Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3.0)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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bamwc2
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#226 Post by bamwc2 » Mon May 27, 2013 11:57 am

My orphans from the 1960s list, which I'd happily write up on if there's any interest:

6. Inherit the Wind
8. El Cid
10. Ordinary Fascism
11. The Sorrow and the Pity
14. The Iceman Cometh
35. The Pawnbroker
38. The Night of the Generals

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#227 Post by bamwc2 » Mon May 27, 2013 11:59 am

Edit: Hiccup

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swo17
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#228 Post by swo17 » Mon May 27, 2013 12:15 pm

bamwc2 wrote:My orphans from the 1960s list, which I'd happily write up on if there's any interest
Note that this thread is called "Defend Your Darlings." It's entirely possible that there is currently no interest from anyone else in these films that you voted for. Try to change our minds.

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thirtyframesasecond
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#229 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Mon May 27, 2013 1:06 pm

My orphans are:

Mother Joan of the Angels (#14) - surprised by this one given that it's a Second Run release, often discussed on here and has, I think, been re-released very recently!

The Office (#24) - a Kieslowski short about the rigid and petty rules of Communist bureaucracy.

Love Exists (#31) - this short can be found on the DVD release of 'Naked Childhood' - it's a "city symphony" of sorts of late 50s working class Paris, though its tone is more muted than celebtatory.

Mister Freedom (#33) - William Klein's an American artist living in France who makes a hit-and-miss satire about American cultural imperialism as the eponymous superhero combats the Reds. Features Serge Gainsbourg and Delphine Seyrig and was the inspiration for Beck's Sexx Laws video!

The Rabbit is Me (#44) - East German film that highlights the hypocrisy of the state as a married judge has an affair with a young girl barred from university because of her brother (sentenced naturally by the same judge).

The Hand (#46) - Trnka's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was my #2 pick in the 50s and this is by far his most famous short! A satire of Communism with its potter character being forced to sculpt a statue, an icon of the state's power.

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#230 Post by bamwc2 » Mon May 27, 2013 1:07 pm

You're right, Swo. I'll get around to it soon. Now that the semester is over, I have a paper that I want to polish and submit first. However, since I made 10 & 14 my spotlights, I'll hold off on writing an additional defense of them.

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colinr0380
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#231 Post by colinr0380 » Mon May 27, 2013 3:02 pm

Just two orphans from me this time:

43. Intervals - I like to think of this as a proto-music video (and a great preparation for the much more complex Vertical Features Remake) with the same Venice footage (perversely without a view of the canals intruding) cut to and repeated a couple of times with a metronome and industrial noises, and an Italian lesson in ABCs as if to vaguely illustrate principles of musical notation, rhythm and development, eventually ending with the most cathartic burst of classical music in cinema. It can be watched here or on the first volume of the BFI's Early Films of Peter Greenaway set.

48. The Pram (Barnvagnen) - A great slice of Scandinavian kitchen sink realism running in parallel with much of the British new wave. I'm desperate for this to get more widely available with subtitles.

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Tommaso
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#232 Post by Tommaso » Mon May 27, 2013 3:11 pm

Intervals is indeed great and contains almost all of the typical Greenaway spirit. Surprising for such an early work. I'll definitely vote for Vertical Features Remake in the next round. My favourite among all those early Greenaways for sure.

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#233 Post by colinr0380 » Mon May 27, 2013 3:24 pm

Definitely - on re-watching it last night Vertical Features Remake is a kind of hybrid of Intervals for the cutting of various footage within the 'remakes' but structurally it is taking a lot from Dear Phone as well in the sense of having 'blocks' of explanatory dialogue interspersed with visual sections (which Greenaway describes in his introduction to Dear Phone as being a kind of filmic attempt to replicate the way books have all their photo sections stitched together in groups)

And for the 70s project everyone irritated by Peter Jackson needlessly over-expanding The Hobbit might want to check out Water Wrackets, which manages to tell an evocative Tolkein-esque story over footage of riverbanks and burbling streams!

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Dylan
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#234 Post by Dylan » Mon May 27, 2013 3:42 pm

Twenty-four of my list didn't make the top 100.

