Some Reviews of films I watched over my Cinematic Education. Part One.

[dean]

For memory's sake I was going over the films that I watched as part of my Cinema Studies subject stream at uni and realised that we watched a hell of a lot of films, which I thought I may as well list down here.  I'll split it up into parts, just for ease of reading [and typing for me]

For my first year of Uni, I did two Cinema subjects, the first of which introduced us to Hollywood and Art Cinemas.  Things got more specialised after this year.  These are films from the first subject:


The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming and King Vidor, 1939)

This was the first film for our first year subject, just to get us introduced to the Classical Hollywood story form.  Not much really to say about this one that you wouldn't already know.


A Bout de Souffle (Jean Luc Goddard, 1959)

Our week on French New Wave.  The film was great, though it had trouble keeping my attention at first.  The ending was fantastic as well.


Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

Explored cinematography and Welles¡¦ use of deep focus photography in this film.  I thought it was very well made and it had me engaged for the entire film.  Whilst the significance of Rosebud seems to have waned a little over the last few years for me, I really enjoyed the way the film was structured and edited.


Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)

German Expressionism and Subjective Narration.  This was my first German Expressionist film, and I really am disappointed I haven¡¦t seen many more, as I also really enjoyed how this film played out.


A Trip To the Moon (Georges Melies, 1902)

The Cinema of Attractions week: Special effects in film.  A Trip to the Moon is a short film which makes great use of editing and little special effects tricks that may seem silly when used now, but really shows a love for the creative cinematic form, rather than just filming something you see, and showing it again.


King Kong (Merian C Cooper, 1933)

Also part of Cinema of Attractions.  Of course this film was a lot of fun to watch.  You can't really complain when there's a giant Gorilla kicking the tar out of a T-Rex.


Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel Cohen, 2001)

Postmodernism week [amongst other things.]  I really liked this film, especially the soundtrack.


Bicycle Thieves (Vittori de Sica, 1948)

Italian Neo-Realism and film style in general.  This was an interesting Italian film, which I now own the DVD of, in which a father looking for work has his bike stolen, and since he needs the bike for work, is in a lot of trouble financially.  


Zentropa (Lars von Trier, 1991)

The week on editing and Semiotic film theory.  A friend of mine really hates Lars von Trier, but I really enjoyed the style in this film: the black and white film with bits of colour splashed through it, plus a good voiceover etc. Plus one of my favourite parts is in the final moments in which the main character tells passengers on the train he is working on "does anyone else want their shoes cleaned." [or something to that effect]  I guess if you've seen it you'll get what I mean.  Nice build up to a very good ending.


The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)

The Week on Genre styles.  Classic Western film.  Enough said really.


Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1951)

The Week on Sound, Music and the Star System.  A bit of fun entertainment really.


Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956)

The Week on B-film traditions [yay!] and Ideological Critique.  I enjoyed this film, though I liked the Donald Sutherland version better in terms of horror.


Run Lola Run (Tom Twyker, 1999)

The Week on Cinematography, and cinema stylists.  Interesting film which really plays around with how a traditional movie works.  I also own the soundtrack, which is fun to listen to everynow and then but gets a little repetitive [small wonder] after a while.


Well I'll be posting more a little later, but this'll do for now.

[Ash]

There's something wrong with your apostrophe key dean.

[dean]

I know, I fixed it up.  I wrote this all in microsoft word, and cut and pasted it in, don't know why it screwed up though.  What a pain.  But it's all better now!  Let me know if this format is hard to read, since I wasn't too sure if presenting them in this way was a bit too much.

[Ash]

It's fine....looks good.

[odinn7]

Whew...Now that you've got the Ash Seal of Approval, you're good to go.

[Scottie]

I didn't know King Vidor helped direct The Wizard Of Oz....

