SCFZ poll: George Roy Hill

[flip]

Polling the films of director George Roy Hill

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Hill films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Friday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline up to three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: umbugbene, greennui, evelyn, bure, m arkadin, mrcarmady, nrh, brian d, mesnalty, kanafani, st gloede, ofrene, silga, greg x, therouxxx, charulata, oscarwerner, wba, unholymanm

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

[flip]

we'll use extended rules:

• if you've seen an odd number of hill films, you can round up instead of down when determining the length of your ballot (so if you've seen 5, say, you can vote for up to 3 films instead of the usual 2)

• if you've seen more than 10, you can vote for more than 5, so if you've seen 13 say, you can vote for up to 7 films

[flip]

The World According to Garp
The Sting

seen four

[greennui]

4.

Slap Shot

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Seen 4. A director I don't care for - he represents a certain tendency to scattershot bloatedness in 60s-70s US pop cinema - but I'll give a vote to Thoroughly Modern Millie, which I don't like but has moments. I'm also curious about The World of Henry Orient, with Peter Sellers doing a Glenn Gould impression, so I hope to watch that for the poll.

1. The World of Henry Orient (1964)
2. Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)

[thoxans]

funny farm
the sting

*seen three (but i have a copy of slap shot, so i can try to get to four before poll's end)

[MrCarmady]

Seen 2, might check out A Little Romance cos I have it downloaded.

The Sting

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Seen 3.

The World According to Garp
Slap Shot

I particularly disliked Funny Farm. Always had a genuine curiosity with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid... but never got around to it for some reason.

[brian d]

only seen 2, only really remember 1

butch cassidy/sundance kid

[thoxans]

I particularly disliked Funny Farm.

i have a soft spot for fish out of water flicks, particularly ones where city slickers wind up in the country, where high jinks ensue, and maybe a few heartfelt lessons are learned along the way

[---]

Seen 3

The sting
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid

[ralch]

Seen 5

1. The Sting
2. The World According to Garp

[...]

George Roy Hill is kinda interesting, I wouldn't go so far as to say he's an important director exactly, but maybe more that he should be considered notable to some degree for finding a slightly different path during the late sixties and into the seventies, that walked a line between the cynicism of the era, with all its unhappy endings and distrust of institutions, and the sentimentality that Hollywood is more usually known for by coating cynicism in just enough sentimentality to make it palatable to mass audiences in the US, but without completely diluting it to where the good guys always win and everyone goes home happy who "should". This though obviously isn't gonna be to everyone's taste with some perhaps rightly feeling the watering down some of those values dilutes them beyond redemption as charming cynicism is contradictory, and they may sit somewhat oddly now, when variations of that mix have become more usual over the interceding decades and at a moment when it may not feel like any sentimentality is very welcome.

But, still, it isn't the worst mix, even if it isn't the strongest brew a director can whip up and Roy HIll had enough craft to make a few films where the offsetting flavors allow for being entertained in the old manner without entirely disregarding the new. Roy Hill wasn't the only director to take up this mix, Michael Ritchie was another, for just one example, with Bad News Bears being a famously successful example. Roy Hill kept working variations of that mix for most of his career, with only Little Drummer Girl and its more serious but somewhat dreary sincerity and Hawaii's self conscious-epic scale sensationalism being the biggest outliers of the films I've seen.

Funny Farm (as much for the specific event of my viewing as the film itself.)
The World of Henry Orient (As much for it just being odd as good)
A Little Romance (Wes Anderson has definitely watched Henry Orient and this one.)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Probably the apex example of cynical sentimentality, or maybe sentimental cynicism, and a major transitional work towards renewed Hollywood dominance.)
Hawaii (I like epics, ok? And this is an odd one. Old school drama epics were mostly out, military related ones in, giving it a feeling of being a bit embarrassed by its own ambition. But, hey, Von Sydow)
The Sting (Somehow that Roy Hill was able to make this into a big success mildly impresses given how slight the sleight of hand story is.)


