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Author Topic: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time  (Read 50773 times)

MartinTeller

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #470 on: July 21, 2020, 11:02:22 PM »
This viewing in 2011 was when I was finally able to make peace with the fact that Citizen Kane is one of the greatest and most cinema-advancing films ever made, but there are at least 100 films I like more. (It's currently #148 on my Essentials between Fargo and Spirited Away.) I find it absurd that Vertigo is now considered the better film. Two-thirds of the people here don't even think that's Hitchcock's best film.

1) It still has the most votes
2) How many of those voters are even here anymore?
3) The poll says "Favorite", not "Best". I know it's one of those sticky distinctions, but I would say Vertigo is his best while Rear Window is my favorite. Actually I might even say Vertigo is my favorite, now that I think about it.

Also this.
and this.

The poll is gone on that second link.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2020, 11:53:49 PM by MartinTeller »

Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #471 on: July 21, 2020, 11:45:19 PM »
Vertigo
ALFRED HITCHCOCK, 1958
4.5 STARS OUT OF 5

This Citizen Kane v. Vertigo thing became a lot more difficult upon my revisit of Vertigo today, and how much more prepared I was for the Vertigo experience than the last two times I saw it. I had finally gotten some perspective on Hitchcock, though I’m not a huge fan, and I had delved deeper into commentary on the film, both through other films and articles by popular critics. I still went into it just a tad dubiously, primarily because I find the dolly zoom gimmicky and the primary conceit of the plot to be overly reliant on one man’s battle with vertigo. Those issues linger, as does Hitchcock’s persistent dabbling in bunk psychology, but unlike some of his other works that I found less agreeable, there is far more depth, mystery, and philosophy at play in the images and story of Vertigo. I still think it’s deeply flawed while also believing it to be, indeed, great. Like most films here, I’m assuming a working knowledge of the film under discussion to fully understand what I’m saying.

We’re talking about the infinite, and our place within it. We’re talking about human nature and our penchant for repeating our past mistakes. We’re talking about the male gaze, even a Hitchcock autocritique via his customary blonde. We’re talking about the never ending cycle of violence, love, and exploitation before death and the everlasting void.

Life and the infinite are represented in the spirals of the sequoia, in Madeleine’s hairdo, and in repetitious cycle of death represented by Madeleine’s reenactment of the death of Carlotta Valdes, not to mention the awesome spirals of the opening credits sequence. James Stewart’s Scottie maybe trying to master his vertigo to solve a case, but also to close a maddening loop of trauma, and in doing so, master life and death. Of course, when he closes the loop, then someone has to go for everything to reach a particular equilibrium. Maybe. That would assume some order to the world, but this is just about bringing a sense of order to Scottie’s life, though unfortunately the tragedies to which he’s forced to bear witness come in threes.

Stewart’s reconstruction of Madeleine is the deconstruction of the Hitchcock blonde in fascinating ways. This also applies to life and infinite by addressing a recurring motif in the director’s work. Cycles, man. Never ending spirals. When Scottie thinks Madeleine has died, but then comes across Judy, who more than just looks like her, Scottie appears to know she’s Madeleine intuitively and takes the (now-) brunette midwestern girl, redresses her, gets her made over, everything to transform her back to Madeleine, all the way until he has her hair dyed blonde and insists on bringing back the hairdo (again, the twist representative of the infinite!). The Hitchcock blonde forever. Beautiful, seductive, hypnotic. Constructed under the male gaze, someone (thing?) at which the male protagonist can gaze. Perpetual seduction, exploitation. Until…

And in the end, this film has everything in place to be a classic entertainment: romance, violence, and suspense. A fully realized setting that draws you in and puts you under its cinematic spell. Not a ton of humor, but it has its moments. Of course, Hitchcock is CINECAST!ing with your mind like usual, but this time it’s far more substantive than in the likes of Psycho, North by Northwest, or even in the smarter Rear Window. He’s both utilizing the facade of cinema, but then also laying it bear. Then, it ends in the opposite place you’d expect. Massive cognitive dissonance. Daring stuff.

