Author Topic: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New  (Read 24774 times)

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New
« Reply #30 on: July 21, 2015, 07:04:21 PM »
1922: Something Old



Nanook of the North  (Robert J. Flaherty, 1922)

At a remove of almost a century, Nanook's reputation as "the grandfather of the documentary feature" is something of a burden for the film to bear, creating a barrier to its full appreciation. The film never presents itself as defining a new mode or a new genre, but it's too often viewed through just that very narrow lens. And while it's not really fair to judge Nanook by the standards of the documentary genre as it later evolved, it's also somewhat avoidable. Documentaries are special that way, presumably because they bring with them notions of Truth and Reality and other words so important you have to capitalize them. Viewers, I think, are just naturally more forgiving with films that carry the label of fiction. The average viewer isn't going to dismiss a film like A Trip to the Moon because its special effects aren't up to current standards. But with Truth, things are different.

That no doubt sounds more apologist than I mean it to. I'm generally not one for defensive, oversimplifying pronouncements, but I'm really struggling to say what I want to say about Nanook. My main point, I suppose, is that it's a very good movie. And it's a movie that works any number of ways. If you take away the documentary label altogether, Nanook is still perfectly enjoyable as a silent adventure film. In fact, a scene like the seal hunt might even be more impressive then, as you wonder how the filmmakers possibly staged that. And watching Nanook build an igloo is a marvel to behold, regardless of the context.

Nanook's real documentary value comes from filming on location with a cast of non-professionals. Regardless of the content of the film, the capturing of these people and places creates a wonderful time capsule. The casting is excellent, too, reflecting a great eye for faces. But this is not cinéma vérité. Nanook and his film family are actors in a story. The story has aspirations of realness — of capturing things as they are, or as they were imagined to be — but it's all representational. There are some problematic aspects to this, but they are secondary to what's really a milestone cinematic idea: the sculpting of narrative out of reality.

Nanook of the North is least successful when it coasts by on an outsider's patronizing admiration of another culture: oh, look at the Eskimo people, how wonderfully different from us they are, and not entirely inferior! I'm honestly not sure whether this stems from Flaherty's own worldview or represents his pandering to an imagined American film audience, but the result is the same. And, to be clear, the problem isn't so much that it's offensive; it's that it leads to lazy, unengaging filmmaking. Luckily, though, these moments are largely confined to the film's first act. After that, the film is consistently engaging and fascinating and, at time, quite beautiful.

Grade: B+

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New
« Reply #31 on: May 30, 2016, 04:01:27 AM »
1988 (Poll)

Films graded: Grave of the Fireflies (B), Let's Get Lost (B), Torch Song Trilogy (B), The Vanishing (B-), The Land Before Time (B-), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (B-), Saumialuk (B-), Cane Toads (C+), Another Woman (C+), Story of Women (C)

Films remembered (partial list): Cinema Paradiso, Die Hard, The Thin Blue Line, Akira, Salaam Bombay!, Rain Man, Mississippi Burning, The Bear, Running on Empty, The Naked Gun, The Last Temptation of Christ, A Fish Called Wanda, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Midnight Run (I'm not positive I saw the whole thing though), Stand and Deliver. Heathers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Eight Men Out, Big, Bull Durham, The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, Scrooged, The Little Thief, Young Guns, Colors, A Short Film About Killing, A Short Film About Love, Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

Watchlist: My Neighbor Totoro, Landscape in the Mist, Alice, Distant Voices, Still Lives, Chocolat, Powaqqatsi, Camille Claudel, Dead Ringers, Drowning by Numbers, They Live, Talk Radio, Police Story 2, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Little Vera, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Hairspray, Days of the Eclipse, Summer Vacation 1999

I'm just playing catchup here, as I've already watched Time of the Gypsies as my Something New film (time for Top 100 Club participation a year ago) and The Thin Blue Line as my Something Old film (providing great counterpoint to the episodes of The Jinx I got to watch last summer. I'm looking forward to returning to this year again soon, though, as there are a lot more titles demanding my attention.

pixote
« Last Edit: May 30, 2016, 05:44:42 AM by pixote »
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New
« Reply #32 on: May 30, 2016, 04:03:48 AM »
1988: Something New



Time of the Gypsies  (Emir Kusturica, 1988)

Review in the Top 100 Club.

Grade: B+

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

DarkeningHumour

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 10453
  • When not sure if sarcasm look at username.
    • Pretentiously Yours
Re: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New
« Reply #33 on: May 30, 2016, 04:41:17 AM »
1988 (Poll)


Watchlist: My Neighbor Totoro, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

pixote

Yes to these. You can skip Alice.
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

https://pretensiouslyyours.wordpress.com/

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New
« Reply #34 on: May 30, 2016, 05:07:07 AM »
I'll be watching Totoro soon, as I work to catch up with all the Studio Ghibli films I haven't seen yet (three of which have advanced to the fourth round of the 1990s Far East Bracket).

