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Eighth film
Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928, Charles Reisner)
Thoughts: Here is a movie that features some of the worst carpentry on screen in exchange for a few of the best laughs. I won’t get into the argument over Buster Keaton being an actor or stuntmen, because either way he’s damn entertaining and his physicality sucks the viewer right in. In this movie, which seems is more concise and personal than the chase actioner The General, Keaton plays a young man back from college to visit his estranged father’s steamboat. The comedy staple of having an aloof bumbling idiot play opposite the irritable and ever-aware straight man is honed or perfected in this film. I might say this makes an excellent father’s day picture too.
Playing the father in Steamboat Bill Jr. is Ernest Torrence and the two make a great comedy duo. Keaton at barely 5’6” tall is no match for Torrence at 6’4” and the film caters to the size difference. A lot of comedy comes from the son disappointing the father, who expected him to be manly and the ensuing archetype of getting him to “grow a pair.” There’s also quite a bit of under the radar dry humor – even if it is in bad taste – about the father’s fears his son is homosexual. This doesn’t seem like an issue that would be a gold mine to harvest laughs from, but the scenes play out well if one doesn’t take it too seriously. Despite making valid points, the film hardly seems a commentary, but I could be wrong.
As it turns out Bill Jr. is not gay, at all, and is in fact preoccupied with the daughter of a rival riverboat owner. Shades of Romeo and Juliet; sure. I can’t fault the movie for not developing their relationship as it’s not the point, though it is easy enough to accept the pair and desire for each other despite each of their father’s wishes. What father doesn’t want to live through his son. Another topic that could be the makings of a drama, played for fun and laughs. I can go on about how enjoyable and fast-clipped this film is as it speeds along.
What does it speed along to? The most imaginative and outrageous action sequence I’ve been witness to in a silent movie. The last 15 minutes of the film is an extended “destroy the set” action scene, which works. Keaton sustains the comedy well beyond the point that our minds tell us the film should give up the gimmick. How many structures do we need to see tumble down? Not enough. The carnivalesque pandemonium has houses falling upside down, sinking buildings, cyclonic wind, and trees uprooted flying in the air. It’s beyond surreal, you just have to watch it.
Best Scene: I could easily pick the finale, but I won’t. In my mind the best scene comes in the introduction of the film when Bill Sr. is waiting for Bill Jr. to arrive and makes a bit of a jerk of himself. The preposterousness that everyone would be wearing the identifying carnation is silly and the dry humor doesn’t let up as Bill Sr. mistakes a black man for his son to his shock. Who cares if it is slightly racist, this thing is not meant to be taken seriously. These early moments all set up the polar extremes of father and son later in the film. It’s a gag that functions clockwork.
Eighth film
Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928, Charles Reisner)
Thoughts: Here is a movie that features some of the worst carpentry on screen in exchange for a few of the best laughs. I won’t get into the argument over Buster Keaton being an actor or stuntmen, because either way he’s damn entertaining and his physicality sucks the viewer right in. In this movie, which seems is more concise and personal than the chase actioner The General, Keaton plays a young man back from college to visit his estranged father’s steamboat. The comedy staple of having an aloof bumbling idiot play opposite the irritable and ever-aware straight man is honed or perfected in this film. I might say this makes an excellent father’s day picture too.
Playing the father in Steamboat Bill Jr. is Ernest Torrence and the two make a great comedy duo. Keaton at barely 5’6” tall is no match for Torrence at 6’4” and the film caters to the size difference. A lot of comedy comes from the son disappointing the father, who expected him to be manly and the ensuing archetype of getting him to “grow a pair.” There’s also quite a bit of under the radar dry humor – even if it is in bad taste – about the father’s fears his son is homosexual. This doesn’t seem like an issue that would be a gold mine to harvest laughs from, but the scenes play out well if one doesn’t take it too seriously. Despite making valid points, the film hardly seems a commentary, but I could be wrong.
As it turns out Bill Jr. is not gay, at all, and is in fact preoccupied with the daughter of a rival riverboat owner. Shades of Romeo and Juliet; sure. I can’t fault the movie for not developing their relationship as it’s not the point, though it is easy enough to accept the pair and desire for each other despite each of their father’s wishes. What father doesn’t want to live through his son. Another topic that could be the makings of a drama, played for fun and laughs. I can go on about how enjoyable and fast-clipped this film is as it speeds along.
What does it speed along to? The most imaginative and outrageous action sequence I’ve been witness to in a silent movie. The last 15 minutes of the film is an extended “destroy the set” action scene, which works. Keaton sustains the comedy well beyond the point that our minds tell us the film should give up the gimmick. How many structures do we need to see tumble down? Not enough. The carnivalesque pandemonium has houses falling upside down, sinking buildings, cyclonic wind, and trees uprooted flying in the air. It’s beyond surreal, you just have to watch it.
Best Scene: I could easily pick the finale, but I won’t. In my mind the best scene comes in the introduction of the film when Bill Sr. is waiting for Bill Jr. to arrive and makes a bit of a jerk of himself. The preposterousness that everyone would be wearing the identifying carnation is silly and the dry humor doesn’t let up as Bill Sr. mistakes a black man for his son to his shock. Who cares if it is slightly racist, this thing is not meant to be taken seriously. These early moments all set up the polar extremes of father and son later in the film. It’s a gag that functions clockwork.
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Last edited by Yoda; 08-14-14 at 11:56 AM.
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Great pick, Viddy. 
If it is a Western, for me it's not, then it's one that even I like.
If it is a Western, for me it's not, then it's one that even I like.
If you look up modern western in google most of what you find are a list of films that are not modern westerns, but simply western films that have been released in the last 20 years or so. Not sure why that's so confusing but apparently it is.
So to answer your question.
Is City Slickers a western? No, not when using such a broad category.
Is City Slickers a modern western? Yes.
If that makes sense.
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Top 100
Ninth film
The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
Thoughts: Bogart’s third best film is good enough to make my top 100 list. The Maltese Falcon is the granddaddy of film noir that dominated in the 1940s into the 1950s. The setup is a bit silly because the plot revolves around a femme fatal (Mary Astor), three petty crooks, and our hero Sam Spade (Bogart) all after the mysterious and extremely valuable macguffin “the black bird” that shares the name of the film’s title. It doesn’t really matter so much, because the film is not about plot, but about character interaction, lies, twists, double crosses, and one upping each other as they raise the ante. This is similar to the material of The Big Sleep, which granted is much darker and sinister, but slightly less charming with an even more incomprehensible story. But like I said, The Maltese Falcon does make perfect sense if the dialogue is thought about and on multiple viewings it all falls together nicely.
The character actors of Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet get a lot of screen time, though Bogart is literally the focus of every single scene except for one in the film. Lorre plays the smooth and refined Joel Cairo, one of the men after the Falcon. In an infamous example of getting around censors, Cairo is portrayed as an openly homosexual man who lusts after wealth and a clean shirt more than anything else. This becomes more clear on subsequent viewings and I admire scriptwriters and directors who were able to sneak this thing in below the radar of the Hayes code censors. Greenstreet is charming as Gutman, the film’s main heavy (yes) and foil to Bogart’s amoral hero. Greenstreet has some excellent moments and is a joy to listen to rolling lines out. Both of these character actors would go on to have minor roles in the overrated Casablanca. I need to also mention poor Elisha Cook Jr. who never gets his day, whether it be in this movie, The Big Sleep, The Killing, or Shane. The poor guy plays second fiddle and the scapegoat so well.
The film is paced at lightspeed, even by today’s standards. A lot of it goes by so quickly that it’s easy to miss key dialogue and plot points, but that tends to be a staple of noir. I also admire the camera work with the low angled shots looking up at the actors, shadows, and street lights. This is just a fun enjoyable movie that holds up to multiple viewings, even if it isn’t as serious or dark as other entries into the genre. The Maltese Falcon was the first Bogart film I ever saw. It was as a senior in high school during film class. The months afterwards I went to the public library and checked out dozens of Bogart films on VHS. I was… am a fan.
Best Scene: Bogart has found out about the death of his partner and has already gone a few rounds with the lying femme fatal played by Mary Astor when Joel Cairo enters his office. Lorre doesn’t bat an eye drawing a gun on Bogart, just after playing with his cane, which prompts our favorite private dick to unarm him. After a nice lengthy conversation Bogart gives the gun back to Lorre, who holds it on Bogart again demanding to search the room. Bogart has nothing left to do but laugh at the persistence and absurdity of the little man, as he’s rendered too amused to challenge him. That right there is pure Bogart.
&feature=related
this is sadly only half of the scene.
Ninth film
The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
Thoughts: Bogart’s third best film is good enough to make my top 100 list. The Maltese Falcon is the granddaddy of film noir that dominated in the 1940s into the 1950s. The setup is a bit silly because the plot revolves around a femme fatal (Mary Astor), three petty crooks, and our hero Sam Spade (Bogart) all after the mysterious and extremely valuable macguffin “the black bird” that shares the name of the film’s title. It doesn’t really matter so much, because the film is not about plot, but about character interaction, lies, twists, double crosses, and one upping each other as they raise the ante. This is similar to the material of The Big Sleep, which granted is much darker and sinister, but slightly less charming with an even more incomprehensible story. But like I said, The Maltese Falcon does make perfect sense if the dialogue is thought about and on multiple viewings it all falls together nicely.
