned in Wiki is that this film has been said to be about his relationship with his (soon to be ex) wife Anna Karina.

Wikipedia:
"Contempt (French: Le Mépris) is a 1963 French New Wave drama film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, based on Alberto Moravia’s 1954 novel Il disprezzo. It follows a playwright, Paul Javal, whose marriage begins to fall apart during the troubled production of a film adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey. The film stars Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, Fritz Lang, and Giorgia Moll.
…
Production
Italian film producer Carlo Ponti approached Godard to discuss a possible collaboration; Godard suggested an adaptation of Moravia's novel Il disprezzo...in which he saw Kim Novak and Frank Sinatra as the leads; they refused. Ponti suggested Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, whom Godard refused. Anna Karina (by then Godard's former wife) later revealed that the director had travelled to Rome to ask Monica Vitti if she would portray the female lead. However the Italian actress reportedly turned up an hour late, "staring out the window like she wasn't interested at all".
...In the film, Godard cast himself as Lang's assistant director, and characteristically has Lang expound many of Godard's New Wave theories and opinions….
…Half the film's budget went on Bardot's fee.

Filming
…In a sequence, the characters played by Piccoli and Bardot wander through their apartment alternately arguing and reconciling. Godard filmed the scene as an extended series of tracking shots, in natural light and in near real-time…

Godard admitted his tendency to get actors to improvise dialogue "during the peak moment of creation" often baffled them. "They often feel useless," he said. "Yet they bring me a lot... I need them, just as I need the pulse and colours of real settings for atmosphere and creation."

Critical reception
…Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that Contempt "is not one of the great Godard films, for reasons it makes clear. In a way, it’s about its own shortcomings. [...] It is interesting to see, and has moments of brilliance (the marital argument, the use of the villa steps), but its real importance is as a failed experiment. Contempt taught Godard he could not make films like this, and so he included himself out, and went on to make the films he could make."

Sight & Sound critic Colin MacCabe referred to Contempt as "the greatest work of art produced in postwar Europe."

…The extended apartment sequence that occurs in the film, where Paul and Camille's marriage unravels, has been praised by critics and scholars. In February 2012, Interiors, an online journal that is concerned with the relationship between architecture and film, released an issue that discussed how space is used in this scene. The issue highlights how Jean-Luc Godard uses this constricted space to explore Paul and Camille's declining relationship.”

Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF0Ju0ONwGU
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNQi_0zYJZU

[Robert the List]

11 of the first 41 start with the letter L, including the latest 6 lol.

Readers may be relieved to know that there are only 3 more that start with an L!

[crumbsroom]

Contempt has one of the greatest scores in the history of film. Repetition is your friend.

[Sedai]

Lawrence all the way down at 40!

Curious to see the rest of the entries...

[crumbsroom]

Lawrence all the way down at 40!

Curious to see the rest of the entries...


I think it's being done chronologically, not in order of greatness

[Sedai]

I think it's being done chronologically, not in order of greatness

Indeed, it does appear to be so...

Carry on!

[Robert the List]

Indeed, it does appear to be so...

Carry on!
That gave me a little chuckle haha.

I've marked Lawrence as "ESSENTIAL" in the OP incidentally Sedai. One of only 8 with that accolade so far!
I should add it in to the individual posts where applicable though (and will also clarify in the OP that it's chronological, as the years aren't highlighted and in fairness you'll only pick it up otherwise if concentrating).

Pleased the list's of interest anyway. I'm enjoying sharing it, and doing the wikipedia research on the films too.

[SpelingError]

38. La Jetee 1962 France Chris Marker

Probably makes my top 10. A magnificent short story. Apparently the still images were due to budget constraints but they were still an idea at some point, and they work brilliantly. The selection of the images, and their presentation is masterful. The score and narration (whether the French or English version) also work wonderful well.

Wikipedia
“La Jetée…is a 1962 French science fiction featurette directed by Chris Marker and associated with the Left Bank artistic movement. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the stable time loop story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. It is 28 minutes long and shot in black and white.
…
Plot
A man is a prisoner in the aftermath of World War III in post-apocalyptic Paris, where survivors live underground in the Palais de Chaillot galleries. Scientists research time travel, hoping to send test subjects to different time periods "to call past and future to the rescue of the present." They have difficulty finding subjects who can mentally withstand the shock of time travel. The scientists eventually settle upon the protagonist; his key to the past is a vague but obsessive memory from his pre-war childhood of a woman he had seen on the observation platform ("the jetty") at Orly Airport shortly before witnessing a startling incident there. He did not understand exactly what happened, but knew he had seen a man die.
After several attempts, he reaches the pre-war period. He meets the woman from his memory, and they develop a romantic relationship. After his successful passages to the past, the experimenters attempt to send him into the far future. In a brief meeting with the technologically advanced people of the future, he is given a power unit sufficient to regenerate his own destroyed society.
Upon his return, with his mission accomplished, he discerns that he is to be executed by his jailers. He is contacted by the people of the future, who offer to help him escape to their time permanently; but he asks instead to be returned to the pre-war time of his childhood, hoping to find the woman again. He is returned to the past, placed on the jetty at the airport, and it occurs to him that the child version of himself is probably also there at the same time. He is more concerned with locating the woman, and quickly spots her.”
(SPOILER) “However, as he rushes to her, he notices an agent of his jailers who has followed him and realizes the agent is about to kill him. In his final moments, he comes to understand that the incident he witnessed as a child, which has haunted him ever since, was his own death.”
…
Production
La Jetée is constructed almost entirely from optically printed photographs playing out as a photomontage of varying rhythm. It contains only one brief shot (of the woman mentioned above sleeping and suddenly waking up) originating on a motion-picture camera, this due to the fact that Marker could only afford to hire one for an afternoon.
The stills were taken with a Pentax Spotmatic and the motion-picture segment was shot with a 35 mm Arriflex. The film has no dialogue aside from small sections of muttering in German and people talking in an airport terminal. The story is told by a voice-over narrator….

The editing of La Jetée adds to the intensity of the film. With the use of cut-ins and fade-outs, it produces the eerie and unsettling nature adding to the theme of the apocalyptic destruction of World War III…”

Running time: 28 minutes.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WstrUci5Fbg
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO21XtLOsD4

I'm curious how many short films will make the final list. I love short films, but I imagine it would be hard to determine how many of them I'd have to include to properly represent the format, while simultaneously booting feature length films off a list.

[Robert the List]

I'm curious how many short films will make the final list. I love short films, but I imagine it would be hard to determine how many of them I'd have to include to properly represent the format, while simultaneously booting feature length films off a list.

I can put you out of your misery now Speling if you like.
That's it. Just that one and Meshes.
I know you know a LOTTTTT of short films. I know very few. A couple of Varda's, a couple others of Maya Deren.
But I just thought that those 2 were too good not to be included. La Jetee in particular I think is amazing. It just hit my spot.

[SpelingError]

I can put you out of your misery now Speling if you like.
That's it. Just that one and Meshes.
I know you know a LOTTTTT of short films. I know very few. A couple of Varda's, a couple others of Maya Deren.
But I just thought that those 2 were too good not to be included. La Jetee in particular I think is amazing. It just hit my spot.

Fair enough. As I said, fitting short films into a list like this must be hard.

[Robert the List]

Fair enough. As I said, fitting short films into a list like this must be hard.
Is it that much different to comparing horror films to musicals?

It's just the 100 greatest....so the difficulty I'd accept is that I have done a very (I know it's not exhaustive, but it's comprehensive) search/review of basically all the movies that people say is a GREAT movie. And that's how I've come up with my list. Now in doing that, as I say I've reviewed very few short films. So the potential issue is that the proportion of the best ever short films (that I've seen), is wayyyyy less than the proportion of the best feature films (that I've seen).

But then again, I suppose I would say that that is because there are very few short films which are generally held out as being the best ever films.

In fact arguably the only 2 in that category are the ones which I have actually included in my 100.

But in terms of comparing them, I don't see that as a problem. It's just the best 100 pieces of film making that I've reviewed. Of course it's subjective, but I don't see that it makes it any more subjective if you allow short films in as well as long ones?

Interesting point anyway.

[Robert the List]

43. High and Low 1963 Japan Akira Kurosawa

It looks absolutely stunning visually. There are several scenes built around crowds of people: in Gondo’s apartment, in the police station, in the police briefing, which are obviously meticulously choreographed, but very effective artistically. The scenes in the apartment are also choreographed precisely, with everybody having their spot to stand in, arranged like figurines in a work of art. I also love the shades of grey and black, he just creates something gorgeous out of.
It’s also an engrossing crime drama. It's interesting to see the moral dilema of whether to pay the kidnapper play out, and then the chase to track the criminal down.
I think Kurosawa also sees the film as a dark comedy, perhaps somewhat like Hitchcock has been said to have viewed Pyscho. There are definitely parts of the film at least where Kurosawa is having fun.
Superb acting from Mifune (unrecognisable from say Rashomon) and Nakadai and the cast generally.
A complete masterpiece of film making.

Wikipedia:
“High and Low (Japanese: 天国と地獄, Hepburn: Tengoku to Jigoku, lit. 'Heaven and Hell') is a 1963 Japanese police procedural crime film directed and edited by Akira Kurosawa. It…tells the story of Japanese businessman Kingo Gondo (Mifune) struggling for control of the major shoe company at which he is a board member. He plans a leveraged buyout of the company with his life savings, when kidnappers led by Ginjirо̄ Takeuchi (Yamazaki) mistakenly kidnap his chauffeur's son to ransom him for 30 million yen.

.The film's complex approach to issues of social class and narrative structure have been critically analysed as substantial adaptational accomplishments...It is viewed as influential on police procedurals, and has been remade multiple times internationally.

…Main cast
Toshiro Mifune as Kingo Gondo (権藤 金吾, Gondo Kingo)
Tatsuya Nakadai as Inspector Tokura (戸倉警部), the chief investigator in the kidnapping case.

….Production
High and Low was filmed at Toho Studios and on location in Yokohama. The film foregrounds the modern infrastructure of the economic miracle years and the run-up to the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, including rapid rail lines and the proliferation of personal automobiles…
…Akira Kurosawa, the film's director and co-writer, was inspired to adapt its source novel after his friend's son was kidnapped.
…
Filming
…Many of the takes shot for the film's first half were ten minutes long, and may have been longer if the capacity of the cameras' magazines were larger. The film is shot using CinemaScope, a widescreen filming system. Long-distance lenses were used, particularly during the first half of the film.

During production of his films Kurosawa would take his frustrations out on the cast and crew, but it became worse during High and Low's creation—it was here that his reputation of making difficulties for the studio and those working on the film began to precede him.

The kidnapping exchange scene wherein money is dropped through the open window of a Kodama express train required nine cameras to be used in the shoot. Due to budgetary restrictions on the reservation of the express train, the scene could only be done in one take. The scene is shot almost entirely with hand-held cameras. All the cameramen at Toho were required to shoot the film simultaneously, which led to all other film productions being shut down for a day. A camera was positioned under the bridge where the money drop took place, during the sequence a camera following one of the detectives on the train didn't work....The train was hired and the scene was shot while the train was running along the Tōkaidō Line. Reportedly the actors rehearsed the scene on-set for a week before the one take….
…During a conversation scene between actors Isao Kimura and Takeshi Kato, Kurosawa dyed the nearby river with black paint and poured dirt into it to make the environment filthier…

Editing
In the editing of High and Low, Kurosawa presents past and present together at the same in the continuity of his narrative. The use of multiple cameras simultaneously during the film's first half meant that a ten-minute scene would have a corresponding hour of footage to cut between. Mid-way through the film, Kurosawa employs colour for the first time in any of his films. Using a trail of pink smoke in a pair of shots that propel the investigation, the moment acts as a singularising pivot around which the investigation is pursued. At this point in his career, Kurosawa felt that he and his crew were still too unfamiliar with the use of colour in film, and so decided to continue shooting films in black and white.
The original script ending was changed when Kurosawa noted the performance of Yamazaki as being especially powerful, the original final scene contained a reflective conversation between Mifune and Nakadai. Although the crew spent two weeks filming the scene, Kurosawa ultimately cut it…

Music
…the opening titles feature a slow mambo, which is used as a tone-setter and thereafter used sparingly throughout the rest of the film. This contextual focus on the use of music extended to either supporting or combatting the image with aural cues, as he did with the use of trumpets with the discovery of clues in the film. During the scene where the kidnapper is first seen by the audience, Franz Schubert's Trout Quintet can be heard on the radio. When the police are in pursuit of the kidnapper, the Neapolitan song 'O sole mio is played, but the relative lack of music was intentional during the climactic scenes of his films so as not to disrupt their meaningful moments.

…Themes
…High and Low's Japanese title, Tengoku to Jigoku…translates to Heaven and Hell…
When asked in 1975 whether it was correct to view the film as being anti-capitalist, Kurosawa responded: "Well, I did not want to say so formally. I always have many issues about which I am angry, including capitalism. Although I don't intend explicitly to put my feelings and principles into films, these angers slowly seep through. They naturally penetrate my filmmaking."
Kingo Gondo's expensive house (background) and the houses of the shanty town downhill (foreground) are framed together in the film.
Stephen Prince notes, in his study of Kurosawa's filmography... “It is the image of Gondo's house, not who he is personally, that triggers the crime".
To historian and film scholar David Conrad, the film's foregrounding of Japan's economic growth (such as the proliferation of personal luxuries, cars, air conditioning) reflects its growing internationalism. This is observed through elements such as the Old West cowboy outfits Jun and Shinichi are seen playing in, and the nightclub seen towards the end of the film. In particular, Conrad draws attention to the narrative's drug-related criminal theme and waste management as aspects that receive attention during the police investigation as indicative of the concerns of contemporary society….
Film scholar James Goodwin views the narrative's investigative structure to be an interrogation of social divisions and the nature of power on the human spirit….
……”

Run time: 2 hours 23 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELsgPvgDBoY
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcALFnBJ54c

[SpelingError]

Is it that much different to comparing horror films to musicals?

It's just the 100 greatest....so the difficulty I'd accept is that I have done a very (I know it's not exhaustive, but it's comprehensive) search/review of basically all the movies that people say is a GREAT movie. And that's how I've come up with my list. Now in doing that, as I say I've reviewed very few short films. So the potential issue is that the proportion of the best ever short films (that I've seen), is wayyyyy less than the proportion of the best feature films (that I've seen).

But then again, I suppose I would say that that is because there are very few short films which are generally held out as being the best ever films.

In fact arguably the only 2 in that category are the ones which I have actually included in my 100.

But in terms of comparing them, I don't see that as a problem. It's just the best 100 pieces of film making that I've reviewed. Of course it's subjective, but I don't see that it makes it any more subjective if you allow short films in as well as long ones?

Interesting point anyway.

Short films definitely receive far less exposure than feature length films do. Before I started my deep dive into the format, I wasn't sure I'd have a whole lot to binge. After watching several hundred of them, however, I'd say at least 50 of them hold up as great films and I'm sure there are plenty more I'm missing. My top 100 short film list is likely a good place to start if you're looking for recommendations.

[Robert the List]

44. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964 France Jacques Demy

This film is very difficult to get a copy of and has been for a while, I don’t know why.
Its originality is that every line of dialogue is ‘sung’. It’s a romance that really has the viewer pulling for it and rooting for the couple, and delivers an emotional impact at the end of the film. Along the way it’s a lot of fun, with bright colours, music, and actors trying not to laugh as they deliver their lines in a way they have never done before!

Wikipedia:
“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (French: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 musical romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music by Michel Legrand. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young lovers in the French city of Cherbourg, separated by circumstance. The film's dialogue is entirely sung as recitative, including casual conversation, and is sung-through, or through-composed, like some operas and stage musicals. It has been seen as the second of an informal tetralogy of Demy films that share some of the same actors, characters, and overall atmosphere of romantic melancholy, coming after Lola (1961) and before The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)…
…
Music
The continuous music score and the brightly coloured photography had much to do with the popularity of this film. Formally the work is operatic, with the plot advanced entirely through dialogue sung with accompanying music. The colour photography is bright and vivid…
Since the cast were not trained singers, most of the actors' voices were dubbed and lipsynced”

Runtime: 1 hour 31 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqzQn15mFao
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaY6iWmQXS4

[Robert the List]

Short films definitely receive far less exposure than feature length films do. Before I started my deep dive into the format, I wasn't sure I'd have a whole lot to binge. After watching several hundred of them, however, I'd say at least 50 of them hold up as great films and I'm sure there are plenty more I'm missing. My top 100 short film list is likely a good place to start if you're looking for recommendations.
Yeah I have had a bit of a look at it previously, but it's something I'd like to spend more time on sometime.

Amazing effort putting that list together!

[Robert the List]

45. Onibaba 1964 Japan Kaneto Shindô

A beautiful looking, absorbing, and slightly (but not really) scary film.

Wikipedia:
“Onibaba (鬼婆, lit. "Demon hag"), also titled The Hole, is a 1964 Japanese historical drama and horror film written and directed by Kaneto Shindō. The film is set during a civil war in medieval Japan. Nobuko Otowa and Jitsuko Yoshimura play two women who kill infighting soldiers to steal their armor and possessions for survival, while Kei Satō plays the man who ultimately comes between them.…One night, while Hachi and the younger woman are together, a lost samurai wearing a Hannya mask forces the older woman to guide him out of the field…
Onibaba was inspired by the Shin Buddhist parable of yome-odoshi-no men (嫁おどしの面, bride-scaring mask) or niku-zuki-no-men (肉付きの面, mask with flesh attached), in which a mother, disgusted by her daughter's affair with a priest, used a mask to pose as a demon and frighten the girl into believing that she was cursed. She was punished by the mask sticking to her face, and when she begged to be allowed to remove it, the mask took the flesh of her face with it.
Kaneto Shindo wanted to film Onibaba in a field of susuki grass. He sent out assistant directors to find suitable locations…a location was found near a river bank at Inba Swamp in Chiba Prefecture…
Kaneto Shindo said that the effects of the mask on those who wear it are symbolic of the disfigurement of the victims of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the film reflecting the traumatic effect of this visitation on post-war Japanese society…
The film contains some sequences filmed in slow motion.
While Onibaba is said to gain its inspiration from the Shin Buddhist parable by Kaneto Shizawa's discretion, onibaba also refers to traditional tall tales and ghost stories throughout Japan of vicious and monstrous elderly demon women said to stalk about various areas and wilderness to hunt for human victims to take back to their lairs and feast on them….
With the outbreak of the Onin War, Onibaba also portrays an almost post-apocalyptic level of societal breakdown and moral degeneracy…
With origins from Buddhist themes, the film is evocative of the Third Age of Buddhism (Japanese: Mappo) which in Heian Era depictions, spoke of how demons from Hell sent forth by the infernal King Enma to be unleashed upon the earth, and hunt eagerly for sinners, degenerates, and non-believers to throw into eternal damnation.
…Many critics have been divided on the genre of the film….Writing for Sight & Sound, Michael Brooke noted that "Onibaba's lasting greatness and undimmed potency lie in the fact that it works both as an unnervingly blunt horror film (and how!) and as a far more nuanced but nonetheless universal social critique…”

Runtime 1 hour 43 minutes
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCPEJ982dxo
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noqDxvpmTTw
Full movie (hard subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b145MBaUsWU

[Robert the List]

46. For A Few Dollars More 1965 Italy Sergio Leone

Pop art imagery and an incredible score. Plus a brooding Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef, a very nasty bad guy, and an awesome ending. I had to include it. Makes the cut over Once Upon A Time in the West and TGTBATU.

Wikipedia:

"“For a Few Dollars More is a 1965 Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone. It stars Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as bounty hunters and Gian Maria Volonté as the primary villain….The film…is the second instalment of what is commonly known as the Dollars Trilogy….

Production
Development
…Charles Bronson was again approached for a starring role but he thought the sequel's script was too like the first film. Instead, Lee Van Cleef accepted the role..
Screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni wrote the film in nine days. However, Leone was dissatisfied with some of the script's dialogue, and hired Sergio Donati to work as an uncredited script doctor.
Production
The film was shot in Tabernas, Almería, Spain, with interiors done at Rome's Cinecittà Studios. The production designer Carlo Simi built the town of "El Paso" in the Almería desert; it still exists, as the tourist attraction Mini Hollywood. The town of Agua Caliente, where Indio and his gang flee after the bank robbery, was filmed in Los Albaricoques, a small "pueblo blanco" on the Níjar plain.

Post-production
As all of the film's footage was shot MOS (i.e. without recording sound at the time of shooting), Eastwood and Van Cleef returned to Italy where they dubbed over their dialogue, and sound effects were added. Although it is explicitly stated in the movie that the Colonel Mortimer character is originally from the Carolinas, Van Cleef opted to perform his dialogue using his native New Jersey accent rather than a Southern accent.

Music
The musical score was composed by Ennio Morricone, who had previously collaborated with director Leone on A Fistful of Dollars. Under Leone's explicit direction, Morricone began writing the score before production had started, as Leone often shot to the music on set. The music is notable for its blend of diegetic and non-diegetic moments through a recurring motif that originates from the identical pocket watches belonging to El Indio and Colonel Mortimer.[ "The music that the watch makes transfers your thought to a different place," said Morricone. "The character itself comes out through the watch but in a different situation every time it appears."
…
Critical reception
The film initially received mediocre reviews from critics. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said, "The fact that this film is constructed to endorse the exercise of murderers, to emphasize killer bravado and generate glee in frantic manifestations of death is, to my mind, a sharp indictment of it as so-called entertainment in this day." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times described the film as "one great old Western cliché after another" and said that it "is composed of situations and not plots", but nonetheless found it "delicious"…
…Film historian Richard Schickel, in his biography of Clint Eastwood, believed that this was the best film in the trilogy, arguing that it was "more elegant and complex than A Fistful of Dollars and more tense and compressed than The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". Director Alex Cox considered the church scene to be one of "the most horrible deaths" of any Western, describing Volonté's Indio as the "most diabolical Western villain of all time".
British journalist Kim Newman said that the film changed the way bounty hunters were viewed by audiences. It moved them away from a "profession to be ashamed of", one with a "(ranking) lower than a card sharp on the Western scale of worthwhile citizens", to one of heroic respectability.”"


Run time: 2 hours 12 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNt9NcLteoU
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIqLodn26CI

[Robert the List]

47. Alphaville 1965 France Jean-Luc Godard

Of all the films in my 100, this is the one I could probably most understand (and there are a handful of other contenders) people watching and giving up on fairly rapidly. The acting is at times not of the highest quality, and in fact much oof the first half hour or so looks thoroughly amateur in general, perhaps reflective of the large degree of improvisation apparently involved. The film is also almost unrecognisable today as a science-fiction; this was before Kubrick’s 2001 revolution and is mainly in a very normal looking world (perhaps a little more like some of the Black Mirror episodes).
So what’s good about the film? Hmmm. Haha.
Well, for one thing there are places where it’s visually beautiful, like most of the films in my list. There are some gorgeous shots, and not just of the gorgeous Anna Karina, whose face we are shown in ultra extreme close up! One that sticks in the mind is Karina and Constantine descending a beautiful spiral staircase. Lights are used very artistically in this film, whether it’s rows of street lights, neon signs, traffic signals, or general night time lighting as a background. There’s further innovation for example with some images shown in a kind of infra-red.
But it’s far from just camerawork which appeals. As the film goes on, I also grow to love the ‘amateur’ improv style. It just somehow begins to work.
The film is insightful in terms of its view of the future, with a central computer controlling everybody. It also delivers a message which rings true today that freedom of thought and speech has been taken away, and we are all required (in this case at pain of death) to adhere to the official line on matters relating to politics or society. It seems remarkable that this was imagined in the 1960s, which seems today to have been a time where free speech was at its peak.
It is also let’s not forget, a love story, and it works on that level too.
By the way, I can’t remember the exact reference, but there’s one line in the film which suggests that it is set in the 1980s.

Wikipedia
“Alphaville: une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution) is a 1965 French New Wave tech noir film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It stars Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina…
Alphaville combines the genres of dystopian science fiction and film noir. There are no special props or futuristic sets; instead, the film was shot in real locations in Paris, the night-time streets of the capital becoming the streets of Alphaville, while modernist glass and concrete buildings (which in 1965 were new and strange architectural designs) represent the city's interiors. Although the film is set in the future, the technologies used and the corporations and events mentioned in the film place them firmly in the 20th century…
Expatriate American actor Eddie Constantine plays Lemmy Caution, a trenchcoat-wearing secret agent. Constantine had already played this or similar roles in dozens of previous films…However, in Alphaville, director Jean-Luc Godard moves Caution away from his usual twentieth-century setting and places him in a futuristic sci-fi dystopia, the technocratic dictatorship of Alphaville.
Plot
Lemmy Caution is a secret agent with the code number of 003 from "the Outlands". Entering Alphaville in his Ford Mustang, which he refers to as a Ford Galaxie, he poses as a journalist named Ivan Johnson and claims to work for the Figaro-Pravda newspaper. Caution is on a series of missions. First, he searches for the missing agent Henri Dickson; second, he is to capture or kill the creator of Alphaville, Professor von Braun; lastly, he aims to destroy Alphaville and its dictatorial computer, Alpha 60. Alpha 60 is a sentient computer system created by von Braun, which is in complete control of all of Alphaville.
Alpha 60 has outlawed free thought and individualist concepts like love, poetry, and emotion in the city…One of Alpha 60's dictates is that "people should not ask 'why', but only say 'because'". People who show signs of emotion or refuse to adapt are presumed to be acting illogically and are executed by a variety of means: being machine gunned into a swimming pool, where they are stabbed by beautiful women to the applause of "very important people", or by attending the "execution theater", where they are electrocuted in their seats. There is a Bible and a dictionary in every hotel room that is continuously updated when words that are deemed to evoke emotion become banned. As a result, Alphaville is an inhuman, alienated society.
Images of E = mc2 and E = hf (the equations of, respectively, special relativity and quantum mechanics) are displayed several times to refer to the scientism that underpins Alphaville….Caution is told that Alphaville plans to invade the "outer countries" and that his knowledge of them could be useful.
As an archetypal American antihero private eye, with a trenchcoat, fedora hat, and weathered visage, Lemmy Caution's old-fashioned machismo conflicts with the puritanical computer. The opposition of his role to logic (and that of other dissidents to the regime) is represented by faux quotations from Capitale de la douleur ("Capital of Pain"), a book of poems by Paul Éluard.
Caution meets Dickson, who starts making love to a "Seductress Third Class" but then dies while telling Caution to "make Alpha 60 destroy itself" and "save those who weep". Caution then enlists the assistance of Natacha von Braun, a programmer of Alpha 60 and daughter of Professor von Braun. Natacha is a citizen of Alphaville and, when questioned, says that she does not know the meaning of "love" or "conscience". Caution falls in love with her, and his love introduces emotion and unpredictability into the city. Natacha discovers, with the help of Lemmy Caution, that she was actually born outside Alphaville.
Alpha 60 converses with Lemmy Caution several times, and its guttural voice seems to be ever-present in the city. The computer identifies Caution as a spy and sentences him to death, but he escapes, shooting and killing the men guarding him. He finds Professor von Braun, who was originally known as Leonard Nosferatu, but Caution is repeatedly told that Nosferatu no longer exists. The Professor offers Caution the chance to join Alphaville and even to rule a galaxy. When he refuses Caution's offer to go back to "the outlands", Caution kills him and escapes.
(SPOILER) Caution finally destroys or incapacitates Alpha 60 by telling it a riddle that involves something that it cannot comprehend: poetry. The concept of the individual self has been lost to the collectivized citizens of Alphaville, and this is the key to Caution's riddle. As the citizens collapse, Caution leaves Alphaville with Natacha, who eventually achieves an understanding of herself as an individual with desires. He tells her not to look back, and the film ends with her line "Je vous aime" ("I love you").
…Production
…Constantine had become a popular actor in France and Germany through his portrayal of tough-guy detective Lemmy Caution in a series of earlier films. Godard appropriated the character for Alphaville but according to director Anne Andreu, Godard's subversion of the Lemmy Caution "stereotype" effectively shattered Constantine's connection with the character—he reportedly said that he was shunned by producers after Alphaville was released. Constantine didn't play Lemmy Caution again until Panic Time in 1980.
The opening section of the film includes an unedited sequence that depicts Caution walking into his hotel, checking in, riding an elevator and being taken through various corridors to his room. According to cinematographer Raoul Coutard, he and Godard shot this section as a continuous four-minute take. Part of this sequence shows Caution riding an elevator up to his room, which was achieved thanks to the fact that the hotel used as the location had two glass-walled elevators side by side, allowing the camera operator to ride in one lift while filming Constantine riding the other car through the glass between the two. However, as Coutard recalled, this required multiple takes, since the elevators were old and in practice they proved very difficult to synchronize.
Like most of Godard's films, the performances and dialogue in Alphaville were substantially improvised…
Influences on the film
Caution references Louis-Ferdinand Céline directly in the taxi, when he says "I am on a journey to the end of the night" (Voyage au bout de la nuit, 1932). The use of poetry to combat Alpha 60 as a sentient being echoes the attitudes of Céline in a number of his works.
Henri Bergson is also referenced by Caution when being interrogated by Alpha 60, when he answers "the immediate data of consciousness " (Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, 1889) when asked his religion. Bergson's rejection of idealism in favour of felt experiences parallels Caution's conflict with the logical Alpha 60.
Caution makes another reference to French poetry when speaking to Alpha 60, saying that when it will solve his riddle it will become "[his] like, [his] brother," echoing the famous last line of Charles Baudelaire's To the Reader in Flowers of Evil.
Jean Cocteau exerted significant influence on Godard's films,[10] and parallels between Alphaville and Cocteau's 1950 film Orpheus are evident….Godard also openly acknowledges his debt to Cocteau on several occasions.
…The voice of Alpha 60 was performed by a man with a mechanical voice box replacing his cancer-damaged larynx…”
“

Runtime: 1 hour 39 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzaATgGHmy0

[Robert the List]

48. Le Bonheur 1965 France Agnès Varda

The film is a beautiful looking, quite light drama, until the final silent shot, when it suddenly becomes apparent that it has been a horror story. Very skilfully done, a little slice of genius. Two of Varda’s first 3 feature films make this list, with the other Cleo from 5 to 7 also being an excellent film. She largely made short films and documentaries after these three features.

Wikipedia
“Le Bonheur ("Happiness") is a 1965 French drama film directed by Agnès Varda. The film is associated with the French New Wave...
…François' wife and children are played by Jean-Claude Drouot's real-life family in their only film appearances.
…In a 2019 tribute to Agnès Varda… Jenny Chamarette…Charmarette (included) it as her favourite and describing it as "like nothing else: a horror movie wrapped up in sunflowers, an excoriating feminist diatribe strummed to the tune of a love ballad. It’s one of the most terrifying films I’ve ever seen."

Runtime 1 hour 20 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_apt9n4y88

[Robert the List]

49. Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean Luc Godard

The third and final part of my Godard trilogy. Art in the form of film. As natural and innocent a romance as you’ll find on film (even though it transpires, apparently, to be fake!). A film which is absurd, but where when you find at some point that you are in step with it, it is a really comfortable and natural experience, like you are there with them on a beautiful summer day on the riviera. Belmondo is perfect for this kind of absurdist experience, as he is believable as the clown that he is called by Anna. There is a recurring ‘joke’ of her calling him Pierrot and him telling her his name is Ferdinand and her not taking any notice; she doesn’t actually care. Another apparent commentary on Goddard and Karina’s relationship which had ended prior to filming (awkward!), and an exploration of the struggle between the head (depicted in blue) and the heart (depicted in red).

Wikipedia:
“Pierrot le Fou (pronounced [pjɛʁo lə fu], French for "Pierrot the Fool") is a 1965 French New Wave romantic crime drama road film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina…The plot follows Ferdinand, an unhappily married man, as he escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a young woman chased by OAS hitmen from Algeria.
…Plot
Ferdinand Griffon is unhappily married and has been recently fired from his job at a TV broadcasting company. After attending a mindless party full of shallow discussions in Paris, he feels a need to escape and decides to run away with ex-girlfriend Marianne Renoir, leaving his wife and children and bourgeois lifestyle. Following Marianne into her apartment and finding a corpse, Ferdinand soon discovers that Marianne is being chased by OAS gangsters, two of whom they barely escape. Marianne and Ferdinand, whom she calls Pierrot – an unwelcome nickname meaning "sad clown" – go on a crime spree from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea in the dead man's car. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run, pursued by the police and by the OAS gangsters. When they settle down in the French Riviera after burning the dead man's car (which had been full of money, unbeknownst to Marianne) and sinking a second car into the Mediterranean Sea, their relationship becomes strained. Ferdinand reads books, philosophizes, and writes a diary. They spend a few days on a desert island.
A dwarf, who is one of the gangsters, kidnaps Marianne. She kills him with a pair of scissors. Ferdinand finds him murdered and is caught and bludgeoned by two of his accomplices, who waterboard him to make him reveal Marianne's whereabouts. Marianne escapes, and she and Ferdinand are separated. He settles in Toulon while she searches for him everywhere until she finds him. After their eventual reunion, Marianne uses Ferdinand to get a suitcase full of money before running away with her real boyfriend, Fred, to whom she had previously referred as her brother. Ferdinand shoots Marianne and Fred, then paints his face blue and decides to blow himself up by tying sticks of red and yellow dynamite to his head. He regrets this at the last second and tries to extinguish the fuse, but he fails and is blown up.
…Writing
As with many of Godard's movies, no screenplay was written until the day before shooting, and many scenes were improvised by the actors, especially in the final acts of the movie
Themes and style
Narrative and editing choices
Like many of Godard's films, Pierrot le fou features characters who break the fourth wall by looking into the camera. It also includes startling editing choices; for example, when Ferdinand throws a cake at a woman in the party scene, Godard cuts to an exploding firework just as it hits her. In many cases, Godard, rather than a seamless cut between two shots, inserts a third, unrelated image. Lorenz Engell claims that this third image is, to Godard, characterized by its reality and objectivity, and causes the "chains of images" to "fly apart".[9] The director said the film was "connected with the violence and loneliness that lie so close to happiness today."…
Pop art aesthetic
The film has many of the characteristics of the then dominant pop art movement, making constant disjunctive references to various elements of mass culture. Like much pop art, the film uses visuals drawn from cartoons and employs an intentionally garish visual aesthetic based on bright primary colors. Critic Richard Brody writes…that Godard's political anger at the escalation of the Vietnam War and waning inspiration from Obsession's original noir-like storyline led him to achieve "new heights of spontaneity and lightning invention" on the film, resulting in the film's pop art aesthetic.[4] Volker Panteburg writes that the film demonstrates Godard's interest in color and the "explosive power of images" just as much as story, citing the final scene where Ferdinand paints his face "Yves Klein blue" and kills himself with "Pop Art red sticks of dynamite."
…Consumerism
Godard explores consumerism and mass media in Pierrot le Fou, most prominently in an early scene at a cocktail party that demonstrates the bourgeois world Ferdinand flees from. The interactions of the guests consist solely of advertising slogans, drawing attention to the prevalence of commercialism and the strangeness of publicity speech, showing it out of context, in a "real" setting. …Godard uses the film to draw attention to advertising's tendency to sexualize women. In the aforementioned party, women are portrayed both clothed and topless. In an earlier scene, Ferdinand observes an advertisement for a girdle and comments in a voice-over that after the civilizations of Athens and the Renaissance, humanity is entering "the civilization of the ass".
(author’s note: Karina’s career started in making soap commercials, it was how she and Godard met)
Release
Pierrot le fou premiered at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, 1965, where some audience members initially responded by booing it. …
Reception
Despite the boos at Venice, the film received positive reviews. In Le Nouvel observateur, critic Michel Cournot wrote “I feel no embarrassment declaring that Pierrot le fou is the most beautiful film I've seen in my life", while in a front-page review for Les Lettres Françaises, the novelist and poet Louis Aragon praised the film, stating "There is one thing of which I am sure... art today is Jean-Luc Godard."…”

Runtime: 1 hour 50 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVvhJrrgfs0
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iex0tLOpAjQ

[Robert the List]

50. The Sound of Music 1965 USA Robert Wise

It's time to step out of the new wave, and what more blunt way to do it than with this piece of saccharine?
I don't get the problem personally. It's pretty to look at, and it sweeps the willing viewer up in the story. I find it enchanting and the end exciting. Just enjoy it for what it is, which is an excellent and iconic romantic feel-good drama and musical. I think it's great.

Wikipedia:
“The Sound of Music is a 1965 American musical drama film produced and directed by Robert Wise from a screenplay written by Ernest Lehman, and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer….The film is an adaptation of the 1959 stage musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Lindsay and Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp and is set in Salzburg, Austria. It is a fictional retelling of her experiences as governess to seven children…and their escape during the Anschluss in 1938.
Filming took place from March to September 1964 in Los Angeles and Salzburg…By November 1966, The Sound of Music had become the highest-grossing film of all-time, surpassing Gone with the Wind, and it held that distinction for five years. The film was popular throughout the world, breaking previous box-office records in 29 countries. It had an initial theatrical release that lasted four and a half years and two successful re-releases. It sold 283 million admissions worldwide and earned a total worldwide gross of $286 million.
…
…Background
…The Sound of Music story is based on Maria von Trapp's memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, published in 1949 to help promote her family's singing group following the death of her husband Georg in 1947. Hollywood producers expressed interest in purchasing the title only, but Maria refused, wanting her entire story to be told.
…In 1956, Paramount Pictures purchased the United States film rights, intending to produce an English-language version with Audrey Hepburn as Maria. The studio eventually dropped its option, but one of its directors, Vincent J. Donehue, proposed the story as a stage musical….
Producers Richard Halliday and Leland Heyward secured the rights and hired playwrights Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, who…approached Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II to compose one song for the musical, but the composers felt the two styles—traditional Austrian folk songs and their composition—would not work together. They offered to write a completely new score for the entire production if the producers were willing to wait while they completed work on Flower Drum Song. The producers quickly responded that they would wait as long as necessary. The Sound of Music stage musical opened on November 16, 1959, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York City and ran on Broadway for 1,443 performances, winning six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. In June 1960, Twentieth Century-Fox purchased the film adaptation rights to the stage musical for $1.25 million ($13.3 million in 2024) against ten percent of the gross.

Production
…In December 1962, 20th Century-Fox president Richard D. Zanuck hired Ernest Lehman to write the screenplay for the film adaptation of the stage musical
…Wise…read Lehman's first draft, was impressed by what he read, and agreed to direct the film… Wise shared Lehman's vision of the film being centered on the music, and the changes he made were consistent with the writer's approach—mainly reducing the amount of sweetness and sentimentality found in the stage musical.
…
Casting and rehearsals
Lehman's first and only choice for Maria was Julie Andrews. When Wise joined the project, he made a list of his choices for the role, which included Andrews as his first choice, Grace Kelly, and Shirley Jones….Andrews had some reservations—mainly about the amount of sweetness in the theatrical version—but when she learned that her concerns were shared by Wise and Lehman and what their vision was, she signed a contract with Fox to star in The Sound of Music and one other film for $225,000 ($2.28 million in 2024).
…
Wise had a more difficult time casting the role of the Captain. Many actors were considered for the part, including Bing Crosby, Yul Brynner, Sean Connery, and Richard Burton. Wise had seen Christopher Plummer on Broadway and wanted him for the role, but the stage actor turned down the offer several times. Wise flew to London to meet with Plummer and explained his concept of the film; the actor accepted after being assured that he could work with Lehman to improve the character…
Critical response…
The film had its opening premiere on March 2, 1965, at the Rivoli Theater in New York City.[95][96] Initial reviews were mixed. Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times, criticized the film's "romantic nonsense and sentiment", the children's "artificial roles", and Robert Wise's "cosy-cum-corny" direction. Judith Crist, in a biting review in the New York Herald Tribune, dismissed the film as "icky sticky" and designed for "the five to seven set and their mommies". In her review for McCall's magazine, Pauline Kael called the film "the sugar-coated lie people seem to want to eat", and that audiences have "turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs." Wise later recalled, "The East Coast, intellectual papers and magazines destroyed us, but the local papers and the trades gave us great reviews". Indeed, reviewers such as Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "three hours of visual and vocal brilliance", and Variety called it "a warmly-pulsating, captivating drama set to the most imaginative use of the lilting R-H tunes, magnificently mounted and with a brilliant cast".
…
Box office
…One contributing factor in the film's early commercial success was the repeat business of many filmgoers. In some cities in the United States, the number of tickets sold exceeded the total population.
…Worldwide, The Sound of Music broke previous box-office records in twenty-nine countries, including the United Kingdom, where it played for a record-breaking three years at the Dominion Theatre in London and earned £4 million in rentals and grossed £6 million—more than twice as much as any other film had taken in…
…
Historical accuracy
...The Sound of Music film adaptation, like the stage musical, presents a fictionalized story inspired by the history of the von Trapp family. The musical was based on the West German film The Trapp Family (1956) rather than Maria von Trapp's 1949 memoirs…The West German screenwriters made several significant changes to the family's story that were kept in the musical.
…Georg Ludwig von Trapp was indeed an anti-Nazi opposed to the Anschluss, and he lived with his family in a villa in a district of Salzburg called Aigen. The film, however, greatly exaggerated their standard of living. The actual family villa located at Traunstraße 34, Aigen 5026 was large and comfortable, but not nearly as grand as the mansion depicted in the film….
…Georg was offered a position in the German Kriegsmarine; Nazi Germany was looking to expand its fleet of U-boats, and Korvettenkäpitan (Lieutenant Commander) von Trapp was the most successful Austro-Hungarian submarine commander of World War I,[162] having sunk 11 Allied merchant ships totaling 47,653 GRT and two Allied warships displacing a total of 12,641 tons. With his family in desperate financial straits, he seriously considered the offer before deciding that he could not serve a Nazi regime….
Maria Kutschera had indeed been a novice at Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg and had been hired by the von Trapp family. However, she was hired only to be a tutor to young Maria Franziska, who had contracted scarlet fever and needed her lessons at home; she was not hired to be a governess to all of the children.
Maria and Georg married for practical reasons rather than love and affection for each other. Georg needed a mother for his children, and Maria needed the security of a husband and family once she decided to leave the abbey. "I really and truly was not in love," Maria wrote in her memoir, "I liked him but didn't love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children. I learned to love him more than I have ever loved before or after."

…In the film, the von Trapp family hike over the Alps from Austria to Switzerland to escape the Nazis, which would not have been possible; Salzburg is over two hundred miles from Switzerland. The von Trapp villa, however, was only a few kilometers from the Austria–Germany border, and the final scene shows the family hiking on the Obersalzberg near the German town of Berchtesgaden, within sight of Adolf Hitler's Kehlsteinhaus Eagle's Nest retreat. In reality, the family simply walked to the local train station and boarded a train to Italy, from which they travelled to Switzerland, France, and London. The Trapps were entitled to Italian citizenship since Georg had been born in Zadar, Dalmatia, Austria-Hungary, which had been annexed by Italy after World War I. From London they emigrated to the United States on their Italian passports….
Legacy
The Sound of Music is set in Salzburg, yet it was largely ignored in Austria upon release.
…By 2007, The Sound of Music was drawing 300,000 visitors a year to Salzburg, more than the city's self-conception as the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
German translation of the musical was performed on the national stage for the first time in 2005 at the Vienna Volksoper, receiving negative reviews from Austrian critics, who called it "boring" and referred to "Edelweiss" as "an insult to Austrian musical creation."
…Sing-along Sound of Music screenings have since become an international phenomenon"

Running time: 2 hours 54 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygyK0HStjwg

[Robert the List]

51. Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France Robert Bresson

This is one of very few films in the list which is not a personal favourite of mine. It’s included because I respect its brilliance. It is a stunning visual masterpiece. Also the sound is an experience of its own, whether through the sounds of the French countryside or the gentle and scarce score.

Balthazar is a harrowing tale, to me a study of hardship, which ultimately does not let the viewer out of its grip. You could perhaps say that the viewer has in some way been assaulted by the end of the film, as many people are by their lives, but it is still an experience of what film can do. At least your eyes will enjoy it.

Wikipedia:
“Au hasard Balthazar (French pronunciation: [o a.zaʁ bal.ta.zaʁ]; meaning "Balthazar, at Random"), also known as Balthazar, is a 1966 French tragedy film directed by Robert Bresson. Believed to be inspired by a passage from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1868–69 novel The Idiot, the film follows a donkey as he is given to various owners, most of whom treat him callously.
Noted for Bresson's ascetic directorial style and regarded as a work of profound emotional effect…
…Production
After making several prison-themed films using his theory of "pure cinematography", Bresson stated that he wanted to move onto a different style of filmmaking. Bresson later confirmed that Marie was inspired by a character in Bernanos' novel, La Joie, and that Balthazar was meant to be based on the priest's death at the end of the novel. Moreover, Bresson uses ideas and influences from Jansenism on the exploration of humanity, in which he compares the film's overall premise as following the life of Saint Ignatius
According to Wiazemsky's 2007 novel Jeune Fille, she and Bresson developed a close relationship during the shooting of the film, although it was not consummated. On location they stayed in adjoining rooms and Wiazemsky said that "at first, he would content himself by holding my arm, or stroking my cheek. But then came the disagreeable moment when he would try to kiss me ... I would push him away and he wouldn't insist, but he looked so unhappy that I always felt guilty." Later Wiazemsky had sex with a member of the film's crew, which she says gave her the courage to reject Bresson as a lover….
(author’s note: he was 66, she was 18/19)
…
Reception
When Au hasard Balthazar first played in New York at the 1966 Film Festival, "it received mostly unfavorable notices". Reviews in Europe, however, were glowing. The noted filmmaker and Cahiers du Cinéma critic Jean-Luc Godard said, "Everyone who sees this film will be absolutely astonished [...] because this film is really the world in an hour and a half." Godard married Anne Wiazemsky, who played Marie in the film, in 1967.
…Andrew Sarris, one of cinema's most influential critics,[11] wrote in his 1970 review: "No film I have ever seen has come so close to convulsing my entire being ... It stands by itself as one of the loftiest pinnacles of artistically realized emotional experience." The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, however, wrote that although some consider the work a masterpiece, "others may find it painstakingly tedious and offensively holy". Ingmar Bergman said, "this Balthazar, I didn't understand a word of it, it was so completely boring ... A donkey, to me, is completely uninteresting, but a human being is always interesting."
The film's religious imagery, spiritual allegories and naturalistic, minimalist aesthetic style have since been widely praised by reviewers.
…Roger Ebert argued, "The genius of Bresson's approach is that he never gives us a single moment that could be described as one of Balthazar's 'reaction shots.' Other movie animals may roll their eyes or stomp their hooves, but Balthazar simply walks or waits, regarding everything with the clarity of a donkey who knows it is a beast of burden, and that its life consists of either bearing or not bearing [...] This is the cinema of empathy."
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky similarly commented, "Bresson never attempts to humanize Balthazar. [...] What Balthazar experiences of human nature is both pure and limited: the embrace of a lonely young woman, the unprovoked attack of an angry young man, and the work of the farms whose owners worry over money. He is only a donkey, and therefore something much more."”

Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL8MuxXB_Eg
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FED1zl5p-kA

[Robert the List]

52. Blow Up 1966 UK Michelangelo Antonioni

The sexism is annoying bearing on intolerable at times (for example where the protagonist photographer tells Vanessa Redgrave’s character that she’s good at standing and says let’s see how good you are at sitting). Antonini made beautiful films, but by goodness he was from another time! Also whilst it has provoked some thought, I’m not absolutely convinced that Antonioni knew what point he was making, so overthinking it might prove to be somewhat pointless.

But if you can get past those points, it’s a suspense which arouses the curiosity at least. It also has a quietness at times which makes me think of slow cinema, and I would regard this and perhaps some of Antonioni’s other works as a significant influence on that movement. It’s also absolutely gorgeously shot, with so many lush images. As well as that it is the best example I am aware of of swinging 60s London captured in a movie

Wikipedia:
“[I]Blowup (also styled Blow-Up) is a 1966 psychological mystery film... It is Antonioni's first entirely English-language film and stars David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave and Sarah Miles…Jane Birkin makes her first film appearance.
…Set within the contemporary mod subculture of Swinging London, the film follows a fashion photographer (Hemmings) who believes he has unwittingly captured a murder on film.
…
Antonioni's screenplay for Blow-Up is a "thriller-suspense" story revolving around the efforts of a young and successful fashion photographer in his struggle to determine whether a series of photographs he takes at a public park contain evidence of a murder….
Casting
Several people were offered the role of the protagonist, including Sean Connery (who declined when Antonioni refused to show him the script), David Bailey, and Terence Stamp, who was replaced shortly before filming began after Antonioni saw David Hemmings in a stage production…
…Actor Ronan O'Casey claimed that the film's mysterious nature is the product of an "unfinished" production. In a 1999 letter to Roger Ebert, O'Casey wrote that scenes that would have "depict[ed] the planning of the murder and its aftermath – scenes with Vanessa, Sarah Miles, and Jeremy Glover, Vanessa's new young lover who plots with her to murder me – were never shot because the film went seriously over budget."
…
Critical reception
Critic Andrew Sarris called the film "a mod masterpiece". In Playboy magazine, film critic Arthur Knight wrote that Blow-Up would come to be considered "as important and seminal a film as Citizen Kane, Open City, and Hiroshima, Mon Amour – perhaps even more so". Time magazine called the film a "far-out, uptight and vibrantly exciting picture" that represented a "screeching change of creative direction" for Antonioni; the magazine predicted it would "undoubtedly be by far the most popular movie Antonioni has ever made".
Bosley Crowther, film critic of The New York Times, called it a "fascinating picture", but expressed reservations, describing the "usual Antonioni passages of seemingly endless wanderings" as "redundant and long"; nevertheless, he called Blow-Up a "stunning picture – beautifully built up with glowing images and color compositions that get us into the feelings of our man and into the characteristics of the mod world in which he dwells". Even director Ingmar Bergman, who generally disliked Antonioni's work, called the film a masterpiece.
...
Anthony Quinn, writing for The Guardian in 2017 for the film's fiftieth anniversary, described Blow-Up as "a picture about perception and ambiguity"…


Runtime: 1 hour 51 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrJ9U75OZOw
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-xTqpkhZxA

[Robert the List]

So that's the first 50. And co-incidentally marks the end of the (first) black and white era.

What do you think so far?

I am actually very very happy with the first 50. I think this is very solid.

[Robert the List]

53. Closely Watched Trains 1966 Czechoslovakia Jiří Menzel

It’s amusing, charming, and at times dramatic. It looks great and is nicely paced and nicely acted.

Wikipedia:
“Closely Watched Trains (Czech: Ostře Sledované Vlaky) is a 1966 Czechoslovakian New Wave coming-of-age comedy film directed by Jiří Menzel and is one of the best-known films of the Czechoslovak New Wave. It was released in the United Kingdom as Closely Observed Trains. It is a story about a young man working at a train station in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II. The film is based on a 1965 novel by Bohumil Hrabal…
Plot
The young Miloš Hrmas…is engaged as a newly-trained train dispatcher at a small railway station near the end of the Second World War and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.
…Miloš is in a budding relationship with the pretty, young conductor Máša.
…The Germans and their collaborators are on edge, since their trains and railroad tracks are being attacked by partisans. A glamorous resistance agent, code-named Viktoria Freie, delivers a time bomb to Hubička for use in blowing up a large ammunition train.
The next day, at the crucial moment when the ammunition train is approaching the station, Hubička is caught up in a farcical disciplinary hearing…over his rubber-stamping of Zdenička's backside.
In Hubička's place, Miloš…takes the time bomb…””

Runtime: 1 hour 32 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qCdwPVG95Q

[SpelingError]

You might've explained this somewhere else, but I'm curious if you have specific criteria in mind for determining this list.

[Robert the List]

You might've explained this somewhere else, but I'm curious if you have specific criteria in mind for determining this list.
Not really anything specific tbh.

Errr...I guess I give big credit for:

-innovation
-technical brilliance
-visual beauty (most of the films are gorgeous looking)
-watchability/gets you absorbed and you aren't wondering how long is left to get through
-acting (this one is kind of taken for granted, but if acting is noticeably bad then it loses marks pretty quickly*)
-engenders emotion (including intentional laughter where applicable)

and then perhaps a little less credit to:
-gives you something to think about/has clever plot ideas
-is influential on later films or in other ways
-memorable

i might give some additional credit if it has a low budget and/or inexperienced team.

But at the end of the day it just comes down to which to me are the greatest films!

*an example is On the Waterfront, where actually I find some of the smaller parts are not especially well acted. It's probably principally because of this that it misses out, as I love some of the cinematography, and its 'realism' seems to have been something new to American cinema.