I was probably in danger of waxing philosophic and poetic about Vertigo since the segment/tangent in San Soleil where Chris Marker, through his fictional traveler, meditates on the theme of time and the infinite within Vertigo. He utilizes this same theme in making his astounding La Jetee. I never underestimate the ability of another person’s passion for something to rub off on me; indeed, it is one of my favorite of life’s various phenomena. No person is an island. Though of course I have to do my own investigation and check what I’m seeing with that of others, sometimes it provides the right incentive to revisit and reconsider works, ideas, methods, anything. Marker pried my mind open to the idea of approaching Vertigo anew, and I’m glad I did. It might not be the greatest film of all-time, in my estimation, but I was able now to get on its wavelength and was greatly rewarded.


Citizen Kane v. Vertigo: The Verdict

When it comes to comparing Vertigo to Citizen Kane, it’s not as easy as I thought. After finishing Kane last night, I was like, This is definitely better than Vertigo. It’s endlessly inventive and one of the few times I think the anti-hero character study is actually done right, likely because we’re examining the man through testimonials of the people who were around him most and knew him best. But the nod just barely goes to Vertigo. Strangely, I think Vertigo has far more flaws than Kane, explained above, but the substance vis a vis the philosophy and poetry of the film in considering the abstract and infinite through the cinematic construct makes it even more challenging and alluring than the also quite complex and intriguing deconstruction of the Great Man through his final utterance in. Both are profound works, but I’m going spirals over Rosebud here.
Final Verdict: Vertigo over Citizen Kane

Coming Very Soon: My Sight & Sound 100 Marathon Victory Lap!
Including...
My Own Sight & Sound 100 Re-ranking
Favorite Performances
Directors to Pursue
The Ten Films I'd Vote for in the Next Poll
List of Recommendations for Future Viewing (from YOU, the Filmspotting Community!)
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #472 on: July 22, 2020, 10:00:43 AM »
ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time

This is the finale of the most significant four months in my cinema-viewing life, where I watched all 101 films on the most recent rendition of the Sight & Sound 100 Greatest Films of All Time critics' list. I have read reasonable opinions across the internet that the list could do with some freshening, diversification, maybe send some of these films to The Pantheon, as Filmspotting viewers would understand. While I've expressed some of my own ideas to update the list a bit, I'm now starting to become of the mind that perhaps film needs some new institutions, as opposed to the older, stodgier BFI and AFI, to make up for what we currently lack, which is a more progressive canon that views cinema through the lens of a new day in our world, and turns a leaf on some of the more outmoded (not necessarily older) works. That's not to say, replace the BFI or AFI, but to have other institutions that gain enough notice to put out a canonical list that can stand up to these older institutions. I sort of stepped on the hornet's nest is bringing about the word "cancel" or "canceled", but a canon that represents a new world more accepting of a wider breadth of cinematic representation does not mean we are stomping out certain works we find to be disagreeable, only pulling those more offensive and hurtful representations from their places on high, while, more importantly, casting a wider net as to what the greatest films of all time actually might be, and recognizing other films in a way that has been long overdue.

Yet, I also propose a new list separate from the vary famous Sight & Sound decennial list because I, in great part, like this list as it is, and only find a few films on it truly troubling. There are certainly a lot of films from white men from the continents of North America and Europe, with substantive yet few contributions from women, nonbinary people, or people of color. Even with the lack of diversity in the filmmakers, the films represented here are still of the most detailed, obsessive, innovative, and passionate works you will see. They are emblematic of the largest film movements in history, from early silent films, to Hollywood's golden age, the French New Wave, and smaller movements around the world, all the way to a few 21st Century gems making it on here. We're dealing with the transcendental, modernist, post-modernist, epics, and experimental and avant garde narratives and documentaries; IN SHORT: PEOPLE WHO REALLY TRIED TO DO SOMETHING AND KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK. The BFI should make reforms, but I'd hate that to mean the films on the list wouldn't anymore be the most ambitious and accomplished films ever. With change comes the natural worry that something will be watered down. The truth of what I'm proposing is a better Sight & Sound List with all its foreign and arthouse films alongside the best of the British and American cinema to battle fossilization and diversify without throwing out so many decades of history as THE canon a lot of people can rally around (and also bitch about).