The character actors of Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet get a lot of screen time, though Bogart is literally the focus of every single scene except for one in the film. Lorre plays the smooth and refined Joel Cairo, one of the men after the Falcon. In an infamous example of getting around censors, Cairo is portrayed as an openly homosexual man who lusts after wealth and a clean shirt more than anything else. This becomes more clear on subsequent viewings and I admire scriptwriters and directors who were able to sneak this thing in below the radar of the Hayes code censors. Greenstreet is charming as Gutman, the film’s main heavy (yes) and foil to Bogart’s amoral hero. Greenstreet has some excellent moments and is a joy to listen to rolling lines out. Both of these character actors would go on to have minor roles in the overrated Casablanca. I need to also mention poor Elisha Cook Jr. who never gets his day, whether it be in this movie, The Big Sleep, The Killing, or Shane. The poor guy plays second fiddle and the scapegoat so well.
The film is paced at lightspeed, even by today’s standards. A lot of it goes by so quickly that it’s easy to miss key dialogue and plot points, but that tends to be a staple of noir. I also admire the camera work with the low angled shots looking up at the actors, shadows, and street lights. This is just a fun enjoyable movie that holds up to multiple viewings, even if it isn’t as serious or dark as other entries into the genre. The Maltese Falcon was the first Bogart film I ever saw. It was as a senior in high school during film class. The months afterwards I went to the public library and checked out dozens of Bogart films on VHS. I was… am a fan.
Best Scene: Bogart has found out about the death of his partner and has already gone a few rounds with the lying femme fatal played by Mary Astor when Joel Cairo enters his office. Lorre doesn’t bat an eye drawing a gun on Bogart, just after playing with his cane, which prompts our favorite private dick to unarm him. After a nice lengthy conversation Bogart gives the gun back to Lorre, who holds it on Bogart again demanding to search the room. Bogart has nothing left to do but laugh at the persistence and absurdity of the little man, as he’s rendered too amused to challenge him. That right there is pure Bogart.
&feature=related
this is sadly only half of the scene.
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Nice work, keep it up. I doubt I'd ever be able to do this, it's a pretty big undertaking.
For example, I just rewatched The Maltese Falcon last night for about the 15th time in my life.
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Just a slight 13 years between posts with a few changes to the remaining 91 films to include a handful of modern films... lol, OK... I have until either myself or Yoda, whomever dies first, to get this done. And we all know Yoda lives to be about 900 or so.
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top 100
10th film
Floating Weeds (1959, Ozu)
Thoughts: Ozu is a filmmaker whom I’ve only recently explored his works, despite having heard of his name for years. Previously to the last couple years, I have only seen Tokyo Story when it comes to his films. With the subscription to Criterion Channel, his works have now really been opened up to me and another film of his I absolutely love is An Autumn Afternoon, but I decided to go with Floating Weeds for my top 100 as it’s more universal and maybe just a bit more accessible, but both are great. I find Ozu’s style to be very refreshing when compared to a lot of modern filmmakers, even those directors who are heralded as among today’s best such as Christopher Nolan.
A few things about his style that just seem so relaxing and comforting are how his camera is stationary. Now, I could be wrong about this, but I don’t believe he had a single tracking or moving camera shot in the entire film of Floating Weeds. I also love how Ozu has the objects framed so that each shot is just beautifully composed and then characters and objects can move around within that still camera shot. He uses the rule of thirds quite often, but also sets up his subjects at times to be in the center of the frame. Also, from what I can tell, his aspect ratio in Floating Weeds is a 1:33 or a very square shape to the screen as opposed to heavy use of widescreen or a more rectangle shape that was more common by the late 1950s.
Each shot looks like it could almost have been set up by a professional photographer or painter and one of the things I’ve noticed too, and I’m not sure if there is a word for this technique/style or not, is that he frames the composition and actors so there is a great deal of depth on a Z axis going back into the image. Most films seem to put the action in the foreground and then will have a background, so a lot of the shots have only two layers. An Ozu film seems to have at least four or five layers going on simultaneously in many of his shots. For instance in the foreground we often see a door, objects such as flowers, or a pot, ornate furniture, or some other object and then we have the characters in mid shot in the middle ground, followed by another character or two layered in a second or third middle ground and then we have a background. Floating Weeds has so many great shots like this, so even without a huge horizontal field of plain in the shot, we get so much depth on that Z axis. The only other filmmaker I’ve seen really do that in a similar style is Wong-Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love), although unlike Ozu his camera is often tracking and moving. Oh, and one other interesting thing is that his camera placement seems to be very low, where most directors put their camera at eye-level unless we're specifically having a shot looking down or up at a character for effect, Ozu seems to place his camera very low between knee and waste level, which gives his films, including Floating Weeds, a very distinctive look and feel. It does take a bit of time to get oriented to this, but once it settles in for the viewer, it becomes very absorbing.
As far as the story goes, it’s a “slice of life” character drama, perhaps even a melodrama largely centered on the dynamics and interpersonal relationships and conflicts between five main characters. The first character and focal point of the film is Komajuro who is a middle-aged actor and leads the troupe of traveling actors. He’s visiting and putting on a play at a small coastal Japanese village where his former lover and mother of his estranged and illegitimate son lives. The mother is Oyoshi and the son is Kiyoshi. The five main characters are rounded out by two actresses, one his current girlfriend/mistress, Sumiko and then a beautiful young actress named Kayo who is later used like a pawn by Sumiko to disturb the balance when Sumiko becomes jealous and possessive. So yeah, that on the surface, or with more horrible description of the story, doesn’t seem anything overwhelming or groundbreaking, but the fact that the story itself is simple, while the character interaction and emotions are anything but simple. The value and greatness of the film is watching it play out and the fact that it reveals human frailty and weakness, while still taking the view that people are good, valuable, and there is so much beauty in the world. Moreover it is reflective of life in showing how people’s desires, emotions, and motives can absolutely change on a dime and it does this too through the complexity of the dialogue and the situations. But the sound and look for the film is just amazing and it’s a very free-flowing and relaxing film and Ozu’s style, for lack of a better word, is just very soothing. It’s a great film to just lay down on the couch on a lazy afternoon with no distractions, with the cell phone put away, and to just watch it unfold. Kazu Miyagawa is the cinematographer who also shot two equally beautiful films, Rashomon and Ugetsu, only Floating Weeds is in gorgeous color.
Best Scene: It’s difficult to say if there’s a best scene. I love the moments where it's raining, and I also love the cruel realism where Komajuro loses control of his anger and emotions and confronts Kayo for trying to seduce his son under false pretense. The scene too where Kayo flirts and approaches Kiyoshi asking for a pencil… not a pen is so well done and acted, where it could have come off poorly or cringe. I do also like the scene where three men are at the beaching lounging around, seemingly talking about nothing, only to be interrupted by a plane flying overhead and one of the men hilariously asks if the plane would drop some beer down for them. Stuff like that really doesn’t add to the story, but it does create a solid tone and mood of his films and lends them that relaxing atmosphere of which I was writing earlier. It’s just so refreshing to have dialogue that isn’t so plot and expository driven. However, for the best scene, I’m just going to have to go with the very last moments in the film at the train station where Komajuro is leaving and in continuing an on-going bit, finds himself without a lighter or matches. Sumiko who is also leaving, in an act of reconciliation lights a match for him and at first he pretends to ignore her and even ever so slightly pulls away before she leans in and finally lights his cigarette. It’s a sweet, quiet, and tender moment in the film that perfectly exemplifies a lot of the stuff Ozu does in his films that’s so subtle but wonderful.
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top 100
10th film
Floating Weeds (1959, Ozu)
Thoughts: Ozu is a filmmaker whom I’ve only recently explored his works, despite having heard of his name for years. Previously to the last couple years, I have only seen Tokyo Story when it comes to his films. With the subscription to Criterion Channel, his works have now really been opened up to me and another film of his I absolutely love is An Autumn Afternoon, but I decided to go with Floating Weeds for my top 100 as it’s more universal and maybe just a bit more accessible, but both are great. I find Ozu’s style to be very refreshing when compared to a lot of modern filmmakers, even those directors who are heralded as among today’s best such as Christopher Nolan.
A few things about his style that just seem so relaxing and comforting are how his camera is stationary. Now, I could be wrong about this, but I don’t believe he had a single tracking or moving camera shot in the entire film of Floating Weeds. I also love how Ozu has the objects framed so that each shot is just beautifully composed and then characters and objects can move around within that still camera shot. He uses the rule of thirds quite often, but also sets up his subjects at times to be in the center of the frame. Also, from what I can tell, his aspect ratio in Floating Weeds is a 1:33 or a very square shape to the screen as opposed to heavy use of widescreen or a more rectangle shape that was more common by the late 1950s.
Each shot looks like it could almost have been set up by a professional photographer or painter and one of the things I’ve noticed too, and I’m not sure if there is a word for this technique/style or not, is that he frames the composition and actors so there is a great deal of depth on a Z axis going back into the image. Most films seem to put the action in the foreground and then will have a background, so a lot of the shots have only two layers. An Ozu film seems to have at least four or five layers going on simultaneously in many of his shots. For instance in the foreground we often see a door, objects such as flowers, or a pot, ornate furniture, or some other object and then we have the characters in mid shot in the middle ground, followed by another character or two layered in a second or third middle ground and then we have a background. Floating Weeds has so many great shots like this, so even without a huge horizontal field of plain in the shot, we get so much depth on that Z axis. The only other filmmaker I’ve seen really do that in a similar style is Wong-Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love), although unlike Ozu his camera is often tracking and moving. Oh, and one other interesting thing is that his camera placement seems to be very low, where most directors put their camera at eye-level unless we're specifically having a shot looking down or up at a character for effect, Ozu seems to place his camera very low between knee and waste level, which gives his films, including Floating Weeds, a very distinctive look and feel. It does take a bit of time to get oriented to this, but once it settles in for the viewer, it becomes very absorbing.
