SCFZ

Most of the regulars on this site seem to think the movies of the 20th century are vastly superior to the films of this century.

What makes you come to that conclusion?

100 yrs > 20 years

I'm a film buff, but I have come to realize that I'm mostly interested in movies from the 19th and 20th century.
21st century stuff? Not really my kind of thing.

I guess a lot of it has to do with the switch from film material to digital and the complete cluelessness of younger generations of filmmakers of the history of film and/or how to use the past in their own endeavors (good example: Tarantino, as someone who has seen a vast amount of great stuff, but doesn't know what to do with this knowledge or how to use it in his own films).

I just think that generally speaking most 21st century filmmakers are clueless (hacks). They don't live and breath cinema like filmmakers of the past used to do.

The main problem might be that film directors nowadays make too few films (which director shoots more than one film per year?), and too many try to work with ideas (and even worse: screenplays) they have developed or written themselves.

Also TV and the internet and other visual media have usurped the sensibilities of many filmmakers to such an extent that they don't know how good mise-en-scene has to be executed anymore. People from the business talking about how TV series have become more interesting than films are a proof of a total lack of understanding of the art of filmmaking.

Cinema and films as an important artform and cultural practice are basically dead since the (late) 1990s, so most people working in the field don't know what they are doing anymore.

I think that making sweeping generalizations is misguided from the get-go. Which movies are we talking about? Which country/society, which industry, etc?

But that's what I've seen. general comments about how films from this century aren''t as good as films from the last century with no further explanation. So I guess the purpose of this thread is to get more details like the ones WBA posted.

Yep, understood. I was just expressing what I thought of that formulation. Like if we were discussing mainstream/big studio Hollywood, then I can totally see how someone would say that it used to be much better, in the sense that there used to be wiggle room for directors to slip off serious works off the conveyor belt, but that space has all but disappeared now. But on the other hand, to take an example, is mainland Chinese cinema in the 21 century worse off than the 20th century? I'm no expert, but my feeling from the limited exposure I've had is 'no', it's much more dynamic and engaging now.

2000-2019 is way ahead of 1900-1919 if you want to do a straight up year to year comp. Beyond that there isn't really enough to judge by other than knowing the 20th century much better than the little bit of the 21st. Movies as movies might not even be that much a thing for much of this century, so the comp isn't going to be working on anything like the same basis.

Sweeping generalizations forever!

Yup, I've come to accept that I don't really have a passionate interest in cinema made at least since 1980 if not the mid-60s. Felt guilty about this for a while, but I've finally realized that I'm allowed to have specializations and just follow my interests. So, there will be important work from this period that I have never seen, and that's okay.

Why do I dive so deeply into cinema from 1890s to 1950s and only shallowly wade in what follows? I have a few thoughts in mind:

(1) History is removed from the present political situation, and thus it can serve as a kind of escape. It's removed from the present political/cultural conversation and thus it is mine in a way that watching the new Marvel film can't be (until Criterion releases Detour and spoils our elitist fun...) And the past is more interesting to me than the present, for reasons that escape me.
(2) There are likely aesthetic reasons. I just like the way old movies look way more than contemporary movies. It's not even a celluloid/digital thing, I don't think, as 1980s movies fall into the same trap. It is probably celluloid, lighting, etc., but also the clothes, the architecture, etc.
(3) I tend to love studio-era Hollywood genre movies way more than the arthouse (with exceptions, of course, Red Desert is the best), so obviously that's a factor. And obviously the Code had immoralities in it, but the excesses of violence and sex and sexual violence that followed its fall can often be more offensive and painful to watch than the pretty sheen that came before.
(4) I think a big factor is that this was a time when The Movies Were King, as the old story goes. I mean there was radio, but if you wanted moving images, you had to go to the movies. Once television enters the scene, the whole cultural framework gets dispersed a bit. And especially now, you have video games, Instagram, Netflix, and 'the movies' loses its meaning somewhat. It's a bit overwhelming. There's too much to choose from. Especially given how much is lost or unavailable, those earlier decades are easier to cover and hold up in one's memory, I find.
(5) Obviously, there are exceptions. Post-colonial cinemas especially African cinemas don't emerge onto the scene in a big way until the mid-1960s (with the exception of Egypt and perhaps other countries my ignorance has forgotten). And (I hope) I make an exception there, as that's hugely important work to watch and learn from. Ditto with the avant-garde, I remain into the avant-garde up to the present day, which is also a cinema that finds more freedom to move post-1950s.