So, new institutions, while the BFI and AFI diversify while still standing up for the most interesting, ambitious, and artful works of cinema throughout the world and years.

If the list helped me further define my tastes and what I search for, I would say I generally look for ambition and scope in the work. That can mean different things for different directors, the budgets they have, and what they seek to create. I want shots that are full of meaning, I want films to try new techniques that play with the viewer's mind while they're in the cinematic dream state, I want interesting characters that matter, but yes, I value ambition and scope big time. I also want the films I watch to be thoughtful and socially-conscious, works of humanism and empathy. And sometimes, the most ambitious filmmaker just points their camera at the most important story in front of them, ala Italian Neo-realism or social realism, and just starts working (after, ya know, action research, preparation, etc., stuff like that).

Ultimately, I love the list, believe the list remains relevant, can't wait 'til the 2022 rendition, even if I think new contenders need to emerge to challenge the Sight & Sound poll and emphasize where we are going as a culturally pluralistic and accepting society. That also can mean shining a light on some dark truths from the past. I'm going to pursue a lot of films from directors on this list, and use it as a springboard into decades and decades more film-viewing.

By the numbers, I saw 101 Films
45 were given 4-5 stars (GREAT / LOVE IT)
28 were given 3-3.5 stars (GOOD / LIKE IT)
17 were given 2-2.5 stars (MIXED / IT'S OK)
11 were given 1-1.5 stars, (BAD / DON'T LIKE IT)

It's hard to hate on any experience where you see 45 great movies, even on a list that's supposed to be ALL great movies. That's 11 great movies a month plus whatever I had been watching.
That's 73 positive experiences v. 28 mixed-to-negative experiences.
That's a hell of an experience.

ET'S FAVORITE PERFORMERS IN THE MARATHON
I continue to evolve and change when it comes to how I think about actors (male, female, nonbinary) and what they have to do to make a film successful. I tend toward the more natural, less theatrical way of acting, but then immediately concede that it's primarily on a film-to-film basis. I really don't have much room for traditional Hollywood stars and celebrities these days, though. All that said, here are my favorite performers from the films in the Sight & Sound 100 list. I didn't make any limits to have a certain number of entries, these are simply the ones that will continue to live in my imagination well after the dust has settled on this marathon.


From top-to-bottom, left-to-right, some photos combine multiple performers:
Actor / Part(s) / Film(s)

Marcello Mastroianni / Guido Anselmi / 8 ½
Douglas Rain / HAL 9000 (voice) / 2001: A Space Odyssey
Anatolyi Solonitsyn / Andrey Rublev / Andrei Rublev
Anne Wiazemsky / Marie / Au hasard Balthazar
Ryan O’Neal / Redmond Barry or Barry Lyndon  / Barry Lyndon
Denis Lavant / Galoup / Beau Travail
Charles Chaplin / The Tramp / City Lights and Modern Times
Brigitte Bardot / Camille Javal / Contempt
Allan Edwall / Oscar Ekdahl  / Fanny & Alexander
Ewa Froling / Emilie Ekdahl / Fanny & Alexander
Pernilla Allwin / Fanny Ekdahl / Fanny & Alexander
Bertil Guve / Alexander Ekdahl / Fanny & Alexander
Delphine Seyrig / Jeanne Dielman / Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles
Ingrid Bergman / Katherine Joyce / Journey to Italy
Michel Simon / Le pere Jules (old Jules) / L’Atalante
Roger Livesey / Clive Candy / The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Anton Wallbrook / Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff / The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Francois Leterrier / Fontaine / A Man Escaped
Lillian Gish / Rachel Cooper / The Night of the Hunter
Uma Dasgupta / Durga / Pather Panchali
Jacques Tati / Monsieur Hulot / Play Time
Bibi Andersson / Alma / Persona
Liv Ullman / Elisabet Vogler / Persona
Anna Karina / Marianne Renoir / Pierrot le fou
Toshiro Mifune / Tajomaru / Rashomon and Kikuchiyo / Seven Samurai
Mihaly Vig / Irimias / Satantango
Debbie Reynolds / Kathy Selden / Singin’ in the Rain
Ana Torrent / Ana / Spirit of the Beehive
Isabel Telleria / Isabel / Spirit of the Beehive
James Stewart / John “Scottie” Ferguson / Vertigo
Kim Novak / Judy Barton and Madeleine Elster / Vertigo
Jonathan Chang / Yang Yang / Yi Yi
Wu Nien-jen / NJ / Yi Yi
« Last Edit: July 22, 2020, 10:29:00 AM by etdoesgood »
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #473 on: July 22, 2020, 10:02:18 AM »
FOR FURTHER VIEWING: FILMSPOTTERS MAKE THEIR RECOMMENDATIONS

