Grandest 'Film Folly' Of All

Hell of a choice. In terms of sheer 'you are high and fuck you forever,' Kolberg probably takes the cake but god knows who'd want to sit through any of it.

I will always have a fondness for Cleopatra. Drunk on its own post-World War II 'America rules the cultural world and rewrites it in its image' grandeur.

Playtime would probably always be my fallback one to watch, though.

If I really did have an S&S ballot for real, I'd be tempted to stuff the entire ballot with movies from this list.

xpost you got it, Ned. This is all about movies that are drunk on themselves.

I've only seen four of these--if I'm correctly interpreting "magnificently off the rails" to mean which one's the best, I'll abstain, because of the four I'd pick Apocalypse Now, and I'm not that big a fan. Surprised he didn't list Heaven's Gate. My own choice might be Magnolia.

Heaven's Gate is mentioned briefly in the company of Apocalypse Now. He differentiates:

(Apocalypse Now's) faults are the spillover of its virtues: a feverish rush of ideas about the war, the characters, the sources and implications of its story, the formal possibilities of filmmaking. The picture begins and ends with the screen bursting into flames, and the events in between play like a rolling conflagration.

Heaven's Gate, on the other hand, is merely a long, expensive flop, whose most striking characteristic is an air of utter literal-mindedness. ... Heaven's Gate was the result not of extravagance but of a plodding discipline.

So it's not really just about budgets. Magnolia's not really even in the conversation here, tbh.

By the way, I really recommend this book, despite it's own (probably inevitable) hoity-toity tone.

To me, Magnolia does belong. It's wildly ambitious, completely nuts, sometimes brilliant, sometimes stupefying, etc. Disagree with regards to Heaven's Gate, too--I mean, he clearly doesn't like the film, and that's fine, but I think a lot of people would argue it practically defines what he's talking about.

No, it doesn't. This is about movies that compare to Wagner, not Pluto Nash.

i don't really think cleopatra is "feverish" tbh, closer to the description of heaven's gate than not

(In reference to Magnolia, I mean, not Heaven's Gate, which he does include, fleetingly.)

That's a good line about Magnolia, but you're essentially saying "Here are the criteria, and this film doesn't belong because...I don't like it." It does fit the criteria.

Read the book and then we'll discuss why it doesn't belong.

Okay--you stay where you are, and I'll be back in three days...Not that I know anything about Wagner, but having seen Duel in the Sun, I'm guessing it's closer to Ed Wood.

Um, not really. Again, this isn't even an issue of quality or effectiveness on normal movie terms. This is a stricter sort of taxonomy I'm talking about here.

You know, if I hadn't seen Duel in the Sun, I might actually fall under the spell of "stricter sort of taxonomy"...

Can we just say we disagree and leave it at that?

No.

Okay, let's fight. I think the category's great. But I don't feel any need to take his picks as gospel. (And no--oh no!--I haven't read the book.) "This is all about movies that are drunk on themselves." That's Heaven's Gate, and that's Magnolia--totally, and completely.

I appreciate you abstaining from voting, if you're really going to compare PTA's experience making Magnolia to Lang and Von Stroheim making Metropolis and Greed.

Well, now you're bringing in something new altogether. Are we talking about the finished film, or what went into the making of that film? If I look back at the original post, there's really no indication that process had anything to do with it, unless I missed something.

It's sort of right there in these movies' gestalt. I didn't think I really had to explain that because, especially in cases like Apocalypse Now and Fitzcarraldo, it's sorta self-evident. Extravagance/exertion as both journey and destination. (So, yes, you can definitely argue that Heaven's Gate at least merits discussion, and is part of it in Klawans' book, even if he decides that it's a different sort of money-sucking beast.)

Okay--I was asleep at the switch and missed the gestalt. (For dummies like me, explanations are helpful.) Seems to me the category is now widened to any number of infamous follies from Peckinpah, Gilliam, Spielberg, etc.

Please, don't.

Or at least not until you have read the book.

Homework thus assigned, I bid you good night.

Happy reading.

Based on the criteria outlined above, shouldn't Waterworld be on the list? (High-on-his-own-ego actor/producer/director with a megalomaniac vision, went way over its budget, etc.)

Do not--I repeat, do not--question the list. The list is good. The list abides.

I'd have thought a "magnif off-the-rails" movie would be the original "Casino Royale"

A James Bond film, rights to which were up for grabs, obtained and actioned. Should have been an easy. but: Hey, let's get Orson Welles and Peter Sellers. That'll make it easy to make! And so on, etc...

xpost not questioning the list, just adding another.

Good luck to the both of you; may peace be with you as you embark on this difficult journey.

Kolberg, easily. They pulled a bunch, i think several thousand soldiers off the eastern front - in 1945! - to star as extras in it. No folly on the list can come close to that. I don't think Goebbels actually directed it though?

