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Author Topic: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons  (Read 75793 times)

oldkid

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #240 on: September 26, 2016, 06:44:39 PM »
Much of the humor in Spirited Away is contextual.  The hopping lamppost in front of Zeniba's house is supposed to be a take off of Pixar's Luxo Jr.   The parents being turned into pigs is both horrific and hilarious, Yababa zipping Chihiro's mouth shut is funny, the huge baby who thinks the outside world will kill him as well.   But all this humor is quiet, smile-worthy, not laugh worthy.  The scene that most often makes me laugh is the radish spirit in the elevator, staring into space while Chihiro is moving around him.  Oh, and the soot creatures dropping their pieces of coal. 

There's a lot of humor there, and I don't find it takes it self too seriously, but I agree with the description "sincere", in that it take the world seriously, and it's seeming insanity is based on strict principles, and those principles don't waver.  This isn't a nonsense wonderland, it's a principled and powerful world-behind-the-world. 
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #241 on: September 28, 2016, 10:11:10 AM »
The Iron Giant (Brad Bird, 1999)



Adam & Sam's takes (starts at 34:56)

Miyazaki's a pretty tough act to follow, and like Sam I feel that watching The Iron Giant so close after Spirited Away reduced its impact somehow. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but it does pale in comparison, especially visually. It is perhaps a more emotionally involving film however, playing with Spielbergian tropes in a very distinct 50's America setting, complete with nuclear weapons, cold war paranoia and the word beatnik.

I was wondering why it is that I hate ET (sorry) and like this, and I think it speaks to the power of animation : I find it much easier to tolerate some shortcuts both in the plot and the characters in an animated film because it already comes with a filter separating it from any sort of reality. That really helps when you have a story in which a giant robot that causes a trainwreck goes completely unnoticed by everyone, or when you have a villain that embodies an archetype that particularly annoys me (ridiculously evil bureaucrat) and seemed to be very popular in the 80's and 90's (Ghostbusters comes to mind). All of those things that would kinda be dealbreakers in a live-action film just seem to bother me a lot less here, because this is clearly a pacifist fable, and it establishes itself as that very early on.

The giant itself is what makes the film work of course, the way he's animated makes him easy to love, and don't go too far into making him seem like an animal (or an anthropomorphic being, for that matter) : he's his own thing. The idea of a weapon with a soul is both interesting and powerful, and I won't argue with the film's excellent climax, but... then there's the ending. I guess that's where the film falters for me : the giant's sacrifice is what the whole film is building up to, and it's a very strong moment, but then Bird has to go and completely undercut it. That refusal to accept consequences, to embrace complexity, really holds The Iron Giant back, despite all it has going for it.

7/10
« Last Edit: September 28, 2016, 10:13:52 AM by Teproc »
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Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #242 on: September 28, 2016, 11:06:07 AM »
The Harryhausens (Animation Awards)

In the same order as the podcast (starts at 34:24)

Best Character : Chihiro (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi / Spirited Away)



Best Villain : General Woundwort (Watership Down)



Best Scene : The Setsuko montage (Hotaru no haka / Grave of the Fireflies)



Most Visually Stunning : Akira



Best Picture : Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi / Spirited Away



Summary/ranking

Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi / Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
Hotaru no haka / Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
Kôkaku Kidôtai / Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii, 1995)
Watership Down (Martin Rosen, 1978)
Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)
The Iron Giant (Brad Bird, 1999)


On to... silent movies. I'll admit I'm a litle scared : these are all massively acclaimed and the only non-comedic (ie not Chaplin or Keaton) silent feature I've watched is Murnau's Nosferatu and I did not take to it, not even a little bit. Well, we'll see.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2020, 04:50:18 AM by Teproc »
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Sandy

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #243 on: September 28, 2016, 02:50:39 PM »
And you enjoyed the animation films so much!

Hang in there with the next marathon, Teproc. They're all so serious, but I'd start with Sunrise, because it will never bore you, which could make a good transition to the different style.

I'm looking forward to what you discover in these next films!

Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #244 on: September 28, 2016, 02:59:32 PM »
And you enjoyed the animation films so much!

Hang in there with the next marathon, Teproc. They're all so serious, but I'd start with Sunrise, because it will never bore you, which could make a good transition to the different style.

I'm looking forward to what you discover in these films!

Animation is my cup of tea, and having two of the best Ghiblis was always going to make this part a joy, but the discoveries were quite strong across the board, yes. :)

As for starting with Sunrise, I'm afraid I can't do that... well I can, but my obsessive side wouldn't tolerate not respecting the order of the podcast, so I'll have to struggle through Birth of a Nation first. I am quite looking forward to Metropolis and Passion of Joan of Arc, less confident about the others ones. I'm glad boredom is not something I have to worry about for Sunrise at least. :)
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Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #245 on: October 02, 2016, 01:00:22 PM »
Un chien andalou (Luis Bunuel, 1929)



Adam & Josh's takes (starts at 1:17:20)

That was fun. I don't know if I'm as awed by it as Josh is, I think I enjoy surrealism more in its written form... but there is some very memorable imagery here, and I do agree with Josh on the brilliance of the moon-to-eye cut. And that's about all I have to say, Un chien andalou is certainly distinctive but I find it hard to get anything concrete from it, which is just how Bunuel drew it up.

