Memories of films

Hi all,

I hope it's ok if i start a new thread, this could be for anyone who for whatever reason is in a film watching slump, and can't daily or even weekly say they watched anything, but have powerful memories of when they did.

On the other hand this could be another self indulgent exercise by yours truly to make a fool of himself yet more.

So let me begin here by saying that chances are i'm kind of somewhat like a garden variety film snob, that doesn't know all the specialized lingo that the internet has helped film fans to incorporate into their talking of films.

I may have shared this before here, but i'll say it again, when i was most into films i was reacting against the blockbuster American dominated mainstream, boutique labels like Criterion led the way, those supplements were my film school.

I was attracted to the bleak and the disturbing, and mostly with english subtitles. In the early days i was naive and thought a movie in english was proof positive that it wasn't artistic in the same way as the great directors of Europe and Asia, except for the underground, non-linear, or abstract experimental work of such people as Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger, the ruddy playful work of the Kuchar Brothers, that i proudly placed above the solid luminaries of the past.

As i get older though and for the last couple years or more i've gravitated to stories, and if i do get out of my slump i want to explore intelligent smart, crispy film art where the story, characters and script are ... smart ... i've misplaced my thesaurus, sorry. Films like the Safdie Brothers fit the bill, tense, tough predicaments, where the characters need to get their act together big time to pull through.

For that is the kind of inspiration i feel the need for as i face my own mundane dillemmas.

There's a phrase or idea in a letter by the apostle Paul, where he says he's putting off childish things, he's putting on his big boy pants, in film watching terms i see this as turning a corner and valuing not the surface elements, like if they're just way different than everything else, but substantial works of storytelling that help you the viewer into formulating in your mind how to go forward in all our particular lives.

We're facing a global situation, we need to take to heart the message of someone like Tilda Swinton's Golden Bear speech, where she celebrates the magic of films, to make us more sociable, more together, and prepared for whatever may come, a dynamic cinema, a fearless cinema, a challenging cinema, a non-lazy cinema, a cinema that doesn't do it all for us, but makes us hungry for more, to live daringly, and positively. I believe there are such films being made nowadays, and with a specific mindset, it can even be bad movies. We can learn from the bad, not just those in the biz learning their craft, but as consumers, we can go on treasure hunts, if only 1 out of a hundred was really special, that should still be cause for celebration.

To have fun, and have high standards, that is what i wish for. For the time being i must only enjoy "safe" films that can be shown to dad, silent films, films with no or very little swearing, but those are just superficial ingredients, me dad even likes The Sopranos because in his words "there's a story there" despite the foul language and stuff.

But i digress, i like to get things off my chest, as is quite evident, i'm not nearly as knowledgeable as most of you, i have a full plate with arming my mind with appropriate books, but film will always be a special part of it all, i hope i can have some more film memories in the future, they can have such cathartic qualities, to feel what others feel, to be others minded, and all that jazz, an uptight moral person can let their hair hang out by spending a couple hours with immoral people, if one can't do that, then what they're left with is cookie cutter programmed shite to enjoy, and we the illuminated must leave them alone, and try not to let them bother us, and vice versa.

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No time left for anything else

A Woman Under the Influence - 1974 - John Cassavetes



One of the greatest film memories i have is of this masterclass of drama, powerhouse performances by the 2 leads, opera in the soundtrack, and the pitch perfect humanism that makes the cinema a worthwhile art form, on the level with say Bach Cantatas, Bjork 90's studio albums, and .... it is the kind that makes you feel something, that people are going through tough things that aren't on the surface, be more mindful, but more than that, a glimpse into the kind of people who are both fragile and unsinkable. Gena and Peter against the world, a married couple that not even their close family members understand. I remember showing it to mom and dad, and mom's friend called on the phone, and mom, she said to the friend she would normally talk for hours with said they'd have to talk another time, Jeff's showing a movie, and they even fit it into another conversation, it was an event!! So as much as the film itself, i treasure the circumstances that it was seen, for a pocket of time we were enlightened members of society, for a change not being confined to our own measly small mindedness, where we point the finger, Cassavetes here gives you a chance to feel volcanic pathos.

Great stuff.

What I love about movies is sometimes just thinking back on one you've already watched is as good as watching a completely new one.


