1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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Lighthouse
Joined: Sun May 29, 2011 11:12 am

Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#601 Post by Lighthouse » Mon May 27, 2013 3:11 pm

I re-watched 2001 2 weeks ago, first time for 10 years. and I was overwhelmed by it. I even had some tears in my eyes when the last shot appeared on the screen. My Kubrick fascination has cooled down a bit in that time range, but I was glad that at least 2001 is still fantastic.

I also re-watched Dr. Strangelove, which never gave me that much, and still doesn't. Good film though.

Actually I think that in the 60s, and in every decade since, but especially in the 60s and 70s, more amazing films were made than in the 6 decades before. It was the decade in which film became adult.

Top 20:

1 The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)
2 8½ (Fellini, 1963)
3 Once upon a Time in the West (Leone, 1968)
4 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
5 Faces (Cassavetes, 1968)
6 Hour of the Wolf (Bergman, 1968)
7 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1965)
8 Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
9 Die Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach (Straub, 1968)
10 Lola (Demy, 1961)
11 Le Samourai (Melville, 1967)
12 Accident, (Losey, 1967)
13 Blow-Up (Antonioni, 1966) 215
14 Hombre, (Ritt, 1967)
15 My Night at Maud's (Rohmer, 1969)
16 Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967)
17 Andrey Rublyov (Tarkovsky, 1966)
18 Il mercenario (Corbucci, 1968)
19 L'Avventura (Antonioni, 1960)
20 Ivan's Childhood (Tarkovsky, 1962)

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thirtyframesasecond
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:48 pm

Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#602 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Mon May 27, 2013 3:19 pm

Just looking at my top twenty, there's nothing here I saw for the first time for this project. Some I rewatched and this probably helped their placing but most of this I could've guessed back last year. In fact, 'Now' by Santiago Alvarez (#26) is the first "new" film I saw!

1. Eyes Without a Face (Franju, France, 1960)
2. 2001: a Space Odyssey (Kubrick, UK/US, 1968)
3. The Leopard (Visconti, Italy, 1963)
4. Contempt (Godard, France, 1963)
5. Seconds (Frankenheimer, US, 1966)
6. The Goddess (Ray, India, 1960)
7. Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors (Parajanov, Soviet Union, 1965)
8. Repulsion (Polanski, UK, 1965)
9. The Cow (Mehrjui, Iran, 1969)
10. Pierrot le Fou (Godard, France, 1965)
11. Theorem (Pasolini, Italy, 1968)
12. Dr Strangelove (Kubrick, UK/US, 1964)
13. Funeral Parade of Roses (Matsumoto, Japan, 1969)
14. Mother Joan of the Angels (Kawalerowicz, Poland, 1961)
15. A Report on the Party and the Guests (Nemec, Czechoslovakia, 1966)
16. The Birds (Hitchcock, US, 1963)
17. The Innocents (Clayton, UK, 1961)
18. