The cinema thread

[Fuuma]

I agree with everything in this post, except I think Depleshin is creepy and somewhat overrated

Matthieu Kassovitz is WAY overrated, La Haine was decent, but everything else by him is beyond stupid

Desplechin is guilty bourgeois intellectual pleasure, I like him a lot but he's a little bit mannered/heavy handed.

ps: I sometimes like Honoré and Marchal so I guess I have weird tastes.

[Fade to Black]

i saw Johnnie To's Vengeance last night. Boy was that a bad movie.

[Farkhanyassin]

Watched A Clockwork Orange for the second time in a week. I really quite like it. The super violent scenes being accompanied by the music is very different, not so dramatic like how the scenes usually are.

[Servo2000]

Just for fun it's worth checking out Funeral Parade of Roses to see where Kubrick might have borrowed some of the stranger moments. It's a film that's worth seeing either way, though.

[Fuuma]

i saw Johnnie To's Vengeance last night. Boy was that a bad movie.

Nah, it has its moments. A minor To for sure.

[Fade to Black]

I found the climax/ending of the film very well done, a shame because the film lacked any kind of spark up to that point. It's frustrating because given the whole setup, I had a hard time imagining any other way the film could've been done.

Also I'm not familiar with the films of Alain Delon other than in passing, but do you think the creation of the Hallyday character was in any way an homage?

[ronin]

I passed on Vengeance because I couldn't imagine watching a movie with Johnny Halliday as the main actor and liking it. It's like the guy would spoil the whole picture. Maybe I should get rid of my prejudice and give it a go sometime.
Fade to Black, the script was reportedly written for Delon in the first place, so I think there is definitely an obvious character reference.

I'll be checking out the videoclub in my new neighbourhood tonight for the first time. I've been meaning to watch a movie by Béla Tarr since Masugnen talked about them in the Favourite art pieces thread. What he said about them sounds like something I'm eagerly interested in when it comes to cinema. I've never seen any. In case there are several available, what would you advise me to watch first? Go chronologically, or is there a particular movie that is more approachable or enlightening? Apart from Satantango, I'm keeping this one for a weekend day.

[ronin]

^Thanks. The video club didn't have any anyway. I'll check the public libraries this week end. As of now, I'm watching Alexandre Nevski instead. Patriotic propaganda, here I come.

[BSR]

I passed on Vengeance because I couldn't imagine watching a movie with Johnny Halliday as the main actor and liking it. It's like the guy would spoil the whole picture. Maybe I should get rid of my prejudice

You definitely should !

[MASUGNEN]

Ronin!

Picking your first Tarr flick should not be a matter of coincidence or local availability. The risk of ruining possibilies of major artistic events is beforehand in quite well-spread trilogy Családi tüzfészek (Family Nest 1979)–Szabadgyalog (The Outsider 1981)–Panelkapcsolat (Prefab People 1982).

Béla Tarr has two periods, the early social realist and the present, existential. While both are sombre in tone, they are starkly contrasted in narrative and aesthetics. Tarr's social realism, shaped in movies mentioned, is »faster«, angrier and lo-fi aesthetized while he's world-renowned for the somnambulistic pace and massively beautiful b/w-photo of Kárhozat (Damnation 1987)–Sátántangó (Satan's Tango 1994)–Werckmeister harmóniák (Werckmeister Harmonies 2002). The two phases intersect in interesting Öszi almanach (Almanac of Fall 1985).

Being a student of philosophy, Tarr himself divides his œuevre in three phases: the social, the ontological, the cosmological. Kárhozat was the ontological piece, while Sátántangó was ruled by a cosmological view. Personally, having heard about his cathegorization, I presumed Werckmeister harmóniák would be the first cosmological take, but he antedated this tendency to Sátántangó. I haven't quite understood his reasons; they must be quite subtle – and for my needs lacking meaning.

I strongly suggest you to start your Tarr experience with either of these three, perhaps narrow it down to either Kárhozat or Werckmeister harmóniák since Sátántangó with is seven plus hours is such a demaning (but eventually in several ways greatly rewarding) piece. My favourite of his movies is, as mentioned, Werckmeister harmóniák. There I feel Tarr has reduced some of his aesthetic idiosyncracies, the all too overt beauty of pooring rain and mud stomping. That's a problem with Tarr, the slight aesthetic bias. But so he in A Londoni férfi (A Man from London 2007) constructs pictures never seen before and I can only admire him.

[Fade to Black]

BSR - that poster screams kitsch. Hallyday looks better now than he did then, assuming he's the guy on the right.

I've never been acquainted with his music, but have heard him described in papers here as the "Elvis of France." He's no Serge, that's for sure.

[MASUGNEN]

Godard is deranged.

[ronin]

Thanks a lot, Masugnen! I always find it hard to know where to start when discovering a filmmaker or an author. This it really helpful.

BSR, I'm not familiar with Godard's late work, if it's as bad as the poster suggests I think I'll keep it that way. That face... too good to be true.

[Fade to Black]

Just watched Sin Nombre, a very well done film.

[Faust]

So, I watched Mad Max. I have a question - were people in 1980 retarded? How could this become a cult hit?