DIRECTORS' POLL waiting room →→→ 7+ or 10+ views!

[therouxxx]

so if therouxxx will vote in the poll

yeah I'll vote

[flip]

great, thanks! so greg x, when you reach 7 ratnam (or if someone else already has 7+) just post here and i'll add ratnam to the poll queue

[Rabie]

watched 11 ratnam films

[flip]

thanks rabie, we have no directors in the poll queue so i'll start a mani ratnam poll tomorrow!

[niminy-piminy]

list updated.
a few more

[ofrene]

have 10+ Safdie, 9 Guillermo del Toro, 8 Todd Haynes, 7 Cecilia Mangini
how about Jules Dassin for next poll?

[flip]

dassin seems like a good choice for noirvember -- i'll start a dassin poll on tuesday!

[oscarwerner]

Bo Widerberg 7+
I see he needed last help:)

[flip]

so... our next poll, after the jules dassin poll that just opened, will be our 300th! i'd prefer not to just pick a director at random for that poll and risk getting robert zemeckis or something, so if anyone has a suggestion for a scfz-appropriate director for that poll, please suggest here!

[wba]

so... our next poll, after the jules dassin poll that just opened, will be our 300th! i'd prefer not to just pick a director at random for that poll and risk getting robert zemeckis or something, so if anyone has a suggestion for a scfz-appropriate director for that poll, please suggest here!

Bo Widerberg

as oscarwerner is the third with 7+ (see post above yours, flip) he is now eligible.

[flip]

not sure how scfz is widerberg is (not sure i've ever seen any discussion of him, though the one widerberg i've seen was great) but i'd rather poll him than david fincher or stephen frears or robert zemeckis, so we can make widerberg poll #300!

[sally]

there are 4 bo widerbergs on netflix! (europe only, not sweden, i mean why would swedish people want to watch swedish films):
the man from majorca
the serpent's way
the pram
love 65
(not seen any of those myself)

[...]

Glancing at the list, a couple I missed or didn't have counted

Eisenstein 9 Should put him over the top, and would be my vote for 300the poll, historical importance and all.
Schroeder 9

[rischka]

EI-SEN-STEIN! EI-SEN-STEIN!

i have 7 gavaldon and 9 fukasaku if that's helpful

and 7 todd haynes

[ofrene]

Eisenstein or Georges Melies?

[flip]

since i already said we'd do widerberg, we'll go with that unless wba would like to poll eisenstein instead. either way, i'll make widerberg, eisenstein and melies the next three polls, in some order, since they've all been suggested now

[wba]

since i already said we'd do widerberg, we'll go with that unless wba would like to poll eisenstein instead.

Nah, I'm not a fan of Eisenstein. Widerberg, on the other hand...

[wba]

PS: Widerberg made a variety of different films in different styles about different topics throughout his career. I've only seen 15 of the 25 films the Swedish Film Institute lists in his filmography (https://www.svenskfilmdatabas.se/en/ite ... 6626#films), but it seems that he rarely repeats himself and often tries out new things. That might be the reason why he isn't as recognized or as popular as he should be, cause people tend to prefer auteurs who have a pretty easily identifiable visual style and return to the same topics and interests again and again. With Widerberg, it's almost impossible to say from a still or a scene of a film you haven't yet seen: "This is typical Widerberg" - although he usually not only directed his films but often also wrote the screenplay and half the time even did the editing. You could say his main trademarks are a general openness (towards the world, towards people), a certain lyricism, being very curious about art and people and different lifestyles, being very interested in depicting love in his films, and frequently using Thommy Berggren in most of his films from 1962 till 1971 (and once more in 1980 for his unfunded and unfinished Stendhal-adaptation "The Red and the Black" as well as for his 1988 Strindberg-adaptation of "The Father" titled "En far").

