SCFZ

Polling the films of director Rene Clement

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Clement 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: greennui, bure, roscoe, kanafani, greg x, silga, oscarwerner, john ryan, mrcarmady, umbugbene

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

Forbidden Games

seen two, should see more

2.

Purple Noon

seen 3

forbidden games
purple noon


wish i could vote for purple noon as well...

brian d wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 3:23 pm wish i could vote for purple noon as well...

you might get that chance! if most of the ballots are as short as the ones so far, i'll switch to the extended rules...

and you can pick our next director if you like!

Seen 2.

Soigne ton gauche / Watch Your Left (1936)

Seen 9:

The Walls of Malapaga
Forbidden Games
Plein Soleil
Gervaise

Seen 9:

1. Les félins (a.k.a. Joy House)
2. Plein soleil (a.k.a. Purple Noon)
3. Les maudits
4. Rider on the Rain
5. Forbidden Games

yeah, looking at the ballots so far, let's switch to the extended rules:

- if you have seen an odd number of clement films, you can round up instead of down when deciding the length of your ballot (e.g. if you've seen 7, you can vote for 4 instead of the usual 3)

- if you have seen more than 10 clement films, you can vote for more than 5 (e.g. if you've seen 13, you can vote for 7)

FORBIDDEN GAMES
PURPLE NOON

I'd like PURPLE NOON more if it didn't cop out on Highsmith's ending. But even as fudged as it is, it's better than Minghella's gloomfest version of the story.

Cosign everything Roscoe said including the ballot

Forbidden games
Purple noon

Just seen one of the random Tati flicks he did

Seen 16.
1. Forbidden Games (1952)
2. Purple Noon (1960)
3. The Damned(Les maudits)- (1947)
4. The Battle of the Rails- (1946)
5. Joy House(Les félins)- (1964)

does anyone who really likes clement have a pitch for him as a director? I've seen forbidden games years ago (thought it was very overcooked, mawkish nonsense but have a feeling i might not feel that way if seen now), purple noon (it kind of owns but it's delon and one of highsmith's best books and all the kind of had to do is not miss the landing totally), and battle of the rails (fascinating from production standpoint at least), but can't really find any personal continuity between them. and the rest of his work seems sort of all over the place, though not in an uninteresting way...

like forbidden games, actually love the directing, the composition and pacing kill it for me

but i've never particularly liked his directing in the other 5 i've seen

seen 3

1. Forbidden Games
2. The Damned

Rider on the Rain
Joy House
Purple Noon
The Battle of the Rails

and if needed to extend the final to ten

The Baby Sitter

Seen 3

Forbidden Games
Purple Noon

Not seen much, but what I've seen was great!

01. Joy House (1964)
02. Purple Noon (1960)

Clément seen: 4

brian d wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 3:23 pm seen 3

Evelyn Library P.I. wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 3:42 pm Seen 2.

i haven't heard from brian for a nomination for our next director. so i'll open things up - evelyn, if you'd like to pick our next director, feel free! i'll accept a nomination from whoever posts first, and whoever does not post first will get a chance later this round, if they want to pick a director

i counted greg's ballot as a five-film ballot, which let us get exactly to a top ten - probably no surprises at the top, a few titles that are interesting to me at least nearer the end:

results
1. Forbidden Games (1952) — 20 pts
2. Purple Noon (1960) — 19 pts
3. Joy House (1964) — 12 pts
4. The Damned (1947) — 7 pts
4. Rider on the Rain (1970) — 7 pts
6. The Walls of Malapaga (1949) — 4 pts
6. The Battle of the Rails (1946) — 4 pts
8. Wanted: Babysitter (1975) — 1 pt
8. Gervaise (1956) — 1 pt
8. Soigne ton Gauche (1936) — 1 pt

edited my first posting of the results to fix the sequencing error

flip wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 3:34 pm

brian d wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 3:23 pm seen 3

Evelyn Library P.I. wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 3:42 pm Seen 2.

i haven't heard from brian for a nomination for our next director. so i'll open things up - evelyn, if you'd like to pick our next director, feel free! i'll accept a nomination from whoever posts first, and whoever does not post first will get a chance later this round, if they want to pick a director

I'll offer two options we'd probably have to check views on: Gregory La Cava (I have 7, and would watch at least 1 more for a poll) and Edward L. Cahn (seen 9).

Starting to get hard for me to come up with names I've seen enough from that haven't been polled yet. A lot of the people I'd love to do are people I'm just beginning to explore like Lew Landers, William Beaudine, Chor Yuen, Riccardo Freda, etc. but hopefully I'll get my views up on them and others in time.

i've seen 5 from la cava, and 2 from cahn -- i'd bet la cava will work, and i'm less optimistic about cahn, but let's check views on each. if anyone has seen 7+ films by either gregory la cava or edward cahn, please post here!

4 La Cava
7 Cahn

For some reason I can't abide the English title "Joy House". I always use the French title Les félins ("The Felines").

4 cahns 9 lacavas

we always need someone to have seen 10+ by a nominated director -- if anyone has seen 10+ from either cahn or la cava, then with the views so far, either will work. if not, we'll need another suggestion, but i'm happy to wait another day to see.

it doesn't look like la cava or cahn will work, unfortunately. if you'd like to try someone else, we can see if a different director has enough views, and if you don't have anyone to suggest right now, it will be either brian or st gloede's turn, whoever wants to.

flip wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 7:53 pm it doesn't look like la cava or cahn will work, unfortunately. if you'd like to try someone else, we can see if a different director has enough views, and if you don't have anyone to suggest right now, it will be either brian or st gloede's turn, whoever wants to.

I'll have to pass the baton then, as I'm running out of names I can help with.