1965 Poll

[rischka]

my second yoshida - a story written with water. less abstract and more dynamic than eros + massacre, still a joy to look at. even if it took me several days to watch







i am a bit irritated that two complex women spend all their time dealing with a man's neurosis. but hey. this was a problem i had with eros + massacre also. dunno if this will be a trend but i'll try again if only for his gorgeous use of space

[DT.]

^ Been meaning to check it out for a while!



Sandra (Visconti) - Cardinale is impossibly good looking, but otherwise this feels quite cheaply made. A psychological thriller that's more like a bizarre soap opera, with schizophrenic editing and an overblown classical soundtrack. Definitely the weakest Visconti I've seen.

[Umbugbene]

I think you'll be a lot more pleased with I Knew Her Well. Sandrelli is amazing, and there's nothing cheap about the movie.

[mesnalty]

The guy in The Brick in the Mirror who really likes crosswords is my new favorite film character

[greennui]

The Debussy Film def gets a high spot on my list.

[rischka]

interesting that gonzalez used shots from yanco and viento negro in the fool killer





i enjoyed this -- like a lesser night of the hunter. also that tent meeting gave me flashbacks

[Umbugbene]

in the fool killer

There's a small mountain in New Hampshire called "The Fool Killer". Nice peak to climb if you want to test your character, but there's no trail and no view from the top.

[rischka]

Ha. Lench I borrowed yr 'old weird America' appellation for twitter

[Lencho of the Apes]

'old weird America'

Sfine -- I took it from Bob Dylan, some quote from an interview where he was talking about pre-industrial folk culture, Appalachian murder ballads and stuff.

[Lencho of the Apes]

'old weird America'

Sfine -- I took it from Bob Dylan, some quote from an interview where he was talking about pre-industrial folk culture, Appalachian murder ballads and stuff.

I remember a short story by Stephen Vincent Benet called The Fool Killer, something I read in 6th or 7th grade. Don't remember how closely it corresponded to this movie.

[nrh]

as far as i know it's from greil marcus, who used it as the title of a book about dylan

edit - and it started to get used really widely in pitchfork type music circles mid-2000s, when the folky-ish music underground bled into the mainstream for a few years

[Lencho of the Apes]

I wasn't sure of the attribution, thanks for that.

[nrh]

I wasn't sure of the attribution, thanks for that.

i mean, there's like a 90% chance i'm missing some major link in the chain here...

[Lencho of the Apes]

I poked around a tiny bit -- pretty sure it orig. came from Marcus' writing on Harry Smith's anthology, and then he reused the phrase for his Dylan title. Some how I had the phrase conflated in my mind with Dylan's comments about 'high wild quicksilver' Blonde On Blonde.

[Lencho of the Apes]

skimming through Juliet Of The Spirits, I realized that I haven't seen it after all... or at least don't remember anything at all about it... so I'm going to watch that, but I can't look at Giuletta Masina these days without thinking how much she looks like (usually very annoying) comedian Javier "Chabelo" Lopez. Impossible to unsee...

chab 3.JPG (17.51 KiB) Viewed 4338 times

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

The Railrodder (Gerald Potterton and Buster Keaton; National Film Board of Canada)

My first viewing from my short 1965 poll watchlist, and I maybe loved it. I love trains, and watching a venerable Buster Keaton ride cross-country on my national railway is thus a considerable pleasure. But, whatever your persuasion, the filmmaking is surprisingly accomplished: there are some most scenic phantom ride views, and the comic gags wouldn't be out of place in a 1920s Keaton film. At times, it's even Tati-esque. Highly recommended as a twenty-five minute quaint smile-inducer.

[karl]

Sounds better than Beckett's "Film," which isn't hard to be.

[Silga]

I finally watched The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. Another great story by John le Carré. And just like the author, I was skeptical about the casting of Richard Burton. Proven wrong I was. He blended in perfectly and carried the film flawlessly. Only the second Martin Ritt film for me, but I'll sure seek out more from him in the future.

[rischka]

forest of the hanged is simply one of the best films i've seen on WW1. it's a local universal thing. up there with paths of glory and dare i say, grand illusion



this guy looks something like jean louis trintignant? also i just realized the director himself has a major role this would be romanian director liviu ciulei:



who doesn't seem to have done much else. i've had this for years, once again thanks lencho for the fair warning, it's almost 3 hrs long and has taken me 3 days to get through i just can't stay awake in the evening

[pabs]

I'm glad you admitted to breaking a viewing, 'cause sometimes I'm obliged to do it too with certain films, due to my sleeping (or other) schedules. Not very often, but sometimes. I always felt a bit bad about doing that, but now I don't.

[rischka]

i do this all the time, otherwise i'd watch one film a week

[pabs]

I actually feel exonerated now, and I'll never again feel guilty when I do it.

[greennui]

Update:

1. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer)

The Debussy Film (Ken Russell)
The Party’s Over (Guy Hamilton)
Always on Sunday (Ken Russell)
Seisaku's Wife (Yasuzô Masumura)
The Seaside Village (Kim Soo-yong)
Kustom Kar Kommandos (Kenneth Anger)
The Ipcress File (Sidney J. Furie)
Bunny Lake Is Missing (Otto Preminger)
The War Game (Peter Watkins)
The Hand (Jirí Trnka)
Quixote (Bruce Baillie)

[Lencho of the Apes]

Greg X and I are the only ones in my LB network who have seen Fort Graveyard by Mr. Okamoto? It's better than that. Thematically rich in a way that triggered some discussion.

[rischka]

thanks for the heads up. always down for okamoto

[Angel]

FG is a remake of his own Desperate Outpost (1959), which I prefer (in fact it is my favorite Okamoto).

[St. Gloede]

Now, I have to see it! Should actually have it already, just need to double-check.

Prepared a few viewings for this poll yesterday. (Essentially what I had laying around, but somehow Forest of the Hanged was not on the list - it will be my next priority)

I may share the list later

The first one out was:

The Shameless Old Lady


I was, honestly, hoping for her to be a little more "shameless".

Instead what I got was a surprisingly pleasant story, though brooding adaptation of a short Brecht story.

What was I expecting? Probably something a little darker. My only other Allio (also the only other film of his with subtitles) was I, Pierre Reviere. A rather brutal minimalist film that would have made a nice addition to Bresson's filmography.

The Shameless Old Lady is still lowdown and simple, but extremely human. It does not do big gestures, or comedic pieces, but is rather a portrait of an old widow finally doing some very small things to improve her live.

Opening with her husband's death (no spoilers), we follow the family rituals, the impassioned obligations, etc. etc.

Her children agree to take care of her and chip in, but instead of living her old sparse life she makes new friends, starts eating out, going to shops, even ordering ice cream ... These small things are actually of quite some importance to her - and her family is not too happy with her spending.

A simple subject, composed of simple shots, simple characters, and so on. A great film.

[St. Gloede]

FG is a remake of his own Desperate Outpost (1959), which I prefer (in fact it is my favorite Okamoto).

It is not a remake. It is an entirely separate story, but in a similar style/setting. Where Desperate Outpost is a gung-ho action comedy with the "likely leads", Fort Graveyard is about a commander trying to make the best out of the army band. Okamoto made several darlky comedic WW2 action comedies in this period.

[St. Gloede]

This was also the year Okamoto did Samurai, which rivals most of Kurosawa's samurai work (though not quite at the level of The Sword of Doom).

[rischka]

k i'ma watch this here samurai pitcher



i see mifune is his usual charming self