ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

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I just watched Sherlock Jr for the first time. really lovely film, a nice way to kick things off. a couple notes and questions:

- near the beginning, the pile of trash, the dollars within it, the wallet with many dollars within it, and the woman who was missing a dollar - that was masterful, very like a stage play, and did wonders to quickly establish the nature of his character.
- there's a banana peel gag in this film. when did the banana peel gag start? when was the last banana peel gag?
- i loved the film within a film, which is most of this film, "Hearts and Pearls", and especially how the musicians were shown at the bottom of the shot, playing along. but the music that is played (via youtube) was added later on, of course. so, i think it would particularly brilliant to see this film in theaters, as it was shown then, with buster keaton in a film within a film with the musicans in real life playing music to accompany the fake musicians on the screen above them.
- i know keaton did all of his own stunts. holy shit, some of them. it's such a quick shot, but that part where he's on them motorcycle and the bridge collapses and he smoothly glides from an upper plane to a lower? he should have died! amazing.

President of Destiny Encounters International (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 15 February 2023 05:15 (one year ago) link

oh yeah, and also, what is this painting at the top?

https://i.imgur.com/TCazPDQ.jpg

it resembles matisse's Dancers, but it's not that

President of Destiny Encounters International (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 15 February 2023 05:20 (one year ago) link

it's a metafictional action movie presenting alternative lives, but it has a heart too = it's the EEAAO of 1924!

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Wednesday, 15 February 2023 16:24 (one year ago) link

Episode of "Hollywood" (1980) on Chaplin, Lloyd & Keaton is here, it's well worth a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PvymClFrPU

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Wednesday, 15 February 2023 16:30 (one year ago) link

will try to watch SHERLOCK JR tonight

have we had a 2010s poll btw? I know we all gave some picks in one thread or another recently

k3vin k., Wednesday, 15 February 2023 20:42 (one year ago) link

Maybe it's because of my current steady diet of Hong Kong and Indian action cinema, but though Sherlock Junior is full of great jokes what stuck out more to me is how much Keaton laid down the foundations for action cinema. This is a matter of record - Jackie Chan has spoken of his influence a lot. The stunts of course, but also stuff like the pool table scene could totally fit into a modern action film. Morbius grumbled about the lack of Keaton when ILX did an action movies poll, and I recall rolling my eyes at that a bit, but yeah he was right!

Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 18 February 2023 14:55 (one year ago) link

otm

after the pinefox (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 18 February 2023 15:14 (one year ago) link

The world does not deserve Buster Keaton—yet he does not complain.
-David Thomson

after the pinefox (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 18 February 2023 15:51 (one year ago) link

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Vintage_Potemkin.jpg/424px-Vintage_Potemkin.jpg

Battleship Potemkin Sergei Eisenstein, 1925
Morbsies #762, Sight & Sound Critics #54, Sight & Sound Directors #93
YouTube link

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Monday, 20 February 2023 13:20 (one year ago) link

I've been doing something like this since Xmas, starting with Dr M's list (I posted a list in the last movies watched thread).

And in the last month or so I've focused on the BFI list.

The Gleaners and I (Varda, 2000)
My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki, 1988)
Wanda (Loden, 1970)
City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)

Wanda was pretty good and the one film in the top 100 I hadn't heard of at all.

Miyazaki was fine (I took against anime for random reasons in a lame way in the past) and I felt quite a bit for the drawings of the little sister and the fluffy monster even if it was the overall package was no revelation in the end. But that's a deficiency in not really growing up with children's lit, I think.

The Varda was pretty much perfect despite the slightly annoying tics where she is playing a role.

xyzzzz__, Monday, 20 February 2023 15:14 (one year ago) link

OK, now here's one I rewatched pretty recently, and in proximity with another silent movie with thousands of cuts that will be coming up shortly enough, and ...

Eisenstein's insertion of homoerotics aside, this one just didn't hold up that well for me. Even the Odessa steps sequence felt a few, ahem, cuts below similar montage blitzes from the same era.

عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Monday, 20 February 2023 15:24 (one year ago) link

(And by "didn't hold up that well" I mean it's still pretty good, but I much much much prefer the theatrics of Ivan the Terrible.)

عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Monday, 20 February 2023 15:24 (one year ago) link

I saw it--meaning I was physically present when it was screened--in film class 40 years ago.

clemenza, Monday, 20 February 2023 16:06 (one year ago) link

Potemkin's short enough to show in a film class, as I did last week with the Odessa steps sequence before switching to The Limey (the module was on editing).

Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 20 February 2023 16:12 (one year ago) link

Would've been better to flip from the Odessa steps to "Take Off With Us"

عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Monday, 20 February 2023 16:12 (one year ago) link

So here's where I admit I'm a bad cinephile when it comes to silent cinema. The stuff I do like tends towards the populist - comedy, serials, fantasy/horror stuff with lots of cool sets and effects for me to gawk at. When things get loftier I struggle.