[wba]

there are 4 bo widerbergs on netflix! (europe only, not sweden, i mean why would swedish people want to watch swedish films):
the man from majorca
the serpent's way
the pram
love 65
(not seen any of those myself)

the man from majorca
hands down my favorite Widerberg (made my personal Top 50 a couple of times over the years). It feels like this must be (theoretically or practically - never asked Dominik Graf if he has actually seen it) Domink Graf's "wet dream" of a film. It is a blueprint for almost every policier Graf ever did. And done better.

the serpent's way
not my cup of tea, though I've seen it only once from a 35mm print. Skarsgard is wonderful though, and at his slimiest, ugliest best!
It is a stark, depressing character study and historical "chamber music piece". A bit like stiff Bergman. So if this sounds like your kind of thing, you might have a field day with it.

the pram
pretty excellent working-class drama, the way the English made them during the late 50s, early 60s. Think of "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" (1960) or "A Taste of Honey" (1961). Totally "kitchen-sink" and Britisch New Wave, just set in Sweden and directed by a Swedish master. A "working class teen pregnancy, single mother drama in which our heroine who works at a factory and lives with her parents and young brother gets involved with a rather preening young pop singer and gets pregnant" doesn't even begin to describe it.

love 65
This is Widerberg's Antonioni movie. It also has a touch of Bergman in it, so you get a slightly bergmanesque Antonioni flick. If you love Antonioni or that kind of stuff this is a total must-see! If you find copying Antonioni offensive, avoid.

[oscarwerner]

O yes. Widerberg is interesting, because he created opposition to Bergman. Swedish filmakers had to choose that time. They are going to work Bo or Ingmar. Nobody pick you to widerberg company, if you like Bergman.
Widerberg himself tried to make very different topics, showing how interesting is life beyond questions about God. He created Impressionist love story-Elvyra Madigan. Detective story-Man on the roof, Man from Maljorca. Period drama based on true events-Joe Hill. Coming of age story-Love Lessons.

[oscarwerner]

i see some great names in a waiting list Henry Hathaway, John Schlesinger, Lawrence Kasdan, John Boorman, nobody saw Franklin Shafner-Papillon, Patton, Planet of Apes, Boys from Brazil...?

[flip]

ok the poll queue will be as follows, starting from tomorrow:

#300: bo widerberg
#301: sergei eisenstein
#302: georges melies

and oscar, if you want to nominate one of those directors for poll #303, just let me know who you'd like to poll!

[...]

nobody saw Franklin Shafner-Papillon, Patton, Planet of Apes, Boys from Brazil...?

Oh, my bad, it is indeed Franklin Schaffner with 10+ for me, not William (Shatner must have been in my head at the time)


I don't really need Eisenstein to be after Widerberg. It was a suggestion for an appropriate 300th choice. Piling Melies and Eisenstein together instead of spacing them out leaves fewer big names left and more US guys to poll in a row. But I don't really care that much, if you want to do Eisenstein next, that's fine too. Just don't want people to get bored with the polling.

[oscarwerner]

I nominate John Schlesinger
I also hope somebody will add more views of Franklin Shafner:) Thanks Greg

[flip]

rischka also suggested eisenstein, so we'll do eisenstein as poll #301

ofrene suggested melies, but maybe that was just a poll-300 suggestion -- if ofrene wants to poll melies soon (or if i don't hear back), we'll do melies as #302. if ofrene would rather wait to poll melies, we'll wait!

john schlesinger will be poll #302 or poll #303 depending on when we poll melies

[ofrene]

Melies was for 300 suggestion, so it doesn't matter.. do it later when we are run out of director(?)

[flip]

thanks ofrene! so this is our updated poll queue:

#300: bo widerberg (underway!)
#301: sergei eisenstein (tuesday)
#302: john schlesinger (next friday)

+ georges melies when we next need a suggestion

[niminy-piminy]

list updated.
a few new
3 more (namely, Guillermo del Toro, Roberto Gavaldon, Kinji Fukasaku).

[greennui]

I nominate Peter Watkins for the next poll.

[flip]

great! that will start on friday