Slap Shot and Thoroughly Modern Millie both have their moments. I got sick of hearing how great Slap Shot was from the other boys in school, back in the day after it ran on TV, and I haven't forgiven it for the constant quoting yet, and only barely have forgiven The Sting for the incessant playing of its big Hamlisch music number, The Entertainer, for half a decade. Modern Millie doesn't really have much purpose to its existence, but still some pleasing enough scenes and occasional moments of inspiration to have made it enjoyable enough. Slaughterhouse Five doesn't really gel as a movie, feels more like a trailer of book concepts, while Garp is an only slightly more cohesive take on a book with worse themes. Waldo Pepper is too much Redford at his conceited height, drowning out anything else potentially of interest.

[john ryan]

Seen 5

1. slap shot
2. slaughterhouse-five
3. the sting

[kanafani]

I've only seen Butch Cassidy ages ago. Never had an urge to explore further.

[Silga]

Seen 2:

The Sting


But yesterday I've watched Funny Farm for this poll and enjoyed it immensely. I am not a fan of Chevy Chase, but this one might be his best film from the ones (16) I've seen.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

as charming cynicism is contradictory

This is quite well-put, and one big reason why I don't like Roy Hill's work, from what I've seen. The other being the film style that accompanies it, which exhibits a similar contradiction, of wanting to be both classical Hollywood and post-classical without, to my eyes, doing anything interesting with that contradiction. It just comes off confused in both form and content. And too long. That said, I also agree that he's kinda interesting for all that, if only, in my case, as a reference point for a distinctive brand I don't much care for.

[Roscoe]

THE STING

Saw BUTCH CASSIDY recently and wasn't as taken with it as I had been in the past -- the fun felt very forced, it's never as serious as it thinks it is. My favorite scene is when Jeff Corey blurts out that it's over, don't you understand that. THE STING is the coolest and lightest and finally best of the bunch. It very nearly is as much fun as it wants to be. Seen enough to rate more. Can't put GARP on a Best List, or the others.

[greennui]

The only thing I remember about watching Butch Cassidy is totally zoning out to Paul Newman clowning around on a bicycle for pretty much the entire track length of Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head.

[FLABREZU]

I have SEEN 2 and I will VOTE FOR The Sting

[Holymanm]

One of the greatest directors who ever lived, and I think the most underappreciated - because no one seems to like him I don't know why I love almost every single one of his movies and other people think he's a tepid hollywood half-hack, but what can ya do. I notice a lot of people saying his movies sometimes sort of lose the plot, and drift off into noncommittal non-denouements and formlessness, but... that's partly why I love them. Waldo Pepper is partly a silly look-at-how-handsome-I-am vehicle for Redford, sure, but it's also about how absolutely pathetic his type of figure is when it's seen in proper lighting, and how all his (and our own) endeavours turn to naught. ...But with a gentle, sympathetic touch. Period of Adjustment is a disgustingly chauvinistic and repulsive look at relationships and gender roles... but no one seems to even notice it's, umm, a critical look thereat? Showing how adherence to these roles and presuppositions just leads to dissolution and pain and self-loathing, while the only way forward is to embrace our authentic selves, insecurities and weaknesses and all. ...With a gentle, sympathetic touch.

His "charming cynicism" just speaks right to me. I guess it's subjective just as you either get along with a person or not, the same certainly goes for writers and directors (and so on), and all of his movies are just absolutely on my wavelength. (Except Toys in the Attic, which is one of the stupidest pieces of crap I've ever seen.)

Going to watch his last few I haven't seen yet...

[Monsieur Arkadin]

I particularly disliked Funny Farm.

i have a soft spot for fish out of water flicks, particularly ones where city slickers wind up in the country, where high jinks ensue, and maybe a few heartfelt lessons are learned along the way

I don't know exactly... but I might have the exact opposite predisposition. I remember feeling very similarly about The Money Pit, but it has been quite a while since I saw either of them.

