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.
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.
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?
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: Review:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:41 AM.
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.
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: Clip:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:43 AM.
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.
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: Review: Full movie (hard subtitles):
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:46 AM.
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: Full movie:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:46 AM.
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:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:46 AM.
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:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:47 AM.
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: Review:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:47 AM.
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:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:47 AM.
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: Review:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:47 AM.
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: Full movie:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:47 AM.
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:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 05:42 AM.
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.
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:
Last edited by Robert the List; 03-14-25 at 01:54 AM.
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