1. Sundays and Cybele (I should've hyped it more because there is a perfectly good R2 DVD available - however, if this gets an American re-release and an R1 dvd/blu, I'm pretty sure it will break the top 50 next time, maybe even top 20 - it's just waiting to be re-discovered.)
6. The Miracle Worker (second only to The Elephant Man as the greatest film ever made from a true story - both of the women are amazing in it, the second-to-last scene perhaps the single most thrilling scene from any movie ever made, and visually it's absolutely gutsy and fascinating - at times appearing to be shot much more like a ghost story than a drama.)
8. The Servant (the best Joseph Losey film, Harold Pinter's greatest script, Dirk Bogarde's best performance, John Dankworth's best score, etc. etc.)
14. Rapture (the building of the scarecrow alone makes this a masterpiece, and I treasure it for the only other big Patricia Gozzi performance following my #1 1960's pick)
15. Juliet of the Spirits (surrealism meets haute couture in the most vivid 1960's Technicolor dreamland)
16. A Patch of Blue (sensitive and gorgeous drama, perfectly acted/directed & with a heartbreaking Jerry Goldsmith score.)
17. The Pumpkin Eater (the second big Harold Pinter sixties movie, brilliantly directed by Jack Clayton)
20. Barbarella (a gorgeous production and a very funny movie that is the absolute zenith of sixties pulp)
22. The Happy Ending (a few widescreen HD TV showings in the past few years, but no DVD/blu-ray/DVD-R release in any country - Jean Simmons gives her best performance, and Conrad Hall gives us his best color cinematography)
23. To Kill a Mockingbird (Gregory Peck and Elmer Bernstein doing the best work of their lives)
25. Live for Live (Vivre pour vivre) (no R1 or R2 VHS/DVD/blu-ray/DVD-R... Yves Montand plays a Hawksian/Hemingway-esque war correspondent caught up in a globe-trotting soap opera that Lelouch photographs as if he were shooting a fashion spread for Vogue or Harper's Bazaar - I loved it)
27. In Cold Blood (a harrowing true life murder story bravely photographed and scored like a film noir & the result is breathtaking & emotionally devastating)
29. Lilith (Jean Seberg's greatest performance)
30. Last Summer (a 1985 VHS of the R-rated cut and a TCM HD broadcast of the heavily edited television cut is all we have right now - one of the great novels of the sixties, from the writer of The Birds, made into a masterpiece by Frank Perry)
31. John & Mary
33. Two for the Road
34. The Game is Over (Jane Fonda and Michel Piccoli giving their career-best performances)
37. The Great Escape (the greatest action movie ever made?)
39. Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster's best performance)
45. I Knew Her Well (the sixties Italian Cinema takes on a film industry "rise and fall" story - Stefania Sandrelli gives her all in a performance barely seen outside of Italy)
47. The Girl on a Motorcycle (don't let the negative DVDBeaver review of both the film itself & the blu-ray transfer discourage you - it's an amazing movie & the blu-ray looks terrific)
48. Targets (perhaps too hard to watch or rank in these times, but however disturbing it may be it's power as cinema is undeniable)
49. Fahrenheit 451 (Bernard Herrmann's score - enough said)
50. Our Mother's House (no VHS/DVD/blu-ray/DVD-R in any country - only TV airings - but catch it if you can! Pamela Franklin is amazing here & it might have Georges Delerue's best score)
Last edited by Dylan on Tue May 28, 2013 2:07 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Tommaso
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#235 Post by Tommaso » Mon May 27, 2013 4:02 pm

colinr0380 wrote:
And for the 70s project everyone irritated by Peter Jackson needlessly over-expanding The Hobbit might want to check out Water Wrackets, which manages to tell an evocative Tolkein-esque story over footage of riverbanks and burbling streams!
Yeah, Water Wrackets, thanks for reminding me already. That one is completely hilarious, and the Tolkien comparison is spot-on. I often think that Greenaway's humour (and Britishness) comes over best in these early shorts (or perhaps he's lost it somewhat in his later years). But let's keep this discussion for the 70s list, I may also have a little story to tell about some students' reactions to Vertical Features then.

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zedz
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#236 Post by zedz » Mon May 27, 2013 4:41 pm

Okay, so let’s do this in reverse striptease order. I had an almost symmetrical result: 22 films made the list; 21 were also-rans; the remaining seven were orphans, but what orphans! My list placements are attached:

Orphans

2. A Quiet Week in the House (Svankmajer, 1969) – Already rhapsodized.
6. Dragon’s Return (Grecner, 1968) – Well, maybe next time, when the rest of you get to see it in Second Run’s forthcoming edition. Basically it’s a Tarkovsky / Vlacil / Herzog blend, with the greatest score you’ve ever heard.
10. Arnulf Rainer (Kubelka, 1960) – Not easily describable. It’s like the apparatus of cinema became sentient and malevolent and turned against its master. A film that seems to be the articulation of a completely alien consciousness, and the only film that could conceivably fill all fifty slots on this list.
15. The Valley of the Bees (Vlacil, 1968) - Yes, I like this better than Marketa Lazarova
18. Le Revelateur (Garrel, 1968)
32. T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (Sharits, 1969) – I guess the few of you who did see it either saw it on YouTube and barely saw it at all, or were epileptic and didn’t recover in time to submit a list.
42. Brief Encounters (Muratova, 1967) – For heaven’s sake, somebody rescue this woman’s fifty year string of masterpieces from obscurity. This big gap is just going to become more and more awkward when we vote for subsequent decades. This is probably the best and most ambitious contemporary realist film made in the USSR in the 60s. Even getting banned for several decades hasn’t helped its profile!

Foster Children:

3. L’Enfance nue (Pialat, 1969) – Oh, you guys are surely kidding. No excuse for any Truffaut in the top 100 if this is left out.
5. Violence at Noon (Oshima, 1966) – Vote splitting? Mass amnesia? I don’t know.
7. Diamonds of the Night (Nemec, 1964) – The really shocking thing is how much renewed availability hasn’t helped so many neglected masterpieces. This supplanted Party and the Guests from my list (it was top 10 last time).
8. Black God, White Devil (Rocha, 1964)
9. The House is Black (Farrokhzad, 1963) – A shameful omission, but aren’t they all?
11. The Affair (Yoshida, 1967) – Thanks to those who watched this and voted for it. Maybe next time, when some English-language company develops the balls to port those magnificent French transfers.
17. An Untitled Film (Gladwell, 1964) – This may be the most beautiful film on my list.
19. Signs of Life (Herzog, 1968) – Is OOP really that much of a hurdle nowadays? The need for a Criterion BluRay has officially become critical.
20. Fire in Castille (Val del Omar, 1961) – Well, we did our best, knives and whoever!
21. 7362 (O’Neill, 1967)
24. Dog Star Man (Brakhage, 1964)
26. Pas de deux (McLaren, 1968) - This may be the most beautiful film on my list.
27. Paris nous appartient (Rivette, 1961) – Why wait for Criterion (and continental drift)? It’s out now on BFI.
28. Barrier (Skolimowski, 1966) – Not even a shitty transfer should stand in the way of a film this good.
30. Simon of the Desert (Bunuel, 1965)
36. Double Suicide (Shinoda, 1969)
38. A Man Vanishes (Imamura, 1967)
39. The Shooting (Hellman, 1966) – The only (barely) Hollywood film that made my list. Hurry up, Criterion!
45. Die Parallelstrasse (Khittl, 1962)
49. The Night of Counting the Years (Abdelsalam, 1969) – Another film Criterion is presumably sitting on.
50. Walden (Mekas, 1969) – Out of about a dozen contenders, the coveted final slot on my list went to this film in tribute to swo’s touchingly ridiculous quest to get ahold of the OOP BMB (Big Motherfucking Book) edition of the film.

Trust-Fund Kids:

1. The Colour of Pomegranates (Paradzhanov, 1968)
4. Andrey Rublyov (Tarkovsky, 1969)
12. Inferno of First Love (Hani, 1968) – Yay! We made it! Thanks, whoever.
13. Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (Oshima, 1968)
14. Au hazard, Balthasar (Bresson, 1966)
16. Medea (Pasolini, 1969)
22. Pigsty (Pasolini, 1969) – Yeah, I was one of those pig-lovers.
23. The Red and the White (Jansco, 1967)
25. Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (Demy, 1967)
29. The Profound Desire of the Gods (Imamura, 1968)
31. The Round-Up (Jansco, 1966)
33. Scorpio Rising (Anger, 1964)
34. Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (Paradzhanov, 1965)
35. Le Trou (Becker, 1960) – Best thriller of the decade?
37. The Cremator (Herz, 1969) – Clearly a case of “all you need to do is see it.”
40. Le Samourai (Melville, 1967)
41. Charulata (Ray, 1964)
43. La Jetee (Marker, 1962)
44. High and Low (Kurosawa, 1963)
46. L’Eclisse (Antonioni, 1962)
47. Eros Plus Massacre (Yoshida, 1969)
48. Cleo from 5 to 7 (Varda, 1962)

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swo17
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#237 Post by swo17 » Mon May 27, 2013 5:10 pm

zedz wrote:20. Fire in Castille (Val del Omar, 1961) – Well, we did our best, knives and whoever!
Me, of course. We were also the only three people crazy enough to vote for Porcile. And Walden.

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zedz
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#238 Post by zedz » Mon May 27, 2013 7:56 pm

colinr0380 wrote:43. Intervals - I like to think of this as a proto-music video (and a great preparation for the much more complex Vertical Features Remake) with the same Venice footage (perversely without a view of the canals intruding) cut to and repeated a couple of times with a metronome and industrial noises, and an Italian lesson in ABCs as if to vaguely illustrate principles of musical notation, rhythm and development, eventually ending with the most cathartic burst of classical music in cinema. It can be watched here or on the first volume of the BFI's Early Films of Peter Greenaway set.
Technically, the film you voted for is a 1970s one, since the soundtrack wasn't added until 1973. But maybe you can vote for it again next time!

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knives
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#239 Post by knives » Mon May 27, 2013 9:57 pm

swo17 wrote:
zedz wrote:20. Fire in Castille (Val del Omar, 1961) – Well, we did our best, knives and whoever!
Me, of course. We were also the only three people crazy enough to vote for Porcile. And Walden.
I was also another guy who voted for the Gladwell. I placed Walden as low as I did because I assumed that it was a guarantee given how important and well known it is. Oh well, I'm still smarting over Losey being the eternal runner up. I'd have thrown more weight to him had I known he was so unfortunate. Though I don't know where to begin with 14 orphans. No other goes at van Peebles nor my fav Oshima smarts the most for me though.

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#240 Post by YnEoS » Mon May 27, 2013 11:18 pm

Here are my Orphans + write ups

1. Tres Tristes Tigres (Raúl Ruiz, 1968) - This seems to be modeled after French New Wave gangster films, but with dialogue thats so typically Ruizian. Perhaps more straightforward than his later films, but all the casual conversations reveal so many interesting aspects of Chilean life and really runs the gamut of different topics and perspectives. Good conversations being pushed forward by tense plot devices is already like catnip for me, but the way he pulls the plot together with the temperament of his protagonist at the end is really astonishing. Just one of those films that sneaks up on you, seems like nothing special at first, then you realize you want to live inside it ever day.

18. A Story Written with Water (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1965) - Apparently I didn't get the memo of which Yoshida film everyone was voting on, so I was only one who voted highly for this. This was the first Yoshida film I watched and I was so blown away by the style I watched it again to take it all in. If I had time to evaluate his whole career in more detail, I might've had another Yoshida film up here. So if you haven't already, you should see at least 1 Yoshida film, because so far I've loved everything I've seen of his, and I'm looking forward to seeing more.

19. The Last Trick (Jan Svankmajer, 1964) - I was really tempted to put all of Svankmajer's 60s shorts on my list, but then I realized there are just too many great films in the 60s to put that many votes with 1 director. I think Svankmajer gets a lot of milage out of the simple set up of the magician competition. The editing, the imagined space inside their bodies, playing with the idea of organic/inorganic and animate/inanimate, and the eventual bodily destruction. Lots of great stuff in here that re-occurs in his later work.