That said, maybe it made the 39-45 war shorter by a few days, who knows?

Les Amants du Pont-Neuf - Classic or Dud?

Thanks for the list btw - I have a feeling some of these are available on Mubi!

Apparently reading this book makes you act like a real dickweed

Unless I missed that Eric H is the kind of guy who trumpets a 'strict taxonomy' for 'movies that are drunk on themselves' before this

apparently not reading this book and finding the idea of reading a book ludicrous makes you awesome and insightful. very 2010.

oh wtf, dude

I'm talking about eric h giving another ilxor shit for not understanding his criteria for a pretty nebulous concept, not for being literate

For what it's worth; last night, I suggested a couple of films that I thought could go on this list. I'm not at all opposed to the idea of reading the book. Reading is good--I do it all the time. But I didn't think that reading the book would be a precondition of suggesting ammendments to the list; the concept for the list seemed fairly clear to me, although apparently I did slightly misunderstand.

does Gregory Pecks sport a 'stache in Duel in the Sun? Man, I've wanted to rent for years but I've burned so many times by Peck and his facial hair.

I always expect the movie will be terrific camp and it's usually, er, not.

*Peck

no need to understand or familiarize yrself w/ an idea to have as valid a take on it as anyone else right?

no need to explain your criteria coherently before starting an ilx thread on the subject and bitching out those who dare to contribute, right?

defending ignorance as more valid than expertise is one daring contribution

defending ignorance as more valid than expertise

are you for real?

no need to understand or familiarize yrself w/ an idea to have as valid a take on it as anyone else right?

Well...(sighs)...I thought I did understand the idea; that's why I commented in the first place.

there is almost no such thing as terrific camp.

(victimized by too many smug NYC theater chortlers)

Greatest "ILE Thread Folly" of All.

balls you are awful at this

Luckily I don't live in NYC and believe in "almost."

The weird thing is, I'm arguing with Eric H and balls, and I generally find both of you to be very reasonable on here.

its been a while since i read the book, but i *think this is a poll of the movies the book investigates, so i don't really see the problem with eric h saying "i didn't include other movies cos they aren't in the book, so read the book", because that would be another poll.

didnt realize lust in the dust was such an extravagant production, need to see that i guess - voted for fitzcarraldo since the documentary's so memorable

feel like one of demille's silent epics should be on here but maybe i don't understand the criteria too

its been a while since i read the book, but i *think this is a poll of the movies the book investigates, so i don't really see the problem with eric h saying "i didn't include other movies cos they aren't in the book, so read the book", because that would be another poll.

If he'd said that way--and said it politely--I would have understood.

IIRC DeMille's silent epics were pretty str8forward & lacking in any kind of folly as far as shooting them went, the only exception being putting Gloria Swanson in a cage with a live lion for one of them, "Male and Female" I think. Michael Curtiz' "Noah's Ark" might be a silent-era pick, if non-book picks are allowable - the biblical scenes are ridiculously OTT and they killed several extras making the flood scenes.

One possible inclusion I thought of that I think fits the criteria as I now understand it is Hopper's Last Movie. I haven't seen it, though, so I don't really have anything to say about it.

didnt the silent ten commandments have ungodly massive sets with extras falling off them and dying?

method actors!

Sorry, but I have to break in with my impression of Billy Crystal's impression of Edward G. Robinson: "Ah, so where's your Messiah now?"

I don't recall that, I have it on DVD, but TBH I couldn't stand sitting thru it again, it's a drag. "Ungodly massive sets withextras falling off" sounds more like DW Griffith's "Intolerance".

yeah, i'm probably getting my silent epics mixed up

Honestly didn't think I was being a dickwad about it, but yeah, I'm guilty of not doing a good enough job setting the terms.

The word "folly" in this context is something drawn from out of the realm of architecture, so that's why I was being stricter about the terminology.

The best way I can think of to explain what a movie that qualifies here is: Imagine Russian Ark. Now imagine they constructed the set (i.e. the Hermitage) specifically and only for that film.

(And, yeah, there's also the fact that this is a poll of the movies in the book.)

the biblical scenes are ridiculously OTT and they killed several extras making the flood scenes

I sometimes wonder which movie has the highest death toll.