Again, I don't necessarily believe that the movies were better back then — though you'll certainly hear me make those ludicrous and probably untrue generalizations as a comic expression of my feelings! — it's just that I prefer to engage with old movies, they're better for me.

But shouldn't today's film makers have the advantage of standing on the shoulders of giants?

wba wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 10:51 am The main problem might be that film directors nowadays make too few films (which director shoots more than one film per year?), and too many try to work with ideas (and even worse: screenplays) they have developed or written themselves.

Only two people of modern times come to mind, both being Japanese: Sion Sono and Takashi Miike. Miike has been directing films since 1991 and has made over 100 films, while Sion Sono got his start in 1990 and has made 47 films. So there are people out there pumping out multiple films a year. I don't know how well they are received here, since they obviously take influences from exploitation and action films from the 70s and 80s onward. Nevertheless they are popular filmmakers in Japan that many people respect.

Wulff wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 10:54 pm But shouldn't today's film makers have the advantage of standing on the shoulders of giants?

not sure if i understand this. if they're looking for influence, then are they just making pastiches of the films of the "giants"?

but there were tons of movies made in the 20th century that we'd all agree were terrible. they just don't get play. it's a recency bias thing in part, where the trash gets weeded out so it doesn't get included. plus there's an aesthetic to lots of the contemporary films that come out of certain industries that gets repeated ad nauseam, so it gets dismissed. we talk up plenty of contemporary indian and east asian films, sometimes latin american as well. if you ask, sure, most of us probably prefer 20th century films, because that's what we know best, but there are plenty of exceptions in both centuries.

my quick answer is that my favorite decades are the 20s, 60s, and 70s, because that's when i see filmmakers taking the most chances and thus producing more challenging and memorable films. i'm not sure what the political or aesthetic challenges of the day are yet, but if you check back in thirty years, maybe i'll see the 2010s as a great decade for film and i just can't see it yet. not sure.

MayaDeren_fan wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2019 2:18 amOnly two people of modern times come to mind, both being Japanese: Sion Sono and Takashi Miike. Miike has been directing films since 1991 and has made over 100 films, while Sion Sono got his start in 1990 and has made 47 films. So there are people out there pumping out multiple films a year. I don't know how well they are received here, since they obviously take influences from exploitation and action films from the 70s and 80s onward. Nevertheless they are popular filmmakers in Japan that many people respect.

johnnie to is well-regarded around here, and he was making 3-6 films per year for a while (and in several genres no less).

brian d wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2019 2:50 am

Wulff wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 10:54 pm But shouldn't today's film makers have the advantage of standing on the shoulders of giants?

not sure if i understand this. if they're looking for influence, then are they just making pastiches of the films of the "giants"?

If the giants of the past made groundbreaking films then wouldn't breakthroughs from contemporary filmmakers be expanding the art form further still? Apparently those who bemoan the decline of cinema don't think so.

"Groundbreaking" is a loaded word. Once the mechanics (including film-grammar, and theoretical considerations) of creating meaning through the manipulation of sounds and images arranged in sequence had been established, how much 'ground' remained to be 'broken'?

Working from a knowledge of great work done in the past can lead to new triumphs in the same spirit, but it can just as easily lead to decadence and banality -- look at academic painters of 19th century France and England. Bouguereau, for an example…

kanafani wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:29 am I think that making sweeping generalizations is misguided from the get-go. Which movies are we talking about? Which country/society, which industry, etc?

I for one am talking generally about filmmmakers globally.
There surely are exceptions to the rule, but overall my above generalizations are the way I see it.
They are - for me at least - definitely true for ALL(!) European countries (including Turkey and Russia), USA and Japan.

wba wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 10:51 am I'm a film buff, but I have come to realize that I'm mostly interested in movies from the 19th and 20th century.
21st century stuff? Not really my kind of thing.

I guess a lot of it has to do with the switch from film material to digital and the complete cluelessness of younger generations of filmmakers of the history of film and/or how to use the past in their own endeavors (good example: Tarantino, as someone who has seen a vast amount of great stuff, but doesn't know what to do with this knowledge or how to use it in his own films).

I just think that generally speaking most 21st century filmmakers are clueless (hacks). They don't live and breath cinema like filmmakers of the past used to do.