As far as the story goes, it’s a “slice of life” character drama, perhaps even a melodrama largely centered on the dynamics and interpersonal relationships and conflicts between five main characters. The first character and focal point of the film is Komajuro who is a middle-aged actor and leads the troupe of traveling actors. He’s visiting and putting on a play at a small coastal Japanese village where his former lover and mother of his estranged and illegitimate son lives. The mother is Oyoshi and the son is Kiyoshi. The five main characters are rounded out by two actresses, one his current girlfriend/mistress, Sumiko and then a beautiful young actress named Kayo who is later used like a pawn by Sumiko to disturb the balance when Sumiko becomes jealous and possessive. So yeah, that on the surface, or with more horrible description of the story, doesn’t seem anything overwhelming or groundbreaking, but the fact that the story itself is simple, while the character interaction and emotions are anything but simple. The value and greatness of the film is watching it play out and the fact that it reveals human frailty and weakness, while still taking the view that people are good, valuable, and there is so much beauty in the world. Moreover it is reflective of life in showing how people’s desires, emotions, and motives can absolutely change on a dime and it does this too through the complexity of the dialogue and the situations. But the sound and look for the film is just amazing and it’s a very free-flowing and relaxing film and Ozu’s style, for lack of a better word, is just very soothing. It’s a great film to just lay down on the couch on a lazy afternoon with no distractions, with the cell phone put away, and to just watch it unfold. Kazu Miyagawa is the cinematographer who also shot two equally beautiful films, Rashomon and Ugetsu, only Floating Weeds is in gorgeous color.
Best Scene: It’s difficult to say if there’s a best scene. I love the moments where it's raining, and I also love the cruel realism where Komajuro loses control of his anger and emotions and confronts Kayo for trying to seduce his son under false pretense. The scene too where Kayo flirts and approaches Kiyoshi asking for a pencil… not a pen is so well done and acted, where it could have come off poorly or cringe. I do also like the scene where three men are at the beaching lounging around, seemingly talking about nothing, only to be interrupted by a plane flying overhead and one of the men hilariously asks if the plane would drop some beer down for them. Stuff like that really doesn’t add to the story, but it does create a solid tone and mood of his films and lends them that relaxing atmosphere of which I was writing earlier. It’s just so refreshing to have dialogue that isn’t so plot and expository driven. However, for the best scene, I’m just going to have to go with the very last moments in the film at the train station where Komajuro is leaving and in continuing an on-going bit, finds himself without a lighter or matches. Sumiko who is also leaving, in an act of reconciliation lights a match for him and at first he pretends to ignore her and even ever so slightly pulls away before she leans in and finally lights his cigarette. It’s a sweet, quiet, and tender moment in the film that perfectly exemplifies a lot of the stuff Ozu does in his films that’s so subtle but wonderful.
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mood changes, I change, and so do my tastes in films from time to time.
My favorites from your favorites so far:
The Maltese Falcon on my current top 250.
Do the Right Thing and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans have both been on previous versions of my top 250.
Blue Velvet is very good. City Slickers, Steamboat Bill Jr. and Little Big Man are fun. The others I haven't seen.. yet.
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^ Relatable.. I make four lists for all moods.. films that show up on all four.. put those on a master list.. the remaining films I honorably mention.
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Wow, that's ambitious, I can barely get through a top 100, but I do like that idea, that way you're narrowing it down to more universal films you love instead of films based upon a certain mood or situation.
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Just a slight 13 years between posts with a few changes to the remaining 91 films to include a handful of modern films... lol, OK... I have until either myself or Yoda, whomever dies first, to get this done. And we all know Yoda lives to be about 900 or so.
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top 100
10th film
Floating Weeds (1959, Ozu)
Thoughts: Ozu is a filmmaker whom I’ve only recently explored his works, despite having heard of his name for years. Previously to the last couple years, I have only seen Tokyo Story when it comes to his films. With the subscription to Criterion Channel, his works have now really been opened up to me and another film of his I absolutely love is An Autumn Afternoon, but I decided to go with Floating Weeds for my top 100 as it’s more universal and maybe just a bit more accessible, but both are great. I find Ozu’s style to be very refreshing when compared to a lot of modern filmmakers, even those directors who are heralded as among today’s best such as Christopher Nolan.
A few things about his style that just seem so relaxing and comforting are how his camera is stationary. Now, I could be wrong about this, but I don’t believe he had a single tracking or moving camera shot in the entire film of Floating Weeds. I also love how Ozu has the objects framed so that each shot is just beautifully composed and then characters and objects can move around within that still camera shot. He uses the rule of thirds quite often, but also sets up his subjects at times to be in the center of the frame. Also, from what I can tell, his aspect ratio in Floating Weeds is a 1:33 or a very square shape to the screen as opposed to heavy use of widescreen or a more rectangle shape that was more common by the late 1950s.
Each shot looks like it could almost have been set up by a professional photographer or painter and one of the things I’ve noticed too, and I’m not sure if there is a word for this technique/style or not, is that he frames the composition and actors so there is a great deal of depth on a Z axis going back into the image. Most films seem to put the action in the foreground and then will have a background, so a lot of the shots have only two layers. An Ozu film seems to have at least four or five layers going on simultaneously in many of his shots. For instance in the foreground we often see a door, objects such as flowers, or a pot, ornate furniture, or some other object and then we have the characters in mid shot in the middle ground, followed by another character or two layered in a second or third middle ground and then we have a background. Floating Weeds has so many great shots like this, so even without a huge horizontal field of plain in the shot, we get so much depth on that Z axis. The only other filmmaker I’ve seen really do that in a similar style is Wong-Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love), although unlike Ozu his camera is often tracking and moving. Oh, and one other interesting thing is that his camera placement seems to be very low, where most directors put their camera at eye-level unless we're specifically having a shot looking down or up at a character for effect, Ozu seems to place his camera very low between knee and waste level, which gives his films, including Floating Weeds, a very distinctive look and feel. It does take a bit of time to get oriented to this, but once it settles in for the viewer, it becomes very absorbing.
As far as the story goes, it’s a “slice of life” character drama, perhaps even a melodrama largely centered on the dynamics and interpersonal relationships and conflicts between five main characters. The first character and focal point of the film is Komajuro who is a middle-aged actor and leads the troupe of traveling actors. He’s visiting and putting on a play at a small coastal Japanese village where his former lover and mother of his estranged and illegitimate son lives. The mother is Oyoshi and the son is Kiyoshi. The five main characters are rounded out by two actresses, one his current girlfriend/mistress, Sumiko and then a beautiful young actress named Kayo who is later used like a pawn by Sumiko to disturb the balance when Sumiko becomes jealous and possessive. So yeah, that on the surface, or with more horrible description of the story, doesn’t seem anything overwhelming or groundbreaking, but the fact that the story itself is simple, while the character interaction and emotions are anything but simple. The value and greatness of the film is watching it play out and the fact that it reveals human frailty and weakness, while still taking the view that people are good, valuable, and there is so much beauty in the world. Moreover it is reflective of life in showing how people’s desires, emotions, and motives can absolutely change on a dime and it does this too through the complexity of the dialogue and the situations. But the sound and look for the film is just amazing and it’s a very free-flowing and relaxing film and Ozu’s style, for lack of a better word, is just very soothing. It’s a great film to just lay down on the couch on a lazy afternoon with no distractions, with the cell phone put away, and to just watch it unfold. Kazu Miyagawa is the cinematographer who also shot two equally beautiful films, Rashomon and Ugetsu, only Floating Weeds is in gorgeous color.
Best Scene: It’s difficult to say if there’s a best scene. I love the moments where it's raining, and I also love the cruel realism where Komajuro loses control of his anger and emotions and confronts Kayo for trying to seduce his son under false pretense. The scene too where Kayo flirts and approaches Kiyoshi asking for a pencil… not a pen is so well done and acted, where it could have come off poorly or cringe. I do also like the scene where three men are at the beaching lounging around, seemingly talking about nothing, only to be interrupted by a plane flying overhead and one of the men hilariously asks if the plane would drop some beer down for them. Stuff like that really doesn’t add to the story, but it does create a solid tone and mood of his films and lends them that relaxing atmosphere of which I was writing earlier. It’s just so refreshing to have dialogue that isn’t so plot and expository driven. However, for the best scene, I’m just going to have to go with the very last moments in the film at the train station where Komajuro is leaving and in continuing an on-going bit, finds himself without a lighter or matches. Sumiko who is also leaving, in an act of reconciliation lights a match for him and at first he pretends to ignore her and even ever so slightly pulls away before she leans in and finally lights his cigarette. It’s a sweet, quiet, and tender moment in the film that perfectly exemplifies a lot of the stuff Ozu does in his films that’s so subtle but wonderful.
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top 100
10th film
Floating Weeds (1959, Ozu)
Thoughts: Ozu is a filmmaker whom I’ve only recently explored his works, despite having heard of his name for years. Previously to the last couple years, I have only seen Tokyo Story when it comes to his films. With the subscription to Criterion Channel, his works have now really been opened up to me and another film of his I absolutely love is An Autumn Afternoon, but I decided to go with Floating Weeds for my top 100 as it’s more universal and maybe just a bit more accessible, but both are great. I find Ozu’s style to be very refreshing when compared to a lot of modern filmmakers, even those directors who are heralded as among today’s best such as Christopher Nolan.
A few things about his style that just seem so relaxing and comforting are how his camera is stationary. Now, I could be wrong about this, but I don’t believe he had a single tracking or moving camera shot in the entire film of Floating Weeds. I also love how Ozu has the objects framed so that each shot is just beautifully composed and then characters and objects can move around within that still camera shot. He uses the rule of thirds quite often, but also sets up his subjects at times to be in the center of the frame. Also, from what I can tell, his aspect ratio in Floating Weeds is a 1:33 or a very square shape to the screen as opposed to heavy use of widescreen or a more rectangle shape that was more common by the late 1950s.
