Sight and Sound 2022 Round 5: 81-100

lol

A Brighter Summer Day, The Earrings of Madame de…, A Man Escaped, Black Girl, Once Upon a Time In the West, and Daughters of the Dust were all on the ballot I submitted for the ilx all-time films poll

But The Leopard is a really evocative film about the mourning for a waning aristocracy around the time of the Italian unification, with an amazing performance by Burt Lancaster and with a beautiful ballroom sequence occupying the last quarter of the film. I'm voting for that

The last hour is one of the best examples of how a film can deepen its source.

Tough call for me between Ugetsu, Once Upon a Time in the West, and The Leopard.

Lancaster's achievement in The Leopard is doubly impressive for (a) getting dubbed (b) acting with his body while knowing he's being dubbed/speaking in English.

voted for bresson

Haven't seen Pierrot le fou or Histoire(s) du Cinéma in a while.

I really liked the first half of Tropical Malady, with its love story and with its amplified pastoral sounds of nature as the soundtrack, but I was perplexed by the darker surreal second half. It's one of those films I want to see again. Weerasethakul is one of my all-time favorite directors

the last half requires a theater to capture the essence of that ambient sound

and the last half seemed to have some deep psychological significance which I didn't get at the time, but maybe would on a second viewing

I loved Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Cemetery of Splendour. I'm still irked that I can't see Memoria

whether or not the second half of Tropical Malady was about gay panic, the fear of being consumed by love, or a terror of being a victim of predation I’m not sure, but it seemed to me at the time to be expressing a profound uncertainty about the protagonist's intentions and desires

fun fact: Isaac Hayes was obsessed with Once Upon A Time In The West when it came out, and that guitar riff from "Walk On By" is directly inspired by the moment when you first see Henry Fonda's face.

just watched satantango last week. parts of it are everything i want from a film but parts of it are druken bums dancing in a shed for 20 minutes.

Total recency bias on my part but I just watched A Brighter Summer Day a few months ago and have been thinking about it a lot, so that. (In contrast, I haven't seen Yi Yi in probably 15 years, should rewatch it.)

parts of it are everything i want from a film but parts of it are druken bums dancing in a shed for 20 minutes.

The payoff to this scene is the reverse shot of the little girl looking in the window.

My friend and I saw the premiere of The Werckmeister Harmonies; it fades in on a black-and-white long shot of rural Hungarians drinking in a dingy bar, and he turns to me and asked if they had somehow mixed in a reel of Sátántangó.

voted Bresson cos it's bloody great! I suspect there might be one or two better movies than A Man Escaped on the list but not from the ones I have already seen. I love The Leopard and despite all the colour and lushness of it, it's just not as memorable. Need to have a Yang season, so far I've only seen one.

Up to now, these polls were great motivation to watch the one or two I hadn't yet seen. But this time there are five, and one of those is seven+ hours long! I'll try to see at least Madame de... before voting.

oh man

What? I've seen seven of your finalists.

And 92 out of the 100.

Sátántangó (Bela Tarr, 1994)
The Spirit of the Beehive (Víctor Erice, 1973)
Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
Chungking Express (Wong Kar Wai, 1994)
Ugetsu Monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchim 1953)
A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)
Chungking Express (Wong Kar Wai, 1994)

Are all in my top 100 but my vote goes to Bresson as A Man Escaped is my 6th fave film ever.

Shoutouts to these great films too

A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991)
Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
Histoire(s) du Cinéma (Jean-Luc Godard, 1988)
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 1999)
The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)
Madame de… (Max Ophuls, 1953)
Once upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
The General (Buster Keaton, Clyde Brakeman, 1926)
Black Girl (Ousmane Sembène, 1965)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)

Is there any interest in continuing these polls?

yes!

yep

yes

definitely

yes plz

Indeed. Unless it feels like an obligation over the 250, so drop out anytime ofc

I voted for Once Upon a Time. It's such a beautiful film, for it's sound as well as images.

a brighter summer day or histoire(s). will go for the latter today.

"why make things simple when you can make them complicated?"

Histoire(s) du Cinéma is now the most overrated Godard film, taking over from Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle.

despite this being obviously wrong in regard to the the facile engagement people have with the worst sixties stuff, it was at number 48 in 2012, if anything it's less rated now!

I voted for Once Upon a Time. It's such a beautiful film, for it's sound as well as images.