[wba]

I have only seen 2 of his films so far, but feel a bit like Holymanm, and also hope that Hill might turn out to be one of the major US directors.

I haven't seen THE STING since I was a teenager, but enjoyed it numerous times back then (I just love films about conmen and petty criminals who try to trick other, bigger criminals - like Bertold Brecht famously put it: "Bank robbery is an initiative of amateurs. True professionals set up a bank.").

By accident I watched SLAP SHOT 2 or 3 years ago and was BLOWN AWAY by the brilliance of Hill's directing. I was literally on my knees while watching it, as he directs it so marvellously, it's flabbergasting and somewhat scary (regarding the perfection of it).
As holymanm puts it, everyone and everything gets criticized in this film. That's no cynicism at all for me, but merely an unflinching look at society and how people function in it. Society sucks. Period. That's my opinion of it. But we have to go on living in it and somehow cope with the numerous assholy ways and assholy people that we encounter each and every day. There's no sympathy for anyone in the film, besides the observational fact that we are all human beings, and share that experience with each other (yeah, that's even true for Trump or Putin or Erdogan or any other filthy piece of shit walking the earth). I also felt that there was zero meandering or loosing his way regarding Hill's directing, as each moment, each possibly insignificant and seemingly unnecessary scene is totally necessary to get "the whole picture", to finish the mosaic Hill is working on completing.

I obviously need to see more of Hill's work, and he might be similar to Michael Ritchie, who also created one perfect film (Downhill Racer) but also made some mediocre studio stuff, but I'm very curious to explore more of his work. Also: Dominik Graf is a huge fan of many of Hill's films, and if one of the greatest motion picture directors in human history admires Hill, there must be something to it. Obviously I could see very much of the same unflinching and tough look with no illusions on assholes in SLAP SHOT as there is in most films of Graf, where assholes rule the world and his films - like in Dominik Graf's DIE KATZE where three huge assholes fight for the goddamn right and the title to be the biggest asshole of them all, and the seeming central "bad guy" Götz George turns out to be no match to the assholyness of the other two bad guys (the bourgeois husband and wife) who easily beat him in being even bigger narcissist dicks. Graf again and again shows us that the evil in the world and society perseveres not because of people like Trump but because of people who are as bad as Trump but smart enough to hide it behind their everyday font/facade (like the couple at the end of the film DIE KATZE, sitting unnoticed at the edge of the street, and whose life will basically continue as it did before, even though we and they themselves have been witnesses to incredible, for other, normal/moral people life-changing events, which they have used and orchestrated(!) to simply advance their capitalist/narcissist ways of existing), or the female protagonist of KALTER FRÜHLING (Cold Spring, 2002) who goes from being a rebel, ghosted by her Trump-like family, to accepting and actively advocating her status as designed successor of that family's leader). People go from rebelling and having good intentions to being even worse than that which they ostensively hated and condemned in the past all the time. Depicting and observing this universal, ever-present "way of the world" could be called the essence of Dominik Graf's work.

my vote goes to:

01. Slap Shot (1977)

Hill seen: 2

PS: I can totally see how assholes enjoy and praise SLAP SHOT for all the wrong reasons, because assholes usually don't get why they might be considered behaving like assholes, let alone accept the fact that they are assholes. Similar to the fact that one of film history's most damning and disturbing satires, Kubrick's FULL METAL JACKET (1987), isn't usually considered as a satire from beginning till end (it is a far far far FAR more satirical, critical and unflinching look at the idiocy of human beings than Dr. STRANGELOVE), but loved and adored by many soldiers or young males wanting to go to the military as a "truthful" and even somewhat "inspiring" look at the realities of combat and combat training (and "male bonding" which is portrayed as pathological and completely sick in this movie).
Reality and human life on this planet are so much worse than anyone could possibly imagine in their worst nightmare, that simply trying to portray it somewhat honestly in art can be devastating for an open-minded viewer. Of course a monkey won't notice that it's a monkey, and an asshole will praise most of the things that make him an asshole. That's why people have loved and adored their (political, religious, economic) leaders throughout history and will continue to do so, while at the same time caring little for other animals let alone plants and the many other lifeforms on this planet (or in the universe).
But that's not SLAP SHOTs (or Hill's) fault.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Well, I watched The World of Henry Orient, and I liked it alright, even if Sellers isn't exactly doing a Gould impression. I'll edit my ballot above.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