These are recommendations I received from other members in this thread. They are all in a tab on a spreadsheet for films I want to get to soon. I will, however, see them in, say, the next year and a half:

The Red Shoes - Junior
High School - Bondo/FLY
Love Exposure - Dave the Necrobumper
Fitzcarraldo - colonel_mexico
To Have and Have Not - colonel_mexico
Cries and Whispers - Junior
Autumn Sonata - Junior
Scenes from a Marriage - Teproc and 1SO
The Quince Tree Sun - MT
Marienbad - MT
A Tale of the Wind - MT
The complete Godard catalog - 1SO
Koyaanisqatsi - colonel_mexico
The rest of the Apu Trilogy, and then about 25-30 other films by Satyajit Ray :) - MT, cosponsored by 1SO, who was appalled at my thought of starting with just a 5 movie mini-marathon, lol. (This is actually on once I'm done preparing for the Decade of Filmspots)
Nostalghia - MT
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? - Bondo
Solaris - Dave the Necrobumper
The Godfather: Part III - Bondo
Strike, Mother (1926), and I Am Cuba - MT
A propos de Nice - Junior, Sam
Zero for Conduit - Junior
Early Summer, Late Autumn, and The Record of a Tenement Gentlemen - MT

MY PRIORITY DIRECTORS
Whether their body of work is big or small, I just want more...



Top Row: Chantal Akerman, Ingmar Bergman, Charles Chaplin, Vittorio de Sica, Victor Erice
Bottom Row: Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, Satyajit Ra, Jacques Tati, Francois Tuffaut, Edward Yang
« Last Edit: July 22, 2020, 10:17:43 AM by etdoesgood »
A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire

Eric/E.T.

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #474 on: July 22, 2020, 10:08:38 AM »
ET Re-ranks 2012's Sight & Sound 100 Greatest Films Critics Poll

A note on previous ratings of films: I used four color-coded tiers/categories under which to classify films as Great, Good, Mixed, and Bad. Some films I moved up or down a half of a star, but they stayed within the same tier, with the exception of Metropolis, that went up to the Great tier. I'm going to add a couple tiers to really differentiate the top of the rankings, just because I felt like being dramatic, but also because it does mean something. So here's what I'm applying:
Absolutely Essential / Indispensable to Human Culture (THESE FILMS COULD BE RANKED IN ANY ORDER, DOESN'T MATTER)
Best of the Best
Great
Good
Mixed
Bad

1. The Spirit of the Beehive
2. Fanny & Alexander - TV version
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey

4. Yi Yi
5. Persona
6. PlayTime
7. Pather Panchali
8. Close-up
9. A Brighter Summer Day
10. La Jetee
11. Mulholland Drive
12. Bicycle Thieves
13. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles
14. Singin’ in the Rain
15. 8 1/2

16. Seven Samurai
17. Pierrot le Fou
18. The Wild Bunch
19. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
20. Modern Times
21. Sans Soleil
22. Shoah
23. Nashville
24. A Man Escaped
25. The Godfather
26. The Mirror
27. Le Mepris
28. Vertigo
29. Blade Runner
30. City Lights
31. Once Upon a Time in the West
32. Citizen Kane
33. Tokyo Story
34. Breathless
35. La Dolce Vita
36. The Seventh Seal
37. Beau Travail
38. Barry Lyndon
39. The Godfather Part II
40. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
41. The 400 Blows
42. Metropolis
43. Sherlock Jr
44. Rashomon
45. L’Atalante