Serious minded people seem to mostly want to talk about the actual film and what that means. Which is all good fun and real important too and I'm all about that. But I'm at least just as interested in how movies have a tendency to sneak into personal revelations about our own lives. The memory of what a specific movie moment means being of just as much value as what an artist intended to say. Because without those moments, movies wouldn't mean anything to anyone anyways.

Thank you, i appreciate your input on this. I see you as way more film literate, but when there's an impact a film makes perhaps folks like me can say something worthwhile. And it's a real film, real people, real situations, so damn refreshing when what's usually seen is heartless glitzy stuff.

The films of Federico Fellini, my first favorite director, circa 2005

In 2005 i began my cinephile journey with Fellini's Roma, i didn't even know what he looked like at the time, i didn't have the internet at home to fill in the gaps, but it was revelatory, the church fashion show was hilarious!! The Nino Rota toe tapping orchestral music, and the camera movements, soon after this i saw 8 1/2, Amarcord, and La dolce vita, then his 50's highlights with La strada and Nights of Cabiria, along with I vitelloni being the most noteworthy. To me he was a magician, with how he captured moments, some took their time, they were like music videos, and i love the music video aesthetic. And at the time i was taken aback at how unfaithful the husbands could be, like in Juliet of the Spirits, Juliet btw is my most viewed Fellini, starring his darling wife in a technicolor cavalcade of trippy Freudian inward aha moments. I can only imagine how Federico and Giulietta worked through this, because he wasn't i don't think a monogamous lesser half, and to see how they could stick together, in my dream reality they wrote a book for couples, ... but maybe what we have in the movies like in the tender Ginger & Fred work to that purpose. Famous or not, we're all regular people, getting by the best we can, and often we're not doing our best, to have inner clarity is important.

When he switched from realism to ever more fantastical, one may see that as losing inner clarity, but imo he was exploring the realities in a time when drug experimentation was in vogue. He was a brave chronicler that can be used as a guide, a fun guide.

The director who eventually upgraded my awareness of film surrealism was Luis Bunuel, along with some more outlandish folks like Jodorowsky, but Fellini remains a jewel in my memories, his emotionally rich 50's films ought to be the intros for those who value a good story above all, but if you're up to it, for the far out, hang onto your seats, Federico has some tricks up his sleeves, and he's through it all most of the time a warm and wholesome director in such latter day works like Amarcord and And the Ship Sails On, there's a sentimentalism that i can handle in these precious films, and there's usually a fun moment always around the corner. He devoted his life to this medium, and is firmly a part of the Film Pantheon, that a film lover must pray to 5 times a day, facing Cinecitta.

Appreciate your thoughts and hearing about your journey ever deeper into the magical real of movies. As I've progressed, the one "mistake" I've tried to correct is to not confuse my first, delightful impression of a movie with its quality or overall contribution to the canon of classics. I was first hooked on movies as a grade-schooler, seeing "How the West Was Won" in a theater. Gosh, it just carried me away into another world. Great music, great action, sweeping, epic story. But on rewatches over the years, more and more I recognize it as overall a mediocre work of art. So I understand it's OK to be entertained and, on my 81-year-old stepmother's visits, to replay "How the West Was Won" and never, never again "Once Upon a Time in the West."

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Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain ... only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.

Thanks!! It's good to keep objective, it can be detrimental to our memories to re-watch something we have fond memories of.

Four films that made me a sort of film snob

I used to rent movies at our local rental store that was called Movie Time, no big time Blockbuster here at the time. And the movie that broke me, and made me want to stop seeing whatever was popular at the time was the Halle Berry movie Gothika, enough my inner being cried.

Next up was a minimalist movie called Gerry directed by Gus Van Sant, and i fell in love with the style, and it's use of Arvo Part's Spiegel im spiegel. Upon a 2nd viewing i couldn't stand it, i made the mistake of showing it to my folks, and they in their own way went MS3K on it, was not a good memory, but that first time gave me a pure vibe, purity of style.

Then there was Koyaanisqatsti, seen after i retired from the work force, i was in that mind set of never really going out anymore except for necessities, it gave me the sense of floating above the world and seeing life go on after i had my chance of living that life, and the Philip Glass music was phenomenal.

Lastly was Werner Herzog's Murnau adaptation, with Werner's commentary on, that gave me the seed thoughts on how films could be done differently than what was so nauseatingly common ie: Gothika.