L'âge d'or (Luis Bunuel, 1930)



Adam & Josh's takes (starts at 1:17:20)

L'âge d'or retains Un chien andalou's creativity and juxtapositional absurdity, but it actually feels like, you know, a film. Unlike Josh, I don't find that anything is really lost by Bunuel having somewhat clearer intentions here... and it's not like  you could call l'âge d'or didactic : this is a series of vignettes, sometimes connected sometimes not, that points towards a critique of European elites on several levels, but also doesn't shy away from, well, surrealism. I cloud identify essentially two threads connecting things, but I suspect a revisit would bring more to light in a way that I don't think would necessarily happen with Un chien andalou.

The first is the idea, discussed in the podcast and which will likely come up again in his later films, of repressed desire. Repressed by  the church of course, but also by society at large, and even by other humans generally : the couple that starts to embrace in the garden before the man suddenly has to leave for example. No religious authority there, just humans having different needs, and it of course leads to the iconic image of the woman starting to kiss/eat? the statue when the man proves to be unavailable. The nice thing is that the other recurring thing in the film is the elite being completely oblivious about the ravages of the world around them : the child being killed in front of the big party for example. So the bourgeoisie/aristocracy is stuck in this position of repression but nonetheless is obsessed by their desires, which leads them to either ignore or persecute others : cue the Sade reference.

In any case I found L'âge d'or to be a more rewarding watch, and I don't think much of the audacity present in Un chien andalou is actually lost here. By abandoning the pure surrealism of that film, he makes it more accessible, and finds what I find to be a compromise more effective on screen than the more rigorously surrealist approach of "automatic writing".

7/10
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Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #246 on: October 05, 2016, 03:14:19 AM »
The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915)



Adam & Sam's takes (starts at 38:59)

Going into the Birth of a Nation, I knew two things about it : that it was a groundbreaking film that changed the face of cinema forever, and that it was racist. I don't think I was quite ready for either aspect however.

It's fitting for a film with such a dual legacy to be divided in two clear parts, and to an extent they somewhat fit with this legacy. As I was taking a few minutes of intermission after the first half, I found myself thinking two things. The first was that this wasn't as racist as I expected... not that it isn't, but it's core focus is on the story of two families and their respective fates during the war. I was impressed by how - to put it bluntly - watchable it was. It has this feeling of cinema viewed as a composite of literature, opera and painting. The way Griffith uses frequent title cards to set up a scene, illustrating what he's written through image and sound, is striking in its relative simplicity and its effectiveness. It makes for a very didactic film, but the storytelling, at least in that first half, is deft enough that it just works. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the film is the score, essential in providing both tone and rythm.

The result is a powerful epic, a tale of a nation devouring itself, mostly dedicated to denouncing war (though it isn't entirely free of Truffaut's aphorism on war films), clearly motivated by pacifist ideals, to an extent. And the fact is : civil war is a terrible, terrible thing : the fact that Griffith puts the blame where he does doesn't prevent that from being true, and the first half of The Birth of a Nation ends up being very effective in that regard.

And then there's the second half. Again, it's not like the first half is exempt of racist overtones, but the second half is where the film changes its focus. I had heard it referred to as basically a recruitment ad for the Ku Klux Klan, but I didn't realise that was to be taken literally. D.W. Griffith's view of the Civil War as presented here seems to be as follows.
1. There was a Civil War, unclear why (I would guess he has a low-key dislike of slavery but it's hard to tell), but that Lincoln sure was a great guy. Anyway war is terrible.
2. After the war, black people - enabled by northern radicals - took control of the South and mercilessly abused white people, preventing them to vote, and just generally being out of place and gross.
3. Thanks to the KKK, we then arrived to some sort of an ideal state (the Nation being birthed), by which I presume he means segregation. The North and the South united in their protection of the Aryan race, something like that.

A fascinating detail is the intertitle coming just after the intermission, explaining that Griffith doesn't mean to cast aspersions on any race in the current (ie 1915) context. I don't know if this was added after the film proved controversial (I should note that the version I watched was over 3 hours long by 15 minutes or so, while Sam mentions it being under 3 hours so I don't know exactly what's going on there), but I find its presence to be illuminating : I took it to mean that now that black people had "learned their place" and been adequately repressed in the South, things were all fine and dandy : he has nothing against black people see, just as long as they don't try to step out of their "natural" social status. To be clear I'm not saying it alleviates anything in the film, it's more that it's an inadvertently scathing critique of 1910's America.

