favorite films

Notes.
Bumped to the top of my blog for easy access.
20 films. Chronological. 1 film per director. I have given my top 5 special pictures. I do plan to expand this list (though when, I do not know).

LIST.

Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

City Girl (1930)

Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)

Love Me Tonight (1932)

Spring Shower (1932)

Little Man, What Now? (1934)

The Scarlet Empress (1934)

Four Seasons of Children (1939)

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

Major Barbara (1941)

Sullivan's Travels (1942)

A Canterbury Tale (1944)

A Bloody Spear on Mount Fuji (1955)

The Seine Meets Paris (1957)

Glass (1958)

F for Fake (1974)

Manhattan (1979)

Cafe Lumiere (2003)

A Gentle Breeze in the Village (2007)

June 10 favorites

Actually, I did not watch anything this month that was truly worthy of this list. Despair! But, in order to fill this list with something, here are films which, had it been better month, would have almost made this list:

Diva Dolorosa (1999)

Like You Know It All (2009)

Souls on the Road (1921)

Death by Hanging (1968)

May 10 favorites

I rediscovered Japanese film this month and watched little else. I have not been so excited about film for some time. Expect this pace to continue over the summer.

Of what I watched, I liked:

A Hen in the Wind (1948)

Kochiyama Soshun (1936)

5cm per Second (2007)

A Bloody Spear on Mount Fuji (1955)

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

Love Exposure (2008)

[note: the inclusion of anime on this list is not an accident.]

April 10 favorites

This appears to have been a slow month. These were the movies I watched and liked:

The Trio's Engagements (1937)

What Did the Lady Forget? (1937)

Our Neighbor Miss Yae (1934)

This list gives the impression that all I watched this month were Japanese films from the 1930s (in which women wore stylishly tilted hats). This is not the case, though I certainly wish it were.

The Trio's Engagements (1937)

From a technical standpoint, this film is far less interesting than the films of the heavy-hitters of Japanese cinema in the 30s — Ozu and Shimizu and Naruse and Mizoguchi. However, this film feels like it is the most “modern.” Three youngish men are hired at a store (which seems to specialize in fake silk) and each falls in lust with the president’s daughter; each also happens to have a previous engagement set with another girl.

The script might as well have been pulled straight from Hollywood (this is what I mean by “modern”). And it is as delightful as old Hollywood comedy can be (very delightful), though it has none of the sparkle. The central points of comic tension (the conflict between the three men for one hand; the conflict between the previous lovers) are not utilized whatsoever (the film spends a lot of time on exposition, then dissolves with a miraculous anti-climax). The conspicuous elements of modern Western society (the lush store, the jazzy soundtrack, the neon signs, the somewhat-independent working woman) tend to clash with conservative Japanese conventions (particularly marriage and the woman’s role in it; re: the ending). The film also lacks the polish of Hollywood (the lighting, the fluid camera, the magnificent costumes and sets), however hard it may try to compensate for that. It almost works, but mostly doesn’t.

And for that, perhaps, it is all the more charming.

This is the first film I have seen by Yasujiro Shimazu. Mostly forgotten now, he seems to have been a defining influence in Japanese films in the 1930s; the internet assures me that he helped cultivate a lot of young talent and that his early 30s realism paved the way for the canon of Japanese filmmakers that IS remembered (see the canon I listed above). I would love to see more of his films. What survives of this film is choppy and, I imagine, does not do the original product justice. I shall keep my eye open for more.

March 10 favorites

I feel my viewing habits becoming more sluggish, though I watched a lot this past month. Film no longer challenges me; my interest in it is waning.

On that note, this is what I liked this past month:

Wife! Be Like a Rose! (1935)

Medicine for Melancholy (2008)

The Cave of the Yellow Dog (2005)

I watched two dozen short documentaries this month. I do not know what possessed me. Of them, I liked:

Moment of Joy (1965)

The City (1939)

The Devil's Toy (1966)

A Walk in the Old City of Warsaw (1958)

La marche des machines (1927)

Since writing my senior paper last year on early montage documentaries, I have come to regard a small and elusive group of filmmakers as a curious rumor. I think of them as the Paris Film Club Crowd. They are a young and enthusiastic lot. They are most prominent in the late 1920s. They make montage films, some of them earnest documents, others abstract explorations. They show these films to fellow film enthusiasts, often at film clubs, often in Paris. Among the circle, one will find Jean Mitry, Jean Vigo, Boris Kaufman, Georges Lacombe, Henri Storck, Jean Lods, Pierre Chenal, and Eugene Deslaw. Many others are associated with this group: Charles Dekeukelaire, Jean Dreville, Jean Painleve, Alberto Cavalcanti, Joris Ivens, Marcel Carne, &c. Some of these names ought to be familiar, others completely unknown. Those names which are known are not known for their early montage abstractions; such is the nature of this era, and I am desperate to penetrate it.

La marche des machines is one the key films to come from this crowd. Deslaw directed. It is only the second Deslaw film I have seen. It is very short and very difficult to judge. I feel that the film has no context, nothing to ground its abstraction; ironic, considering I had known about this film, its context, and its impact for years and have sought it out with determination. I found what I was looking for: a rhythmic film about machines. That is all.

My impression of Deslaw is true for the rest of the group. His films lack rigor, clarity, perhaps worthwhile cinematic ideas, yet his technique is so charmingly light and youthfully poetic that his films are difficult to resist. I say this of La marche des machines, though it is too small a film. I say it of Deslaw's Montparnasse (1929); I say it of Carne's Nogent (1929); I say it of Storck's Images d'Ostende (1929); I say it most of all of Vigo's A propos de Nice (1930). I might dare to say it of all these young cineastes in Paris, but the group remains so obscure. What of Deslaw's La nuit electique? What of Lacombe's La Zone? What of Lods' Le Mile? So much remains hidden, and even I am having trouble bringing it out. What a mess.