Rooting for the lads in this an' all but I find it difficult to imagine this being anyone's favourite film. The last twenty or so minutes in partic were hard going for me, not a big war movie guy either.

That being said: the Odessa sequence is rightly famous and very exciting. There's some memorable shots - the sailors imagining themselves hanging off the sails, the broken glasses. The preacher dude was striking.

I like the pulpy flavour of the chapter headings - Drama On The Deck, A Dead Man Calls Out.

The coloured red flag (assuming this was painted in the original and not some bizarre choice from the restoration?) looks a bit garish tbh.

Props to the score from the version I watched (BFI Player); subtle it ain't but it kept my attention at many moments where I think it would otherwise have been flagging.

Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 18:50 (one year ago) link

I've also just finished this. First thought: that must have been some really bad soup.

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 19:01 (one year ago) link

But yes, there were so many brilliant shots or scenes here - the tracking shots at the start of the steps sequence are just astounding for example - but as an entire film it didn't really do that much for me. I can see why it's important, there's a lot that feels brand new here, but it's obvious why this is typically excepted rather than watched in full.

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 19:04 (one year ago) link

I think I need a good commentary track to really unlock this one for me, provided one exists that actually engages with what is happening onscreen as opposed to rambling off the movie's production and cast and crew's other credits as seems to have become the norm for the form.

xppst it was made with beef that had bugs in it!

Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 19:04 (one year ago) link

they are maggots, not worms!

Revolutions podcast had an episode mostly about the history behind this story, may have to dig it out.

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 19:07 (one year ago) link

More dead kids in this one than a lot of other movies in our Film Club, fwiw

عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 19:08 (one year ago) link

yeah the kid getting trampled was pretty gruesome and unexpected

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 19:24 (one year ago) link

Inspired jarring shots in Bonnie & Clyde and The Godfather:

https://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/bc30-230x300.jpg

clemenza, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 20:09 (one year ago) link

Eisenstein thought a lot about editing on a shot-by-shot level but didn't seem to concern himself too much with overall pacing. As a Godard fan, I don't mind didactic movies, but I'm never not going to feel like I'm sitting in a classroom when an Eisenstein film is playing.

Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 01:28 (one year ago) link

More dead kids in this one than a lot of other movies in our Film Club, fwiw

2nd only to Children of Men

Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 01:30 (one year ago) link

(shoah?)

koogs, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 01:44 (one year ago) link

Sadly Narciso Serrador's Who Could Kill A Child? didn't make the cut.

As a Godard fan, I don't mind didactic movies, but I'm never not going to feel like I'm sitting in a classroom when an Eisenstein film is playing.

But Godard has doubts, he contradicts himself, he changes his mind! By contrast Potemkin is as clear cut and certain as any white hats vs black hats action film. There is no interest in interrogating anything.

To be clear, I'm not saying I wanted the czarist officer class to get a more sympathetic portrayal - it's not an event that can be Both Sides-ed. But I think the very nature of silent cinema means there's a ceiling on the interiority the characters can display, and as a result on how well the film can portray the actual complexity of events (not that silent acting can't evoke interiority, but the examples I can think of go heavily against naturalism, and so wouldn't really work here).

I'm reminded of Tom Ewing once saying on here that he doesn't think pop music is a good vehicle for actual political arguments - agitprop, sure. I think the same may be true of silent cinema; Potemkin works well as propaganda, it is cathartic and stirring and as I said the events it portrays deserve such feelings. But it doesn't teach you much of anything about politics, I don't think.

Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 09:38 (one year ago) link

The czarist officer class are well worth criticising, but the film also functions as a piece of anti-Cossack propaganda, made in the midst of this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Cossackization

so some more moral ambiguity would probably be welcome.

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 11:37 (one year ago) link

"But Godard has doubts, he contradicts himself, he changes his mind! By contrast Potemkin is as clear cut and certain as any white hats vs black hats action film. There is no interest in interrogating anything."

It's quite a bit to expect from a film made when the revolution hadn't yet reached its tenth anniversary. Plus it's a historical film.

xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 12:06 (one year ago) link

Really need to see Ivan the Terrible

xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 12:08 (one year ago) link

Wait until you've seen it to call it "terrible"

Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 13:13 (one year ago) link

It's quite a bit to expect from a film made when the revolution hadn't yet reached its tenth anniversary.

Art of that sort is made often enough even as events are unfolding, let alone ten years later. But let's be real, if it was any of that it wouldn't have gotten made.

Plus it's a historical film.

I don't know what this means.

Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 13:54 (one year ago) link

All the President's Men is, I think, a truly great film made two or three years after the events it depicts.

clemenza, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 14:14 (one year ago) link

Battleship Potemkin was made 20 years after the events it portrays, think how many WWII films were made between 1940 and 1965.