Each shot looks like it could almost have been set up by a professional photographer or painter and one of the things I’ve noticed too, and I’m not sure if there is a word for this technique/style or not, is that he frames the composition and actors so there is a great deal of depth on a Z axis going back into the image. Most films seem to put the action in the foreground and then will have a background, so a lot of the shots have only two layers. An Ozu film seems to have at least four or five layers going on simultaneously in many of his shots. For instance in the foreground we often see a door, objects such as flowers, or a pot, ornate furniture, or some other object and then we have the characters in mid shot in the middle ground, followed by another character or two layered in a second or third middle ground and then we have a background. Floating Weeds has so many great shots like this, so even without a huge horizontal field of plain in the shot, we get so much depth on that Z axis. The only other filmmaker I’ve seen really do that in a similar style is Wong-Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love), although unlike Ozu his camera is often tracking and moving. Oh, and one other interesting thing is that his camera placement seems to be very low, where most directors put their camera at eye-level unless we're specifically having a shot looking down or up at a character for effect, Ozu seems to place his camera very low between knee and waste level, which gives his films, including Floating Weeds, a very distinctive look and feel. It does take a bit of time to get oriented to this, but once it settles in for the viewer, it becomes very absorbing.
As far as the story goes, it’s a “slice of life” character drama, perhaps even a melodrama largely centered on the dynamics and interpersonal relationships and conflicts between five main characters. The first character and focal point of the film is Komajuro who is a middle-aged actor and leads the troupe of traveling actors. He’s visiting and putting on a play at a small coastal Japanese village where his former lover and mother of his estranged and illegitimate son lives. The mother is Oyoshi and the son is Kiyoshi. The five main characters are rounded out by two actresses, one his current girlfriend/mistress, Sumiko and then a beautiful young actress named Kayo who is later used like a pawn by Sumiko to disturb the balance when Sumiko becomes jealous and possessive. So yeah, that on the surface, or with more horrible description of the story, doesn’t seem anything overwhelming or groundbreaking, but the fact that the story itself is simple, while the character interaction and emotions are anything but simple. The value and greatness of the film is watching it play out and the fact that it reveals human frailty and weakness, while still taking the view that people are good, valuable, and there is so much beauty in the world. Moreover it is reflective of life in showing how people’s desires, emotions, and motives can absolutely change on a dime and it does this too through the complexity of the dialogue and the situations. But the sound and look for the film is just amazing and it’s a very free-flowing and relaxing film and Ozu’s style, for lack of a better word, is just very soothing. It’s a great film to just lay down on the couch on a lazy afternoon with no distractions, with the cell phone put away, and to just watch it unfold. Kazu Miyagawa is the cinematographer who also shot two equally beautiful films, Rashomon and Ugetsu, only Floating Weeds is in gorgeous color.
Best Scene: It’s difficult to say if there’s a best scene. I love the moments where it's raining, and I also love the cruel realism where Komajuro loses control of his anger and emotions and confronts Kayo for trying to seduce his son under false pretense. The scene too where Kayo flirts and approaches Kiyoshi asking for a pencil… not a pen is so well done and acted, where it could have come off poorly or cringe. I do also like the scene where three men are at the beaching lounging around, seemingly talking about nothing, only to be interrupted by a plane flying overhead and one of the men hilariously asks if the plane would drop some beer down for them. Stuff like that really doesn’t add to the story, but it does create a solid tone and mood of his films and lends them that relaxing atmosphere of which I was writing earlier. It’s just so refreshing to have dialogue that isn’t so plot and expository driven. However, for the best scene, I’m just going to have to go with the very last moments in the film at the train station where Komajuro is leaving and in continuing an on-going bit, finds himself without a lighter or matches. Sumiko who is also leaving, in an act of reconciliation lights a match for him and at first he pretends to ignore her and even ever so slightly pulls away before she leans in and finally lights his cigarette. It’s a sweet, quiet, and tender moment in the film that perfectly exemplifies a lot of the stuff Ozu does in his films that’s so subtle but wonderful.
I guess you are a professional film critic. I doubt there are many people even within that sphere that can write about a film like that?
Whilst I could never have described in anything like the way you've done, your explanation about his use of depth resonates with me from the incredible masterpiece Late Spring (1949). One scene for instance has a temple in the background, with people walking up and down a high wide flight of steps to get there, whilst the main characters in dialogue, are little more than visual footnotes in the foreground. It's really an incredible scene, which still images don't do justice.
I thought (from the title) I had seen this movie too, but I haven't*. It goes to nr 1 on my watch list (but there won't be a review anything like the one above lol).
*the one I was thinking of was black and white. A woman returns to Japan from Indochina, and tries to revive an affair she had out there, but the man has returned to his wife. There are some scenes in a hot tub? I thought it was Ozu but I can't find it in his filmography (sorry, can't believe I'm debasing this glorious thread with my terrible summaries lol, I'll shut up and look forward to later reviews by the OP).
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Favorite Movies
top 100
11th film
La dolce vita (1960, Fellini)
Thoughts: Perhaps one of the most daunting challenges of making a top 100 films list, aside from the obvious exclusion of a gazillion films that you love when only 100 will fit, is the conundrum of figuring out some sort of metric, system, or rubric to determine what factors will be weighed in assessing films. I’ve always wrestled with balancing favorites vs bests and yes I do distinguish a difference. For example Casablanca is most likely Humphrey Bogart’s best film, while In a Lonely Place is my favorite. Few would argue that Citizen Kane is Orson Welle’s crowning achievement, however my triggered imagination and sense of wonder and awe lean far more toward Chimes of Midnight. Not only that, but there are certain films that I absolutely love which I can clearly acknowledge are not great films nor will they find themselves on many critic’s list… a couple from my list include the mid-life crisis Billy Crystal modern western, City Slickers and W.C. Field’s tip of the hat to all men who find themselves drowning in the ridiculousness and routine hassles of everyday life, It's a Gift. I realize that both City Slickers and It’s a Gift are hardly cinematic masterpieces that will be studied for years by film school students nor will they likely appear on any critic’s or director’s BFI Sight and Sound top 10 lists, but Heaven help me, I love both of them, so they snuck their way into my top 100.
So why the long-winded preamble without evening mentioning once the title of this entry into my top 100, La dolce vita? Simple. I knew I absolutely had to have one Fellini film on my top 100, if for no other reason than that it was really two directors who introduced me into international cinema and two directors where I started to deliberately search out their films… long before streaming, and two directors whose works I felt a compulsion to at least go through and watch a respectable amount of their filmographies. The first director was Ingmar Bergman and the second director was Federico Fellini. Having established that I just had to have one Fellini on my top 100, it was time to then choose which one I love the most or perhaps revisit the most. Unlike Bogart's films and Welles’ films however, this was an easy call because what I objectively believe to be Fellini’s “best” film also happens to be my favorite film of his and the only film of his I have a physical copy of as well, La dolce vita.
La dolce vita is the perfect transition film in looking back at Fellini’s career. He was moving away from the straight forward narratives of La Strada and I Vitelloni, but hadn’t quite gone full surreal, carnivalesque, and avant garde in his works such as Juliet of the Spirits, Roma, and the absolutely insane Satyricon. La dolce vita has some of the otherworldly set and custom designs, hedonistic bizarreness and flourishes, and exquisite shots of his latter films, while still being grounded in a solid narrative structure even if the storytelling was really starting to loosen up, which would become untethered with 8-½. As Fellini films goes La dolce vita is the porridge not too hot and not too cold. La dolce vita is interesting in that it showcases Fellini’s knack for very episodic narrative with multiple vignettes all woven together centered around a central theme, idea, or character, but in La dolce vita the narrative of an ambitious man who has at some point been a serious journalist, who has hopes of writing a legit novel or book, but who is currently reduced to write tabloid level smut about the rich, celebrities, and the social elites does hold the film together quite well. This is a movie that comes dangerously close to spiraling out of control because there are so many individual scenes of different nights, venues, and parties in his life that takes place in the course of little over a week’s time, but the film doesn’t abandon completely previous characters we’ve met, such as Paparazzo, Emma, or even Steiner.
Moreover events and actions that happen earlier in the film have a direct and consequential effect upon subsequent events in the film and also our character’s psychological state. For instance there are some vague clues and foreshadowing of things to come when Marcello and Emma go to a party at Steiner’s home. Emma is quickly ignored and left alone to pet and play with a dog on the floor as even within the confines of residence Marcello still wanders and plays apathetic to Emma’s attempts at connection. We see Steiner give hints of nihilism under a false shroud of “having it together” with all his wealth and his wife and two children. Even the partygoers who would prefer to hear sounds of nature such as thunder and rain “second hand” through a recording rather than living in the real world, lends thematic resonance to the critique of the artificiality of life and constant perspective and tonal changes in points of view. One of the things I couldn’t help my mind constantly wander toward when watching La dolce vita again recently was how all of this seems even more significant and profound in a world of 2024 where artificiality has taken hold. Suicide and deaths of despair are tragically common place in 2024. In 2024 more children are born to broken families than not. In 2024 sixty percent of young men under 35 or 30 are single and unmarried. Women come in the form of pixels on a screen through the multi-multi-billion dollar industries of Only Fans and Pornhub. Today, we live in a world of social media, of snap chat and instagram filters; a world where money is only a method of exchange, but the real commodity in life is how many subscribers, likes, and views we have on tiktok and youtube. Watching La dolce vita in my 40’s in the world of 2024, it was an even more profound, beautiful, yet and sobering experience than watching it in the early 2000’s in my twenties. Of course this is what the great films do; they hold and increase in value as we revisit them throughout our lives and they reveal insights and say something about our world; about reality.