The main problem might be that film directors nowadays make too few films (which director shoots more than one film per year?), and too many try to work with ideas (and even worse: screenplays) they have developed or written themselves.

Also TV and the internet and other visual media have usurped the sensibilities of many filmmakers to such an extent that they don't know how good mise-en-scene has to be executed anymore. People from the business talking about how TV series have become more interesting than films are a proof of a total lack of understanding of the art of filmmaking.

Cinema and films as an important artform and cultural practice are basically dead since the (late) 1990s, so most people working in the field don't know what they are doing anymore.

Pretty much this, although i think the problem is that the younger film makers watch too watch cinema perhaps. They don't seem to be influenced by much else other than other films, especially in America.

I think very few film makers really use the medium to ask real questions or to explore new understandings, and by that I don't mean some identity politics bullshit. I'm talking about big philosophical ideas, not micro rubbish. Where is the contemporary equivalent of Syberberg or Straub-Huillet? They are nowhere to be found. The so called 'avantgarde' now consists of film makers who just make excessively long films like Diaz and Bang. Fetishists basically. Diaz makes 7 hour films that have fuck all ideas. Compared to say, Syberberg's Our Hitler, his films are extraordinarily limited, like some kind of bad artistic joke. oh yes, he represents a country and a 'people' the fans say. Ok ok.

Don't get me started on mise-en-scene. There are maybe a handful of contemporary film makers that are impressive in that regard. e.g Sokurov, Costa and maybe 2-3 others. The rest are just undistinguished to me. You couldn't tell a frame of their films from any other film maker's films. There is just no substantial point of differentiation.

All in all, I think the problem is deep rooted in cultures that don't value craft and excellence anymore. This isn't confined to the US either. Pedro Costa once said that most film makers don't work hard enough, and that's absolutely true. They just don't want to spend the time necessary to really develop their craft properly. They rely far too much on technology and films of the recent past as primary reference points. And I think the ones that do work, especially on their shots, like Fincher and Nolan, don't have a strong enough background in the visual arts. They are basically philistines with big toys and a shitload of money, especially Fincher. That guy is so empty headed it's almost surreal.

I won't go on because this is a real old man rant, but I will say that deep down i've been dissatisfied with contemporary film since my early 20's.

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2019 10:42 am
All in all, I think the problem is deep rooted in cultures that don't value craft and excellence anymore. This isn't confined to the US either. Pedro Costa once said that most film makers don't work hard enough, and that's absolutely true. They just don't want to spend the time necessary to really develop their craft properly. They rely far too much on technology and films of the recent past as primary reference points.

Exactly!!

brian d wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2019 2:50 am

MayaDeren_fan wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2019 2:18 amOnly two people of modern times come to mind, both being Japanese: Sion Sono and Takashi Miike. Miike has been directing films since 1991 and has made over 100 films, while Sion Sono got his start in 1990 and has made 47 films. So there are people out there pumping out multiple films a year. I don't know how well they are received here, since they obviously take influences from exploitation and action films from the 70s and 80s onward. Nevertheless they are popular filmmakers in Japan that many people respect.

johnnie to is well-regarded around here, and he was making 3-6 films per year for a while (and in several genres no less).

This was more of a rhetorical question on my part. Of course there are still filmmakers who work a lot and shoot a lot (the recently deceased Jonas Mekas always came to my mind first). But they are a very small group compared to filmmakers of the past. I personally love Miike, Sono and To, and the different personal universes they have erected and regard all three as timeless masters of the craft. But to me, they are exceptions.

But I'm not looking for exceptions (or, of course I have to, nowadays...): in my opinion if I watch 50 random films from 2018 and watch 50 random films from 1938 the difference in artistry and craft and cinematic vision - or simply the difference in the quality of the directing (which is what I'm usually most interested in) - is minblowing. It's huuuge, enormous. Many of the directors shooting films nowadays, don't know shit about what they are doing. It's almost as if they think a film assembles itself, if you only have enough technicians on board who'll do the job for you.

I have watched roughly 60 German feature films shown at the cinemas in 2018 last year, and if I compare them to 60 random films shot in West Germany in 1958, the incompetence of the directors working nowadays makes you cringe.

Of course one can cherry-pick films and filmmakers from the 21st century, and thus get the impression that all is well, and there are many great filmmakers shooting many great films in our time (which is true). But this is just the shiny tip of a rotting iceberg, or better speaking: the iceberg has melted.