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 14:17 (one year ago) link

I mean a lot of historical films just take a look back at a version of events, but ofc there is a reading to them so nevermind that.

"But let's be real, if it was any of that it wouldn't have gotten made."

It depends what you wanted to say that it didn't. Stuff can get through the censor, depending on how it's told, or it can be told in an underhand way.

xxp

xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 14:20 (one year ago) link

Stuff can get through the censor, depending on how it's told, or it can be told in an underhand way.

Agreed, but I think that a) most regimes go through phases where such subterfuge is more viable or less viable and b) it is as a rule much easier to do if there aren't too many eyes around you, so easier in literature than film for example. A big budget spectacle made under Stalin I think would have odds set against itself in that department, though you never know - are there examples of this in 20's Soviet cinema?

At any rate, I don't think propaganda is necc a bad thing, as I said it can be cathartic. Just think it's apples and oranges when compared to a Godard film.

Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 14:37 (one year ago) link

When I was comparing the two of them, I wasn't actually thinking of the political message, more the way that everything onscreen is "presented" through an explicit explanatory frame, where the audience is supposed to notice the way events are being portrayed, and the formal means, along with the events depicted.

Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 14:47 (one year ago) link

more the way that everything onscreen is "presented" through an explicit explanatory frame, where the audience is supposed to notice the way events are being portrayed, and the formal means, along with the events depicted.

Interesting, do you take this from Eisenstein's writings? I haven't read him.

I can't say I noticed this in the film itself, which I felt to be reasonably immersive - I do think I noticed the formal aspects more than with yer average movie, but I think that always happens to me with silent cinema. In fact I've heard an argument be made that they should show more of it in film school because it forces students to focus on form.

Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 16:02 (one year ago) link

It is one of Eisenstein's theories that cinema must be as didactic as possible.

Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 22 February 2023 16:10 (one year ago) link

Dialectical too.

Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 22 February 2023 16:10 (one year ago) link

The Watermelon Woman is on MUBI UK ATM. Watched it a couple of days ago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Watermelon_Woman

And it's on the S&S list (100-250). What's remarkable is the person's background: woman, black, Lesbian. Making a film about those very things but the film isn't worn down by them, as the script is often funny and charming.

I wouldn't say it's top 250 but who cares it absolutely should be there. It's an excellent example of the gaming of the poll. Many voters used their votes smartly.

xyzzzz__, Friday, 24 February 2023 12:28 (one year ago) link

I love a ranking where The Watermelon Woman outranks, say, The Deer Hunter.

عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Friday, 24 February 2023 12:54 (one year ago) link

I watched it at the height of the pandemic when Criterion made it available.

Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 24 February 2023 13:10 (one year ago) link

Always wonder if Cimino's work is going to get revisited in view of the revelation that they were maybe trans? I can't get much clarity on that, but there's enough evidence for the New Yorker to mention it - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/a-new-biography-of-michael-cimino-is-as-fascinating-and-melancholy-as-the-filmmaker-himself - it's not like a fan fiction thing.

Anyway yeah Watermelon Woman rules. The film it reminds me most of, though obviously it's miles ahead of it in quality and intelligence, is Clerks.

Daniel_Rf, Friday, 24 February 2023 13:59 (one year ago) link

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/The_general_movie_poster.jpg

The General, Buster Keaton, 1926
Morbsies #733, Sight & Sound Critics #95

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Monday, 27 February 2023 10:03 (one year ago) link

Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001). A lot more action than Totoro. Lots of adventures were had.

xyzzzz__, Monday, 27 February 2023 10:44 (one year ago) link

Really love the drawings, like just the quality of them, the colour schemes...very beautiful to look at.

xyzzzz__, Monday, 27 February 2023 10:46 (one year ago) link

Saw The General semi-recently, so won't rewatch. It's good ofc, less blown away by it than Sherlock tho.

Daniel_Rf, Monday, 27 February 2023 10:47 (one year ago) link

I really enjoyed The General, it feels much more advanced than Sherlock Jr, almost like a modern action film in many ways. There wasn't a single moment where I felt it dragging, those train sequences were flawless. Still I feel it is a bit tainted by its taking the side of The South, in particular the battle scenes at the end are very reminiscent of Birth of a Nation. The Civil War and in particular the "Lost Cause" narrative are such fixtures of pre-WWII Hollywood.

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Monday, 27 February 2023 11:04 (one year ago) link

Yeah, it's so needless as well, not like the film is about the Lost Cause or a Rebel Stand or anything ideological like that, switch the sides and nothing would change. It's depressing how much this was just something in the air, that ppl would employ without even thinking about it.

Daniel_Rf, Monday, 27 February 2023 11:08 (one year ago) link


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