[Robert the List]

54. Bonnie and Clyde 1967 USA Arthur Penn

Like Wiki says, it was groundbreaking for American film. It’s maybe a callous thing to say about a group of murderers, but the film’s a riot. Looks great. Dunaway (who I think is generally underrated and one of the greatest ever actresses) is superb, and beautiful.

Wikipedia
“Bonnie and Clyde is a 1967 American biographical crime film directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the title characters Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, outlaws and romantic partners in the Great Depression-era American South. The cast also features…Gene Hackman…Beatty also produced the film.
…Bonnie and Clyde is considered one of the first films of the New Hollywood era and a landmark picture. It broke many cinematic taboos and for some members of the counterculture, the film was considered a "rallying cry". Its success prompted other filmmakers to be more open in presenting sex and violence in their films. The film's ending became famous as "one of the bloodiest death scenes in cinematic history".

…Production and style
The film was intended as a romantic and comic version of the violent gangster films of the 1930s, updated with modern filmmaking techniques. Arthur Penn portrayed some of the violent scenes with a comic tone, sometimes reminiscent of Keystone Cops-style slapstick films, then shifted disconcertingly into horrific and graphic violence. The film has the French New Wave directors' influence, both in its rapid shifts of tone, and in its choppy editing, which is particularly noticeable in its closing sequence.
The first handling of the script was in the early 1960s. Influenced by the French New Wave writers and not yet completed, Newman and Benton sent…their script to François Truffaut, who made contributions but passed on the project, next directing Fahrenheit 451. At Truffaut's suggestion, the writers, much excited (the film's producers were less so), approached filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.
Some sources claim Godard did not trust Hollywood and refused. Benton claimed that Godard wanted to shoot the film in New Jersey in January during the winter. He purportedly took offense when would-be producer Norah Wright objected that his desire was unreasonable, as the story took place in Texas, which has a warm climate year-round…Godard's retort: «Je vous parle de cinéma, vous me parlez de météo. Au revoir.» ("I'm talking cinema and you're talking weather. Goodbye."). After the 1968 Academy Awards, Godard sent Benton and Newman a cable that read, "Now, let's make it all over again!"
Soon after the failed negotiations for production, Beatty was visiting Paris and learned through Truffaut of the project and its path. On returning to Hollywood, Beatty requested to see the script and bought the rights. A meeting with Godard was not productive. Beatty changed his approach and convinced the writers that while the script at first reading was very much of the French New Wave style, an American director was necessary for the subject.
…Penn turned it down several times before Beatty finally persuaded him to direct the film. Beatty was entitled to 40% of the profits of the film and gave Penn 10%.
When Beatty was on board as producer only, his sister and actress Shirley MacLaine was a strong possibility to play Bonnie. When Beatty decided to play Clyde, they needed a different actress. Considered for the role were Jane Fonda…Sharon Tate…Cher auditioned for the part, and Beatty begged Natalie Wood to play the role. Wood declined, to concentrate on her therapy, and acknowledged that working with Beatty before had been "difficult". Faye Dunaway later said that she won the part "by the skin of her teeth!"

The film is forthright in its handling of sexuality, but that theme was toned down from its conception. Originally, Benton and Newman wrote Clyde as bisexual. He and Bonnie were to have a three-way sexual relationship with their male getaway driver. Penn persuaded the writers that since the couple's relationship was underwritten in terms of emotional complexity, it dissipated the passion of the title characters. This would threaten the audience's sympathy for the characters, and might result in their being written off as sexual deviants because they were criminals. Others said that Beatty was unwilling to have his character display that kind of sexuality and that the Production Code would never have allowed such content in the first place. Clyde is portrayed as heterosexual and impotent.

Bonnie and Clyde was one of the first films to feature extensive use of squibs—small explosive charges, often mounted with bags of stage blood, that detonate inside an actor's clothes to simulate bullet hits. Released in an era when film shootings were generally depicted as bloodless and painless, the Bonnie and Clyde death scene was one of the first in mainstream American cinema to be depicted with graphic realism.
... Much of the studio's senior management was hostile to the film, especially Jack L. Warner, who considered the subject matter an unwanted throwback to Warner Bros.' early period when gangster films were a common product….Warner complained about the costs of the film's extensive location shooting in Texas, which exceeded its production schedule and budget, and ordered the crew back to the studio backlot. It already had planned to return for final process shots.
…
Historical accuracy
The film considerably simplifies the lives of Bonnie and Clyde and their gang. They were allied with other gang members, were repeatedly jailed, and committed other murders….
On the run, they suffered a horrific auto accident in which Parker was severely burned and disabled. …
…In 1933, police found undeveloped film in Bonnie and Clyde's hastily abandoned hideout in Joplin, Missouri. When they printed the negatives, one showed Bonnie holding a gun in her hand and a cigar between her teeth. Its publication nationwide typed her as a dramatic gun moll. The film portrays the taking of this playful photo. It implies the gang sent photos—and poetry—to the press, but this is untrue. The police found most of the gang's items in the Joplin cache. Bonnie's final poem, read aloud by her in the movie, was not published until after her death, when her mother released it.
The only two surviving members of the Barrow Gang when the film was released in 1967 were Blanche Barrow and W.D. Jones. While Barrow had approved the depiction of her in the original script, she objected to the later rewrites. At the film's release, she complained about Estelle Parsons's portrayal of her, saying, "That film made me look like a screaming horse's ass!"…

Release
…At first, Warner Bros. did not promote Bonnie and Clyde for general release, but mounted only limited regional releases that seemed to confirm its misgivings about the film's lack of commercial appeal. The film quickly did excellent sustained business in select urban theatres. While Jack Warner was selling the studio to Seven Arts Productions, he would have dumped the film but for the fact that Israel, of which Warner was a major supporter, had recently triumphed in the Six-Day War. Warner was feeling too defiant to sell any of his studio's films.
Meanwhile, Beatty complained to Warner Bros. that if the company was willing to go to so much trouble for Reflections in a Golden Eye (it had changed the coloration scheme at considerable expense), their neglect of his film, which was getting excellent press, suggested a conflict of interest; he threatened to sue the company. Warner Bros. gave Beatty's film a general release. Much to the surprise of Warner Bros.' management, the film became a major box-office success.

Reception and legacy
The film was controversial at the time of release because of its apparent glorification of murderers, and for its level of graphic violence, which was unprecedented at the time. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cutups in Thoroughly Modern Millie." He was so appalled that he began to campaign against the increasing brutality of American films.
…
[A]s a re-creation of reality, Bonnie and Clyde can only be described as dishonest ... neither Faye Dunaway nor Warren Beatty acts in a proper Thirties mode, nor do they seem to understand the feelings of the desperate and the underprivileged. The actress' willowy modern charm is no more appropriate to the lethal, serpentine coldness of the real Bonnie Parker than the actors' sensitive, matinee idol's looks have the right style for the shoddy vanity of Clyde Barrow.Film historian Charles Higham in The Art of the American Film: 1900–1971. (1973).
Roger Ebert gave Bonnie and Clyde a positive review, giving it four stars out of four. He called the film "a milestone in the history of American movies, a work of truth and brilliance", adding, "It is also pitilessly cruel, filled with sympathy, nauseating, funny, heartbreaking, and astonishingly beautiful. If it does not seem that those words should be strung together, perhaps that is because movies do not very often reflect the full range of human life."
…The New York Times fired Crowther because his negative review seemed so out of touch with public opinion. Pauline Kael, who wrote a lengthy freelance essay in The New Yorker in praise of the film, was hired as the magazine's new staff critic.
…Although many believe the film's groundbreaking portrayal of violence adds to the film's artistic merit, Bonnie and Clyde is still sometimes criticized for opening the floodgates to heightened graphic violence in cinema and TV.
Influence…Fifty years after its premiere, Bonnie and Clyde has been cited as a major influence for such disparate films as The Wild Bunch, The Godfather, The Departed, Queen & Slim, True Romance, and Natural Born Killers.”

Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9smHLhj75CU

[Robert the List]

55. The Graduate 1967 USA Mike Nichols

It’s a lot of fun. It’s a good yarn. It’s funny. It looks great. It’s iconic. Anne Bancroft is fantastic.

Wikipedia:
"The Graduate is a 1967 American independent romantic comedy-drama film…based on the 1963 novella by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The film tells the story of 21-year-old Benjamin Braddock, a recent college graduate with no well-defined aim in life who is seduced by an older married woman, Mrs. Robinson, but then falls for her daughter, Elaine.
…
Casting
Nichols' first choice for Mrs. Robinson was French actress Jeanne Moreau. The motivation for this was the cliché that in French culture, "older" women tended to "train" the younger men in sexual matters….Doris Day turned down an offer because the nudity required by the role offended her….Shelley Winters, Ingrid Bergman, Eva Marie Saint, Ava Gardner, Patricia Neal, Susan Hayward, Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner and Geraldine Page were also considered for the role of Mrs. Robinson….
..
When Dustin Hoffman auditioned for the role of Benjamin, he was just short of his 30th birthday at the time of filming. He was asked to perform a love scene with Ross, having previously never done one, and believed that, as he said later, "a girl like [Ross] would never go for a guy like me in a million years". Ross agreed, believing that Hoffman "looked about 3 feet tall ... so unkempt. This is going to be a disaster."…

…Hoffman was paid $20,000 for his role in the film, but netted just $4,000 after taxes and living expenses. After spending that money, Hoffman filed for New York State unemployment benefits, receiving $55 per week while living in a two-room apartment in the West Village of Manhattan.
Before Hoffman was cast, Robert Redford and Charles Grodin were among the top choices. Redford tested for the part of Benjamin (with Candice Bergen as Elaine), but Nichols thought Redford did not possess the underdog quality Benjamin needed….Harrison Ford also auditioned for the role of Benjamin Braddock but was turned down.…Jack Nicholson, Steve McQueen, Anthony Perkins, Warren Beatty, George Peppard…were also considered for the role of Benjamin Braddock.
Ronald Reagan was considered for the part of Benjamin's father Mr. Braddock, which eventually went to William Daniels. Nichols cast Gene Hackman as Mr. Robinson, but he was later fired after a few days of rehearsals; he was replaced by Murray Hamilton. Hackman would later say being fired from the film still hurts him.
Despite playing mother and daughter, Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross were only eight years apart in age. Bancroft and Hoffman differed less than six.
Filming
The quality of the cinematography was influenced by Nichols, who chose Oscar winner Robert Surtees to do the photography. Surtees, who had photographed major films since the 1920s, including Ben-Hur, said later, "It took everything I had learned over 30 years to be able to do the job. I knew that Mike Nichols was a young director who went in for a lot of camera. We did more things in this picture than I ever did in one film."
….The wedding scene was highly influenced by the ending of the 1924 comedy film Girl Shy starring Harold Lloyd, who also served as an advisor for the scene in The Graduate.

Music
See also: The Graduate (soundtrack)
The film boosted the profile of folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. Originally, Nichols and O'Steen used their existing songs like "The Sound of Silence" merely as a pacing device for the editing, until Nichols decided that substituting original music would not be effective, and decided to include them on the soundtrack, an unusual move at that time.
...
In popular culture
Numerous films, TV shows, music videos, and commercials have referenced The Graduate.
…In the 1992 film The Player, Robert Altman's satire of Hollywood, Buck Henry pitches a sequel to The Graduate to producer Griffin Mill (played by Tim Robbins) during the film's opening sequence.
…
Stage adaptation
Terry Johnson's adaptation of the original novel and the film ran on both London's West End and Broadway, and has toured the United States. There is a Brazilian version adapted by Miguel Falabella. Several actresses have starred as Mrs. Robinson, including Kathleen Turner, Lorraine Bracco, Jerry Hall, Amanda Donohoe, Morgan Fairchild, Anne Archer, Vera Fischer, Patricia Richardson and Linda Gray.
The stage production adds several scenes not in the novel nor the film, as well as using material from both film and novel. The soundtrack uses songs by Simon & Garfunkel also not used in the film, such as "Bridge Over Troubled Water", as well as music from other popular musicians from the era, such as The Byrds and The Beach Boys.
The West End production opened at the Gielgud Theatre on April 5, 2000, after previews from March 24, with Kathleen Turner starring as Mrs. Robinson. Jerry Hall replaced Turner from July 31, 2000, followed by Amanda Donohoe from February 2001, Anne Archer from June 2001, and Linda Gray from October 2001. The production closed in January 2002. The 2003 U.K. touring production starred Glynis Barber as Mrs. Robinson….”

Runtime: 1 hour 46 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KnSucVko1s
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3lKbMBab18

[Robert the List]

-

[Robert the List]

57. 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 UK Stanley Kubrick

Wikipedia:
“2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay was written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. Its plot was inspired by several short stories optioned from Clarke, primarily "The Sentinel" (1951) and "Encounter in the Dawn" (1953). The film…follows a voyage by astronauts, scientists, and the sentient supercomputer HAL 9000 to Jupiter to investigate an alien monolith.
The film is noted for its scientifically accurate depiction of spaceflight, pioneering special effects, and ambiguous themes. Kubrick avoided conventional cinematic and narrative techniques; dialogue is used sparingly, and there are long sequences accompanied only by music. Shunning the convention that major film productions should feature original music, 2001: A Space Odyssey takes for its soundtrack numerous works of classical music, including pieces by Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss II, Aram Khachaturian, and György Ligeti.
Polarising critics after its release, 2001: A Space Odyssey has since been subject to a variety of interpretations, ranging from the darkly apocalyptic to an optimistic reappraisal of the hopes of humanity. Critics noted its exploration of themes such as human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning Kubrick the award for his direction of the visual effects, which apart from his lifetime-achievement Oscar, was the only Academy Award the director would receive….
The film is now widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made…

Plot
In a prehistoric veld, a tribe of hominins is driven away from a water hole by a rival tribe, and the next day finds an alien monolith. The tribe learns how to use a bone as a weapon and, after a first hunt, use it to drive the rival tribe away.
Millions of years later, Dr Heywood Floyd, Chairman of the United States National Council of Astronautics, travels to Clavius Base, an American lunar outpost. During a stopover at Space Station Five, he meets Russian scientists who are concerned that Clavius seems to be unresponsive. He refuses to discuss rumours of an epidemic at the base. At Clavius, Floyd addresses a meeting of personnel to whom he stresses the need for secrecy regarding their newest discovery. His mission is to investigate a recently found artefact, a monolith buried four million years earlier near the lunar crater Tycho. As he and others examine and photograph the object, it emits a high-powered radio signal.
Eighteen months later, the American spacecraft Discovery One is bound for Jupiter, with mission pilots and scientists Dr Dave Bowman and Dr Frank Poole on board, along with three other scientists in suspended animation.
…(ending: spoilers ��)
At Jupiter, Bowman finds a third, much larger monolith orbiting the planet. He leaves Discovery in an EVA pod to investigate. He is pulled into a vortex of coloured light and observes bizarre astronomical phenomena and strange landscapes of unusual colours as he passes by. Finally he finds himself in a large neoclassical bedroom where he sees, and then becomes, older versions of himself: first standing in the bedroom, middle-aged and still in his spacesuit, then dressed in leisure attire and eating dinner, and finally as an old man lying in bed. A monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as Bowman reaches for it, he is transformed into a foetus enclosed in a transparent orb of light, which afterwards floats in space above the Earth.

Production
…After completing Dr. Strangelove (1964), director Stanley Kubrick told a publicist from Columbia Pictures that his next project would be about extraterrestrial life…How Kubrick became interested in creating a science fiction film is far from clear…
Kubrick obtained financing and distribution from the American studio MGM with the selling point that the film could be marketed in the ultra-widescreen Cinerama format, which MGM had recently used on How the West Was Won.
…In a draft version of a contract with Kubrick's production company in May 1965, MGM suggested Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and David Lean as possible replacements for Kubrick if he was unavailable. (author’s note: whaaaaaat?????? lol could you get 4 more diverse directors??)

Pre-production
…Illustrators…were hired to produce concept drawings, sketches, and paintings of the space technology seen in the film. Two educational films, the National Film Board of Canada's 1960 animated short documentary Universe and the 1964 New York World's Fair film To the Moon and Beyond, were major influences.
According to biographer Vincent LoBrutto, Universe was a visual inspiration to Kubrick.
The 29-minute film, which had also proved popular at NASA for its realistic portrayal of outer space, met "the standard of dynamic visionary realism that he was looking for".
…Universe's narrator, actor Douglas Rain, was cast as the voice of HAL.

…background artist Douglas Trumbull..created storyboards for the space flight sequences in 2001. Trumbull became a special effects supervisor on 2001. Although Trumbull's association with Kubrick was a huge boost for his career, he swore afterwards that he would "never work for someone else again", in part because Kubrick "was a hell of a taskmaster ... his level of quality-control bordered on perfectionism."
The film would eventually earn an Oscar for best special effects, but the award went solely to Kubrick, with Trumbull receiving none of the accolade for his work. This led to threats of legal action and the two men did not speak for a decade. Trumbull said after Kubrick's death that he "was a genius", someone whom Trumbull missed terribly…
Writing

…Searching for a collaborator in the science fiction community for the writing of the script, Kubrick was advised by a mutual acquaintance, Columbia Pictures staff member Roger Caras, to talk to writer Arthur C. Clarke, who lived in Ceylon. Although convinced that Clarke was "a recluse, a nut who lives in a tree", Kubrick allowed Caras to cable the film proposal to Clarke.
Clarke's cabled response stated that he was "frightfully interested in working with [that] enfant terrible", and added "what makes Kubrick think I'm a recluse?"
Meeting for the first time at Trader Vic's in New York on 22 April 1964, the two began discussing the project that would take up the next four years of their lives. Clarke kept a diary throughout his involvement with 2001, excerpts of which were published in 1972 as The Lost Worlds of 2001. Kubrick told Clarke he wanted to make a film about "Man's relationship to the universe", and was, in Clarke's words, "determined to create a work of art which would arouse the emotions of wonder, awe ... even, if appropriate, terror".
Clarke offered Kubrick six of his short stories, and by May 1964, Kubrick had chosen "The Sentinel" as the source material for the film. In search of more material to expand the film's plot, the two spent the rest of 1964 reading books on science and anthropology, screening science fiction films, and brainstorming ideas.
They created the plot for 2001 by integrating several different short story plots written by Clarke, along with new plot segments requested by Kubrick for the film development, and then combined them all into a single script for 2001.
Kubrick and Clarke privately referred to the project as How the Solar System Was Won, a reference to how it was a follow-on to MGM's Cinerama epic How the West Was Won. On 23 February 1965, Kubrick issued a press release announcing the title as Journey Beyond The Stars…in April 1965, eleven months after they began working on the project, Kubrick selected 2001: A Space Odyssey; Clarke said the title was "entirely" Kubrick's idea.
Intending to set the film apart from the "monsters-and-sex" type of science-fiction films of the time, Kubrick used Homer's The Odyssey as both a model of literary merit and a source of inspiration for the title. Kubrick said, "It occurred to us that for the Greeks the vast stretches of the sea must have had the same sort of mystery and remoteness that space has for our generation."
…Kubrick made the film more cryptic by minimising dialogue and explanation. Kubrick said the film is "basically a visual, nonverbal experience" that "hits the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does, or painting"…Kubrick hinted at the nature of the mysterious unseen alien race in 2001 by suggesting that given millions of years of evolution, they progressed from biological beings to "immortal machine entities" and then into "beings of pure energy and spirit" with "limitless capabilities and ungraspable intelligence".
In a 1980 interview (not released during Kubrick's lifetime), Kubrick explains one of the film's closing scenes, where Bowman is depicted in old age after his journey through the Star Gate:
“The idea was supposed to be that he is taken in by godlike entities, creatures of pure energy and intelligence with no shape or form. They put him in what I suppose you could describe as a human zoo to study him, and his whole life passes from that point on in that room. And he has no sense of time. ... When they get finished with him, as happens in so many myths of all cultures in the world, he is transformed into some kind of super being and sent back to Earth, transformed and made some kind of superman. We have to only guess what happens when he goes back. It is the pattern of a great deal of mythology, and that is what we were trying to suggest.”
…
Kubrick made further changes to make the film more nonverbal, to communicate on a visual and visceral level rather than through conventional narrative. By the time shooting began, Kubrick had removed much of the dialogue and narration. Long periods without dialogue permeate the film: the film has no dialogue for roughly the first and last twenty minutes, as well as for the 10 minutes from Floyd's Moonbus landing near the monolith until Poole watches a BBC newscast on Discovery. What dialogue remains is notable for its banality (making the computer HAL seem to have more emotion than the humans) when juxtaposed with the epic space scenes.

Filming
Principal photography began on 29 December 1965, in Stage H at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, England….Filming of actors was completed in September 1967,[63] and from June 1966 until March 1968, Kubrick spent most of his time working on the 205 special-effects shots in the film.
He ordered the special-effects technicians to use the painstaking process of creating all visual effects seen in the film "in camera", avoiding degraded picture quality from the use of blue screen and travelling matte techniques. Although this technique, known as "held takes", resulted in a much better image, it meant exposed film would be stored for long periods of time between shots, sometimes as long as a year. In March 1968, Kubrick finished the "pre-premiere" editing of the film, making his final cuts just days before the film's general release in April 1968.
The film was announced in 1965 as a "Cinerama"[65] film and was photographed in Super Panavision 70 (which uses a 65 mm negative combined with spherical lenses to create an aspect ratio of 2.20:1). It would eventually be released in a "roadshow" 70 mm version and a later general release 35 mm version. Colour processing and 35 mm release prints were done using Technicolor's dye transfer process. The 70 mm prints were made by MGM Laboratories, Inc. on Metrocolor. The production was $4.5 million over the initial $6 million budget and 16 months behind schedule….
…
Music
From early in production, Kubrick decided that he wanted the film to be a primarily nonverbal experience that did not rely on the traditional techniques of narrative cinema, and in which music would play a vital role in evoking particular moods. About half the music in the film appears either before the first line of dialogue or after the final line. Almost no music is heard during scenes with dialogue. The film is notable for its innovative use of classical music taken from existing commercial recordings. Most feature films, then and now, are typically accompanied by elaborate film scores or songs written specially for them by professional composers. In the early stages of production, Kubrick commissioned a score for 2001 from Hollywood composer Alex North, who had written the score for Spartacus and also had worked on Dr. Strangelove. During post-production, Kubrick chose to abandon North's music in favour of the classical pieces which he had earlier chosen to guide North's score. North did not know that his score had been abandoned in favour of the temporary music pieces until he saw the film at its premiere.
Design and visual effects
…The film features an extensive use of Eurostile Bold Extended, Futura and other sans serif typefaces as design elements of the 2001 world. Computer displays show high-resolution fonts, colour, and graphics that were far in advance of what most computers were capable of in the 1960s, when the film was made.
…Models
To heighten the reality of the film, intricate models of the various spacecraft and locations were built. Their sizes ranged from about two-foot-long models of satellites and the Aries translunar shuttle up to the 55-foot (17 m)-long model of the Discovery One spacecraft. "In-camera" techniques were again used as much as possible to combine models and background shots together to prevent degradation of the image through duplication.
…Rotating sets
For spacecraft interior shots, ostensibly containing a giant centrifuge that produces artificial gravity, Kubrick had a 30-short-ton (27 t) rotating "ferris wheel…Various scenes in the Discovery centrifuge were shot by securing set pieces within the wheel, then rotating it while the actor walked or ran in sync with its motion, keeping him at the bottom of the wheel as it turned. The camera could be fixed to the inside of the rotating wheel to show the actor walking completely "around" the set, or mounted in such a way that the wheel rotated independently of the stationary camera, as in the jogging scene where the camera appears to alternately precede and follow the running actor.
The shots where the actors appear on opposite sides of the wheel required one of the actors to be strapped securely into place at the "top" of the wheel as it moved to allow the other actor to walk to the "bottom" of the wheel to join him….
Zero-gravity effects
The realistic-looking effects of the astronauts floating weightless in space and inside the spacecraft were accomplished by suspending the actors from wires attached to the top of the set and placing the camera beneath them. The actors' bodies blocked the camera's view of the wires and appeared to float. For the shot of Poole floating into the pod's arms during Bowman's recovery of him, a stuntman on a wire portrayed the movements of an unconscious man and was shot in slow motion to enhance the illusion of drifting through space…
….
Theatrical run and post-premiere cuts
The film was originally scheduled for a Christmas 1966 release, but was later delayed to early 1967, then later to October 1967. The film's world premiere was on 2 April 1968…
…The general release of the film in its 35 mm anamorphic format took place in autumn 1968…
…As was typical of many high-budget films of the era, it was released both in a "roadshow" 70 mm version and a later 35 mm general release version.
…
Critical response
...
2001: A Space Odyssey polarised critical opinion, receiving both praise and derision, with many New York–based critics being especially harsh… Keir Dullea says that during the New York premiere, 250 people walked out; in L.A., Rock Hudson not only left early but "was heard to mutter, 'What is this bullshit?'" "Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?" "But a few months into the release, they realised a lot of people were watching it while smoking funny cigarettes. Someone in San Francisco even ran right through the screen screaming: 'It's God!'”
…Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it was "the picture that science fiction fans of every age and in every corner of the world have prayed (sometimes forlornly) that the industry might some day give them. It is an ultimate statement of the science fiction film, an awesome realization of the spatial future ... it is a milestone, a landmark for a spacemark, in the art of film." …The Boston Globe's review called it "the world's most extraordinary film. Nothing like it has ever been shown in Boston before or, for that matter, anywhere ... The film is as exciting as the discovery of a new dimension in life." Roger Ebert gave the film four stars in his original review, saying the film "succeeds magnificently on a cosmic scale".
Time…magazine called 2001 "an epic film about the history and future of mankind, brilliantly directed by Stanley Kubrick. The special effects are mindblowing."
…
Interpretations
…
Audiences vs. critics
A spectrum of diverse interpretative opinions would form after the film's release, appearing to divide theatre audiences from the opinions of critics. Krämer writes: "Many people sent letters to Kubrick to tell him about their responses to 2001, most of them regarding the film—in particular the ending—as an optimistic statement about humanity, which is seen to be born and reborn. The film's reviewers and academic critics, by contrast, have tended to understand the film as a pessimistic account of human nature and humanity's future. The most extreme of these interpretations state that the foetus floating above the Earth will destroy it."…
Regarding the film as a whole, Kubrick encouraged people to make their own interpretations and refused to offer an explanation of "what really happened". In a 1968 interview with Playboy, he said:
You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film—and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level—but I don't want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he's missed the point
In a subsequent discussion of the film with Joseph Gelmis, Kubrick said his main aim was to avoid "intellectual verbalization" and reach "the viewer's subconscious". But he said he did not strive for ambiguity—it was simply an inevitable outcome of making the film nonverbal. Still, he acknowledged this ambiguity was an invaluable asset to the film. He was willing then to give a fairly straightforward explanation of the plot on what he called the "simplest level", but unwilling to discuss the film's metaphysical interpretation, which he felt should be left up to viewers.
Meaning of the monolith
…Humanity's first and second encounters with the monolith have visual elements in common; both the apes, and later the astronauts, touch it gingerly with their hands, and both sequences conclude with near-identical images of the Sun appearing directly over it (the first with a crescent moon adjacent to it in the sky, the second with a near-identical crescent Earth in the same position), echoing the Sun–Earth–Moon alignment seen in the film's opening.[209] The second encounter also suggests the triggering of the monolith's radio signal to Jupiter by the presence of humans, echoing the premise of Clarke's source story "The Sentinel".
The monolith is the subject of the film's final line of dialogue (spoken at the end of the "Jupiter Mission" segment): "Its origin and purpose still a total mystery."…
According to other scholars, "the monolith is a representation of the actual wideframe cinema screen, rotated 90 degrees ... a symbolic cinema screen". "It is at once a screen and the opposite of a screen, since its black surface only absorbs, and sends nothing out. ... and leads us ... to project ourselves, our emotions."
"A new heaven"
Clarke indicated his preferred reading of the ending of 2001 as oriented toward the creation of "a new heaven" provided by the Star Child. His view was corroborated in a posthumously released interview with Kubrick. Kubrick says that Bowman is elevated to a higher level of being that represents the next stage of human evolution.
…HAL's breakdown
The reasons for HAL's malfunction and subsequent malignant behaviour have elicited much discussion….In an interview with Joseph Gelmis in 1969, Kubrick said that HAL "had an acute emotional crisis because he could not accept evidence of his own fallibility".

…Influence
See also: 2001: A Space Odyssey in popular culture
considered one of the major artistic works of the 20th century, with many critics and filmmakers considering it Kubrick's masterpiece.
…The influence of 2001 on subsequent filmmakers is considerable. Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and others—including many special effects technicians—discuss the impact the film has had on them in a featurette titled Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick: The Legacy of 2001, included in the 2007 DVD release of the film….
At the 2007 Venice film festival, director Ridley Scott said he believed 2001 was the unbeatable film that in a sense killed the science fiction genre.
Others credit 2001 with opening up a market for films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, Blade Runner, Contact, and Interstellar, proving that big-budget "serious" science-fiction films can be commercially successful, and establishing the "sci-fi blockbuster" as a Hollywood staple.
Science magazine Discover's blogger Stephen Cass, discussing the film's considerable impact on subsequent science fiction, writes that "the balletic spacecraft scenes set to sweeping classical music, the tarantula-soft tones of HAL 9000 and the ultimate alien artefact, the monolith, have all become enduring cultural icons in their own right."

Runtime: 2 hours 19 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_e9y-bka0

[Wyldesyde19]

Huge fan of Kubrick. For me, however, A Clockwork Orange will for ever be my favorite of his.

[Robert the List]

58. Kes 1969 UK Ken Loach

An intimate/personal and often visually gorgeous film. The scene in which Billy discusses taking a Kestrel with the farmer, in the lush green field with the dilapidated barn in the background is one of the most beautiful film images I can think of. In parts very funny, in others moving.

Wikipedia:
“
Kes is a 1969 British coming-of-age drama film directed by Ken Loach…based on the 1968 novel A Kestrel for a Knave…Kes follows the story of Billy, who comes from a dysfunctional working-class family and is a no-hoper at school, but discovers his own private means of fulfilment when he adopts a fledgling kestrel and proceeds to train it in the art of falconry.
The film has been much praised, especially for the performance of the teenage David Bradley, who had never acted before, in the lead role, and for Loach's compassionate treatment of his working-class subject; it remains a biting indictment of the British educational system of the time as well as of the limited career options then available to lower-class, unskilled workers in regional Britain.
…Background
The film (and the book upon which it was based, by Barry Hines) were semi-autobiographical, Hines having been a teacher in the school in which it was set, and wishing to critique the education system of the time. His younger brother Richard had found a new life after his student experiences at the local secondary modern school by training the original bird "Kes", the inspiration for the movie. Richard assisted the movie production by acting as the handler for the birds in the film. Both brothers grew up in the area shown in the film, and their father was a worker in the local coal mine, though he was a kind man in contrast to the absentee father in the film. Both the film and the book provide a portrait of life in the mining areas of Yorkshire of the time; reportedly, the miners in the area were then the lowest-paid workers in a developed country…
Production
Set in and around Barnsley, the film was one of the first of several collaborations between Ken Loach and Barry Hines that used authentic Yorkshire dialect. The extras were all hired from in and around Barnsley…In a 2013 interview, director Ken Loach said that, upon its release, United Artists organised a screening of the film for some American executives and they said that they could understand Hungarian better than the dialect in the film.
…Textual themes
Much of the film's content has been discussed as a critique of the British education system of the time, known as the Tripartite System, which sorted children into different types of schools depending on their academic ability. The view of the creators is that such a system was harmful both to the children involved and to wider society. In his 2006 book, Life After Kes, Simon Golding commented that "Billy Casper, unlike the author [Golding], was a victim of the 11-plus, a government directive that turned out, for those who passed the exam, prospective white-collar workers, fresh from grammar schools, into jobs that were safe and well paid. The failures, housed in secondary modern schools, could only look forward to unskilled manual labour or the dangers of the coal face. Kes protests at this educational void that does not take into account individual skills, and suggests this is a consequence of capitalist society, which demands a steady supply of unskilled labour." Golding also quoted director Ken Loach who stated that, "It [the film] should be dedicated to all the lads who had failed their 11-plus. There's a colossal waste of people and talent, often through schools where full potential is not brought out."
…The film has also been noted for its themes around familial bonds during childhood and the effect their absence can have on children.
Actor Andrew Garfield, who played Billy in a stage adaptation of Kes early in his career, commented that, "... I think that Kes represents to Billy the ideal relationship that he finds so difficult to have with the people around him. Billy trusts, protects and is supported by Kes. He spends all of his time thinking of Kes and day dreaming about her. Billy looks up to Kes and feels privileged to be her friend. Kes has everything that Billy desires: freedom, pride, respect and independence."
…Certification
The certificate given to the film has occasionally been reviewed by the British Board of Film Classification, as there is a small amount of swearing, including more than one instance of the word twat."

Runtime: 1 hour 52 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGcllKvfnYs

[Robert the List]

DROPPED

[Robert the List]

And that's a wrap on the 60s.
What a decade for film making and cinema!

34. The Naked Island 1960 Japan Kaneto Shindô (silent) b/w ESSENTIAL
35. Psycho 1960 UK Alfred Hitchcock b/w
36. La Notte 1961 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni b/w ESSENTIAL
37. Last Year at Marienbad 1961 France Alain Resnais b/w
??? Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy ???
38. La Jetee 1962 France Chris Marker (silent) b/w ESSENTIAL
39. L'Eclisse 1962 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni b/w
40. Lawrence of Arabia 1962 UK David Lean ESSENTIAL
41. Le Mepris / Contempt 1963 France Jean Luc Godard
42. High and Low 1963 Japan Akira Kurosawa b/w
43. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964 France Jacques Demy b/w
44. Onibaba 1964 Japan Kaneto Shindô b/w
45. For A Few Dollars More 1965 Italy Sergio Leone??
46. Alphaville 1965 France Jean-Luc Godard b/w
47. Le Bonheur 1965 France Agnès Varda
48. Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean-Luc Godard
49. The Sound of Music 1965 USA Robert Wise
50. Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France Robert Bresson b/w
51. Blow Up 1966 UK Michelangelo Antonioni
52. Bonnie and Clyde 1967 USA Arthur Penn
53. The Graduate 1967 USA Mike Nichols
54. Stolen Kisses 1968 France François Truffaut
55. 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 UK Stanley Kubrick ESSENTIAL
56. Kes 1969 UK Ken Loach
57. The Color of Pomegranates 1969 USSR/Armenia Sergey Paradzhanov

[Wyldesyde19]

Color of Pomegranates is amazing to watch. Need to see more of Parajanov.

I liked Kes, but I prefer Hidden Agenda, Raining Stones, I, Daniel Blake, The Wind that Shakes the Barley and Riff Raff more by Loach.

[Robert the List]

Color of Pomegranates is amazing to watch. Need to see more of Parajanov.

I liked Kes, but I prefer Hidden Agenda, Raining Stones, I, Daniel Blake, The Wind that Shakes the Barley and Riff Raff more by Loach.
It would be a shame if the vast amount of work I have put into this incredible compilation, would be responded to merely with inferences about films I might not have watched.

On the other hand, I recognise the value of bona fide discussion of movies not on the list as well as those on them, and I welcome good faith contributions.

[Robert the List]

I think another reason why my own reviews are so bad, is that I haven't watched the films recently.
This makes it so much harder to provide detailed insights.
Hopefully the edited information from Wiki provides an adequate alternative, and something a little different.

[SpelingError]

56. The Color of Pomegranates 1969 USSR/Armenia Sergey Paradzhanov

It’s one of the most beautiful films, a complete work of art. Every time I watch it I see something new. Can be watched as a whole or in parts.

Wikipedia:
“The Color of Pomegranates, originally known as Sayat-Nova, is a 1969 Soviet Armenian art film written and directed by Sergei Parajanov. The film is a poetic treatment of the life of 18th-century Armenian poet and troubadour Sayat-Nova. The film is now regarded as a landmark in film history, and was met with widespread acclaim among filmmakers and critics. It is often considered one of the greatest films ever made.
Overview
The Color of Pomegranates is a biography of the Armenian ashug Sayat-Nova (King of Song) that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally. The film is presented with little dialogue, using active tableaux which depict the poet's life in chapters: Childhood, Youth, Prince's Court (where he falls in love with a tsarina), The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death and Death. There are sounds, music, and occasional singing, but dialogue is rare.[8] Each chapter is indicated by a title card and framed through both Sergei Parajanov's imagination and Sayat Nova's poems. Actress Sofiko Chiaureli notably plays six roles in the film, both male and female. According to Frank Williams, Parajanov's film celebrates the survival of Armenian culture in face of oppression and persecution: "There are specific images that are highly charged—blood-red juice spilling from a cut pomegranate into a cloth and forming a stain in the shape of the boundaries of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia; dyers lifting hanks of wool out of vats in the colours of the national flag, and so on".
…
Storytelling and "tableaux vivants"
Parajanov takes an unconventional approach to storytelling in The Color of Pomegranates. Rather than adhering to a traditional narrative structure, he opts for a series of visually captivating and carefully composed tableaux vivants to capture the essence of the poet Sayat-Nova's life and creations. The outcome is a visually enchanting and symbolically rich exploration of art, culture, and spirituality…The composition of each tableau is also a deliberate nod to the visual aesthetics found in Armenian illuminated manuscripts and religious art.
…Locations
The film was shot at numerous historic sites in Armenia, including the Sanahin Monastery, the Haghpat Monastery, the St. John church at Ardvi, and the Akhtala Monastery. All are medieval churches in the northern province of Lori. Locations in Georgia included the Alaverdi Monastery, the countryside surrounding the David Gareja monastery complex, and the Dzveli Shuamta complex near Telavi. Azerbaijani locations included the Old City of Baku and Nardaran Fortress.
Censorship
Soviet censors and Communist Party officials objected to Parajanov's stylized, poetic treatment of Sayat-Nova's life, and complained that it failed to educate the public about the poet. As a result, the film's title was changed from Sayat-Nova to The Color of Pomegranates, and all references to Sayat-Nova's name were removed from the credits and chapter titles in the original Armenian release version….Officials further objected to the film's abundance of religious imagery, although a great deal of religious imagery still remains in both surviving versions of the film. Initially the State Committee for Cinematography in Moscow refused to allow distribution of the film outside of Armenia. It premiered in Armenia in October 1969, with a running time of 77 minutes.
The filmmaker Sergei Yutkevich, who had served as a reader for the script in the State Committee for Cinematography's Script Editorial board, recut the film slightly and created new Russian-language chapter titles in order to make the film easier to understand and more palatable to the authorities. In addition to cutting a few minutes' worth of footage—some of it clearly due to its religious content—he changed the order of some sequences. The film ultimately received only a limited release in the rest of the Soviet Union, in Yutkevich's 73-minute version.
Reception and legacy
…
According to Michelangelo Antonioni, "Parajanov's Color of Pomegranates is of a stunningly perfect beauty. Parajanov, in my opinion, is one of the best film directors in the world."
French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard said, "In the temple of cinema there are images, light and reality. Sergei Paradjanov was the master of that temple."
Film critic Gilbert Adair argued that "… no historian of the medium who ignores The Color of Pomegranates can ever be taken seriously."
Restoration
In 2014 the film was digitally restored and re-edited to be as close as possible to the director's original vision and world premiered at the 67th Cannes Film Festival…
Queer themes
The film is further characterized by queer and androgynous imagery. For example, the main actress Sofiko Chiaureli plays both the Poet and his lover; imagery like the conch shell and feather, symbols of the female and male respectively, are used in tandem by multiple characters; and the young poet's sexual awakening comes when he sees nude male and female bodies in the bath house. This is in line with Parajanov’s own life, as he was convicted for homosexual acts, as well as nationalism, multiple times in Georgia (1948) and Ukraine (1973, imprisoned in Russia)…"

Running time: 1 hour 17 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtuEVEbsDmk

You should check out Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors as well.

[crumbsroom]

I prefer Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.

[SpelingError]

I prefer Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.

Same, though it's been awhile since I've seen Pomegranates.

[Wyldesyde19]

It would be a shame if the vast amount of work I have put into this incredible compilation, would be responded to merely with inferences about films I might not have watched.

On the other hand, I recognise the value of bona fide discussion of movies not on the list as well as those on them, and I welcome good faith contributions.

First one was meant to say “I” need to see more Parajanov. That’s my mistake.
Second was really mentioning other films I felt are stronger, for me, when it comes to Loach. Nothing was meant or implied it towards you.

[Robert the List]

First one was meant to say “I” need to see more Parajanov. That’s my mistake.
Second was really mentioning other films I felt are stronger, for me, when it comes to Loach. Nothing was meant or implied it towards you.
OK, apologies, and thanks for taking an interest in the thread.

[Robert the List]

Does nobody (not limited to people who have already interacted with the thread in some way) have anything at all to say about any of the information abstracted from the Wikipedia profiles of these films?

Is there nothing which anybody did not already know, and which is of interest?

[Robert the List]

I have added For A Few Dollars More.

I've also today added 2 films in the 90s, after I finalised my ballot.

1 from the 90s dropped out, as well sadly as 2 French films from the 1980s.

[Robert the List]

60. A Touch of Zen 1971 Taiwan King Hu

As a story I think the film’s complete rubbish and I find it much too long. But it is undeniably a work of art. Some of the shots are simply stunning. Not so much landscapes, but clothing (crimsons and whites), and the use of light in interiors. There's also technical development in action sequences. Aside from Hu’s Dragon Inn (1967) this is the pioneer in Chinese action films (Bruce Lee's first lead role was also 1971), and surely remains the most visually beautiful. It’s in by the skin of its teeth.

Wikipedia:

“A Touch of Zen (Chinese: 俠女; pinyin: Xiá Nǚ; lit. 'Chivalrous woman') is a two-part wuxia film written, co-edited and directed by King Hu, originally released in 1970 and 1971. Its screenplay is based on a classic Chinese story "Xianü" in the book Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling. The film is set in the Ming dynasty under the dominance of eunuchs and explores a variety of themes including the transcendence of dichotomies, Zen Buddhism, feminism, conservative female roles, and the ghost story.
…Although filming began in 1968, A Touch of Zen was not fully completed until 1971. The original Taiwanese release was in two parts in 1970 and 1971 (filming was still ongoing when the first part was released) with the bamboo forest sequence that concludes Part 1 reprised at the beginning of Part 2; this version has a combined runtime of 200 minutes. In November 1971, both parts of the film were combined into one for the Hong Kong market with a runtime of 187 minutes.
…
Production
…
With Hu's idea of invoking traditional Chinese culture in his films, A Touch of Zen contains Beijing opera scores and references to Chinese poetry…
The bamboo forest sword fight, a ten-minute confrontation, is said to have taken twenty-five days to shoot. It is choreographed by Han Yingjie, a former Beijing opera actor and the action director of A Touch of Zen. Hu explained proudly of the trial and error he went through in the creative process and concluded that he had put together many scenes in less than eight frames challenging the "golden rule" of cinema.
…Cinematography
Director Hu adopted the classic techniques of montages, including eye-line matches and shot-reverse-shot. He also used jump cuts to create the speed of motions in action effects and applied blocked shots as his signature on evacuating the space before actions take place. Hu also creates "the glimpsing effect" (also called point-of-view shot) to provide a new perspective to audiences. "The glimpsing effect" allows the audience to see the perspective of Gu.
…Reception
Box office
A Touch of Zen failed at the box-office when it was released in two parts in Taiwan in 1970 and 1971. The film only ran one week in the cinema and failed because of its themes of ambiguous sexuality and feminist sensibility. In 1971, the film again failed to receive recognition with its release in Hong Kong due to the overwhelming success of Bruce Lee's movie The Big Boss…It was not until the full three-hour version was revived for a screening at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival that A Touch of Zen gained wide attention.

Review and criticism
Gina Marchetti considers that the genre of the film as wuxia is a new emergence in the Hong Kong New Wave and writes, "although produced in Taiwan after Hu had left Hong Kong, the international accolades for this film brought the "new" cinema of Hong Kong much greater visibility, while providing an art house alternative to the enormous international popularity of Bruce Lee."
…Writing for the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, academic Héctor Rodríguez noted of the film, "In that film...the director's use of elliptical cuts, diegetic insert shots, and other strategies of visual fragmentation allows characters to float magically through the air across long distances, to reach impossibly high altitudes in a single superhuman leap, and to change direction miraculously in midair.”
In his book, King Hu's A Touch of Zen, academic Stephen Teo wrote that, "this final reduction of the mythical female knight-errant figure into human status is meant to provoke us into a philosophical understanding of ourselves. The subject of Buddhist transcendence is Hu’s way of delivering the ultimate critique of the genre’s raison d’être which is the audience’s wish-fulfilment for heroes to save them from their own vulnerability."

Run time: 3 hours
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpYsICH0AIs

[Robert the List]

61. McCabe and Mrs Miller 1971 USA Robert Altman

Oh how I love this film. Beatty and Christie are fantastic individually and as a pair. It’s a western like you’ve never seen before. A hint of humour, some beautiful filming, and a score by Leonard Cohen which is reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel. The final 30 minutes or so is as riveting as cinema gets, and it looks great as well.

Wikipedia:

“McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a 1971 American revisionist Western film directed by Robert Altman and starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie…Altman referred to it as an "anti-Western" film because it ignores or subverts a number of Western conventions. It was filmed in British Columbia, Canada in the fall and winter of 1970…..

Plot summary
In 1902, a mysterious gambler named John McCabe arrives in the unincorporated boomtown of Presbyterian Church, Washington, named after its only substantial building, a tall but mostly unused chapel. McCabe quickly takes a dominant position over the town's simple-minded and lethargic inhabitants, thanks to his aggressive personality and persistent rumors that he is actually a notorious gunfighter known as "Pudgy" McCabe.
To support himself, McCabe establishes a makeshift brothel, consisting of three prostitutes purchased for $200 from a pimp in the nearby town of Bearpaw. British cockney madam Constance Miller arrives and persuades McCabe to let her manage his brothel while he focuses on running a gambling hall. The two become financially successful business partners, turning their small business into the largest in town, and a romantic relationship develops between the two, though she charges him for sex.
As the town becomes richer, Sears and Hollander, a pair of agents from the Harrison Shaughnessy Mining Company in Bearpaw, arrive to buy out McCabe's business, as well as the surrounding zinc mines. Harrison Shaughnessy is notorious for having people killed when they refuse to sell….

…Production…
Altman offered the lead to Elliott Gould who turned it down to make I Love My Wife. "Bob said, 'You're making the mistake of your life'," said Gould….
Foster called Warren Beatty in England, about the film; Beatty flew to New York City to see M*A*S*H and then flew to Los Angeles, California to sign for McCabe.
The film was originally called The Presbyterian Church Wager, after a bet placed among the church's few attendees, about whether McCabe would survive his refusal of the offer to buy his property. Altman reported that an official in the Presbyterian Church called Warner Bros., to complain about having its church mentioned in a film about brothels and gambling. The complaint prompted a name change to John MacCabe but it was released as McCabe & Mrs. Miller.
Filming
…Mrs. Miller is brought into town on a J. I. Case 80 HP steam engine from 1912; the steam engine is genuine and functioning and the crew used it to power the lumbermill after its arrival. Carpenters for the film were locals and young men from the United States, fleeing conscription into the Vietnam War…

…It began snowing near the end of shooting, when the church fire and the standoff were the only scenes left. Beatty did not want to start shooting in the snow, as it was financially risky to do so: to preserve continuity, the rest of the film would have to be shot in snow. Altman countered that since those were the only scenes left to film, it was best to start since there was nothing else to do.

…The film, especially the final scene, is atypical of the western genre. The showdown between a reluctant protagonist and his enemies takes place ungracefully in the snow during the early hours, rather than at "high noon". Instead of hiding indoors and watching the battle unfold outside, the townsfolk are bustling in the streets and largely unaware of the gunfight taking place in their midst. For a distinctive look, Altman and Zsigmond chose to "flash" (pre-fog) the film negative before its eventual exposure, as well as use a number of filters on the cameras, rather than manipulate the film in post-production; in this way the studio could not force him to change the film's look to something less distinctive.

Editing
…Robert Altman was famous for using this style of layered dialogue cutting. The frontier barroom scene that opens his McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Louis Lombardo, editor) has snippets of conversations underlying the foreground action.
Leonard Cohen's songs
Other than the music occurring in the ordinary life of Presbyterian Church, the only music for the film is from three songs composed and performed by Leonard Cohen, a Canadian poet who had released his first album of songs in 1967….

Reception
Contemporary U.S. reviews
The film opened without advance screenings at the Criterion and Loew's Cine theaters in New York City and received mostly negative reviews from the New York daily newspapers including…by Rex Reed, who called it "an incoherent, amateurish, simple-minded, boring and totally worthless piece of garbage" and "an insult to the intelligence of anyone stupid or masochistic enough to sit through it" he added that "at the screening I attended Wednesday night, there were so many boos and hisses and programs thrown at the screen I thought the enraged audience was going to burn down the theater. I wouldn't have blamed them."
However, the weekly critics raved about the film including Judith Crist and Pauline Kael of The New Yorker who called it "a beautiful pipe dream of a movie—a fleeting, almost diaphanous vision of what frontier life might have been," adding, "The movie is so affecting it leaves one rather dazed."
…Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four and wrote that it "is like no other Western ever made, and with it, Robert Altman earns his place as one of the best contemporary directors.”. He later added the film to his "Great Movies" list, where he said "Robert Altman has made a dozen films that can be called great in one way or another, but one of them is perfect, and that one is McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)"
Gene Siskel also awarded it four stars and called it "a brilliant film, not because of the story, but because of the way in which it is told ... To construct such delicate scenes is the hallmark of fine film making and Altman is clearly a master."
…Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "Once again Altman brings a special way of life casually but vibrantly alive. 'McCabe' is an imaginative triumph partly in a visible, technical sense—a meticulous, conventionally authentic reconstruction of a frontier town—but principally in an emotional sense—a deeply felt and stirring romantic vision of frontier society."[30]

…Theme
Film historian James Bernardoni in his book The New Hollywood (1991) locates the central theme of the picture within an inherent conflict between human individuality and the requirements of community in a capitalist society. Bernardoni maintains that Robert Altman delivers these personal and social struggles relentlessly — “in every sequence, virtually every frame”— through his handling of Mise-en-scène”…“a nuanced, compelling, iconoclastic meditation on the great western theme of the reconciliation of the individual and the community”.”


Runtime: 2 hours 1 minute
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGhRGjwxb_c

[Robert the List]

Walkabout (1971) UK Nicholas Roeg

[Robert the List]

As reviews (as the thread is titled), I appreciate that what I'm doing is useless.
I can not do a review without having recently watched the whole film. And I am basing my assessments on old viewings, with a refresher of various clips in order to compare them against other favourites to the extent required to determine whether they merit a place in the list. It simply isn't viable to rewatch in full every great film I've ever watched in order to compare them (not least because by the time you've finished one, you've partly forgotten the last one), nor even to select the films as I am doing as previously described and then rewatch the whole film in order to review it (not at this stage anyway).

But I'm surprised that what I AM doing, in terms of identifying these great films, and researching interesting explanations of them and information about them, is not of interest. But clearly it isn't.

What I do know, and ultimately what the point of the exercise is I suppose, is that anybody new to films, who followed the list to watch these great 100 films, would have the most incredible film journey going. This IS the greatest ever list of 100 films, PLUS a load of interesting information about each of them.

[gbgoodies]

But I'm surprised that what I AM doing, in terms of identifying these great films, and researching interesting explanations of them and information about them, is not of interest. But clearly it isn't.


I can't speak for anyone else, but even though your thread title says "Mini reviews", your reviews are too long for me to read all of them. I have a limited amount of time when I'm online here, and it's usually late at night when I'm very tired, so I tend to skip most of the long posts.

I would probably read some of them if they were much shorter.

[Robert the List]

I can't speak for anyone else, but even though your thread title says "Mini reviews", your reviews are too long for me to read all of them. I have a limited amount of time when I'm online here, and it's usually late at night when I'm very tired, so I tend to skip most of the long posts.

I would probably read some of them if they were much shorter.
OK, well that's interesting feedback, thanks. I understand what you're saying.

My actual 'reviews' are actually woefully short/inadequate. But I'm posting, often quite extensive, background information I've researched (just from picking the interesting stuff from the film's wiki profile) about the film.

I'll reflect on this and whether I should change my approach at this stage. Thanks again.

[gbgoodies]

OK, well that's interesting feedback, thanks. I understand what you're saying.