Lencho_of_the_Apes wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2019 8:38 am "Groundbreaking" is a loaded word. Once the mechanics (including film-grammar, and theoretical considerations) of creating meaning through the manipulation of sounds and images arranged in sequence had been established, how much 'ground' remained to be 'broken'?

To answer that I guess we'd have to know when the mechanics of creating meaning through the manipulation of sounds and images was established and then look at what came after it. Jean Luc Godard, for one, liked exploring new possibilities for the 'established mechanics'.

Of course one can cherry-pick films and filmmakers from the 21st century, and thus get the impression that all is well, and there are many great filmmakers shooting many great films in our time (which is true). But this is just the shiny tip of a rotting iceberg, or better speaking: the iceberg has melted.

Non-snarky question... Don't you think this is what we are doing with the 20th century? Specifically thinking about the 30s, with the recent advent of sound, montage and mise-en-scene really took a steep nosedive in favor of static scenes of non-stop dialogue. 30-36 seems to me a particularly bad time for director's craft. However, we cherry pick our films from the past, and of course there were brilliant films being created at all times. But I feel the average (relatively incompetent) film from 1990-95 (or any 5 year span in the 21st) probably outperforms the craftsmenship of Hollywood from 30-35. Busby Berkeley, John Ford, and such being the exceptions that managed to survive the test of time, and cause us to look back through rose-tinted glasses.

Edit: I acknowledge that I'm conflating "newer" with 21st century and the 90s are not indeed, in the 21st century.

I think the cherry picking argument is based on one or more of the following false premises that are largely unexamined: 1)that things continue to progress just 'because' (i.e changes in technology, knowledge etc will produce superior results over time); 2)there is no such thing as regress, only progress; 3)that all eras produce works of equal quality just 'because' (i.e egalitarian fantasy) and/or 4)that nostalgia blinds people to the virtues of the present.

In the end, all that matters is the best of the best. History doesn't care about the mediocre or the ordinary. People don't either. We aren't 'cherry picking the past' because all that matters when the dust clears is the best or near best.

So yeah, the cherry picking accusation is complete nonsense basically. It's only valid if you are talking to a complete dumb ass. Is there a director in America today or in the last 25 or so years that's technically as good as Ford was in his prime? Is Reservoir Dogs as good a debut as Citizen Kane or The Maltese Falcon? Is there a single film maker in Italy today that's as good as Fellini or Antonioni were in their prime? Or in France as good as Bresson or Renoir?

I just don't see it, and I'm really suspicious of people who argue that there are film makers who are just as good, it's just that we are too blinded by 'nostalgia' to see it. My immediate impression is that people who make those statements don't really understand what made the great film makers truly great. Their appreciation is entirely superficial. 'Yeah they are all master film makers man, you see, just open your mind man, there is genius everywhere'.


Confession: I'm in a silly mood, long day at work etc, but I still by my case.

Monsieur Arkadin wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:24 am

Of course one can cherry-pick films and filmmakers from the 21st century, and thus get the impression that all is well, and there are many great filmmakers shooting many great films in our time (which is true). But this is just the shiny tip of a rotting iceberg, or better speaking: the iceberg has melted.

Non-snarky question... Don't you think this is what we are doing with the 20th century? Specifically thinking about the 30s, with the recent advent of sound, montage and mise-en-scene really took a steep nosedive in favor of static scenes of non-stop dialogue. 30-36 seems to me a particularly bad time for director's craft. However, we cherry pick our films from the past, and of course there were brilliant films being created at all times. But I feel the average (relatively incompetent) film from 1990-95 (or any 5 year span in the 21st) probably outperforms the craftsmenship of Hollywood from 30-35. Busby Berkeley, John Ford, and such being the exceptions that managed to survive the test of time, and cause us to look back through rose-tinted glasses.

Edit: I acknowledge that I'm conflating "newer" with 21st century and the 90s are not indeed, in the 21st century.

No, I don't think this is what we are doing with the 20th century. Or more specific, this is not what I am doing with the 20th century.
Sure, if you've only seen a few thousand films, and you cherry pick your viewing of 20th century cinema in a way that you watch only "aknowledged" and "great" filmmakers, that might be true (and I'm sure that may be what many cinephiles are or were doing, once they start getting interested in films, or older films). But imo even if you stray far from any established "viewing patterns" for what is and what isn't worth watching from film history, the amount of great stuff from the past is way bigger than the amount of great stuff you might dig up from the last 20 years.