Clearly I could go on, but what’s the point? What hasn’t been said about the beautiful black and white cinematography, the wonderful framing and composition, the sometimes gorgeous but disorienting camera angles and shots from above looking down onto the world, and of course the festival of music in Nino Rota’s memorable and iconic score. I just love Fellini’s stuff for what it is and for all of his flourishes. He’s not my favorite international filmmaker, that title goes to Herzog and of the two post Italian neorealism great filmmakers, Fellini and Antonioni, I slightly prefer Antonioni’s restraint and maturity to Fellini’s flourishes and splashes of life. Oh, and that very last shot in the film, of the girl, the one who Marcello, when trying to write in a cafe with a hangover, yells at earlier in the film about the music being too loud and needing quiet. Man, what a call back to a seemingly “throw away” character who only appeared for maybe three minutes of film. It’s so ambiguous and surreal and with her waving across the beach to and summoning a drunken, wore out, distressed, and disheveled Marcello, it closes a great film on a note that is truly a mind “F” if there ever was one.
Best Scene: The best scene for my money, and there are so many, is the moment in the second to last night of the film when Marcello is having an argument with his fiance, Emma, who has already made an attempt or at least a cry for help on her life and has had it up to her wits end with his disappearing, philandering, partying at all hours into the wee morning, and his complete aloofness and disregard. It’s one of two moments that come to mind where Marcello truly opens up and becomes vulnerable and shows genuine, not artificial or performative, emotion. The other being at the restaurant as his father is leaving when he confides to Paparazzo that his father wasn’t really around much in his life. As Marcello and Emma argue back and forth, it becomes clear that she is a woman who truly loves him and it’s a tragic, but necessary scene as it really telegraph’s one of the film’s most obvious “thesis statements” in having our protagonist weighing responsibility vs hedonism as well as weighing the idolatry of the self vs the mores of finding virtue and meaning in serving others. Moreover, in a film world inhabited by fakes and artificiality, Emma is perhaps the only real character and she says the film's most poignant and grounded in reality line when she tells Marcello, the one great thing any man could truly hope for is to be genuinely and compassionately loved by a woman.
We’ve seen moments like these in films before. The man wants to stray and sleep with women, while the woman who desperately loves him wants nothing more to hold the relationship together if only he could understand. What makes this moment stand out, aside from just the tragic visual of playing the cat and mouse game with getting in and out of Marcello’s sports car ending in a physical altercation and Emma seemingly stranded on the road as he drives off into the late night/early morning, is the fact that we haven’t seen either of these characters fully confront and let out their emotions. Emma has resorted in small pleas at this point, a suicide attempt, and subtle movements to insert herself more into Marcello’s life. Marcello meanwhile has run away from his emotions and concern for her by drowning in cocktails, sex, his meaningless and shameful work, and hollow parties.
Now the kicker of the whole thing is that only a few moments later he comes back for her, picks her up in his car, and then in the next shot we see them in bed together, having allegedly made up. But we of course know better, and we know this is a cycle that has gone on and will likely continue to go - both of them being trapped in their own little purgatory and pushing Sisyphus’ boulder up that hill forever. Also, and I’d need to do a close-viewing again of the film, I believe this is the very last time we see Emma in the picture too before it completely turns dark and spirals out of control in the last 40 minutes transitioning us the viewer almost fully into the next stage of Fellini’s career - into 8-1/2 and beyond.
11th film
La dolce vita (1960, Fellini)
Thoughts: Perhaps one of the most daunting challenges of making a top 100 films list, aside from the obvious exclusion of a gazillion films that you love when only 100 will fit, is the conundrum of figuring out some sort of metric, system, or rubric to determine what factors will be weighed in assessing films. I’ve always wrestled with balancing favorites vs bests and yes I do distinguish a difference. For example Casablanca is most likely Humphrey Bogart’s best film, while In a Lonely Place is my favorite. Few would argue that Citizen Kane is Orson Welle’s crowning achievement, however my triggered imagination and sense of wonder and awe lean far more toward Chimes of Midnight. Not only that, but there are certain films that I absolutely love which I can clearly acknowledge are not great films nor will they find themselves on many critic’s list… a couple from my list include the mid-life crisis Billy Crystal modern western, City Slickers and W.C. Field’s tip of the hat to all men who find themselves drowning in the ridiculousness and routine hassles of everyday life, It's a Gift. I realize that both City Slickers and It’s a Gift are hardly cinematic masterpieces that will be studied for years by film school students nor will they likely appear on any critic’s or director’s BFI Sight and Sound top 10 lists, but Heaven help me, I love both of them, so they snuck their way into my top 100.
So why the long-winded preamble without evening mentioning once the title of this entry into my top 100, La dolce vita? Simple. I knew I absolutely had to have one Fellini film on my top 100, if for no other reason than that it was really two directors who introduced me into international cinema and two directors where I started to deliberately search out their films… long before streaming, and two directors whose works I felt a compulsion to at least go through and watch a respectable amount of their filmographies. The first director was Ingmar Bergman and the second director was Federico Fellini. Having established that I just had to have one Fellini on my top 100, it was time to then choose which one I love the most or perhaps revisit the most. Unlike Bogart's films and Welles’ films however, this was an easy call because what I objectively believe to be Fellini’s “best” film also happens to be my favorite film of his and the only film of his I have a physical copy of as well, La dolce vita.
La dolce vita is the perfect transition film in looking back at Fellini’s career. He was moving away from the straight forward narratives of La Strada and I Vitelloni, but hadn’t quite gone full surreal, carnivalesque, and avant garde in his works such as Juliet of the Spirits, Roma, and the absolutely insane Satyricon. La dolce vita has some of the otherworldly set and custom designs, hedonistic bizarreness and flourishes, and exquisite shots of his latter films, while still being grounded in a solid narrative structure even if the storytelling was really starting to loosen up, which would become untethered with 8-½. As Fellini films goes La dolce vita is the porridge not too hot and not too cold. La dolce vita is interesting in that it showcases Fellini’s knack for very episodic narrative with multiple vignettes all woven together centered around a central theme, idea, or character, but in La dolce vita the narrative of an ambitious man who has at some point been a serious journalist, who has hopes of writing a legit novel or book, but who is currently reduced to write tabloid level smut about the rich, celebrities, and the social elites does hold the film together quite well. This is a movie that comes dangerously close to spiraling out of control because there are so many individual scenes of different nights, venues, and parties in his life that takes place in the course of little over a week’s time, but the film doesn’t abandon completely previous characters we’ve met, such as Paparazzo, Emma, or even Steiner.
Moreover events and actions that happen earlier in the film have a direct and consequential effect upon subsequent events in the film and also our character’s psychological state. For instance there are some vague clues and foreshadowing of things to come when Marcello and Emma go to a party at Steiner’s home. Emma is quickly ignored and left alone to pet and play with a dog on the floor as even within the confines of residence Marcello still wanders and plays apathetic to Emma’s attempts at connection. We see Steiner give hints of nihilism under a false shroud of “having it together” with all his wealth and his wife and two children. Even the partygoers who would prefer to hear sounds of nature such as thunder and rain “second hand” through a recording rather than living in the real world, lends thematic resonance to the critique of the artificiality of life and constant perspective and tonal changes in points of view. One of the things I couldn’t help my mind constantly wander toward when watching La dolce vita again recently was how all of this seems even more significant and profound in a world of 2024 where artificiality has taken hold. Suicide and deaths of despair are tragically common place in 2024. In 2024 more children are born to broken families than not. In 2024 sixty percent of young men under 35 or 30 are single and unmarried. Women come in the form of pixels on a screen through the multi-multi-billion dollar industries of Only Fans and Pornhub. Today, we live in a world of social media, of snap chat and instagram filters; a world where money is only a method of exchange, but the real commodity in life is how many subscribers, likes, and views we have on tiktok and youtube. Watching La dolce vita in my 40’s in the world of 2024, it was an even more profound, beautiful, yet and sobering experience than watching it in the early 2000’s in my twenties. Of course this is what the great films do; they hold and increase in value as we revisit them throughout our lives and they reveal insights and say something about our world; about reality.
Clearly I could go on, but what’s the point? What hasn’t been said about the beautiful black and white cinematography, the wonderful framing and composition, the sometimes gorgeous but disorienting camera angles and shots from above looking down onto the world, and of course the festival of music in Nino Rota’s memorable and iconic score. I just love Fellini’s stuff for what it is and for all of his flourishes. He’s not my favorite international filmmaker, that title goes to Herzog and of the two post Italian neorealism great filmmakers, Fellini and Antonioni, I slightly prefer Antonioni’s restraint and maturity to Fellini’s flourishes and splashes of life. Oh, and that very last shot in the film, of the girl, the one who Marcello, when trying to write in a cafe with a hangover, yells at earlier in the film about the music being too loud and needing quiet. Man, what a call back to a seemingly “throw away” character who only appeared for maybe three minutes of film. It’s so ambiguous and surreal and with her waving across the beach to and summoning a drunken, wore out, distressed, and disheveled Marcello, it closes a great film on a note that is truly a mind “F” if there ever was one.
