Favorites from the 60's

A film composed almost entirely of still images? Surely not. A bold experiment that works brilliantly as a new form of storytelling. The story explores the themes of memory, fate, and obsession. It uses no dialogue but instead a voice over to tell its poetic and philosophical story. Marker has created one of the best and most influential science fiction films ever. Gilliam adapted this short into his full length film 12 Monkeys. It undoubtedly influenced films like Blade Runner, Dark City, and City of Lost Children which also deal with themes of memory and loss introduced in La Jetee. Marker pays homage to his favorite film Vertigo in one particular scene and in various elements of the story. A lot has been said about the still images, which I think precisely emulates what our memories are. We remember the past not as moving pictures, but ones that remain forever still.

La Jetee has one of the greatest moments in cinema, one that is very subtle and last only a couple of seconds. A moment that captures both the birth of cinema and the essence of love and memory.

La Jetee can be seen on youtube but is best appreciated on the big screen with English dub.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw0UIhLArTM

Absolutely amazing. Probably my favorite of the trilogy (slightly above L'Avventura) although I haven't seen La Notte yet. Such a beautiful film, every frame is like a modern art photograph. The ending is one of most amazing and haunting ever. Monica Vitti is a goddess.

My second Cassavetes, it's definitely superior to Shadows. Like his first film it has a very raw, edgy feel with great performances by all the actors. John Cassavetes lends such great depths to all of them as we see how emotionally dissatisfied they are beneath their hollow laughter and content facades.

"Are you living to shovel, or shoveling to live?"

An entomologist from Tokyo travels to a remote desert to study insect in hope of getting his recognized for the discovery of a new species of insect. A one night stay in a young widow's house in a deep sandpit turns out to be a trap that forces him to adopt the woman's way of life: shoveling sand out of the sandpit everyday to prevent the house from being submerged. His new life thus begins . The endless cycle of mundane everyday activities of eating, sleeping, sex, and shoveling sand out of the inescapable pit, very much like the Greek tale of Sisyphus. It serves as a bizarre allegory on the meaning of life, as the man is forced to question his own identity and purpose in life. How is his new repetitive way of life any different from his old repetitive city life? The man is a highly rational, logical kind of person who is contrasted by the irrational and earthly wisdom of the woman. Teshigahara's camera captures the shifting sands and the landscapes in sharp deep focus and superimposes images of extreme close ups with these landscapes. Tôru Takemitsu's jarring and abstract soundtrack complements the vivid images perfectly.

Stranger - We met a year ago.


Woman - No, we didn't.


Stranger - Yes we did.


Woman - Go Away, you're insane.


The End


On a more serious note, this may be the most bizarre yet poetic and hypnotic movie I've ever seen. Resnais takes the seamless transitions between past, present, and future he introduced in Hiroshima Mon Amour to a whole new level. In this film temporal and spacial relationships are completely shattered. There is no sense of which scenes are set in the present and which are set in another time. As a result the film feels like a dream, or rather a nightmare. This has some of the most interesting cinematography I've ever seen. There is this one shot where there are people in this garden.


The people cast shadows, but the triangular trees that align the garden have none. I have no idea how Resnais shot this. The plot is simple: A man meets a woman in a salon and claims that they had a romantic affair a year ago. The woman denies that they have ever met. The man tries to convince her that they did by recalling his memories/imagination of their encounter. I can't say I understood this film and I don't think that there is a solution to this puzzle.

One of the most powerful essay films ever created and a landmark film in the Iranian New Wave. The great Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad directed her only film as a documentary on a leper colony. She instills a dignified sense of humanity and perseverance in these people through her poetry and inventive montage editing.

An incredible cinematic achievement. The realism in its depiction of urban guerrilla warfare is unsurpassed. It feels every bit like a documentary rather than a movie. The reason the film remains so powerful today is that one can draw close parallels to what's currently happening in Iraq. It offers such an informative look at the inner workings of terrorists and counter terrorist groups.

To me this film is the logical progression of Italian neorealism. Olmi's attention to the fine details and rhythms of everyday life is accentuated by his editing that takes the viewer further into the subjective consciousness of the protagonist. The editing often reminds me of that of Aimless Walk and The Man With A Movie Camera, while at times reminscent of Hiroshima Mon Amour and Last Year at Marienbad. The high contrast photography is gorgeous, and Olmi makes evocative images out off many mundane daily events.

