SCFZ

Polling the films of director Jean Rollin

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Rollin 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 Tuesday, 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: greg x, wba, greennui

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

Le Viol du Vampire
Fascination
The Iron Rose

seen five

Seen 16.

The Nude Vampire
Fascination
The Night of the Hunted
Lost in New York
The Living Dead Girl

Would like to see Demoniacs, his only pirate film before the deadline.

Puh, this is hard, as I've seen only 5 of his films, but 4 of them were masterpieces.

edit: with the new rules it's a bit easier.


01. The Grapes of Death (1978)
02. The Rape of the Vampire (1968)
03. Lips of Blood (1975)

Rollin seen: 5

greennui wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 1:44 pmWould like to see Demoniacs, his only pirate film before the deadline.

don't expect too much, even for a pirate film

i'm going to try to watch several more. watched rape of the vampire last night, and thankfully the title was only halfway revealing. a mess of a movie, but one of those cases where it maybe adds to instead of detracts from it.

Seen 9. No masterpieces, but these are better than the others:

1. Iron Rose
2. Shiver of the Vampires
3. Night of the Hunted
4. Lips of Blood

My MFA thesis film was titled The Iron Peony in reference to Rollin's film... and I stole the costumes essentially outright.




But I somehow never saw anything beyond The Iron Rose despite how much love I have for that film. I will try to watch at least Fascination before the poll's up.

Very excited to see a Rollin poll!

Seen 20

1. The Grapes of Death
2. The Nude Vampire
3. Lost in New York
4. The Iron Rose
5. Fascination
6. The Shiver of the Vampires
7. Two Orphan Vampires

if there aren't three voters by tomorrow who have seen 10+ rollin, i'll probably change the rules to the 'extended rules' so we get a few more votes, so for anyone who has posted a ballot already, check in tomorrow to see if you can vote for an extra film (or three in greennui's case)

Seen 5.

Fascination
The Night of the Hunted
Les amours jaunes

brian d wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 2:35 pm

greennui wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 1:44 pmWould like to see Demoniacs, his only pirate film before the deadline.

don't expect too much, even for a pirate film

I'm not expecting much but even at his worst I find his films very watchable, can't say the same for many of my other favorite filmmakers.

still have a few that i'll watch, but here's a tentative list (out of 15 seen) all done, unless i can track down one more. so out of 17 seen:

the iron rose
the grapes of death
the rape of the vampire
the night of the hunted
the shiver of the vampires

if things get expanded:
lips of blood

seems like there's an interesting thread of how the environment plays a role in rollin's films. some of these, like the grapes of death or the night of the hunted, at least touch on threats to the natural world, the food supply, etc. as motivators for the insanity that occurs in his films. the spanish eurohorror films i can think of are much more oriented around oedipal issues, and while there's a strong current of misogyny that can be found in the films, whether from the vantage point of the director/screenwriter or just the characters in the films, intentional or not on both levels, i'd place these above most gialli in terms of trying to get at something more profound. doesn't always work of course, rollin made plenty of terrible films, but that's not to say there's nothing redeeming there.

Only seen TROTV; hated it... but on the bright side, another director for my never seen/only seen one list!

flip wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 3:30 pm if there aren't three voters by tomorrow who have seen 10+ rollin, i'll probably change the rules to the 'extended rules' so we get a few more votes, so for anyone who has posted a ballot already, check in tomorrow to see if you can vote for an extra film (or three in greennui's case)

we didn't get those three voters, so we'll extend the rules:

- if you've seen an odd number of rollin films, then when dividing your rollin seen by 2 to calculate how long of a ballot you can submit, you can round up instead of down
- if you've seen more than ten rollin films, you can extend your ballot past five films

Umbugbene wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 2:49 pm Seen 9.

umbugbene, you can pick our next director!

Do we have enough views to do Marco Bellocchio? I've only seen 9, but I'd like to see how you all rate his movies. Next choice is Basil Dearden; I have 19.

i think we'd need to check on both - if anyone has seen several bellocchio or dearden films, please post here!

i'm not much help, four dearden and zero bellocchio

Bellocchio seen: 3

out of those 3 I loved one ("The Wedding Director"), was rather indifferent towards 2 ("Good Morning, Night" and "Slab the Monster on Page 2")

Dearden seen: 1

have 9 bellocchio and like all of them and adore a few, but he's one of my big projects for the next few months so i hope to see more sometime soon

5 each for Bellocchio and Dearden

nrh wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 1:48 pm have 9 bellocchio and like all of them and adore a few, but he's one of my big projects for the next few months so i hope to see more sometime soon

I'd be happy to wait for Bellocchio if you think you'll have more next round. I can easily come up with more directors if Dearden doesn't work.

if nrh is planning to watch more bellocchio in the next couple of months, i'd prefer to wait to poll him, that will make for a better poll. might also give me a chance to watch some. decent chance dearden will work, so we can wait to see how many views he has before trying fallback options, unless someone occurs to you that you'd prefer to dearden.

Good thinking, let's hold off on Bellocchio then. I'll give Basil Dearden a chance... the only two directors in my top tier that we haven't polled yet are Jean Cocteau (who only made 9 films) and Jean-Jacques Beineix (who I doubt has enough views). If Dearden doesn't work I'd go with Joseph Mankiewicz or René Clément.

I've seen 9 1/2 Deardens (missed the start of The Man Who Haunted Himself). And more than enough Mankiewiczs should it come to that.

i also have a lot of mankiewicz (11 or 12). if we can find one more person who has seen several dearden, we'll poll him, but if we don't, maybe we can do a mankiewicz poll this time, if that's cool with umbugbene.

I have 4 of Bellochio, 6 of Basil Dearden. I also have 10+ of both Mankiewicz and René Clément.

10+ Mankiewicz

it looks like we're a bit short on dearden views, but we can try him again a bit later on and maybe that will have changed. i'll start up a mankiewicz poll instead.

That's totally fine. Hope my Bellocchio and Dearden suggestions lead to some happy discoveries.

Really enjoyed The Night of the Hunted, it's popping visually, sad, occasionally sexy and very atmospheric. The architecture usage is off the charts as well. Faith in Rollin restored, definitely goes on the list.