"The Conqueror" is the obvious answer to that one

quick c/p from shitipedia:

The exterior scenes were shot on location near St. George, Utah, 137 miles (220 km) downwind of the United States government's Nevada Test Site. In 1953, extensive above-ground nuclear weapons testing occurred at the test site, as part of Operation Upshot-Knothole. The cast and crew spent many difficult weeks on location, and in addition Hughes later shipped 60 tons of dirt back to Hollywood in order to lend verisimilitude to studio re-shoots.[1] The film-makers knew about the nuclear tests[1] but the federal government reassured residents that the tests caused no hazard to public health.[2]

Dick Powell died of cancer in January 1963, only a few years after the picture's completion. Pedro Armendáriz was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1960 and committed suicide in 1963 after he learned it was terminal. Hayward, Wayne, and Moorehead all died of cancer in the mid to late 1970s. Cast member actor John Hoyt died of lung cancer in 1991. Skeptics point to other factors such as the wide use of tobacco - Wayne and Moorehead in particular were heavy smokers - and the notion that cancer resulting from radiation exposure does not have such a long incubation period. The cast and crew totaled 220 people. By 1981, 91 of them had developed some form of cancer and 46 had died of the disease.[2] Dr. Robert Pendleton, professor of biology at the University of Utah, stated, "With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you'd expect only 30 some cancers to develop...I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up in a court of law."

Eric H: Does Klawans mention Hopper's Last Movie?

I don't think so. I don't have the book on me, but I can look at the index later.

You're definitely right, Pash.

saw 'l'inhumaine ' this year

not impressed

surprised not to see 'napoleon'

not really sure 'metropolis' goes off the rails

That's one movie that I'm thinking was included to support Klawans' architectural thesis more so than directorial hubris, though it was a pretty massive and expensive undertaking, no?

yeah it was probably the biggest film made in europe at that time

there was one really huge pre-war one but i've forgotten about it

i thought metropolis was the most expensive movie ever when it was made?

xpost Yeah, I haven't boned up on my Brownlow in awhile.

Wow @ "The Conqueror"...I never heard that story. Crazy...

Yeah, one of the Medved books has a pic of JWayne and various crew standing around a geiger counter on-site and lolling.

And this is what it was all for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8U1LVNjJx0

Not to mention this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciHbJkb9OKI

And then did I note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsnWOyfMq4I

But I suppose there was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYHU19ntDBQ

Meanwhile going back to Pash's c/p above -- "Operation Upshot-Knothole," okay SOMEBODY was fucking around there.

"Operation Upshot-Knothole" I mean can I just . . .

xp lol

Overseen by General Bick Dutt Wass-Sipe

Holy shit @ these Conqueror clips

The whole thing is just insane. I taped it off TV back in the early nineties and good god almighty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXXZ6URb4VU

Meantime, if you want a full ten minutes of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gey8eAFe5uw

Stop it!

Hahah. (There's not that much more on YouTube, for which we should all be grateful.)

"The Conqureror" is absolutely dreadful from beginning to end, not even entertainingly bad, just grim and dull.

"Upshot-Knothole" I at first thought was some guy's lol-WP edit, but no, it was for real, there are video clips of it on youtube, a nuclear shell fired from a big field gun!

"The Conqureror" is absolutely dreadful from beginning to end, not even entertainingly bad, just grim and dull.

Yeah, good camp it ain't. At least some of the lines are great in isolation given who was speaking them:

Temujin: Come and take me, mongrels - if you dare. While I have fingers to grasp a sword, and eyes to see your cowardly faces, your treacherous heads will not be safe on your shoulders. For I am Temujin, the Conqueror. No prison can hold me, no army defeat me.

I was thinking of starting a similar poll, but limited to American films from approximately At Long Last Love to One from the Heart--seems like every big American director of that period had an oversized disaster (sometimes more than one). I want to check first, though (not sure what search term to use): has this been done already?

hard to know which criteria to vote on exactly here (fitzcarraldo for the stories, greed for the legend, apocalypse now for the heart attack), but since playtime is one of my favourite movies i guess i'll go for that.

i think lola montes is one of my all-time "wished i liked it better" movies

surprised not to see 'napoleon'

yeah!

jesus READ THE BOOK

totally agree about Lola

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/FQdlY0-0fhM/

snowball fight starts at about 2:30 and shit starts to get crazy at around 7:00

Napoléon is one of my all-time favorites. I wish I could see the complete 6-hour film projected with the three screen finale but that'll probably never happen.

I was thinking of starting a similar poll, but limited to American films from approximately At Long Last Love to One from the Heart--seems like every big American director of that period had an oversized disaster (sometimes more than one). I want to check first, though (not sure what search term to use): has this been done already?

Don't think so, but that would be a good one too. I like a lot of those movies.

LOVE One From The Heart, and would actually like to revisit At Long Last Love. It's been (probably justifiably) OOP for years. Clemenza, please do poll.

I have only seen 3 of the films in the OP, and haven't read the book, so won't vote, but Fitzcarraldo has some imagery that has stuck with me since 1982. I've never seen the making-of doc Burden Of Dreams; need to.

Great, I'll set it up tonight--it's always been a group of films that fascinated me. No reading list, suggestions and omissions encouraged. (Sorry, Eric H., couldn't resist.)

Please include Song of Norway if you intended for us to vote for the worst.