Best Scene: The best scene for my money, and there are so many, is the moment in the second to last night of the film when Marcello is having an argument with his fiance, Emma, who has already made an attempt or at least a cry for help on her life and has had it up to her wits end with his disappearing, philandering, partying at all hours into the wee morning, and his complete aloofness and disregard. It’s one of two moments that come to mind where Marcello truly opens up and becomes vulnerable and shows genuine, not artificial or performative, emotion. The other being at the restaurant as his father is leaving when he confides to Paparazzo that his father wasn’t really around much in his life. As Marcello and Emma argue back and forth, it becomes clear that she is a woman who truly loves him and it’s a tragic, but necessary scene as it really telegraph’s one of the film’s most obvious “thesis statements” in having our protagonist weighing responsibility vs hedonism as well as weighing the idolatry of the self vs the mores of finding virtue and meaning in serving others. Moreover, in a film world inhabited by fakes and artificiality, Emma is perhaps the only real character and she says the film's most poignant and grounded in reality line when she tells Marcello, the one great thing any man could truly hope for is to be genuinely and compassionately loved by a woman.
We’ve seen moments like these in films before. The man wants to stray and sleep with women, while the woman who desperately loves him wants nothing more to hold the relationship together if only he could understand. What makes this moment stand out, aside from just the tragic visual of playing the cat and mouse game with getting in and out of Marcello’s sports car ending in a physical altercation and Emma seemingly stranded on the road as he drives off into the late night/early morning, is the fact that we haven’t seen either of these characters fully confront and let out their emotions. Emma has resorted in small pleas at this point, a suicide attempt, and subtle movements to insert herself more into Marcello’s life. Marcello meanwhile has run away from his emotions and concern for her by drowning in cocktails, sex, his meaningless and shameful work, and hollow parties.
Now the kicker of the whole thing is that only a few moments later he comes back for her, picks her up in his car, and then in the next shot we see them in bed together, having allegedly made up. But we of course know better, and we know this is a cycle that has gone on and will likely continue to go - both of them being trapped in their own little purgatory and pushing Sisyphus’ boulder up that hill forever. Also, and I’d need to do a close-viewing again of the film, I believe this is the very last time we see Emma in the picture too before it completely turns dark and spirals out of control in the last 40 minutes transitioning us the viewer almost fully into the next stage of Fellini’s career - into 8-1/2 and beyond.
Last edited by iluv2viddyfilms; 1 week ago at 07:37 PM.
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I have still never seen this. There was a sort of mystique around it when I was young and it was often knowingly or slyly referenced in popular culture but I never saw it. Then one day I decided to watch 8 1/2, it blew me away, it was instantly one of the best movies I'd ever seen... so I stopped there and didn't watch another Fellini for like 14 years. So now with La Strada and Amarcord under my belt, I can probably watch La Dolce Vida in another decade.
(I actually do really want to watch this and don't know why it never happens. I think currently it's not streaming on any service I have.)
(I actually do really want to watch this and don't know why it never happens. I think currently it's not streaming on any service I have.)
I have still never seen this. There was a sort of mystique around it when I was young and it was often knowingly or slyly referenced in popular culture but I never saw it. Then one day I decided to watch 8 1/2, it blew me away, it was instantly one of the best movies I'd ever seen... so I stopped there and didn't watch another Fellini for like 14 years. So now with La Strada and Amarcord under my belt, I can probably watch La Dolce Vida in another decade.
(I actually do really want to watch this and don't know why it never happens. I think currently it's not streaming on any service I have.)
(I actually do really want to watch this and don't know why it never happens. I think currently it's not streaming on any service I have.)
X
Favorite Movies
X
User Lists
I have still never seen this. There was a sort of mystique around it when I was young and it was often knowingly or slyly referenced in popular culture but I never saw it. Then one day I decided to watch 8 1/2, it blew me away, it was instantly one of the best movies I'd ever seen... so I stopped there and didn't watch another Fellini for like 14 years. So now with La Strada and Amarcord under my belt, I can probably watch La Dolce Vida in another decade.
(I actually do really want to watch this and don't know why it never happens. I think currently it's not streaming on any service I have.)
(I actually do really want to watch this and don't know why it never happens. I think currently it's not streaming on any service I have.)
I think this our periodic guilt tripping of you to cancel one of your other services and subscribe to the criterion channel.
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I think this our periodic guilt tripping of you to cancel one of your other services and subscribe to the criterion channel.
For any film buff... here is your streaming service hierarchy and where your priorities should be, of the streaming services I'm aware of anyway.
1. Criterion Channel
2. Amazon Prime
3. MUBI
4. Youtube
5. Netflix
6. Hulu
7. Paramount Plus
8. Disney
Criterion should obviously be the top choice and a non negotiable for a film buff in the world of streaming. So if you could only pick one that would be your ticket. As far as the big players in streaming go, Amazon kicks Netflix's ass any day of the week, at least if you're into the essential and canon of cinema. Right now, just a sampling of great movies streaming on Amazon prime.
The Godfather
Godfather Part II
Born Yesterday
The Last Picture Show
The Killing
His Girl Friday
The King of Comedy
High Noon
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
12 Angry Men
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Midnight in Paris
Hombre
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The Long Goodbye
Zulu
Charade
Brief Encounter
The Graduate
Becket
And that's just the starters. I am a huge Amazon fan for not only how they revolutionized shopping, but also they have some amazing picks for film buffs that maybe get lost in a lot of what's on Netflix and want to stick to the "bread and butter" of cinema. And yes, full disclosure I own a couple shares of Amazon, but still.
There's no reason not to have Criterion Channel as your go-to and then Amazon as your backup and then if you're a die hard and into extremely rare, hard to find, and obscure stuff, then MUBI is probably your best bet.
Oh and I forgot to add, I put youtube on there because quite often you will find great films that are "leaked" onto the platform, which in many cases sadly get removed, but inevitably find their way back. Yes, some of the channels do have commercials, while many do not, except for at the beginning. For instance I was wanting to re-watch The Innocents and I found it on youtube last night, and though I rewatched La dolce vita recently as well on Criterion Channel, it was still on youtube in a HD version. There's a lot of great silent movies on there to. Yes you have to dig with youtube and it's hit or miss, but you'd be surprised what you can find there. Oh and I think last year I was shocked to see a great copy of Sergeant York streaming on youtube too and without interuption.
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I think this our periodic guilt tripping of you to cancel one of your other services and subscribe to the criterion channel.
Sigh.
It may be time soon.
top 100
12th film
Cabaret (1972, Fosse)
Thoughts: Bob Fosse’s masterpiece is Cabaret and it’s a musical that has stood the test of time. I’m not in any position and certainly am no expert on looking at the film through the lens of its source material, in which the film is several steps removed from going all the way back to pre-American involvement in World War 2, 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin. Apparently the novel was adapted into a broadway played called I Am a Camera and then to a musical and finally the film we all know and love. What do know is a great film when I see on and Cabaret fits the bill and it is my second favorite musical behind only My Fair Lady.
Cabaret is set in Berlin, Germany during the tail end, circa 1930 of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), just on the eve of the Nazi’s taking over. There is so much to admire about this musical film, chief among them is how well the historical context is juxtaposed and directly incorporated into an otherwise small-scale and intimate story of the histrionics and self-serving hedonistic lives and entanglements of its five main characters. As the characters go,first we have Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) , an insecure “loose woman;” an American abroad who performs at a local cabaret (thus the title), an owl-eyed dreamer who really wants to be a big movie star like Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, or Kay Francis. Next we have the uptight and bi-sexual British English teacher abroad, Brian (Michael York). We have a wealthy playboy baron, Max, thrown into the mix; we have a rich heiress - a German Jew, Natalia, and finally the man going after her, the awkward “not gold digging” Fritz, also a German Jew, only he’s hiding his ethnicity being able to read the temperature of the water in 1930 Berlin.
This might all sound like a huge soap-opera convoluted mess. True. Most love triangle stories, or in this case a triangle with an addition pair on the side, are silly and well worn material. What makes Cabaret work so well are not only how the leads play off of each in their motivations, but how they all come from different worlds and social classes with their own unique sense of values and justice and the cabaret is the focal point of their stories. Just as the John Ford film Stagecoach showcased the classic man vs nature conflict and then allowed the characters to seek refuge in a very confined space of the stagecoach itself, we have the Cabaret acting as the “hideaway in a world of man vs society as the Nazis are slowly, slowly, and slowly beginning to gain traction tear down the Weimar Republic.
Minnelli’s Sally Bowles is a character very much like another one of my all time favorite film characters, and in watching Cabaret you can help but think that Bowles is a spiritual sister to Holly Golightly, as played by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The character similarities are many; both characters are attractive young women who are afraid of commitment and afraid of themselves and life’s responsibilities and as such hide behind a veil of sexual liberation and women’s independence or a perverse form of feminism. Both are highly extroverted, but their entire being and projection of themselves in their interpersonal relationships is entirely performative and for show. This makes sense too. People who suffer from trauma or who have been hurt or betrayed rarely open up to others, no matter how extroverted they are and certainly feel the need to create a character or avatar of themselves that’s not the genuine thing. Afterall, it makes sense, right? If you want love, you can control the terms and if you are rejected, why then it’s not really YOU the other person is rejecting, but rather a creation or facade of you they cast aside. In this regard if continuing the comparison between Cabaret and Breakfast at Tiffany’s then Michael York’s Brian is to Sally as George Peppard’s Paul Varjack is to Holly.