can totally see how assholes enjoy and praise SLAP SHOT for all the wrong reasons, b

I grew up in MN, in a hockey family, in a community where hockey is taken more seriously than any religion. That movie was treated as the Bible amongst even sweet old ladies. Everyone I know loves Slap Shot and I think close to 0 of them think it's in any way critical of either the sport or the community who loves it.

[wba]

can totally see how assholes enjoy and praise SLAP SHOT for all the wrong reasons, b

I grew up in MN, in a hockey family, in a community where hockey is taken more seriously than any religion. That movie was treated as the Bible amongst even sweet old ladies. Everyone I know loves Slap Shot and I think close to 0 of them think it's in any way critical of either the sport or the community who loves it.

Yes, thank you, that's exactly what I meant.

Like Trump supporters or the Ku Klux Klan or Nazis cannot be talked to so that they will understand that what they believe and support might be actually bad. That just doesn't work, that's not how human minds work. But saying that Hill should have expressed his views differently or more "clearly" would have totally dilluted the film and the whole purpose of it.

Of course I also LOVE Slap Shot. That's why many people can love similar stuff for widely different reasons, and why works of art aren't in my opinion capable of being propagandistic (or actually effective as propaganda), as people will interpret each work of art the way they want to or are used to think in their everyday life (or just superficially explore the artwork, which is probably done 99% of the time) - so that films like Slap Shot or Full Metal Jacket might be more dangerous than a film like Jud Süss (Jew Süss, directed bv Veit Harlan, made in Nazi Germany in 1940), which was clearly intended as a propaganda piece of shit and whose message could only possibly be supported by fascists, racists, anti-Semites or people receptive to such ideologies and ways of thought. Knowing this, should have Kubrick or Hill done anything different, should they have somehow MADE IT MORE CLEAR what they were saying in their films? I say absolutely no, cause they made it as clear as the blue sky, and people still didn't get it. And people never will. Because that's not the way they think, that's not the way their minds work. Martin Luther King might have loved listening to Mozart and Hitler might have loved listening to Mozart. Does that make them in any way similar? No, it just shows that they are human beings and are receptive to art. Most people probably also watch TOP GUN without seeing it as the obvious story of a closeted homosexual who is trying to come to terms with his sexuality, but say "hey I like those cool planes and how they move through the air", and that's that.

[oscarwerner]

1. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
2. The Sting (1973)
3. Slap Shot (1977)
4. A Little Romance (1979)
-------
5. Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)

[---]

Jsyk Hill directed neither slap shot 2 nor 3

[...]

The other being the film style that accompanies it, which exhibits a similar contradiction, of wanting to be both classical Hollywood and post-classical without, to my eyes, doing anything interesting with that contradiction.

That's a good way to look at some of Hill's late sixties/early seventies films, the intersection of classic and post-classic Hollywood. The trick, I think, with Hill is that he doesn't attempt to deny the contradictions so much as offer an emotional resolution that accepts the contradicting forces by freeing some of the tensions involved. Look, for example, to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which came out in '69 the same year as a near kin film, The Wild Bunch, both of which are essentially responses, or were allowed to be made under the idea that they were referencing Bonnie and Clyde, "bad guys" on the run who are fated to meet violent death at quasi-institutional forces beyond their control.