Hahah. THAT film.

Good Lord yes, was dragged to that as a school field trip. Others off the top of my head: Waterworld (if you're going that late), Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, 1941.

Just realized there's only 2 years separating Waterworld and Cowgirls. Sorry to derail this thread, will wait for other one.

(Sorry, Eric H., couldn't resist.)

No worries. I guess I torpedoed this one without even realizing it.

My own window of interest is the '70s. Waterworld and Cowgirls[i] certainly belong on a folly poll somewhere, but I know more about the '75-'82 debacles--all the [i]Easy Rider/Raging Bull directors meeting their Waterloos. Maybe someone who knows more about the late-'80s could set up a second poll?

Try again (italics are my own Waterloo):

My own window of interest is the '70s. Waterworld and Cowgirls certainly belong on a folly poll somewhere, but I know more about the '75-'82 debacles--all the Easy Rider/Raging Bull directors meeting their Waterloos. Maybe someone who knows more about the late-'80s could set up a second poll?

i think lola montes is one of my all-time "wished i liked it better" movies

Seconded.

Good Lord yes, was dragged to that as a school field trip.

You saw Song of Norway in a theater?!? I'm 1% jealous, 99% ready to help you with grief counseling.

Seconded.

― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, December 8, 2010 3:15 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

technically, you thirded me, but who's counting

Lola Montes was one of those movies where I should love it but I ended up being indifferent.

I like Lola Montes just fine.

Wow @ "The Conqueror"...I never heard that story. Crazy...

Inspired the Mekons song "The Flame That Killed John Wayne."

I had heard the Conqueror stories, had never seen any clips. That looks wretched.

But not as wretched as Song Of Norway!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKHKQ1p4HZk&feature=related

I do think Cleopatra is sort of the odd one out among these choices in that it really does seem to be a pretty irredeemable misfire, as opposed to glorious. (Never managed to get through it, myself.)

that's probably because it's an huge epic made by a guy who was essentially a screenwriter.

^^^

That would explain a couple things.

Watch it as Liz and Richard's first vacation films and it's a treat. (Legendary line from Mankiewicz during one of their love scenes: "Cut...CUT!...I feel like I'm intruding!")

Also it's just weird to be watching and see all these familiar people in different contexts. "Oh hey, Carroll O'Connor."

I made it through it (pan-and-scan) on TV in the '70s. The 4:30 Movie on WABC would show it in a 90-minute slot, all week, in 4 or 5 parts.

Uncut it's something like four hours -- allegedly the original cut was *six* hours. There's a couple of ridiculously rough edits where you can tell they chopped out something after Mankiewicz lost control of the cut.

Filmed in Super Panavision 70 by Davis Boulton and presented in single-camera Cinerama in some countries, it was a clear attempt to capitalise on the success of The Sound of Music but suffered from a weak script, poor editing (by the director's wife), unappealing animation and an ill-advised stunt sequence (directed by Yakima Canutt) which appeared to portray Grieg as an action hero.

yakima canutt? im fucking sold!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Still think you cocked this one up, Clemenza.

My own window of interest is the '70s.

Posts so in character they didn't even need to be posted.

LOL this thread, memories

No Ludwig (Visconti, 1973), no credibility.

I liked L'Inhumaine, but as a precursor of the more epic lol-80s music videos. (Which I suspect were made by film students who had been trained on whatever version of Metropolis was in circulation.)

Foolish Wives is almost restrained compared to The Merry Widow (1925) or The Wedding March (1928). I haven't seen Queen Kelly, but all accounts suggest it's in the same vein.

Classic ILX right here.

That's for sure!

xp Clyde Fitch and this thread, thought you may not know it, were well before my time.

What makes a man walk into a lion cage with nothing but a chair?

clem, did you ever read Klawans?

Helluva book!

Don't know what the total death toll was for those who worked on Stalker compared to The Conqueror, mentioned above, but it's likely that the industrial location shooting near poisoned waterways was when Tarkovsky contracted cancer.

The only copy of this book is in a non-circulating reference library downtown, otherwise I'd like to read it.

One possible inclusion I thought of that I think fits the criteria as I now understand it is Hopper's Last Movie.

I actually like it a lot, but unlike all the other choices on the list, The Last Movie is barely coherent as a movie, thus losing a lot of potential grandeur in the eyes of most viewers.

This thread is the classic example of the insular, cock-tugging male critics worldview ILX is sometimes so terrible for.

Eric: I remember this thread. Of the many arguments I've had on here, this'd be one where I think back and--without even scrolling back--regret being needlessly difficult. Sorry.

I certainly didn’t do myself any favors either, obviously, and am fine (retroactively) haveing gotten called out on it

This thread is the classic example of the insular, cock-tugging male critics worldview ILX is sometimes so terrible for.

Hey, I was trying to be charitable :)