The classic Japanese grouping

Japan has one of the most impressive back catalog, these are just the top shelf ones that have made an impact:

Ikiru, or To Live is the most dynamically emotional Kurosawa i've seen, he could sometimes veer into overt, cringeworthy sentimentalism in his earlier career, but here he masters it with a story we'd all do well to keep in mind when life has us in it's rusty claws, to be a better person may indeed be as simple as treating each day as our last, or numbered.

Late Spring, Ozu's masterpiece, which i find just a little more effective than Tokyo Story was another of those precious memories of showing it to dad and mom, this is affectionately known to me as a tear jerker, a daughter and her dad, daughter loves him so much she wants to stay with him, and he wants her to have her own life, and let him go. C'est la vie, and the bittersweet nature of carrying on, and not being able to live in optimal circumstances forever or during the rest of our earthly sojourn.

THEN are the masterpieces of Kenji Mizoguchi, i think it's pretty safe to say that i put this man's work in these films at the top if i had to rank this grouping, beginning with Ugetsu, then Sansho the Bailiff, and then i recently got Life of Oharu, these are i believe seen as his top shelf films, and all of them are exquisitely great. There was a book by David Thomson, it was a thick red book with a still from Howard Hawk's To Have and Have Not on the cover, Mizoguchi was for him a part of the pinnacle of the film canon, as some here word it.

My faves from Werner Schroeter

One of the best finds in my film treasure hunts was this New German Cinema enfant terribles, friend of Fassbinder.

Eika Katappa is a fever dream of various tableaux on the theme of death, mixing classical, opera, and some pop music that sound a lot like Elvis, plus some tango music Blauer Himmel, a popular music piece that Kluge used too. This is like an extension of what Kenneth Anger was doing in short format, there's some dull moments, but those can be like meditative moments we can use to reflect.

The Death of Maria Malibran, my official favorite film, is a film philosopher Michel Foucault also favored, my favorite moment is when there's some Stravinsky, mixed with other music, and the close ups of those faces, tears flowing down, and the silences. There's a mysterious quality all the way through, being an outsider, and making your own damn kind of movie, and not caring about being commercial.

Der bomberpilot, summing up his experimental early career i like this mostly for the ladies, the laid back quality, and the stunning finale where they all 3 of them dance in lingerie singing off tune, just gets to me, Schroeter's aesthetic is to mix the low and the high, part of the low is to not have lips matching the voices heard.

Malina, of his later narrative works, only this out of what i've seen is extremely noteworthy, based on an important work written by Ingeborg Bachmann, it delivers in a complex way a woman going through a nervous breakdown, and the use of opera just adds for me it's effectiveness.

I've not seen all his films, i would most like to see Goldflocken, and those other more controversial ones that seem to elude any kind of proper distribution. If the world endures, i see in the future the work of this daring director having a renaissance, and if anyone knows what that Spanish song is called that's used in Diese Nacht, i'd be very thankful, i love finding songs and music used in films on YouTube. Diese Nacht btw, is not a very good movie.

The original Grey Gardens must never be forgotten, the realism here of a mother and daughter's eccentric living environment, very heart warming experience, breaking out in song with Tea for 2, these adorable women are in a sense doing what i'm doing in this thread, and in all of my threads, reminiscing about better times, and occasionally getting on each other's nerves, which for me is with dad.

I've never seen the re-make, i don't want revisionism sullying my memory of this unique and wondrous artifact the Maysles brought us. I also like Gimme Shelter, and haven't seen Salesman, so out the 2 i've seen i'd live happily with this one, as i'd not want a Hell's Angels member knifing me if i could help it.

The Kennedy edition of Hoarders

Pretty much, i'd watch anything Hoarders like from the 70's!!

Session 9 is a classic 2001 chiller that i haven't gotten into my collection yet, but i regardless have a nice memory of it, the best thing David Caruso was in, the ambiance it achieves is quite unsettling, it does imo what Blair Witch was trying to do, to not show anything extraordinary, just a all consuming sense of dread, and in a way more creepy environment than the forest. A decrepit insane asylum, recordings, the 9th of which promises something that the viewer is anticipating with mounting dread. I've seen a review of the DVD or Blu-ray that makes the case for it looking too clear that way, it has to look like an old VHS looks like, maybe that's why i haven't gotten it yet in the collection. It's a unique entry of the time, and hereby worthy of remembering here.