46. Night of the Hunter
47. Journey to Italy
48. Wild Strawberries
49. La maman et la putain
50. Les enfants de paradis
51. Histoire(s) du cinema
52. The Color of Pomegranates
53. Casablanca
54. Ugetsu monogatari
55. Sansho the Bailiff
56. Blue Velvet
57. The Third Man
58. Stalker
59. The Magnificent Ambersons
60. Raging Bull
61. Man with a Movie Camera
62. Rear Window
63. Rio Bravo
64. Au Hasard Balthazar
65. Touki Bouki
66. Taxi Driver
67. A Matter of Life and Death
68. Un chien andalou
69. The Passion of Joan of Arc
70. Madame de…
71. L’Avventura
72. Partie de Campagne
73. Chinatown

74. The Leopard
75. Late Spring
76. Satantango
77. The Battle of Algiers
78. Andrei Rublev
79. M. 
80. The Rules of the Game
81. L’eclisse
82. La grande illusion
83. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
84. Pickpocket
85. Sunset Blvd.
86. North by Northwest
87. Psycho
88. Gertrud
89. Intolerance
90. Greed

91. Apocalypse Now
92. In the Mood for Love
93. Some Like It Hot
94. Aguirre, Wrath of God
95. Touch of Evil
96. Ordet
97. The General
98. Lawrence of Arabia
99. Imitation of Life
100. The Searchers
101. Battleship Potemkin


ET's 10 Films He'd Vote for in the Next Poll (2022) - As of Now
Rules for Voting: You choose ten films, and each film gets one vote regardless of order. In 2012, 846 individual voters voted for 2,045 unique films. The #1 film, Vertigo, received 191 votes, while the films at the bottom, tied for 93rd, received 17 votes each.



Top Row: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubric, 1968); The Spirit of the Beehive (Erice, 1973); Fanny and Alexander - TV Version (Bergman, 1983); City of God (Meirelles & Lund, 2002); Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
Bottom Row: Offside (Panahi, 2006); Let the Right One In (Alfredson, 2008); Sin Nombre (Fukunaga, 2009); The Florida Project (Baker, 2017); Parasite (Bong, 2019)


Which 10 films would get YOUR vote?

Thanks to everyone who engaged with this marathon. I appreciate your comments, you really made me think about my views and I always know that makes me a better person for it. I'll still be fielding any comments here if you have any. If you happen to come to this later and want to talk about it, I'll be around and am always up for discussion. Would really like to hear what your 10 films would be if you had a vote in the next Sight & Sound poll.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2020, 10:41:47 AM by etdoesgood »
A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire

1SO

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #475 on: July 22, 2020, 11:11:06 AM »
First of all congratulations. All of us have appetites bigger than our abilities and it's actually rare that someone completes a Marathon project. I most enjoyed seeing the level of engagement with the group, led by your new blood opinions shaking up our status quo.


Love Exposure - Dave the Necrobumper
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? - Bondo
You can put my name with these as well. Two of my All Time Favorites.


The complete Godard catalog - 1SO
When did I say this? I'm pretty sure I was being sarcastic.

I would recommend an Ozu Marathon. This is a director I had big problems with. Start here. The debate ends when saltine says on 12/14/14. It was recommended that I marathon Ozu and then I would see the subtle differences from film to film. The person who said that is no longer here but they are right. In April/May 2019, I watched 19 Ozu films and came out with a greater appreciation.



Which 10 films would get YOUR vote?

I'm aiming for a diversity of nations and genres with this list.

1. The Godfather
2. Brazil
3. Seven Samurai
4. City of God
5. Once Upon a Time in the West
6. Scenes From a Marriage
7. Grave of the Fireflies
8. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
9. Wings of Desire
10. Day for Night

Bondo

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #476 on: July 22, 2020, 12:33:12 PM »
Love Exposure - Dave the Necrobumper
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? - Bondo
You can put my name with these as well. Two of my All Time Favorites.

1SO's recommendation is what got it in front of me...really both of these though I'm not quite as exuberant about Love Exposure.

colonel_mexico

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #478 on: July 22, 2020, 10:06:22 PM »
This was an incredible accomplishment, especially in the time you've completed it, and I am glad that you were able to find something to think about in every movie. That's the most important thing, I think.