I can only speak from my experience, which is exactly the opposite: the craftsmanship of 1930-1935 easily outperforms the craftsmenship from any 5 year span in the 21st.

I'm also not looking through rose-tinted glasses when it comes to art. A film is "new" to me at the time I watch it for the first time. Simple as that.

In fact I think most people (and cinephiles) watch the cinema of our time through rose-tinted glasses, where current film and filmmaking craftsmanship is automatically easier to access and digest and relate to, because it speaks of people and themes and concerns and stuff one can far easier relate to (beginning at the basic cultural levels of how people dress, talk, move, etc.), as well as having aesthetics one encounters all the time in visual media of all kinds. That's why people (and also (budding) cinephiles) can relate easier to films being made nowadays, and find it "difficult" and hard to follow older films.
Same thing as cultural differences with viewing habits of a different kind: say subtitled films, films from a mostly alien culture, etc.
People tend towards what's comfortable to them.

Also I'd appreciate it if this thread and its essential questions wouldn't always somehow deviate towards US and Hollywood comparisons most of the time. Hollywood is just a tiny teeny little bit of films and filmmakers and filmmaking history, almost insignificant, when compared with the vast amount of films that have been made all over the world, independently, by amateurs, by small companies, or even by many other industries, some of them way bigger than Hollywood - at any time in the history of film.

That's why I mentioned German cinema in one of my above answers, cause almost nobody has any (deeper) general knowledge or idea of it.
And as I said, I personally think that if I compare the 60 random German films shown at German cinemas in 2018 with 60 random West German films from 1958, the difference in quality is huge (notwithstanding the standout films from both years). I was also using this comparison, because nowadays in German y 90% of cinema is state-funded and most of the films I saw had some degree of artistic ambitions. Filmmakers nowadays can tackle practically any topic with practically any artisitc means. Whereas 1958 was the peak year of the most notoriously commercial and "uninspired/uninteresting" period in German film history, with 90% of cinema financed by the industry, which was mostly interested in making money. So the directors had almost no say on any part of the filmmaking process (besides the actual directing), and they were severly restricted aesthetically in how their films could be made, how they could look, etc. etc. But they still made far better films, while the directing artists of our time struggle to create, though they seemingly have all possibilities at their disposal (and no commercial pressure whatsoever). Hell, most even write the screenplays themselves nowadays (still a terrible mistake at any time in film history, if you ask me).
But most people don't know that (even most German cinephiles and critics), cause they just watch a few selected German films from 2018, and (if at all!) only a few selected German films from 1958.

Heck, even under the Nazis from 1933 to 1945 there were better films made in Germany in general. One would suppose that under a dictatorship film as an artform had to suffer (and indeed it did, and indeed many artists left or were persecuted and/or killed), but it was still in much better shape than it is now.

I think, if we are honest, we should see the art of cinema (and the art of directing) in bloom nowadays, as there is an unprecedented freedom throughout many countries (of course by far not all, and in some countries there is war, censorship or other hardships that make it difficult for filmmakers to flourish - but this has always been the case throughout history in all artforms) in what can be shown, how it can be expressed, etc. Many countries have film funding systems that make the filmmaker comparably free of the marketplace, so it isn't important anymore if the film makes any kind of money. And with so many filmmakers working independently as never before, with the equipment being as cheap and easy to handle as never before, with distribution being easier, with possibilities for filmmakers to make a film very cheaply to upload it on the internet, etc. etc. etc.

Yes, there are some (even comparably many) filmmakers using the newfound freedom and possibilities in creative ways but overall, in general, if we try to look at the bigger picture, in my opinion everything looks pretty bleak. The general interest in film is just not there anymore. Not even by filmmakers themselves. And visual media does not equate film - which can be best seen I think with video games. They are not movies and have little in common with movies, and their greatness or failure also has little in common with film - still at first sight, somebody looking at a few minutes of film on their HD monitor at home, while walking in on somebody watching a movie or playing a videogame might find little to discern the two.

Visual media, visual art isn't necessarily connected with the art of filmmaking anymore (and never really was) - film as we love it here, as we know it and talk about it on this board has always been a specific phenomenon. And the art of directing a film is something even more specific.