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New
« Reply #35 on: May 30, 2016, 05:23:37 AM »
1988: Something Old



The Thin Blue Line  (Errol Morris, 1988)

As mentioned above, I rewatched The Thin Blue Line about the same time that I was watching the first few episodes of The Jinx (a series I still need to finish), and the juxtaposition reinforced just how exceptional Morris' documentary is. Going into this rewatch, I was initially worried that the spate of crime documentaries that followed in the footsteps of The Thin Blue Line might have lessened its impact and perhaps dated it in some ways — but the opposite is true. Morris' documentary remains the gold standard against which other are compared. His interviews are the key. Something like The Jinx might equal or even exceed The Thin Blue Line in terms of narrative interest or mood or rhythm or just general polish, but not with its interviews, which almost always functional purely at an informational level. As Abed mocks on Community, "I'm excited about the narrative facility of the documentary format. It's easier to tell a complex story when you can just cut to people explaining things to the camera." Morris never stops there, though. He lets his camera linger on his interview subjects long enough to capture little moments that humanize them beyond mere sound bytes and give context to their words. Maybe the most memorable example in The Thin Blue Line, for me, is the tone and posture of the male cops as they recount the actions of their female colleague. From these interviews we get not just their remembrance of the facts but also a pitch-perfect illustration of the 'old boys club' atmosphere that no doubt existed in the Dallas police department at the time. They just can't hide their paternalistic condescension from Morris' unblinking camera.

Grade: A-

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New
« Reply #36 on: July 01, 2016, 07:36:47 AM »
1988: Something New (Bonus)



My Neighbor Totoro  (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)

Review in the Top 100 Club.

Grade: A-

pixote
« Last Edit: July 27, 2017, 02:51:57 PM by pixote »
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New
« Reply #37 on: August 16, 2016, 09:01:33 PM »
1988: Bonus Short



Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story  (Todd Haynes, 1988)

Using Barbie dolls to illustrate Karen Carpenter's battle with anorexia is a brilliant conceit, working on multiple levels. That the means of production here involves the childlike act of dressing up dolls perfectly suits both the innocent sound of the Carpenters music and the prepubescent retrograde induced by Karen's anorexia. The concept also recontextualizes Barbie's famous figure, turning the classic beauty into a sickly creature. Wonderful.

The Carpteners' music is great, and well-used, with the filmmaking perhaps at its best in the showcase musical moments — performances by way of diorama, with shifting lighting and subtle movement of the dolls creating the perfect atmosphere. And the movie succeeds, by the end of its forty-plus minutes, in making me feel the horror of anorexia, cringing at the sight of Ipecac containers. As often, I like Haynes' metacinematic awareness, perhaps best highlighted here by the on-the-street documentary segments where a woman hilarious asks, "What is anorexia?" in perfect health ed film reel style.

Superstar is a hodgepodge of these good moments, but it doesn't always flow. There's a distinct lack of rhythm, both scene to scene and within scenes, that keeps the film from greatness. But it's definitely a film worth seeing.

Grade: B



Most sources seem to list Superstar as a 1987 film, but for the purposes of this marathon, I'm happy to follow IMDb and count it as a 1988 title.

Because of a copyright claim, the film is only available  is bootleg form, but if you want to watch it online, this version seems to be a cut above most, in terms of quality.

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New
« Reply #38 on: August 16, 2016, 09:16:59 PM »
1920 (Poll)

Films graded: None!

Films remembered: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Golem, The Last of the Mohicans

Watchlist: One Week (Keaton), Way Down East (Griffith, which I thought I'd seen but I guess not), The Scarecrow (Keaton), Neighbors (Keaton), The Mark of Zorro (Fairbanks), The Parson's Widow (Dreyer), Convict 13 (Keaton), Secret of the Monastery (Sjöström), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Barrymore), Leaves From Satan's Book (Dreyer), Just Pals (Ford), Within Our Gates (Micheaux), The Penalty (Chaney), An Eastern Westerner (Lloyd)

My Something New film is going to being Just Pals, since my Ford at Fox box set has been gathering dust for far too long, and Corndog's Western marathon has me anxious to watch 3 Bad Men and others. As for the Something Old film, it's got to be Caligari. There's really no way around that. I imagine I'll also sneak in at least a couple of the Keaton titles as Bonus Shorts.

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Year-by-Year: Something Old, Something New
« Reply #39 on: August 16, 2016, 10:34:37 PM »
Superstar was one of the last titles I re-watched for my Essentials. I remembered all the great basic decisions about the use of the music and using Barbie dolls to represent body image, but forgot some specific moments like the agent's hand traveling multiple times across the frame (and lit very dark). I really liked Haynes' mix of cinematic techniques, creating a horror/musical/documentary.