With that being said, your lukewarm response to The Rules of the Game prompted me to rewatch it tonight. In it I found some of that universal truth you were looking for, something bigger beyond the surface level class farce stuff.

It all started to fall into place as I balked at the antiquated terminology Robert uses to refer to his newest toy, an automaton in the shape of a black woman. Aha! This was like those figures that famed film theorist Laura Mulvey wrote about in her book, Death 24x a Second. In that book, she links the mechanical movement of automata to the cinema via Freud's writing on the uncanny. Basically, when we watch a movie it is not too dissimilar from watching the pre-programed movement of automata in that there is no possible way the characters on screen could deviate from their paths. Everything is locked into place as it is captured on film. It's uncanny, of course, because these things that seem alive are rather quite dead, especially now when we watch decades after the film was made. But that dead-alive-ness is precisely the point. It's what makes movies work. It's where the movies come from, really. We need only witness the dance of the ghosts and skeleton at the masquerade which coincides with the film's best shot, the pan along the back wall where various characters duck in and out of the frame as they pursue their romantic interests, to see that the movies and death are intertwined in this way.

And what does all of this have to do with The Rules of the Game? Well, isn't it weird that automata keep popping up throughout the film? It's mostly Robert's domain that is mechanized like this, but of course his domain is that of the film, right? It's his palatial grounds where the film takes place, it's at his, ahem, direction that the events largely occur. He rules over the world of the automata as he does the world of the characters in the film. And don't they really, ahem, act like automata? They're wound up and set off on unvarying paths, and they entertain mostly through their wild yet ultimately predictable maneuvers. It's a farce, of course, the supreme heightening of the cinema's most basic romance plot. If the cinema is about death and love intertwined, the farce, which plays up the latter while laughing at the former, is its prime mode of expression. And that explains why Renoir chooses it for this film.

Finally, we can see that the film knows its a movie about movies. If the presence of the automata (and the player piano, and the carnival organ, and even the phonograph and radio) are indicators that we should be paying attention to the film's meta elements, we have to figure out what it's saying about movies. The farce of the film's extended masquerade scene and resulting chase through the house is hilarious in how it upends the social conventions, the rules, that the rest of the movie has set up as being of critical importance. After that charming bit of absurdity, things settle down and become real. Octave (Renoir himself) says, "That's also part of the times. Today everyone lies. Pharmaceutical fliers, governments, the radio, the movies, the newspapers. So why shouldn't simple people like us lie as well?" He goes on to strut along the patio, and he (as director) cuts to a shot which clearly mimics an audience's view of a stage. It's a lie, too. Nobody is there to watch him, something he laments later in the film as he professes his love for Christine. The cinema is a lie, a bunch of automata running around in front of a camera, alive for a moment but dead forever once their image is captured on film. At the end, as much of the cast walks over a bridge away from the scene of a murder, two women console another. "Be strong, Miss Jackie," one says. "An educated young lady like you has to put on a brave face." "People are watching," the other implores." That's right. That's the point. The purpose of the film is to play a part because people are watching. It's a lie, sure, but it's important too, or else we wouldn't watch. The rules of the game dictate that we, the audience, pretend to believe that what is happening in the film is real, not just a bunch of automata performing their parts. The movie ends on a shot of shadows projected on a wall. Isn't that it, right there? It's all just shadows, but we know that they're indicative of something crucial, love and death and everything in between.
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smirnoff

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Re: ET v. Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
« Reply #479 on: July 22, 2020, 10:45:19 PM »
Having now seen Colonel Blimp, in large part because of your positive response which I found persuasive, and having gone back to read some of the other reviews I missed, it strikes me that Barry Lyndon and Colonel Blimp would make a really good double feature. Themes of ambition run through both, and we get a spectrum of approaches. Redmond Barry's ruthless opportunism and sense of self-preservation, and Clive Candy's optimism and ruthless good nature. The arcs of the characters parallel one another in age and ambition. I enjoy both parables, but I think the injection of a narrator into the storytelling of Barry Lyndon, who I suspect is reading directly from Thackerey's insightful text, is what puts it's over the top for me.

 

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