ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

Not my favourite Mizoguchi but still devastating, timeless

Brilliant

The phrase I see a lot is “first among equals.” I submit that there should be a similar and near-equally laudable “second among equals,” which UGETSU probably is, alongside Mizoguchi’s late run

I don't want to do "better than" arguments, so I'll try very hard not to do that, but what a movie, what magic he crafted throughout his career but the 50s especially, fuiud

I've dug thru the source material cos it fascinates me and I'd confidently argue that - like Hitchcock for example - he made his sources his own and made them better. Ugetsu taps a bunch of veins at once, political personal, but the big point is it sticks with you, it transcends what it might be "about"

It's strange that the most memorable scene from this for me is where the "samurai" brags about his non-existent virtues to his young cronies. The ghost story stuff is a little vague by comparison, though it obviously made a big impression on Tarkovsky.

So this was wild. Don't think I've ever seen anything like it.

Watched with my wife who knows a decent amount about Japanese ghost culture, my idea was that the story followed a dreamlike narrative, but she pointed out that it was a standard, fairly simple morality play if you are familiar with Japanese ghost stories. It was the atmosphere, especially the sound, that made it work for me.

yeah, there are quite a few like it. i think i prefer Kuroneko. i need to rewatch Ghost of Yotsuya (it's on youtube). Kwaidan has similar bits too. Onibaba...

useful list here, including more modern j-horror
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnica240Wq4

the kiln aspect was interesting as well - there was a bbc4 japanese traditional arts programme on just before i saw Ugetsu for the first time and the same kilns are still in use (although not universally)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/08/Madamedeposter.jpg

Madame de..., Max Ophuls, 1953
Morbsies #499
Sight & Sound Critics #90

Sometimes the greatest film ever made.

Another cracking film.

I love Earrings... because it's a film whose editing and camera movements convey a passage of time as subtle as any novel. When I read Balzac and Trollope, the marriage between Boyer and Darrieux is how I imagine the day-to-day functionalities of a patrician 19th century marriage. The beauty of Boyer's performance is how he's perfectly willing to go along with it but with the quiet half-grins that Ophuls catches it's clear he also loves Louise enough to have given a more erotic marriage a shot if she wasn't so bent on escaping within her confines. Few films convey how possessions delineate the confines of one's own entrapment.

Modern Times also on YouTube now too
Really enjoyed that, especially the automatic food layer bit

Only started watching films by Ophuls six months ago. Forgive me, God

Om watching Earrings.... as I type and my god

I finally got around to Earrings a few years ago and boy does it deliver. 19th century novels are a good reference point, it has that richness of detail and emotional specificity.

Boyer is the key: aware of everything, ready to play along, but ignore him and he'll put a bullet in your throat.

19th century novels are a good reference point, it has that richness of detail and emotional specificity.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, April 30, 2024 5:28 PM (one hour ago)

otm Alfred and tipsy. I already had that association, and when I started reading Anna Karenina the other day I immediately thought of Earrings

there's a Chaplin season on sky arts in the UK and Modern Times (78 in the S&S list) and City Lights (36) will be two of those (i think MT is next Saturday and Sunday). so far there's been The Kid, Gold Rush, The Circus. Criterion logo in all the credits.

Finished watching Madame De..., you are all dead-on with the novel comparisons, reminded me of Zola's "La Curée", though without the politics, such a dance the three do with each-other, and the fact that they spent so much time actually dancing did not seem like a blunt metaphor. I did find it a little difficult to connect with on an emotional level, as I always do with the Belle Époque upper class, not sure why this is.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Tokyo-story-20201121.jpg

Tokyo Story, Yasujirō Ozu, 1953

Morbsies #141
Sight & Sound Critics #4
Sight & Sound Directors #4

Heartbreaking.

yeah, didn't even make the top 100

I finished Tokyo Story a little while ago and have been slowly digesting it - while I liked it quite a lot I still haven't worked out why it's a masterpiece, maybe this is just something not worth worrying about, but it just reminds me of a lot of other low-key studies of family life - that's something I generally love anyway, maybe it's that I've seen so many of its successors that it just doesn't seem novel? I am also a little confused by Chishū Ryū's acting, it is so low-key that I find myself questioning whether he's actually doing anything. (Also cannot believe that he's 49 years old in this and lived until 1993! And Kyōko Kagawa is still alive!)

is so low-key that I find myself questioning whether he's actually doing anything.

best kind of acting imo

I am undecided between "best" and "not best" - certainly he would be at home in a Roy Andersson film, so that sounds like I should come down on the side of "best"

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/La_Strada.jpg

La Strada, Federico Fellini, 1954

Morbsies #648
Sight & Sound Directors #38

This one is on youtube in its entirety with English subtitles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPefZ8cZCl0

brilliant film

I liked it but I suspect Fellini thought it was about how sex is evil and makes you subhuman

So Gelsomina is supposed to be autistic, right?