Penn's film, or films since his themes/tone have some consistent elements to them, have a kind of cynicism and humor that isn't all that far removed from Butch/Sundance, but they use it to draw out, illustrate, or heighten the tension between old and new, suggesting there is something important that cannot be easily resolved due to the differences in perspective. His films work from that position to provide an uneasy, if not necessarily unpleasant, ambiguity in the lack of answer. Peckinpah maintains the tension by veering between a more elegiac take on what is lost in the transition and an explosive drive towards resolutions that unsettle the viewer in their determination to assert a competing value, even in deaths of the protagonists.

Hill goes a different direction, one might say it could be summarized in the lyrics to the Bacharach song, "I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining, because I'm free nothing's worrying me", where the emotional tension of the competing forces is dissipated by acceptance that there's really not much you can do about the big stuff, so just keep doing your own thing and take what you can. Hill's films repeatedly highlight these kinds of tensions, such as having Depression era con artists run a scam on a bigger con man as a kind of "answer" to the problems of the era that feels good, even as it, like most con artist films, places the audience in the position of the mark and provides its entertainment by how well it cons the audience into false assumptions that echo that of the mark, and doesn't really resolve anything other than satisfying the individual issues of the film's protagonists in an end that fits their predispositions. A happy end is one you choose from limited options in bad circumstance essentially.

There are variations on this, in A Little Romance, for example, the two child protagonists aren't fully aware of the circumstance in which they live, it's only Olivier's character as guide and narrator of sorts that signals to the audience that he, and we, really know such a romanticized view of the world isn't really obtainable, but the young and not yet jaded, like we, don't yet know that so it's good to let them dream while they can. Even into the eighties with Funny Farm, the sense that there is an imagined place of harmony, the rural community Chevy Chase moves to, opposed by a more cynical or jaded reality, that of the rural community being even bigger assholes than the city folk he left behind. That tension is highlighted, complicated, and then given conditional resolve by Chase promising to pay off the townfolk if they bring his imagined rural paradise to life in order to con some new couple into buying his home. The emotional success of the endeavor comes from the simultaneous realization of the dream knowing its falsehood. There is no real resolution to the tension, but it feels like there is because the emotional release allowed the audience fitting that form.

In Slap Shot it's perhaps even more basic as the movie hinges around a cynical ploy to artificially inflate the value of a bad minor league hockey team by becoming more violent rather than trying to win per se as the crowds will love the fights. The movie "works" because the film's fights are indeed the highlight, thus reaffirming the contradictory values or tensions within the film story. The ideal and the reality don't match, but that's okay as long as you can gain some pleasure or benefit from the conflicting goals. The audiences are, in this conception, aligned to the protagonists, caught between ideals and reality and find resolve simply by getting some personal satisfaction in the end. That's the only obtainable goal, the rest is out of our hands essentially, which isn't a great political, moral, or ethical statement, just one that provides momentary satisfaction as better than nothing at least.

(Oh, and to be clear, I do "like" watching Hill's films, I just don't attach a lot of added value to most of them for being so conciliatory towards the audience. They're pleasures of the moment, not the mind in that way.)

[Holymanm]

can totally see how assholes enjoy and praise SLAP SHOT for all the wrong reasons, b

I grew up in MN, in a hockey family, in a community where hockey is taken more seriously than any religion. That movie was treated as the Bible amongst even sweet old ladies. Everyone I know loves Slap Shot and I think close to 0 of them think it's in any way critical of either the sport or the community who loves it.

OH yeah. Same everywhere in Canada, although I don't think the younger generations these days have necessarily seen it. Everyone over 25 or 30 or whatever, absolutely. But I think it's usually more a bashfully winking sort of thing when people (here) talk about how great the "old time hockey" in that movie is, with all the atavistic head-smacking and all that. I don't think I know many people who actually think it was a good thing - though maybe older generations do...