Basically a Carpathian Romeo & Juliet in which Romeo lives on after his lover's death, mixed with sorcery and folklore. The film captures some of the most stunning images I've seen in its own incredibly raw and dizzying ways. The camerawork is so dazzling and outlandish that it's as if Parajanov taught the camera how to fly. The beautiful landscapes of the Carpathian mountains are used to full effect. Some sections of the film can even be described as avant garde. The film portrays the colorful Hutsul culture with its observations on Carpathian everyday life, cultural rituals, and its abundant use of folk music.

A faux documentary on the aftermath of a nuclear attack on a city in Britain. Watkins's use of montage editing with his multi-perspective narrative is extremely effective and powerful. The film is very well researched and enacted, and become even more horrifying because everything depicted in the film has happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and is within the realm of possibility, even for today. The film is very powerful even today, and it seems no surprise that it was banned from TV for 20 years during the Cold War. (so much for BBC's independence from the government)

The greatest parody ever, as well a brilliant satire on big business.

At the apex of his career, Federico Fellini crafted one of the most influential films of all time. This is truly an incredible film- so called a recursive film because Fellini had a writer's block when he made this film about a director who has run out of ideas for his next movie. Constantly pestered by his producers, actors, mistress, and his wife, the director takes solace in his childhood memories and his utterly bizarre dreams and fantasies. Marcello Mastroianni is brilliant as Fellini's alter ego Guido. The rest of the cast is equally excellent. Claudia Cardinale is simply gorgeous. The harem scene is one of my favorite scenes of all time. Of all the movies I've seen, 8 1/2 may be the most complex film of them all. One notable aspect of the film that makes this film recursive is that the film that Guido is struggling to make is the movie that we are watching. It is literally made as we are watching it.

Jean-Pierre Melville's opus about French Resistance fighters of WWII is his most personal film. It is stylish, grim and so meticulously perfect. This is even better than Le Samourai. Melville draws on his own experiences as a Resistance fighter and combines them with his own meticulous attention to detail to give his film unparalleled authenticity. Not a single shot is wasted. The cast's performances are just as restrained as the film itself. Melville gives touches of his gangster films to this film as well as a fatalistic and existential feel to the story. There is no sentimentalism in this masterpiece, just hard hitting realism and an insightful look at heroism and patriotism.

It is a film that deals with psychological and metaphysical ideas of transfer of identity and even personalities. Bergman uses some really interesting concepts such as starting the film with the invention of the motion picture and then moving toward the start the story. Overall a very experimental and difficult film.

Probably the most beautiful compositions I've ever seen. The incredible landscapes convey the emotions and interiors of the characters. The film is similar to that of La Dolce Vita in its portrayal of the amoral upper class. Antonioni, like all of the other masters of Italian neorealism, moves into his own niche of internal realism.

Much better than A Fistful of Dollars in every way except the soundtrack. This film pretty much inspired the spaghetti western subgenre. Yojimbo along with Sanjuro are Kurosawa's most comic and entertaining films. Toshiro Mifune give one of his most memorable performances as the samurai with no name.

HAHAHAHA!!! This film is so weird, I can't count how many time I was like WTF is going on. It's ultraviolent, kinky, and totally incomprehensible! I really can't blame the studio for firing Suzuki after he made this film.

It's repulsive, grotesque, creepy.... and so beautiful! Really gets under your epidermis! If this film was made today, I can image that the doctor would instead be a plastic surgeon. They say that beauty is only skin deep, but this horror classic shows what beauty lies beneath the skin.

John Woo describes this film as "the closest to a perfect movie that I have ever seen". Jean-Pierre Melville's masterful direction confirms Woo's words. Not a lot happens in this minimalistic film, but Melville's meticulous attention to every detail and Alain Delon's flawless performance creates tension and realism. Alain Delon plays a hitman who, like the direction itself, is cold, calculating, and emotionless. François Périer plays the slimy but equally intelligent detective who is after the hitman. It's surprising how little dialogue this film has. If it weren't for Périer's scenes, this could easily be a silent film.

Rock Hudson delivers the acting goods in this subversive and nightmarish thriller about second chances in life. Way ahead of its time, this film is even more relevant with today's youth culture. Really gets under your skin with its aura of paranoia. James Wong Howe makes excellent uses of fish eye lenses, jarring camera angles, and deep focus to give the film a expressionistic, even hallucinatory feel.

BEWARE OF BIG BREASTED, KARATE-CHOPPING GO-GO DANCERS!

Luis Bunuel. cynical bastard. A weird and cruel film it certainly is. I don't quite get his sense of humor, but the whole film is a nightmare.

Hilarious and razor sharp satire on organized religion. Pretty much a perfect film if not for the somewhat abrupt ending. Who would have though that hell is danceclub in NYC?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8891541945399209661