Gems from the Czech New Wave

Of all the New Waves i like this one the best, the amount loved pales in comparison with that of France for sure, but these films here burst forth with such colorful and unique energy that i almost can forget the wonders of France and Italy while watching them.

First off we get 2 from Vera Chytilova Daisies and Fruit of Paradise, the latter is for me close to Malibran for top place, it's a spiritual film, the film equivalent of what say the book of the Gospel According to John is to Christians, which is bookended with glorious choral music, the symbolism of the red rose at the end, and some Brakhage-esque visuals at the beginning. I've tried to share this with others, but it's a little too out there for them, for me as i say here it's a spiritual experience.



Birds, Orphans and Fools is close to the top for me too, it's like a bohemian post-war treatment of a love triangle, where the standard example is Truffaut's Jules and Jim, i love this so much more though, just the opening, with the voice over, and special needs children with nuns taking care of them, some of the dialogue is frightfully on point for my personal philosophy, like where the lady is contemplating how her eyes are like cameras catching all the ugliness in the world.



Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a visual treat in and of itself, dad thinks its demonic, but that's his problem, this film treats of what could be a touchy subject matter, but it's firmly in a place of fantasy, the treatment is ok, but for me what is of note is strictly the visual, and flow of the piece.



In Black and white, which is how most of the Czech New Waves i've seen are what stands out most for me is The Cremator, a very dark comedy about a Tibetan Book of the Dead obsessed funeral guy gets mixed up with the politcal baddies of the time, visually inventive, and inebriating, and a captivating score, it's one for the hall of fame in my memories of film watching.



other classics like those of Milos Foreman, and Closely Watched Trains are great, they just didn't make an impact like the above made.

Grease is a movie i surely have fond memories of, before becoming a self conscious cinephile, the music numbers, how John Travolta sings a pansy ass song, the born to hand jive, the finale ending medley of songs, and the story itself, of what it takes to deserve the girl of your dreams, of becoming a better person, so that they can deserve you also. I had it in my head long ago to try to write a philosophical essay on it, which delighted me just the thought of treating a pop culture juggernaut as if it was a sublime and earth shattering thing. A fun time movie we can all enjoy from art film fans to casual have a good time movie goers, let us all celebrate movies like this which has a very organic manner of capturing a previous time, the 70's looks back to the 50's. Happy Days vibes, enjoy responsibly.

Love the Czech New Wave era! I’ve been slowly going through them for a few years now. Criterion Channell recently added some more films to the collection, I’d say about 3 months ago?

Awesome, i should check (Czech) the ones i've missed some time ... ty and enjoy!!

My top Ingmar Bergman

I LOVE this man, and his films, in the first wave of what i got in 2005 was that MGM boxed set that had Persona, Hour of the Wolf, Shame and Passion of Anna, those being the stand outs. Then for a time i had the massive Criterion set.

Tied for #1 for me that is is Cries and Whispers, and Winter Light, the former depicts suffering so authentically, and with a trance like red hued motif going through out. Brutal depressing material, done with such a masterful direction, Winter Light showing a Lutheran pastor with a small congregation, and he can't give spiritual advice to a parishioner fearing a nuclear war, pastor struggles with his faith, that kind of thing i really dig, and the cold, cruel acting of Gunnar Bjornstrand is something to behold, especially after seeing his jovial role in The Seventh Seal.

A close 2nd is Wild Strawberries, starring a Swedish giant of the silent era, a hero of Ingmar's, showing old age in a captivating manner.

Sawdust and Tinsel is sooo good too, the brutal drum music as the tall clown guy carries his wife who was flirting with the guys is amazing, THAT is what i like, a scene that pierces through the normal humdrum scenes where it's just people talking to each other. Themes such as humiliation, combined with the motif of the show must go on, giving a good idea of what it's like to be in a carnival.

The Passion of Anna is one of his most savagely bleak films, about personality disintegration played deliciously by Max Von Sydow, LOVE it when he's drunkenly hollering out his own name while half heartedly riding his bicycle.

Persona of course is amazing, little moments like with the radio with a light gradually dimming to dark reflecting on Liv Ullmann's eyes with that soothing violin music, or Bibi Andersson's hands banging on the table, and how it makes the natural light dance around. Moments like that will live on for me till the day i die.