24. My Way Home (Miklós Jancsó, 1965) - I know a lot of people consider this watered down Jansco. But many times I'm a fan of in-between films where directors haven't reached their style. I'm a sucker for simple narrative done well, and I love this simpler story being told in a way that's typically Jansco. I love his more extreme forays into his long take style that follow, but for me My Way Home is one of those magical in-between films that seem to me to be the most unique and hardest to re-create.

37. A Wanderer's Notebook (Mikio Naruse, 1962) - I think Hideko Takamine's posture in this film is forever burned into my memory.

38. Punch and Judy (Jan Svankmajer, 1968) - Oh look more Svankmajer, not all the rest of his films like I wanted, but another really good one.

42. Lemonade Joe (Oldirch Lipsky, 1964) - While Czech New Wave was doing some really cool stuff in this decade, I think the popular Czech directors were also experimenting and doing some crazy and fun experiments. Oldrich's Lipsky's American genre parodies are absolutely manic and delightful to watch. If I do a 70s and 80s list, I'll probably include a vote for Dinner for Adele and The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians, which also feature some crazy props built by Jan Svankmajer.

50. King of Kings (Joseph Kuo, 1969) - There probably are hundreds of better films than this one made in the 1960s. But this is the 1 point slot #50, so it seems fitting to put in a flawed film of personal importance. Joseph Kuo is a huge figure in independent kung fu cinema in the 70s, and seeing some of his style existing in this early Taiwanese wuxia film of his was a revelation for me. It may have a lot of flaws, but I see it as an essential piece in the story of the history of cinema, or at least the cinema that interests me.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#241 Post by Cold Bishop » Tue May 28, 2013 12:55 am

Some more useless stats: 0f my top 50, only 20 made the list. Of the remaining, 15 were also rans, and 15 more were orphans.

Of my top ten, all 10 made the list. However, only 6 made the top fifty, and only 2 made the top 10.

Top Ten:

1. 8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963) Life as cinema as life...
2. Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966) Exhausting in the best way possible, you don't watch this movie, you live inside it...
3. Death by Hanging (Nagisa Oshima, 1968) You know that cartoon gag, where a character opens a door... but there's another door behind it... and another door.... and another? Well, swap that for a scaffold trapdoor, and you get the gist of this formally brilliant comic masterwork.
4. Marketa Lazarová (Frantisek Vlácil, 1967) If this movie was just three hours of Bedrich Batka's widescreen roaming panoramas, accompanied by Zdenek Liska's music, it'd still be a masterpice. Savage, primal, intoxicating...
5. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969) As violently troubling and questionable as the day it was made, I still always end up coming back to this ultra-macho, blood-soaked saga. Maybe that says more about me than the film, but as one character so eloquently puts it: "Why the hell not..."
6. Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (Sergei Parajanov, 1965) The absolute freedom of the camera: it floats, dances, spins, marches solemnly, runs madly, prowls the earth, falls from the sky, switches from subjectivity and objectivity... often within the same shot. No wonder Parajanov retreated into static tableaux for his next film; he took movement as far it can go, all without a steadicam.
7. Le Trou (Jacques Becker, 1960) Because there are movies about tough guys, and then there are movies that are tough themselves. Forget the New Wave: it was Becker's early death (and Clouzot's long illness) which truly marked the end for the French Golden Age.
8. Branded to Kill (Seijun Suzuki, 1967) So Sigmund Freud, Richard Stark and Jim Steranko walk into a bar... it still wouldn't be half as weird or cool as this acid-noir masterpiece.
9. The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967) If you don't have a giant grin on your face by the end of this film, you're jaded beyond hope, and you should probably consider having yourself looked at for clinical depression. I'm not kidding.
10. The Round-Up (Miklós Jancsó, 1966) History as a never-ending chess game, the endless Hungarian plains its gameboard. While other directors struggle with the "epic", Jancso effortlessly creates a cinema of "mass movement", while never losing sight at the horror of being a pawn.

Orphans:

Birds, Orphans and Fools (Juraj Jakubisko, 1969)
Coach to Vienna (Karel Kachyna, 1966)
The two sides of the Czech New Wave. The first from the "Slovakian" Koliba Studio: improvisatory, psychedelic, youthful, in bright color. The latter from the "Czech" Barrandov Studio: intimate, psychological, harrowing, in austere black-and-white. Both banned by the Communist authorities. Both masterpieces.

Au coeur de la vie (Robert Enrico, 1963)
Did it take a Frenchman to make the greatest film about the American Civil War? Perhaps, but considering the source material, it isn't so surprising. A film as great as the sum of its parts - "The Mockingbird", "Chickamagua" and the famously reapproriated "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" - this is a goddamn hidden masterpiece that's been partly hiding in plain sight.

Thomas the Impostor (Georges Franju, 1965)
Because Franju was no one-trick pony, and this is the rare adaptation which is better than its source. A twinkling, enchanting fantasy on the outskirts of real horror... or vice-versa.

La prisonnière (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1968)
Fate and health be damned, Clouzot was going to get one last masterpiece in, and this perverse, pop-art head-trip may be the most underrated work of his filmography. You can call it his Frenzy, his attempt to prove his mettle to a younger generation of would-be usurpers, and coming up with a work of exquisite decadence and excess, with a mind-melting finale that u-turns, unexpectedly for an erotic thriller, into 2001 territory.