My actual 'reviews' are actually woefully short/inadequate. But I'm posting, often quite extensive, background information I've researched (just from picking the interesting stuff from the film's wiki profile) about the film.

I'll reflect on this and whether I should change my approach at this stage. Thanks again.


When I read a review, I'm basically interested in a short (1 or 2 sentences) summary of the movie just so I know what it's about (if I haven't seen it already), and the reviewer's opinion with a short explanation of what they liked or disliked about the movie. (And I do NOT like reviews with spoilers.)

One or two interesting trivia facts might be okay in a review, but too much is a waste of time if I haven't seen the movie yet or if I've seen it and I didn't like it.

If I watch the movie and I liked it, I can read the Wikipedia and IMDB trivia pages about the movie for more information.

If you want to discuss the extra information about a specific movie, you can start a thread that's specific to that movie, or start a trivia thread where anyone can post interesting facts about any movies.

[Robert the List]

I will continue with the background information from Wikipedia, but might try to make it a little shorter.
Then, in due course, if I get round to it, over the months or years, I will watch each film in turn and as I do write a proper review and edit them into the existing profiles.
I will first revisit the profiles I have done so far and see if I can edit them down at all.
...
So I've edited the existing Wikipedia summaries to tidy them up a bit.

Some are still long, most notably 2001 lol. Read as much as you want to read.

[Robert the List]

63. The Godfather 1972 USA Francis Ford Coppola

DESCRIPTION TO FOLLOW

Runtime: 2 hours 55 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY1S34973zA

[Wyldesyde19]

Your reviews are fine. No need to change for anyone.

[Robert the List]

64. Le Cousin Jules (doc) 1973 France Dominique Benicheti

Is it a documentary or isn’t it? Well consensus seems to be that it is, even if some of the scenes may be choreographed. It just a sumptuous atmosphere created by gorgeous sights and relaxing sounds of the countryside. It’s a privilege to be invited into Monsieur et Madame Guiteaux’s home, and to gain an insight into their life, the life of 20th century rural France. Also, and regardless of it being a documentary, I think it's a key development in the art of slow or observational cinema, which at its best - like here - can be captivating.

There is no Wikipedia entry for the film.

MUBI’s synopsis is as follows: “An ode to rural France and the simple joys of life, this glorious masterpiece captures the daily routine and rituals of Jules, a blacksmith, living with his wife, Felice, on a small farm in the French countryside.”

Wikipedia does have an entry for the film’s director, which includes the following:
“Dominique Benichetti (16 May 1943 - 29 July 2011) was a French film director and producer known for documentaries, pioneering work on 3D film, animation, and special projects….
Benichetti's documentary "Le Cousin Jules" was produced over the course of 5 years (from April 1968 to March 1973). The film shows the everyday life of Benichetti's cousin Jules Guiteaux and his wife Félicie as they work on their farm in the French countryside. The film (unseen for several decades) was considered a masterpiece when released, showing at a number of festivals and winning awards. It was noted for the Cinemascope work of cinematographer Pierre-William Glen and its stereophonic sound….As of 2012, "Le Cousin Jules" has been restored and is once again being shown in film festivals.”

Runtime: 1 hour 31 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8lESiEhwB0

[Robert the List]

65. Don't Look Now 1973 UK Nicholas Roeg

A classy horror/mystery/thriller, maybe my favourite of those which I’d include under the horror umbrella. Clever use of non-linear narrative, which keeps the viewer perplexed and spooked. Christie and Sutherland make for a real and relatable couple.

Wikipedia:
“Don't Look Now…is a 1973 English-language thriller film directed by Nicolas Roeg, adapted from the 1971 short story by Daphne du Maurier. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland portray Laura and (architect) John Baxter, a married couple who travel to Venice following the recent accidental death of their daughter, after John accepts a commission to restore a church. They encounter two sisters, one of whom claims to be clairvoyant and informs them that their daughter is trying to contact them and warn them of danger. John at first dismisses their claims, but starts to experience mysterious sightings himself.
Don't Look Now is an exploration of the psychology of grief and the effect the death of a child can have on a relationship. The film is renowned for its innovative editing style, recurring motifs and themes, and for a controversial sex scene that was explicit for the era. It also employs flashbacks and flashforwards in keeping with the depiction of precognition, but some scenes are intercut or merged to alter the viewer's perception of what is really happening. It adopts an impressionist approach to its imagery, often presaging events with familiar objects, patterns and colours using associative editing techniques.

…Themes
Don't Look Now is an occult-themed thriller in which the conventions of the Gothic ghost story serve to explore the minds of a grief-stricken couple. The film's director, Nicolas Roeg, was intrigued by the idea of making "grief into the sole thrust of the film", noting that "Grief can separate people ... Even the closest, healthiest relationship can come undone through grief." The presence of Christine, the Baxters' deceased daughter, weighs heavily on the mood of the film, as she and the nature of her death are constantly recalled through the film's imagery: there are regular flashbacks to Christine playing in her red coat as well as the sightings of the mysterious childlike figure also wearing a red coat which bears a likeness to her; the constant association of water with death is maintained via a serial-killer sub-plot, which sees victims periodically dragged from the canals…
Water and the colour red are recurring motifs. (SPOLERS)
The associative use of recurring motifs, combined with unorthodox editing techniques, foreshadows key events in the film….The threat of death from falling is also ever present throughout the film: besides Christine falling into the lake, Laura is taken to hospital after her fall in the restaurant, their son Johnny is injured in a fall at boarding school, the bishop overseeing the church restoration informs John that his father was killed in a fall, and John himself is nearly killed in a fall during the renovations. Glass is frequently used as an omen that something bad is about to occur: just before Christine drowns, John knocks a glass of water over, and Johnny breaks a pane of glass; as Laura faints in the restaurant she knocks glassware off the table, and when John almost falls to his death in the church, a plank of wood shatters a pane of glass; finally, shortly before confronting the mysterious red clad figure, John asks the sisters for a glass of water, an item with a symbolic connection to Christine's death.
The plot of the film is preoccupied with misinterpretation and mistaken identity: when John sees Laura on the barge with the sisters, he fails to realise it is a premonition and believes Laura is in Venice with them. John himself is mistaken for a Peeping Tom when he follows Laura to the séance, and ultimately he mistakes the mysterious red-coated figure for a child. The concept of doppelgänger and duplicates feature prominently in the film: reproductions are a constantly recurring motif ranging from reflections in the water, to photographs, to police sketches and the photographic slides of the church John is restoring. Laura comments in a letter to their son that she can't tell the difference between the restored church windows and the "real thing", and later in the film John attempts to make a seamless match between recently manufactured tiles and the old ones in repairing an ancient mosaic. Roeg describes the basic premise of the story as principally being that in life "nothing is what it seems", and even decided to have Donald Sutherland's character utter the line—a scene which required fifteen takes.
Communication is a theme that runs through much of Nicolas Roeg's work, and figures heavily in Don't Look Now. This is best exemplified by the blind psychic woman, Heather, who communicates with the dead, but it is presented in other ways: the language barriers are purposefully enhanced by the decision to not include subtitles translating the Italian dialogue into English, so the viewer experiences the same confusion as John….
Much has been made of the fragmented editing of Don't Look Now, and in Nicolas Roeg's work in general. Time is presented as 'fluid', where the past, present and future can all exist in the same timeframe. John's premonitions merge with the present, such as at the start of the film where the mysterious red-coated figure is seemingly depicted in one of his photographic slides, and when he 'sees' Laura on the funeral barge with the sisters and mistakenly believes he is seeing the present, but in fact it is a vision of the future.
A prominent use of this fragmented approach to time is during the love scene, in which the scenes of John and Laura having sex are intercut with scenes of them dressing afterwards to go out to dinner. …SPOILER At a narrative level the plot of Don't Look Now can be regarded as a self-fulfilling prophecy: it is John's premonitions of his death that set in motion the events leading up to his death. According to the editor of the film, Graeme Clifford, Nicolas Roeg regarded the film as his "exercise in film grammar".
…
Casting
…Roeg was eager to cast Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland from the very start. Initially engaged by other projects, both actors unexpectedly became available. Christie liked the script and was keen to work with Roeg…Sutherland also wanted to make the film but had some reservations about the depiction of clairvoyance in the script. He felt it was handled too negatively and believed that Don't Look Now should be a more "educative film", and that the "characters should in some way benefit from ESP and not be destroyed by it". Roeg was resistant to any changes and issued Sutherland an ultimatum.
…Renato Scarpa was cast as Inspector Longhi, despite not being able to speak English and so he had no idea what he was saying in the film.

Filming
The drowning scene…Sharon Williams, who played Christine, became hysterical when submersed in the pond, despite the rehearsals at the swimming pool going well. A farmer on the neighbouring land volunteered his daughter who was an accomplished swimmer, but who refused to be submerged when it came to filming. In the end, the scene was filmed in a water tank using three girls…
…Venice turned out to be a difficult place to film in, mainly due to the tides, which caused problems with continuity, and the transporting of equipment.
Filming the scene in which John nearly falls to his death while restoring the mosaic in San Nicolò church was also beset by problems, and resulted in Donald Sutherland's life being put in danger. The scene entailed some of the scaffolding collapsing leaving John dangling by a rope, but the stuntman refused to perform the stunt because the insurance was not in order. Sutherland ended up doing it instead, and was attached to a kirby wire as a precaution in case he should fall. Some time after the film had come out, renowned stunt co-ordinator Vic Armstrong commented to Sutherland that the wire was not designed for that purpose, and the twirling around caused by holding on to the rope would have damaged the wire to the extent that it would have snapped if Sutherland had let go.
…the love scene….was in fact an unscripted last minute improvisation by Roeg, who felt that without it there would be too many scenes of the couple arguing.
…
Scoring
…Sex scene controversy
Don't Look Now's sex scene involving Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland caused considerable controversy before its release in 1973. British tabloid newspaper, the Daily Mail, observed at the time that "one of the frankest love scenes ever to be filmed is likely to plunge lovely Julie Christie into the biggest censorship row since Last Tango in Paris". The scene was unusually graphic for the period…
Christie commented that "people didn't do scenes like that in those days", and that she found the scenes difficult to film: "There were no available examples, no role models ... I just went blank and Nic [Roeg] shouted instructions." The scene caused problems with censors on both sides of the Atlantic. The American censor advised Nicolas Roeg explicitly, saying, "We cannot see humping. We cannot see the rise and fall between thighs." The scene's much celebrated fragmented style, in which scenes of the couple having sexual intercourse are intercut with scenes of the couple post-coitally getting dressed to go out to dinner, partly came about through Roeg's attempt to accommodate the concerns of the censors: "They scrutinised it and found absolutely nothing they could object to. If someone goes up, you cut and the next time you see them they're in a different position, you obviously fill in the gaps for yourself. But, technically speaking, there was no 'humping' in that scene." In the end, Roeg only cut nine frames from the sequence, and the film was awarded an R rating in the United States. In Britain, the British Board of Film Censors judged the uncut version to be "tasteful and integral to the plot"…it was given an X rating—an adults only certificate. The sex scene remained controversial for some years after the film's release. The BBC cut it altogether when Don't Look Now premiered on UK television, causing a flood of complaints from viewers.
The intimacy of the scene led to rumours that Christie and Sutherland had unsimulated sex which have persisted for years and that outtakes from the scene were doing the rounds in screening rooms. Michael Deeley, who oversaw the film's UK distribution, claimed on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs that Warren Beatty had flown to London and demanded that the sex scene—featuring then girlfriend Julie Christie—be cut from the film. The rumours were seemingly confirmed in 2011 by former Variety editor Peter Bart, who was a Paramount executive at the time. In his book Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob, (and Sex), Bart says he was on set on the day the scene was filmed and could clearly see Sutherland's penis "moving in and out of" Christie. Bart reiterated Warren Beatty's discontent, noting that Beatty had contacted him to complain about what he perceived to be Roeg's exploitation of Christie, and insisting that he be allowed to help edit the film. Sutherland subsequently issued a statement through his publicist stating that the claims were not true, and that Bart did not witness the scene being filmed. Peter Katz, the film's producer, corroborated Sutherland's account that the sex was entirely simulated.
…Reception
…Daphne du Maurier was pleased with the adaptation of her story, and wrote to Nicolas Roeg to congratulate him for capturing the essence of John and Laura's relationship. The film was not received well by Venetians, particularly the councillors who were afraid it would scare away tourists.
…Re-evaluation
The reputation of Don't Look Now has grown since its release and it is now regarded as a key work in horror cinema….”

Runtime: 1 hour 50 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI9bYR0SoMs
Director interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GOsVYHjabo

[SpelingError]

It can certainly be stressful to invest a lot of time and effort into a thread, only for very few people to reply to it. I felt this when I posted my Andrei Rublev and Eraserhead analyses here some time ago. I just think calling people out by saying you expect better from a group of film fans isn't the best way to go about it and can even be counter productive. It might help to post fewer entries, so people have less catch up to do when they come across the thread.

[Robert the List]

66. Badlands 1973 USA Terrence Malick

It’s mainly the landscapes. I like the soundtrack too though. There’s one tune that plays, a little bit like the sound of brushing through lots of tiny bells chiming, or perhaps a xylophone, that reminds me of Cambodia, a country I love. The film though is an American icon. It's also an interesting study of characters committing evil acts, and normalising it, e.g. Spacek "why are you putting him there?" Sheen "Just want to keep him out of the sun". He's dead. Sheen just shot him.

Wikipedia:
“Badlands is a 1973 American neo-noir (author’s note: is it???????) period crime drama film written, produced and directed by Terrence Malick, in his directorial debut. The film stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, and follows…a 15-year old who goes on a killing spree with her partner…While the story is fictional, it is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958.
…Cast…Director Terrence Malick makes a cameo as the man at the rich man's door, while Sheen's sons – Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez – appear briefly as two boys sitting under a lamppost outside Holly's house.
Production
Writing and casting…
Sissy Spacek, in only her second film, was the first actor cast. Malick found her small-town Texas roots and accent were perfect for the part of the naive impressionable high school girl. The director included her in his creative process, asking questions about her life…Several up-and-coming actors were auditioned for the part of Kit Carruthers. When Martin Sheen was suggested by the casting director, Malick was hesitant, thinking he was too old for the role. Spacek wrote in her autobiography that "the chemistry was immediate. He was Kit. And with him, I was Holly." Sheen based his characterization of Kit on the actor James Dean.
…Filming
…Malick's first cinematographer, Brian Probyn, quit mid-shoot after balking at the director's unorthodox methods. He was replaced by Tak Fujimoto then by Stevan Larner who finished the film.
…Though Malick paid close attention to period detail, he did not want it to overwhelm the picture. "I tried to keep the 1950s to a bare minimum," he said. "Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything. I wanted the picture to set up like a fairy tale, outside time."…
…Soundtrack
The film makes repeated use of the short composition Gassenhauer from Carl Orff's and Gunild Keetman's Schulwerk, and also uses other tunes by Erik Satie, Nat "King" Cole, Mickey & Sylvia and James Taylor.
…Release
…Vincent Canby, who saw the film at the festival debut, called it a "cool, sometimes brilliant, always ferociously American film"”

Runtime: 93 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFOzEZIN46E

[Robert the List]

-

[SpelingError]

I'd rank Badlands around the middle of what I've seen from Malick so far. I love just about everything I've seen from him though. I'm sure half this forum can guess what my favorite Malick film is.

[ScarletLion]

Badlands is awesome and inspired so many countless homages. From bits of True Romance to Se7en.

Possibly my 2nd favorute Malick after Tree of Life. I could watch Badlands right now or almost any time it's that iconic, that's always a sign of a film you love.

[Robert the List]

68. The Passenger 1975 Spain Michelangelo Antonioni

There is something about this film. I try to distance myself from it, convincing myself that the only reason I like it is because I find Maria Schneider strangely attractive. But it really isn't that. Every time I come back to it, I think I really love this film. It's another one that's just gorgeous to look at. Nicholson's laconic tones are perfect for the character that he adopts and for the pace of the film. His southern drawl matches the film's tempo step for step. And whilst I spend most of the film simply admiring the beauty of the camerawork, and slipping unconsciously into Nicholson's relaxed charm and the little romance with Schneider, the ending is as emotionally compelling and exciting as anything. So much so that you barely notice the directorial genius of how the scene is filmed. It hits you hard, and stays with you for quite a while.

Wikipedia:
“The Passenger (Italian: Professione: reporter) is a 1975 drama thriller film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. (co-)Written by Antonioni…the film is about a disillusioned Anglo-American journalist, David Locke (Jack Nicholson), who assumes the identity of a dead businessman (after being mistaken for him by hotel staff after he had in fact died in the adjacent hotel room) while working on a documentary in Chad, unaware that he is impersonating an arms dealer with connections to the rebels in the civil war. Along the way, he is accompanied by an unnamed young woman (Maria Schneider).
…The film received strong reviews, with critics praising Antonioni's direction, Nicholson's performance, the cinematography, and its themes of identity, disillusionment and existentialism...
The film was originally released by MGM through United Artists in the United States, but in partial settlement of a dispute over a different project, Nicholson received the film rights and reportedly kept it out of video distribution until Sony Pictures offered to remaster and re-release it. In 2005, with Nicholson's consent, Sony Pictures Classics remastered the film, giving it a limited theatrical re-release on 28 October 2005…
…Production
Development
During the 1960s, Michelangelo Antonioni had signed a three-picture deal with producer Carlo Ponti and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His first two films were Blowup (1966) and Zabriskie Point (1970). His third project…was inspired by the 1958 short story titled "L'avventura di un fotografo" (translated to "The Adventure of a Photographer")…Antonioni first wrote a film treatment in 1966, and later wrote a script in collaboration with (others)… After Zabriskie Point (1970) was released, Antonioni spent two years on pre-production work, including location scouting near the Amazon River. Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider had been attached to star in the project….However, Ponti grew concerned about the enormous cost of location shooting and cancelled the project. ...
A low-budget film titled Fatal Exit was in development for Carlo Ponti Productions. The project had been written by Peploe, who was the brother of Antonioni's then-partner, Clare Peploe….Ponti instead asked Antonioni to direct the film…Antonioni accepted the offer with Peploe's approval. Antonioni had noticed similarities between (the previously abandoned project) and Peploe's script because it had centered around a photojournalist. However, because of Nicholson's commitment to Chinatown (1974), Antonioni had only six weeks to rewrite the script.
Filming
Principal photography took place in the Illizi Province of Algeria (to depict Chad), London, Munich, Barcelona and locations across south-eastern Spain throughout mid-to-late 1973.
…The film's penultimate shot is a six-minute, 32-second long take tracking shot which begins in Locke's hotel room, looking out onto a dusty square, pushes out through the bars of the hotel window into the square, rotates 180 degrees, and finally tracks back to a close exterior view of the room's interior.
…In a DVD commentary, decades later, Nicholson said Antonioni built the entire hotel so as to get this shot.
The shot was continuous, preventing adjustment of the lens aperture as the camera left the room and entered the square. Therefore, the footage had to be captured in the late afternoon near dusk to minimize lighting contrast between the brightness outside and inside the room.
The camera ran on a ceiling track in the hotel room and when it came outside the window, was meant to be picked up by a hook suspended from a giant crane nearly 30 meters high. A system of gyroscopes was fitted on the camera to steady it during the switch from this smooth indoor track to the crane outside. Meanwhile, the bars on the window had been given hinges. When the camera reached the window and the bars were no longer in the field of view, they were swung away to either side. At this time, the camera's forward movement had to stop for a few seconds as the crane's hook grabbed it and took over from the track. To hide this, the lens was slowly and smoothly zoomed until the crane could pull the camera forward. Then the cameraman walked the camera in a circle around the square, giving the crew time to shut the window bars before the camera returned to look through the window from the outside this time. Antonioni directed the scene from a van by means of monitors and microphones, talking to assistants who communicated his instructions to the actors and operators….
…Reception
Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote the film was "a suspense melodrama, a story so basically conventional that it isn't until you're at least half‐way through it you realize it's a magnificent nightmare, and that you are on the inside looking out."
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film a complete four-star review, stating "The Passenger is a complex film that is obvious only in its physical beauty. And if you don't hook into that cerebral adventure story, you'll probably find the pace of the chase story to be much too slow. Viewers who connect to that other layer, however, will find a remarkable richness of image and idea ... Nicholson turns in another superior performance, managing to communicate his own brand of wise anger without puncturing Antonioni's grand design."
Jay Cocks, reviewing for Time magazine, praised the film's cinematography, writing the film "has some of the boldest and most supple imagery that Antonioni has achieved in years... The Passenger ends with a scene that seems destined for cinematic history."
Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the film "a masterpiece of visual beauty and rigorous artistry that is as tantalizing as it is hypnotic. It is a major achievement by one of the world's great film-makers and boasts still another of those splendid portrayals from Nicholson".
Penelope Gilliatt of The New Yorker called the film a "triumph of technical invention that stretches the wizardly vocabulary of film as he has never stretched it before".
Hank Werba of Variety wrote Antonioni "laboriously hand-fashioned an excellent film spectacle that is so marked by his own style and anguish reflections on contemporary life as to encourage further collaborative encounters."
Roger Ebert initially gave the film a negative review in 1975. In 2005, he revisited the film with a more positive review, writing that it was a perceptive look at identity, alienation and the human desire to escape oneself. He also praised Schneider's performance as "a performance of breathtaking spontaneity."
John Simon, in his 1983 book Something to Declare, wrote disapprovingly that "…Never was dialogue more pretentiously vacuous, plot more rudimentary yet preposterous, action more haphazard and spasmodic, characterization more tenuous and uninvolving, filmmaking more devoid of all but postures and pretensions".


Runtime: 2 hours 5 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhRKP3CdFe4

[Robert the List]

69. Barry Lyndon 1975 UK Stanley Kubrick

3 hours long, and I actually find the first 90 minutes at best quite tiresome. In fact, I feel that Kubrick is just fooling around, making fun of period dramas. And then finally he starts taking it seriously around the time Marisa’s character appears. And from then on it is absolutely wonderful. Spellbinding on the eye, and the dialogue is also fantastic. The Reverend Munt is also one of my favourite film characters. I love his expressions, and the way he protects Lady Lyndon. But it also turns into a drama that you actually find yourself caring about. The more you like Barry Lyndon the film, the more you dislike Barry Lyndon the character. But then after all that – perhaps like a family member you don’t get on with – you find yourself (as you did so when he was robbed by highwaymen all those years ago) with some sympathy towards him. It’s an interesting experience, but the main thing is the incredible visuals: the candles, the costumes, the barn, Marisa’s face. Absolute art. When I think of cinematic masterpiece, one of my first thoughts is the final 90 minutes of Barry Lyndon.

Wikipedia:
“Barry Lyndon is a 1975 epic historical black comedy-drama film written, directed, and produced by Stanley Kubrick, based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. Narrated by Michael Hordern, and starring Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Leonard Rossiter and Hardy Krüger, the film recounts the early exploits and later unravelling of an 18th-century Anglo-Irish rogue and gold digger who marries a rich widow to climb the social ladder and assume her late husband's aristocratic position.
Kubrick began production on Barry Lyndon after his 1971 film A Clockwork Orange. He had originally intended to direct a biopic on Napoleon, but lost his financing because of the commercial failure of the similar 1970 Dino De Laurentiis-produced Waterloo. Kubrick eventually directed Barry Lyndon, set partially during the Seven Years' War, utilising his research from the Napoleon project. Filming began in December 1973 and lasted roughly eight months, taking place in England, Ireland, and Germany.
The film's cinematography has been described as ground-breaking. Especially notable are the long double shots, usually ended with a slow backwards zoom, the scenes shot entirely in candlelight, and the settings based on William Hogarth paintings. The exteriors were filmed on location in England, Ireland, and Germany, with the interiors shot mainly in London. The production had problems related to logistics, weather, and politics (Kubrick feared that he might be an IRA hostage target)
…Part I: "By What Means Redmond Barry Acquired the Style and Title of Barry Lyndon"
…Part II: "Containing an Account of the Misfortunes and Disasters Which Befell Barry Lyndon"
…Cast
…Critic Tim Robey suggests that the film "makes you realise that the most undervalued aspect of Kubrick's genius could well be his way with actors." He adds that the supporting cast is a "glittering procession of cameos, not from star names but from vital character players."
The cast featured Leon Vitali as the older Lord Bullingdon, who then became Kubrick's personal assistant, working as the casting director on his following films, and supervising film-to-video transfers for Kubrick. Their relationship lasted until Kubrick's death.
…Thematic analysis
A main theme explored in Barry Lyndon is one of fate and destiny. Barry is pushed through life by a series of key events, some of which seem unavoidable. As Roger Ebert says, "He is a man to whom things happen."
He declines to eat with the highwayman Captain Feeney, where he would most likely have been robbed, but is robbed anyway farther down the road. The narrator repeatedly emphasizes the role of fate as he announces events before they unfold on screen…
Another major theme is between father and son. Barry lost his father at a young age and throughout the film he seeks and attaches himself to father-figures. Examples include his uncle, Grogan, and the Chevalier. When given the chance to be a father, Barry loves his son to the point of spoiling him. This contrasts with his role as a (step)father to Lord Bullingdon, whom he disregards and punishes….
Production
…So heightened was the secrecy surrounding the film that "Even Berenson, when Kubrick first approached her, was told only that it was to be an 18th-century costume piece [and] she was instructed to keep out of the sun in the months before production, to achieve the period-specific pallor he required."
Screenplay
…The film departs from the novel in several ways. In Thackeray's writings, events are related in the first person by Barry himself. A comic tone pervades the work, as Barry proves both a raconteur and an unreliable narrator. Kubrick's film, by contrast, presents the story objectively. Though the film contains voice-over (by actor Michael Hordern), the comments expressed are not Barry's, but those of an omniscient narrator.
…Principal photography
…Many of the exteriors were shot in Ireland, playing "itself, England, and Prussia during the Seven Years' War."[7] Kubrick and cinematographer Alcott drew inspiration from "the landscapes of Watteau and Gainsborough"…Several of the interior scenes were filmed in Powerscourt House, an 18th-century mansion in County Wicklow. The house was destroyed in an accidental fire several months after filming (November 1974), so the film serves as a record of the lost interiors…The Wicklow Mountains are visible, for example, through the window of the saloon during a scene set in Berlin… Other locations included Kells Priory, County Kilkenny…Huntington Castle, County Carlow (exterior) and Dublin Castle, County Dublin (the chevalier's home). Some exterior shots were also filmed at Waterford Castle, County Waterford (now a luxury hotel and golf course) and Little Island, Waterford. Moorstown Castle in County Tipperary also featured. Several scenes were filmed at Castletown House in Celbridge, County Kildare; outside Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, and at Youghal, County Cork.
The filming took place in the backdrop of some of the most intense years of the Troubles in Ireland, during which the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA) was waging an armed campaign in order to unite the island. On 30 January 1974, while filming in Dublin City's Phoenix Park, shooting had to be cancelled due to the chaos caused by 14 bomb threats. One day a phone call was received and Kubrick was given 24 hours to leave the country; he left within 12 hours. The phone call alleged that the Provisional IRA had him on a hit list and Harlan recalls "Whether the threat was a hoax or it was real, almost doesn't matter ... Stanley was not willing to take the risk. He was threatened, and he packed his bag and went home." Production of the film was one-third completed when this occurred, and it was rumored that the film would be abandoned. Nonetheless, Kubrick continued shooting the remainder of the film at locations in England, mainly southern England, Scotland, West Germany, and East Germany.
Locations in England include Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire; Castle Howard, North Yorkshire (exteriors of the Lyndon estate, "Castle Hickham"); Corsham Court, Wiltshire (various interiors and the music room scene); Petworth House, West Sussex (chapel); Stourhead, Wiltshire (lake and temple); Longleat, Wiltshire; Wilton House, Wiltshire (interior and exterior) and Lavenham Guildhall at Lavenham in Suffolk (amputation scene). Filming took place at Dunrobin Castle (exterior and garden as Spa) in Sutherland, Scotland. Locations in West Germany include Ludwigsburg Palace in Ludwigsburg and Hohenzollern Castle in Hechingen, both near Stuttgart. Frederick II of Prussia's Neues Palais at Potsdam near Berlin, at the time East Germany, was also used as a location”
Cinematography
Special ultra-fast lenses were used for Barry Lyndon to allow filming using only natural light.
The film, as with "almost every Kubrick film", is a "showcase for [a] major innovation in technique." While 2001: A Space Odyssey had featured "revolutionary effects," and The Shining would later feature heavy use of the Steadicam, Barry Lyndon saw a considerable number of sequences shot "without recourse to electric light." The film's cinematography was overseen by director of photography John Alcott (who won an Oscar for his work), and is particularly noted for the technical innovations that made some of its most spectacular images possible. To achieve photography without electric lighting (for) "the many densely furnished interior scenes … meant shooting by candlelight," which is known to be difficult in still photography, "let alone with moving images."
Kubrick was "determined not to reproduce the set-bound, artificially lit look of other costume dramas from that time." After "tinker[ing] with different combinations of lenses and film stock," the production obtained three super-fast 50mm lenses (Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7) developed by Zeiss for use by NASA in the Apollo Moon landings, which Kubrick had discovered. These super-fast lenses "with their huge aperture (the film actually features the lowest f-stop in film history) and fixed focal length" were problematic to mount, and were extensively modified into three versions by Cinema Products Corp. for Kubrick to gain a wider angle of view, with input from optics expert Richard Vetter of Todd-AO. The rear element of the lens had to be 2.5 mm away from the film plane, requiring special modification to the rotating camera shutter. This allowed Kubrick and Alcott to shoot scenes lit in candlelight to an average lighting volume of only three candela, "recreating the huddle and glow of a pre-electrical age." In addition, Kubrick had the entire film push-developed by one stop.
Although Kubrick and Alcott sought to avoid electric lighting where possible, most shots were achieved with conventional lenses and lighting, but were lit to deliberately mimic natural light rather than for compositional reasons. In addition to potentially seeming more realistic, these methods also gave a particular period look to the film which has often been likened to 18th-century paintings (which of course depict a world devoid of electric lighting), in particular owing "a lot to William Hogarth, with whom Thackeray had always been fascinated.
The film is widely regarded as having a stately, static, painterly quality mostly due to its lengthy, wide-angle long shots. To illuminate the more notable interior scenes, artificial lights called "Mini-Brutes" were placed outside and aimed through the windows, which were covered in a diffuse material to scatter the light evenly through the room rather than being placed inside for maximum use as most conventional films do. In some instances, the natural daylight was allowed to come through, which when recorded on the film stock used by Kubrick showed up as blue-tinted compared to the incandescent electric light.
Despite such slight tinting effects, this method of lighting not only gave the look of natural daylight coming in through the windows, but it also protected the historic locations from the damage caused by mounting the lights on walls or ceilings and the heat from the lights. This helped the film "fit ... perfectly with Kubrick's gilded-cage aesthetic – the film is consciously a museum piece, its characters pinned to the frame like butterflies." (https://theasc.com/articles/flashback-barry-lyndon)
…
The film's period setting allowed Kubrick to indulge his penchant for using classical music, and the film score includes pieces by Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Paisiello, Mozart, and Schubert. The piece most associated with the film, however, is the main title music, Handel's Sarabande from the Keyboard suite in D minor (HWV 437). Originally for solo harpsichord, the versions for the main and end titles are performed with strings, timpani, and continuo. The score also includes Irish folk music, including Seán Ó Riada's song "Women of Ireland", arranged by Paddy Moloney and performed by The Chieftains. "The British Grenadiers" also features in scenes with Redcoats marching.
Reception
Contemporaneous
The film "was not the commercial success Warner Bros. had been hoping for" within the United States, although it fared better in Europe….
This mixed reaction saw the film (in the words of one retrospective review) "greeted, on its release, with dutiful admiration – but not love. Critics ... rail[ed] against the perceived coldness of Kubrick's style, the film's self-conscious artistry and slow pace. Audiences, on the whole, rather agreed".
(https://web.archive.org/web/20190826130615/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/07/27/kubrick-by-candlelight-how-barry-lyndon-became-a-gorgeous-period/)
…
Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "the motion picture equivalent of one of those very large, very heavy, very expensive, very elegant and very dull books that exist solely to be seen on coffee tables. It is ravishingly beautiful and incredibly tedious in about equal doses, a succession of salon quality still photographs—as often as not very still indeed."
The Washington Post wrote, "It's not inaccurate to describe 'Barry Lyndon' as a masterpiece, but it's a deadend masterpiece, an objet d'art rather than a movie. It would be more at home, and perhaps easier to like, on the bookshelf, next to something like 'The Age of the Grand Tour,' than on the silver screen."
Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote that "Kubrick has taken a quick-witted story" and "controlled it so meticulously that he's drained the blood out of it," adding, "It's a coffee-table movie; we might as well be at a three-hour slide show for art-history majors."

Runtime: 3 hours
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjPSGuJskxM
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQE73GDo4So

[Robert the List]

70. Mirror1975 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky

I’ll come back to my own review in due course. I want to watch it again.

Wikipedia:
“Mirror…is a 1975 Soviet avant-garde drama filmdirected by Andrei Tarkovsky and written by Tarkovsky and Aleksandr Misharin. The film features (amongst others)…Tarkovsky's wife Larisa Tarkovskaya, and his mother Maria Vishnyakova. Innokenty Smoktunovsky contributed voiceover dialogue...
Mirror portrays a dying poet pondering his memories. It is loosely autobiographical, unconventionally structured, and draws on a wide variety of source material, including newsreel footage of major moments in Soviet history and the poetry of the director's father, Arseny Tarkovsky. Its cinematography slips between color, black-and-white, and sepia. Its nonlinear narrative has delighted and frustrated critics and audiences for decades. The film's loose flow of oneiric images has been compared with the stream of consciousness technique associated with modernist literature.
Mirror initially polarized critics, audiences, and the Soviet film establishment. Tarkovsky devised the original concept in 1964, but the Soviet government did not approve funding for the film until 1973 and limited the film's release amid accusations of cinephilic elitism. Many viewers found its narrative incomprehensible, although Tarkovsky noted that many non-film critics understood the film. Since its release, it has been reappraised as one of the greatest films of all time…It is especially popular with Russians, for many of whom it is the most beloved of Tarkovsky's works.
...
Mirror depicts the thoughts, emotions and memories of Aleksei, a Soviet poet, as a child, adolescent, and 40-year-old. The film freely switches between three different timeframes: prewar (c. 1935), World War II (1940s), and postwar (1960s or '70s). The drama is entirely shown from Aleksei's perspective; the adult Aleksei's face is never shown, and his body only briefly glimpsed. Tarkovsky said that because a memory reveals "what [a person] thinks, how he thinks, and what he thinks about", a film collecting a man's memories "build[s] up a graphic and clearly-defined picture of him" without needing to show the man himself.
…To represent the real-life experience of a man going over old memories, the film's structure is discontinuous and nonchronological, lacks a conventional plot, and combines incidents, dreams, memories, newsreel footage, and Arseny Tarkovsky's poems in voiceover. Scenes are connected not by time or place, but by particular individuals and motifs that serendipitously come to mind…
The film encourages viewers to embrace its nonlinear, seemingly illogical narrative by including an opening scene in which a physician examines a man with a stutter. The physician asks the patient to concentrate on his hands and then suddenly relax. None of this seems related to his stutter, but the therapy releases the patient's mind, and he triumphantly says, "I can talk."
…
Cast
Several of the characters are played by the same actors.

Margarita Terekhova as the young Maria (Aleksei's mother) and Natalia (Aleksei's ex-wife)
Maria Vishnyakova (Tarkovsky's mother) as the elderly Maria
Ignat Daniltsev as the adolescent Aleksei and Ignat (Aleksei's son)
Filipp Yankovsky as the child Aleksei
Innokenty Smoktunovsky as the adult Aleksei (voice only)
…Larisa Tarkovskaya (Tarkovsky's wife) as Nadezhda, Maria's countryside neighbor
…Arseny Tarkovsky as narrator/poet (voice only)
Themes and interpretation
While highly acclaimed, Mirror continues to be viewed as enigmatic. Natasha Synessios wrote that it is closer in structure to a musical piece than a narrative film, noting that Tarkovsky "always maintained that he used the laws of music as the film's organisational principle...emphasis placed not on the logic, but the form, of the flow of events."…Howard Hampton argued that the work's central subject is "the inescapable persistence of the past".
Mirror draws heavily on Tarkovsky's childhood. The film frequently parallels events in Tarkovsky's life, such as the evacuation from Moscow to the countryside during the war; a father who left the family and only returned after the war; and his mother's experiences as a proofreader at a state-owned printing press. Both of Tarkovsky's parents participate in the film: the father reads his poems and the mother portrays an elderly version of Aleksei's mother. According to Tarkovsky's sister Marina, the film also reflects Tarkovsky's guilt about divorcing his first wife, Irma Raush. She said that Tarkovsky named the film Mirror because he "understood that he had followed in the footsteps of our father, who had also divorced our mother".
Tarkovsky said making the film was personally therapeutic, as it allowed him to move on from his memories.
…Tarkovsky wrote, "The hero of Mirror was a weak, selfish man incapable of loving even those dearest to him for their sake alone, looking for nothing in return—he is only justified by the torment of soul which assails him towards the end of his days as he realizes that he has no means of repaying the debt he owes to life."

Production
Writing
The concept of Mirror dates to 1964, when Tarkovsky wrote down his idea for a film about the dreams and memories of a man, without the man appearing on screen. The first episodes of Mirror were written while Tarkovsky was working on Andrei Rublev. These episodes were published in 1970 as a short story titled A White Day. The title was taken from a 1942 poem by his father, Arseny Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky separately considered writing a novella about a boy who is evacuated to the countryside during World War II and is forced to train at a military school, but shelved the idea after deciding there was not enough material for a standalone work. 
In 1968, after finishing Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky went to the cinematographer's resort in Repino intending to write the script for The Mirror with Aleksandr Misharin. This script was titled Confession and was proposed to the film committee at Goskino...but the proposal was rejected. The main reason was most likely the complex and unconventional script. Moreover, Tarkovsky and Misharin clearly said that they did not know what the film's final form would be; this was to be determined in the process of filming. After the script was rejected, Tarkovsky made the film Solaris. His diary entries showed that he was still eager to make the rejected film.
…At various times, the script and the film were titled Confession, Redemption, Martyrology, Why are you standing so far away?, The Raging Stream and A White, White Day (sometimes also translated as A Bright, Bright Day). While filming, Tarkovsky decided to title the film Mirror. The film features several mirrors, with some scenes shot in reflection.
Studio approval
The new head of Goskino, Filipp Ermash, approved the script in the summer of 1973. Tarkovsky was given a budget of 622,000 Rbls and 7,500 metres (24,606 feet) of Kodak film, corresponding to 110 minutes, or roughly three takes, assuming a film length of 3,000 metres (10,000 feet). But in July 1974, after Tarkovsky finished the film, Ermash rejected it as incomprehensible. Infuriated by the rejection, Tarkovsky toyed with the idea of making a film outside the Soviet Union. Goskino ultimately approved Mirror without any changes in fall 1974.

…Filming
…The country house in the film was based on photographs of the house where Tarkovsky grew up…
Tarkovsky insisted on shooting the film without a clear idea of its structure, saying it needed to "take shape as if it were by itself."  Much of the script was rewritten during the shoot. Tarkovsky was down to 400 metres of film when he came up with the idea of recasting Terekhova as Aleksei's wife. She had initially played only the mother.

…Editing
Tarkovsky said that a "prodigious amount of work went into editing Mirror". There are about 200 shots in Mirror, very few for a film of its length. Tarkovsky rejected editing as a means of creating, or determining, rhythm, believing that editing "means allowing the separate scenes and shots to come together spontaneously". It was only after "one last, desperate rearrangement" that the "film was born". He felt it was a "miracle" that Mirror held together.
Tarkovsky was extremely pleased with the final cut, saying, "when I finished making Mirror[,] [c]hildhood memories which for years had given me no peace suddenly vanished, as if they had melted away, and at last I stopped dreaming about the house where I had lived so many years before."

Release
Tarkovsky wanted to premiere the film in competition at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, but the Soviet government (which could submit only one film to the festival per year) chose Sergei Bondarchuk's They Fought for Their Country instead. The festival's managing director, Maurice Bessy, was sympathetic to Tarkovsky, and had attempted several times to acquire Mirror for Cannes. Upon hearing that Mirror was not allowed to be shown, he threatened to ban They Fought for Their Country from the festival. The Soviets pushed back, insisting that "Soviet cinematographic circles refused ... to accept the idea that Tarkovsky was the only filmmaker of international stature."
Mirror never had an official premiere, only a limited, second-category release with just 73 copies. According to The New York Times, the film premiered in two Moscow theaters in April 1975.
In 2022, Mosfilm posted the full movie, with English subtitles, on YouTube. The film was also restored in 2K and distributed in the United States by The Criterion Collection.
Reception
…Many audience members walked out of theatrical screenings, but those who liked the film were ardent in their praise. In his book Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky reproduced fan mail from a variety of sources, from working-class film-goers to physicists at the Russian Academy of Sciences.”

Runtime: 1 hour 46 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2U9TXmYJ94

[SpelingError]

I'm going with either Days of Heaven or Tree of Life?
The Tree of Life

[Robert the List]

Taxi Driver 1976 USA Martin Scorsese

Scorsese has so much fun with this film, and it's a brilliant movie in spite of most of the set looking like it's been made in a GCSE art class (is that a metaphor for Travis's inability to perceive reality?).

It's another film where I wish I'd had a note pad! Although unlike Rear Window, I think I've managed to remember most of my points.

LIKE Rear Window though, there is A LOT more comedy in this film than I'd realised. It's not a straight out comedy like King of Comedy, and Travis is definitely a straight role, but there are as many moments of comedy in the film as you would find in a comedy film.

In fact I think Scorsese is experimenting with the audience to see when you are prepared to laugh, because often the humour follows immediately after a horrific/shocking scene, or even during it..

And I do think that he also uses the film as an examination of morality. It was interesting that during the awful scenes of Keitel with the 12 year old Foster, there were members of the audience laughing at something! And there was so much awkwardness in the room during those scenes.

The morality conundrum also creeps into the viewers' assessment of Travis. Is he a hero? is he an anti-hero? is he just a villian? Well, according to a note on the wall at the end he is "Taxi Driver Hero". Do you agree? I think that's the choice of the viewer personally.

He certainly lives in a world of delusion, and although he was ostensibly well intentioned, it was interesting that he suddenly got over Betsy when he was going to see Iris.

As other commentators have pointed out, whilst he frowns at a customer talking about shooting his wife in the face or in the groin, he doesn't try to do anything about that, or even comment on it.

And that's another thing. The graphic violence, and talk of violence, and graphic talk of sex, and in fact under age prostitution. Scorsese has set out to shock here and push the boundaries that were earlier put down by Bonnie and Clyde, and he succeeds.

He even turns the gruesome violence into comedy, as well by the way, by having Travis stab the one guy through his hand, having already blow the fingers off his other hand. Sorry, cinema for lolling at that!

Whilst the sets are crap, the shots of the streets are magnificent, as are the pictures through the windshield and in the mirror. Absolutely stunning. And the music's also superb. The refrain is used to indicate Travis's delusion, but there are other parts which act as the grammar of the film, moving it along from one phase to another phase. It's a great score/soundtrack.

It's a western by the way! Or at least the shootout is right out of a western, and right after it there's a western style tune played. Keitel even has native American ('red indian') hair as it used to be depicted in the westerns.

Scorsese indulges himself further with the most extreme piece of dramatic irony you'll ever seen, where one of the people in the cafe proclaims a propehcy of Travis killing people with a gun.

He even includes a 'how did they do that' tracking shot along the ceiling after the killing, as the cops froze in time ala Marienbad.

For a fairly young director, he's had an absolute ball making this.

And he ended up with a balsa wood/papiere mache masterpiece.

[Hotel Security]

>Barry Lyndon
>In fact, I feel that Kubrick is just fooling around, making fun of period dramas.

I feel this is kind of obvious. There's a wry wit to how he presents the film, especially with matter-of-fact way that the narrator often describes the events...possibly the best is when the narrator describes the suicide attempt by Barry's wife which is a very serious moment but is presented in a pretty hilarious manner.

It's even more obvious in his portrayal of duels where each one is shown as a clumsy affair between two very nervous people rather than these epic showdowns between rivals. I feel this level of humor is in all of Kubrick's stuff...he has a better sense of humor than people realize.

That said, I did find the movie dragged a little but I agree on how gorgeous everything is...there's some amazing shots of the sky and backdrops, probably more-so than any of his films. I will disagree on not liking the first half...I felt that had some of the better moments.

[Robert the List]

71. Apocalypse Now 1979 USA Francis Ford Coppola ESSENTIAL
(post 1 of 2)

I don't know if it's the best movie of all time as such (although it is a contender), but I'm coming to the view that it's the movie of all movies. Reinforced by watching it on the big screen recently, which was an incredible experience, and by seeing the documentary about its filming, and now by reading through the Wikipedia entry, which I've reduced below. What Coppola did to make this is really staggering. The risks he took, the pressure he was under, the conditions and misfortunes endured, Brando's apparently terrible attitude and the madness of Hopper, the post production issues. It must be difficult to think of a greater achievement in the history of cinema to get this made, and to this standard. As for the film....there's so much to love about it. The opening titles/sequence must again be about the greatest of all; the viewer is suddenly flung into this world far away, hypnotised by the sounds of helicopters and images of Cambodian Kings or Divinity. Then we find ourselves landing in Sheen's quarters in Saigon. We see squadrons of helicopters in formation, the likes of which had never been filmed before. In some versions a tiger roaring in the jungle towards us. Playboy playmates in their underwear getting rescued from 100s of horny soldiers. A madman. The King of the madmen. The horror.

Wikipedia:
“[I]Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr, is loosely inspired by the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, with the setting changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War. The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane…
Milius became interested in adapting Heart of Darkness for a Vietnam War setting in the late 1960s, and initially began developing the film with Coppola as producer and George Lucas as director. After Lucas became unavailable, Coppola took over directorial control, and was influenced by Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) in his approach to the material. Initially set to be a five-month shoot in the Philippines starting in March 1976, a series of problems lengthened it to over a year. These problems included expensive sets being destroyed by severe weather, Brando showing up on set overweight and completely unprepared, and Sheen having a breakdown and suffering a near-fatal heart attack on location. After photography was finally finished in May 1977, the release was postponed several times while Coppola edited over a million feet of film. Many of these difficulties are chronicled in the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991).

…Cast
…Martin Sheen as U.S. Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard… The opening scene—which features Willard staggering around his hotel room, culminating in him punching a mirror—was filmed on Sheen's 36th birthday when he was heavily intoxicated. The mirror that he broke was not a prop and caused his hand to bleed profusely, but he insisted on continuing the scene, despite Coppola's concerns. Sheen has said this performance where he writhes and smears himself in blood was spontaneous and was an exorcism of his longstanding alcoholism. Sheen's brother Joe Estevez stood in for Willard in some scenes and performed the character's voiceover narrations while his son Charlie appears in the film as an extra. Both went uncredited.
…Laurence Fishburne (credited as "Larry Fishburne") as Gunner's Mate 3rd Class Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller, the cocky seventeen-year-old South Bronx-born crewmember. Fishburne was only 14 when shooting began in March 1976, as he had lied about his age to get the role. The production took so long, he was 18 by the time of its release.
…Harrison Ford as Colonel G. Lucas, aide to Corman and an Army intelligence specialist who gives Willard his orders. The character is named for George Lucas…Lucas was also intended to direct Apocalypse Now before getting busy making Star Wars.
…Co-writer, producer, and director Francis Ford Coppola makes an uncredited cameo playing a TV news director filming beach combat; he shouts "Don't look at the camera, go by like you're fighting!". Additionally, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro plays the cameraman by Coppola's side.

Adaptation
Although inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, it is not a direct adaptation. The novella, based on Conrad's experience as a steamboat captain in Africa, is set in the Congo Free State during the 19th century. Kurtz and Marlow (whose corresponding character in the movie is Capt. Willard) work for a Belgian trading company that brutally exploits its native African workers.
….Marlow is the pilot of a river boat sent to collect ivory from Kurtz's outpost, only gradually becoming infatuated with Kurtz. In fact, when he discovers Kurtz in terrible health, Marlow makes an effort to bring him home safely (which Willard also does in Milius's draft screenplay)….
After arriving at Kurtz's outpost, Marlow concludes that Kurtz has gone insane and is lording over a small tribe as a god. The novella ends with Kurtz dying on the trip back and the narrator musing about the darkness of the human psyche: "the heart of an immense darkness." …
In the film, Willard is an assassin dispatched to kill Kurtz. Nevertheless, the depiction of Kurtz as a god-like leader of a tribe of natives, Kurtz's written exclamation "Exterminate all the brutes!" (which appears in the film as "Drop the bomb. Exterminate them all!") and his last words "The horror! The horror!" are taken from Conrad's novella.
Coppola argues that many episodes in the film—the spear and arrow attack on the boat, for example—respect the spirit of the novella and in particular its critique of the concepts of civilization and progress.
…While Coppola replaced European colonialism with American interventionism, the message of Conrad's book is still clear.
…Other episodes adapted by Coppola—the Playboy Playmates' (Sirens) exit….and Kurtz's tribe of (white-faced) natives parting the canoes (gates of Hell) for Willard (with Chef and Lance) to enter the camp—are likened to Virgil and "The Inferno" (Divine Comedy) by Dante.
It is often speculated that Coppola's interpretation of the Kurtz character was modelled after Tony Poe, a highly decorated Vietnam-era paramilitary officer from the CIA's Special Activities Division. Poe's actions in Vietnam and in the "Secret War" in neighboring Laos, in particular his highly unorthodox and often savage methods of waging war, show many similarities to those of the fictional Kurtz; for example, Poe was known to drop severed heads from helicopters into enemy-controlled villages as a form of psychological warfare and use human ears to record the number of enemies his indigenous troops had killed. He would send these ears back to his superiors as proof of the efficacy of his operations deep inside Laos. Coppola denies that Poe was a primary influence and says the character was loosely based on Special Forces Colonel Robert B. Rheault, who was the actual head of 5th Special Forces Group (May to July 1969), and whose 1969 arrest over the murder of suspected double agent Thai Khac Chuyen in Nha Trang generated substantial contemporary news coverage….including making public the phrase "terminate with extreme prejudice," which was used prominently in the movie.
…Use of T. S. Eliot's poetry
In the film, shortly before Colonel Kurtz dies, he recites part of T. S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men." The poem is preceded in printed editions by the epigraph "Mistah Kurtz – he dead," a quotation from Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Two books seen opened on Kurtz's desk in the film are From Ritual to Romance by Jessie Weston and The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer, the two books that Eliot cited as the chief sources and inspiration for his poem "The Waste Land." Eliot's original epigraph for "The Waste Land" was this passage from Heart of Darkness, which ends with Kurtz's final words:
“Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, – he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath”…(?) "The horror! The horror!"
When Willard is first introduced to Dennis Hopper's character, the photojournalist describes his own worth in relation to that of Kurtz with: "I should have been a pair of ragged claws/Scuttling across the floors of silent seas," from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
Additionally, Dennis Hopper's character paraphrases the end of "The Hollow Men" to Martin Sheen's character: "This is the way the ****ing world ends! [...] Not with a bang, but with a whimper."[35]

Production…
While working as an assistant for Francis Ford Coppola on The Rain People in 1967, filmmaker John Milius was encouraged by his friends George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to write a Vietnam War film. He came up with the idea for adapting the plot of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness to the Vietnam War setting. He had read the novel as a teenager and was reminded about it when his college screenwriting professor, Irwin Blacker of USC, mentioned…"No screenwriter has ever perfected a film adaption of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.”
…The title Apocalypse Now was inspired by a button badge popular with hippies during the 1960s that said "Nirvana Now."
Milius based the character of Willard and some of Kurtz's on a friend of his, Fred Rexer. Rexer claimed to have experienced, first-hand, the scene relayed by Brando's character wherein the arms of villagers are hacked off by the Viet Cong; and that Kurtz was based on Robert B. Rheault, head of Special Forces in Vietnam. Scholars have never found any evidence to corroborate Rexer's claim, nor any similar Viet Cong behavior, and consider it an urban legend.
(Milius) was influenced by an article by Michael Herr, "The Battle for Khe Sanh," which referred to drugs, rock 'n' roll, and people calling airstrikes down on themselves.
…had no desire to direct the film himself and felt that Lucas was the right person for the job. Lucas worked with Milius for four years developing the film, while working on other films, including his script for Star Wars. He approached Apocalypse Now as a black comedy, and intended…principal photography to start in 1971….They intended to shoot the film both in the rice fields between Stockton and Sacramento, California, and on-location in South Vietnam, on a $2 million budget, cinéma vérité style, using 16 mm cameras, and real soldiers, while the war was still going on. However, due to the studios' safety concerns and Lucas's involvement with American Graffiti, and later Star Wars, Lucas decided to put the project on hold.