Breathless is a love/hate movie of mine. I love it because of its inventive style, but I hate it because of its excessive praise. A jump cut wasn't even his idea. Anyone ever hear of Soviet Montage? Godard was more about politics anyways and he also happened to be a talented filmmaker. His whole underground dziga-vertov group designed to overthrow the government from the underground whatever crap was kind of cool. But again, he stole it from Soviet Montage. Dziga-Vertov (which means "perpetually spinning top") isn't an original idea. Dziga-Vertov was a Soviet documentarian and newsreelmaker. Watch "Man With a Movie Camera, it's the best. Anyways, I think Truffaut is a better New-Wave filmmaker. But then again, I have a setimental heart, and the Antoine Doinel series is just great.

Favorite Goddard quote: "All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun"

My favorite film out of all of the ones you mentioned is The Bicycle Thief. Italian Neorealism has such a strong message and The Bicycle Thief captures the sentiments of postwar Italy the best.

As for Lars Von Trier, he has made two of the BEST films in the past ten years. I refer to Dogville and Idioterne. Him and the Dogme 95 school of thought are outstanding. Also see Vinterberg's Festen or Celebration, a film shot in the Dogme 95 style and considered by its founding members to be Dogme #1.

http://www.dogme95.dk/

I noticed you have a movie form the French New Wave, but nothing from its First Wave. If you haven't seen anything from the French Impressionists yet, I highly suggest watching Menilmontant. I absolutely love their idea of filmmaking and the idea of photogenie, or how the photographic process affects our impression of an image. Light, shadow, depth, focus, they are all the impression of the filmmaker's view of the situation, and they are used to imitate the feelings and moods of the characters on screen. These ideas were the first of their kind and go to show how the French are some of the most influential filmmakers in the world.

If you're interested Dean, I'll post a list of films I saw from my study of world cinema classes as well. We watched two films every week and shorts in class each semester.

[dean]

Go for it Scottie, I'm always interested in world cinema, and that sort of thing.  Sounds like fun.

As for first wave, we didn't watch any for that particular class: we had 12 weeks and it was an intro into some of the more general film stuff, but we may have studied at least one later on in a different subject [off the top of my head I can't really remember but perhaps not]

[BoyScoutKevin]

The special effects in Melies' "A Trip to the Moon" may look special, but really are not, except for the stop-motion. They are really just stage tricks that magicians had been using for years. What makes them seem special, is that George Melies, a magician in his own right, took the tricks he used on the stage and put them on film.

[daveblackeye15]

A very good list that covers a lot of angles.

But a very poor list for B-Movies.

What no Godzilla movies? The hell with that!

[dean]

Yeah I wish there were more B-movies and such, but fortunatley we were subjected to some in other subjects: since this was an introductory subject, the list is fairly mainstream.

And yes, the special effects in Trip to the Moon may not seem that special [since he was a magic guy who played around alot with effects] but those effects on film show a pretty good use of the cinematic form, especially at such an early time when alot of films were merely landscape shots, or trains and what-not [fairly standard stuff.]  I guess it's always great to see people experimenting with the filmic form.

[Scott]

RUN LOLA RUN has been on my short list for a long time now and I even rented it last month, but didn't have time to view it before returning it, so maybe soon for me.

Been wanting to catch OH BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? also.

[dean]

Go for it Scott! Run Lola Run is an interesting flick, with a unique style which I enjoyed.  Oh Brother is also a favourite of mine.

Also for those interested in the music of Oh Brother, there is a great DVD called Down From the Mountain which is a live concert of the music and was pretty good as well.  

[BoyScoutKevin]

As for "Oh, Brother. Where Art Thou?" One wonders if that was one of the films included for the week of intro. into myth and Homer. As, basically, it is a modern retelling of Homer's "Odyssey."

One of those films that critics regard as being both one of the best and worst films of the year. It did, for a short time, revive an interest in American folk music.

And as an added attraction, "Oh, Brother. Where Art Thou?" was the title of the film, Joel McCrea was working on, in "Sullivan's Travels."