I am stuffing this post with names so that a better historian will do the necessary research to bring this group to light. I apologize to all of you who read this expecting an interesting or moderately witty commentary on a film you ought to see. Although I hope that if you are a regular reader of this blog you do not expect that anyway. I am really curious though! Who were these young fellows? What are these lost films like? Why has nobody caught on to this group, the "new wave" of 1930? Why is nobody but me interested in exploring them? I am such a bad pioneer.

favorite films archive

monthly viewing favorites.
June 10
May 10
Apr 10
Mar 10
Feb 10
Jan 10
Dec 09
Nov 09
Oct 09

misc.
favorite films (current)
favorite films of the 2000s
Feb 09 50 favorites

February 10 favorites

I only watched 8 films this month. 8! I do believe that is a record low for me. From this small batch, these were my favorites:

The Swallow and the Titmouse (1920)

Au Bonheur des Dames (1930)

A Page of Madness (1926)

One Image

The other day I watched Au Bonheur des Dames (1930). This is not a post about the film, but rather about a phenomenon I notice often but never bother to describe--

My memories of a film fade in various ways. What was vivid to me while watching the film disappears with time, and as days pass I may remember nothing of a film but its name and my general opinion. Sometimes a perfectly wonderful film finds no traction in my mind and slowly escapes from it entirely. At other times a merely adequate film will latch onto me and stick with me for years because of one outstanding detail -- be it an action, a character, an image...

With this post, I want to pay tribute to that One Image that stays with me. What is it that gives One Image so much potency? What thoughts, emotions, impressions do I compress into One Image that I cannot feel elsewhere in the film? Why should One Image -- only one image -- be the one to reecho through my soul? Why does every other image scatter into shadows? O inscrutable One Image, I pay tribute to your power--

This was the One Image from Au Bonheur des Dames. I knew it as soon as I saw it.

Once seen, forever recognized. Does anybody else experience this One Image? How do films impress themselves in your memory? How does your memory of a film change?

I do not know why I have never asked these questions seriously before; I hope to get some good answers.

auteur woes

A discussion about the auteur concept is going down at girish's place. This is a topic that interests me, so I wanted to jot down some thoughts here.

The frequency with which people throw around the word 'auteur' has always annoyed me, especially when it serves only as a description of quality. Calling James Cameron an auteur, for instance, is just a way to distinguish him as a director of quality, as someone who consistently delivers what the audience asks of him, as an 'artist' with an unpolluted personal vision; it is a simple way to give artistic legitimacy to any director a writer chooses.

'Auteur' is one of the defining concepts of artistic legitimacy in film theory. How do we value a film? What standards of art and beauty do we hold film to? The Cahiers crowd aggressively accorded artistic legitimacy to the auteur (and fought the artistic legitimacy of studio-polish), and young film snobs lovers have readily picked up on this method of artistic valuation ever since.

The rise of the internet+film discussion has given the word a healthy boost. It is an easy way to talk about and judge films, and using the word 'auteur' gives the writer/speaker an air of cultural sophistication and so bolsters the legitimacy of his/her opinion. Its spread and sway is no surprise. It can legitimize any creative producer. If we can call James Cameron an auteur, why not Steve Jobs?

These complaints aside, I personally do find something attractive about the auteur. Rivette, explaining the allure of the auteur, once compared Hawks with Moliere -- this comparison worked for me. Moliere is one of my favorite playwrights, but it is his body of work as a whole which fascinates me more than any individual play; and this is true, too, of certain directors -- Welles, Renoir, Lubitsch -- whose filmographies are more dynamic and exciting than any individual film within them. It is John Ford, however, who exemplifies what curiously compels me to the auteur concept: his characters, themes, and style (everything but his camera) repel me, but watching a Ford film can be a genuinely thrilling experience, and I delight in having another piece of the giant puzzle that is his filmography.

To counter myself: perhaps consuming enough work of an artist/filmmaker will lead one to discover an underlying persona or artistic vision to connect with. John Ford, after all, made a lot of films; if you see enough of them (nearly 50 in my case), you cannot fail to feel his presence, to be drawn to it.

I am not an auteur-driven movie-watcher. I have found the concept of the auteur useful as a critical method -- to discover similar themes and techniques among an artist's work -- but terribly limited. As a matter of artistic valuation, whether a film is the product of an 'auteur' does not matter much to me. There are many other ways to judge this art. I worry that the auteur has limited the judgments of young film lovers. I worry that films are hastily categorized as 'auteur' or 'non-auteur' and judged accordingly (the latter always losing). I worry that the widespread use of the word auteur has turned it from critical tool to meaningless show. I worry that artists too often fret about their artistic vision and strive blindly to be 'original' and 'personal' when that was what they were all along.

Anyway, I am hoping that the few regular readers of this blog could comment with their own thoughts. What has the auteur meant to you? What do you think about how widespread this word is? Do people overvalue the auteur as artistically legitimate (as I think) or not? &c.

January 10 favorites

Slow month. More slow months to come. Here are my favorite first-time viewings for this month:

An Inn in Tokyo (1935)

5th Ave Girl (1939)

Duelle (1976)

She Had to Say Yes (1933)

The Aviator's Wife (1981)

By the time this is published, I ought to be in San Francisco. Do not panic. I will be back next week.