Pre-production
Coppola was drawn to Milius's script, which he described as "a comedy and a terrifying psychological horror story," and acquired the rights….He asked Lucas, then Milius, to direct it, but both were involved with other projects (Lucas in particular had gotten the go-ahead to make Star Wars). Coppola was determined to make the film and pressed ahead himself. He envisioned it as a definitive statement on the nature of modern war, the contrasts between good and evil, and the impact of American culture on the rest of the world. He said he wanted to take the audience "through an unprecedented experience of war"
… He decided to make the film in the Philippines for its access to American military equipment and cheap labor….Frederickson (??) went to the Philippines and had dinner with President Ferdinand Marcos to formalize support for the production and to allow them to use some of the country's military equipment. Coppola spent the last few months of 1975 revising Milius's script and negotiating with United Artists to secure financing for the production. Milius claimed it would be the "most violent film ever made." According to Frederickson, the budget was estimated between $12 and 14 million. Coppola's American Zoetrope obtained $7.5 million from United Artists for domestic distribution rights and $8 million from international sales, on the assumption that the film would star Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen and Gene Hackman.

Casting
Steve McQueen was Coppola's first choice to play Willard, but McQueen did not want to leave America for three weeks and Coppola was unwilling to pay his $3 million fee. When McQueen dropped out in February 1976, Coppola had to return $5 million of the $21 million he had raised. Al Pacino was also offered the role, but he too did not want to be away that long, and was afraid of falling ill in the jungle as he had done in the Dominican Republic during the shooting of The Godfather Part II. Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford and James Caan were approached to play either Kurtz or Willard….In a 2015 The Hollywood Reporter interview, Clint Eastwood revealed that Coppola offered him the role of Willard, but much like McQueen and Pacino, he did not want to be away from America for a long time. He also revealed that McQueen tried to convince him to play Willard; McQueen wanted to play Kurtz because he would have to work for only two weeks. Coppola offered the lead role of Willard to Robert De Niro, but he declined due to other commitments.
Coppola also offered the role of Colonel Kurtz to Orson Welles and Lee Marvin, both of whom turned it down.
Coppola and Roos had been impressed by Martin Sheen's screen test for Michael in The Godfather and he became the second choice to play Willard, but he had already accepted another project. Harvey Keitel was cast in the role based on his work in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets.
By early 1976, Coppola had persuaded Marlon Brando to play Kurtz, for a fee of $2 million for a month's work on location in September 1976. Brando also received 10% of the gross theatrical rental and 10% of the TV sale rights, earning him around $9 million.
Hackman was set to play Wyatt Khanage, who later became Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall…
Before departing for principal photography, Coppola took out an advertisement in the trade press declaring Keitel, Duvall and others as the "first choices" for the film. It also listed other actors who did not appear in the film, including Harry Dean Stanton…

…Principal photography
…Shooting began on March 20, 1976. Within a few days, Coppola was unhappy with Harvey Keitel's take on Willard, saying that the actor "found it difficult to play him as a passive onlooker." With Brando not due to film until three months later, as he did not want to work while his children were on school vacation, Keitel left the project in April and quit the seven-year deal he had signed as well. Coppola returned to Los Angeles and replaced Keitel with Martin Sheen, who arrived in the Philippines on April 24. Only four days of reshoots were reportedly required after the change….
Typhoon Olga wrecked 40–80% of the sets at Iba and on May 26, 1976, production was closed down. …The Playboy Playmate set was destroyed, ruining a month's scheduled shooting. Most of the cast and crew returned to the United States for six to eight weeks….Also…one day the entire payroll was stolen. According to Coppola's wife, Eleanor, the film was six weeks behind schedule and $2 million over budget.
Coppola filed a $500,000 insurance claim for typhoon damage and took out a loan from United Artists on the condition that if the film did not generate theatrical rentals of over $40 million, he would be liable for the overruns. Despite the increasing costs, Coppola promised the University of the Philippines Film Center 1% of the profits, up to $1 million, for a film study trust fund.
Coppola flew back to the U.S. in June 1976. He read a book about Genghis Khan to get a better handle on the character of Kurtz. When filming commenced in July 1976, Marlon Brando arrived in Manila very overweight and began working with Coppola to rewrite the ending. The director downplayed Brando's weight by dressing him in black, photographing only his face, and having another, taller actor double for him to portray him as an almost mythical character.
After Christmas 1976, Coppola viewed a rough assembly of the footage but still needed to improvise an ending. He returned to the Philippines in early 1977 and resumed filming.
On March 5 of that year, Sheen, then only 36, had a near-fatal heart attack and struggled for a quarter of a mile to reach help. By then the film was so over-budget, Sheen worried that funding would be halted if word about his condition reached investors, and he claimed that he had suffered heat stroke instead. Until he returned to the set on April 19, his brother Joe Estevez filled in for him, being shot from behind so close-ups of Sheen could be shot after he got better. Coppola later admitted that he could no longer tell which scenes were of Joe or Martin. A major sequence in a French plantation cost hundreds of thousands of dollars but was cut from the final film.
Rumors began to circulate that Apocalypse Now had several endings, but Richard Beggs, who worked on the sound elements, said, "There were never five endings, but just the one, even if there were differently edited versions."…Coppola admitted that he had no ending because Brando was too fat to play the scenes as written in the original script….Coppola decided the ending could be "the classic myth of the murderer who gets up the river, kills the king, and then himself becomes the king" Principal photography ended on May 21, 1977.

Post-production and audio
The budget had doubled to over $25 million, and Coppola's loan from United Artists to fund the overruns had been extended to over $10 million. UA took out a $15 million life insurance policy on Coppola. By June 1977, Coppola had offered his car, house, and The Godfather profits as security to finish the film. When Star Wars became a major hit, Coppola sent a telegram to Lucas asking for money. The release date was pushed back to spring 1978.
…. In the summer of 1977, Coppola told Walter Murch that he had four months to assemble the sound. Murch realized that the script had originally been narrated but Coppola abandoned the idea during filming. Murch thought that there was a way to assemble the film without narration but that it would take ten months, and decided to give it another try. He put it back in, recording it all himself.
By September, Coppola told his wife that he felt "there is only about a 20% chance I can pull the film off." He convinced United Artists executives to delay the premiere from May to October 1978.
….Sheen was too busy to record the voice-over narration so Estevez, whose voice was almost identical to his brother's, was called back in to record the narration instead.
Murch had problems trying to make a stereo soundtrack for Apocalypse Now because sound libraries had no stereo recordings of weapons. The sound material brought back from the Philippines was inadequate because the small location crew lacked the time and resources to record jungle sounds and ambient noises. Murch and his crew fabricated the mood of the jungle on the soundtrack. Apocalypse Now used novel sound techniques for a movie, as Murch insisted on recording the most up-to-date gunfire and employed the Dolby Stereo 70 mm Six Track system for the 70 mm release, which used two channels of sound behind the audience as well as three channels from behind the movie screen. The 35 mm release used the new Dolby Stereo optical stereo system, but due to limitations of the technology at the time, the 35 mm release that played in most theaters did not include surround sound.
In May 1978, Coppola postponed the opening until spring of 1979. The cost overruns had reached $18 million, for which Coppola was personally liable, but he had retained rights to the picture in perpetuity.

Controversies
A water buffalo was slaughtered with a machete for the climactic scene in a ritual performed by a local Ifugao tribe, which Coppola had previously witnessed with his wife Eleanor (who filmed the ritual later shown in the documentary Hearts of Darkness) and film crew. Although it was an American production subject to American animal cruelty laws, such scenes filmed in the Philippines were not policed or monitored; the American Humane Association gave the film an "unacceptable" rating….
Real human corpses were bought from a man who turned out to be a grave-robber. The police questioned the film crew, holding their passports, and soldiers took the bodies away. Instead, extras were used to pose as corpses in the film.
During filming, Dennis Hopper and Marlon Brando did not get along, leading Brando to refuse to be on the set at the same time as Hopper.
...

[Robert the List]

71. Apocalypse Now 1979 USA Francis Ford Coppola (post 2 of 2)

(wikipedia, continued)

Release
In April 1979, Coppola screened a "work in progress" for 900 people; it was not well received. That year, he was invited to screen Apocalypse Now at the Cannes Film Festival. United Artists was not keen on showing an unfinished version to so many members of the press. However, since his 1974 film The Conversation had won the Palme d'Or, Coppola agreed to screen Apocalypse Now with the festival only a month away.
The week before Cannes, Coppola arranged three sneak previews of a 139-minute cut in Westwood, Los Angeles on May 11 attended by 2,000 paying customers, some of whom lined up for over 6 hours. Other cuts shown in 1979 ran 150 and 165 minutes. The film was also shown at the White House for Jimmy Carter on May 10. Coppola allowed critics to attend the L.A. screenings and believed they would honor an embargo not to review the work in progress. On May 14, Rona Barrett previewed the film on television on Good Morning America and called it "a disappointing failure." This prompted Variety to believe the embargo had been broken, and it published its review the following day, saying it was "worth the wait," calling it a "brilliant and bizarre film."….

Cannes screening
The 1979 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or was awarded to Apocalypse Now.
At Cannes, Zoetrope technicians worked during the night before the screening to install additional speakers to achieve Murch's 5.1 soundtrack A three-hour version of Apocalypse Now was screened as a work in progress at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, May 19, 1979 and met with prolonged applause. It was the first work in progress ever shown in competition at the festival. At the subsequent press conference, Coppola criticized the media for releasing premature reviews and for attacking him and the production during their problems filming in the Philippines. He said, "We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane,"…His comments upset newspaper critic Rex Reed, who reportedly stormed out of the conference. Apocalypse Now won the Palme d'Or for best film, along with Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum – a decision reportedly greeted with "some boos and jeers from the audience”.

Theatrical release
On August 15, 1979, Apocalypse Now was released in North America in only three theaters equipped to play the Dolby Stereo 70 mm prints with stereo surround sound… The film, without credits, ran 147 minutes and tickets were $5…a new high for L.A.
It ran exclusively in these three locations for four weeks before opening in an additional 12 theaters on October 3, 1979. On October 10, 1979, the 35 mm version, with credits, was released in over 300 theaters.
The film had a $9 million advertising campaign, bringing its total costs to $45 million.

Alternative and varied endings
…When Coppola originally organized the ending, he considered two significant versions. One had Willard leading Lance by the hand as everyone in Kurtz's base threw down their weapons; Willard then piloted the PBR slowly away from Kurtz's compound, and this final shot was superimposed over the face of a stone idol, which then faded to black. The other version had the base spectacularly blown to bits in an air strike, killing everyone left within it.
The original 1979 70 mm exclusive theatrical release ended with Willard's boat, the stone statue, and the fade to black with no credits…..as one would a play: The credits appeared on printed programs provided before the screening began.
There have been, to date, many variations of the end credit sequence, beginning with the 35 mm general release, where Coppola elected to show the credits superimposed over shots of the jungle exploding into flames. The explosions were from the detonations of the sets…When Coppola later heard that the audiences interpreted this as an air strike called by Willard, he pulled the film from its 35 mm run and added credits on a black screen. The "air strike" footage continued to circulate in repertory theaters well into the 1980s…In the DVD commentary, Coppola explains that the images of explosions were not intended as part of the story, but were simply a graphic background he had added for the credits….

Re-release
The film was re-released on August 28, 1987, in six cities, to capitalize on the success of Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and other Vietnam War movies. New 70 mm prints were shown... It was given the same kind of release as the exclusive 1979 engagement, with no logo or credits, and audiences were given a printed program.

…Versions

Apocalypse Now Redux
In 2001, Coppola released Apocalypse Now Redux in cinemas and subsequently on DVD. This is an extended version that restores 49 minutes of scenes cut from the original film….
The longest section of added footage in the Redux version is the "French Plantation" sequence…Other added material includes extra combat footage before Willard meets Kilgore, a scene in which Willard's team steals Kilgore's surfboard (which sheds some light on the hunt for the mangoes), a follow-up scene to the dance of the Playboy Playmates, in which Willard's team finds the Playmates stranded after their helicopter has run out of fuel (trading two barrels of fuel for two hours with the Bunnies), and a scene of Kurtz reading from a Time magazine article about the war, surrounded by Cambodian children.

…First Assembly
A 289-minute First Assembly circulates as a video bootleg, containing extra material not included in either the original theatrical release or the "redux" version. This cut of the film does not feature Carmine Coppola's score, instead using several Doors tracks.

Apocalypse Now Final Cut
In April 2019, Coppola showed Apocalypse Now Final Cut for the 40th anniversary screening at the Tribeca Film Festival.[127] This new version is Coppola's preferred version of the film and has a runtime of three hours and three minutes, with Coppola having cut 20 minutes of the added material from Redux; the scenes deleted include the second encounter with the Playmates, parts of the plantation sequence, and Kurtz's reading of Time magazine. It is also the first time the film has been restored from the original camera negative at 4K; previous transfers were made from an interpositive.[129] It was released in autumn 2019…

Reception
Critical response
…Upon its release, Apocalypse Now received polarized reviews. In his original review, Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of a possible four…Ebert added Coppola's film to his list of The Great Movies in 1999…”one of the greatest of all films, because it pushes beyond the others, into the dark places of the soul. It is not about war so much as about how war reveals truths we would be happy never to discover.”
…Vincent Canby argued: 'Mr. Coppola himself describes it as 'operatic', but ... Apocalypse Now is neither a tone poem nor an opera. It's an adventure yarn with delusions of grandeur, a movie that ends — in the all-too-familiar words of the poet Mr. Coppola drags in by the bootstraps — not with a bang, but a whimper.”
Commentators have debated whether Apocalypse Now is an anti-war or pro-war film. Some evidence of the film's anti-war message includes the purposeless brutality of the war, the absence of military leadership, and the imagery of machinery destroying nature….Anthony Swofford recounted how his marine platoon watched Apocalypse Now before being sent to Iraq in 1990 to get excited for war…. Nidesh Lawtoo illustrates the ambiguity of the film by focusing on the contradictory responses the movie in general – and the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene in particular – triggered in a university classroom.
…In 2019, however, Coppola told Kevin Perry of The Guardian that he hesitated to call the film anti-war, stating .".. an anti-war film, I always thought, should be like [Kon Ichikawa's 1956 post-second world war drama] The Burmese Harp – something filled with love and peace and tranquillity and happiness. It shouldn't have sequences of violence that inspire a lust for violence. Apocalypse Now has stirringscenes of helicopters attacking innocent people. That's not anti-war."

…Legacy
In contrast to its mixed reviews upon release, today the movie is regarded by many as a masterpiece of the New Hollywood era.
…In 2002, Sight and Sound magazine invited several critics to name the best film of the last 25 years, and Apocalypse Now was named number one….The helicopter attack scene with the Ride of the Valkyries soundtrack was chosen as the most memorable film scene ever by Empire magazine.
In 2009, the London Film Critics' Circle voted Apocalypse Now the best film of the last 30 years.
…The film is credited with creating the Philippines surfing culture around the town of Baler, where the helicopter attack and surfing sequences were filmed.[/I]”

Runtime: 2 hours 17 minutes (theatrical 1979), 3 hours 6 minutes (redux 2001), 4 hours 49 minutes (First Assembly 1978?), 3 hours 3 minutes (final cut 2019).
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l-ViOOFH-s

[Robert the List]

72. Alien 1979 USA Ridley Scott ESSENTIAL

It’s not a thinker’s film, there’s not many metaphors, but it’s just scary as ****. It might look a little bit dated now, but not much, and in ‘79 it must have genuinely seemed futuristic. Even now it seems real. Great cast, great special effects, spot on soundtrack, all perfectly edited. There won’t ever be a better sci-fi horror.

Wikipedia:
“Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O'Bannon, based on a story by O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett. It follows a spaceship crew who investigate a derelict spaceship and are hunted by a deadly extraterrestrial creature. The film stars Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto….
…The success of Alien spawned a media franchise of films, books, video games, and toys, and propelled Weaver's acting career. The story of her character's encounters with the alien creatures became the thematic and narrative core of the sequels Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1997). A crossover with the Predator franchise produced the Alien vs. Predator films, while a two-film prequel series was directed by Scott before Alien: Romulus (2024), a standalone sequel, was released. A television prequel written by Noah Hawley and produced by Scott, Alien: Earth, will premiere on FX on Hulu in 2025.

…Cast
…Meryl Streep was considered for the role, but she was not contacted as her partner John Cazale had recently died. Helen Mirren also auditioned. Weaver, who had Broadway experience but was relatively unknown in film, impressed…with her audition. She was the last actor to be cast for the film and performed most of her screen tests in-studio as the sets were being built. The role of Ripley was Weaver's first leading role in a motion picture…
…John Hurt as Kane, the executive officer who becomes the host for the alien. Hurt was Scott's first choice for the role, but he was contracted on a film in South Africa during Alien's filming dates, so Jon Finch was cast as Kane, instead. However, Finch became ill during the first day of shooting and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, which had also exacerbated a case of bronchitis.[ Hurt was in London by this time, his South African project having fallen through, and he quickly replaced Finch…
…Bolaji Badejo as the alien. Badejo, a 26-year-old design student, was discovered in a bar by a member of the casting team, who put him in touch with Scott. Scott believed that Badejo, at 6 feet 10 inches (208 cm) — 7 feet (210 cm) inside the costume — and with a slender frame, could portray the alien and look as if his arms and legs were too long to be real, creating the illusion that a human being could not possibly be inside the costume…

…Production
Development
20th Century-Fox did not express confidence in financing a science-fiction film. However, after the success of Star Wars in 1977, its interest in the genre rose substantially. According to Carroll: "When Star Wars came out and was the extraordinary hit that it was, suddenly science fiction became the hot genre." O'Bannon recalled that "They wanted to follow through on Star Wars, and they wanted to follow through fast, and the only spaceship script they had sitting on their desk was Alien".
Alien was greenlit by 20th Century-Fox, with an initial budget of $4.2 million….
O'Bannon had originally assumed that he would direct Alien, but 20th Century-Fox instead asked Hill (one of the producers) to direct. Hill declined due to other film commitments, as well as not being comfortable with the level of visual effects that would be required…Steven Spielberg was also considered to direct the film and was interested but prior obligations prevented him from directing the film.
(the producers) had been impressed by Ridley Scott's debut feature film The Duellists (1977) and made an offer to him to direct Alien, which Scott quickly accepted. Scott created detailed storyboards for the film in London, which impressed Fox enough to double the film's budget.
…he was keen on emphasizing horror in Alien rather than fantasy, describing the film as "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre of science fiction".

…Filming
…Alien was filmed over 14 weeks from July 5 to October 21, 1978. Principal photography took place at Pinewood Studios and Shepperton Studios near London, while model and miniature filming was done at Bray Studios in Water Oakley, Berkshire. The production schedule was short due to the film's low budget and pressure from 20th Century-Fox to finish on time.
A crew of over 200 craftspeople and technicians constructed the three principal sets: the surface of the alien planetoid, and the interiors of the Nostromo and the derelict spacecraft. Art director Les Dilley created 1⁄24-scale miniatures of the planetoid's surface and derelict spacecraft based on Giger's designs, then made moulds and casts and scaled them up as diagrams for the wood and fiberglass forms of the sets. Tons of sand, plaster, fiberglass, rock, and gravel were shipped into the studio to sculpt a desert landscape for the planetoid's surface, which the actors would walk across wearing space-suit costumes. The suits were thick, bulky, and lined with nylon, had no cooling systems, and initially, no venting for their exhaled carbon dioxide to escape. Combined with a heat wave, these conditions nearly caused the actors to pass out; nurses had to be kept on-hand with oxygen tanks.
All of the visuals on the computer screens on the Nostromo's bridge are computer-generated imagery (CGI). The staff used CGI because it was easier than any alternative.
…Alien originally was to conclude with the destruction of the Nostromo while Ripley escapes in the shuttle Narcissus. However, Scott conceived of a "fourth act" in which Ripley is forced to confront the alien on the shuttle. He pitched the idea to 20th Century-Fox and negotiated an increase in the budget to film it over several extra days. Scott had wanted the alien to bite off Ripley's head and make the final log entry in her voice, but the producers vetoed this idea, because they believed the alien should die at the end of the film. (author’s note: lol)

Music
The musical score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, conducted by Lionel Newman, and performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra.

Design
…The scene of Kane inspecting the egg was shot in postproduction. A fiberglass egg was used so that actor John Hurt could shine his light on it and see movement inside, which was provided by Scott fluttering his hands inside the egg while wearing rubber gloves….Test shots of the eggs were filmed using hen's eggs, and this footage was used in early teaser trailers. For this reason, the image of a hen's egg was used on the poster and has become emblematic of the franchise as a whole—as opposed to the alien egg that appears in the finished film.
…For the filming of the chestburster scene, the cast members knew that the creature would be bursting out of Hurt, and had seen the chestburster puppet, but they had not been told that fake blood would also be bursting out in every direction from high-pressure pumps and squibs. The scene was shot in one take using an artificial torso filled with blood and viscera, with Hurt's head and arms coming up from underneath the table. The chestburster was shoved up through the torso by a puppeteer who held it on a stick. When the creature burst through the chest, a stream of blood shot directly at Cartwright, shocking her enough that she fell over and went into hysterics. According to Tom Skerritt, "What you saw on camera was the real response. She had no idea what the hell happened. All of a sudden this thing just came up."…

…Release
"It was the most incredible preview I've ever been in. I mean, people were screaming and running out of the theater." —Editor Terry Rawlings describing the film's screening in Dallas.
An initial screening of Alien for 20th Century-Fox representatives in St. Louis was marred by poor sound. A subsequent screening in a newer theater in Dallas went significantly better, eliciting genuine fright from the audience.
..Alien was rated "R" in the United States, "X" in the United Kingdom, and "M" in Australia.[50] In the UK, the British Board of Film Censors almost passed the film as an "AA" (for ages 14 and over), although concerns existed over the prevalent sexual imagery. 20th Century-Fox eventually relented in pushing for an AA certificate after deciding that an X rating would make it easier to sell as a horror film….
Box office
The film was a commercial success, opening in 90 theaters across the United States (plus 1 in Canada), setting 51 house records and grossing $3,527,881 over the four-day Memorial Day weekend …In 1992, Fox noted the worldwide gross was $143 million.
…Director's Cut
In 2003, 20th Century Fox was preparing the Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set, which would include Alien and its three sequels. In addition, the set would also include alternative versions of all four films in the form of "special editions" and "director's cuts"….The "Director's Cut" restored roughly four minutes of deleted footage, while cutting about five minutes of other material, leaving it about a minute shorter than the theatrical cut.
….Scott noted that he was very pleased with the original theatrical cut of Alien, saying that "For all intents and purposes, I felt that the original cut of Alien was perfect. I still feel that way", and that the original 1979 theatrical version "remains my version of choice"…”

Runtime: 1 hour 56 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVwH0hIvV5k

[Robert the List]

That's a wrap on the 70s, although it's possible that I could go back and add one of the Godfather films by editing one of my chat posts.
I'm not currently planning it, but not ruling it out.

[gbgoodies]

I will continue with the background information from Wikipedia, but might try to make it a little shorter.
Then, in due course, if I get round to it, over the months or years, I will watch each film in turn and as I do write a proper review and edit them into the existing profiles.
I will first revisit the profiles I have done so far and see if I can edit them down at all.

So I've edited the existing Wikipedia summaries to tidy them up a bit.

Some are still long, most notably 2001 lol. Read as much as you want to read.

Your reviews are fine. No need to change for anyone.


Wyldesyde19 is correct that you don't have to change your reviews based on my comments.

You asked about why people didn't seem interested in this thread, so I was only commenting based on my own personal reasons. Other people may have their own reasons for not reading or not commenting.

If I had more time, I would probably read and possibly comment about some of the movies that interest me, but unfortunately I just have too much going on IRL right now to read as much as I would like to.

[Robert the List]

73. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial 1982 USA Steven Spielberg

It’s the first film I remember watching at the cinema. Went with my mum and we had to sit separately because the theatre was full. But it was just mesmerising. To a kid (big or small), its target audience, this film was perfection. I had never known emotion like it. Watching it now the 2nd half isn’t quite as strong, but it is still absolutely iconic, and with that score even moving. Call it a film for children, but it’s one of the most magical movies ever made.

Wikipedia:
“E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (or simply E.T.) is a 1982 American science fiction film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison. It tells the story of Elliott, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial he names E.T. who has been stranded on Earth. Along with his friends and family, Elliott must find a way to help E.T. find his way home. The film stars Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton, and Drew Barrymore.
The film's concept was based on an imaginary friend that Spielberg created after his parents' divorce. In 1980, Spielberg met Mathison and developed a new story from the unrealized project Night Skies. In less than two months, Mathison wrote the first draft of the script, titled E.T. and Me… The project was rejected by Columbia Pictures, who doubted its commercial potential. Universal Pictures eventually purchased the script for $1 million. Filming took place from September to December 1981 on a budget of $10.5 million. ..
E.T. premiered as the closing film of the Cannes Film Festival on May 26, 1982, and was released in the United States on June 11. The film was a smash hit at the box office, surpassing Star Wars (1977) to become the highest-grossing film of all time, a record it held for eleven years until Spielberg's own Jurassic Park surpassed it in 1993.
…Production
Filming
…Spielberg shot the film in roughly chronological order to achieve convincing emotional performances from his cast; it was also done to help the child actors with the workload. Spielberg calculated that the film would hit home harder if the children were really saying goodbye to E.T. at the end.
In the scene in which Michael first encounters E.T., his appearance caused MacNaughton to jump back and knock down the shelves behind him. The chronological shoot gave the young actors an emotional experience as they bonded with E.T., making the quarantine sequences more moving.
Spielberg ensured that the puppeteers were kept away from the set to maintain the illusion of a real alien.
…Music
…Spielberg's regular collaborator John Williams described the challenge of creating a score that would generate sympathy for such an odd-looking creature. As with their previous collaborations, Spielberg liked every theme Williams composed and had it included. Spielberg loved the music for the final chase so much that he edited the sequence to suit it. Williams took a modernist approach, especially with his use of polytonality, which refers to the sound of two different keys played simultaneously. ….
Themes
…Several writers have seen the movie as a modern fairy tale. Critic Henry Sheehan described the film as a retelling of Peter Pan from the perspective of a Lost Boy (Elliott): E.T. cannot survive physically on Earth, as Pan could not survive emotionally in Neverland; government scientists take the place of Neverland's pirates. Furthering the parallels, there is a scene in the film where Mary reads Peter Pan to Gertie….
….Spielberg's characteristic theme of communication is partnered with the ideal of mutual understanding; he has suggested that the story's central alien-human friendship is an analogy for how real-world adversaries can learn to overcome their differences.
Reception
Release and sales
E.T. was previewed in Houston, Texas, and premiered at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival's closing gala on May 26, 1982,[65][66] and was released in the United States on June 11, 1982…In 1983, E.T. surpassed Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time; by the end of its theatrical run, it had grossed $359 million in the United States and Canada and $619 million worldwide. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 120 million tickets in its initial U.S. theatrical run. Spielberg earned $500,000 a day from his share of the profits…
The film was also a merchandising success, with dolls selling 15 million units by September 1982 and becoming the best-selling toy that Christmas season. E.T. went on to generate over $1 billion in merchandise sales by 1998.
…The film was re-released in 1985 and 2002, earning another $60 million and $68 million respectively, for a worldwide total of $792 million with $435 million from the United States and Canada It held the global record until it was surpassed by Jurassic Park, another Spielberg film, in 1993, although it managed to hold on to the United States and Canada record for a further four years, until the release of the Special Edition of Star Wars….
Critical response
Empire magazine called Elliott and E.T.'s flight to the forest "the most magical moment in cinema history"…
Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "It works as science fiction, it's sometimes as scary as a monster movie, and at the end, when the lights go up, there's not a dry eye in the house."…Of the scene with the flying bicycles, he writes: "I remember when I saw the movie at Cannes: Even the audience there, people who had seen thousands of movies, let out a whoop at that moment."
…Derek Malcolm of The Guardian wrote that "E.T. is a superlative piece of popular cinema [...] a dream of childhood, brilliantly orchestrated to involve not only children but anyone able to remember being one"….
…In addition to the film's wide acclaim, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were moved by it after a screening at the White House on June 27, 1982. Princess Diana was in tears after watching it. On September 17, 1982, it was screened at the United Nations, and Spielberg received a UN Peace Medal. CinemaScore reported that audiences polled during the opening weekend gave the film a rare "A+" grade, the first film to earn that grade….”

Runtime: 2 hours
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSx8Jobx-Gs
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXJJI784zTA

[Robert the List]

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[Robert the List]

75. The King of Comedy 1982 USA Martin Scorsese

This has really mixed reviews and doesn't have the same legendary status as many of the other films in my top 100. But I've rechecked it a couple of times and each time I decide the same thing: yep, it's in. For a comedy it's really stylish. And I personally find it laugh out loud funny. It bemuses me how some people view it as a straight drama, and that being the case only adds to the film in my eyes.

I think it's a contender for De Niro's best performance; it's like nothing else he's done, and he's brilliant. His timing, his interplay with Lewis, including being passive when appropriate, is superb. Bernhard also does her bit too. There are times where she struggled to keep a straight face, but De Niro is almost irremovable from his character. I think there's one time where it looks like De Niro is struggling a little bit to keep a straight face and that's it.

I love the fantasy/makebelieve scenes. I love Rupert in Jerry's office, trying to get an appointment and his ridiculously inappropriate confidence, and the scene with the candles always makes me laugh.

Don't let the painful part near the start where De Niro gets a shot with Jerry and then keeps asking him irritating questions put you off! It's one of the greatest comedy films for me.

Wikipedia:
“The King of Comedy is a 1982 American satirical black comedy film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro (in his fifth collaboration with Scorsese), Jerry Lewis and Sandra Bernhard. Written by Paul D. Zimmerman, the film focuses on themes such as celebrity worship and American media culture. In the film, an aspiring stand-up comedian is increasingly obsessed with a successful comedian whom he met by chance.
Production began in New York on June 1, 1981…and opened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1983.
…Production
After Raging Bull was completed, Scorsese had thought about retiring from feature films to make documentaries instead because he felt "unsatisfied" and had not found his "inner peace" yet. However, he was keen to do a pet project of his, The Last Temptation of Christ, and wanted De Niro to play Jesus Christ. De Niro was not interested and preferred their next collaboration to be a comedy. He had purchased the rights to a script by film critic Paul D. Zimmerman….
…Scorsese shot scenes multiple times, spending a fortnight reshooting to perfect one scene, resulting in a large amount of footage which had to be edited down.
De Niro prepared for the role of Rupert Pupkin by developing a "role reversal" technique, consisting of chasing down his own autograph-hunters, stalking them and asking them many questions….De Niro also spent months watching stand-up comedians at work to get the rhythm and timing of their performances right….
…Scorsese said he felt Lewis' performance in the film was vastly underrated and deserved more acclaim. Lewis…suggested an ending in which Rupert Pupkin kills Jerry, but was turned down. As a result, Lewis thought that the film, while good, did not have a "finish"….
…Casting
Scorsese's first choice for talk show host Jerry Langford was Johnny Carson. Carson refused the role, saying "you know that one take is enough for me"…The entire Rat Pack was also considered—specifically Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin—before a decision was made to select Martin's old partner, Jerry Lewis…
Scorsese's health
Scorsese had suffered from poor health both before and during the film's production. He had previously worked on three films close together and not long after, found himself hospitalized due to exhaustion and pneumonia. He had not recovered when shooting began….
…Reception and legacy
Although the film was well received by critics, it bombed at the box office… grossing only $2.5 million against its $19 million budget
…Debate about ending
The film provides no definitive answer as to whether the ending is reality or fantasy….Rupert Pupkin's character fails to differentiate between his fantasies and reality…”

Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wVhCCo02P4
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JATWudg8XxY

[Robert the List]

Captain Quint
Yoda
Sedai

Sorry to bother you again.
I've got pretty much all week at this up to Saturday.
I have 7 more films to do in the 80s. On that basis I reckon I'll be up to the 90s, assuming nothing unexpected happens, either tonight or latest some time tomorrow.

I have probably 9 or 10 films from the 90s I'm planning to include in the 100.

Bearing in mind the current and ongoing 90s theme, the rules of the countdown, and the likelihood of the possibility of there being some significant overlap between the films which I include in my 100 and those which I would currently be minded to included in a list of the films which I think are the best in any particular decade, and bearing in mind my aspiration to participate in the 90s countdown, do any of you have any reservations about me proceeding at this time with my 100 greatest movies so as to include the 1990s?
Thought I should ask. Thanks very much.

[Sedai]

Bearing in mind the current and ongoing 90s theme, the rules of the countdown, and the likelihood of the possibility of there being some significant overlap between the films which I include in my 100 and those which I would currently be minded to included in a list of the films which I think are the best in any particular decade, and bearing in mind my aspiration to participate in the 90s countdown, do any of you have any reservations about me proceeding at this time with my 100 greatest movies so as to include the 1990s?
Thought I should ask. Thanks very much.

Please, carry on!

Really, I think the hard and fast rule for the countdown is that you don't reveal your actual ballot, and especially the placement of the various films included on it. I think one can usually figure out a few titles people will include using resources like their top 10 favorite films of all time etc. We all know Thief will have Se7en on his ballot, and when we did the 80s countdown, obviously Blade Runner was making mine. You get the picture.

Looking forward to the rest of the films on your list!

[Robert the List]

Please, carry on!

Really, I think the hard and fast rule for the countdown is that you don't reveal your actual ballot, and especially the placement of the various films included on it. I think one can usually figure out a few titles people will include using resources like their top 10 favorite films of all time etc. We all know Thief will have Se7en on his ballot, and when we did the 80s countdown, obviously Blade Runner was making mine. You get the picture.

Looking forward to the rest of the films on your list!

Cool. Cheers. :up:

[Robert the List]

76. Paris, Texas 1984 USA Wim Wenders

It is another beautiful film to look at, and it has emotional resonance. This is why it’s in.

I have discussed with others recently on this forum, the issue of Travis, having largely had the audience’s support throughout the film, suddenly revealing in graphic detail at the end (SPOILERS) that he has been extremely abusive to his wife. I said in that discussion that I just regard the guy as a P.O.S. because of that and that’s the end of my opinion of him. Having recently rewatched some of the earlier parts of the film, I’ve changed my view on this. I still have no time for anybody who did what he said he did. But I do have time, for the person elsewhere in the film. And the way that I reconcile this, is that the script is effectively erroneous. I understand now that it was, and in particular the closing scenes were, written on the hoof. And I would conclude this: that it simply fiction and what I would categorise as effectively a continuity error, to portray this gentle and kind man as having committed such a wicked and harmful act. That’s not saying that gentle, or seemingly gentle, people can not have committed wicked acts, but I simply do not believe that this man committed that act. And I can only put that down as a flaw, because I do not believe the story which as the viewer I have been presented with.

But it’s still a work of art, and one which engages the viewer, and an iconic film, and iconic representation of the south west United States in the 1980s, and I happy to include it in my 100 films.

Wikipedia:
“Paris, Texas is a 1984 neo-Western drama road film directed by Wim Wenders…It stars Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell, Aurore Clément, and Hunter Carson. In the film, disheveled recluse Travis Henderson (Stanton) reunites with his brother Walt (Stockwell) and son Hunter (Carson). Travis and Hunter embark on a trip through the American Southwest to track down Travis's missing wife, Jane (Kinski).
The film is a co-production between companies in France and West Germany, but it is English-spoken and was filmed primarily in West Texas, which also serves as its major setting. Cinematography was handled by Robby Müller...
Production
…West German director Wim Wenders had travelled to the United States and stated he wished "to tell a story about America". The film is named for the Texas city of Paris, but not set there in any scene. Paris is where Travis thinks he was conceived and where he owns a vacant lot, seen only in a photograph, in which he intended to build a house and live happily with his family. It is used as a metaphor for that ideal life.
…Screenwriter Sam Shepard met Wenders to discuss writing and/or acting for Wenders' project Hammett. Shepard said he was uninterested in writing Hammett, but they considered loosely adapting Shepard's Motel Chronicles, and developed a story of brothers, one having lost his memory. Their script grew to 160 pages, as the brother-brother relationship lessened in importance, and numerous endings were considered…
Casting…
Harry Dean Stanton had appeared in 100 films…He embraced the leading part of Travis, saying "After all these years, I finally got the part I wanted to play".
…However, Wenders also said Stanton was unsure of his part, and the age disparity between himself and the younger Nastassja Kinski (he was 34 years older). Wenders stated he had discovered Dean Stockwell as he was prepared to quit acting, finding no desirable roles and considering beginning a career in real estate. Hunter Carson was the son of co-screenwriter L. M. Kit Carson, and agreed to act while accompanied by his mother, Karen Black, who helped him memorize the dialogue.
Kinski wrote a diary for the character Jane to develop her backstory, imagining her emigrating from Europe, and getting more affection from Travis than she had from anyone….
Filming
Wenders said the film (was)shot in only four to five weeks, with only a small group working the last weeks, was very short and fast. There was a break in shooting during which time the script was completed.
…Shooting had already started in 1983 when the screenplay was still incomplete, with the objective of filming in the order of the story. Shepard planned to base the rest of the story on the actors' observations and their understanding of the characters. However, when Shepard moved on to another job, he sent Wenders notes on how the screenplay should end instead. Shepard credited Wenders and L. M. Kit Carson with the idea of a peep show and the story's final acts.
At the request of Wenders, Shepard composed Travis's climactic monologue to Jane, and dictated it over the phone to a secretary working on the film. The filmmakers opted not to portray a realistic peep show, as they needed a format that allowed for more communication between the characters. Kinski could not see anyone, only a mirror, in the peep show scenes, and said this created a genuine feeling of solitude.
Challenges arose when the film ran short of finances, but Wenders was encouraged when they completed the scene with Kinski, remarking, "it dawned on me that we were going to touch people in a big way. I was a little scared by the idea".
Themes and interpretation
…Kolker and Beickene commented on the lack of touch, or even "emotional fulfillment" between Travis and Jane at the end, aside from their faces merging in the glass and their discussions of their emotions.
…Marc Silberman examined how personal identity is also a theme in the film, as the name "Paris" is deceptive, conjuring images of France but referring to Texas….
…Wenders said that the final scene, where Travis leaves Jane and Hunter behind, marked the beginning of the next chapter in his own filmography: "This scene for me had a liberating effect ... I let him disappear in my own way, and all my previous male characters went with him. They have all taken up residence in a retirement home on the outskirts of Paris, Texas.”…
Style
…The film is accompanied by a slide-guitar score by Ry Cooder…In 2018, Cooder revealed a specific source of inspiration during an interview on BBC Radio 4: "[Wenders] did a very good job at capturing the ambience out there in the desert, just letting the microphones ... get tones and sound from the desert itself, which I discovered was in the key of E♭ ... that's the wind, it was nice. So we tuned everything to E♭".
…Critical response
Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, writing "… It is true, deep, and brilliant".
…It has had an enduring legacy among critics and film aficionados (author’s note: thank you) as a cult classic.
…Legacy
…Scottish rock bands Travis and Texas both took their names from the film…Musicians Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith have said this was their favorite film of all time.”

Runtime: 2 hours 27 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e590FeeGCM

[Robert the List]

77. Stranger Than Paradise 1984 USA Jim Jarmusch

A black and white film!!!!!!!!!! First one since 1965! I love everything about it. The greys, the light, the shadows. The images when they shoot outside are so sharp. They remind me of the most beautiful shots in On the Waterfront. The film works effectively in parts as a drama, and in the final few minutes I am absolutely engrossed and I finish it with an emotional presence. And yet it’s a straight out comedy. And it’s hilarious. Really there are some very funny parts in this film. All completely dry, delivered absolutely straight. One slight quibble I have is that there are several scenes where it’s obvious that Edson and Ballint are desperately trying not to completely lose it in fits of laughter; even in places that don’t seem really all that funny. They have obviously just completely had the giggles throughout filming the early scenes (which I didn’t realise seems to have been shot earlier than the rest of the film). I can only imagine what the outtakes must have been like and how many times they shot it until they decided to go with that one! Anyway, it all adds to the fun and I guess highlights the independence of the film. Maybe my biggest laugh is when you see them sitting in the cinema. The shot I think most beautiful, when they arrive at the lake. But really, it’s great. Enjoy it.

Wikipedia:
“Stranger Than Paradise is a 1984 American black-and-white absurdist deadpan comedy film directed, co-written and co-edited by Jim Jarmusch, and starring jazz musician John Lurie, former Sonic Youth drummer-turned-actor Richard Edson, and Hungarian-born actress and violinist Eszter Balint. It features a minimalist plot in which the main character, Willie, is visited by Eva, his cousin from Hungary. Eva stays with him for ten days before going to Cleveland. Willie and his friend Eddie go to Cleveland to visit her, and the three then take a trip to Florida. The film is shot entirely in single long takes with no standard coverage.
…Background and production
Writer and director Jim Jarmusch shot his first feature, Permanent Vacation (1980) as his final thesis at New York University's film school and spent the next four years making Stranger than Paradise. At NYU he studied under director Nicholas Ray, who had brought him along as his personal assistant for the production of Lightning over Water, a portrait of Ray being filmed by Wim Wenders. Wenders gave Jarmusch the remaining film stock from his subsequent film, Der Stand der Dinge (1982), enabling the young director to shoot the 30-minute short that became Stranger Than Paradise. It was released as a standalone film in 1982, and shown as "Stranger Than Paradise" at the 1983 International Film Festival Rotterdam. When it was later expanded into a three-act feature, the name was appropriated for the feature itself, and the initial segment was renamed "The New World".
Release and reception
…The film earned $2,436,000, significantly more than its budget of around $100,000.
…Legacy
Stranger Than Paradise broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood filmmaking and became a landmark in modern independent film. According to allmovie, it is "one of the most influential movies of the 1980s", and cast "a wide shadow over the new generation of independent American filmmakers to come. It is cited for giving "an early example of the low-budget independent wave that would dominate the cinematic marketplace a decade later". Its success accorded Jarmusch a certain iconic status within arthouse cinema as an idiosyncratic and uncompromising auteur exuding the aura of urban cool embodied by downtown Manhattan. (Dretzk, Gary (June 30, 1996). "Poets and Indians: Jim Jarmusch goes West to bring Dead Man to life". Chicago Tribune)
In a 2005 profile of Jarmusch for The New York Times, critic Lynn Hirschberg declared the film had "permanently upended the idea of independent film as an intrinsically inaccessible avant-garde form".

Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKLOAvOfevU
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwefGellnhk

[Robert the List]

That's 7 American films in a row. Ewwwww.

[Robert the List]

THIS IS ON TONIGHT AT PRINCE CHARLES CINEMA IN LONDON. SHAME I COULDN’T MAKE IT. IT’S ON AGAIN THOUGH IN APRIL AT BFI SOUTHBANK.

78. Taipei Story 1985 Taiwan Edward Yang (provisional)

Wikipedia doesn’t specifically comment that lead actor Hou Ssiao-hsien subsequently became a leading director himself, even eclipsing Yang in reputation. This film is one of the ones on the margin of my 100, but I loved it the first time I watched it. I know the beauty of the actresses which I keep mentioning is irrelevant, but I must say I do find Tsai Chin absolutely gorgeous. And that’s not completely irrelevant because her looks form a part of the beautiful look of the film. There’s a famous scene on a rooftop with a green and white electric Fuji logo behind the characters, but other shots and scenes are also very eye-catching, including one of a motorbike on a clifftop with a seascape background. But it’s not just looks, it’s atmosphere as well. It’s quite a slow paced film but it’s creating the atmosphere and the rhythm of the film. The end is sobering. It’s a film where watching clips I think doesn’t do it justice, and I want to watch it again and see how I feel about it next time.

Wikipedia:
“Taipei Story…is a 1985 Taiwanese drama film co-written and directed by Edward Yang. It stars Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Chin and follows the grinding relationship of Ah-lung and Ah-chen, who have known each other since childhood in Taipei. It is doomed to fail because Ah-lung cannot forget about the past while Ah-chen is eager to embrace the future as Taipei undergoes modernization and globalization. Taipei Story is one of the representative films of the New Taiwanese Cinema.
In the United States, Janus Films gave a limited release of the film's 4K restoration, done by the World Cinema Project, on March 17, 2017…
Title
The literal meaning of the Chinese title, Qing Mei Zhu Ma (青梅竹馬) is a Chinese idiom, "green plums and a bamboo horse". It alludes to an 8th-century poem by Li Bai, and is used to refer to a childhood sweetheart….
…Themes
According to the Doc Film Society, the film "displays Yang's uncompromising critique of the middle-class with its dissection of its heroine's emotional fragility, vainly disguised behind the sunglasses she sports day and night. As she flees the past, her boyfriend idealistically clings to it, a Confucian rigidity toward which Yang bears still less patience."
Production
Leading actress Tsai Chin fell in love with Edward Yang during the shooting and they married in 1985. (author’s note: no comment)
Hou Hsiao-hsien, who is the leading actor in the film and one of the representative directors of Taiwan's new wave cinema, used to be a friend of Yang. Hou's character….performance inspired Yang to write the script of Taipei Story…
At that time, Yang did not have enough money to make Taipei Story. Hou invested 3 million in the production. Due to the film's box office underperformance, it was only screened for four days in theaters.
Hou's performance in Taipei Story was his first acting experience on screen….
The film was digitally restored (4K) by the World Cinema Foundation Project in association with Taiwan Film Institute (now Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Center), Royal Film Archive of Belgium, and Hou in 2017.”

Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6jqZSAwHaE

[Robert the List]

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[Robert the List]

80. Landscape in the Mist 1988 Greece Theodoros Angelopoulos ESSENTIAL

I would like to do a proper review of this film, but have not watched it for some time and it will have to wait until I watch it again.
It’s essentially about 2 children - brother and sister – who embark on a journey across Greece towards Germany to try to track down their father. On their way…there is one incredibly harrowing scene. They also meet a good man who they spent some of the journey with. But it is a beautiful film. Artistically arranged by Angeloopoulos and beautifully shot with a gorgeous score. It’s moving and at times mesmerising. The ending is ambiguous.

Wikipedia:
"Landscape In The Mist…is a 1988 Greek coming-of-age road tragedy film co-written and directed by Theo Angelopoulos…it has been regarded as Angelopoulos' greatest masterpiece…
Production
Angelopoulos stated he once read in the newspaper about two children embarking on a journey to Germany to find their father. He was so impressed by this strong desire to find the father, that the idea of producing a film about it came to his mind.
..Soundtrack
The soundtrack, containing traces of romantic music and stressed by the oboe, was composed by Eleni Karaindrou. Karaindrou stated the impetuous children strongly reminded her of the romantic escapes from earlier times, which is why she wanted the soundtrack to contain traces of Mendelssohn and Franck. When it came to the selection of the fitting instrument, she chose the oboe, because it is romantic and screams at the same time.”

Runtime: 2 hours 7 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TdoJWHnaLM
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5QlRBxLMoM

[Robert the List]

81. A Short Film About Killing 1988 Poland krzysztof kieślowski

Warning, if you are watching a film about a man spying on his neighbour through a telescope, you are watching the wrong film which has been mistitled.

ASFAK is a pretty brutal watch. We see a man commit an awful crime, and then gradually asked to sympathise for him. It’s an interesting concept. The film has elements of Bresson’s L’Argent about it. I’ve never seen a film that looks like this. Part of that is the colours used, the other is because when part of the picture is usually blotted out around the perimeter, I assume to represent insanity. In terms of the colour, the director states that this is to give the city an unattractive quality, which surprised me because I think the images are attractive. The score is also effective.
The film also uses co-incidence (perhaps fate) as a them and an important part of its plot structure, which would later be the basis of the director's The Double Life of Veronique.
It’s a moving experience, and probably like nothing else you have seen.

Wikipedia:
“A Short Film About Killing is a 1988 drama film directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski…the film was expanded from Dekalog Five, of the Polish television series Dekalog. Set in Warsaw, Poland, the film compares the senseless, violent murder of an individual to the cold, calculated execution by the state.

…Background
A Short Film About Killing was released in the same year that the death penalty was suspended in Poland. In 1988 the country carried out just a single execution, with 6 condemned prisoners being hanged in 1987. The portrayal of the execution method and procedure is mostly accurate, though, in reality, the date of executions were a surprise to the prisoner; the condemned man would simply be led into a room to discover it was the execution chamber. After the early years of Communist repression, executions were quite rare and invariably for murder; from 1969 a total of 183 men were hanged and no women.
… According to the funding deal that Kieślowski had with TV Poland to make Dekalog, two of the episodes would be expanded into films. Kieslowski himself selected Dekalog: Five, leaving the second for the Polish ministry of culture. The Ministry selected Dekalog: Six and funded both productions.

Themes
…Death and mutiny
Cine-literacy author Charles V. Eidsvik suggests there is a "presence of senseless malice in the film", a notion reiterated in the forms of death and mutiny.

Style
The film shows a very bleak Poland near the end of the Communist era. This is greatly enhanced by the strong use of colour filters to distort the images of Warsaw, creating a raw, unattractive image. The print appears to have an effect similar to sepia tone or bleach bypass—although it is a colour picture, the photography combined with grey locations provides an effect similar to monochrome.
Kieślowski credits his cinematographer, Slawomir Idziak, for this deliberate visual unattractiveness within the film, stating: "I sense that the world is becoming more and more ugly. . . . I wanted to dirty this world. . . . We used green filters that give this strange effect”
…Idziak also used a hand held camera when filming; this gave an added raw feel to the film as it follows the daily routines of the film's protagonist.

…Critical response
The Polish premiere coincided with a heated debate in Poland about capital punishment. Although the film's diegesis does not directly address political events, it is unanimously interpreted as a political statement. The Polish audience did not like the parallel alluded to between a murder committed by an individual and a murder committed by the state. Despite this controversy, the majority of critics praised Kieslowski's film and it was nominated for and won a multitude of awards.”

Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfEfyRLlXwU

[Robert the List]

I'll check the provisionals at the end of the century, although I'm expecting at most 1 or 2 to change. 1 also has to come out since I added Strike.

[Robert the List]

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[Robert the List]

I feel a bit dirty about this.

But here come the 90s...

[Hotel Security]

What's the problem? The 90s were fantastic for movies.

[Robert the List]

What's the problem? The 90s were fantastic for movies.
Haha, no it's not that. It's because of the countdown.

I feel a bit like I'm opening my Christmas presents on Christmas Eve while nobody's looking, and everyone else has to wait until tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm casting my conscience aside. Here goes...

[Robert the List]

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[Robert the List]

83. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (doc) 1991 USA George Hickenlooper

For anyone interested in films, this is a must documentary, telling the story of the making of one of the greatest films ever made, and one of the most challenging to make.

Wikipedia
“Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse is a 1991 American documentary film about the production of Apocalypse Now, a 1979 Vietnam War epic directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Synopsis and production
Hearts of Darkness chronicles how production problems—among them bad weather, actors' poor health, and other issues—delayed the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of its director, Francis Ford Coppola.
The documentary was begun by Coppola's wife, Eleanor Coppola, who narrated behind-the-scenes footage. In 1990, Coppola turned her material over to two young filmmakers, George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr (co-creator of MADtv), who subsequently shot new interviews with the original cast and crew, and intercut them with Eleanor Coppola's material. After a year of editing, Hickenlooper, Bahr, and Coppola debuted their film at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival.
The title is derived from the Joseph Conrad 1899 novella Heart of Darkness, the source material for Apocalypse Now.”

Running time 1 hour 36 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGjChKYcyFc

[Robert the List]

84. Rebels of the Neon God 1992 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang

One thing is it’s the first film chronologically where I notice nobody has a phone. The film follow 2 mates in Taiwan, young lads university age, and a girl they meet, and then some weird guy who they encounter a couple of times, and whose parents think he is this Taiwanese folk figure The Neon God. But as much as it’s about them, it’s about Tsia Ming-laing in his debut feature film. Where Altman made Shortcuts, Tsai could be said to make quiet cuts. The film is observational, almost voyeuristic. And it’s often quiet. It doesn’t rely heavily on dialogue, and there’s no dialogue for the sake of it. Often we have a short scene where we are just watching a character doing something. No dialogue. Then it cuts to him doing something else, no dialogue. But all the time things are going on. We see 90s Taipei, motorbikes, arcade machines, a skating rink, and we watch and listen to what’s going on, and gradually the story plays out. It’s just a cool directing style, a film, and a pleasure to look at.