Silence Has No Wings (Kazuo Kuroki, 1966)
Based off its plot - a caterpillars's journey across Japan and the scenes it witness - it shouldn't work. But Kuroki freely mixes documentary, narrative and purely allegorical scenes, trapezing through genres, settings and seemingly space and time itself: the result is a hypnotic rumination on Japan in the shadow of the Atomic Bomb and Cold War. A definitive ATG film, even as it stays as gentle and lyrical as most of those films were confrontational and psycho-sexual.

I, the Executioner (Tai Katô, 1968)
Speaking of confrontational and psycho-sexual... A would-be sleazy, misogynistic exploitation film turned upside down and inside out into a noirish, mysterious study of psychosis and revenge. Kato's formal audaciousness and his brazen approach to sexual politics makes this something worthy of Oshima's Violence at Noon and Imamura's Intentions of Murder - perhaps even echoing certain aspects of Koji Wakamastu - even as Kato himself remained firmly within the commercial studio system.

Confessions of an Opium Eater (Albert Zugsmith, 1962)
Like some opium-delirium sweated out in the backrooms of an all-night movie theater showing nothing but Tod Browning and Josef Von Sternberg films, this is a gobsmacking classic of "weird cinema", all the more surprising coming, not from some renegade termite-artist, but from the hands of an "unscrupulous" producer. Adrift with sleaze and orientalism run-amuck, Zugsmith valiantly adheres to the hallucinatory property of its source material... and not much else. The result is drive-in surrealism, one of the first whiffs of the psychedelia that would define the decade for many.

Journey to Duilia’s Breasts (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1964)
Moving between Argentina and Brazil, Christensen was supposedly one of the region's great directors of melodrama. I can't verify that, but this is certainly some kind of masterpiece. Despite it's ridiculous (although oddly poetic) title, it's a touching and haunting portrait of old age, inescapable memories and extinguished passion, reminiscent of Bergman and Dreyer.

Ikarie XB 1 (Jindrich Polák, 1963)
WTF? Is this a situation where no one voted for it because they thought someone else would? Alas, I'm sure Second Run will remedy this the next go-around. Intelligent and thoughtful science-fiction.

Human Bullet (Kihachi Okamoto, 1968)
Although his most famous work in the US is a gloomy samurai film, Okamoto made his name at Toho with a series of satirical black comedies. But this film - about a naive soldier transformed into a suicide bomber - was too much, and it forced him to turn to the Art Theater Guild. A brilliant and bitter anti-war film.

Face to Face (Sergio Sollima, 1967)
One of the Three Sergios - alongside Leone and Corbucci - this is one of his three famed Spaghetti Westerns, sandwiched between The Big Gundown and Run, Man, Run. Expand your horizons and watch them all.

The Great Killing (Eichi Kudô, 1964)
One of the defining works of the cruel jidaigeki wave: grim and violent samurai films - made in the wake of Yojimbo, Harakiri and The Conspirator - with revolutionary and anti-establishment themes, often in black-and-white. Thirteen Assassins may be Kudo's more famed film, thanks to a well-placed remake, but this may his most complex: a web of Machiavellian political maneuvering culminating in a blast of desperate, revolutionary violence. Gritty stuff.

The Hunt (Carlos Saura, 1966) I though this film was more famous. Four men go on a hunting trip on the former grounds of a famed Civil War battle. Things do not go well. Comparable to films like Knife in the Water, Deliverance or Wake in Fright, this is another tale of civilized men driven to uncivilized extremes. You can practically feel the heat on your brow and dirt in your pores, while watching it.

The Invincible Fist (Chang Cheh, 1969) With a tough, no-nonsense physicality that calls to mind the Western and Samurai film, this is a pretty damn good spot for someone to enter the old-school Shaw Brothers wuxia pian. Be assured, you haven't heard the last from me on the subject... :-$

Also-Rans:

Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, 1965) - WTF?!
Fellini Satyricon (Federico Fellini, 1969) - C'mon!
An Actor’s Revenge (Kon Ichikawa, 1963)
Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha, 1964
) - Really?!
The Eve of Ivan Kapalo (Yuri Ilyenko, 1968)
Strange Voyage (Fernando Fernán Gómez, 1964) - Who's the maniac that voted this #1?
The Great Silence (Sergio Corbucci, 1968)
I Knew Her Well (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1965)
Barrier (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1966)
The Hill (Sidney Lumet, 1965)
Joseph Kilian (Pavel Jurácek & Jan Schmidt, 1965)
El Verdugo (Luis García Berlanga, 1963)
The Saragossa Manuscript (Wojciech Has, 1965)
A Fugitive from the Past (Tomu Uchida, 1965)
The Easy Life (Dino Risi, 1962)
Last edited by Cold Bishop on Tue May 28, 2013 7:18 am, edited 4 times in total.

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life_boy
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#242 Post by life_boy » Tue May 28, 2013 1:03 am

I had 6 orphans, 21 also-rans and have seen 58/100 films in the final Top 100. I didn't have time to contribute much to the pre-tally discussion so some of this is my own fault, but I guess I also assumed some of these films, being readily available through recent Criterion releases, might fair better than they would otherwise. Oh well.