Yup, just one of the greatest fusions of sound and image I've ever seen.

cool, I'll keep 'em coming!

I think I'll extend the deadlines a bit, however, since the number of unseen films, at least by me, are gonna start to go up and I'd like to use this as an occasion to watch them.

despite this being obviously wrong in regard to the the facile engagement people have with the worst sixties stuff

It's ranked as the third best Godard film in the poll, but it wouldn't even make my top 20. Do you regard Breathless and Le Mépris as the worst of his 60s films?

That would be very odd.

Parasite and Get Out are the only two of these I’ve seen, and I’m not totally sure which gets my vote.

xxp breathless would be among my least favourite of the sixties films, and neither would be in my top 20. everything that preceded mieville's role in his work is minor compared to what followed

otm

While Godard gets much better a lot of the 60s work is really good. I wouldn't say La Chinoise or Weekend is 'minor'.

srsly

Week-end is major major. (Mieville is minor tho.)

nous sommes tous encore ici >>> week-end

Apologies, Mieville is not minor, Melville is minor

Not seen any of her work, so I'll get to it. Pending availability, as always.

Breathless and Le Mepris are minor minor tho'.

Although Godard made a few films I'd rank higher Week-end (spelled it right, there) is the one I'd put in the top 100. Really one of a kind, the film where he expresses a discontent with what he'd achieved in cinema (which let's face it was considerable by then), he wanted more and was about to show you what he wanted to do.

No way. Esp Breathless.

xp

Week-end is a high point, yeah, sorry for not being clear there

pre Week-end is good but

"Godard only gets good in 1973" is not an opinion I've encountered elsewhere.

Pretty sure I saw on ILE once some numpty saying Godard didn't get good until the 1980s!

old ILX threads are full of it! dearly missed poster amateurist was a big 80's over 60's Godard booster iirc

xpost ruh-roh

I'm someone who ranks Soigne ta Droite pretty high, and wants to rewatch the films from the 90s onward to get to know them better, but...

Miéville has made some excellent films, though, including Après la réconciliation.

"Godard only gets good in 1973" is not an opinion I've encountered elsewhere.

Think its a more worn out opinion these days than when amateurist was putting this. More like an over-correction, but 60s Godard still dominant in the top 100 so..

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I watched Satantango and Madame de. Loved them both, but I'm still voting for the music and color and spectacle of Once upon a Time in the West!

And now I'm up to 95 out of the 100.

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

I have a story about a screening of the winner at Lincoln Center that I can share with you if I haven’t already before.

ah nice, voted for Spirit of the Beehive, didn't expect it to win

Sight and Sound 2022 Round 6: 101-120

yeah that is the first big surprise so far

it's the one film of these I still haven't seen

Cool, I should rewatch that, it's a good movie.

Get Out 3 votes Pierrot le fou 0 is just so wrong

great top 4 but Ugetsu shouldve been up there. ah well.

yeah that is the first big surprise so far

― ryan, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Yup! I like it but don't love it as much Quince Tree of the Sun.

The biggest issue in the top 100 was the lack of Spanish Language cinema.

Agreed

For those who like The Spirit of the Beehive then I recommend you watch this brilliant film with the same child actor

https://letterboxd.com/film/cria-cuervos/

my experience is that SotB has really ardent fans, feels like it's one of those movies where if you love it you LOVE IT

Same actress also in Alejandro Amenábar’s breakout debut, Tesis/Thesis.

Erice only made one film per decade, if that, and all were different kinds of classic, he’s kind of a Spanish Dreyer, what’s not to love.

i agree. i voted Yi Yi because i love it hugely on a personal level too, only way to pick favourites really

I went to see his second film, El Sur, at the Walter Reade Theater at Film in Lincoln Center and while I was trying to get in I saw him standing against the wall in the interzone between the theater itself and the concession stand. At which point I also noticed a guy I sort of knew from college coming out that I would run into at screenings a lot and asked him “did he do a Q&A?” He said yes and that he told a funny story about how he came to cast Ana Torrent after interviewing a bunch of other children. Erice said he asked her “do you know who Doctor Frankenstein is?” to which she replied “yes, but we haven’t been introduced yet.”

I also voted for Yi Yi. Hard to explain why, but I feel just deeply involved in it every time I watch.

I like it but don't love it as much Quince Tree of the Sun.

I remember my roommate vacillating about seeing this: "this guy's a painter, he's painting a tree, what's the big deal..." He loved it!