Wikipedia:
“Rebels of the Neon God…is a 1992 Taiwanese drama film written and directed by Tsai Ming-liang in his feature film directorial debut.
…Title
The film's Chinese title refers to Nezha (Nuozha in Taiwanese pronunciation), a powerful child god in Chinese classical mythology who was born into a human family. Nezha is impulsive and disobedient. He tries to kill his father, but is brought under control when a Taoist immortal (Nezha's spiritual mentor) gives the father a miniature pagoda that enables him to control his rebellious son. This resonates in the film a number of ways: Hsiao Kang's mother believes he is Nezha reincarnated, and Tze and Ping try to pawn off some stolen goods to an arcade proprietor named Nezha. Before the pawning of the stolen goods, Hsiao Kang vandalizes Tze's motorcycle and writes "Nezha was here" on the adjacent sidewalk.
Reception
…In a retrospective review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott compared the film with Tsai's later work and wrote: "The camera movements are minimal and precise, turning what might seem like ordinary shots into sly jokes. There is water everywhere—torrential downpours sweeping the streets and a mysterious flood in a main character’s apartment. … Above all, there are performers who would become fixtures of this director's imaginative universe. Chief among them is Lee Kang-sheng, a slender, nearly silent man with a Keatonesque deadpan who has appeared in all 10 of Mr. Tsai's features so far."

Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCUDA-cywrE

[Robert the List]

85. The Player 1992 USA Robert Altman

It’s got a great pace, particularly the final parts of the film. It’s engaging, and it’s funny. The editing just keeps things ticking along. Good ideas, good dialogue, good performances. I wasn’t a Goldberg fan back in the day but I like her in this (see clip posted below c1.30 on). One of those where you couldn’t imagine anyone else (Robbins) playing the lead. Impressive really that the same director could make this and also McCabe & Mrs Miller! Such different films.

Wikipedia:
“The Player is a 1992 American satirical black comedy mystery film directed by Robert Altman and written by Michael Tolkin, based on his 1988 novel. The film stars Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Brion James and Cynthia Stevenson, and is the story of a Hollywood film studio executive who kills an aspiring screenwriter he believes is sending him death threats.
The Player has many film references and Hollywood in-jokes, with 65 celebrities making cameo appearances in the film. Altman once stated that the film "is a very mild satire," offending no one..
Plot
Griffin Mill is a Hollywood studio executive dating story editor Bonnie Sherow. He hears story pitches from screenwriters and decides which have the potential to be made into films, green-lighting only twelve out of 50,000 submissions every year. His job is threatened when up-and-coming exec Larry Levy begins working at the studio. Mill has also been receiving death threat postcards, assumed to be from a screenwriter whose pitch he rejected.
Mill surmises that the disgruntled writer is David Kahane, and Kahane's girlfriend June Gudmundsdottir tells him that Kahane is at the Rialto Theater in South Pasadena, at a screening of The Bicycle Thief. Mill pretends to recognize Kahane in the lobby and offers him a scriptwriting deal, hoping this will stop the threats. The two go to a nearby bar where Kahane gets intoxicated and rebuffs Mill's offer, calling him a liar and continuing to goad him about his job security at the studio. In the bar's parking lot, the two men fight. Mill goes too far and drowns Kahane in a shallow pool of water while screaming, "Keep it to yourself!" Mill then stages the crime to make it look like a botched robbery.
The next day, after Mill is late for and distracted at a meeting, studio security chief Walter Stuckel confronts him about the murder and says that the police know that he was the last one to see Kahane alive. At the end of their conversation Mill receives a fax from his stalker. Thus, Mill has killed the wrong man, and the stalker apparently knows this. Mill attends Kahane's funeral and gets into conversation with Gudmundsdottir. Detectives Avery and DeLongpre suspect Mill is guilty of murder….

Cast
Tim Robbins as Griffin Mill
Greta Scacchi as June Gudmundsdottir
Fred Ward as Walter Stuckel
Whoopi Goldberg as Detective Susan Avery
Peter Gallagher as Larry Levy
…Cher as Herself…Jeff Goldblum as Himself…Andie MacDowell as Herself…Bruce Willis as Himself…Julia Roberts as Herself…John Cusack as Himself…Burt Reynolds as Himself…Susan Sarandon as Herself…Rod Steiger as Himself…Elliott Gould as Himself…Nick Nolte as Himself…Peter Falk as Himself…Harry Belafonte as Himself…Anjelica Huston as Herself…Robert Wagner as Himself

Production
…Principal photography for the film commenced in mid-June 1991 in Los Angeles, California, with an eight-week schedule. Before production, meticulous planning went into crafting the film's opening scene, an eight-minute unbroken tracking shot. Models were utilized to map out the shot, and the studio lot location was resurfaced to ensure smooth movement for the dolly and crane. The day before filming, the actors and crew rehearsed the scene. Altman filmed ten takes. Notably, Altman instructed actor Fred Ward, portraying a studio security chief, to incorporate references to other films renowned for their tracking shots into his dialogue to add irony to the scene.
Altman also successfully persuaded a plethora of A-list actors to make cameo appearances in the film based on his esteemed reputation in the industry. These stars agreed to participate without reviewing the script and contributed their union-scale salaries for one day of filming to the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, a retirement community for industry professionals. Despite the large ensemble, the film was completed within a budget ranging from approximately $8 to $10 million…Chevy Chase was interested in playing the role of Griffin Mill, but Warner Bros. didn't want Chase to star in the film….
…Despite the difficulties of funding, the film's distribution rights were highly sought-after by nearly every major Hollywood studio. Eventually, Fine Line Features, a division of New Line Cinema, secured the rights…Release dates were strategically planned to coincide with the 64th Academy Awards in March 1992, aiming to capitalize on the ceremony's publicity and generate word-of-mouth buzz. Preview screenings were positive. The filmmakers hoped audiences would be drawn to the film's story rather than its celebrity cameos; therefore, Altman insisted on not featuring the actors' names in advertisements….

Reception
…Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "Robert Altman has not really been away. Yet his new Hollywood satire titled The Player is so entertaining, so flip and so genially irreverent that it seems to announce the return of the great gregarious film maker…".
Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote: "Mercilessly satiric yet good-natured, this enormously entertaining slam dunk represents a remarkable American come-back for eternal maverick Robert Altman."
Terrence Rafferty of The New Yorker called it "a brilliant dark comedy about the death of American filmmaking," adding: "In this picture Altman is doing one of his specialties: exploring an odd American subculture—revealing its distinctive textures and explicating the peculiar principles of social intercourse which keep it functioning. But when his idiosyncratic style of anthropological realism is applied to the tight community of Hollywood 'players' it has an almost hallucinatory effect."
Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Altman has made a movie that's supremely deft and pleasurable. As if to taunt his detractors, he even 'tells a story' this time, and he does a better job of it than the hacks who have been getting work when he couldn't."[13]
The Player was Altman's comeback to making films in Hollywood.[14] Altman was praised for the sex scene in which Robbins and Scacchi were filmed from the neck up. Scacchi later claimed that Altman had wanted a nude scene, but that it was her refusal which led to the final form. The editing of The Player by Geraldine Peroni was honored by a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing.”

Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpDDTS08wPs
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbibD_hQCaI

[Robert the List]

86. Vive L'Amour 1994 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang ESSENTIAL

I’ve loved this film since I first found it. I’d never seen anything like it. In the first 45 minutes, there is no dialogue other than us hearing one side of the conversation on 2 phone calls (in which very little is said in both cases). It’s a very clever telling of a very simple and minimal plot. Chiefly I find it funny, in part because of the humorous situations which Tsai creates, but also partly because he has the nerve to make a film like this and to be so different. There is also some dramatic/emotional element to the film, but mainly we are just simple voyeurs, trying to make sure we don’t laugh out loud in case they hear us.

Wikipedia:
“Vive l'amour (…lit. 'long live love') is a 1994 Taiwanese New Wave film directed by Tsai Ming-liang….
While the film was celebrated by most film critics when it was first released, its vague storyline and cinematic techniques resulted in an average box office turnout.
…Cast
Yang Kuei-mei (楊貴媚) as May Lin – a real estate agent and a heavy smoker, who uses the empty apartment for sexual affairs. She brings Ah-hung to one of the properties she has been trying to sell and has sex with him.
Lee Kang-sheng (李康生) as Hsiao-kang – a salesman for commercial ossuaries (納骨塔), who discovers an apartment key and secretly moves into the apartment.
Chen Chao-jung (陳昭榮) as Ah-jung – a street vendor, who steals the key to the apartment May Lin brings him to and later moves into the apartment. Sharing the absurd life situations together, he forms a friendship with Hsiao-kang after having a quarrel with him at the apartment where they both secretly live in.
…Themes
Continuing Tsai Ming-liang's attentive observation of urban life, Vive l'amour unfolds the theme of urban alienation through three young urbanites' search for romance and their disbelief in traditional family values in the 1990s Taipei. Tsai Ming-liang takes a bold move with plot lines that are stylistically designed to focus on only a trio of main characters, who unknowingly share an apartment in Taipei. The cinematic language of Vive l'amour is kept to an extreme minimum. Tsai Ming-liang's austere composition of dialogues with a total of less than a hundred lines throughout the film, paired with a minimalist use of background music and soundtrack, reflects the emotional loneliness and spiritual emptiness experienced by the three urbanites of Taipei.
With its daring long takes piercing through the deep hearts of the depressed characters, Vive l'amour introduces the unique "Tsai Ming-liang style", which is later embraced by international audiences and critics, and attracts European and American audiences to enter the lonely world Tsai Ming-liang's cinematic language portrays on screen.
Reception
…On AllMovie, reviewer Jonathan Crow praised the film, writing that "[director Tsai Ming-liang] presents Taipei as a soulless, ultra-modern labyrinth where individuals cannot communicate other than in one-night stands or business transactions. The film's style is masterful in both economy and emotional power. With very long takes, little narrative tension, and almost no dialogue, the style reinforces the cold, alienating world in which the characters live."[
…following Vive l'amour's 2K restoration, Washington Square News Arts Editor Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer described Vive l'amour as "not a mere three-fold character study, but a blown-up portrait of a soul draped in sorrow that Ming-liang generously decided to make into a movie."
Legacy
On New Year's Eve in 2023—as inspired by a viral Facebook post—a flash mob gathered at Daan Forest Park at midnight to re-enact the closing scene of Vive l'amour. The gathering was seen as being symbolic of the emotions felt by revellers on New Year's Eve (who were seen dancing, crying, and socializing with others); an attendee told CNN that the event was reflective of the belief that "there isn't a uniform way of living and expressing emotions".[11] The following year, the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute organised the gathering as a formal event to mark the 30th anniversary of Vive l'amour and the park's opening; the event featured a screening of the film before midnight, and special guest appearances by Tsai Ming-liang, Yang Kuei-mei and Lee Kang-sheng. The event was attended by around 2,500 people.”

Runtime: 1 hour 58 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqkTGmyXpDI

[Robert the List]

Voices Through Time (1996) Franco Piavoli Italy

[Wyldesyde19]

Vive L’Amour is going to be very high on my ballot once I cast it.
Such a great film!

[Robert the List]

87. Trainspotting 1996 UK Danny Boyle

This is a film I had overlooked for a long time. I thought it was just some crap film that I enjoyed in the 90s when it was a passing fad. In fact I'm not even sure if I enjoyed it then. But it’s much more than that anyway. Yes, the sets are naff, and so is the photography; it’s just generally a cheap look, perhaps the sort of thing you might expect from a 6th form college project. But that initial impression is misleading, because there’s much more to it than that. The dialogue for the most part is unexceptional, but then what can you expect from a film about people with unexceptional lives?
And there have to be caveats to the statement that the dialogue is weak. Renton’s narration is often far from that, not least his celebrated “choose life” monologue, but also some of his on screen dialogue, including the speech about the English being wankers and the Scottish worse because they are effectively ruled by wankers. These parts are carefully and skilfully written, and demonstrate that the largely inane exchanges between the characters are not representative of a paucity of skills in the scriptwriters.
And if much of the dialogue seems unexceptional, the characters themselves, in spite of being from unexceptional backgrounds, and arguably having unexceptional lives, are not. In fact they are highly memorable. I won't forget Begby as long as I live. Or Spud for that matter. Or Renton.
And the production has strengths too. The film is snappily edited. It flows nicely. It tells a proper story. Like 90 minutes of someone telling you the exciting events of their life, but illustrated with the pictures to prove it.
There are iconic scenes, such as the walk in the Highlands, and there are moments of real emotion for example Spud singing Two Little Boys at Tommy’s funeral, where you can sense the emotion, and the feeling of respect from the cast even though the song is being sung about a fictional character. Perhaps because they know that this is more than a film about fictional characters, it’s a film about an era, about their own lives as much as their characters’. Moments of elation too, not least because it is a film afterall largely focusing on drug use and depicting amongst other things the associated highs and lows.
There’s something that I haven’t mentioned. Yes, it’s that soundtrack. Something else about this film is that it is an iconic representation of the period. I don’t know about the rest of the world as I hadn’t travelled in 1996, but the 90s in the UK, is just as you experience it in Trainspotting. Part of that’s reflected in some of the filming, including some documentary type shots of London, and also images of nurses and similar which I suspect were played by non actors and somehow just give a real sense of 90s people. But the main part of that representation of the period, is in the music, and in particular the uplifting dance tracks. It’s more than a soundtrack though and more even than a score; the songs become part of the grammar of the film; part of the dialogue, and part of the mix or editing, the transition between scenes. They are the real life of the film.
Trainspotting will be something for us old farts to cling on to, to reminisce on, as we slip towards the ether. At the time, the 90s felt like it didn’t have an identity. But it did, even if a lot of it might have been crap. It was still our time, whether we made best use of it or not. And there’s probably no piece of creative work which captures it better than Trainspotting.

Wikipedia:
“Trainspotting is a…British black comedy drama film directed by Danny Boyle, and starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle and Kelly Macdonald in her film debut. Based on the 1993 novel by Irvine Welsh, the film was released in the United Kingdom on 23 February 1996.
The film follows a group of heroin addicts in an economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life. Beyond drug addiction, other themes in the film include an exploration of the urban poverty and squalor in Edinburgh…
……The film title is a reference to a scene in the book where Begbie and Renton meet "an auld drunkard" who turns out to be Begbie's estranged father, in the disused Leith Central railway station, which they are using as a toilet. He asks them if they are "trainspottin'". This scene is later included as a flashback in (2017 sequel) T2 Trainspotting…
Plot
Mark Renton, a 26-year-old unemployed heroin addict living with his parents in Leith, regularly takes drugs with his "friends": treacherous, womanising James Bond fanatic Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson; docile and bumbling Daniel "Spud" Murphy; and Swanney—"Mother Superior"—their dealer. Renton's other friends include aggressive alcoholic psychopath Francis "Franco" Begbie, and honest footballer Tommy Mackenzie, who both abstain from drug use, warning him about his dangerous drug habit.
Tiring of his reckless lifestyle, Renton attempts to wean himself off heroin with a bare room, foodstuffs, and opium suppositories from dodgy dealer Mikey Forrester….
Style and themes
Music has great importance in Danny Boyle's films, as evident by the best-selling soundtracks for Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire, both of which feature many pop and punk rock artists. In Boyle's view, songs can be "amazing things to use because they obviously bring a lot of baggage with them. They may have painful associations, and so they inter-breathe with the material you're using".
…the shooting style of the film…features "wildly imaginative" and "downright hallucinatory" visual imagery, achieved through a mix of "a handheld, hurtling camera", jump cuts, zoom shots, freeze frames and wide angles. This vigorous style contributed to the "breathless" pace that Boyle's films have been associated with…
Production
Development
Producer Andrew Macdonald read Irvine Welsh's book on a plane in December 1993, and felt that it could be made into a film…Boyle was excited by its potential to be the "most energetic film you've ever seen…"….Macdonald secured financing from Channel 4, a British television station known for funding independent films.
Casting
….For the role of Begbie, Boyle considered casting Christopher Eccleston for his resemblance to how he imagined the character in the novel, but asked Robert Carlyle instead. Carlyle was initially hesitant, believing he was too short to play the character, but Boyle convinced him by telling him, "No, small psychos are better." Carlyle said, "I've met loads of Begbies in my time. Wander round Glasgow on Saturday night and you've a good chance of running into Begbie."
For the role of Diane, Boyle wanted an unknown actress so audiences would not realise that a 19-year-old was playing a 15-year-old. The filmmakers sent flyers to nightclubs and boutiques and approached people on the street, eventually hiring Kelly Macdonald….
Pre-production
McGregor read books about crack and heroin to prepare for the role. He also went to Glasgow and met people from the Calton Athletic Recovery Group, an organisation of recovering heroin addicts, who play the opposing football team in the opening credits. He was taught how to cook up heroin with a spoon using glucose powder. McGregor considered injecting heroin to better understand the character, but eventually decided against it. Many of the book's stories and characters were dropped to create a cohesive script of adequate length….
The main cast of the film attended Calton Athletic Recovery Group's self-help meetings to prepare for their roles in the film….
Principal photography
Trainspotting was shot in mid-1995 over seven weeks on a budget of £1.5 million with the cast and crew working out of an abandoned cigarette factory in Glasgow. Due to time constraints and a tight budget, most scenes were done in one take, which contributed to the grungy look of the film….
Soundtracks
…The soundtrack for Trainspotting has gone on to become a pop culture phenomenon. Nearly all of the score is pre-recorded music from existing artists. This score is divided into three distinct groups, all representing a different eras and styles: The first being pop music from the 1970s, by artists such as Lou Reed and Iggy Pop; who are all musicians closely associated with drug use and are referred to throughout the original novel. The second group is the music from the Britpop era in the 1990s, with bands Blur and Pulp. Finally, there is the techno-dance music from the 1990s, including Underworld, Bedrock and Ice MC. Danny Boyle approached Oasis about contributing a song to the soundtrack but Noel Gallagher turned down the opportunity due to him mistakenly believing it would be a film about actual trainspotters….
…the Trainspotting soundtrack aimed to champion the alternative music legacy of 1996 Britain with a focus on presenting electronic music on equal footing with rock music in a way that had never been done before. (author’s note: really??? There was a massive dance culture?)
Release
Marketing and theatrical release
…Prior to its release in the United States, Miramax, the film's US distributor, requested that some of the dialogue be dubbed so the film would be easier to understand for American viewers unfamiliar with Scottish slang and British slang in general
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, the company responsible for the distribution of the film, launched a publicity campaign of half as much as the film's production costs (£850,000) in the UK alone, making the film stand out more as a Hollywood blockbuster rather than a smaller European production.
…Reception
Trainspotting was screened at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival but was shown out of competition, according to the filmmakers, due to its subject. It went on to become the festival's one unqualified critical and popular hit…
Critical reception
…Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Like Scorsese and Tarantino, Boyle uses pop songs as rhapsodic mood enhancers, though in his own ravey-hypnotic style. Whether he's staging a fumbly sex montage to Sleeper's version of "Atomic" or having Renton go cold turkey to the ominous slow build of Underworld's "Dark and Long" ... Trainspotting keeps us wired to the pulse of its characters' passions".
…Rolling Stone's Peter Travers wrote, "the film's flash can't disguise the emptiness of these blasted lives. Trainspotting is 90 minutes of raw power that Boyle and a bang-on cast inject right into the vein".
…The film's release sparked controversy in some countries, including Britain, Australia and the United States, as to whether or not it promoted and romanticised drug use. U.S. Senator Bob Dole accused it of moral depravity and glorifying drug use during the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign, although he later admitted that he had not seen the film. Producer of the film Andrew Macdonald responded to these claims in a BBC interview stating "we were determined to show why people took drugs ... you had to show that it was fun and that it was awful"…

Runtime: 1 hour 33 manuts.
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaP7qmsQbSI
Another clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtbS_PdA198
Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiMrrleH_hI

[Robert the List]

88. Flowers of Shanghai 1998 Taiwan Hou Hsiao-hsien

We saw Hou as lead actor in Taipei story, and here he is in his more renowned capacity as director.It took me a few goes, but eventually I became at peace with Flowers of Shanghai’s pace and atmosphere and I settled into it.
Not much happens. But it is absolutely gorgeous to look at. Every shot is meticulously presented. No director has taken this much care for decades. And although I can’t say I develop any particular feelings for any of the characters or what comes of them, it is also an interesting, and I probably well researched and studied, insight into the life of a 19th century ‘high class’ Chinese brothel. But it’s the beauty of it.

Wikipedia:
“Flowers of Shanghai is a 1998 Taiwanese drama film directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. It is based on the novel The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai (1892) by Han Bangqing, which was originally written in the Wu language (吳語) and translated into Mandarin Chinese by Eileen Chang. The film stars Tony Leung as a wealthy patron and (various actresses including Carina Lau as) “flower girls" in four high-end Shanghai brothels.
…Plot
The film is set in the elegant brothels of Shanghai, called Changsan Shuyu (長三書寓; "Flower Houses"), in 1884. The story is about the prostitutes in these houses, known as "shi sen" or "flower girls,"…depicting in great detail their relationships with the wealthy patrons, which are semi-monogamous and often last for a long period of time, and the daily activities in the houses.
The main prostitutes in the film are Crimson, Jasmin, Jade, Pearl and Emerald. Crimson belongs to the Huifang Enclave (薈芳里), while Jasmin works at the East Hexing Enclave (東合興里). Jade and her friend Pearl work in the Gongyang Enclave (公陽里), and Emerald resides in the Shangren Enclave (尚仁里). The film explores the relationships between the wealthy patrons and the prostitutes.
…
Regarding the English title of the film, the meaning of "sing-song girls" does not refer to singing girls who sing for a living. Eileen Chang's commentary on the Mandarin text makes it clear: "Xiansheng" or "Xi sang" in Wu is pronounced as "sing song"….
Production
According to the screenwriter Chu Tʽien-wen, Flowers of Shanghai was originated with Hou Hsiao-Hsien's intention to create a collection of art production resources for Taiwan cinema…
Hou Hsiao-Hsien originally intended to shoot Flowers of Shanghai in China, but the application was not approved by the Chinese government. The production was forced to be completed in Taiwan, which is why the film has no outdoor scenes. Without proper locations that could be the background for the period, the film was all shot in the studio.
Hou Hsiao-hsien's long shots are used to their fullest potential in this film. The nearly two-hour film consists of only less than forty shots. The long takes are edited by using fade-ins and fade-outs imitating the rhythm of breathing, which also allow the viewers to have enough time to fully appreciate the recreation of old Shanghai on screen.
Ah Cheng (Zhong Acheng, 鍾阿城) was responsible for sourcing and ordering most of the costumes and props for the film from China. He proposed to Hou that the film should not use electric bulbs but be lit with candles to give the room a warm and nostalgic atmosphere.
Critical reception
…Film critic J. Hoberman, like Jonathan Rosenbaum, called Hou Hsiao-hsien the best director of the '90s, and hailed Flowers of Shanghai as one of Hou's three masterpieces from that decade.
Jeffrey Anderson finds the film incredibly beautiful, despite the need for "multiple viewings and incredible patience." ”

Runtime: 2 hours 10 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyMzeaQZx20

[Robert the List]

89. Saving Private Ryan 1998 USA Steven Spielberg

Just an incredible experience, and insight into some of the horrors of war. Also an incredibly emotional film. An icon and a masterpiece.

Wikipedia:
Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American epic war film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. Set in 1944 in Normandy, France, during World War II, it follows a group of soldiers, led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), on a mission to locate Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon) and bring him home safely after his three brothers have been killed in action. The cast also includes Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg and Jeremy Davies.
…Considered one of the greatest films ever made, Saving Private Ryan's battle-scene filming techniques impacted many subsequent war, action, and superhero films, and numerous directors have cited Saving Private Ryan as an influence on them. The picture is credited with having helped to renew interest in WWII at the turn of the century, inspiring other films, television shows, and video games set during the war. …

Production
Concept
…Rodat…was inspired by a gift from his wife, the historical book D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II (1994), by Stephen E. Ambrose, recounting the events of the Normandy landings. Rodat visited a monument in Keene, New Hampshire dedicated to American soldiers killed in combat; he noticed the losses included brothers… The Ryan family was based on the four Niland brothers detailed in Ambrose's book, who were deployed during WWII; two were killed and a third presumed dead; per the Sole Survivor Policy, the fourth was returned from the war……the story was further influenced by other substantial family war losses, including the five Sullivan brothers killed during WWII, and the Bixby brothers during the American Civil War; the resulting letter by Abraham Lincoln is quoted in the film….

Development
To develop Saving Private Ryan, (producer) Gordon founded the independent film studio Mutual Film Company, alongside producer Gary Levinsohn. Gordon brought Rodat's draft to Paramount Pictures executives; they responded positively and hired Rodat who wrote the script over the following 12 months….a junior agent representing Tom Hanks at the Creative Artists Agency, gave the script to Hanks, who was immediately interested and met with Gordon and Levinsohn. Hanks shared the script with Steven Spielberg who agreed to direct because the pair had wanted to work together for some time….
…With Spielberg on board, DreamWorks Pictures, which he co-founded, became involved as a financier, with his company Amblin Entertainment as a production company. Spielberg's clout effectively removed Gordon and Levinsohn from the production, having no creative input, equity, or rights, but receiving a producer's credit and one-off payment. Levinsohn said, "You just know going in what the score is ... I guess it's unspoken that when you hire Steven Spielberg you're not going to be on the set making decisions".
…Spielberg described existing WWII films as "sanitized" and sentimentalized, focused on depicting honor and the glory of service in a manner that was "very safe and wholly untrue". He wanted to present the courage of the soldiers in the face of "palpable terror, almost blind terror"…“I remember one of the [veterans] telling me the entire charge up the beach was a blur—not a blur to his memory because he still remembered every single grain of sand when he had his face buried in it from that fusillade raining down on them from above. But he described how everything was not in focus for him. He described the sounds, and he described the vibrations of every concussion of every 88 shell that hit the beach, which gave some of them bloody noses, rattled their ears. The ground would come up and slam into their faces from the concussions.".…
At Hanks's and Dye's suggestion, Spielberg had the principal cast take part in a six-day boot camp, wanting them to experience cold, wet, and exhaustive conditions, like those of WWII soldiers. Overseen by Dye and retired U.S. marines, the actors remained in character while simulating attacks, performing 5-mile (8 km) runs with full backpacks, weapons training, military exercises, and push-ups after making mistakes, on three hours of sleep per night in cold and rainy conditions. The men wanted to quit, but Hanks convinced them otherwise, saying they would regret not following through and the experience would help them understand their characters and motivations. Diesel said, "at that moment we got this huge respect for him in real life, we were all exhausted, we all wanted to leave and here was this guy who was a superstar, who doesn't have to be here, voting to stay"…Spielberg kept Damon out of the boot camp because he wanted the other actors to resent him and his character.

Pre-production
…Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński spent several weeks performing camera tests to define the film's visual aesthetic…A variety of camera techniques were used to emulate the experience of being on a battlefield: Kamiński removed the protective coating on some lenses, creating a "flatter", degraded image akin to WWII-era cameras, and mismatched lenses when using multiple cameras for an inconsistent result; alternating shutter angles and speeds; and desynchronizing the camera shutter which created a "streaking" effect. Kamiński considered this a risky option because if it failed there was no way to fix the image in post-production. A Clairmont Camera Image Shaker vibrated the camera to emulate the effects of a nearby explosion or rolling tank. Spielberg chose to film in 1.85:1 aspect ratio because he believed it was more lifelike and closer to "the way the human eye really sees," and found widescreen formats to be artificial. (source: "Five Star General". American Cinematographer.)
Three months were spent scouting for a location to portray the Normandy coast. The real location was too developed for their needs, and many other French beaches were restricted by military or wildlife use; Spielberg believed officials were difficult because they did not want him filming there. Beaches researched in England and Scotland lacked either the aesthetics or amenities required, such as housing for the crew, and the filmmakers needed a specific depth for the cast to leap from the landing crafts into the water. Associate producer, Kevin De La Noy's earlier work on Braveheart (1995) in Ireland had developed contacts with the Irish Army and knowledge of local beaches. One such location, the 11 km (6.8 miles) long Curracloe Beach, near Curracloe, County Wexford, offered the desired golden sands and sheer cliffs and nearby amenities. Spielberg selected a 1 km (0.62 miles) segment of the beach, known as Ballinesker. He said, "I was a bit disappointed that the beach we used wasn't as broad as the real Omaha Beach ... I tried to use certain wide-angle lenses to extend the length of the flats on the sandy beach before the soldiers reach the shingle. I used wider lenses for geography and tighter lenses for the compression of action." A segment adjacent to Blackwater, also in Wexford, was considered, but the local nuns could not make the land available in time….
…
Principal photography began on June 27, 1997. Filming completed up to 50 shots per day. Spielberg wanted the actors to get little rest, "A war is fought fast, and I really wanted to keep all of the actors off-balance. I didn't want them to be able to read 75 pages of a novel ... I wanted to work fast enough so that they always felt as if they were in combat ... I had to keep them on the set, which meant shooting the film even faster than I normally do. War doesn't give you a break."
Saving Private Ryan was shot almost entirely in continuity order, although some of the crew found this "a mentally demoralizing experience" because the cast started together and left as their characters died.
The Omaha Beach battle was filmed over three to four weeks, for $12 million. The scene involved about 1,500 people including 400 crew, 1,000 volunteer reserve and Irish army soldiers, and dozens of extras and about 30 amputees and paraplegics fitted with prosthetic limbs to portray disfigured soldiers. Their numbers were supplemented with over one thousand detailed mannequins. The extras were divided into platoons with a designated leader, allowing Dye to control their action via four different radios with aid from three non-commissioned officers. Costume designer Joanna Johnston contracted an American company responsible for making boots for soldiers during WWII to create about 2,000 pairs, using the last batch of dye from that period. Soldiers in the ocean wore wet suits beneath their uniforms to minimize hypothermia.
….A crane shot moving from beneath the ocean surface to above the battlefield was achieved by placing the crane on a flatbed trailer and reversing it into the sea.
…Spielberg had the camera stay close to the ground to appear as if it was the view of a soldier avoiding getting shot or a combat cameraman. He intended for the audience to feel like they were a part of the battle rather than watching. Most of Saving Private Ryan was filmed with handheld cameras. This was physically demanding on camera operator Mitch Dubin and Steadicam operator Chris Haarhoff due to both proximity to the ground and movement through exploding scenery. The camera was close enough that fake blood, water, and sand would stick to the camera lens, but the filmmakers believed this made the footage more authentic….
…halfway through filming, (Spielberg) decided to depict the remainder of the film from Upham's perspective, believing he represented the audience's inexperience of war….
…Filming concluded ahead of schedule on September 13, 1997, after 12 weeks, with the French church interior scenes. The estimated total budget was $65–$70 million….

Music
A long-time Spielberg collaborator, composer John Williams, produced the score. Spielberg chose little music accompaniment, wanting the sounds of battle and death to be prominent….Williams recorded the 55-minute score over three days at Symphony Hall in Boston, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and vocals by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus…The recording cost about $100,000 per hour. Spielberg chose the Orchestra: "This is a movie about a company of soldiers, and it seemed appropriate to use an experienced company of musicians who are all virtuosos. Also we really wanted the sound of this room, Symphony Hall. On a soundstage you can get acoustically correct sound, but you don't hear the air. Here you get a rich, warm sound off the walls and ceiling, and you do hear the air; Symphony Hall is an instrument too."

Release…
Box office
The film premiered on July 21, 1998….Saving Private Ryan was seen as the biggest success of the theatrical summer….Re-releases of Saving Private Ryan have raised the box office to $482.3 million…
Reception…Saving Private Ryan received critical acclaim, and audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. Critics generally agreed that Saving Private Ryan presented the grim and brutal reality of the "Good War" in a way previously unseen on film….
…Rosenbaum found that, outside of the combat, the script was effective but uninspired and derivative of war films by other directors…Others criticized "manipulative" oversentimentality, particularly in the modern day framing device featuring the elderly Ryan.
…Kamiya wrote that Damon's performance was "jarring", believing both his more cinematic aesthetic and speech about his brothers to be artificial. The review concluded that Ryan was not very compelling, which made it difficult to care about the mission to save him.

Accolades
….Saving Private Ryan's unexpected loss of Best Picture to Shakespeare in Love is seen as one of the biggest upsets in the awards history and led to DreamWorks executives accusing its producers, Miramax, of "overly aggressive campaigning". A 2015 poll of Academy voters suggested that, given another opportunity, they would have voted Saving Private Ryan as Best Picture….

Post-release
Historical accuracy and veteran responses…Several publications highlighted the accuracy of the Omaha Beach assault, down to the sound of gunfire, although some errors were noted, such as bullets killing soldiers underwater, the absence of British coxswains steering the boats, and the battle's truncated duration.
…Many World War II veterans described the opening of Saving Private Ryan as depicting the most realistic representation of combat. Another veteran, interviewed by Time, said "I remember when I walked out into the lobby of the moviehouse, not a single person coming out of that showing said one word ... everybody was stunned by it ... It just brought back so many memories.”
…The rest of the film is less historically accurate. Fictitious elements include the nonexistent town of Ramelle, the battle associated with it, certain military tactical errors…Total Film and some non U.S. veterans were critical of the lack of other Allied forces throughout the film. British broadcaster Channel 4 said that these critics had missed the point of the film, in that it was "unashamedly an American story"….

Thematic analysis
Patriotism
...Leading into the early 21st century, there was renewed focus in America on glorifying the generation that had fought in WWII, depicted in films such as Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line, the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001), books such as The Greatest Generation (1998), and construction of a World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Many publications believed this resurgence of interest in the war to be a response to decades of American cynicism toward the nation's failure in the Vietnam War (1955–1975), and anticlimactic victories in the Cold and Gulf Wars that resulted in little diplomatic success or celebration.
Many films about the Vietnam War depicted its American combatants as self-hating, "deeply troubled, or even psychotic," offered little respect, and portrayed the conflict itself as one mired in dread, anxiety, and general negativity.
Literature professor Marzena Sokołowska-Paryż said the worship of WWII as "the last Good War" and its veterans as "the greatest generation" represented a "therapeutic [form of] patriotism" designed to rehabilitate the modern image of combatants as the enduring legacy of WWII soldiers and the core American national identity while forgetting any lingering guilt over the Vietnam War.
….Turan and Biguenet said Saving Private Ryan "feels like an official act of atonement" for modern generations failing to acknowledge the "courage and sacrifice" of WWII soldiers.
…History professor John Bodnar described the image of the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial as depicting a national unity with row after row of white grave markers, serving as a permanent reminder "to other nations of the sacrifices made by the United States".
Morality and humanity
Unlike some older WWII films that portrayed the soldiers as infallible heroes, Saving Private Ryan presents battles fought by brave but frightened civilians, the majority of whom at Omaha Beach were not combat veterans. Ebert believed much of the audience, including himself, would identify with Upham, someone completely unprepared for the realities of war but who must fight regardless. Miller is the opposite: an experienced soldier who is scared and anxious because he knows exactly what to expect and is haunted by his responsibility for the lives of his men. Although 94 men have died under his command, Miller rationalizes that he can prioritize his mission over his men because each sacrifice was responsible for saving many more lives. However, his mission to rescue Ryan demands he risk the lives of several men to save just one.
…Spielberg said the mission to rescue Ryan cannot be morally or patriotically justified, risking eight lives to save one. This theme is reinforced when they encounter the sole survivor of a glider crash caused by heavy steel shielding added to protect a single general on board, resulting in 22 deaths.

…Cultural influence
Saving Private Ryan was credited with renewing interest in World War II leading into the 21st century. NBC News wrote that in presenting audiences with its "stomach-churning violence and soul-shaking intensity of that pivotal chapter in the war", the film had reshaped the United States' "cultural memory"….
The film is considered to have had a lasting influence on filmmaking, particularly its opening battle scenes. Vanity Fair wrote, "no films about combat made since would look the way they do without the de-saturated, handheld, blood-splatters-and-all horror of cinema that is this extended sequence ... it's a terrifying scene, either honorable or exploitative in its all vérité, depending on whom you ask. Regardless of any moral assessment, it's easily one of the most aped and referenced scenes of the late 20th century."

Runtime: 2 hours 50 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Qj_AVu2pA
Excerpt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdBEyitJ7Qc

[Robert the List]

That is a draft wrap on the 20th century.

We have (following my subsequent edits) the following entries from the various decades:
20s 5
30s 6
40s 12
50s 11
60s 25
70s 13
80s 10
90s 8

There will be a least some minor change however as I am 1 film short, and also the numbering is 1 out after film 16 (I had anticipated having to delete one, but in fact I now have to add one).

I have also marked the following 14 films as provisional entries in the list:
1*. The Great White Silence (doc) 1924 UK Herbery Ponting (silent) b/w (provisional)
2*. Seven Chances 1925 USA Buster Keaton (silent) b/w (provisional)
16*. My Darling Clementine 1946 USA John Ford b/w (provisional
26*. La Pointe Courte 1955 France Agnes Varda b/w (provisional)
27*. Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyijat Ray b/w (provisional)
28*. The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957 UK David Lean (provisional)
31*. Rio Bravo 1959 USA Howard Hawks (provisional)
33*. North by Northwest 1959 USA Alfred Hitchcock (provisional)
39*. L'Eclisse 1962 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni b/w (provisional)
41*. Le Mepris / Contempt 1963 France Jean Luc Godard (provisional)
58*. A Touch of Zen 1971 Taiwan King Hu (provisional)
73*. Taipei Story 1985 Taiwan Edward Yang (provisional)
74*. Withnail & I 1987 UK Bruce Robinson (provisional)
77*. When Harry Met Sally 1989 USA Rob Reiner (provisional)

and the following 12 as remaining as live contenders:
Pandora's Box 1929 Germany G.W. Pabst
On the Waterfront 1954 USA Elia Kazan
Cleo from 5 to 7 1961 France Agnes Varda
Godfather 1972 USA Francis Ford Coppola
The Day of the Jackal 1973 ?
Godfather2 1974 USA Francis Ford Coppola
Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski
The Passenger 1975 Spain Michelangelo Antonioni
Jaws 1975 USA Steven Spielberg
Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981 USA Steven Spielberg
Coup De Foudre/At First Sight 1983 France
The Terminator 1984 USA James Cameron

There is a firm presumption that the provisional entries will become firmed up, however it's possible that a small number of them might be replaced with live contenders. At least one live contender will be added anyway, on account of me having one less film at this point than I had expected.

I will assess this situation before moving on to the 21st century entries.

I am keeping my fingers crossed, that any changes can be slotted in chronologically, by editing general comments that I have made throughout the thread. Will have to keep my fingers crossed on that.

As I am going to have much less time available after Saturday, it might take me a while to complete the list, but I hope to at least firm up the 20th century entries before next week.

Thank you for ongoing interest.

[Robert the List]

So having reviewed the live contenders, I have concluded that I would like to include the following films:

Port of Shadows 1938
On the Waterfront 1954
Godfather 1972 (& Godfather2 1974)
Chinatown 1974
The Passenger 1975
(and possibly Jaws 1975, tbc)

Godfather is the banker which will be the missing film from the existing list. I can include Godfather 2 in the same entry or just not mention G2, I don't mind either way, although G2 will not be a stand alone entry.

That means I am looking for 4 (or 5 if I'm looking to include Jaws) spaces which I do not have.

Most of them I could physically fit in to the thread in chronological order, however I can not fit in Port of Shadows, so would have to add it to an existing entry such that it and another entry share a single post.

I'm going for a run, and will then assess how I can try to find space in the 100 for some of these 5 extra films.

It's also conceivable that I might replace The Wizard of Oz with The Adventures of Robin Hood (which was technicolor 1 year earlier), although this is unlikely.

I hope to be able to finalise these changes, and renumber the entries today, although it's unlikely I will complete the Godfather writeup as well, let alone any other new entries from the short list above.

[Robert the List]

So I reduced that list earlier down to the following:
-On the Waterfront
-The Godfather
-Chinatown
-The Passenger

however I have also now had 2 drop out from the 21st century.

I was already 1 'short' before those 2 dropped out, so that now leaves me with only 101 (3 short + 4 extra), so there's just 1 to take out of my provisionals list.

Hopefully shouldn't take too long to identify the unlucky one....

EDIT:
The one which dropped out was When Harry Met Sally.
However I also replaced Rio Bravo with Lola.
I also added Closely Watched Trains.
Which means I am on target for having 101 films, in which case sobeit.

I'm very tired and will make the changes to the thread accordingly in the morning.
I will then need to write up profiles for the 6 new films.

[Robert the List]

By the way, I only have 1 film in my 100 which has mobile phones*.

*excludes Larry Levy's car phone.

[Robert the List]

That's the renumbering completed.
New entries are included for the new additions. Videos are included below the title, although I still need to write the descriptions.

Unfortunately I had to make the difficult decision to drop Godard's Le Mepris, although he still has 2 entries.
I also dropped Rio Bravo (because John Wayne, and also the fool character were getting on my ****) and unfortunately When Harry Met Sally. I also dropped 2 films from the 21st century which I had been planning to include.

Added are:
On the Waterfront
Lola
Closely Watched Trains
The Godfather
Chinatown
The Passenger

I'm going back to sleep now probably, but later I will do the write ups for the 6 new films, and then either now or at a later date will add the 11 films from the 21st century.

Edit: everything is now written up except for The Godfather, which I'll probably leave to do another time.

[Robert the List]

I think that when the critics and the industry powers-that-be really reflect on my list, they will likely observe that the bulk of the 20th century content is conventional, but that I reject the consensus in 2 periods, namely:
*prior to WW2, where my chosen silent films are not the typically accepted standard-bearers and where I disregard the early talkies which are generally regarded as classics, and again
* in between Blade Runner and Saving Private Ryan, where Hollywood has largely been passed over.


Edit: that was a joke.
Although I do believe that my list is a work of art in itself.

[Robert the List]

Below I compare my films to the MoFo top 100 lists. Where no number is stated, my film did not make the MoFo countdown.


PRE 30s (50 only)
- The Great White Silence (doc)
- Seven Chances
- Strike
26. The Adventures of Prince Achmed
12. Man With a Movie Camera (doc)

30s
- Salt for Svanetia
- Limite
24. Vampyr
45. Story of the Last Chrysanthemums
10. Mr Smith Goes to Washington
1. The Wizard of Oz

40s
27. Day of Wrath
69. Meshes of the Afternoon
- La Belle et La Bete
- Panique
15. Notorious
- My Darling Clementine
32. Out of the Past
9. Bicycle Thieves
- Kind Hearts and Coronets
64. Stray Dog
25. Late Spring
2. The Third Man

50s
- Little Fugitive
- Journey to Italy
2. Rear Window
15. On the Waerfront
- La Pointe Courte
40. Pather Panchali
7. Bridge On The River Kwai
- Elevator to the Gallows
- The Music Room
- Anatomy of a Murder
5. North by Northwest

60s
- The Naked Island
2. Psycho
- La Notte
45. Last Year at Marienbad
- Lola
80. La Jetee
- L'Eclisse
7. Lawrence of Arabia
23. High and Low
36. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
62. Onibaba
- Le Bonheur
22. For a Few Dollars More
- Alphaville
41. Pierrot Le Fou
37. The Sound of Music
- Closely Watched Trains
- Au Hasard Balthazar
86. Blow-up
45. Bonnie and Clyde
6. The Graduate
- Stolen Kisses
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Kes
- The Color of Pomegranates

70s
- A Touch of Zen
22. McCabe and Mrs Miller
- Cabaret
1. The Godfather
- Le Cousin Jules (doc)
72. Don't Look Now
58. Badlands
6. Chinatown
- The Passenger
16. Barry Lyndon
45. The Mirror
9. Apocalypse Now
5. Alien

80s
37. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
6. Blade Runner (Director's Cut)
29. The King of Comedy
39. Paris, Texas
95. Stranger Than Paradise
- Taipei Story
- Withnail & I
- Landscape in the Mist
- A Short Film About Killing

90s
- Days of Being Wild
- The Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse
- Rebels of the Neon God
84. The Player
- Vive L'Amour
33. Trainspotting
- Flowers of Shanghai
18. Saving Private Ryan

[Robert the List]

90. In the Mood for Love 2000 Hong Kong Wong Kar-Wai

Just a gorgeous film. Wong creates a different version of his sumptuous look and vibe, this time set to the rhythm of a recurring gentle and wistful musical refrain in the vein of a ballroom dance.

Wikipedia:
“In the Mood for Love (Chinese: 花樣年華; Chinese: Prime; lit. 'Flower-like period', 'the best years of one's youth') is a 2000 romantic drama film written, directed and produced by Wong Kar-wai. A co-production between Hong Kong and France, it portrays a man (Tony Leung) and a woman (Maggie Cheung) in 1962 whose spouses have an affair together and who slowly develop feelings for each other. It forms the second part of an informal trilogy, alongside Days of Being Wild and 2046.
…Title
The film's original Chinese title, meaning "the age of blossoms" or "the flowery years" – a Chinese metaphor for the fleeting time of youth, beauty and love – derives from a song of the same name by Zhou Xuan from a 1946 film. The English title derives from the song "I'm in the Mood for Love". Director Wong had planned to name the film Secrets until listening to the song late in post-production.
Production
Development and pre-production
…By 1998, Wong had developed a concept for his next film Summer in Beijing. Although no script was finalized, he and cameraman Christopher Doyle had been to Tiananmen Square and other areas of the city to do a small amount of unauthorized shooting. Wong told journalists the film was to be a musical and a love story. Wong secured the participation of Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Maggie Cheung to star, and with his background in graphic design, had even made posters for the film. He had begun work on script treatments, which since Days of Being Wild, he tended to treat as only a very loose basis for his work to secure financing, preferring to leave things open to change during the shoot.
…The story would slowly evolve into In the Mood for Love, after transposing its setting away from mainland China and back to 1960s Hong Kong.
…Wong had regarded Days of Being Wild upon its release in 1990 as an artistic success, and had planned a sequel to it. However, his producers had been disappointed by its box-office returns, particularly given that its shoot had been prolonged and expensive…Despite involving many of Hong Kong's top stars, the film's profits had been modest, so Wong was not given the opportunity to follow it up. Yet as he moved on to other films, he had always retained the dream of doing so. With the impossibility of the original idea of Summer in Beijing, he was now able to pursue it.
…The cast of Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung….provided an opportunity to pick up a loose thread of Days of Being Wild, as the actors had appeared in that film, although never together. Leung's few scenes had been left incomplete, awaiting Wong's planned sequel that was never made. …
Filming
Wong's plan to make a film set primarily in Hong Kong did not simplify matters when it came to the shoot. The city's appearance was much changed since the 1960s, and Wong's personal nostalgia for the time added to his desire for historical accuracy. Wong had little taste for working in studio settings, let alone using special effects to imitate the look of past times. …While set in Hong Kong, a portion of the filming (like outdoor and hotel scenes) was shot in less modernized neighborhoods of Bangkok, Thailand. Further, a brief portion later in the film is set in Singapore…In its final sequences, the film also incorporates footage of Angkor Wat, Cambodia, where Leung's character is working as a journalist.
The film took 15 months to shoot. The actors found the process inspiring but demanding. They required a lot of work to understand the times, being slightly younger than Wong and having grown up in a rapidly changing Hong Kong or, in Maggie Cheung's case, partly in the United Kingdom.
…The cinematographer Christopher Doyle, for whom the film was the sixth collaboration with Wong Kar-wai, had to leave when production went over schedule and was replaced by Mark Lee Ping Bin, renowned for his work with Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien. Both DPs are credited equally for the final film. Some scenes in the final cut are thought to have been shot by each, with some critics noting differences between Doyle's more kinetic style as seen in earlier Wong movies, and the more subtle long shots of Lee framing key parts of In the Mood for Love….
Critic Tony Rayns, on the other hand, noted in a commentary on another Wong film that the differing styles of the two cinematographers were blended seamlessly by Wong's own fluid aesthetic. Like all of Wong's previous work, this one was shot on film, not digitally.
Doyle's departure did not result from major artistic arguments with Wong. However, despite his agreement with Wong's spontaneous approach to scripting, he found it frustrating to reshoot many of the key moments over and over in environments throughout Southeast Asia until they felt right to the director. He had to turn down many other projects due to the total commitment, without a clear time limit, required by Wong. Several years later Doyle initially signed on to work on the sequel 2046, but he also abandoned that project halfway through for similar reasons (being replaced by a range of DPs) and has not worked with Wong since. Tony Leung, on the other hand, returned to work on 2046, in which he starred without Maggie Cheung, who made only a brief appearance in already shot footage from In the Mood for Love….Cheung felt In the Mood for Love was the high point of her career, and she has worked much more infrequently since…
Post-production
The final months of production and post-production on In the Mood for Love, a submission to the Cannes Film Festival in May 2000, were notorious for their confusion. The film was barely finished in time for the festival, as would occur again four years later when Wong submitted 2046. Wong continued shooting more and more of In the Mood for Love with the cast and crew as he worked furiously to edit the massive amounts of footage he had shot over the past year. He removed large chunks of the story to strip it down to its most basic element, the relationship between these characters in the 1960s, with brief allusions to earlier and later times. In the meantime, Wong screened brief segments before the festival for journalists and distributors. Despite the general lack of commercial interest in Chinese cinema at the time by North American media corporations, Wong was given a distribution deal for a limited theatrical release in North America on USA Films, based only on a few minutes of footage.
By early 2000, with the deadline for Cannes approaching, Wong was contacted by the director of Cannes, who encouraged him to quickly complete a final cut, and offered a constructive criticism about the title. Although the title in Cantonese and Mandarin is based on a Zhou Xuan song whose English title is translated "Age of Bloom", the international title proved more complex. After discarding Summer in Beijing and A Story of Food, Wong had provisionally settled on Secrets, but Cannes felt this title was not as distinctive as the film Wong was preparing and suggested he should change it.
Finally having completed the cut, but at a loss for titles, Wong was listening to a then-recent album by Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music titled Slave to Love: The Very Best of the Ballads, and noticed a resonance in the song "I'm in the Mood for Love", which shared its title with a popular jazz standard of the mid-20th century. Many of Wong's previous English-language titles had come from pop songs, so he found this title particularly appropriate….
…Critical response
…Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that "in the hands of a hack, In the Mood for Love could have been a snickering sex farce. In the hands of Wong Kar-wai ... the film is alive with delicacy and feeling".
Peter Walker of The Guardian, describing it as his "favourite film", wrote that it provides "profound and moving reflections on life's fundamentals. It's a film about, yes, love; but also betrayal, loss, missed opportunities, memory, the brutality of time's passage, loneliness—the list goes on".
David Parkinson of Empire awarded the film five out of five stars, writing that "the performances are masterly, and the photography beautiful. It's a genuinely romantic romance and makes for sublime cinema".”

Runtime 1 hour 38 minutes
Budget $3m.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8GuedsQnWQ

[Robert the List]

91. Mulholland Drive 2001 USA David Lynch ESSENTIAL

It is one of the great films. I watched in on the big screen recently, and almost every scene, every image individually screamed of iconic status. It’s a gorgeous film to look at. It has an atmosphere of suspense and mystery, and yet it’s interspersed with moments of humour, fear, romance, eroticism, heartbreak. Watts is sensational. I think of her scene in the rehearsal which becomes genuinely erotic. Her heartbreak on seeing her love kissing another woman full on the lips. Oh my god you can feel her pain to the extent that it’s almost comical how much she is hurting. And you see that partly from your own direct view of the girls showing off their lipstick smudged faces in order to deliberately rub Diane's face into the dirt, and party through Watts’ utterly shattered and agonised expression. It’s easy also to recall in detail the couples'' expressions when they are in the theatre. These are all images which are engrained in our brains, our memories, perhaps even more clearly than memories of our own lives.
The first time I watched it, I didn’t feel confused I felt excited. I was buzzing at what I’d just experienced. I didn’t even pick up the dream theory at that point, I just knew that what I’d watched was amazing. Thank you to the ABC exec who turned it down and pointed Lynch back towards the big screen.