Perhaps the biggest difference is the ending, where Holly makes the right choice in letting her guard down and finally admits her love toward Paul and embracing responsibility, Sally never does. Sally, even after Brian is perfectly willing to settle down with her back in England, find work at a college, and raise her unborn child, despite not knowing if he’s the actual father, decides to make a horrible decision in running away from him and aborting the child. On this note Cabaret is so historically and thematically rich. In having a society of people who hide from reality and who are easily given to avoid what they perceive as hardship or stress at almost any cost, it’s no wonder the Nazi party was able to rise in the ranks in a society falling apart through hedonism and idle pleasures.. I once read a great essay comparing George Orwell’s 1984 against Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and the thesis statement centered around how government is able to subject its citizens in each book to tyranny. Whereas Orwell saw a world where people gave up their rights due to threats of violence and intimidation and fear, Huxley saw a world where people were so doped up on pleasure, fun, narcissism, and hedonism that they wouldn’t even care if their rights are taken away. Of course, history tells us both are right and wrong. It’s not so much that those two worlds are mutually exclusive in so much that they come at different stages. We have to get to Huxley’s world first and then the inevitable next step is the world of Orwell. That’s exactly what we see in Fosse’s presentation of 1930 Germany in Cabaret. The characters are so enamored in their own self indulgences, they fail to see the Orwellian like darkness and evil of the Nazi party on their doorstep. Whereas with Stagecoach the characters use their refuge as a place to recharge and to confront the world, the cabaret is simply a prison - a holding grounds to weaken them until the Nazi party rises up.
Now, I haven’t mentioned one of the film’s other brilliant characters, and from a narrative stance the only perhaps truly objective character who is omnipotent in the entire thing. That is of course the rousing and imp-like devilish performance of Joel Grey as the master of ceremonies at the Cabaret. He’s in nearly every number and his small frame and huge cheshire grin caked in make-up and androgyny show up in nearly every song number. Throughout the film we never see him interact with any of the characters aside from his performances. He has zero lines outside of the stage. He has zero character development, zero backstory, and zero relationship to the other characters. He simply is. Whether or not he represents the Devil, full knowing the Hell these characters are in for on the eve of Hitler, or whether or not he represents a surrogate for the audience who is simultaneously enjoying this world but also having the moral compass to see it for its vileness, or whether or not he is just an uncaring and apathetic observer with a job to do, tirelessly and carelessly just as Death is in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal - we’ll never know. He just is and he’s one of the best characters and one of the great enigmas of musical films and in great cinema period. It's no shock that his grinning face is about the last image we see of the film. Joel Grey won an Academy Award for his performance and he deserved it. Minnelli won for best actress and also Fosse for best director. There’s an easy argument that they also both deserved their win. Say what you will about The Godfather which also came out in 1972, yes it is truly great and amazing, but Cabaret is on my top 100 list, while Coppola’s magnum opus gangster epic is not.
Best Scene: To me the best scene is when Brian, Sally, and Max are at a picnic in the countryside and the young Nazi youth break out into “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” The song as sung in the musical is an anthem of the rise of Nazism, while in the greater context, it’s not championing Nazism, but rather acting as a warning of doing nothing. The problem in most societies is not that they have their Hitlers, their Mao Zedongs, or Joseph Stalins - the real problem is when people sit back and do nothing in the face of evil. The real problem is when people are caught up in the pomp and circumstance and riotous displays and sit back and act as cowards not wanting to stick their neck out. The scene is brilliant, the only musical number outside the cabaret club, and it’s shot in a way where it recreates posters and art from Joseph Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. How the musical starts from a solo singer without musical accompaniment and ends up to the point where it is in a full band and chorus singing at the top of their lungs in a huge crescendo and flourish is in equal measure beautiful and horrifying. Built into this sequence are edits and cuts to an old man who doesn’t join in the song and can clearly see the terror on the horizon, but is powerless to do anything about it. Of course the scene ends with Brian’s sobering dose of reality, “Do you still think you can control them?”
12th film
Cabaret (1972, Fosse)
Thoughts: Bob Fosse’s masterpiece is Cabaret and it’s a musical that has stood the test of time. I’m not in any position and certainly am no expert on looking at the film through the lens of its source material, in which the film is several steps removed from going all the way back to pre-American involvement in World War 2, 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin. Apparently the novel was adapted into a broadway played called I Am a Camera and then to a musical and finally the film we all know and love. What do know is a great film when I see on and Cabaret fits the bill and it is my second favorite musical behind only My Fair Lady.
Cabaret is set in Berlin, Germany during the tail end, circa 1930 of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), just on the eve of the Nazi’s taking over. There is so much to admire about this musical film, chief among them is how well the historical context is juxtaposed and directly incorporated into an otherwise small-scale and intimate story of the histrionics and self-serving hedonistic lives and entanglements of its five main characters. As the characters go,first we have Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) , an insecure “loose woman;” an American abroad who performs at a local cabaret (thus the title), an owl-eyed dreamer who really wants to be a big movie star like Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, or Kay Francis. Next we have the uptight and bi-sexual British English teacher abroad, Brian (Michael York). We have a wealthy playboy baron, Max, thrown into the mix; we have a rich heiress - a German Jew, Natalia, and finally the man going after her, the awkward “not gold digging” Fritz, also a German Jew, only he’s hiding his ethnicity being able to read the temperature of the water in 1930 Berlin.
This might all sound like a huge soap-opera convoluted mess. True. Most love triangle stories, or in this case a triangle with an addition pair on the side, are silly and well worn material. What makes Cabaret work so well are not only how the leads play off of each in their motivations, but how they all come from different worlds and social classes with their own unique sense of values and justice and the cabaret is the focal point of their stories. Just as the John Ford film Stagecoach showcased the classic man vs nature conflict and then allowed the characters to seek refuge in a very confined space of the stagecoach itself, we have the Cabaret acting as the “hideaway in a world of man vs society as the Nazis are slowly, slowly, and slowly beginning to gain traction tear down the Weimar Republic.
Minnelli’s Sally Bowles is a character very much like another one of my all time favorite film characters, and in watching Cabaret you can help but think that Bowles is a spiritual sister to Holly Golightly, as played by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The character similarities are many; both characters are attractive young women who are afraid of commitment and afraid of themselves and life’s responsibilities and as such hide behind a veil of sexual liberation and women’s independence or a perverse form of feminism. Both are highly extroverted, but their entire being and projection of themselves in their interpersonal relationships is entirely performative and for show. This makes sense too. People who suffer from trauma or who have been hurt or betrayed rarely open up to others, no matter how extroverted they are and certainly feel the need to create a character or avatar of themselves that’s not the genuine thing. Afterall, it makes sense, right? If you want love, you can control the terms and if you are rejected, why then it’s not really YOU the other person is rejecting, but rather a creation or facade of you they cast aside. In this regard if continuing the comparison between Cabaret and Breakfast at Tiffany’s then Michael York’s Brian is to Sally as George Peppard’s Paul Varjack is to Holly.
Perhaps the biggest difference is the ending, where Holly makes the right choice in letting her guard down and finally admits her love toward Paul and embracing responsibility, Sally never does. Sally, even after Brian is perfectly willing to settle down with her back in England, find work at a college, and raise her unborn child, despite not knowing if he’s the actual father, decides to make a horrible decision in running away from him and aborting the child. On this note Cabaret is so historically and thematically rich. In having a society of people who hide from reality and who are easily given to avoid what they perceive as hardship or stress at almost any cost, it’s no wonder the Nazi party was able to rise in the ranks in a society falling apart through hedonism and idle pleasures.. I once read a great essay comparing George Orwell’s 1984 against Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and the thesis statement centered around how government is able to subject its citizens in each book to tyranny. Whereas Orwell saw a world where people gave up their rights due to threats of violence and intimidation and fear, Huxley saw a world where people were so doped up on pleasure, fun, narcissism, and hedonism that they wouldn’t even care if their rights are taken away. Of course, history tells us both are right and wrong. It’s not so much that those two worlds are mutually exclusive in so much that they come at different stages. We have to get to Huxley’s world first and then the inevitable next step is the world of Orwell. That’s exactly what we see in Fosse’s presentation of 1930 Germany in Cabaret. The characters are so enamored in their own self indulgences, they fail to see the Orwellian like darkness and evil of the Nazi party on their doorstep. Whereas with Stagecoach the characters use their refuge as a place to recharge and to confront the world, the cabaret is simply a prison - a holding grounds to weaken them until the Nazi party rises up.
Now, I haven’t mentioned one of the film’s other brilliant characters, and from a narrative stance the only perhaps truly objective character who is omnipotent in the entire thing. That is of course the rousing and imp-like devilish performance of Joel Grey as the master of ceremonies at the Cabaret. He’s in nearly every number and his small frame and huge cheshire grin caked in make-up and androgyny show up in nearly every song number. Throughout the film we never see him interact with any of the characters aside from his performances. He has zero lines outside of the stage. He has zero character development, zero backstory, and zero relationship to the other characters. He simply is. Whether or not he represents the Devil, full knowing the Hell these characters are in for on the eve of Hitler, or whether or not he represents a surrogate for the audience who is simultaneously enjoying this world but also having the moral compass to see it for its vileness, or whether or not he is just an uncaring and apathetic observer with a job to do, tirelessly and carelessly just as Death is in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal - we’ll never know. He just is and he’s one of the best characters and one of the great enigmas of musical films and in great cinema period. It's no shock that his grinning face is about the last image we see of the film. Joel Grey won an Academy Award for his performance and he deserved it. Minnelli won for best actress and also Fosse for best director. There’s an easy argument that they also both deserved their win. Say what you will about The Godfather which also came out in 1972, yes it is truly great and amazing, but Cabaret is on my top 100 list, while Coppola’s magnum opus gangster epic is not.