Top 10
1. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963) (#24 overall)
2. Play Time (Jacques Tati, 1967) (#09)
3. Salesman (Albert Maysles & David Maysles, 1968) (Also-Ran)
4. Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel, 1965) (AR)
5. Batman: The Movie (Leslie H. Martinson, 1966) (AR)
6. The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (Roberto Rossellini, 1966) (AR)
7. An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962) (#45)
8. Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964) (#22)
9. L’Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962) (#13)
10. Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (Nagisa Oshima, 1968) (#82)


Orphans
19. Pitfall (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1962)
I love all three of Teshigahara’s features from the Criterion box set, but this was the one that most surprised me with its investigative mystery/ghost story/satire so I gave it the slight edge over the other two. It was clever and involving and haunting in a way I didn’t at all anticipate. I love how Teshigahara can skirt the edge between full on surrealism with a mixture of naturalism and absurdity.

25. Cosmic Ray (Bruce Conner, 1962)
The linking of sex and war is a pretty tired correlation, but Conner’s fractured kineticism takes it about as far as he can by morphing it into an expression of celebrity libido centered around “the performance”. The woman is performing; Ray is performing; the atom bomb is performing; Conner is performing. It is as intoxicating in the moment as it is frightening when you step back from it later.

35. Brutality in Stone (Alexander Kluge & Peter Schamoni, 1963)
I thought there might be some Kluge love out there that would encompass this stunner of a formalist meditation on place and history, but I was wrong. Kluge and Schamoni use the specific framing of Weimer architecture to express the direct and indirect correlations between the Nazi ideals of Hitler’s speeches and the impact his decisions and ideologies had on the landscape. Yesterday Girl was clearly the more obvious 60’s Kluge to get behind, but I didn’t love it enough to back it. (Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed narrowly missed my top 50.)

37. Mudhoney (Russ Meyer, 1965)
Russ being Russ. He is one of the few filmmakers to consistently use his cinematic style as a comedic device.

39. The Defilers (Lee Frost, 1965)
A lost Godard film trapped in the unaware landscape of American exploitation cinema. Accidental greatness.

40. Fantastic Voyage (Richard Fleischer, 1966)
I gave just a couple of nostalgia votes and this was one of them. I have loved this film since childhood and it still has all the charms I loved as a child.


Also-Rans
3. Salesman (Albert & David Maysles, 1968)
Documentaries never seem to fair well in these list compilations and I guess many consider this a dry verité film that is more significant historically than it is fun to watch but I completely disagree. I love everything about this movie: the characters, the cars, the cigarette smoke, the editing, the ellipses, the dialects, the lost way of life, the textured sadness. Watch it as a narrative film and be astonished at its daring. Watch it as a time capsule and be absorbed by its atmosphere. Watch it as a character study and be enraptured by its pathos. I know I can’t make people love this movie but I wish they would.

4. Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel, 1965)
Major auteur: check.
Criterion release: check.
Less than 60-minute runtime: check.
What gives?

5. Batman: The Movie (Leslie Martinson, 1966)
When I sent in my ballot I fully expected this to be my major orphan but was astonished to see another vote for this hilariously brilliant absurdist farce. Who was it? I will take this over every other Batman movie any day of the week (and probably any superhero movie, now that I think about it). Endlessly quotable and hilariously patriotic, Batman is the ultimate Cold War parody, lampooning the establishment while also seeming to uphold it as noble, subverting chaos by having the most orderly criminals design elaborate plans that fail because they can’t help but give clues to help the crime stoppers in their quest to rid the streets of colorful criminals. Every role is played to comic perfection and the set designers probably had as much fun coming up with labels for stuff in the Bat Cave as the writers did writing lines like: “They may be drinkers, Robin, but they're still human beings.” I think it is funnier than Dr. Strangelove, or, some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb!

6. The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (Robert Rossellini, 1968) -- only one other person voted for this masterpiece?
13. The End of Summer (Yasujiro Ozu, 1961) -- I will probably end up voting for every Ozu film I have seen at some point through these decades lists. He was a true master.
17. L’enfance Nue (Maurice Pialat, 1968) -- I’m with you, zedz. I can barely tolerate Truffaut; this is an absolute gem.
21. Barren Lives (aka Vidas Secas) (Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1963) -- This is still the only Cinema Novo film I have managed to see but I was deeply moved by the portrayal of a poor family trying to survive in the wilderness. And that dog...
23. Mothlight (Stan Brakhage, 1963)
27. Three Resurrected Drunkards (Nagisa Oshima, 1968) -- Another neglected comedy.
29. Medium Cool (Haskell Wexler, 1969) -- I haven’t seen it in a while but I love the melding of documentary and narrative and the last shot is a doozy.
30. Pigs and Battleships (Shohei Imamura, 1961) -- It seems like there is so much more readily available than there was last time we did the list yet there are films like this (that I assumed had a consensus behind them) that aren’t garnering as much support as I anticipated.
31. Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964) -- A goodly witch nearly topples capitalism through magic.
32. Take the Money and Run (Woody Allen, 1969) -- Hilarious. Again, I guess the 60’s aren’t supposed to be funny.
34. Wavelength (Michael Snow, 1967) -- I guess it is as dated as most commercial cinema from the decade, but it feels like a nightmarish conceptual fever dream about the dangers of currents in cinema. Someone has to die and always will. And no one will care.
36. Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer, 1965)
41. The Face of Another (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966)
47. I fidanzati (Ermanno Olmi, 1963) -- I finally get around to seeing this film and its as if everyone leaves the room. Maybe we all need to go back and watch this one again because it’s really good.
48. Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) -- Speaking of support drying up…
49. Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman, 1965)
50. In Cold Blood (Richard Brooks, 1967)

Just Missed My List
Katzelmacher (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1969)
La Chinoise (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) -- my apologies to whoever put this as their #3 choice, only to have it be orphaned
Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed (Alexander Kluge, 1968) -- best movie title of the decade
Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962)
Labyrinth (Jan Lenica, 1963)
The Great Silence (Sergio Corbucci, 1968)


Curse You, IMDb
The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1969) -- This easily would have made it somewhere in the latter half of my list if I had noticed that it was no longer credited on IMDb as 1970. Sorry swo (not that it would have helped that much, but I'm still sorry).