Wikipedia:
“Mulholland Drive (stylized as Mulholland Dr.) is a 2001 surrealist neo-noir mystery horror film written and directed by David Lynch. Its plot follows an aspiring actress (Naomi Watts) who arrives in Los Angeles, where she befriends a woman (Laura Harring) who is suffering from amnesia after a car accident. The film follows several other vignettes and characters, including a Hollywood director (Justin Theroux) who encounters mob interference while casting for his latest film. Lynch's tagline for the film is "a love story in the city of dreams".
The film was originally conceived as a television pilot for ABC, with footage shot and edited in 1999 as an open-ended mystery. After viewing Lynch's cut, however, television executives cancelled the proposed TV series. Lynch then secured funding from French production company StudioCanal to make the material into a feature film, writing an ending to the project and filming new material. The resulting surrealist narrative has left the film's events open to interpretation. Lynch declined to offer an explanation, leaving audiences, critics, and even the film's own cast to speculate on its meaning.
….Mulholland Drive is often regarded as Lynch's magnum opus as well as one of the greatest films of all time….
Plot
A woman is about to be shot by her chauffeur, but is saved when a car crashes into them at night on Mulholland Drive. The woman is the sole survivor. Dazed, she hides in a vacant apartment. The next morning, Betty Elms, an aspiring actress from Deep River, Ontario, arrives at the apartment, which her aunt has lent her. She finds the woman, who has amnesia but remembers she is in danger. For convenience, the woman adopts the name "Rita" from a Gilda poster featuring Rita Hayworth. Betty and Rita discover a large quantity of cash and a blue key in Rita's purse.
….(SPOILERS)
Betty and Rita visit Diane Selwyn's apartment, but the occupant recently swapped apartments with Diane. The two break into Diane's new apartment and discover a woman's decomposing corpse in the bed. Horrified, Rita tries to cut her hair off, but Betty persuades her to instead don a blonde wig similar to Betty's own hairstyle….
Diane Selwyn, a depressed and struggling actress who looks exactly like Betty, awakens in the apartment Betty and Rita investigated. Her neighbor visits to pick up her things and warns that detectives are looking for Diane. Diane daydreams about Camilla Rhodes, a successful actress who looks exactly like Rita. She cries after recalling that Camilla broke up with her.
Camilla invites Diane to a party at Adam's house on Mulholland Drive. There, Diane meets Adam's mother, who looks exactly like Betty's landlady. Diane explains that she moved to Los Angeles with money she inherited from her deceased aunt and that she met Camilla when they both auditioned for the lead in The Sylvia North Story…
Diane meets Joe Messing at Winkie's (where a waitress is named "Betty") and hires him to kill Camilla. He promises to leave Diane a blue key as a sign that the job is done. Later, a traumatized Diane stares at the blue key on her coffee table. Terrorized by hallucinations, she runs into her bedroom and shoots herself.
Themes and interpretations
Giving the film only the tagline "A love story in the city of dreams", David Lynch refused to comment on Mulholland Drive's meaning or symbolism, leading to much discussion and multiple interpretations….Justin Theroux said of Lynch's feelings on the multiple meanings people perceive in the film, "I think he's genuinely happy for it to mean anything you want. He loves it when people come up with really bizarre interpretations. David works from his subconscious."
Dreams and alternative realities
An early interpretation of the film uses dream analysis to argue that the first part is a dream of the real Diane Selwyn, who has cast her dream-self as the innocent and hopeful "Betty Elms", reconstructing her history and persona into something like an old Hollywood film. In the dream, Betty is successful, charming, and lives the fantasy life of a soon-to-be-famous actress. The remainder of the film presents Diane's real life, in which she has failed both personally and professionally. She arranges for Camilla, an ex-lover, to be killed, and unable to cope with the guilt, re-imagines her as the dependent, pliable amnesiac Rita. Clues to her inevitable demise, however, continue to appear throughout her dream…
This interpretation was similar to what Naomi Watts construed, when she said in an interview, "I thought Diane was the real character and that Betty was the person she wanted to be and had dreamed up. Rita is the damsel in distress and she's in absolute need of Betty, and Betty controls her as if she were a doll. Rita is Betty's fantasy of who she wants Camilla to be."
…Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune found that "everything in Mulholland Drive is a nightmare. It's a portrayal of the Hollywood golden dream turning rancid, curdling into a poisonous stew of hatred, envy, sleazy compromise and soul-killing failure. This is the underbelly of our glamorous fantasies, and the area Lynch shows here is realistically portrayed.
The Guardian asked six well-known film critics for their own perceptions of the overall meaning in Mulholland Drive. Neil Roberts of The Sun and Tom Charity of Time Out subscribe to the theory that Betty is Diane's projection of a happier life. Roger Ebert and Jonathan Ross seem to accept this interpretation, but both hesitate to overanalyze the film.
…Media theorist Siobhan Lyons similarly disagrees with the dream theory, arguing that it is a "superficial interpretation [which] undermines the strength of the absurdity of reality that often takes place in Lynch's universe." Instead, Lyons posits that Betty and Diane are in fact two different people who happen to look similar, a common motif among Hollywood starlets.
… It was also suggested that the entire film takes place in a dream, yet the identity of the dreamer is unknown. (Phillip Lopate, "Welcome to L. A.” October 4, 2013)
…Repeated references to beds, bedrooms and sleeping represent the influence of dreams. Rita falls asleep several times; in between these episodes, disconnected scenes such as the men having a conversation at Winkie's, Betty's arrival in Los Angeles and the bungled hit take place, suggesting that Rita may be dreaming them.
The opening shot of the film zooms into a bed containing an unknown sleeper, instilling, according to film scholar Ruth Perlmutter, the necessity to question the reality of following events….
…Film theorist David Roche writes that Lynch films do not simply tell detective stories, but rather force the audience into the role of becoming detectives themselves to make sense of the narratives, and that Mulholland Drive, like other Lynch films, frustrates "the spectator's need for a rational diegesis by playing on the spectator's mistake that narration is synonymous with diegesis." In Lynch's films, the spectator is always "one step behind narration" …
…Romantic content
…Betty and Rita were chosen by the Independent Film Channel as the emblematic romantic couple of the 2000s….
…Characters
…Style
…Todd McGowan writes, "One cannot watch a Lynch film the way one watches a standard Hollywood film noir nor in the way that one watches most radical films."[72] Through Lynch's juxtaposition of cliché and surreal, nightmares and fantasies, nonlinear story lines, camera work, sound and lighting, he presents a film that challenges viewers to suspend belief of what they are experiencing.” (Vass, Michael (June 22, 2005). "Cinematic meaning in the work of David Lynch: Revisiting Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive". CineAction (67): 12–25...).
…According to Stephen Dillon, Lynch's use of different camera positions throughout the film, such as hand-held points of view, makes the viewer "identify with the suspense of the character in his or her particular space", but that Lynch at moments also "disconnects the camera from any particular point of view, thereby ungrounding a single or even a human perspective" so that the multiple perspectives keep contexts from merging, significantly troubling "our sense of the individual and the human". (Dillon, Steven (2006). The Solaris Effect: Art and Artifice in Contemporary American Film. University of Texas Press)
…Scholar Curt Hersey recognizes several avant-garde techniques used in the film including lack of transitions, abrupt transitions, motion speed, nontraditional camera movement, computer-generated imagery, nondiegetic images, nonlinear narration and intertextuality. (Hersey, Curt (2002). "Diegetic Breaks and the Avant-Garde". The Journal of Moving Image Studies (1)
……Lynch moves between scenes in the first portion of the film by using panoramic shots of the mountains, palm trees and buildings in Los Angeles. In the darker part of the film, sound transitions to the next scene without a visual reference where it is taking place.
…Production
Development
Originally conceived as a television series, Mulholland Drive began as a 90-minute pilot produced for Touchstone Television and intended for the ABC television network. Tony Krantz, the agent who was responsible for the development of Twin Peaks, was "fired up" about doing another television series. Lynch sold the idea to ABC executives based only on the story of Rita emerging from the car accident with her purse containing $125,000 in cash and the blue key, and Betty trying to help her figure out who she is.
An ABC executive recalled, "…Obviously, we asked, 'What happens next?' And David said, 'You have to buy the pitch for me to tell you.'" Lynch showed ABC a rough cut of the pilot. The person who saw it, according to Lynch, was watching it at six in the morning and was having coffee and standing up. He hated the pilot, and ABC immediately cancelled it…Canal+ wanted to give Lynch money to make it into a feature and it took a year to negotiate. (Woods, Paul, ed. (2000). Weirdsville USA: The Obsessive Universe of David Lynch. Plexus Publishing)…
Casting
…Lynch cast Naomi Watts and Laura Harring by their photographs. He called them in separately for half-hour interviews and told them that he had not seen any of their previous works in film or television. Harring considered it fateful that she was involved in a minor car accident on the way to the first interview, only to learn her character would also be involved in a car accident in the film. (Newman, Bruce (October 10, 2001). "How pair got to intersection of Lynch and 'Mulholland'". U-T San Diego. p. F-6.)…
Filming
Filming for the television pilot began on location in Los Angeles in February 1999 and took six weeks. Ultimately, the network was unhappy with the pilot and decided not to place it on its schedule. Objections included the nonlinear storyline, the ages of Harring and Watts (whom they considered too old), cigarette smoking by Ann Miller's character and a close-frame shot of dog feces in one scene. Lynch remembered, "All I know is, I loved making it, ABC hated it, and I don't like the cut I turned in. I agreed with ABC that the longer cut was too slow, but I was forced to butcher it because we had a deadline…One night, I sat down, the ideas came in, and it was a most beautiful experience. Everything was seen from a different angle ... Now, looking back, I see that [the film] always wanted to be this way. It just took this strange beginning to cause it to be what it is.” David Lynch, 2001 (Macaulay, Scott (October 2001). "The dream factory". FilmMaker. 1 (10): 64–67.).
…Watts was relieved that the pilot was dropped by ABC. She found Betty too one-dimensional without the darker portion of the film that was put together afterward….
Theroux described approaching filming without entirely understanding the plot: "... David welcomes questions, but he won't answer any of them ... You work kind of half-blindfolded. If he were a first-time director and hadn't demonstrated any command of this method, I'd probably have reservations. But it obviously works for him." (Arnold, Gary (October 12, 2001). "Smoke and mirrors; Director Lynch keeps actor Theroux guessing". The Washington Times. p. B5.)
…Watts stated that she tried to bluff Lynch by pretending she had the plot figured out, and that he delighted in the cast's frustration. (David, Anna (November 2001). "Twin Piques". Premiere. 3 (15): 80–81.)…
Soundtrack
“The album progresses much like a typical Lynch film, opening with a quick, pleasant Jitterbug and then slowly delving into darker string passages, the twangy guitar sounds of '50s diner music and, finally, the layered, disturbing, often confusing underbelly of the score.” Neil Shurley, 2002
The soundtrack of Mulholland Drive was supervised by Angelo Badalamenti, who collaborated on previous Lynch projects Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks…
…At the hinge of the film is a scene in an unusual late night theater called Club Silencio where a performer announces "No hay banda (there is no band) ... but yet we hear a band", variated between English, Spanish and French. Described as "the most original and stunning sequence in an original and stunning film" (Nochimson, Martha (Autumn 2002). "Mulholland Drive by David Lynch". Film Quarterly. 1 (56): 37–45.)
…Del Rio, who popularized the Spanish version and who received her first recording contract on the basis of the song, stated that Lynch flew to Nashville where she was living, and she sang the song for him once and did not know he was recording her. Lynch wrote a part for her in the film and used the version she sang for him in Nashville.
The song tragically serenades the lovers Betty and Rita, who sit spellbound and weeping, moments before their relationship disappears and is replaced by Diane and Camilla's dysfunction. According to one film scholar, the song and the entire theater scene marks the disintegration of Betty's and Rita's personalities, as well as their relationship. (Nochimson)
…Release and reception
Mulholland Drive premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival in May to major critical acclaim…
..Since its release, Mulholland Drive has received "both some of the harshest epithets and some of the most lavish praise in recent cinematic history". (Lentzner, Jay R.; Ross, Donald R. (2005). "The Dreams That Blister Sleep: Latent Content and Cinematic Form in Mulholland Drive". American Imago. 62: 101–123.)
…Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, who had often been dismissive of Lynch's work, awarded the film four stars out of four, writing, "David Lynch has been working toward Mulholland Drive all of his career, and now that he's arrived there I forgive him for Wild at Heart and even Lost Highway….The movie is a surrealist dreamscape in the form of a Hollywood film noir, and the less sense it makes, the more we can't stop watching it".
…Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "exhilarating ... for its dreamlike images and fierce, frequently reckless imagination" and added, "there's a mesmerizing quality to its languid pace, its sense of foreboding and its lost-in-time atmosphere ... it holds us, spellbound and amused, for all of its loony and luscious, exasperating 146 minutes [and] proves that Lynch is in solid form—and still an expert at pricking our nerves".
…A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that, while some might consider the plot an "offense against narrative order", the film is "an intoxicating liberation from sense, with moments of feeling all the more powerful for seeming to emerge from the murky night world of the unconscious".
…Among detractors, Rex Reed of The New York Observer said that it was the worst film he has seen in 2001, calling it "a load of moronic and incoherent garbage".
….Film theorist Ray Carney notes, "You wouldn't need all the emotional back-flips and narrative trap doors if you had anything to say. You wouldn't need doppelgangers and shadow-figures if your characters had souls." (Carney, Ray (2004). "Mulholland Drive and "puzzle films"". Boston University.)”

Run time 2 hours 27 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZJ487oJlY

[Robert the List]

92. Donnie Darko 2001 USA Richard Kelly

This film splits opinions, but I absolutely love it. I just don’t understand how Kelly hasn’t had a bigger career since. As he wanted, it’s captivating from the first shot and the first sound. As a viewer I find myself transfixed from that moment. The cameras Kelly chose look great. The sound track’s great. Acting. The story hooks you. The 1988 setting just works. It’s a mystery, a comedy, a suspense. It’s just terrific.

Wikipedia:
“Donnie Darko is a 2001 American science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly, and produced by Flower Films. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, Mary McDonnell, Katharine Ross, Patrick Swayze, and (Maggie Gyllenhaal).
Set in October 1988, the film follows Donnie Darko (J Gyllenhaal), an emotionally troubled teenager who inadvertently escapes a bizarre accident by sleepwalking. He has visions of Frank, a mysterious figure in a rabbit costume who informs him that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds.
Development began in late 1997 when Kelly had graduated from film school and started writing scripts. He took an early idea of a jet engine falling onto a house with no one knowing its origin and built the story around it. Kelly insisted on directing the film himself and struggled to secure backing from producers until 2000, when Pandora Cinema and Barrymore's Flower Films agreed to produce it on a $4.5 million budget. Filming took 28 days in the summer of 2000, mostly in California.
The soundtrack features a cover of "Mad World" by Tears for Fears...
Donnie Darko premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2001, followed by a limited theatrical release on October 26. Because the film's advertising featured a crashing plane and the September 11 attacks had occurred a month and a half before, it was scarcely advertised.
This affected its box office performance and it grossed just $517,375 in its initial run. However, the film gained a cult following…It was listed No. 2 in Empire's "50 Greatest Independent Films of All Time"…
Plot
On October 2, 1988, troubled teenager Donald "Donnie" Darko sleepwalks outside, led by a mysterious voice. Once outside, he meets a figure named Frank in a monstrous rabbit costume. Frank tells Donnie that the world will end in precisely 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. Donnie wakes up the next morning on the green of a local golf course and returns home to discover a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom. His older sister Elizabeth tells him the FAA investigators do not know its origin.
Over the next several days, Donnie continues to have visions of Frank, and his parents, Eddie and Rose, send him to psychotherapist Dr. Thurman. Thurman believes Donnie is detached from reality and that his visions of Frank are "daylight hallucinations," symptomatic of paranoid schizophrenia. Frank asks Donnie if he believes in time travel, and Donnie in turn asks his science teacher, Dr. Kenneth Monnitoff. Monnitoff gives Donnie The Philosophy of Time Travel, a book written by Roberta Sparrow, a former science teacher at the school who is now a seemingly senile old woman living outside of town, known to the local teenagers as Grandma Death. Donnie also starts dating Gretchen Ross, who has recently moved into town with her mother under a new identity to escape her violent stepfather.
Frank begins to influence Donnie's actions through his sleepwalking episodes, including causing him to flood his high school by breaking a water main.
Gym teacher Kitty Farmer…begins teaching "attitude lessons" taken from local motivational speaker Jim Cunningham, but Donnie rebels against these, leading to friction between Kitty and Rose.
Kitty arranges for Cunningham to speak at a school assembly, where Donnie insults him. He later finds Cunningham's wallet and address, and Frank suggests setting his house on fire. Firefighters discover a hoard of child pornography there. Cunningham is arrested, and Kitty, who wishes to testify in his defense, asks Rose to chaperone their daughters' dance troupe on its trip to Los Angeles.
With Rose in Los Angeles and Eddie away for business, Donnie and Elizabeth hold a Halloween costume party to celebrate Elizabeth's acceptance to Harvard. At the party, Gretchen…and Donnie have sex for the first time. When Donnie realizes that Frank's prophesied end of the world is only hours away, he takes Gretchen and two other friends to see Sparrow….an oncoming car runs over Gretchen, killing her. The driver turns out to be Elizabeth's boyfriend, Frank Anderson, wearing the same rabbit costume from Donnie's visions. Donnie shoots Frank in the eye with his father's gun and walks home carrying Gretchen's body.
Donnie returns home as a vortex forms over his house. He borrows one of his parents' cars, loads Gretchen's body into it, and drives to a nearby ridge that overlooks the town.
There, he watches as the plane carrying Rose and the dance troupe home from Los Angeles gets caught in the vortex's wake, violently ripping off one of its engines and sending it back in time.
Events of the previous 28 days unwind.
Donnie wakes up in his bedroom, recognizes the date is October 2, and laughs as the jet engine falls into his bedroom, crushing him.
Around town, those whose lives Donnie would have touched wake up from troubled dreams. Gretchen rides by the Darko home the following day and learns of Donnie's death. Gretchen asks the neighbor, "What was his name?" Gretchen and Rose exchange glances and wave as if they know each other but cannot remember from where.
Production
Writing
…in…October 1998…Kelly….wrote Donnie Darko in 28 days, the same time period as the film. The time of year influenced Kelly to set the film around Halloween.
Kelly set out to write something "ambitious, personal, and nostalgic" about the 1980s which "pushed the envelope by combining science fiction with a coming-of-age tale". (Korsner, Jason (October 25, 2002). "Movies – Richard Kelly – Donnie Darko". BBC News)
…Kelly summarized the script was to be "an amusing and poignant recollection of suburban America in the Reagan era". (Hoad, Phil (December 12, 2016). "How we made Donnie Darko". The Guardian.)
He recalled a news story that he had read as a child, which he later called an urban legend, about a large piece of ice falling from the wing of a plane and crashing through a boy's bedroom, who was not there at the time and thus escaped death.
Kelly used this to develop an initial idea of a jet engine falling onto a house and no one could determine its origin. He then built the rest of the script with the aim of resolving the mystery at the end while taking a "most interesting voyage" to get there, although at this point he knew the plane was to be one that Donnie's mother was on and was from a different dimension. (Kelly, Richard (2003). The Donnie Darko Book. Faber and Faber.)
He based the film's concept of time travel and alternate universes from reading A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking….
There are some autobiographical links with Kelly and the film…The word "****-ass", used in the Darko family dinner scene, was something that two of Kelly's film school friends used during their occasional exchange of insults….
Development
Kelly knew that the film's complicated story would be difficult to pitch to producers without a script, so he had producers read it first before discussing it with them further. While pitching the script, Kelly and McKittrick insisted that Kelly direct the film, which hindered its chances at being picked up. Kelly recalled 1999 being a year of "meeting after meeting", all of which ended in rejection, and at this point declared the film "dead". McKittrick said Donnie Darko was "the challenging script in town that everybody wanted to make, but was too afraid to shoot".(Piccalo, Gina (October 26, 2001). "'Darko' Hard to Sell, Quick to Shoot". Los Angeles Times.)
Drew Barrymore agreed to finance the film's production through her company, Flower Films.
A turning point arrived when agents John Campisi and Rob Paris at the Creative Artists Agency took an interest in the script and signed Kelly on.. This led to further meetings with several prominent individuals, including Francis Ford Coppola…Kelly's meeting with Coppola was particularly influential, as Coppola drew his attention to one of Karen's lines after she is fired—"The kids have to figure it all out these days, because the parents, they don't have a clue"—and Kelly recalled: "He slid the binder down the big table and very dramatically said: 'That's what your whole movie's about right there.'"
Early on Vince Vaughn was offered the role of Donnie, but he turned it down as he felt he was too old for the part. Mark Wahlberg was also approached, but he insisted that he should play Donnie with a lisp.
…Drew Barrymore…agreed to play as Karen, and (her) Flower Films agreed to increase the budget to $4.5 million…After securing enough financial backing, pre-production accelerated and filming was booked for the summer of 2000 and scheduled to accommodate Barrymore, who had just one week's availability.…Gyllenhaal, who was in Los Angeles auditioning for parts, was "mesmerised" by the script and recalled pulling over the side of the road to finish reading it….Gyllenhaal also had the idea to have his real-life sister Maggie star as Elizabeth Darko.
Design
…The film was publicized at the Sundance Film Festival as being the first to feature significant digital effects. Kelly wanted to use them only "when absolutely necessary" and have them relate to the story, such as the water barrier seen between Donnie and Frank in his bathroom…
Filming
…Filming was completed in 28 days, the same length of time as the film's events, in July and August 2000. Most of the film was shot in Long Beach, California; Kelly was uninterested in shooting elsewhere because he wanted to portray a strong suburban feel….The opening scene with Donnie waking up was the first to be filmed; it was shot at sunrise on the Angeles Crest Highway….
Production designer Alex Hammond bought the jet engine used in the film for $10,000. The scene where it falls onto Donnie's bedroom was done in one shot. The shell of it was rigged above the set and sent through using an air pressure gun.
…Kelly's goal was to "seduce the audience" from the film's opening shot.
…The film was shot with a Panavision Panastar camera and in anamorphic format, which involves filming in widescreen onto standard 35 mm film. Despite its setbacks and the need to have twice as much light, Kelly was adamant.
Soundtrack
…The film's opening sequence is set to "The Killing Moon" by Echo & the Bunnymen. The continuous shot of introduction of Donnie's high school prominently features the song "Head over Heels" by Tears for Fears. Samantha's dance group "Sparkle Motion" performs to "Notorious" by Duran Duran. When the scene was originally shot, the group danced to "West End Girls" by Pet Shop Boys. However, the rights to the song could not be obtained for the final release. …"Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division also appears in the film diegetically during the party and shots of Donnie and Gretchen upstairs. Despite the film being set in 1988, the version played was not released until 1995. In the director's cut, the music in the opening sequence is replaced by "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS… and "The Killing Moon" is played as Gretchen and Donnie return to the party from Donnie's parents' room.
The film's end sequence features a piano-driven cover of "Mad World" by English new wave group Tears for Fears, sung by American musician Gary Jules, a schoolfriend of Andrews.
Release…
…Kelly said it took around six months to secure a theatrical release…Donnie firing a gun became one of Kelly's biggest problems while finding a distributor, as the Columbine High School massacre from 1999 raised concerns of the film promoting teenage suicide…. The licensed songs in the film also presented problems as they had yet to be paid for, causing a risk of them being removed for a wide release. Kelly was also advised to cut 30 minutes from the film….
Donnie Darko was theatrically released from October 26, 2001, to its peak of 58 theaters across the United States…The film was released six weeks after the September 11 attacks and its trailer featured an accident involving an aircraft, which affected its chances of box office success….Despite its initial poor box office showing, the film attracted a devoted fan base and gained a cult following…
Director's cut
The idea to produce a director's cut of the film originated in late 2003, when Kelly and Berney attended the first-anniversary screening at the Pioneer Theatre in New York City. Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut premiered on May 29, 2004, at the Seattle International Film Festival…This cut includes 20 minutes of extra footage and an altered soundtrack….”

Runtime: 1 hour 53 minutes (original theatrical) 2 hours 13 minutes (director’s cut)
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzLn8sYeM9o

Full movie (director’s cut): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EYSQ_hWWcY

[Robert the List]

93. Uzak 2002 Turkiye Nuri Bilge Ceylan ESSENTIAL

It’s a slow cinema masterpiece. Very little happens, and much of it is one or both of the main characters just sitting around the flat watching telly or looking out of the window. Sometimes going for a walk. But it’s just absorbing. Some stunning camerawork.

Wikipedia:

“Uzak (…Distant in North America) is a 2002 Turkish drama film written, produced, shot and directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan….

Plot
Yusuf, a young factory worker who recently lost his job, travels to Istanbul to stay with Mahmut, one of his relatives, while looking for a job. Mahmut is a rather wealthy and intellectual photographer, whereas Yusuf is almost illiterate, uneducated, and unsophisticated. The two do not get along well. Yusuf assumes that he will easily find work as a sailor but there are no jobs, and he has no sense of direction or energy. Meanwhile, Mahmut, despite his wealth, is aimless too: his job, which consists of photographing tiles, is dull and inartistic; he can barely express emotions towards his ex-wife or his lover….Mahmut attempts to bond with Yusuf and recapture his love of art by taking him on a drive to photograph the beautiful Turkish countryside…
…Production
Ceylan made the film with a team of 5 people.
Uzak was the last film that the actor Mehmet Emin Toprak would be involved with, as he died in a car accident soon after filming was completed. He was 28 years old.
Reception
…Tom Dawson of BBC describes the film as "richly contemplative and languid filmmaking" and added "Few recent films have been so accomplished in capturing the way people drift through their lives, unable to communicate their emotions and feelings."
In 2019, director Andrew Haigh named it as the best film of the 21st century…”.

Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJKIypY3P-g

[Robert the List]

LIST ABANDONED DUE TO LACK OF INTEREST.

[Robert the List]

94. No Country for Old Men 2007 USA Joel and Ethan Cohen

Wikipedia:
“No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American neo-Western crime thriller film written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin, the film is set in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. The film revisits the themes of fate, conscience, and circumstance…The film follows three main characters: Llewelyn Moss (Brolin), a Vietnam War veteran and welder who stumbles upon a large sum of money in the desert; Anton Chigurh (Bardem), a hitman who is sent to recover the money; and Ed Tom Bell (Jones), a sheriff investigating the crime. The film also stars Kelly Macdonald as Moss's wife, Carla Jean, and Woody Harrelson as Carson Wells, a bounty hunter seeking Moss and the return of the money, $2 million.
Cast
The role of Llewelyn Moss was originally offered to Heath Ledger, but he turned it down to spend time with his newborn daughter Matilda. Garret Dillahunt was also in the running for the role of Llewelyn Moss, auditioning five times for the role, but instead was offered the part of Wendell, Ed Tom Bell's deputy. Josh Brolin, who was not the Coens' first choice, enlisted the help of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez to make an audition reel…His agent eventually secured a meeting with the Coens and he was given the part.
Javier Bardem nearly withdrew from the role of Anton Chigurh due to issues with scheduling….
Writing
The Coens' script was mostly faithful to the source material….The writing is…notable for its minimal use of dialogue.
Filming
The project was a co-production between Miramax Films and Paramount's classics-based division in a 50/50 partnership, and production was scheduled for May 2006 in New Mexico and Texas. With a total budget of $25 million (at least half spent in New Mexico), production was slated for the New Mexico cities of Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Vegas (which doubled as the border towns of Eagle Pass and Del Rio, Texas), with other scenes shot around the West Texas towns of Sanderson and Marfa.
Coincidentally, Paul Thomas Anderson's film There Will Be Blood – another partnership between Miramax and Paramount which competed with No Country For Old Men at the Academy Awards – was being shot in Marfa simultaneously. The Coen brothers were actually forced to scrap an entire day of filming for No Country For Old Men when preparations for the oil derrick scene in There Will Be Blood nearby produced enough smoke to ruin all potential scenes.
…"Everything's storyboarded before we start shooting," Deakins said in Entertainment Weekly. "In No Country, there's maybe only a dozen shots that are not in the final film. It's that order of planning. And we only shot 250,000 feet, whereas most productions of that size might shoot 700,000 or a million feet of film. It's quite precise, the way they approach everything.”
“We never use a zoom," he said. "I don't even carry a zoom lens with me, unless it's for something very specific." The famous coin-tossing scene between Chigurh and the old gas station clerk is a good example; the camera tracks in so slowly that the audience isn't even aware of the move. "When the camera itself moves forward, the audience is moving, too. You're actually getting closer to somebody or something. It has, to me, a much more powerful effect, because it's a three-dimensional move. A zoom is more like a focusing of attention. You're just standing in the same place and concentrating on one smaller element in the frame. Emotionally, that's a very different effect." [Daly, Steve (January 3, 2008). "THE Q&A: Roger Deakins: Candid Camera Talk"]…
Directing
….They discuss choreographing and directing the film's violent scenes in the Sydney Morning Herald: "'That stuff is such fun to do', the brothers chime in at the mention of their penchant for blood-letting. 'Even Javier would come in by the end of the movie, rub his hands together and say, 'OK, who am I killing today?' adds Joel. 'It's fun to figure out', says Ethan. 'It's fun working out how to choreograph it, how to shoot it, how to engage audiences watching it.'"
…David Denby of The New Yorker criticized the way the Coens "disposed of" Llewelyn Moss. "The Coens, however faithful to the book", he said, "cannot be forgiven for disposing of Llewelyn so casually. After watching this foolhardy but physically gifted and decent guy escape so many traps, we have a great deal invested in him emotionally, and yet he's eliminated, off-camera, by some unknown Mexicans. He doesn't get the dignity of a death scene.”…
Musical score and sound
The Coens minimized the score used in the film, leaving large sections devoid of music….The movie contains a "mere" 16 minutes of music, with several of those in the end credits…
…Dennis Lim of The New York Times stressed that "there is virtually no music on the soundtrack of this tense, methodical thriller. Long passages are entirely wordless. In some of the most gripping sequences what you hear mostly is a suffocating silence." Skip Lievsay, the film's sound editor called this approach "quite a remarkable experiment," and added that "suspense thrillers in Hollywood are traditionally done almost entirely with music. The idea here was to remove the safety net that lets the audience feel like they know what's going to happen. I think it makes the movie much more suspenseful. You're not guided by the score and so you lose that comfort zone." [Lim, Dennis (January 6, 2008). "Exploiting Sound, Exploring Silence". New York Times.]
…Jeffrey Overstreet adds that "the scenes in which Chigurh stalks Moss are as suspenseful as anything the Coens have ever staged. And that has as much to do with what we hear as what we see. No Country for Old Men lacks a traditional soundtrack, but don't say it doesn't have music. The blip-blip-blip of a transponder becomes as frightening as the famous theme from Jaws. The sound of footsteps on the hardwood floors of a hotel hallway are as ominous as the drums of war. When the leather of a briefcase squeaks against the metal of a ventilation shaft, you'll cringe, and the distant echo of a telephone ringing in a hotel lobby will jangle your nerves." [Overstreet, Jeffrey (November 9, 2007). "No Country for Old Men: Movie review". Christianity Today.]
Style
…The novel's motifs of chance, free-will, and predestination are familiar territory for the Coen brothers, who presented similar threads and tapestries of "fate [and] circumstance" in earlier works… Numerous critics cited the importance of chance to both the novel and the film, focusing on Chigurh's fate-deciding coin flipping.
…Variety critic Todd McCarthy describes Chigurh's modus operandi: "Death walks hand in hand with Chigurh wherever he goes, unless he decides otherwise ... f everything you've done in your life has led you to him, he may explain to his about-to-be victims, your time might just have come. 'You don't have to do this,' the innocent invariably insist to a man whose murderous code dictates otherwise. Occasionally, however, he will allow someone to decide his own fate by coin toss, notably in a tense early scene in an old filling station marbled with nervous humor."…
…Themes and analysis
One of the themes in the story involves the tension between destiny and self-determination. According to Richard Gillmore, the main characters are torn between a sense of inevitability, "that the world goes on its way and that it does not have much to do with human desires and concerns", and the notion that our futures are inextricably connected to our own past actions. [Conard, Mark T. (2009), The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers, Part 1, Chapter: "No Country for Old Men: The Coens' Tragic Western", by Gillmore, Richard.]…

Runtime: 2 hours 2 minutes
Budget $25m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38A__WT3-o0

[Robert the List]

95. Wall-E 2008 USA Andrew Stanton

Wikipedia:

"WALL-E…is a 2008 American animated romantic science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Andrew Stanton, produced by Jim Morris, and written by Stanton and Jim Reardon, based on a story by Stanton and Pete Docter….The film follows a solitary robot named WALL-E on a future, uninhabitable, deserted Earth in 2805, left to clean up garbage. He is visited by a robot called EVE sent from the starship Axiom, with whom he falls in love and pursues across the galaxy.
…WALL-E has minimal dialogue in its early sequences; many of the characters in the film do not have voices, but instead communicate with body language and robotic sounds that were designed by Burtt. The film incorporates various topics including consumerism, corporatocracy, nostalgia, waste management, human environmental impact and concerns, obesity/sedentary lifestyles, and global catastrophic risk.
…The film cost $180 million to produce, a record-breaking sum for an animated film at the time.
…In 2021, WALL-E became the second Pixar feature film (after Toy Story), as well as the fourth Pixar film overall, to be selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Production
Design
…Stanton wanted WALL-E to be a box and EVE to be like an egg. WALL-E's eyes were inspired by a pair of binoculars Stanton was given when watching the Oakland Athletics play against the Boston Red Sox. He "missed the entire inning" because he was distracted by them. (Peter Hartlaub June 25, 2008. "Planet WALL-E". San Francisco Chronicle).
…Pixar's studies of trash compactors during their visits to recycling stations inspired his body….The animators wanted him to have elbows, but realized this was unrealistic because he is only designed to pull garbage into his body.
…Stanton wanted EVE to be at the higher end of technology, and asked iPod designer Jonathan Ive to inspect her design. He was very impressed. (Bill Desowitz (April 7, 2008). "Stanton Powers Up WALL•E". Animation World Network.)
…To animate their robots, the film's story crew and animation crew watched a Keaton and a Charlie Chaplin film every day for almost a year, and occasionally a Harold Lloyd picture. Afterwards, the filmmakers knew all emotions could be conveyed silently. [Tasha Robinson (June 26, 2008). "Andrew Stanton". The A.V. Club.]…
…
Themes
The film is recognized as a social criticism. Katherine Ellison asserts that "Americans produce nearly 400 million tons of solid waste per year but recycle less than a third of it, according to a recent Columbia University study."
…
In "WALL-E: from environmental adaption to sentimental nostalgia," Robin Murray and Joseph Heumann explain the important theme of nostalgia in this film. Nostalgia is clearly represented by human artifacts, left behind, that WALL-E collects and cherishes, for example Zippo lighters, hubcaps, and plastic sporks. These modern items that are used out of necessity are made sentimental through the lens of the bleak future of Earth. …WALL-E expresses nostalgia also, by reflecting on romantic themes of older Disney and silent films.
Stanton describes the theme of the film as "irrational love defeats life's programming" [Steve Fritz (July 4, 2008). "How Andrew Stanton & Pixar Created WALL*E – Part II".]…
Technology
…Christian journalist Rod Dreher saw technology as the complicated villain of the film. The humans' artificial lifestyle on the Axiom has separated them from nature, making them "slaves of both technology and their own base appetites, and have lost what makes them human".
…Humans on the ship and on Earth have overused robots and the ultra-modern technology. During the end credits, humans and robots are shown working alongside each other to renew the Earth. "WALL-E is not a Luddite film," he said. "It doesn't demonize technology. It only argues that technology is properly used to help humans cultivate their true nature—that it must be subordinate to human flourishing, and help move that along.” [Rod Dreher (July 5, 2008). ""Wall-E": Aristotelian, crunchy con". Beliefnet]
Religion
The Axiom and EVE have been compared to the legend of Noah's Ark and the dove that Noah sets forth from the Ark.
Stanton, who is a Christian, named EVE after the Biblical figure because WALL-E's loneliness reminded him of Adam, before God created his wife…EVE uses the plant to tell humanity to return to Earth and move away from…the lazy lifestyle…. In cohesion with the classical Christian viewpoint, WALL-E shows that work is what makes humans human.

…Reception
…Critical response
…Richard Corliss of Time named WALL-E his favorite film of 2008 (and later of the decade)…Other critics who named WALL-E their favorite film of 2008 included Tom Charity of CNN, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, A. O. Scott of The New York Times, Christopher Orr of The New Republic, Ty Burr and Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe, Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal, and Anthony Lane of The New Yorker.
…Several conservative commentators criticized the film. Shannen W. Coffin of National Review said that WALL-E is "leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind"….Glenn Beck said that "I can't wait to teach my kids how we've destroyed the Earth … Pixar is teaching. I can't wait. You know if your kid has ever come home and said, 'Dad, how come we use so much styrofoam,' oh, this is the movie for you."


Run time 1 hour 37 minutes
Budget $80
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ1CATNbXg0
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf9ZTdrsEhY

[Robert the List]

Francis Ha (2012) USA

[Robert the List]

96. Embrace of the Serpent 2015 Colombia Ciro Guerra

Wikipedia:
“Embrace of the Serpent (Spanish: El abrazo de la serpiente) is a 2015 internationally co-produced adventure drama film directed by Ciro Guerra, and written by Guerra and Jacques Toulemonde Vidal. Shot almost entirely in black and white…It was inspired by the travel diaries of Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes, and dedicated to lost Amazonian cultures.
…It has received universal acclaim from critics, who praised the cinematography and the story's theme, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and way of life by white colonialism….
Plot
The film tells two stories thirty years apart, both featuring Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and last survivor of his tribe. He travels with two scientists, firstly with the German Theo von Martius in 1909 and then with an American named Evan in 1940, to look for the rare yakruna, a (fictional) sacred plant.
Theo, an ethnographer from Tübingen who has already been residing in the Amazon for several years, is very sick and is travelling by canoe with his field notes and a westernised local named Manduca whom he had saved from enslavement on a rubber plantation. Karamakate prolongs his life, blasting white powder called "the sun's semen”… up his nose, but is reluctant to become involved with a westerner and refuses his money. Theo is searching for yakruna as the only cure for his disease and the three set off in the canoe to search for it.
….Thirty years later an American botanist, Evan, paddles up to a much older Karamakate who has apparently forgotten the customs of his own people. Evan says he is hoping to complete Theo's quest and Karamakate does assist, again reluctantly, saying his knowledge is spent. Evan has a book of Theo's final trek, which his aide had sent back to Europe, as he did not survive the jungle. The book includes an image of Karamakate…
Karamakate agrees to help him only when Evan describes himself as someone who has devoted himself to plants, although Evan's real purpose is actually to secure disease-free rubber trees, since the United States' supplies of rubber from South East Asia had dwindled due to the Japanese wartime advance.
Both expeditions feature a Spanish Catholic Mission by the side of an Amazon tributary, run in 1909 by a sadistic, lone Spanish priest who beats orphan boys for any "pagan" behaviour, and in 1940 by a delusional Brazilian figure who believes he is the Messiah….By now the children of 1909 have grown into disturbed and violent acolytes.
Cast
…After his attempt in reaching out to a variety of indigenous people, it had come to his attention that the older generation were completely detached from the time depicted within the film. Through watching a film over 10 years ago in a workshop with Colombia's Ministry of Culture, Guerra was able to find the perfect actor, Antonio Bolívar. Bolívar's two minute presence in the short film had a great impact on Guerra, encouraging him to pursue appointing him the role of Karamakate as "There was nobody else that could play this guy. He's one of the last Ocaina people remaining. There's only about sixteen of them left."
…The film explores the representation of the first people nations of the Amazon. In the film multiple languages are spoken…The indigenous peoples are shown to have suffered at the hands of colonizers, and Colombian film critic and author Pedro Adrián Zuluaga states that Guerra highlights this by "shooting peripheric geographies... and bringing to the centre of the narrative an unavoidable contradiction between progress and tradition". [Zuluaga, Pedro Adrián; Munoz, Gabriella (December 2018). "Contemporary Colombian cinema: the splintered mirror of a country". Senses of Cinema]
Daniela Berghahn, professor of film studies at the Royal Holloway, University of London, notes how through time-lapse, Guerra highlights the pillaging of the Amazon rain forest by conquistadors, missionaries and rubber barons, and also the enslavement and degradation of the indigenous peoples, who were converted to Christianity — the character Manduca is both enslaved and Westernised — at the cost of their traditions and beliefs.
Similarly, Nicolás Cadena wrote for NACLA that Guerra's filmmaking illustrates how "the white man’s knowledge, expressed through symbols like the compass and the characters of Theo and Evans, extracts the spirit, tradition, and humanity of the indigenous inhabitants much like rubber is extracted from the Amazonian rubber trees". ["Embrace of the Serpent: Reframing the Colombian Amazon". NACLA.]
…
Production
Before production started, the director spent two and a half years researching the Colombian Amazon. They discovered a part of the jungle in the north west that had not yet been heavily affected by tourism or commerce and after gaining permission from the local community, they decided on the location. The pre-production and shooting took place over the course of three months with the help of around 40 people from outside the Amazon and 60 people from indigenous communities within the Amazon. The director extensively collaborated with the community and invited them to participate and collaborate both in front and behind the camera. To avoid any problems caused by the harsh environment, the indigenous people taught the crew how to work with the jungle and performed rituals for spiritual protection. There were no accidents or illnesses and the shooting ran smoothly. Additionally, to improve accuracy, indigenous individuals worked with Guerra to translate and rewrite parts of the script. [Berghahn, Daniela (Winter 2017). "Encounters with Cultural Difference: Cosmopolitanism and Exoticism in Tanna (Martin Butler and Bentley Dean, 2015)…Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media (14): 16–40]
Embrace of the Serpent was filmed in the Amazonía region of Colombia. Seven weeks were spent filming in the Department of Vaupés, and one week in the Department of Guainía. Location details include:
Cerros de Mavicure – three mounds that form part of the westernmost part of the Guiana Shield in northern South America.
Fluvial Star Inírida – a Ramsar Wetland that includes part of the Inírida River.
Vaupés River – tributary of the Amazon River that forms part of the international border between Colombia and Brazil.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack…contains nine songs composed by Nascuy Linares. The film also features The Creation by Joseph Haydn and the participation of Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
Reception
Critical response
…Indiewire's Jessica Kiang…described the character of Karamakate as "an immaculate portrait of the unfathomable loneliness and crushing survivor's guilt that comes with being the last of one's kind".
Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter described the film as "a visually mesmerizing exploration of man, nature and the destructive powers of colonialism"…
Chang of Variety gave a positive review of the film. He wrote: "At once blistering and poetic, not just an ethnographic study but also a striking act of cinematic witness..."…
Response from the indigenous community
The film was well received by the Amazonian community featured in the film. A special screening was held in the jungles of Colombia, in a makeshift cinema. With tribal people from all over the area showing up, not everyone could be seated. After the film finished, they asked for it to be shown again. [Mathiesen, Karl (8 June 2016). "Embrace of the Serpent star: 'My tribe is nearly extinct'". The Guardian.]
Accolades
…The Governor of the Guainía Department decorated Ciro Guerra with the Order of the Inírida Flower for "exalting the respect and value of the indigenous populations, likewise giving the Department recognition for tourism and culture".”

Running time 2 hours 5 minutes
Budget $1.4m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOa9pjl37Lo
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQnwo3vGR_k

[Robert the List]

I haven't checked them all, but hopefully the hyperlinks in the OP to each film should work OK.

I have also removed the dedication to Whitney Houston.

[Robert the List]

I can't do any more. I give you the greatest films list ever. And....tumbleweed.

None of those critics have come up with a list this good. Ebert. None of the directors. Kurosawa (although his is decent, I noticed we have several the same).

The Sight and Sound guys. The guy in Australia with his....1000 movies thing.

None of them. None of them are worth 10p to a pound against my list. And yet here we are. On a movie forum. Movie people. And, not an iota of interest.

You know why? I've said before. I've just strolled in. Some punk who 5 years ago didn't know a thing about classic movies. Who literally thought that there were no films prior to 1940. That's actually true. I started this exercise in the 2010s and worked backwards, and until I got to the 1960s, I assumed that was going to be the final decade on the basis that nothing of any significance had been made prior to that date.

And yet here we are. Just 3 or 4 years later.

Look who's got the list now.

Just feast your eyes on that beauty. Look at it. Look at those films. Cast your glance slowly down that list.

What do you think of that??

Let me know please when you see a bad one on there.

In fact, let me know, when you see one on there that isn't great. Even the ones you might not know, might not even have heard of.

I have. I've heard of them. I've watched them. I found them. Not discovered them, I'm not claiming that. But in my search for the greatest movies, I identified them. And if you doubt their greatness, check them out, Watch them. And judge for yourself. Take that benefit from my work, my research, my analysis. My investigation. And let me know, if you think I've picked out a dud, tell me.

But I think you'll find that I haven't. Every one of those films represents movie greatness. They have made it onto the greatest list of movies ever made.

It was actually the 60s I thought would be the first decade. Incredibly.

I also estimate that when I started my research around 4 years ago, I had heard of something like 34 of the films which are now on my top 100 list, and had watched I think 16 of them.

[Robert the List]

My reviews are mostly appalling.
I will rewatch the films and do proper reviews sometime.
I apologise again for the shockingly inept reviews.

film choices 100/100
film research info 85/100
reviews 15/100

[Robert the List]

97. La La Land 2016 USA Damien Chazelle

It’s not the film that I have as the number one of all time, but if my heart belongs to a film (perhaps even including The Bodyguard) then it belongs to La La Land. Its technical standards have been criticised, I think understandably; there are scenes where Gosling is with his band, that to me just look cheap and tacky. Perhaps this is reflected in the fact that the budget was not exactly astronomical, but it’s still disappointing. That said….who cares? It’s an emotional ride. The last scene…it gets me every time. I’d struggle to think of any movie seen that captures me quite as intently. It’s just magic, and that’s why people go to the movies.

Wikipedia
"La La Land is a 2016 American musical romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle. It stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a struggling jazz pianist and an aspiring actress who meet and fall in love while pursuing their dreams in Los Angeles…
Having been fond of musicals during his time as a drummer, Chazelle first conceptualized the film alongside Justin Hurwitz while attending Harvard University together. …After the success of his film Whiplash (2014), the project was picked up by Summit Entertainment….with the film's score composed by Hurwitz, who also wrote the film's songs with lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and the dance choreography by Mandy Moore.
…The film emerged as a major commercial success, grossing $472 million worldwide on a budget of $30 million, and received widespread critical acclaim, particularly for Chazelle's direction and screenplay, the performances of Gosling and Stone, the score, musical numbers, cinematography, visual style, costumes and production design…
…Pre-production
Chazelle first conceived the idea for the film while attending Harvard University with Justin Hurwitz, the film's composer.
…Chazelle…idea was "to take the old musical but ground it in real life where things don't always exactly work out," and to salute creative people who move to Los Angeles to chase their dreams
[Smith, Nigel M (September 8, 2016). "Damien Chazelle on La La Land: 'Los Angeles is full of people chasing dreams'". The Guardian]
…The style and tone of the film were inspired by Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort…also…Singin' in the Rain…An American in Paris….About An American in Paris, Chazelle commented…
"They're both about the struggle of being an artist and reconciling your dreams with the need to be human. La La Land is just much less angry about it."[ McGovern, Joe (August 30, 2016). "La La Land director on the 'timeless glamour' of Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone". Entertainment Weekly.]
…Casting
…Emma Stone plays Mia, an aspiring actress in Los Angeles. Stone has loved musicals since she saw Les Misérables when she was eight years old. She said "bursting into song has always been a real dream of mine"
…Ryan Gosling plays Sebastian, a jazz pianist…
Filming
From the beginning, Chazelle wanted the film's musical numbers to be filmed "head to toe" and performed in a single take, like those of the 1930s works of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. He also wanted the film to emulate the widescreen, CinemaScope look of 1950s musicals such as It's Always Fair Weather. Consequently, the movie was shot on celluloid 4-perf Super 35mm film (not digitally) with Panavision anamorphic lenses in CinemaScope's 2.55:1 aspect ratio, but not in true CinemaScope as that technology is no longer available.
[Gay, Jason (October 14, 2016). "Emma Stone Takes the Biggest Leap of Her Career With La La Land". Vogue.] ["Shot in CinemaScope, La La Land vibrantly romances the olden days of Hollywood". Kodak]
Chazelle wanted Los Angeles to be the primary setting for his film, commenting that "there is something very poetic about the city I think, about a city that is built by people with these unrealistic dreams and people who kind of just put it all on the line for that."
[Anderson, Ariston (August 31, 2016). "'La La Land': Emma Stone, Director Damien Chazelle Talk Bringing Back Hope in Films". The Hollywood Reporter.]
…
Critical response
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone garnered widespread critical acclaim for their performances, earning them Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress, with Stone winning.
La La Land received widespread critical acclaim, with high praise directed towards Chazelle's direction and screenplay, cinematography, music, the performances of Gosling and Stone and their chemistry.
…Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale…
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave La La Land four stars out of four, describing it as "a hot miracle" and complimenting its musical numbers, particularly the opening scene. He went on to name it his favorite movie of the year…
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian awarded the film five out of five stars, describing it as "a sun-drenched musical masterpiece."
…La La Land's competition for awards and critical attention with the African-American film Moonlight shortly after the election of Donald Trump sharpened the attention on questions of racial sensitivity and unexamined white privilege in the characters of film.
…Kelly Lawler of USA Today noted that Gosling's character has been referred to as a "white savior" by some critics, for "his quest (and eventual success) to save the traditionally black musical genre from extinction, seemingly the only person who can accomplish such a goal."
[Lawler, Kelly (January 11, 2017). "The Oscar race: The case against 'La La Land'". USA Today.]
…The South China Morning Post remarked that aside from its racial treatment of jazz, much of the public criticism was towards the film being "a little dull", the two leads' singing and dancing being considered unexceptional, and the lack of nuance in Stone's character, with Gosling's occasionally seen as insufferable.”

Runtime: 2 hours 8 minutes
Budget: $30m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pdqf4P9MB8

[Robert the List]

98. The Lighthouse 2019 USA Robert Eggers

Stunning to look at, and has some really cool bits.