Best Scene: To me the best scene is when Brian, Sally, and Max are at a picnic in the countryside and the young Nazi youth break out into “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” The song as sung in the musical is an anthem of the rise of Nazism, while in the greater context, it’s not championing Nazism, but rather acting as a warning of doing nothing. The problem in most societies is not that they have their Hitlers, their Mao Zedongs, or Joseph Stalins - the real problem is when people sit back and do nothing in the face of evil. The real problem is when people are caught up in the pomp and circumstance and riotous displays and sit back and act as cowards not wanting to stick their neck out. The scene is brilliant, the only musical number outside the cabaret club, and it’s shot in a way where it recreates posters and art from Joseph Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. How the musical starts from a solo singer without musical accompaniment and ends up to the point where it is in a full band and chorus singing at the top of their lungs in a huge crescendo and flourish is in equal measure beautiful and horrifying. Built into this sequence are edits and cuts to an old man who doesn’t join in the song and can clearly see the terror on the horizon, but is powerless to do anything about it. Of course the scene ends with Brian’s sobering dose of reality, “Do you still think you can control them?”
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Great review, and hmm, I'm not the only one who would rank Cabaret ahead of the Godfather.
Some real winners here, Floating Weeds is my favorite Ozu, I actually admire both of versions he filmed, but I like his re-do a shade more, I imagine he revisited it because he had more to say.
8½ is my favorite Fellini, but I have no argument against La Dolce Vita, to have back-to-back twin masterpieces like that was pretty impressive.
I remember reading how difficult 8½ was, so I was prepared to be baffled, but when I watched it in my college days, I didn't have that experience - which I chalk up to being into the surrealists, the dadaists, so for me it was, "I don't get the issue, this makes perfect sense to me" lol. La Dolce hit me harder on rewatches in my old age, learning what Steiner did... Jesus, that rocked me, still does whenever I think of the film because he seemed to be the only who had his shit together - had this beautiful life and family, so why?
Some real winners here, Floating Weeds is my favorite Ozu, I actually admire both of versions he filmed, but I like his re-do a shade more, I imagine he revisited it because he had more to say.
8½ is my favorite Fellini, but I have no argument against La Dolce Vita, to have back-to-back twin masterpieces like that was pretty impressive.
I remember reading how difficult 8½ was, so I was prepared to be baffled, but when I watched it in my college days, I didn't have that experience - which I chalk up to being into the surrealists, the dadaists, so for me it was, "I don't get the issue, this makes perfect sense to me" lol. La Dolce hit me harder on rewatches in my old age, learning what Steiner did... Jesus, that rocked me, still does whenever I think of the film because he seemed to be the only who had his shit together - had this beautiful life and family, so why?
__________________
Completed Extant Filmographies: Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Satyajit Ray, Fritz Lang, Andrei Tarkovsky, Buster Keaton, Yasujirō Ozu - (for favorite directors who have passed or retired, 10 minimum)
Completed Extant Filmographies: Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Satyajit Ray, Fritz Lang, Andrei Tarkovsky, Buster Keaton, Yasujirō Ozu - (for favorite directors who have passed or retired, 10 minimum)
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top 100
13th film
Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris)
Thoughts: Along with Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, this might just be my favorite documentary... Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris). To say I was moved by this documentary is an understatement. As of this writing, November of 2024, we currently have two chocolate labrador retrievers and no cats. The three cats we had are no longer with us having all passed away in the last five years - we opted for cremating them as opposed to a burial. So, yes full disclosure I am a pet owner and likes millions and millions of others have known the loss of a pet and truth be told, I tend to enjoy the company of animals more than people if I put my cards right down on the table. As such, this documentary touches a nerve in a good way.
Errol Morris in his basic early stripped down bare bones style... even before his started to add more flair and dramatic license to his work with the game changing The Thin Blue Line (1988) and the remarkable The Fog of War (2003), interviews a couple of different and somewhat rival pet cemetery owners as well as pet owners who've lost their beloved animals, and a manager of a large rendering plant, in an exploration of what makes people become so attached to their pets, as well as how we cope with loss, and the difficult and painful subject of how we handle their bodies once their little animal spirit has left them.
This material sounds a bit off putting and oddball, but it's truly great and it's a documentary that definitely challenges the viewer, not only because of the macabre subject material, but also because Morris chooses not to have any narration nor does he add titles and names on screen as descriptors of his interview subjects. Some of this material is tragically sad, some of it is just unintentionally hilarious, and a lot of it will make you think. Morris does seem to balance well between taking this material completely seriously against becoming satirical and ironic toward a content that could easily dive into dark humor.
I think Morris treats the subject with enough warmth and sensitivity that it comes off as genuine, but he's self-aware enough of what it is that it never comes across as hackneyed parody or insult. It's why we can watch an interview of a lady singing to her dog AND see portraits in the background of the frame on the wall within the shot's composition, of what we can only assume to be deceased pets that got the portraiture treatment, and not be tempted to laugh at the near ridiculousness of it. Moreover, this was nearly 50 years ago too! Before we had Chewy.com and major pet stores, a billion dollar industry of pet social media stars, and before the term "fur babies" was in our daily lexicon.
I have no clue why it had taken me so long, until recently, to get around to watching Gates of Heaven, but just like Grizzly Man it does treat an awkward topic with respect and reverence while still fully embracing the inherent tragicomic nature of it all. It's an instant unadulterated love for me and it would make a great double bill with Herzog's film, which is also on my list. I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if Morris approached this subject in looking at how we handle the death of our pets as an allegory and second-hand exploration of how we handle death and the loss of our human loved ones. Great, great brilliant stuff here and the full documentary is on youtube as well as currently (November, 2024) streaming on The Criterion Channel:
Best Scene: For a documentary that is compromised mostly of interview, perhaps best interview would be more appropriate, however one none-interview scene does stand out. A couple have come to bury their dog at the pet cemetery and there is of course, a makeshift funeral to go along with it. The curator pulling double duty as funeral director and as preacher is with the couple as they say goodbye to their pet dog, a terrier and sheep dog mix. The funeral director asks the couple about the dog, they show him the picture of their dog, and in response he comments on the dog's smile, if he can see through his long bangs, and so on. His bedside manner in this scene is remarkable and really comes across as genuine rather than indulging and humoring the couple. Of course, as brought up earlier in the documentary, a pet cemetery isn't a business venture one embarks upon to make a quick dollar, but more of a labor of love and true concern, as well as seeing a huge gap where there's a void in society where a need just isn't being met.
13th film
Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris)
Thoughts: Along with Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, this might just be my favorite documentary... Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris). To say I was moved by this documentary is an understatement. As of this writing, November of 2024, we currently have two chocolate labrador retrievers and no cats. The three cats we had are no longer with us having all passed away in the last five years - we opted for cremating them as opposed to a burial. So, yes full disclosure I am a pet owner and likes millions and millions of others have known the loss of a pet and truth be told, I tend to enjoy the company of animals more than people if I put my cards right down on the table. As such, this documentary touches a nerve in a good way.
Errol Morris in his basic early stripped down bare bones style... even before his started to add more flair and dramatic license to his work with the game changing The Thin Blue Line (1988) and the remarkable The Fog of War (2003), interviews a couple of different and somewhat rival pet cemetery owners as well as pet owners who've lost their beloved animals, and a manager of a large rendering plant, in an exploration of what makes people become so attached to their pets, as well as how we cope with loss, and the difficult and painful subject of how we handle their bodies once their little animal spirit has left them.
This material sounds a bit off putting and oddball, but it's truly great and it's a documentary that definitely challenges the viewer, not only because of the macabre subject material, but also because Morris chooses not to have any narration nor does he add titles and names on screen as descriptors of his interview subjects. Some of this material is tragically sad, some of it is just unintentionally hilarious, and a lot of it will make you think. Morris does seem to balance well between taking this material completely seriously against becoming satirical and ironic toward a content that could easily dive into dark humor.
I think Morris treats the subject with enough warmth and sensitivity that it comes off as genuine, but he's self-aware enough of what it is that it never comes across as hackneyed parody or insult. It's why we can watch an interview of a lady singing to her dog AND see portraits in the background of the frame on the wall within the shot's composition, of what we can only assume to be deceased pets that got the portraiture treatment, and not be tempted to laugh at the near ridiculousness of it. Moreover, this was nearly 50 years ago too! Before we had Chewy.com and major pet stores, a billion dollar industry of pet social media stars, and before the term "fur babies" was in our daily lexicon.
I have no clue why it had taken me so long, until recently, to get around to watching Gates of Heaven, but just like Grizzly Man it does treat an awkward topic with respect and reverence while still fully embracing the inherent tragicomic nature of it all. It's an instant unadulterated love for me and it would make a great double bill with Herzog's film, which is also on my list. I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if Morris approached this subject in looking at how we handle the death of our pets as an allegory and second-hand exploration of how we handle death and the loss of our human loved ones. Great, great brilliant stuff here and the full documentary is on youtube as well as currently (November, 2024) streaming on The Criterion Channel:
Best Scene: For a documentary that is compromised mostly of interview, perhaps best interview would be more appropriate, however one none-interview scene does stand out. A couple have come to bury their dog at the pet cemetery and there is of course, a makeshift funeral to go along with it. The curator pulling double duty as funeral director and as preacher is with the couple as they say goodbye to their pet dog, a terrier and sheep dog mix. The funeral director asks the couple about the dog, they show him the picture of their dog, and in response he comments on the dog's smile, if he can see through his long bangs, and so on. His bedside manner in this scene is remarkable and really comes across as genuine rather than indulging and humoring the couple. Of course, as brought up earlier in the documentary, a pet cemetery isn't a business venture one embarks upon to make a quick dollar, but more of a labor of love and true concern, as well as seeing a huge gap where there's a void in society where a need just isn't being met.
Last edited by iluv2viddyfilms; 1 week ago at 07:23 AM.
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