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swo17
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#243 Post by swo17 » Tue May 28, 2013 1:32 am

life_boy wrote:Curse You, IMDb
The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1969) -- This easily would have made it somewhere in the latter half of my list if I had noticed that it was no longer credited on IMDb as 1970. Sorry swo (not that it would have helped that much, but I'm still sorry).
I'll live, though for the record, there was a reminder that this (as well as numerous other borderline cases) was eligible as a '60s film in the first post of the thread for the entire duration of the project.

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#244 Post by Lemmy Caution » Tue May 28, 2013 2:31 am

Cold Bishop wrote: Birds, Orphans and Fools (Juraj Jakubisko, 1969)
Coach to Vienna (Karel Kachyna, 1966)
The two sides of the Czech New Wave. The first from the "Slovakian" Koliba Studio: improvisatory, psychedelic, youthful, in bright color. The latter from the "Czech" Barrandov Studio: intimate, psychological, harrowing, in austere black-and-white. Both banned by the Communist authorities. Both masterpieces.
Interesting ...
Are these out on English-subbed Dvd?

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life_boy
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#245 Post by life_boy » Tue May 28, 2013 2:42 am

swo17 wrote:
life_boy wrote:Curse You, IMDb
The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1969)
I'll live, though for the record, there was a reminder that this (as well as numerous other borderline cases) was eligible as a '60s film in the first post of the thread for the entire duration of the project.
Amazingly, I checked that a couple of times and somehow never noticed The Honeymoon Killers. ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

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Cold Bishop
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#246 Post by Cold Bishop » Tue May 28, 2013 7:39 am

Lemmy Caution wrote:
Cold Bishop wrote:Interesting ...
Are these out on English-subbed Dvd?
The Slovak Film Institute release of Birds, Orphans and Fools is English friendly. Coach to Vienna, however, is fan-sub only.

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Murdoch
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#247 Post by Murdoch » Tue May 28, 2013 7:59 am

My top ten

1. The Girl Who Knew Too Much – Bava (Wow, I thought somebody would vote for this. Probably the most fun I've had watching any horror movie, or movie period.)
2. Carnival of Souls – Harvey
3. L’eclisse – Antonioni
4. The Exterminating Angel – Bunuel
5. Persona – Bergman
6. Underworld, U.S.A. - Fuller
7. This Sporting Life – Anderson
8. Adieu Phillipine - Rozier (I guess I should have written about this in the thread, a very delightful film)
9. Pierrot le Fou – Godard
10. My Night at Maud’s - Rohmer

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#248 Post by bamwc2 » Tue May 28, 2013 10:26 am

Here's a full breakdown of my list:

Films that made the top 100: 8 1/2, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Battle of Algiers, Blow-Up, Cléo from 5 to 7, The Cremator, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I Am Cuba, Ivan’s Childhood, Jules et Jim, Kwaidan, Last Year at Marienbad, Marketa Lazarová, Once Upon a Time in the West, Point Blank, The Red and the White, Tokyo Olympiad, Viridiana, Winter Light , Z

My Also-Rans: Advise & Consent, Le Bonheur, Boy, Charade, Chimes at Midnight, David Holzman's Diary, Elmer Gantry, Il Vangelo secondo Matteo, Hamlet, In the Heat of the Night, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Lord of the Flies, Medium Cool, Memoirs of Underdevelopment, One, Two, Three, Onibaba, Stolen Kisses, Sundays and Cybèle, Targets, Titicut Follies, A Woman Is a Woman, Yojimbo

My Orphans:
El Cid: This is, without a doubt, my favorite example of a Hollywood epic. Strangely enough its reputation seems to have fallen off of the map in the decades since its release. Both Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren are pitch perfect in their roles, but Robert Krasker's technicolor cinematography strikes me as the real star. It's worth noting that in the commentary track for the Criterion LD, Heston revealed that this was his favorite of all of his films. While Ben Hur was a chariot racer, El Cid was a real hero.

Iceman Cometh: I've already written up my defense of this Sidney Lumet masterpiece in the 1960s thread. As I said there, this film is a showcase of Jason Robards giving a masterclass in the art of acting. I doubt that Eugene O'Neill's script was ever better produced.

Inherit the Wind: In a time where reason and truth are under a continual assault, I can think of no better example of the importance of critical thinking than Stanley Kramer's Inherit the Wind. Even with the outstanding performances from all of the film's leads, the ideas always seem to be the real attraction here. Although I agree with the general consensus of Kramer's output from this forum, this stands out as his career high water mark.

The Night of the Generals: While not particularly flashy, Anatole Litvak's slow burning serial killer story stands out as a very solid piece of genre-defying work. Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif both give great performances, and Sharif actually manages to pull off the rarest of feats: portraying a scrupulous Nazi. There's a twist in the movie around 4/5 of the way in that I genuinely didn't see coming, but works perfectly.