Wikipedia:

"The Lighthouse is a 2019 film directed and produced by Robert Eggers, from a screenplay he co-wrote with his brother Max Eggers. It stars Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe as nineteenth-century lighthouse keepers in turmoil after being marooned at a remote New England outpost by a wild storm. The film has defied categorization in media, and interpretations of it range among horror film, psychological thriller, or character study, among others.
The idea for the film first emerged from Max Eggers's re-envisioning of Edgar Allan Poe's unfinished short story of the same name. …The Lighthouse draws visually from photography of 1890s New England, maritime-themed French cinema from the 1930s, and symbolist art. Principal photography took place in Nova Scotia, Canada, beginning in April 2018 and lasting slightly over a month. It was shot in black-and-white, with a nearly-square 1.19:1 aspect ratio.
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States by A24 on October 18, 2019. It…received widespread critical acclaim, with particular praise for the direction, visuals, and performances of Dafoe and Pattinson. …
Production
Development
…One story that caught the director's attention in his initial research was a nineteenth-century myth of an incident at Smalls Lighthouse in Wales, wherein one of two wickies, both named Thomas, died while trapped at the outpost by a destructive storm. That both men were named Thomas, Robert recalled, compelled him to create a film with an underlying story of identity.[8]
…Robert immersed himself in photos of 1890s New England, 1930s maritime-themed French films, and symbolist art for visual reference.[6][8]The Eggers' study of literature with maritime and surrealist themes informed the speech of the characters in The Lighthouse.[9]
…Another force shaping The Lighthouse's creative direction was the Eggers' theater background. The two men sourced elements from playwrights that influenced their work as young teens, chiefly artists such as Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Sam Shepard whose writings examine male-centric perspectives of existential crises and psychosis.[6]
Casting
…Anya Taylor-Joy, who starred in Eggers's directorial debut The Witch, was eager to work with him again and asked if she could play the mermaid. Eggers replied that there was not a role for her and she "really should not be this particular mermaid". Taylor-Joy then jokingly suggested that she could play a seagull instead.[14]

Filming
A lighthouse
The Lighthouse film set, Nova Scotia, Canada
Because the filmmakers could not find a lighthouse suitable for the needs of the production, they constructed a 70-foot (20-meter) lighthouse set on Cape Forchu in Leif Erikson Park in Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia. Most of the interiors were filmed on sets constructed inside a hangar at Yarmouth Airport and in soundstages near Halifax. Principal photography…lasted approximately 35 days, which was slightly over schedule, as a result of unforeseen circumstances on set….
….Initially, Eggers wanted to use a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, believing it would sufficiently capture the confined sets and the lighthouse's vertical orientation, but he reconsidered when Blaschke suggested, as a joke, instead using the 1.19:1 aspect ratio that was used fleetingly during the film industry's transition to sound. After further analysis of period films for inspiration, chiefly the German thriller M (1931), Blaschke determined that the 1.19:1 format endowed footage with a greater sense of confinement, while amplifying the physical isolation of the characters in their environment, and the film was shot in that ratio.[17] The film was shot on 35mm film using Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2 cameras equipped with vintage Bausch and Lomb Baltar lenses. Occasionally, to capture flashback sequences or scenes of heightened conflict, specialized lenses refurbished by Panavision were used.[17]
The onscreen universe was given a highly saturated visual palette evocative of orthochromatic film. Creating the spectrum of textures with a sufficient antique quality was one of Blaschke's initial responsibilities during the pre-production. He developed a process to test the utility of digital footage in color negative film stock, first with Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 film, before selecting Eastman Double-X 5222 stock based on the composition produced.[23]
Blaschke resumed the testing after securing the Baltar lenses for the shoot, this time with an arrangement of shortpass filters—a class of scientific optical filters—and photographic filters most sensitive to blue-green and ultraviolet light.[23]
The specifications were so unusual that it required the manufacture of custom sets of filters by Schneider Kreuznach, which was a costly, month-long endeavor. Blaschke recalled, "I sketched a desired spectrograph on graph paper, indicating a complete elimination of all light beyond 570 nanometers [mid-yellow] while allowing all shorter wavelengths to pass freely. At that point, I was unsure of the true light loss and I was pretty nervous about it."[17]
Music and sound design
Main article: The Lighthouse (soundtrack)
Mark Korven provided the musical score for The Lighthouse. He previously scored for Eggers's directorial debut The Witch which accompanied a string-based score. Eggers wanted to deviate from using strings throughout the score, and instead use horns, pipes, and conch shells,[26] evoking the mythology of the sea in an aleatoric manner through textures and instrumentation.[27][28] Eggers then sent a playlist that contained classic horror scores, ancient Greek conch shell music, and compositions of Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi.[29][30]
Apart from the aforementioned instruments, the musical palette included cello, double bass, brass, percussion, woodwinds and instruments Korven had experimented, with an apprehension engine also being used as the score.[27]…
Analysis
Genre
The Lighthouse has been described as a horror film….and as a psychological thriller….
Psychoanalysis
Eggers said the film's subtext was influenced by Sigmund Freud and he hoped that "it's a movie where both Jung and Freud would be furiously eating their popcorn".[40][41]
Given his simultaneous fear and admiration of the senior lighthouse keeper, the younger keeper displays an Oedipal fixation. Pattinson commented on the father-son dynamic in the film by stating that "I was pretty conscious of how I wanted the relationship to come across. In a lot of ways, he sort of wants a daddy" and that, as the film progresses, his character is increasingly "looking for Willem [Dafoe]'s validation" as both a boss and a father-figure.[41][42]
The film also echoes the Jungian archetype of the shadow, the unknown "dark side" or blind spot of one's personality….
Mythology
In the film, the senior lighthouse keeper Thomas warns the younger keeper Ephraim of a maritime superstition that is bad luck to kill a seabird, specifically an Albatross. However, after getting irritated by one, Ephraim kills a seabird and brings on a storm that traps the two men on the island. At the end of the film, Ephraim is seen on the ground with seagulls plucking out his organs. This plot invokes the 1798 poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in which a mariner kills an Albatross and brings disaster to his ship.[43]
The fate of the younger lighthouse keeper also invokes the myth of Prometheus, as, after finally reaching the light and learning what is in it, he falls down the stairs of the lighthouse and his organs are plucked out by seagulls. On the other hand, the older keeper was modeled on Proteus, a "prophecy-telling ocean god who serves Poseidon", as he "makes that uncannily accurate prediction for how Ephraim will die at the end of the movie"[40] and is even seen with tentacles and sea creatures stuck to his body in one of the younger man's hallucinations….
Box office
The film grossed $10.9 million in the United States and $7.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide box-office total of $18.3 million….
…Owen Gleiberman of Variety called the film "darkly exciting" and "made with extraordinary skill," …Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph gave the film a perfect score, calling Dafoe's performance "astounding" and comparing Pattinson's to that of Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, saying, "that's no comparison to make lightly, but everything about The Lighthouse lands with a crash. It's cinema to make your head and soul ring."[65]
….Dana Stevens of Slate concluded her review by stating that… by the end, she became "impatient" with Eggers' "reliance on atmosphere [...] to take the place of story" and found herself "identifying with the stranded seafarers: I desperately wanted to get out."[70]



[6] Fear, David (October 25, 2019). "Drunken Sailors and Movie Stars: Robert Eggers on Making 'The Lighthouse'". Rolling Stone.
[8] Wilkinson, Alissa (October 15, 2019). "The Witch director Robert Eggers spills his beans about The Lighthouse". Vox
[9] Bloomer, Jeffrey (October 22, 2019). "The Director of The Lighthouse Spills a Few Beans About His Movie's Puzzling Ending". Slate
[14] Starkey, Adam (April 14, 2022). "Anya Taylor-Joy asked to play The Lighthouse mermaid but the director said no". NME. Retrieved April 17, 2022.
[17] Thomson, Patricia (January 23, 2020). "Stormy Isle: The Lighthouse". American Cinematographer. Archived from the original on March 7, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2022.
[23] "Kodak B&W; film delivers a unique visual signature to Robert Eggers' acclaimed fantasy horror 'The Lighthouse'". Kodak. May 16, 2019. Archived from the original on December 24, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2022.
[26] Erbland, Kate (September 25, 2019). "'The Lighthouse' Exclusive: Try Staying Sane Listening to Mark Korven's Original Score". IndieWire. Archived from the original on June 8, 2023. Retrieved June 8, 2023.
[27] Macaulay, Scott (December 10, 2019). "Sonic Menace: Composer Mark Korven on Scoring Robert Eggers's The Lighthouse". Filmmaker Magazine. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved June 8, 2023.
[28] "Robert Eggers' of The Lighthouse Q+A | Motion Picture Soundtrack Release". Flaunt Magazine. January 18, 2017. Archived from the original on June 8, 2023. Retrieved June 8, 2023.
[29] "Mark Korven on horror, Robert Eggers and the brilliance of Bach". Far Out Magazine. January 31, 2023. Archived from the original on June 8, 2023. Retrieved June 8, 2023.
[30] Scorer, The Film (December 5, 2021). "An Interview with Mark Korven". The Film Scorer. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved June 8, 2023.
[40] Joho, Jess (October 20, 2019). "What the hell did 'The Lighthouse' even mean?". Mashable. Archived from the original on March 29, 2020. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
[41] Jacobs, Matthew (October 20, 2019). "'He Sort Of Wants A Daddy': Decoding The Homoeroticism In 'The Lighthouse'". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on June 25, 2021. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
[42] Fandango All Access (October 29, 2019). "Robert Pattinson & Robert Eggers Break Down a Scene from 'The Lighthouse'". Archived from the original on January 27, 2020. Retrieved March 28, 2020 – via Youtube.
[43] Fletcher, Rosie (February 1, 2020). "The Lighthouse: the myths and archetypes behind the movie explained". Den of Geek. Retrieved June 18, 2023.
[65] Collin, Robbie (May 19, 2019). "The Lighthouse, review: 'A film that will make your head and soul ring'". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on June 10, 2019. Retrieved September 15, 2019.
[70] Stevens, Dana (October 16, 2019). "The Lighthouse Is Both Artsy and Fartsy". Slate. Archived from the original on February 25, 2021. Retrieved June 24, 2021.

Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes
Budget $11m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyag7lR8CPA
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhHCa_5asAM

[Robert the List]

99. Apollo 11 (doc) 2019 USA Todd Douglas Miller

A fascinating insight into the incredible feat of making it to the moon against the odds. Equally fascinating look at 1960s America at a landmark moment in the history of humankind.

Wikipedia:
“Apollo 11 is a 2019 American documentary film edited, produced, and directed by Todd Douglas Miller. It focuses on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, the first spaceflight to land humans on the Moon. The film consists solely of archival footage, including 70 mm film previously unreleased to the public, and does not feature narration, interviews, or modern recreations. The Saturn V rocket, Apollo 11 crew (consisting of Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins), and Apollo program Earth-based mission operations engineers are prominently featured in the film….
Production
Video from the National Archives
In late 2016, Todd Douglas Miller had recently completed work on The Last Steps, a documentary short about Apollo 17, when British archival producer and film editor Stephen Slater suggested making a similarly themed documentary for the upcoming 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. CNN Films subsequently became a partner in the project.
Miller's conception of the film was centered on a direct cinema approach. The final film contains no voice-over narration or interviews beyond what was available in the contemporary source material. Portions of the mission are illustrated by animated graphics depicting the parts of the Apollo spacecraft as line drawings, the designs of which are based on the cel-animated graphics in Theo Kamecke's 1971 documentary Moonwalk One. In addition, three wordless biographical sequences summarize the lives of Edwin Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins up to 1969 by means of family photographs and archive footage.
In May 2017, cooperation between Miller's production team, NASA, and the National Archives and Records Administration resulted in the discovery of unreleased 70 mm footage from the preparation, launch, mission control operations, recovery, and post flight activities of Apollo 11. The large-format footage includes scenes from Launch Complex 39, spectators present for the launch, the launch of the Saturn V rocket, the recovery of the astronauts and the Apollo 11 command module Columbia, and post-mission activities aboard the USS Hornet. The film incorporates this footage alongside 35 mm and 16 mm footage, still photography, and closed-circuit television footage.
Apollo 11: First Steps Edition, a 47-minute edit of the film for exhibition in museum IMAX theaters, includes extended large-format scenes that differ from the full-length documentary.
…
In addition to hundreds of hours of video, the production team sourced over 11,000 hours of audio recordings…
Accuracy
The film took a few liberties with the timeline of the mission. For example, an incident occurred during the return voyage—on day 8 of the mission—involving the disconnection of Michael Collins's biomedical sensor (his impedance pneumograph), which led him to wisecrack, "I promise to let you know if I stop breathing,"[14] but this event is depicted in the film as happening during the approach to the Moon before the separation of the command module Columbia and Lunar Module Eagle.

Reception
Box office
Its opening weekend in theaters, Apollo 11 grossed $1.6 million from 120 IMAX theaters (a per-venue gross of $13,392), finishing 15th at the box office.[21] The following weekend, the film gave up most of its IMAX venues to newcomer Captain Marvel, but played in a total of 405 traditional theaters, and made $1.3 million, finishing 10th at the box office.[22] The film continued to hold well its third weekend of release, grossing $1.2 million from 588 theaters (a drop of just 2% from the weekend before).[23]

Critical response
…David Ehrlich of IndieWire complimented Miller's ability to make the Moon landing sequence in the film feel unique and thrilling, and stated that the clarity of the footage "takes your breath away".[26]
…Glenn Kenny of The New York Times called the film "entirely awe-inspiring", and wrote, "Although we know how the mission turns out, the movie generates and maintains suspense. And it rekindles a crazy sense of wonder at, among other things, what one can do practically with trigonometry."[1][note 1]
Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film four-out-of-four stars, calling it "an adrenaline shot of wonder and skill. [...] Films this completely imagined and ecstatically realized are so rare that when one comes along, it makes most other movies, even the good ones, seem underachieving. Any information that you happen to absorb while viewing Apollo 11 is secondary to the visceral experience of looking at it and listening to it."[28]

Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Co8Z8BQgWc
Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgUYurzK-tM


…References
[1]Kenny, Glenn (February 27, 2019). "'Apollo 11' Review: The 1969 Moon Mission Still Has the Power to Thrill". The New York Times. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
[14] "Apollo 11: Day 8, part 2: More Television and Stowage for Re-entry". NASA. August 6, 2019.
[21] D'Alessandro, Anthony (March 3, 2019). "'Dragon 3' Keeps The Fire Burning At No. 1 With $30M Second Weekend; 'Madea' Mints $27M". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
[22] D'Alessandro, Anthony (March 11, 2019). "'Captain Marvel' Tramples Internet Trolls & Skyrockets To $160M Opening". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved March 11, 2019.
[23] D'Alessandro, Anthony (March 17, 2019). "'Captain Marvel' Rises To Second Best 2nd Weekend In March With $69M+ – Sunday AM Update". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved March 17, 2019.
[26] Ehrlich, David (January 25, 2019). "Apollo 11 Review: Astonishing NASA Doc Takes You Back in Time". IndieWire. Penske Business Media. Retrieved January 30, 2019.
[28] Seitz, Matt Zoller (March 1, 2019). "Apollo 11 Movie Review & Film Summary (2019)". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Retrieved March 2, 2019.

[Robert the List]

100. Fire of Love (doc) 2022 France Sara Dosa

Wikipedia:
“Fire of Love
Fire of Love is a 2022 independent documentary film about the lives and careers of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. Directed, written, and produced by Sara Dosa, the film had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2022… It was released on July 6, 2022, by National Geographic Documentary Films and Neon….

Synopsis
The film tells the story of French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, a daring couple bound by their love for each other and their shared obsession with volcanoes. Through rare archival footage and a poetic French New Wave-inspired narrative, the film chronicles their two-decade journey of capturing the Earth’s most explosive phenomena, standing perilously close to fiery eruptions in their quest for scientific discovery and breathtaking imagery. As their passion pushes the boundaries of safety, the documentary explores the philosophical and emotional depths of their commitment to understanding the planet’s volatile beauty, culminating in their tragic final expedition to Mount Unzen in 1991…

…Reception
Box office
In the United States and Canada, the film earned $22,416 from three theaters in its opening weekend….(total box office revenue) $1.8m…

Runtime 93 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMArx64RBO4

[Robert the List]

100. Whitney Houston: The Concert For a New South Africa (doc) 2024 USA Marty Caller

[Robert the List]

Sorry I was editing the OP and ticked include in member reviews inadvertently.

[Robert the List]

If you exclude documentaries and animations, there are only 4 films from the last 23 years make my top 100.
If you include them there's still only 7.
I have only 1 non-documentary in the last decade. That's pitiful.

[Robert the List]

Touch of Evil, and very likely Taxi Driver, will be integrated into this list at some point.

Not 100%, but the Color of Pomegranates will likely be removed unfortunately.
Astonished as I am to say it, Blade Runner is also on very thin ice.

The Master and owing to its reputation Vertigo, will shortly also be getting a shot at salvation.

[Robert the List]

THESE FILMS HAVE BEEN DROPPED
AND MOVED

Seven Chances 1925 USA Buster Keaton (silent)

I said there are few documentaries in my 100 greatest movies, well there are also very few comedies. Those that do make it are in my opinion laugh out loud funny, and Seven Chances is no exception.
It’s a riot of fun, as Keaton has only a few hours to get married in order to inherit a fortune. The catch? He doesn’t have a girlfriend.
The film is visually impressive. It has those same striking bright greys as The General. There are also more frames per second than was usual at this point, and so the movement is smooth. There’s a jaunty sound track which fits the mood perfectly. But most importantly, Keaton keeps the laugh coming, as he struggles to find his bride.
It gets a bit silly towards the end, and a stunt sequence is 5 or so minutes too long for me (and there are also a couple of sight gags which wouldn’t be acceptable today), but I don’t fine that it detracts from the film, which I feel stands above other silent comedies.


Wikipedia:
“
Seven Chances is a 1925 American silent comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton… The film's opening scenes were shot in early Technicolor. The film includes Keaton's famous rock avalanche sequence.
…
Production
…Keaton hated the play and called it a sappy farce, but he owed money to Schenck and had to make the film to settle his debt.

Shooting began in January 1925.[3]Keaton intended to finish with a fadeout of him still running from the mob of women, but wished he could think of a better ending. However, the preview audience laughed loudest when Keaton's character accidentally dislodged a rock, which struck two others, sending them tumbling down after the hero. Keaton had 150 papier-mâché and chicken wire fakes made in various sizes, up to 8 feet (2.4 m) in diameter, for what is now considered one of his most memorable sequences. Keaton disliked the film but thought the avalanche scene saved it. “

Run time 56 minutes.

Full film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnflTNU8cbA

My Darling Clementine 1946 USA John Ford

Just exactly what you want from a western. It’s Ford so some great landscapes. It’s how I think of Henry Fonda.

Wikipedia:

“My Darling Clementine is a 1946 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp during the period leading up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The ensemble cast also features Victor Mature (as Doc Holliday), Linda Darnell…
The title of the movie is borrowed from the theme song "Oh My Darling, Clementine", sung in parts over the opening and closing credits. The screenplay is based on the biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart Lake….
…
Director John Ford said that when he was a prop boy in the early days of silent pictures, Earp would visit pals he knew from his Tombstone days on the sets. "I used to give him a chair and a cup of coffee, and he told me about the fight at the O.K. Corral. So in My Darling Clementine, we did it exactly the way it had been."
…
Filming
Much of the film was shot in Monument Valley, a scenic desert region straddling the Arizona-Utah border used in other John Ford movies. It is 500 miles (800 km) away from the town of Tombstone in southern Arizona…”


Runtime: 97 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrnBHaGJfgY

THESE FILMS HAVE BEEN DROPPED
AND MOVED
Rio Bravo 1959 USA Howard Hawks

It’s a ripping technicolour yarn, with John Wayne enjoying himself so much he smiles his way through the whole thing. There’s also a jaunty cowboy musical number with Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson.

Wikipedia:
“Rio Bravo is a 1959 American Western film directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, and Ward Bond.
…the film stars Wayne as a Texan sheriff who arrests the brother of a powerful local rancher for murder and then has to hold the man in jail until a U.S. Marshal can arrive. With the help of a lame old man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter, they hold off the rancher's gang. Rio Bravo was filmed on location at Old Tucson Studios outside Tucson, Arizona, in Eastmancolor, with film processing provided by Technicolor.
…
Production
…
As was often the case in a John Wayne Western, Wayne wore his "Red River D" belt buckle in the movie
….
Because the film starred a crooner, Martin, and a teen idol, Nelson, Hawks included three songs in the soundtrack. Before the big showdown, in the jail house, Martin sings "My Rifle, My Pony, and Me”…accompanied by Nelson, after which Nelson sings a brief version of "Get Along Home, Cindy", accompanied by Martin and Brennan. Over the closing credits, Martin, backed by the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, sings a specially composed song, "Rio Bravo"…”

Running time: 2 hours 21 minutes
Full movie: https://archive.org/details/1959riobravo720p
Clip (the musical bit!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o0GPhrY-gM

THESE FILMS HAVE BEEN DROPPED
AND MOVED

The Color of Pomegranates 1969 USSR/Armenia Sergey Paradzhanov

It’s one of the most beautiful films, a complete work of art. Every time I watch it I see something new. Can be watched as a whole or in parts.

Wikipedia:
“The Color of Pomegranates, originally known as Sayat-Nova, is a 1969 Soviet Armenian art film written and directed by Sergei Parajanov. The film is a poetic treatment of the life of 18th-century Armenian poet and troubadour Sayat-Nova. The film is now regarded as a landmark in film history, and was met with widespread acclaim among filmmakers and critics. It is often considered one of the greatest films ever made.
Overview
The Color of Pomegranates is a biography of the Armenian ashug Sayat-Nova (King of Song) that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally. The film is presented with little dialogue, using active tableaux which depict the poet's life in chapters: Childhood, Youth, Prince's Court (where he falls in love with a tsarina), The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death and Death. There are sounds, music, and occasional singing, but dialogue is rare.[8] Each chapter is indicated by a title card and framed through both Sergei Parajanov's imagination and Sayat Nova's poems. Actress Sofiko Chiaureli notably plays six roles in the film, both male and female. According to Frank Williams, Parajanov's film celebrates the survival of Armenian culture in face of oppression and persecution: "There are specific images that are highly charged—blood-red juice spilling from a cut pomegranate into a cloth and forming a stain in the shape of the boundaries of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia; dyers lifting hanks of wool out of vats in the colours of the national flag, and so on".
…
Storytelling and "tableaux vivants"
Parajanov takes an unconventional approach to storytelling in The Color of Pomegranates. Rather than adhering to a traditional narrative structure, he opts for a series of visually captivating and carefully composed tableaux vivants to capture the essence of the poet Sayat-Nova's life and creations. The outcome is a visually enchanting and symbolically rich exploration of art, culture, and spirituality…The composition of each tableau is also a deliberate nod to the visual aesthetics found in Armenian illuminated manuscripts and religious art.
…Locations
The film was shot at numerous historic sites in Armenia, including the Sanahin Monastery, the Haghpat Monastery, the St. John church at Ardvi, and the Akhtala Monastery. All are medieval churches in the northern province of Lori. Locations in Georgia included the Alaverdi Monastery, the countryside surrounding the David Gareja monastery complex, and the Dzveli Shuamta complex near Telavi. Azerbaijani locations included the Old City of Baku and Nardaran Fortress.
Censorship
Soviet censors and Communist Party officials objected to Parajanov's stylized, poetic treatment of Sayat-Nova's life, and complained that it failed to educate the public about the poet. As a result, the film's title was changed from Sayat-Nova to The Color of Pomegranates, and all references to Sayat-Nova's name were removed from the credits and chapter titles in the original Armenian release version….Officials further objected to the film's abundance of religious imagery, although a great deal of religious imagery still remains in both surviving versions of the film. Initially the State Committee for Cinematography in Moscow refused to allow distribution of the film outside of Armenia. It premiered in Armenia in October 1969, with a running time of 77 minutes.
The filmmaker Sergei Yutkevich, who had served as a reader for the script in the State Committee for Cinematography's Script Editorial board, recut the film slightly and created new Russian-language chapter titles in order to make the film easier to understand and more palatable to the authorities. In addition to cutting a few minutes' worth of footage—some of it clearly due to its religious content—he changed the order of some sequences. The film ultimately received only a limited release in the rest of the Soviet Union, in Yutkevich's 73-minute version.
Reception and legacy
…
According to Michelangelo Antonioni, "Parajanov's Color of Pomegranates is of a stunningly perfect beauty. Parajanov, in my opinion, is one of the best film directors in the world."
French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard said, "In the temple of cinema there are images, light and reality. Sergei Paradjanov was the master of that temple."
Film critic Gilbert Adair argued that "… no historian of the medium who ignores The Color of Pomegranates can ever be taken seriously."
Restoration
In 2014 the film was digitally restored and re-edited to be as close as possible to the director's original vision and world premiered at the 67th Cannes Film Festival…
Queer themes
The film is further characterized by queer and androgynous imagery. For example, the main actress Sofiko Chiaureli plays both the Poet and his lover; imagery like the conch shell and feather, symbols of the female and male respectively, are used in tandem by multiple characters; and the young poet's sexual awakening comes when he sees nude male and female bodies in the bath house. This is in line with Parajanov’s own life, as he was convicted for homosexual acts, as well as nationalism, multiple times in Georgia (1948) and Ukraine (1973, imprisoned in Russia)…"

Running time: 1 hour 17 minutes
Full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtuEVEbsDmk

[KeyserCorleone]

In fact I'm actually going to be bold, and I'm going to say that this list, this 100 films, is most likely the single greatest assembly of 100 films, ever created.

Is this trolling? Tell me this is trolling.

[Robert the List]

Is this trolling? Tell me this is trolling.

The comment was meant sincerely.

And at that point I hadn't included the Wiki summaries, so as a thread it's even greater now than I thought it was when I wrote that.

[KeyserCorleone]

The comment was meant sincerely.

And at that point I hadn't included the Wiki summaries, so as a thread it's even greater now than I thought it was when I wrote that.

And I suppose later you'll make it better, then again, then again, as if the art of list making had just started. In other words... it's not the greatest there's ever been. It's not even the greatest you're capable of.. It's just the most you're willing to do.

[Robert the List]

I think Seven Chances has to go.
I'm not sure actually that there are 100 films up to the quality that my list demands.


1 The Great White Silence 1924 UK Herbery Ponting YES

2 Seven Chances 1925 USA Buster Keaton NO

3 Strike 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein YES
4 The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Germany Lotte Reiniger YES
5 Man With a Movie Camera (doc) 1929 Soviet Union Dziga Vertov YES
6 Salt for Svanetia 1930 Soviet Union Mikhael Kalatazov YES
7 Limite 1931 Brazil Mário Peixoto ESSENTIAL YES
8 Vampyr 1932 Germany Carl Theodor Dreyer YES
9 Story of the Last Chrysanthemums 1939 Japan Kenji Mizoguchi YES
10 Mr Smith Goes to Washington 1939 USA Frank Capra YES
11 The Wizard of Oz 1939 USA Victor Fleming YES
12 Day of Wrath 1943 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer ESSENTIAL YES
13 Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 USA Maya Deren YES
14 La Belle et La Bete 1946 France Jean Cocteau YES
15 Panique 1946 France Julien Duvivier YES
16 Notorious 1946 USA Alfred Hitchcock ESSENTIAL YES

17 Out of the Past 1947 USA Jacques Tourneur NOT SURE

18 Bicycle Thieves 1948 Italy Vittorio De Sica YES
19 Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949 UK Robert Hamer YES
20 Stray Dog 1949 Japan Akira Kurosawa ESSENTIAL YES
21 The Third Man 1949 UK Carol Reed YES
22 Late Spring 1949 Japan Yasujirō Ozu ESSENTIAL YES
23 Little Fugitive 1953 USA Morris Engel YES

24 On the Waterfront 1954 USA Elia Kazan NOT SURE

25 Rear Window 1954 USA Alfred Hitchcock YES
26 Journey to Italy 1954 Italy Roberto Rossellini YES
27 La Pointe Courte 1955 France Agnès Varda YES
28 Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyijat Ray YES
29 Bridge On The River Kwai 1957 UK David Lean YES

30 Elevator to the Gallows 1958 France Louis Malle NOT SURE

31 The Music Room 1958 India Satyajit Ray YES
32 Touch of Evil 1958 USA Orson Welles ESSENTIAL YES

33 Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger NOT SURE

34 North by Northwest 1959 USA Alfred Hitchcock YES
35 The Naked Island 1960 Japan Kaneto Shindô ESSENTIAL YES
36 Psycho 1960 USA Alfred Hitchcock YES
37 La Notte 1961 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni YES
38 Last Year at Marienbad 1961 France Alain Resnais YES

39 Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy NOT SURE

40 La Jetee 1962 France Chris Marker ESSENTIAL YES
41 L'Eclisse 1962 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni YES
42 Lawrence of Arabia 1962 UK David Lean ESSENTIAL YES
43 High and Low 1963 Japan Akira Kurosawa YES
44 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg France Jacques Demy YES
45 Onibaba 1964 Japan Kaneto Shindô YES
46 For a Few Dollars More 1965 Italy Sergio Leone YES
47 Alphaville 1965 France Jean-Luc Godard YES
48 Le Bonheur 1965 France Agnès Varda YES

49 Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean Luc Godard NOT SURE

50 The Sound of Music 1965 USA Robert Wise YES
51 Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France Robert Bresson YES
52 Blow-up 1966 UK Michelangelo Antonioni YES
53 Closely Watched Trains 1966 Czech Jirí Menzel YES
54 Bonnie and Clyde 1967 USA Arthur Penn YES
55 The Graduate 1967 USA Mike Nichols YES

56 Stolen Kisses 1968 France François Truffaut NOT SURE

57 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 UK Stanley Kubrick ESSENTIAL YES
58 Kes 1969 UK Ken Loach YES
59 A Touch of Zen 1970 Taiwan King Hu YES
60 McCabe and Mrs Miller 1971 USA Robert Altman YES
61 Cabaret 1972 USA Bob Fosse YES
62 The Godfather 1972 USA Francis Ford Copolla YES
63 Le Cousin Jules (doc) 1973 France Dominique Benicheti ESSENTIAL YES
64 Don't Look Now 1973 UK Nicholas Roeg YES


Eric Rohmer?
Soy Cuba?
A different Keaton?

[KeyserCorleone]

I think Seven Chances has to go.
I'm not sure actually that there are 100 films up to the quality that my list demands.


1 The Great White Silence 1924 UK Herbery Ponting YES
2 Seven Chances 1925 USA Buster Keaton NO
3 Strike 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein YES
4 The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Germany Lotte Reiniger YES
5 Man With a Movie Camera (doc) 1929 Soviet Union Dziga Vertov YES

Yep. Year six, this is where new re-evaluations into personal standards begin again, right after you assume you've got it figured out. Once that begins, the whole game changes. By next year your chart could look completely different, and now you have a reason to go looking for other films, to fill that empty slot. Welcome back to the party.

[Robert the List]

That's 23 of the first 26 reconfirmed as being the greatest. I think I should probably replace 1 (seven chances).

The US letting us down slightly early doors, only having 4 from 7 reconfirmed, with the rest of the world 19 from 19.


In a way the list's better than I thought, because (from 1924 when we were just about up and running properly) it tells - as well really as anything could do - the story of the history of the movies.

[Robert the List]

Yep. Year six, this is where new re-evaluations into personal standards begin again, right after you assume you've got it figured out. Once that begins, the whole game changes. By next year your chart could look completely different, and now you have a reason to go looking for other films, to fill that empty slot. Welcome back to the party.
You're never going to get perfection. There's no such thing as 100% correct, I agree with you on that.
But I believe my list is pretty much there. My reviews sadly (in part because most of them I did not review at the time of watching the film) aren't, I agree, but insofaras the films themselves, I don't see that there's much to change from here.

[KeyserCorleone]

You're never going to get perfection. There's no such thing as 100% correct, I agree with you on that.
But I believe my list is pretty much there. My reviews sadly (in part because most of them I did not review at the time of watching the film) aren't, I agree, but insofaras the films themselves, I don't see that there's much to change from here.

If the reviews aren't, then it'll be impossible to reach near-perfection. Better just accept that now...

[Robert the List]

If the reviews aren't, then it'll be impossible to reach near-perfection. Better just accept that now...
haha. well I completely accept that the reviews* are at the other end of the spectrum to perfection lol.

the wiki summaries are good though.

*except for some of the ones I did on the cinema thread, which whilst not in the same league as some posters on here, I hope add some interesting thoughts and takes even if everyone doesn't agree with them.

[KeyserCorleone]

Sooo... If a key component isn't on the same league as some of the other autodidacts here... Then it's not close to being the best at all. Expected, since you've only spent four or five years here.

[Robert the List]

I'm not claiming that it's the best review thread. I would never be able to get anywhere near that. I'm claiming that it is, or possibly is, the greatest ever selection of 100 films.

[KeyserCorleone]

I'm not claiming that it's the best review thread. I would never be able to get anywhere near that. I'm claiming that it is, or possibly is, the greatest ever selection of 100 films.

That still doesn't make sense. You're going to be thinking this for a long time, and then a few years later you'll be wondering what you were thinking in the first place. You need to experience these things and keep teaching yourself for years and years on end. Not gonna happen in five years, Tavon Austin.

[Robert the List]

That still doesn't make sense. You're going to be thinking this for a long time, and then a few years later you'll be wondering what you were thinking in the first place. You need to experience these things and keep teaching yourself for years and years on end. Not gonna happen in five years, Tavon Austin.
Link your latest 100 then.
Let's have a look at your more advanced effort.

[KeyserCorleone]

Link your latest 100 then.
Let's have a look at your more advanced effort.

My top 100 currently features most of my 90's ballet, so I'll do it once the ballot ends in a couple months. But I'd rather give one person advice than assume some form of dominance over an entire community. On top of which, I would flaunt the list the way you do. I'd post it, and I'd be proud of it, but I won't dominate others unless they openly challenge my worth here.

[Robert the List]

My top 100 currently features most of my 90's ballet, so I'll do it once the ballot ends in a couple months. But I'd rather give one person advice than assume some form of dominance over an entire community. On top of which, I would flaunt the list the way you do. I'd post it, and I'd be proud of it, but I won't dominate others unless they openly challenge my worth here.
Well let's see what you've got for the other decades.
Just your top 100 less however many you have in from the 90s.

[KeyserCorleone]

I won't post my top 100 on another user's list. I consider it tasteless. And there would be no point in opening a separate thread in that vein.

[Robert the List]

I won't post my top 100 on another user's list. I consider it tasteless. And there would be no point in opening a separate thread in that vein.

I have now seen your superior, more highly developed and learned list.

[KeyserCorleone]

I have now seen your superior, more highly developed and learned list.

Thank you for the compliment. I won't be acting like I'm the best, but I hope my list provides some insight for other users if possible.

[Robert the List]

recheck latest

I think Seven Chances has to go.
I'm not sure actually that there are 100 films up to the quality that my list demands.


1 The Great White Silence 1924 UK Herbery Ponting YES

2 Seven Chances 1925 USA Buster Keaton NO

3 Strike 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein YES
4 The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Germany Lotte Reiniger YES
5 Man With a Movie Camera (doc) 1929 Soviet Union Dziga Vertov YES
6 Salt for Svanetia 1930 Soviet Union Mikhael Kalatazov YES
7 Limite 1931 Brazil Mário Peixoto ESSENTIAL YES
8 Vampyr 1932 Germany Carl Theodor Dreyer YES
9 Story of the Last Chrysanthemums 1939 Japan Kenji Mizoguchi YES
10 Mr Smith Goes to Washington 1939 USA Frank Capra YES
11 The Wizard of Oz 1939 USA Victor Fleming YES
12 Day of Wrath 1943 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer ESSENTIAL YES
13 Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 USA Maya Deren YES
14 La Belle et La Bete 1946 France Jean Cocteau YES
15 Panique 1946 France Julien Duvivier YES
16 Notorious 1946 USA Alfred Hitchcock ESSENTIAL YES
17 Out of the Past 1947 USA Jacques Tourneur YES
18 Bicycle Thieves 1948 Italy Vittorio De Sica YES
19 Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949 UK Robert Hamer YES
20 Stray Dog 1949 Japan Akira Kurosawa ESSENTIAL YES
21 The Third Man 1949 UK Carol Reed YES
22 Late Spring 1949 Japan Yasujirō Ozu ESSENTIAL YES
23 Little Fugitive 1953 USA Morris Engel YES

24 On the Waterfront 1954 USA Elia Kazan NOT SURE

25 Rear Window 1954 USA Alfred Hitchcock YES
26 Journey to Italy 1954 Italy Roberto Rossellini YES
27 La Pointe Courte 1955 France Agnès Varda YES
28 Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyijat Ray YES
29 Bridge On The River Kwai 1957 UK David Lean YES

30 Elevator to the Gallows 1958 France Louis Malle NOT SURE

31 The Music Room 1958 India Satyajit Ray YES
32 Touch of Evil 1958 USA Orson Welles ESSENTIAL YES

33 Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger NOT SURE

34 North by Northwest 1959 USA Alfred Hitchcock YES
35 The Naked Island 1960 Japan Kaneto Shindô ESSENTIAL YES
36 Psycho 1960 USA Alfred Hitchcock YES
37 La Notte 1961 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni YES
38 Last Year at Marienbad 1961 France Alain Resnais YES

39 Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy NOT SURE

40 La Jetee 1962 France Chris Marker ESSENTIAL YES
41 L'Eclisse 1962 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni YES
42 Lawrence of Arabia 1962 UK David Lean ESSENTIAL YES
43 High and Low 1963 Japan Akira Kurosawa YES
44 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg France Jacques Demy YES
45 Onibaba 1964 Japan Kaneto Shindô YES
46 For a Few Dollars More 1965 Italy Sergio Leone YES
47 Alphaville 1965 France Jean-Luc Godard YES
48 Le Bonheur 1965 France Agnès Varda YES

49 Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean Luc Godard NOT SURE

50 The Sound of Music 1965 USA Robert Wise YES
51 Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France Robert Bresson YES
52 Blow-up 1966 UK Michelangelo Antonioni YES
53 Closely Watched Trains 1966 Czech Jirí Menzel YES
54 Bonnie and Clyde 1967 USA Arthur Penn YES
55 The Graduate 1967 USA Mike Nichols YES

56 Stolen Kisses 1968 France François Truffaut NOT SURE

57 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 UK Stanley Kubrick ESSENTIAL YES
58 Kes 1969 UK Ken Loach YES
59 A Touch of Zen 1970 Taiwan King Hu YES
60 McCabe and Mrs Miller 1971 USA Robert Altman YES
61 Cabaret 1972 USA Bob Fosse YES
62 The Godfather 1972 USA Francis Ford Copolla YES
63 Le Cousin Jules (doc) 1973 France Dominique Benicheti ESSENTIAL YES
64 Don't Look Now 1973 UK Nicholas Roeg YES

65 Badlands 1973 USA Terrence Malick NOT SURE
66 Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski NOT SURE

67 The Passenger 1975 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni YES
68 Barry Lyndon 1975 UK Stanley Kubrick YES
69 The Mirror 1975 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky YES
70 Taxi Driver 1976 USA Martin Scorsese YES
71 Apocalypse Now 1979 USA Francis Ford Coppola ESSENTIAL YES
72 Alien 1979 USA Ridley Scott YES
73 E.T. The Extra Terrestrial 1982 USA Steven Spielberg YES

74 Blade Runner (Director's Cut) 1982 USA Ridley Scott ESSENTIAL NOT SURE

75 The King of Comedy 1982 USA Martin Scorsese YES
76 Paris, Texas 1984 USA Wim Wenders YES
77 Stranger Than Paradise 1984 USA Jim Jarmusch YES
78 Taipei Story 1985 Taiwan Edward Yang YES

79 Withnail & I 1987 UK Bruce Robinson NOT SURE

80 Landscape in the Mist 1988 Greece Theodoros Angelopoulos ESSENTIAL YES
81 A Short Film About Killing 1988 Poland krzysztof kieślowski YES

82 Days of Being Wild 1990 Hong Kong Wong Kar-Wai NOT SURE

83 The Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse 1991 USA YES
84 Rebels of the Neon God 1992 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang YES
85 The Player 1992 USA Robert Altman YES
86 Vive L'Amour 1994 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang ESSENTIAL YES
87 Trainspotting 1996 UK Danny Boyle ESSENTIAL YES
88 Flowers of Shanghai 1998 Taiwan Hou Hsiao-hsien ESSENTIAL YES
89 Saving Private Ryan 1998 USA Steven Spielberg YES
90 In the Mood for Love 2000 Hong Kong Wong Kar-Wai YES
91 Mulholland Drive 2001 USA David Lynch ESSENTIAL YES
92 Donnie Darko 2001 USA Richard Kelly YES
93 Uzak 2002 Turkiye Nuri Bilge Ceylan ESSENTIAL YES
94 No Country for Old Men 2007 USA Joel and Ethan Cohen YES
95 Wall-E 2008 USA Andrew Stanton YES
96 Embrace of the Serpent 2015 Colombia Ciro Guerra YES
97 La La Land 2016 USA Damien Chazelle ESSENTIAL YES
98. The Lighthouse 2019 USA Robert Eggers YES
99. Apollo 11 (doc) 2019 USA Todd Douglas Miller YES
100. Fire of Love (doc) 2022 France Sara Dosa YES

Eric Rohmer?
Soy Cuba?
A different Keaton?
Whitney Houston South Africa?

[Robert the List]

88 out of 100 reconfirmed so far.

[Robert the List]

Wow, I'm surprised.
The later ones held up very well.

Everything is reconfirmed except for the following:

2 Seven Chances 1925 USA Buster Keaton NO
24 On the Waterfront 1954 USA Elia Kazan NOT SURE
30 Elevator to the Gallows 1958 France Louis Malle NOT SURE
33 Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger NOT SURE
39 Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy NOT SURE
49 Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean Luc Godard NOT SURE
56 Stolen Kisses 1968 France François Truffaut NOT SURE
65 Badlands 1973 USA Terrence Malick NOT SURE
66 Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski NOT SURE
74 Blade Runner (Director's Cut) 1982 USA Ridley Scott ESSENTIAL NOT SURE
79 Withnail & I 1987 UK Bruce Robinson NOT SURE
82 Days of Being Wild 1990 Hong Kong Wong Kar-Wai NOT SURE

I'm pleased to have 88 reconfirmed which is at the upper end of what I had estimated.

Probably won't get much more done on it now before next weekend, but the intention is to explore alternatives, and then compare to these 12.

The alternatives will largely come from films I already know, although I am interested in exploring the work of Eric Rohmer as well*.

*I know Claire's Knee and My Night at Maud's, but not his later stuff.

[Robert the List]

To be added:
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 1927 USA
The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 France
Whitney Houston The Concert for a New South Africa (doc) 2024

Other possibilities are:
Ornamental Hairpin 19341
Casablanca 1942 USA
Sanshiro Sugata 1943
Rome, Open City 1945
A Streetcar Named Desire 1951 USA
Bob the Gambler 1956
Le Mepris / Contempt 1963
Walkabout 1971 UK
The Travelling Players 1975 Greece
L'Argent 1983 France
Voices Through Time 1996
There Will be Blood 2008
Drive 2011
Frances Ha 2012
Argo 2012

To be viewed:
Love in the Afternoon (1972)
The Aviator's Wife (1981)
A Good Marriage (1982)
Pauline at the Beach (1983)
Winter Tale (1992)
Summer's Tale (1996)

[Robert the List]

CBA to do the write up tonight, but Sunrise (1927) has replaced Seven Chances.

[Robert the List]

i watched joan of arc with a different soundtrack and this time i got the fuss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfXwcQ6XeZg

[Robert the List]

I've whittled down the "other contenders" list above.
Although I haven't completely discounted the "unlikely" group yet.
Not had much time to spend on it, but will get this sorted out pretty uickly when I do, and down to a final list of contenders to play off against the existing entries which have been identified as being on the margins.
Also I need to watch those French films which I'll do at the weekend.

[Robert the List]

Frances Ha is challenging pretty hard right now.

[Robert the List]

...
Other possibilities are:
...
Whitney Houston The Concert for a New South Africa (doc) 2024


You know what baby, I'm going to include you, because although it's not a traditional kind of movie, watching you and listening to you is the most fun anyone can have watching a screen for a couple of hours or so.

[Robert the List]

The Rohmer films which interest me are:

Love in the Afternoon (1972)
The Aviator's Wife (1981)
A Good Marriage (1982)
Pauline at the Beach (1983)
Winter Tale (1992)
Summer's Tale (1996)

I hope to get the chance to review them next weekend.

Other possibilities are:
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 1927 USA
The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 France
Casablanca 1942 USA
Rome, Open City 1945
A Streetcar Named Desire 1951 USA
Bob the Gambler 1956
Le Mepris / Contempt 1963
Walkabout 1971 UK
The Godfather Part 2 1974
The Travelling Players 1975 Greece
L'Argent 1983 France
Voices Through Time 1996
There Will be Blood 2008
Drive 2011
Frances Ha 2012
Argo 2012
Whitney Houston The Concert for a New South Africa (doc) 2024


Unlikely:
Ornamental Hairpin 1941 Japan
Sanshiro Sugata 1943 Japan
The Silent World (doc) 1956 France
The Cranes are Flying 1957 USSR
Mean Streets 1973 USA
Homecoming 1984 Hong Kong
The Runner 1984 Iran
whittling it down.

do some more tomorrow night...

[Robert the List]

Chopped:
Seven Chances 1925 USA Buster Keaton NO
Stolen Kisses 1968 France François Truffaut NOT SURE
Days of Being Wild 1990 Hong Kong Wong Kar-Wai NOT SURE

To be added:
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 1927 USA
The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 France
Whitney Houston The Concert for a New South Africa (doc) 2024


Maybe for the chop:
On the Waterfront 1954 USA Elia Kazan NOT SURE
Elevator to the Gallows 1958 France Louis Malle NOT SURE
Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger NOT SURE
Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy NOT SURE
Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean Luc Godard NOT SURE
Badlands 1973 USA Terrence Malick NOT SURE
Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski NOT SURE
Blade Runner (Director's Cut) 1982 USA Ridley Scott ESSENTIAL NOT SURE
Withnail & I 1987 UK Bruce Robinson NOT SURE

Other contenders to join the list:
Casablanca 1942 USA
Sanshiro Sugata 1943
Bob the Gambler 1956
Walkabout 1971 UK
L'Argent 1983 France
Voices Through Time 1996
Frances Ha 2012

To be viewed:
Love in the Afternoon (1972)
The Aviator's Wife (1981)
A Good Marriage (1982)
Pauline at the Beach (1983)
Winter Tale (1992)
Summer's Tale (1996)

[Robert the List]

Shows how good my list is if these are the vulnerable ones, because these are good films

On the Waterfront 1954 USA Elia Kazan NOT SURE
Elevator to the Gallows 1958 France Louis Malle NOT SURE
Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger NOT SURE
Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy NOT SURE
Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean Luc Godard NOT SURE
Cabaret 1972 USA NOT SURE Bob Fosse
Badlands 1973 USA Terrence Malick NOT SURE
Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski NOT SURE
Blade Runner (Director's Cut) 1982 USA Ridley Scott ESSENTIAL NOT SURE
Withnail & I 1987 UK Bruce Robinson NOT SURE

[Robert the List]

Finally got round to watching one of these films by this French director.
The Aviator's Wife. Excellent so far...

I'm too tired right now. But it looks great. I look forward to the treat...

[KeyserCorleone]

Shows how good my list is if these are the vulnerable ones, because these are good films

On the Waterfront 1954 USA Elia Kazan NOT SURE
Elevator to the Gallows 1958 France Louis Malle NOT SURE
Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger NOT SURE
Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy NOT SURE
Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean Luc Godard NOT SURE
Badlands 1973 USA Terrence Malick NOT SURE
Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski NOT SURE
Blade Runner (Director's Cut) 1982 USA Ridley Scott ESSENTIAL NOT SURE
Withnail & I 1987 UK Bruce Robinson NOT SURE

Badlands was so slow that I had to quit it. Expect many opinions like this on movies you, claim, to like.

[Robert the List]

Badlands was so slow that I had to quit it. Expect many opinions like this on movies you, claim, to like.
There are films that I claim to like that are a lot slower than Badlands!

[KeyserCorleone]

There are films that I claim to like that are a lot slower than Badlands!


That wasn't a serious criticism on my part. That was actually pulled off another website. But I wanted to see what you would say to that.


You should think of something more in-depth than that reply, even if you want to keep it quick. For example, I could argue, "I'd rather have a slow cinema movie that covers a lot of ground with its camera than a normal drama movie with very little plot." Take the opening sequence to Satantango. This won't be a spoiler at all: it covers a large sect of a post-apocalyptic community by slowly going over their houses in black and white. And the depression and near-devestation is what does all the talking before the plot kicks in, as it gives you time to contemplate the surroundings.


Although in all honesty, I gave Badlands a 95/100. I kept my consensus light: "A well-acted and emotional heavy-hitter from start to finish," because the list is so light, but in the world of discussion, try to keep it a little more in-depth than you're generally willing. This will give much better insight into the reasoning behind your ratings, and thus improve on your own reasoning overtime as well.

[Robert the List]

lol

[Robert the List]

come back with the advice when your 100 greatest films list isn't mostly a pile of shite mate.

[KeyserCorleone]

come back with the advice when your 100 greatest films list isn't mostly a pile of shite mate.


And this is how you treat someone who offers you a little friendly advice. Maybe I did use a little deception, and had you asked I would've apologized. But check the rules here.


No Harassment

Judged on a case-by-case basis, though usually defined as a string of unnecessarily personal insults with no real effort to have an actual discussion.


That last post you made is exactly that, an unnecessarily personal insult, and you won't be able to convince anyone that any attempt at discussing potential disagreements with your list or your methods will be an insult. You literally just proved that I am a more mature person than you in one comment. But if you're so keen on using that language again, I'll just have to keep posting my friendly advice here so that you can insult me and prove my point again. Because in the end, I'll be the one following the rules.


And besides, after 14 years, you're the only person who's ever called my list that. So there's no real need for your opinion to be the deciding factor on its quality. The difference between you and me is that I criticized the movie, whereas you criticized my work to my face with foul language. Two very different things.


See, I disagreed with you.
You insulted me.


If you seem to think that you can convince the world never to disagree with you about your list again, hope you're a good public speaker.

[Robert the List]

1957 Nights of Cabiria
1972 Sleuth
1973 The Holy Mountain
1984 Amadeus
1990 Total Recall
1995 Twelve Monkeys
1998 The Prince of Egypt
2006 The Departed
2012 The Avengers
2017 It
2022 Everything Everywhere All at Once
2022 Scream

[Robert the List]

And for your information, you got the year of the Scream movie wrong. Anyone can tell from the poster it's the original 1996.

The entry actually says Scream 2022.

[KeyserCorleone]

The entry actually says Scream 2022.

I deleted my post in the event that you would use the "you said it was your ballot not me" excuse and then PM you, but it's obvious that you still wish to break rules. You think you can do anything you want here. You have given the public several reasons to report your post now. Your "lol's" can't save you. Every time you do, you prove that I am more mature and easier to get along with than you are.

Face it. You hide behind your lol's because you can't face the truth: you will be laughed at privately by the community and they'll be watching our argument while I handle things in a mature light, and other users PM me about how I shouldn't bother with people like you and then they insult you, as calling you names behind our back isn't against the rules here. I wouldn't insult you behind your back, and I won't criticize other users doing so, as it's their choice and not technically against the rules. It's happened before and it's going to happen again. I tried to help you grow to be a better person because I'm an idealist in that way, and maybe alleviate you of this reputation you built for youself. I believe in real respect, as well as the freedom to disagree and help each other. And you took offense to that.


I was willing to give you the chance and think that you were just a troll teasing people with your comments, and I was starting to believe it. But then you deliberately break the rules, and I know, you're just entitled.

I don't have to agree with other critics. I rate It and Avengers my way, and unlike you, the others here are able to accept it without complaining. They can complain about the movie itself, but they don't complain about the choice to put it on a top 100.

The only reason Yoda hasn't contacted you yet is because he's sleeping. Maybe he didn't take my side the first time I reported you, but it's obvious that you think you have the right to abuse me. You have only further cemented my pride in my own beliefs, and your inability to mature only makes me happy that I didn't end up talking to people the way you do.

[Robert the List]

I am sure that I'm going to enjoy these Rohmer films when I get round to watching them, but it would be a surprise I think if any of them make the top 100.

So, whilst I will consider them at a later date, for now in order to finalise the list of the greatest 100 films, I think the simplest thing for me to do, is to review and rank the films in jeopardy and the remaining contenders, and the top 10 places make the list, and the other 7 miss out. I will then work out how I am going to slot any new films into the thread, and do the write ups.

[Robert the List]

Just to spice things up a bit I've added Day of the Jackal and Killer of Sheep back into the equation.

So far it looks like these are through:
Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean Luc Godard NOT SURE
On the Waterfront 1954 USA Elia Kazan NOT SURE
Walkabout 1971 UK
Bob the Gambler 1956
Frances Ha 2012

These are looking pretty good:
Badlands 1973 USA Terrence Malick NOT SURE
Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger NOT SURE
Sanshiro Sugata 1943

These are probably out:
Cabaret 1972 NOT SURE
Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski NOT SURE
Elevator to the Gallows 1958 France Louis Malle NOT SURE
Casablanca 1942 USA

[Robert the List]

Blade Runner
Cabaret
Voices Through Time

in a shootout for the final place...

Actually, and Sanshiro Sugata.

And Badlands and Anatomy of a Murder...


So 4 places from 6 films...

[Robert the List]

I've ranked the films which I had on the margins as follows:


Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean Luc Godard NOT SURE
On the Waterfront 1954 USA Elia Kazan NOT SURE
Bob the Gambler 1956
Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy NOT SURE
Frances Ha 2012
Walkabout 1971 UK
Badlands 1973 USA Terrence Malick NOT SURE
Voices Through Time 1996
Elevator to the Gallows 1958 France Louis Malle NOT SURE

Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger NOT SURE

Sanshiro Sugata 1943

Withnail & I 1987 UK Bruce Robinson NOT SURE
Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski NOT SURE
Cabaret 1972 NOT SURE
Day of the Jackal
Blade Runner (Director's Cut) 1982 USA Ridley Scott ESSENTIAL NOT SURE
Casablanca 1942 USA


Sanshiro Sugata was very difficult to leave out. Not necessarily the types of film that I like, but it was (directly or indirectly) influential on several different kinds of film which since around the late 70s have been the meat and drink of the film industry. I'm sure that the 'bad guy' is even the inspiration for the 'anonymous' face. It also incorporates some great artistry. If it half of it hadn't been cut out and thrown away by the Japanese sensors during the war, I have no doubt it would be a great masterpiece. Damn, it's tough leaving it out.
Hmmm....you know what, I'm gonna cut Anatomy of a Murder and its painfully prehistoric attitudes towards women...

Pierrot Le Fou should never have been in the marginals list. It's a sublime example of directorial freedom; the epitome of 1960s european film making.





101. Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger NOT SURE
102. Withnail & I 1987 UK Bruce Robinson NOT SURE
103. Seven Chances 1925 USA Buster Keaton NO
104. Stolen Kisses 1968 France François Truffaut NOT SURE
105. Days of Being Wild 1990 Hong Kong Wong Kar-Wai NOT SURE
106. Cabaret 1972 NOT SURE
107. Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski NOT SURE
108. Blade Runner (Director's Cut) 1982 USA Ridley Scott ESSENTIAL NOT SURE

and replaced by the following:
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 1927 USA
The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 France
Sanshiro Sugata 1943
Bob the Gambler 1956
Walkabout 1971
Voices Through Time 1996
Frances Ha 2012
Whitney Houston The Concert for a New South Africa (doc) 2024

[Robert the List]

And the good news, which I hope is going to make everybody's Easter, is that albeit with a little bit of shuffling, I will be able to fit all of the new films into the appropriate place in the thread. :) :)

[Robert the List]

THE FOLLOWING FILMS HAVE BEEN CUT

Anatomy of a Murder 1959 USA Otto Preminger

Its attitudes to women are at times cringeworthily dated to the 2020s viewer, but if you can get passed that it’s a dynamite courtroom drama, that rollocks along at a cracking pace throughout.

Wikipedia:
“Anatomy of a Murder is a 1959 American legal drama film produced and directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Wendell Mayes was based on the 1958 novel of the same name written by Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker…Voelker based the novel on a 1952 murder case in which he was the defense attorney.
The film stars James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Eve Arden, George C. Scott, …It has a musical score by Duke Ellington, who also appears in the film. It has been described by Michael Asimow, UCLA law professor and co-author of Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies (2006), as "probably the finest pure trial movie ever made".
…
Legal aspects
…
The film examines the apparent fallibility of the human factor in jurisprudence. In various ways all of the human components—the counsel for defense and prosecution, the defendant and his wife, and the witnesses—have their own differing positions on what is right or wrong, and varying perspectives on integrity, justice, morality and ethics. The reliance on credibility of witnesses, and the "finding of facts" based upon those determinations, is the "Achilles heel" of the judicial process.
One controversial legal issue in this film is possible witness coaching, a violation of legal canons...

Reception and legacy
….Variety claimed that the film contained words never before heard in American films with the Motion Picture Production Code seal such as "contraceptive", (sexual) "climax" and "spermatogenesis".
…Anatomy of a Murder has been well received by members of the legal and educational professions. In 1989, the American Bar Association rated this as one of the 12 best trial films of all time. In addition to its plot and musical score, the article noted: "The film's real highlight is its ability to demonstrate how a legal defense is developed in a difficult case. How many trial films would dare spend so much time watching lawyers do what many lawyers do most (and enjoy least) – research?" The film has also been used as a teaching tool in law schools, as it encompasses (from the defense standpoint) all of the basic stages in the U.S. criminal justice system from client interview and arraignment through trial.

…Film critics have noted the moral ambiguity, where a small town lawyer triumphs by guile, stealth and trickery. The film is frank and direct. Language and sexual themes are explicit, at variance with the times (and other films) when it was produced….
…The jazz score of Anatomy of a Murder was composed by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn and played by Ellington's orchestra…”

Running time: 2 hour 40 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwX8NiXv9Hw


Stolen Kisses 1968 France François Truffaut

A funny film. Looks great, and is well played.

Wikipedia:
“Stolen Kisses (French: Baisers volés) is a 1968 French romantic comedy-drama film directed by François Truffaut, starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Delphine Seyrig, and Claude Jade. It continues the story of the character Antoine Doinel, whom Truffaut had previously depicted in The 400 Blows (1959) and the short film Antoine and Colette (1962). In this film, Antoine begins his relationship with Christine Darbon, which is depicted further in the last two films in the series, Bed & Board (1970) and Love on the Run (1979).
…Critical response
Stolen Kisses was well-reviewed by critics all over the world….
In an enthusiastic review for The New York Times (4 March 1969), Vincent Canby commented:
“…Truffaut is the star of the film, always in control, whether the movie is ranging into the area of slapstick, lyrical romance or touching lightly on De Gaulle's France (a student demonstration on the TV screen). His love of old movies is reflected in plot devices (overheard conversations), incidental action (two children walking out of the shoe store wearing Laurel and Hardy masks), and in the score, which takes Charles Trenet's 1943 song Que reste-t-il de nos amours (known in an English-language version as "I Wish You Love") and turns it into a joyous motif.”
Danny Peary called it "François Truffaut's witty, sad, insightful meditation on Love, encompassing passion, courtship, confusion, conflict, romance, jealousy, disloyalty, dishonesty, sex, conquest, and commitment (and second thoughts).””

Runtime: 1 hour 31 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCELURpFlrs

Cabaret 1972 USA Bob Fosse

Like Brian, it’s a bit of everything. Singing, humour, romance and the very grim historical side of 1930s Germany. The scene where they end up discussing syphilis, is hilarious. I remember it for that, for the beauty of Marisa Berenson, and the chilling treatment that she and the other Jewish character were faced with as the spectre of the Nazis loomed. It’s a memorable film. It’s very well made, and in my opinion is the best film of 1972.

Wikipedia (note, diegetic means “occurring within the context of the story and able to be heard by the characters.”):

“Cabaret is a 1972 American musical period drama film directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse from a screenplay by Jay Presson Allen, based on the stage musical of the same name…(and) the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood. It stars Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Marisa Berenson…Multiple numbers from the stage score were used for the film…
In the traditional manner of musical theater, most major characters in the stage version sing to express their emotions and advance the plot; in the film, however, the musical numbers are almost entirely diegetic and take place inside the club…with the exception of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me", which is not performed in the club or by the club characters, but is still diegetic, a nationalistic song sung by a Nazi youth and the German crowd.

Plot
In 1931 Berlin, a young, openly promiscuous American Sally Bowles performs at the Kit Kat Klub. A new British arrival in the city, Brian Roberts, moves into the boarding house where Sally lives…They become friends, and Brian witnesses Sally's bohemian life in the last days of the Weimar Republic…Maximilian von Heune, a rich, married playboy and baron, befriends Sally and takes her and Brian to his country estate where they are both spoiled and courted….
Meanwhile, Fritz Wendel, a German Jew passing as a Protestant Christian, is in love with Natalia Landauer, a wealthy German Jewish heiress who holds him in contempt and suspects his motives. Through Brian, Sally advises him to be more aggressive, which eventually enables Fritz to win her love. However, to gain her parents' consent for their marriage, Fritz must reveal his Jewish background, which he does and the two are married by a rabbi.
The rise of Fascism in Europe is an ever-present undercurrent and is the overarching plot of the film. The progress of the primary characters can be tracked through their changing actions and attitudes towards the ever rising tide of German Nazism in the Weimar Republic. In the beginning of the film, a member of the Nazi Party is expelled from the Kit Kat Klub by the club manager, who suffers a subsequent beating.
The rise of the Nazis in the 1930s is also demonstrated towards the end of the film in a rural beer garden scene. There a blonde boy sings to an audience of all ages ("Tomorrow Belongs to Me") about the beauties of nature and youth. It is eventually revealed that the boy is wearing a Hitlerjugend uniform. The ballad then transforms into a militant Nazi anthem, and by the song's end, one by one nearly all of the adults and young people rise and join in the singing. "Do you still think you can control them?" Brian then asks Max. After the beer garden scene, Brian gets into a confrontation with a Nazi on a Berlin street, which leads to his receiving a beating.
In the final scene of the film in the Kit Kat Klub, it slowly becomes apparent in the hazy club that audience members wearing NSDAP uniforms are now sitting in the preferred front seats of the club.”
…The 1972 film was based upon Christopher Isherwood's semi-autobiographical stories about Weimar-era Berlin during the Jazz Age. In 1929, Isherwood moved to Berlin in order to pursue life as an openly gay man and to enjoy the city's libertine nightlife. His expatriate social circle included W.H. Auden…

Production

Screenplay revisions
…Fosse decided to increase the focus on the Kit Kat Klub, where Sally performs, as a metaphor for the decadence of Germany in the 1930s by eliminating all but one of the musical numbers performed outside the club. The only remaining outside number is "Tomorrow Belongs to Me", a folk song rendered spontaneously by patrons at an open-air café. In addition, the show's original songwriters Kander and Ebb wrote two new songs, "Mein Herr" and "Money", and incorporated "Maybe This Time", a song they composed in 1964…

Casting
…Minnelli modeled the character's appearance upon Louise Brooks, an American actress who was famous in 1930s Weimar Germany…

Filming
Rehearsals and filming took place entirely in West Germany….Prior to filming, Fosse would complain every afternoon on the set of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory because that film was overrunning and keeping him from starting work on the same stage.[38]

…Critical reception

Contemporary reviews
Variety claimed the film received the most "sugary" reviews of the year.[ Roger Ebert gave a positive review in January 1972, saying: "This is no ordinary musical. Part of its success comes because it doesn't fall for the old cliché that musicals have to make you happy. Instead of cheapening the movie version by lightening its load of despair, director Bob Fosse has gone right to the bleak heart of the material and stayed there well enough to win an Academy Award for Best Director."
A.D. Murphy of Variety wrote "The film version of the 1966 John Kander-Fred Ebb Broadway musical Cabaret is most unusual: it is literate, bawdy, sophisticated, sensual, cynical, heart-warming, and disturbingly thought-provoking. Liza Minnelli heads a strong cast. Bob Fosse's generally excellent direction recreates the milieu of Germany some 40 years ago."
Roger Greenspun of The New York Times wrote in February 1972 that "Cabaret is one of those immensely gratifying imperfect works in which from beginning to end you can literally feel a movie coming to life."
Likewise, Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote a review that same month in which she applauded the film:
"A great movie musical. Taking its form from political cabaret, it's a satire of temptations. In a prodigious balancing act, Bob Fosse, the choreographer-director, keeps the period—Berlin, 1931—at a cool distance. We see the decadence as garish and sleazy; yet we also see the animal energy in it—everything seems to become sexualized. The movie does not exploit decadence; rather, it gives it its due…."

Reaction of Isherwood and others
…The poet Stephen Spender lamented how Cabaret (1972) glossed over Weimar Berlin's crushing poverty: "There is not a single meal, or club, in the movie Cabaret, that Christopher [Isherwood] and I could have afforded [in 1931]. What we mostly knew was the Berlin of poverty, unemployment, political demonstrations and street fighting between forces of the extreme left and the extreme right."
Both Spender and Ross contended that the 1972 film and 1966 Broadway musical deleteriously glamorized the harsh realities of the 1930s Weimar era.

…Controversies
Although less explicit compared with other films made in the 1970s, Cabaret dealt explicitly with topics like corruption, sexual ambiguity, false dreams, and Nazism. Tim Dirks at Filmsite.org notes: "The sexually-charged, semi-controversial, kinky musical was the first one ever to be given an X rating (although later re-rated) with its numerous sexual flings and hedonistic club life. There was considerable sexual innuendo, profanity, casual sex talk (homosexual and heterosexual), some evidence of anti-Semitism, and even an abortion in the film." It was also rated X in the UK and later re-rated as 15.
…The "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" scene was controversial, with Kander and Ebb, both of whom were Jewish, sometimes being wrongly accused of using a historical Nazi song.[67] According to an article in Variety in November 1976, the film was censored in West Berlin when it was first released there theatrically, with the sequence featuring the Hitler Youth singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" having been deleted…
Another topic of discussion was the song "If You Could See Her", which closed with the line: "If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all." The point of the song was showing anti-Semitism as it begins to run rampant in Berlin, but there were a number of Jewish groups who interpreted the lyrics differently….

Accolades
Cabaret earned a total of ten Academy Award nominations (winning eight of them) and holds the record for most Academy Awards for a film that did not also win Best Picture.

…Legacy
…The film has been listed as one of the most important for queer cinema for its depictions of bisexuality… Film blogs have selected it as "the gayest winner in the history of the Academy."”

Runtime: 2 hours 4 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbq2WFctBM



Chinatown 1974 USA Roman Polanski

It’s not my favourite film. I find some of it a drag. I personally struggle with the ending. There are parts though where I appreciate the building tension. I also appreciate the quality of the filming, and I’m a big fan of Dunaway’s acting. She plays this part as a bit of a caricature, but she’s still terrific.

Wikipedia:
“Chinatown is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery film directed by Roman Polanski from a screenplay by Robert Towne. It stars Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in the principal roles…The film's story is inspired by the California water wars: a series of disputes over southern California water at the beginning of the 20th century that resulted in Los Angeles securing water rights in the Owens Valley. The Robert Evans production, released by Paramount Pictures, was Polanski's last film in the United States and features many elements of film noir, particularly a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part psychological drama.
Chinatown was released in the United States on June 20, 1974, to acclaim from critics, with praise for the narrative and screenwriting, Nicholson and Dunaway's performances, cinematography, and Polanski's direction….
…Production
Background
In 1971, producer Robert Evans offered Towne $175,000 to write a screenplay for The Great Gatsby (1974), but Towne felt he could not better the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. Instead, Towne asked Evans for $25,000 to write his own story, Chinatown, to which Evans agreed….
Script
…Towne wrote the screenplay with Jack Nicholson in mind. He took the title (and the exchange "What did you do in Chinatown?" / "As little as possible") from a Hungarian vice cop, who had worked in Los Angeles's Chinatown, dealing with its confusion of dialects and gangs. The vice cop thought that "police were better off in Chinatown doing nothing, because you could never tell what went on there" and whether what a cop did helped or furthered the exploitation of victims.
…Polanski first learned of the script through Nicholson, as they had been searching for a suitable joint project…Polanski was initially reluctant to return to Los Angeles (it was only a few years since the murder of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate), but was persuaded on the strength of the script.
…Towne wanted Cross to die and Evelyn Mulwray to survive, but the screenwriter and director argued over it, with Polanski insisting on a tragic end: "I knew that if Chinatown was to be special, not just another thriller where the good guys triumph in the final reel, Evelyn had to die". They parted ways over this dispute and Polanski wrote the final scene a few days before it was shot.
… While it has been reported that Towne envisioned a happy ending, he has denied these claims and said simply that he initially found Polanski's ending to be excessively melodramatic.
He explained in a 1997 interview: "The way I had seen it was that Evelyn would kill her father but end up in jail for it, unable to give the real reason why it happened. And the detective [Jack Nicholson] couldn't talk about it either, so it was bleak in its own way". Towne retrospectively concluded that "Roman was right", later arguing that Polanski's stark and simple ending, due to the complexity of the events preceding it, was more fitting than his own, which he described as equally bleak but "too complicated and too literary"….
The original script was more than 180 pages and included a narration by Gittes; Polanski cut and reordered the story so the audience and Gittes unraveled the mysteries at the same time…
Characters and casting
…In 1974, after making Chinatown and while filming The Fortune, Nicholson was informed by Time magazine researchers that his "sister" was actually his mother, similarly to the revelation made in the film regarding Evelyn and Katherine.
Filming
…In keeping with a technique Polanski attributes to Raymond Chandler, all of the events of the film are seen subjectively through the main character's eyes; for example, when Gittes is knocked unconscious, the film fades to black and fades in when he awakens. Gittes appears in every scene of the film.…
Historical background
…The character of Hollis Mulwray was inspired by and loosely based on Irish immigrant William Mulholland (1855–1935) according to Mulholland's granddaughter. Mulholland was the superintendent and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who oversaw the construction of the 230-mile (370-km) aqueduct that carries water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. Mulholland was considered by many to be the man who made Los Angeles possible by building the Los Angeles Aqueduct in the early 1900s. The 233 mile long feat of engineering brought the water necessary for urban expansion from the Owens Valley to a Los Angeles whose growth was constrained by the limits of the Los Angeles River….
Although the character of Hollis Mulwray was relatively minor in the film and he was killed in the early part of the movie, the events of Mulholland's life were portrayed through both the character of Mulwray and other figures in the movie. This portrayal, along with other changes to actual events that inspired Chinatown, such as the time frame which was some thirty years earlier than that of the movie, were some of the liberties with facts of Mulholland's life that the movie takes….
…In the film, Mulwray opposes the dam wanted by Noah Cross and the city of Los Angeles, for reasons of engineering and safety, arguing he would not repeat his previous mistake, when his dam broke resulting in hundreds of deaths. This alludes to the St. Francis Dam disaster of March 12, 1928.
Unlike the character of Mulwray, who was concerned about the dam in Chinatown, Mulholland's role in the disaster diverged from the events in the film. Mulholland had inspected the St. Francis Dam after the dam keeper Tony Harnischfeger requested that Mulholland personally inspect the dam after Harnischfeger became concerned about the safety of the dam upon discovering cracks and brown water leaking from the base of the dam, which indicated to him the erosion of the dam's foundation. Mulholland inspected the dam at around 10:30 in the morning, declaring that all was well with the structure. Just before midnight that same evening, a massive failure of the dam occurred. The dam's failure inundated the Santa Clara River Valley, including the town of Santa Paula, with flood water, causing the deaths of at least 431 people. The event effectively ended Mulholland's career.
…The plot of Chinatown is also drawn not just from the diversion of water from the Owens Valley via the aqueduct but also from another actual event. In the movie, water is being purposely released in order to drive the land owners out and create support for a dam through an artificial drought. The event that the movie refers to occurred in late 1903 and 1904 when underground water levels plummeted and water usage rose precipitously. Rather than a deliberate release, Mulholland was able to figure out that because of faulty valves and gates in the water system, large quantities of water were being released in the overflow sewer system and then into the ocean. Mulholland was able to stop the leaks….
In his 2004 film essay and documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself, film scholar Thom Andersen lays out the complex relationship between Chinatown's script and its historical background:
Chinatown isn't a docudrama, it's a fiction. The water project it depicts isn't the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, engineered by William Mulholland before the First World War. Chinatown is set in 1937, not 1905. The Mulholland-like figure—"Hollis Mulwray"—isn't the chief architect of the project, but rather its strongest opponent, who must be discredited and murdered. Mulwray is against the "Alto Vallejo Dam" because it's unsafe, not because it's stealing water from somebody else... But there are echoes of Mulholland's aqueduct project in Chinatown... Mulholland's project enriched its promoters through insider land deals in the San Fernando Valley, just like the dam project in Chinatown. The disgruntled San Fernando Valley farmers of Chinatown, forced to sell off their land at bargain prices because of an artificial drought, seem like stand-ins for the Owens Valley settlers whose homesteads turned to dust when Los Angeles took the water that irrigated them. The "Van Der Lip Dam" disaster, which Hollis Mulwray cites to explain his opposition to the proposed dam, is an obvious reference to the collapse of the Saint Francis Dam in 1928. Mulholland built this dam after completing the aqueduct and its failure was the greatest man-made disaster in the history of California. These echoes have led many viewers to regard Chinatown, not only as docudrama, but as truth—the real secret history of how Los Angeles got its water. And it has become a ruling metaphor of the non-fictional critiques of Los Angeles development.
…Critical response
…Although the film was widely acclaimed by prominent critics upon its release, Vincent Canby of The New York Times was not impressed with the screenplay as compared to the film's predecessors, saying, "Mr. Polanski and Mr. Towne have attempted nothing so witty and entertaining, being content instead to make a competently stylish, more or less thirties-ish movie that continually made me wish I were back seeing The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep", but noted Nicholson's performance
Legacy
Towne's screenplay has become legendary among critics and filmmakers, often cited as one of the best examples of the craft.


Runtime: 2 hours 10 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z70axRwP74Q


Blade Runner 1982 (Director’s Cut 1992) USA Ridley Scott

Another of the very greatest films. Whether by luck of judgment, the passing of time has made it all the more relevant with its examination of whether an artificially created life form can have a soul. The special effects are incredible for 82. Cinema had done life on other planets convincingly, but here was a century from the future on earth, which we were able to believe. It also works stunningly as a neo noir, with Sean Young as iconic as it gets. Ford is Ford and Rutger Hauer (who like Young provides a career defining performance) delivers that immortal line about tears in rain which he came up with himself. It’s an amazing climax, shot in that incredibly atmospheric disused building. I can hear now the water drips echoing around the empty spaces after bouncing on the steel. I also love the gorgeous Darryl Hannah in this. It would have been nice if the human story between Deckard and Rachel was more prominent, but what’s there works. There are also a couple of plot issues which have been cited as weaknesses, but meh who gives a shit.

My favoured version, the director's cut, was released in 1992, but I've listed it by the date of the theatrical release.

Wikipedia
“Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott…Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies. When a fugitive group of advanced replicants led by Roy Batty (Hauer) escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard (Ford) reluctantly agrees to hunt them down.
Blade Runner initially underperformed in North American theaters and polarized critics; some praised its thematic complexity and visuals, while others critiqued its slow pacing and lack of action. …Blade Runner later became a cult film, and has since come to be regarded as one of the greatest science fiction films. Hailed for its production design depicting a high-tech but decaying future, the film is often regarded as both a leading example of neo-noir cinema and a foundational work of the cyberpunk genre. It has influenced many science fiction films, video games, anime, and television series. …
Seven different versions of Blade Runner exist as a result of controversial changes requested by studio executives. A director's cut was released in 1992 after a strong response to test screenings of a workprint. This, in conjunction with the film's popularity as a video rental, made it one of the earliest movies to be released on DVD. In 2007, Warner Bros. released The Final Cut, a 25th-anniversary digitally remastered version; this is the only version over which Scott retained artistic control.
The film is the first of the franchise of the same name. A sequel, titled Blade Runner 2049, was released in 2017 alongside a trilogy of short films covering the thirty-year span between the two films' settings….

…Production
…The screenplay by Hampton Fancher was optioned in 1977. Producer Michael Deeley became interested in Fancher's draft and convinced director Ridley Scott to film it…. Fancher found a cinema treatment by William S. Burroughs for Alan E. Nourse's novel The Bladerunner (1974), titled Blade Runner (a movie). Scott liked the name, so Deeley obtained the rights to the titles. …
Fancher's script focused more on environmental issues and less on issues of humanity and religion, which are prominent in the novel, and Scott wanted changes. Eventually, he hired David Peoples to rewrite the script and Fancher left the job over the issue on December 21, 1980, although he later returned to contribute additional rewrites.

Having invested more than $2.5 million in pre-production, as the date of commencement of principal photography neared, Filmways withdrew financial backing. In ten days Deeley had secured $21.5 million in financing through a three-way deal between the Ladd Company (through Warner Bros.), the Hong Kong-based producer Sir Run Run Shaw and Tandem Productions…
…Principal photography of Blade Runner began on March 9, 1981, and ended four months later.
In 1992, Ford revealed, "Blade Runner is not one of my favorite films. I tangled with Ridley." Apart from friction with the director, Ford also disliked the voiceovers: "When we started shooting it had been tacitly agreed that the version of the film that we had agreed upon was the version without voiceover narration. It was a f**king nightmare. I thought that the film had worked without the narration. But now I was stuck re-creating that narration. And I was obliged to do the voiceovers for people that did not represent the director's interests." "I went kicking and screaming to the studio to record it."…
In 2006, Scott was asked "Who's the biggest pain in the arse you've ever worked with?" He replied: "It's got to be Harrison ... he'll forgive me because now I get on with him. Now he's become charming. But he knows a lot, that's the problem. When we worked together it was my first film up and I was the new kid on the block. But we made a good movie."
…In 2006 Ford reflected on the production of the film saying: "What I remember more than anything else when I see Blade Runner is not the 50 nights of shooting in the rain, but the voiceover ... I was still obliged to work for these clowns that came in writing one bad voiceover after another." R
…Test screenings resulted in several changes, including adding a voice-over, a happy ending, and the removal of a Holden hospital scene. The relationship between the filmmakers and the investors was difficult, which culminated in Deeley and Scott being fired but still working on the film. …

Casting
…Casting the film proved troublesome, particularly for the lead role of Deckard. Screenwriter Hampton Fancher envisioned Robert Mitchum as Deckard and wrote the character's dialogue with Mitchum in mind. According to production documents, several actors were considered for the role, including Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Peter Falk, Nick Nolte, Al Pacino and Burt Reynolds. (author’s note: sweet Jesus)
Director Ridley Scott and the film's producers spent months meeting and discussing the role with Dustin Hoffman (author’s note: God almighty NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO), who eventually departed over differences in vision.
Harrison Ford was ultimately chosen for several reasons, including his performance in the Star Wars films, Ford's interest in the Blade Runner story, and discussions with Steven Spielberg, who was finishing Raiders of the Lost Ark at the time and strongly praised Ford's work in the film. Following his success in those two films, Ford was looking for a role with dramatic depth.
Rutger Hauer was cast as Roy Batty…Of the many films Hauer made, Blade Runner was his favorite. In a live chat in 2001, he said "Blade Runner needs no explanation. It just [is]. All of the best. There is nothing like it. To be part of a real masterpiece which changed the world's thinking. It's awesome." Hauer rewrote his character's "tears in rain" speech himself and presented the words to Scott on set prior to filming….
….Debbie Harry turned down the role of Pris….

Design
…Blade Runner has numerous similarities to Fritz Lang's Metropolis, including a built-up urban environment, in which the wealthy literally live above the workers, dominated by a huge building – the Stadtkrone Tower in Metropolis and the Tyrell Building in Blade Runner. Special effects supervisor David Dryer used stills from Metropolis when lining up Blade Runner's miniature building shots…
Music
The Blade Runner soundtrack by Vangelis is a dark melodic combination of classic composition and futuristic synthesizers which mirrors the film noir retro-future envisioned by Scott.[69] Vangelis… composed and performed the music on his synthesizers….Another memorable sound is the tenor sax solo "Love Theme" by British saxophonist Dick Morrissey, who performed on many of Vangelis's albums….
Special effects
The film's special effects are generally recognized to be among the best in the genre, using the available (non-digital) technology to the fullest. Special effects engineers who worked on the film are often praised for the innovative technology they used to produce and design certain aspects of those visuals. In addition to matte paintings and models, the techniques employed included multipass exposures. In some scenes, the set was lit, shot, the film rewound, and then rerecorded over with different lighting. In some cases this was done 16 times in all. The cameras were frequently motion controlled using computers. Many effects used techniques which had been developed during the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

…Versions
Several versions of Blade Runner have been shown. The original workprint version (1982, 113 minutes) was shown for audience test previews in Denver and Dallas in March 1982. Negative responses to the previews led to the modifications resulting in the U.S. theatrical version.
…The workprint was shown as a director's cut without Scott's approval at the Los Angeles Fairfax Theater in May 1990…and in September and October 1991 at the Los Angeles NuArt Theater and the San Francisco Castro Theatre. Positive responses pushed the studio to approve work on an official director's cut….
Ridley Scott's Director's Cut (1992, 116 minutes) had significant changes from the theatrical version including the removal of Deckard's voice-over, the re-insertion of a sequence in which Deckard dreams of a unicorn, and the removal of the studio-imposed happy ending. Scott provided extensive notes and consultation to Warner Bros. through film preservationist Michael Arick, who was put in charge of creating the Director's Cut.
…Scott's definitive The Final Cut (2007, 117 minutes) was released by Warner Bros. theatrically on October 5, 2007, and subsequently released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc in December 2007. This is the only version over which Scott had complete artistic and editorial control.

Reception
…Cultural analysis
Academics began analyzing the film almost as soon as it was released….
The boom in home video formats helped establish a growing cult around the film, which scholars have dissected for its dystopic aspects, questions regarding "authentic" humanity, ecofeminist aspects and use of conventions from multiple genres. Popular culture began to reassess its impact as a classic several years after it was released.
…A 2019 retrospective in the BBC argued that elements of the film's socio-political themes remained prescient in the real year of the film's setting, such as its depiction of climate change….

…Themes
The film operates on multiple dramatic and narrative levels. It employs some of the conventions of film noir, among them the character of a femme fatale; narration by the protagonist (in the original release); chiaroscuro cinematography; and giving the hero a questionable moral outlook – extending to include reflections upon the nature of his own humanity…
…A sense of foreboding and paranoia pervades the world of the film: corporate power looms large; the police seem omnipresent; vehicle and warning lights probe into buildings; and the consequences of huge biomedical power over the individual are explored – especially regarding replicants' implanted memories. The film depicts a world post ecocide, where warfare and capitalism have led to destruction of 'normal' ecological systems. Control over the environment is exercised on a vast scale, and goes hand in hand with the absence of any natural life; for example, artificial animals stand in for their extinct predecessors. This oppressive backdrop explains the frequently referenced migration of humans to "off-world" (extraterrestrial) colonies….
These thematic elements provide an atmosphere of uncertainty for Blade Runner's central theme of examining humanity. In order to discover replicants, an empathy test is used, with a number of its questions focused on the treatment of animals – seemingly an essential indicator of one's "humanity". Replicants will not respond the same way humans would, showing a lack of concern…
The question of whether Deckard is intended to be a human or a replicant has been an ongoing controversy since the film's release. Both Michael Deeley and Harrison Ford wanted Deckard to be human, while Hampton Fancher preferred ambiguity. Ridley Scott has stated that he envisaged Deckard as a replicant. Deckard's unicorn-dream sequence, inserted into Scott's Director's Cut and concomitant with Gaff's parting gift of an origami unicorn, is seen by many as showing that Deckard is a replicant – because Gaff could have retrieved Deckard's implanted memories. The interpretation that Deckard is a replicant is challenged by others who believe the unicorn imagery shows that the characters, whether human or replicant, share the same dreams and recognize their affinity, or that the absence of a decisive answer is crucial to the film's main theme. The film's inherent ambiguity and uncertainty, as well as its textual richness, have permitted multiple interpretations.

…Legacy
…The logos of Atari, Bell, Coca-Cola, Cuisinart, Pan Am, and RCA, all market leaders at the time, were prominently displayed as product placement in the film, and all experienced setbacks after the film's release, leading to suggestions of a Blade Runner curse….
Sequel and related media
…A sequel was released in 2017, titled Blade Runner 2049, with Ryan Gosling alongside Ford in the starring roles.”

Runtime: 1 hour 53 minutes – 1 hour 57 minutes
Trailer (director’s cut): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALXpYjZGsVw
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umc9ezAyJv0


Withnail & I 1987 UK Bruce Robinson (provisional)

Very funny film. Like Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day, this is the role that Grant was born to play. The three of them: Grant, McGann and Griffiths are perfect in fact. McGann struggles to keep a straight face at times, but he does a good job of it, often in very demanding circumstances. Well written, well shot, well acted, well produced. And funny.

Wikipedia:
“Withnail and I is a 1987 British black comedy film written and directed by Bruce Robinson. Loosely based on Robinson's life in London in the late 1960s, the plot follows two unemployed actors, Withnail and "I" (portrayed by Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann, respectively) who share a flat in Camden Town in 1969. Needing a holiday, they obtain the key to a country cottage in the Lake District belonging to Withnail's eccentric uncle Monty and drive there. The weekend holiday proves less recuperative than they expected.
Withnail and I was Grant's film debut and established his profile. Featuring performances by Richard Griffiths as Withnail's Uncle Monty…the film has tragic and comic elements and is notable for its period music and many quotable lines. It has been described as "one of Britain's biggest cult films".
The character "I" is named "Marwood" in the published screenplay but goes unnamed in the film credits.

…Production...

Writing
The film is an adaptation of an unpublished novel written by Robinson in 1969–1970…Robinson's script is largely autobiographical. "Marwood" is Robinson; "Withnail" is based on Vivian MacKerrell, a friend with whom he shared a Camden house and "Uncle Monty" is loosely based on Franco Zeffirelli, from whom Robinson (author’s note: allegedly) received unwanted amorous attentions when he was a young actor.
He lived in the impoverished conditions seen in the film and wore plastic bags as Wellington boots. For the script, Robinson condensed two or three years of his life into two or three weeks. Robinson stated he named the character of Withnail after a childhood acquaintance named Jonathan Withnall, who was "the coolest guy I had ever met in my life".
…Robinson attributed Uncle Monty's question to Marwood ("Are you a sponge or a stone?") as a direct quote from Zeffirelli…
The end of the novel saw Withnail dying by suicide by pouring a bottle of wine into the barrel of Monty's shotgun and then pulling the trigger as he drank from it. Robinson changed the ending, as he believed it was "too dark".

Name of "I"
…Towards the end of the film, a telegram arrives at Crow Crag on which the name "Marwood" is partially visible.

…Casting…
McGann was Robinson's first choice for "I" but he was fired during rehearsals because Robinson decided McGann's Scouse (Liverpool) accent was wrong for the character. Several other actors read for the role but McGann eventually persuaded Robinson to re-audition him, promising to affect a Home Counties accent and quickly won back the part.
Actors Robinson considered for "Withnail" included Daniel Day-Lewis…Kenneth Branagh…
Though he plays a raging alcoholic, Grant is a teetotaller with an allergy to alcohol. He had never been drunk prior to making the film. Robinson decided that it would be impossible for Grant to play the character without having ever experienced inebriation and a hangover, so he "forced" the actor on a drinking binge. Grant has stated that he was "violently sick" after each drink and found the experience deeply unpleasant.

Filming
…During the filming of the scene in which Withnail drinks a can of lighter fluid, Robinson changed the contents of the can between takes from water to vinegar to get a better reaction from Grant….The film cost £1.1 million to make. Robinson received £80,000 to direct, £30,000 of which he reinvested into the film to shoot additional scenes such as the journeys to and from Penrith, which HandMade Films would not fund. The money was never reimbursed after the film's success….

…Music
The film score was composed by David Dundas and Rick Wentworth.[22] The film features a rare appearance of a recording by the Beatles, whose 1968 song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" plays as the titular duo return to London and find Presuming Ed in the bath. The song, written and sung by George Harrison, was able to be included in the soundtrack due to Harrison's involvement as a producer.
"A Whiter Shade of Pale" (live) – King Curtis – 5:25
"The Wolf" – David Dundas and Rick Wentworth – 1:33
"All Along the Watchtower" (reduced tempo) – The Jimi Hendrix Experience – 4:10
"To the Crow" – David Dundas and Rick Wentworth – 2:22
"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" (live) – The Jimi Hendrix Experience – 4:28
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" – The Beatles – 4:44
"Marwood Walks" – David Dundas and Rick Wentworth – 2:14
"Monty Remembers" – David Dundas and Rick Wentworth – 2:02
"La Fite" – David Dundas and Rick Wentworth – 1:10
"Hang Out the Stars in Indiana" – Al Bowlly and New Mayfair Dance Orchestra – 1:35
"Crow Crag" – David Dundas and Rick Wentworth – 0:56
"Cheval Blanc" – David Dundas and Rick Wentworth – 1:15
"My Friend" – Charlie Kunz – 1:28
"Withnail's Theme" – David Dundas and Rick Wentworth – 2:40

…Legacy
…There is a drinking game associated with the film. The game consists of keeping up, drink for drink, with each alcoholic substance consumed by Withnail over the course of the film. All told, Withnail is shown drinking roughly 9+1⁄2 glasses of red wine, one-half imperial pint (280 ml) of cider, one shot of lighter fluid (vinegar or overproof rum are common substitutes), 2+1⁄2 measures of gin, six glasses of sherry, thirteen drams of Scotch whisky and 1⁄2 pint of ale.[better source needed]”

Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Z0DV33gAY

When Harry Met Sally 1989 USA Rob Reiner (provisional)

Another comedy!! Another funny film. I also think it’s extremely romantic! It gives me the feels! My favourite scenes are the haha charades type game, and when she says the name of his ex wife into the microphone in the store. But I lolled several times the first time I watched this. I've heard it said that it's a poor rip off of Woody Allen, but I prefer it to any Allen film. In fact it’s my favourite ever romcom/screwball comedy.

Wikipedia:
“When Harry Met Sally... is a 1989 American romantic comedy film directed by Rob Reiner and written by Nora Ephron. Starring Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, and Bruno Kirby, it follows the title characters from the time they meet in Chicago and share a drive to New York City through twelve years of chance encounters in New York, and addresses the question "Can men and women ever just be friends?"
…The When Harry Met Sally... soundtrack album features American singer and pianist Harry Connick Jr…The soundtrack features performances by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Bing Crosby, and Harry Connick Jr.
…Production
…Originally, Ephron wanted to call the film How They Met and went through several different titles. Reiner even started a contest with the crew during principal photography: whoever came up with the title won a case of champagne.
In order to get into the lonely mindset of Harry when he was divorced and single, Crystal stayed by himself in a separate room from the cast and crew while they were shooting in Manhattan.
The script initially ended with Harry and Sally remaining friends and not pursuing a romantic relationship because she felt that was "the true ending", as did Reiner. Eventually, Ephron and Reiner realized that it would be a more appropriate ending for them to marry, though they admit that this was generally not a realistic outcome. Reiner related that the film originally had a sad ending before he met his second wife Michele, which inspired him to change the ending.
…When posed the film's central question, can men and women just be friends, Ryan replied, "Yes, men and women can just be friends. I have a lot of platonic (male) friends, and sex doesn't get in the way." Crystal said, "I'm a little more optimistic than Harry. But I think it is difficult. Men basically act like stray dogs in front of a supermarket. I do have platonic (women) friends, but not best, best, best friends."
Katz's Delicatessen scene
..In a scene featuring the two title characters having lunch at Katz's Delicatessen, a well-known Jewish deli in Manhattan, the couple are arguing about a man's ability to recognize when a woman is faking an orgasm. Sally claims that men cannot tell the difference, and to prove her point, she vividly (fully clothed) fakes one as other diners watch. The scene ends with Sally casually returning to her meal as a nearby patron (played by Reiner's mother) places her order, deadpan: "I'll have what she's having." When Estelle Reiner died at age 94 in 2008, The New York Times referred to her as the woman "who delivered one of the most memorably funny lines in movie history".[11] This scene was shot "over and over again", and Ryan demonstrated her fake orgasms for hours. Katz's Deli still hangs a sign above the table that says, "Where Harry met Sally... hope you have what she had!"
…The memorable scene was born when the film started to focus too much on Harry. Crystal remembers saying, "'We need something for Sally to talk about,' and Nora said, 'Well, faking orgasm is a great one,' and right away we said, 'Well, the subject is good,' and then Meg came on board and we talked with her about the nature of the idea and she said, 'Well, why don't I just fake one, just do one?'" Ryan suggested that the scene take place in a restaurant, and it was Crystal who came up with the scene's classic punchline – "I'll have what she's having."

Runtime 1 hour 35 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E10AcydCuk

Days of Being Wild 1990 Hong Kong Wong Kar-Wai

Another gorgeous looking film (see the trailer). A really unique look. A soundtrack that works well with the film, and very precise sound effects as well. Set in 60s Hong Kong, it’s been described as a gangster film, although this really only comes out at the end (in the scenes in the Philippines). There’s nothing special about the plot, and no great message, it’s about visuals, and sounds, and pacing and atmosphere above anything else.

Wikipedia:
“Days of Being Wild is a 1990 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-Wai. Starring some of the best-known actors and actresses in Hong Kong, including…Maggie Cheung… the film marks the first collaboration between Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle, with whom he has since made six more films.
It forms the first part of an informal trilogy, together with In the Mood for Love (2000) and 2046 (2004).
Plot
The movie begins in 1960 Hong Kong.
Yuddy, a smooth-talking playboy seduces Li-zhen but is uninterested in pursuing a serious relationship with her. Li-zhen, who wants to marry him, is heartbroken and decides to leave. Yuddy moves on to a new relationship with vivacious cabaret dancer Mimi. His friend Zeb is also attracted to her but she doesn't reciprocate his feelings.
Yuddy has a tense relationship with his adoptive mother Rebecca, a former prostitute, after she reveals that he is adopted. He also doesn't approve of her choice of lovers much younger than her who he thinks are taking advantage of her wealth. She initially refuses to reveal who his birth mother is but eventually relents and tells him that she lives in the Philippines.
…
Meanwhile, Yuddy decides to find his birth mother and leaves for the Philippines, giving his car to Zeb and without informing Mimi. Mimi is distraught and resolves to follow him…”

Run time 1 hour 34 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgnpdqTUcg

[Robert the List]

There we have it. Subject to watching a handful of films by Eric Rhomer, below are the 100 films:

1 The Great White Silence 1924 UK Herbery Ponting
2 Strike 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein
3 The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Germany Lotte Reiniger
4 Sunrise 1927 USA FW Mureau
5 The Passion of Joan of Arc 1927 France Carl Theodor Dreyer
6 Man With a Movie Camera (doc) 1929 Soviet Union Dziga Vertov
7 Salt for Svanetia 1930 Soviet Union Mikhael Kalatazov
8 Limite 1931 Brazil Mário Peixoto
9 Vampyr 1932 Germany Carl Theodor Dreyer
10 Story of the Last Chrysanthemums 1939 Japan *Kenji Mizoguchi
11 Mr Smith Goes to Washington 1939 USA Frank Capra
12 The Wizard of Oz 1939 USA Victor Fleming
13 Day of Wrath 1943 Denmark Carl Theodor Dreyer ESSENTIAL
14 Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 USA Maya Deren
15. Sanshiro Sugata 1943 Japan Akira Kurosawa
16. La Belle et La Bete 1946 France Jean Cocteau
17. Panique 1946 France Julien Duvivier
18. Notorious 1946 USA Alfred Hitchcock ESSENTIAL
19. Out of the Past 1947 France Jacques Tourneur
20. Bicycle Thieves 1948 Italy Vittorio De Sica
21. Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949 UK Robert Hamer
22. Stray Dog 1949 Japan Akira Kurosawa ESSENTIAL
23. The Third Man 1949 UK Carol Reed
24. Late Spring 1949 Japan Yasujirō Ozu ESSENTIAL
25. Little Fugitive 1953 USA Morris Engel
26. On the Waterfront 1954 USA Alfred Hitchcock
27. Rear Window 1954 USA
28. Journey to Italy 1954 Italy Roberto Rossellini
29. La Pointe Courte 1955 France Agnès Varda
30. Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyijat Ray
31. Bob the Gambler 1956 France Jean Pierre Melville
32. Bridge On The River Kwai 1957 UK David Lean
33. Elevator to the Gallows 1958 France Louis Malle
34. The Music Room 1958 India Satyajit Ray
35. Touch of Evil 1958 USA Orson Welles ESSENTIAL
36. North by Northwest 1959 USA Alfred Hitchcock
37. The Naked Island 1960 Japan Kaneto Shindô ESSENTIAL
38. Psycho 1960 USA Alfred Hitchcock
39. La Notte 1961 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
40. Last Year at Marienbad 1961 France Alain Resnais
41. Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy
42. La Jetee 1962 France Chris Marker ESSENTIAL
43. L'Eclisse 1962 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
44. Lawrence of Arabia 1962 UK David Lean ESSENTIAL
45. High and Low 1963 Japan Akira Kurosawa
46. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964 France Jacques Demy
47. Onibaba 1964 Japan Kaneto Shindô
48. For a Few Dollars More 1965 Italy Sergio Leone
49. Alphaville 1965 France Jean-Luc Godard
50. Le Bonheur 1965 France Agnès Varda
51. Pierrot Le Fou 1965 France Jean Luc Godard
52. The Sound of Music 1965 USA Robert Wise
53. Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France Robert Bresson
54. Blow-up 1966 UK Michelangelo Antonioni
55. Closely Watched Trains 1966 Czech Jirí Menzel
56. Bonnie and Clyde 1967 USA Arthur Penn
57. The Graduate 1967 USA Mike Nichols
58. 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 UK Stanley Kubrick ESSENTIAL
59. Kes 1969 UK Ken Loach
60. A Touch of Zen 1970 Taiwan King Hu
61. Walkabout 1971 UK Nicholas Roeg
62. McCabe and Mrs Miller 1971 USA Robert Altman
63. The Godfather 1972 USA Francis Ford Copolla
64. Le Cousin Jules (doc) 1973 France Dominique Benicheti ESSENTIAL
65. Don't Look Now 1973 UK Nicholas Roeg
66. Badlands 1973 USA Terrence Malick
67. The Passenger 1975 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
68. Barry Lyndon 1975 UK Stanley Kubrick
69. The Mirror 1975 Soviet Union Andrei Tarkovsky
70. Taxi Driver 1976 USA Martin Scorsese
71. Apocalypse Now 1979 USA Francis Ford Coppola ESSENTIAL
72. Alien 1979 USA Ridley Scott
73. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial 1982 USA Steven Spielberg
74. The King of Comedy 1982 USA Martin Scorsese
75. Paris, Texas 1984 USA Wim Wenders
76. Stranger Than Paradise 1984 USA Jim Jarmusch
77. Taipei Story 1985 Taiwan Edward Yang
78. Landscape in the Mist 1988 Greece Theodoros Angelopoulos ESSENTIAL
79. A Short Film About Killing 1988 Poland krzysztof kieślowski
80. The Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse 1991 USA George Hickenlooper
81. Rebels of the Neon God 1992 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang
82. The Player 1992 USA Robert Altman
83. Vive L'Amour 1994 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang ESSENTIAL
84. Voices Through Time 1996 Italy Franco Piavoli
85. Trainspotting 1996 UK Danny Boyle
86. Flowers of Shanghai 1998 Taiwan Hou Hsiao-hsien
87. Saving Private Ryan 1998 USA Steven Spielberg
88. In the Mood for Love 2000 Hong Kong Wong Kar-Wai
89. Mulholland Drive 2001 USA David Lynch ESSENTIAL
90. Donnie Darko 2001 USA Richard Kelly
91. Uzak 2002 Turkiye Nuri Bilge Ceylan ESSENTIAL
92. No Country for Old Men 2007 USA Joel and Ethan Cohen
93. Wall-E 2008 USA Andrew Stanton
94. Frances Ha 2012
95. Embrace of the Serpent 2015 Colombia Ciro Guerra
96. La La Land 2016 USA Damien Chazelle ESSENTIAL
97. The Lighthouse 2019 USA Robert Eggers
98. Apollo 11 (doc) 2019 USA Todd Douglas Miller
99. Fire of Love (doc) 2022 France Sara Dosa
100. Whitney Houston: The Concert For a New South Africa (doc) 2024 USA Marty Caller

[exiler96]

Happy Easter mate. I don't agree with a good number of things you say but places like this forum become more fun to visit when posters with different approaches and temperaments such as yourself are around.
(where is Mr Minio while we're at it?)

Highlighting the ones I haven't seen yet...

1 The Great White Silence 1924 UK Herbery Ponting
2 Strike 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein
3 The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Germany Lotte Reiniger

7 Salt for Svanetia 1930 Soviet Union Mikhael Kalatazov
8 Limite 1931 Brazil Mário Peixoto

15. Sanshiro Sugata 1943 Japan Akira Kurosawa
17. Panique 1946 France Julien Duvivier
18. Notorious 1946 USA Alfred Hitchcock ESSENTIAL
24. Late Spring 1949 Japan Yasujirō Ozu ESSENTIAL

25. Little Fugitive 1953 USA Morris Engel
28. Journey to Italy 1954 Italy Roberto Rossellini
29. La Pointe Courte 1955 France Agnès Varda
30. Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyijat Ray
31. Bob the Gambler 1956 France Jean Pierre Melville
34. The Music Room 1958 India Satyajit Ray

40. Last Year at Marienbad 1961 France Alain Resnais
41. Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy
42. La Jetee 1962 France Chris Marker ESSENTIAL
47. Onibaba 1964 Japan Kaneto Shindô
50. Le Bonheur 1965 France Agnès Varda
53. Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France Robert Bresson
55. Closely Watched Trains 1966 Czech Jirí Menzel

60. A Touch of Zen 1970 Taiwan King Hu
64. Le Cousin Jules (doc) 1973 France Dominique Benicheti ESSENTIAL
67. The Sleeping Pill 1975 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni

77. Taipei Story 1985 Taiwan Edward Yang

80. The Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse 1991 USA George Hickenlooper
81. Rebels of the Neon God 1992 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang
82. The Player 1992 USA Robert Altman
83. Vive L'Amour 1994 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang ESSENTIAL
84. Voices Through Time 1996 Italy Franco Piavoli
86. Flowers of Shanghai 1998 Taiwan Hou Hsiao-hsien

91. Uzak 2002 Turkiye Nuri Bilge Ceylan ESSENTIAL

95. Embrace of the Serpent 2015 Colombia Ciro Guerra
98. Apollo 11 (doc) 2019 USA Todd Douglas Miller
99. Fire of Love (doc) 2022 France Sara Dosa
100. Whitney Houston: The Concert For a New South Africa (doc) 2024 USA Marty Caller

[Robert the List]

Happy Easter mate. I don't agree with a good number of things you say but places like this forum become more fun to visit when posters with different approaches and temperaments such as yourself are around.
(where is Mr Minio while we're at it?)

Highlighting the ones I haven't seen yet...

1 The Great White Silence 1924 UK Herbery Ponting
2 Strike 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein
3 The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Germany Lotte Reiniger

7 Salt for Svanetia 1930 Soviet Union Mikhael Kalatazov
8 Limite 1931 Brazil Mário Peixoto

15. Sanshiro Sugata 1943 Japan Akira Kurosawa
17. Panique 1946 France Julien Duvivier
18. Notorious 1946 USA Alfred Hitchcock ESSENTIAL
24. Late Spring 1949 Japan Yasujirō Ozu ESSENTIAL

25. Little Fugitive 1953 USA Morris Engel
28. Journey to Italy 1954 Italy Roberto Rossellini
29. La Pointe Courte 1955 France Agnès Varda
30. Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyijat Ray
31. Bob the Gambler 1956 France Jean Pierre Melville
34. The Music Room 1958 India Satyajit Ray

40. Last Year at Marienbad 1961 France Alain Resnais
41. Lola 1961 France Jacques Demy
42. La Jetee 1962 France Chris Marker ESSENTIAL
47. Onibaba 1964 Japan Kaneto Shindô
50. Le Bonheur 1965 France Agnès Varda
53. Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 France Robert Bresson
55. Closely Watched Trains 1966 Czech Jirí Menzel

60. A Touch of Zen 1970 Taiwan King Hu
64. Le Cousin Jules (doc) 1973 France Dominique Benicheti ESSENTIAL
67. The Sleeping Pill 1975 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni

77. Taipei Story 1985 Taiwan Edward Yang

80. The Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse 1991 USA George Hickenlooper
81. Rebels of the Neon God 1992 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang
82. The Player 1992 USA Robert Altman
83. Vive L'Amour 1994 Taiwan Tsai Ming-liang ESSENTIAL
84. Voices Through Time 1996 Italy Franco Piavoli
86. Flowers of Shanghai 1998 Taiwan Hou Hsiao-hsien

91. Uzak 2002 Turkiye Nuri Bilge Ceylan ESSENTIAL

95. Embrace of the Serpent 2015 Colombia Ciro Guerra
98. Apollo 11 (doc) 2019 USA Todd Douglas Miller
99. Fire of Love (doc) 2022 France Sara Dosa
100. Whitney Houston: The Concert For a New South Africa (doc) 2024 USA Marty Caller
Appreciate the comment Exiler, which made me smile.

Good to know that Keyser and I haven't been left completely alone with one another.

Happy Easter to you too. :)

Of the ones you mention, the following are on youtube if you get round to them sometime:
1. The Great White Silence 1924 UK Herbery Ponting
2. Strike 1925 Soviet Union Sergei Eisenstein
3. The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Germany Lotte Reiniger
7. Salt for Svanetia 1930 Soviet Union Mikhael Kalatazov
8. Limite 1931 Brazil Mário Peixoto
24. Late Spring 1949 Japan Yasujirō Ozu ESSENTIAL
25. Little Fugitive 1953 USA Morris Engel
28. Journey to Italy 1954 Italy Roberto Rossellini
29. La Pointe Courte 1955 France Agnès Varda
30. Pather Panchali 1955 India Satyijat Ray
34. The Music Room 1958 India Satyajit Ray
40. The real sleeping pill at Marienbad 1961 France Alain Resnais
42. La Jetee 1962 France Chris Marker ESSENTIAL
47. Onibaba 1964 Japan Kaneto Shindô
67. The Sleeping Pill 1975 Italy Michelangelo Antonioni
84. Voices Through Time 1996 Italy Franco Piavoli

[Robert the List]

Interestingly, up to 1975 only 15 out of 69 films are American.

That compares to 17 of the 31 entries in the last 50 years.

[Robert the List]

Just found my top 100 films list from April 2022.
It had no films made prior to 1970, lol.

[Robert the List]

Up to 1966 I have 55 films in my 100, of which 34 (62%) are in a language (spoken or written) other than English (2 have no language, and 19 are in English). Of the 34, 15 are in French and 7 in Japanese.

Since 1966 I have 45 films in my 100, of which 12 (27%) are in a language other than English (1 has no language, and 32 are in English). Of the 12, 6 are in Chinese.

[Robert the List]

I've sorted most of the links out in the OP.
Will do the other 10 or so another time.