Sight and Sound 2022 Top 20

"They're doing the complete Kurosawa at the BFI right now."

Definitely looking forward to seeing a couple more of them on the big screen.

Do you like other Kubrick movies?

I went to see Dielman today at the cinema. I feel different. I'm not sure how. I don't drink by my own. I don't drink on Sundays as a general rule. I had to drink afterwards.

Beau Travail for me, not a tough pick but I love a lot of these.

And Mizoguchi bangs gavel
And Ozu bangs gavel
And Naruse bangs gavel
And Kiyoshi Kurosawa bangs gavel
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Sunday, January 8, 2023

don't forget Imamura

still haven't seen a Naruse film

Don't forget Oshima either!

I've seen four Naruse films but I would have guessed I'd seen two, he's one of these directors where the films blend together if you're not super attuned to the aesthetic.

They do but he's friskier than Ozu, who also addresses family

I’ve seen only one of these. Got some homework to do.

Oh, wait - seen two.

which two?

This is off-topic, but does anyone know anything about Naomi Kawase? Her films have been in competition for the Palme D'Or at Cannes five times since 2003, with one winning the Grand Prix and another the Ecumenical Jury Prize. I have yet to see one though, and she seems to be completely under the radar

Do you like other Kubrick movies?

― ryan, Sunday, 8 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Paths of Glory and Spartacus are fine, just sorta bog standard ok films.

Barry Lyndon is his only great film, but even then that's accidental. The lack of feeling that he brings to anything he touches perfectly suits the material.

Eyes Wide Shut is funny and that's probably the other one from him that pays repeat watching.

Anyway the guy isn't in the same league as most great directors. He is more like a really good technician. 10 mins from a b-movie like 'Out of the Past' is where it's at and he is only talked up because the US is insecure about great art. Really hope the work that's being done to take down this stuff down carries on. Like, Godfather II is finished now. The only way is up.

Most great films are accidental tbh. Too many x-factors.

Most of the great filmmakers get a crew together that end up consistently making great films.

you couldn't be more wrong about Paths Of Glory imo

but I do agree Barry Lyndon is his greatest

Re: Naruse, I think I’d take Yearning over any given Ozu, but thankful I get to have them all

This is off-topic, but does anyone know anything about Naomi Kawase? Her films have been in competition for the Palme D'Or at Cannes five times since 2003, with one winning the Grand Prix and another the Ecumenical Jury Prize. I have yet to see one though, and she seems to be completely under the radar

I'm not a fan of it, but I think The Godfather II is only 'finished' because everyone decided that The Godfather itself was the appropriate the stand-in for the trilogy

Most of the great filmmakers get a crew together that end up consistently making great films.

― xyzzzz__,

Kubrick got a great crew together consistently too. So did Renoir, Kurosawa, Hitchcock, etc. Spielberg often works with a great cinematographer (Janusz Kaminski). I love film because these people get crews together and still produce flawed work that I still wanna watch and you still can't control the results because there are too many people.

Unless it was Eric who was lukewarm.

Just about every film on this list has scenes that make me cringe from inappropriateness, silliness, and other instances of poor direction -- and that's okay.

I'm not a fan of it, but I think _The Godfather II_ is only 'finished' because everyone decided that _The Godfather_ itself was the appropriate the stand-in for the trilogy

I’ve never seen a Naomi Kawase film. There have been ample and consistent warning signs from the ones I trust

"Kubrick got a great crew together consistently too"

The difference with Kubrick is they were making stuff that was consistently bad.

Just a colossal folly for the studios to indulge him.

But that's not what you wrote -- it sounds as if you wrote that it takes a good crew to make good films. If you want to argue that Kubrick couldn't make good films because of his cramped vision or whatever, that's legit, because whatever else Kubrick was the one major director b/w 1957 and 1999 who had absolute control over what he wrote, directed, and organized.

Among Americans, that is, unless you include Woody Allen, which lol I'll agree with you

Often a good crew gets assembled under a director, they seem to go on a run of great films.

I am guessing Kubrick had a similar band, they all bought in on his vision, which I don't connect with at all xp

you couldn't be more wrong about Paths Of Glory imo

― calzino, Monday, 9 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I'll give it another watch someday.

All fair enough! Was just curious.

Re: feeling in Kubrick, at least in the latter films (post-2001) the feeling I get is his palpable anxiety about the world's capacity for violence, terror, and chaos (and in the last movie...the possible safe haven, or illusion of it, in domesticity...). The Killing is probably the thesis statement.

I am guessing Kubrick had a similar band, they all bought in on his vision, which I don't connect with at all xp

― xyzzzz__,

Fair. I don't either. He's part of the He-Man Crew recognized by cineastes younger than 21.

Paths of Glory is actually the one Kubrick film where the thesis statement (politicians make wars happen) gets backed up.

Yes. I think after 2001 he definitely enters in a "late period" kind of style where the motivating traumas are very much metaphorized or occluded (ie, the shining) and I can totally get why someone wouldn't like that but for me the indirectness is an attempt to get closer by other means--and a healthy skepticism about what art can do or say about such things in the first place.

(though I suppose it also doesn't get much more direct than a literal river of blood...)

Alfred: 2001 and The Godfather.

The Killing aside, I don’t think lithe suited Kubrick much

"Lithe" doesn't suit most filmmakers here for better or worse, Renoir and Denis and Wong excepted.

these last posts seem like gobbledegook

2001 is still the greatest movie of all time to me. It is detached and cerebral and pompous but it is also profound and moving and so beautiful to watch. It's still thrilling after after 55 years. Seeing it for the first time was one of the teenage experiences I will never forget. It was what got me interested in film.

Not being "lithe" is not an insult! Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Ozu, Lynch, etc. aren't lithe at all.

Yep. Those who aren’t terribly into Kubrick tend to slightly overvalue his early quickies

"...he is only talked up because the US is insecure about great art. Really hope the work that's being done to take down this stuff down carries on. Like, Godfather II is finished now. The only way is up."

There you go again.

Godfather II don't even have that kind of muscle anymore.

"the work that's being done to take down this stuff down"--you actually do make it all sound like a conspiracy. And there's this undercurrent of "We've won, nah-nah, now pack up and go home" when you write about Kubrick or The Godfathers I find kind of juvenile.

Have a heart, clemenza! It must be hard on him to be on this board with so many inferior minds, especially after they laughed at him at the academy.

(xposts) Nice. Or "Kay, Kubrick's way of doing things is over -- it's finished. Even he knows that. I mean in 10 years, the Top 10 will be nothing but Chantel Akerman films."

singin in the rain for me

Probably for me too.

Nice to see it getting votes! It's amazing.

I wonder if The Searchers will get any.

SitR was the only one of these 20 films to make me cry multiple times in the last year for just how good it is

Godfather films are great (I even ride for 3 to an extent) but there’s maybe a sense that the culture had consumed them and spit them out in increasingly uninteresting ways and why give too much thought to them?

My one problem w/the trilogy is I’m not really moved by any of the characters, there’s amazing storytelling all over the place but I’m a little removed from it, for all the talk about Kubrick being a cold filmmaker I find these films a little cold deep down albeit superficially running hot. Might obviously be a michael thing, he’s an icy dude who’s hard to like even before he falls into a vat of familia and becomes Mobman.