Director's Final Films

probably Huston's "The Dead" which is pretty great. "Salo" is... something. most of these are pretty bad.

A Prairie Home Companion is a hell of a final film about last performances. Voted Blue before seeing it on the list.

Billy Wilder's Buddy Buddy left off the list out of respect for the deceased.

Of the eight I've seen, I'll vote for the Ozu, though Kieslowski comes close. I saw The Dead when it was released, but don't have much memory of it.

APHC is the warmest possible farewell film a director could make. I voted for it.

the grand budapest hotel

a great film in the grandest ophulsian manner, a profoundly elegiac swansong

Back when it was one of the few Buñuels available on decent VHS transfer I watched That Obscure Object of Desire often without being crazy about it. The same goes for An Autumn Afternoon.

nilmar you're in a very naughty mood today

TOOOD is perfection IMO but I've banged on about it at such length before it'd be wasteful to say much else

most of these are pretty bad.

As always, I stand corrected.

where's Cracking Up?

I should probably have specified "of the ones I've seen" (which is by no means all).

idg the praise for APHC

This one is just too difficult. "L'Argent", "...Astrea & Celadon", "F For Fake" and even the batshit wonder that is "7 Women" would all take top spot for me. Oh, and "Le Trou", The Buñuel... Nope. Impossible.

Wait - is Fellini's last one in here? Don't see it. Has one of the few Benigni performances I can tolerate. Strange and wonderful film.

Raul Ruiz's last one "La Noche De Enfrente" is wonderful as well. Very nearly trumps "Mysteries Of Lisbon" for me.

(apologies for overuse of 'wonder/ful', btw)

This is impossible.

star 80 or paprika

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted F for Fake over Imitation of Life just because it was listed earlier

"f for fake" really should not be on the list -- welles's last completed film was "making othello," from 1978.

have seen shamefully few of these, but "ivan the terrible II" and "the dead" are both really great.

Sleuth vs f for fake

Had it down to Gertrud and Eyes Wide Shut and ended up going for the one that I expected would get less votes.

Same reason I just voted for the one that has Goldfinger in it over the one that has Mahalia Jackson in it.

Billy Wilder's Buddy Buddy left off the list out of respect for the deceased

Was gonna mention that one's absence in conjunction with All The Marbles, since they're linked in my mind for some reason...I think Siskel/Ebert may have reviewed them both on the very same episode back in '81.

Jesus, imagine Salo as your last statement... intense

sorry, jesus isn't available at the moment

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

Wow, no one voted for Imitation of Life?

I like the original better.

Figured somebody would say that

oh what a bullshit winner

These polls always spread the vote thin and the winner is one of the three films that got the widest play.

Michael Bay's final film will be better than F for Fake

Yes, it's bullshit that the masterpiece Film Comment ranked as the 3rd best did well in this poll. Quite.

4 votes for Gertrud is surprising. I always associate it with the most difficult of difficult cinema but maybe that's due more to the circumstances in which I watched it (like 13 years ago on a really blurry VHS).

Gertrud in stellar company there, will have to give it a watch

Yes, it's bullshit that the masterpiece Film Comment ranked as the 3rd best did well in this poll. Quite.

― midnight outdoor nude frolic up north goes south (Eric H.), Thursday, September 26, 2013 3:52 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm sure I'm speaking for Morbs when I say that we are truly chastened and humbled by Film Comment's ranking of this Welles "masterpiece."

I think it's a masterpiece. 5 people thought it enough of a masterpiece to vote for.

yes plenty of people are in love with this movie and it's baffled me for a long time

what's wrong with it? obviously it's 90 minutes of orson welles vanity, but flipped around it's 90 minutes of being a guest at the greatest after-dinner speech ever recorded

plus it engages with the idea of the fictional narrative with loose-limbed & mischievous delight, which I enjoy. it's intelligent and sparky, the very opposite of complacent

it's not terrible but it is at best an amusing trifle. Just because a master made it doesn't make something a masterpiece.

WELL I THINK IT IS

wonder who my fellow Bunuel voters were :D

4 votes for Gertrud is surprising. I always associate it with the most difficult of difficult cinema but maybe that's due more to the circumstances in which I watched it (like 13 years ago on a really blurry VHS).

yeah, i share yr surprise - on two separate viewings it struck me as a rather stagey, ponderous chamber piece, far less compelling than Day of Wrath or Ordet. some wonderful camera movements, mind.

what's wrong with it?

Nothing's particularly WRONG with it except Orson Welles made at least ten better films.

All of which would've also placed highly in this poll had they been his final film (which as someone pointed out upthread, F4F isn't actually either, but whatev).

but Gertrud MIGHT be Dreyer's best film.

I voted for Gertrud, and it's not my favorite Dreyer, but it's just my favorite of these films, of which I haven't seen everyone. I'm not really a fan of final films, it seems. My second place was Cluny Brown, I think.

Gertrud is fantastic. That would have been my vote. Saw it for the first time maybe two years ago and it never registered to me as super difficult. Talky, stagey, yes, but always engaging.

Count me in the "shrug" category for F for Fake.

that scene is so fucking great.

Three Colors: Kubrick

Kubrick didn't live long enough to see EWS released in cinemas and - in the UK at least - he was, unsurprisingly, pretty exacting about the way his movies were projected. I saw EWS the day it opened in UK cinemas and was massively disappointed by the quality of the print - the colours were very washed out, the image quite grainy. The DVD/Blu-ray corrects this to some extent, but I do think that if Kubrick had lived a little longer the film would've looked better on the big screen.

the graininess and washed out colors are part of what make the intensity of the color scheme work, imo.

i am one of the disgusting animals that voted for f for fake fyi

meh, horrorfans I give a pass to, what can ya do

Reductum ad Morbsurdum

haha to both of you

same principle when one finds one's copy edited by someone who writes a long thoughtful review of the new Cher album

Was almost going to poll this before realizing I already had.

it still bugs me that f for fake won despite not being welles's actual last film!

(even tho i like it)

Love Streams also not technically Cassavetes' final film.

How did Imitation of Life not run away with this?!

I was wondering that too.

I think that was because the top three vote-getters are all better films than it.

Tbf it’s been a while since I’ve seen Imitation of Life, so maybe it’s time for a rewatch.

Of the eighteen I've seen, I'd have voted for The Sacrifice. My notes indicate that I saw The Ascent in the theatre, and I have absolutely no memory of it. Weakest is probably Lola Montes, a big fancy cake that spins and spins in front of the camera.
I have a pet theory that if Tarkovsky had lived to make another film, it might well have been terrible. He was keeping such a careful balance of mysticism and absurdity, and I can't imagine him pushing forward from this film without that equilibrium collapsing. But who knows whether it would have been made back in the USSR or in the West, and how that might have affected the production and the reception of it.
Most notable final film that's not on the list is The Turin Horse, which I regard less as a movie than a preview of dying.

That Tarr is still alive just underlines that.