Do You Hate It When Historical Directors Are Discussed By Their

"I don't wanna see some young punk **** director discuss Vittorio De Sica or Ingmar Bergman."

It's gonna happen anyway. Life changes. Nobody in the movie world (or any other world for that matter) gets to hold subsequent history static by making some great movies and setting an unchangeable benchmark. The greats of the past will be there for people who are interested, but personally, I'm really glad that the style and content of movies is always changing. There wouldn't be much sense in seeing anything new if they were all just Bergman or Fellini retreads and every subsequent movie was judged based on how much it looked like 8 1/2 or one of Bergman's moody Swedish dramas.

I should have said dilettante, instead.

Young punk **** director or dilettante...doesn't matter. It's really important to break down old idols and make something new. Even though I can claim Swedish genes and had a heavily accented grandfather who was a dead ringer for Max Von Sydow, if all movies were all that depressive, ruminating nordic stuff, I think I'd go out a sink into a wallow of lutefisk and flatbread.

What do you mean exactly? And why is it important?

Because change happens whether we like it or not. Movies reflect that. As great as those classic directors were, we need new stuff, not more Bergman or Hitchcock movies, even though I love those.

I don't see a problem with any one discussing anyone's work really, irrespective of if it is a contemporary or a generational thing.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion naturally, be it good or bad. The only thing that matters is that who those opinions matter to.

For example, if someone is a fan of QuentinTarantino, then they are probably more likely to be interested in learning of his influences from filmakers of a previous generation, like Samuel Fuller or Sergio Leone, as much as his opinions on contemporaries & rivals, like Christopher Nolan or Spike Lee, respectively.

Really, how is it any different to people on here discussing their passion for Bergman, Hitchcock, Ford or Huston, Wilder, Fellini, Scorcese, Spielberg, Lynch, Hartley or Jarmusch, John Hughes or the Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson or Richard Linklater, Ang Lee, Kathryn Bigelow, Lars Von Trier or Gus Van Sant, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro Ińárritu, Greta Gerwig, Barry Jenkins or Taika Waititi? Or anyone else for that matter?

Even if the change is bad?
When I see an old movie I never saw before, it's new to me.

It's the way life and art moves on. If I'm in the mood for that sort of trivia, I can find hints of devices used in previous movies in almost all of them, but it's like how painters all use the same color spectrum. Movie makers all build on what's been done before, used devices and plot lines over and over, but also have to keep putting something new in it so it's NOT just another Bergman imitator, a Casablanca do-over, or whatever. Some like to break ALL of the rules and that's OK too. In the long term history of movies, some of them end up on the dust pile right away, some join the pantheon of the greats and some sit in the middle and will end up on Amazon Prime for free.

It's just one of my current laments that most of the movies I see are old ones. A few months ago, we used to go to a couple of indie theaters or mainstream theaters in town about twice each week and I love seeing movies that break some or all of the classic rules. Sometimes it works, some times it doesn't, but it keeps things fresh.

You wanted an example --"Trespassing Bergman".. There is this fella, Daniel Espinosa, who goes on and on (while looking at Bergman's library of VHS tapes) and saying "Oh we watched Ghostbusters.. It says 'Rental fee paid', so he paid for this. But what are you gonna do about it? "I'm Bergman" (and other awkward crap).
Wes Anderson goes on a soliloquy about how Americans pronounce Max von Sydow, and how the Swedish pronounce it (properly).
Of course to appear "metaphysical", they introduce Martin Scorsese in what is a premature recording. He's getting his seat arranged, is asking inane questions (nothing to do with Bergman), then starts to ask "What is this for?" and asks which company they're working for (as if he just flew to Sweden without knowing this information). Then goes on that he might not know the chronology of his work (so enlightening).

Then I see Ang Lee, who made the movie "Hulk"... Michael Haneke said something I don't even remember, maybe commenting on the carpet. "Funny Games".... I'm guessing Claire Denis is a director, but she goes on saying how she hopes there are no dogs, and stops short of saying that she would have to leave Faro Island if there were.

Robert De Niro says "If you ask me six months from now about his work, I'll be more prepared. I would have an answer for possible questions you ask me".
Again, as I said numerous times, a documentary is 90 minutes long. 1/4 of it will be spent on watching people take airplanes, cars, walking, taking their shoes off and putting on slippers because the owners of the place prefer it that way. So there's only a few minutes, and its spent on ridiculous non-Bergman stuff, by those who are not his contemporaries in any way.