In any case, the second half soured me on the film to an extent. The didactic nature of the storytelling means that you really can't get away from its message, and it makes even the impressive action climax rather uncomfortable to watch in a way taht the first half wasn't, not as much anyway. The hints of Ride in the Valkyrie in the score, and the glorious imagery of the KKK riding to slaughter a black mob... remarkable, but somewhat hard to appreciate.

What I did appreciate was the way the film morphed from a historical epic anchored in a certain sense of reality (a heightened one certainly, but still) to a fantasy story : this is particularly notable with the villainous Silas Lynch (interesting name...). His behaviour in the final act reminded me of a fairytale villain more than anything else, and he's actually a very interesting character, a tragic figure torn by the classic probem of wanting to raise above its status. The way Griffith inteds that to play doesn't prevent it from actually being compelling, and I would say the same idea applies to the ostensible hero. His founding of the KKK is meant to be triumphal, but now it plays like a fall from grace : here is a man who was show before to be decent, heroically saving a Union soldier during a battle (likely a slave owner too I know, but bear with me) and who is now incapable of surviving in a changed society and resorts to hate and violence.

But I'm rambling so I should wrap this up, and while I mention that I should say that I found the second half also lost the relatively crisp rythm of the first, but perhaps that was just because its focus made it inherently uncomfortable. In any case, it's hard for me to decide exactly how I feel about this, and the rating I give it ends up feeling even more arbitrary than they usually do. All I can say is that it's absolutely worth watching, a fascinating film in more ways that I expected it to be, nowhere close to the grind I expected it to be.

6/10
« Last Edit: October 05, 2016, 03:21:38 AM by Teproc »
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #247 on: October 18, 2016, 01:48:18 PM »
The Harryhausens (Animation Awards)

Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi / Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
Hotaru no haka / Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
Kôkaku Kidôtai / Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii, 1995)
Watership Down (Martin Rosen, 1978)
Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)
The Iron Giant (Brad Bird, 1999)

Perfect page to jump in ! Apart from how high you rate Ghost, I pretty much agree with this. What Grave scene is it that you chose there ? I never thought of Chihiro as much of a character, I'll have to think about that pick.
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Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #248 on: October 18, 2016, 03:54:10 PM »
Really ? I suppose you see her as only a way to get the audience in to the spirit world ? I think Spirited Away would be a much lesser film if that were the case, the reason I love it so much is as much her as everyone else, how she adapts and grows stronger as the story progresses : not a groundbreaking narrative certainly, but perfectly executed. I actually restrained myself from going with stuff from that film in every category (Yubaba could definitely be best villain), but that one was indisputable for me.

The Grave of the Fireflies scene is the montage, set to an old Japanese tune, where we see images of Setsuko in and around the bunker while Seita is away... we see her eating "rice balls" made of mud but also just play around... It's the film in a nutshell : playful childish innocence wrapped in heart-wrenching tragedy, and with the music... it's where I break down.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2016, 03:55:41 PM by Teproc »
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Teproc

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Re: A Filmspotter's Marathon of Filmspotting Marathons
« Reply #249 on: October 19, 2016, 05:08:49 PM »
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari / The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)



Adam & Sam's takes (starts at 41:28)

If The Birth of a Nation is cinema approached through a literary lense, Caligari is more closely related to theater (and both have an operatic nature that might just be true for most silents because of the music's centrality to the storytelling). What's most obviously remarkable about the film is its set design, full of the angular anguish characteristic of German expressionism.

It's impossible to forget that this film was made in the immediate aftermath of WW1, a time where Europeans in general and Germans in particular felt at a loss, unable to rely on their traditional values, sensing that the world was going crazy. The sets in question also convey the feeling of a world full of danger : the first murder is described as having been perpetrated with "something sharp", and you'd only need to look at the background to feel like the threat could be coming from anywhere.

I don't think Caligari is a great film : the narrative gets bogged down in heavy exposition pretty late in the game, and it feels repetitive at times despite a short running time (possibly because of the score, which isn't bad but doesn't really go anywhere). It works though, thanks in large part to its impressive visual creativity, but also because of its clever narrative. I had noticed that the framing scene didn't feature the expressionist set design, and figured it was meant to show that the narrator was talking in a time of relative calm and happiness, perhaps an aspirational view of where Germany could go in the 20's... but then there's that twist ending, which I found remarkably effective. I was amost angry at Adam & Sam dismissing it out of hand, especially because they seemed to see it as a cop-out for an happy ending when I think it's the exact reverse : if the film ends without it Caligari is just some evil dude who's been caught and dealt with, no need to worry.  As is though, it's chilling, and makes me want to rewatch it with that in mind.

7/10
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