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:50 am I think the cherry picking argument is based on one or more of the following false premises that are largely unexamined: 1)that things continue to progress just 'because' (i.e changes in technology, knowledge etc will produce superior results over time); 2)there is no such thing as regress, only progress; 3)that all eras produce works of equal quality just 'because' (i.e egalitarian fantasy) and/or 4)that nostalgia blinds people to the virtues of the present.

Though I don't subscribe to the argument that there aren't any filmmakers as great as the greatest from the past nowadays (I think that there were always - and will always be! filmmakers as great as possible in any era and any part of the filmmaking structure), I think Joks nails it once more with these four points.

People are always blinded/impressed by so-called "technical progress" (also:even when there actually isn't one happening). But for an artist, technical progress per se doesn't help, meaning that it doesn't make you a great artist, just because you can do something different - even if you could do anything you want. And it doesn't make someone a bad artist, cause he was told what to do every single step of the way.
And originality also doesn't (automatically) equal quality.

And as I said I also think people are generally way more enamored with the present than they actually are with the past (even if the wouldn't admit it), cause they have difficulty expressing themselves in a different way, seeing themselves in a different way, accepting the world under a different guise. Yes, people get nostalgic about fairy-tale like constructions of the past or of different cultures. But send a guy from Paris to a village in India and see how he will cope with the difference, if he's actually forced to make a living there and interact with another culture. But he would probably be even more lost, and especially dissatisfied, if he were sent back in time to the New York of 1919.

'Where is the contemporary equivalent of Syberberg or Straub-Huillet?'

I looked up those directors and I'm interested in checking out some of the Staub-Huillet films. What would you recommend as an introduction to their work?

don't ask karl

i'm not sure there's a perfect answer here. they have a fairly consistent style, but it can be off-putting if you don't know what you're in for. i always like lothringen!, which isn't too long, and feels approachable to me. if you really like music, chronicle of anna magdalena bach might be a good one to start with, if you like greek tragedy, then antigone, if you like modernist opera, then moses und aron, if art, then a visit to the louvre.

^^My opinion about S/H is that nobody in the cinephile community is really an authority on them. No writer that I've read can combine insight into the philosophical ideas behind their films AND the formal aspects of what they are doing. It's usually one or the other, mostly the latter. I'm not saying I understand myself, but the limitation of most, if not all, existing analysis is obvious to me, including TG.

After I read Hölderlin, I came to the conclusion that The Death of Empedocles is one of their very best films, which isn't a popular opinion from what I've gathered online. When I mean very best, I mean top 3 or 5. Unfortunately I've never read Pavese.

My top 5 Straub-Huillet in alphabetical order:

Antigone
Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (German narration, not English)
Class Relations
The Death of Empedocles
Moses and Aaron

If you really enjoy those films and want to explore more, I'd suggest checking out Othon, These Encounters of Theirs and Sicilia. If you still can't get enough, move on to Workers Peasants and From Clouds To Resistance. I feel both of those films are a little overpraised in some quarters, but they are definitely worth seeing. Many people will tell you that Too Early, Too Late and even History Lessons are up there with their best work, but my feeling is that to really appreciate those films you have to share their old school left wing political views. The same is probably true of Workers Peasants and Clouds as well, especially Clouds.

Top 3 Syberberg in order of quality:

Our Hitler
Ludwig
Die Nacht

Joks Trois wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 3:17 am Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (German narration, not English)

Filmstruck did me dirty with that one.

^^Because the new version taken from a 4K transfer that we have access to in the Anglosphere is the one with the English narration. That is the one Grasshopper recently released on blu-ray. I still enjoy the film, but the English narration has no rhythm to it at all and can be rather distracting.

The version with the original German narration is floating around online though. You can still buy it on dvd too from the UK.

Yeah, the weird robotic sense in the narration caused me to pause a couple times and wonder whether or not it was a dub. I'll check out the German one, because I felt like I couldn't follow the narration due to its bizarre rhythm

@Brian & Joks, thanks for the recommendations.

'Data from a century of cinema reveals how movies have evolved'

https://www.wired.com/2014/09/cinema-is-evolving/

Temporal fractals in movies and mind:

https://cognitiveresearchjournal.spring ... 018-0091-x

http://www.cornell.edu/video/james-cutt ... ywood-film