Ordinary Fascism: Again, I gave my rationale for this documentary back in the 1960s thread. While I don't have anything new to add to my analysis, I will say that the film's angry rebuke against fascism, capitalism, racism, and obliquely the totalitarian aspects of Soviet-style communism seem as timely to me as ever.

The Pawnbroker: What a wonderful performance by Rod Steiger! I'm genuinely shocked that no one else voted for this masterpiece from Sidney Lumet. The editing in this film ranks among the best that I've ever seen, and the concentration camp flashbacks will stay with me for the rest of my life.

The Sorrow and the Pity: The fact that no one else voted for Marcel Ophüls astonishing documentary of Nazi occupied France is probably my biggest shock of this list. So many of the films of this era dealt with the world coming to terms with the horrors of WWII, yet this one seems to stand among the very best. The run time can be a bit daunting, but the result is worth it. Simply amazing.

Who's That Knocking at My Door: I love Martin Scorsese's debut film. It's bustling with energy and a pure love of cinema. The sex scene in particular strikes me as alive with joy and possibilities. The composition in there is phenomenal. Starring a then unknown Harvey Keitel who gives a wonderfully natural performance, the film has always struck me as Scorsese's leaner adaptation of I Vitelloni.

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#249 Post by Mr Sheldrake » Tue May 28, 2013 11:12 am

My dirty dozen plus orphans

1 7 Women - Ford
-if it had been made in b/w, in the 30s, starring Katherine Hepburn......
2 My Night at Mauds - Rohmer
3 L'Avventura - Antonioni
4 Once Upon a Time in the West - Leone
5 One, Two, Three - Wilder
-I'm fascinated by Cagney's performance, his monumental energy, the film gets funnier with every viewing
6 Contempt - Godard
7 Psycho - Hitchcock
8 Mississippi Mermaid - Truffaut (orphan!)
-crazy love at its craziest, Belmondo/Denueve the decades top duo
9 Au Hasard Balthazar - Bresson
10 The Apartment - Wilder
11 The Bad Sleep Well - Kurosawa
-his most underrated movie, the melodrama soars
12 The Birds - Hitchcock
-for anyone who loves this movie, my advice is to visit Bodega Bay, Ca.

17 The Quiller Memorandum - Anderson (spotlight)
20 Don't Make Waves - Mackendrick (spotlight)
21 Home From the Hill - Minnelli
-Minnelli in wide screen splendor, based on an excellent novel by forgotten writer William Humphrey
23 Donovan's Reef - Ford
-Wayne at his most appealing, Ford confronting community and race
30 Before the Revolution - Bertolucci
-surprised nobody else voted for this
32 Seduced and Abandoned - Germi
-it's possible I overrate comedy
34 The Great Race - Edwards
-more comedy, Peter Falk is hilarious
39 Muriel - Resnais
-much prefer this to Marienbad, but it's a puzzler too
42 What Ever Happened to Baby Jane - Aldrich
-pure insanity, Victor Buono almost steals the show from Crawford and Davis
44 Bye Bye Braverman - Lumet
-unusual movie confonting death, great location shooting, an overlooked NYC Lumet
47 Madigan - Siegel
-a primer on the art of editing
48 The Sterile Cuckoo - Pakula
-one of the best first love movies
50 Sunday in New York - Tewksbury
-goofy farce, but I probably should have replaced it with Lord Love a Duck which would have taken it out of orphan status

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#250 Post by the preacher » Tue May 28, 2013 11:32 am

Cold Bishop wrote:Strange Voyage (Fernando Fernán Gómez, 1964) - Who's the maniac that voted this #1?
That was me! I'm very glad it did not end up as an orphan.

Orphans:

Viento negro [Black Wind] (1965), Macario (1960), Yawar mallku [Blood of the Condor] (1969)
Spanish language films (previously mentioned)

El Dorado (1966), Planet of the Apes (1968), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Hollywood (probably not well known yet :lol: )

Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide [Hercules and the Captive Women] (1961)
my poor spotlight (I knew this would happen)

Era notte a Roma [Escape by Night] (1960)
a variation of the themes already seen in "Open City", gaining in maturity, perspective and depth (if possible)

Incompreso [Misunderstood] (1966)
a children's movie, sensitive and poignant; Comencini's best (highly recommended "Everybody Go Home" and "Casanova" were released this decade too)

Dubei dao [The One-Armed Swordsman] (1967)
landmark martial arts movie (followed by vastly inferior imitations, sequels and remakes)

Mabu [The Coachman] (1961)
De Sica's neorealism tradition meets Capra's sentimental style (in Korea!)

Kradetzat na praskovi [The Peach Thief] (1964)
a time to love and a time to die; greatest Bulgarian film ever (plot very similar to Konrad Wolf's "Stars")

Sevmek zamani [Time to Love] (1965)
the best Buñuelesque movie of the decade (more modern than anything by Antonioni)

Al-ard [The Land] (1969)
fantastic screenplay, great characters, superb lead, memorable ending (what makes a classic?)

Assalto ao Trem Pagador [Assault on the Pay Train] (1962)
well shot crime thriller, compelling and richly detailed (social inequality, racism and slums)

Plein soleil [Purple Noon] (1960)
Delon as Tom Ripley, photo by Decaë, music by Rota (or the perfect Patricia Highsmith's adaptation)

Subarnarekha [The Golden Thread] (1962)
oops, I did not expect this

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