Woody Allen is in this, and he's always had a love for Bergman.. Fine. Show more of him.
One Swedish director is curious about one porno movie (Emannuelle) in a library of hundreds of videos. Even towards the end when he has a second chance to say something meaningful, he observes and becomes fascinated with "Ingmar Bergman's fuse box".. Then in another room he finds a cane.. "Ingmar used this during his dancing days, when he would dance the Charleston.... before becoming a Nazi". He thinks he's funny, too, but comes off as ridiculous. Lars von Trier is obsessive and repetitive about masturbation. He kept saying "I'm sure Ingmar sat here and masturbated like crazy.. I'm sure he had a small vesicle, but I'm sure he masturbated so much in this room" (I guess Ingmar is the only one who masturbated).. Lars then goes on and on.. "Ingmar vomits, just like we vomit. He $hits like we $hit.".. Speaking of shaise, Wes goes on to say "This is a strange place to have a toilet". Even the Swedish director goes all around the library and says, "Why would anyone want to have this many movies". John Landis says how "The Seventh Seal becomes hard to watch because it has been parodied so much, you know with Death as a character".. Of course he'd say something stupid like this, because he doesn't have the imagination or creativity to come up with an idea like that. If only Bergman could have directed a masterpiece like "Three Amigos". At one point, he even says (thinking of "The Virgin Spring").. "Wait a minute, this seems like a medieval movie about revenge. Wait a minute, it IS a medieval movie about revenge" -- what a "genius". Ridley Scott names one of Bergman's movies and asks out loud "I wonder if this was naive" - but offers no explanation of what the hell he is talking about.



Some director with the surname of Payne says how "The Seventh Seal" doesn't hold up. Not only wasn't this guy alive when the movie came out, but he should realize the movie is full of universal themes that anyone can understand, even if it centered around the plague in Europe around 800 years ago. Right after, it cuts to a new scene (I wonder if this was intentional) where Woody Allen says "It helps to know history, philosophy".. Again with limited time, they should have used more of his interview, and cut the others out. If this was made today, they wouldn't have included Woody at all, because Twitter doesn't like him.



This was a random viewing experience. I had revisited a lot of Bergman movies, mostly ones I had already seen, and the documentary proves my point. I could be even more descriptive, but my old computer keeps freezing up, and this is taking way too long to type out.

None of it makes me want to go back to more moody Bergman flix....had enough of that.

I just saw a perfect example of how a documentary should be... And it's a documentary on my very favorite director - Vittorio De Sica. I've searched for one in the past, but somehow I ran into this while browsing Amazon Prime, which I know many have, and should check out. I never heard De Sica speaking English, so there are limitations on knowing everything you can about the man, but his movies speak on his poetic yet realistic humanity.


You don't see any young "flavor of the month" directors or actors, not because they don't know him, but because whoever produced it made sure he got the best of the best..

Featured in this documentary
-Clint Eastwood
-Woody Allen
-Sophia Loren
-Federic Fellini
-Ken Loach
-Mike Leigh
-Shirley MacLaine
-Ettore Scola (great Italian director)
-Mario Monicello

Paul Mazursky (who told De Sica that he was stealing "Umberto D" to make (my favorite movie), "Harry and Tonto"

-Dino DeLaurentis (great producer)
and many others, including his friends.

I prefer filmmakers to speak about other filmmakers it's a way to keep the work alive for future generations.

I should have mentioned (in my last post) that the documentary was made in this century, since there was discussion about who would be around to discuss a star from the 1930s in the example of De Sica. I'd go even further and say how crucial it is to interview their contemporaries because they won't be around much longer.

I like to know who has influenced today's director's, but I agree I don't want to hear some young director of schlock films give their opinion on Bergman or Fellini, or any of the greats

I’m confused. But it was okay for Mazursky to tell De Sica “that he was stealing ‘Umberto D’ to make (my favorite movie) ‘Harry and Tonto’”?

I could not finish Harry and Tonto, but Umberto D breaks my heart every time.

__________________
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Mazurksy was almost dead when this documentary was shot.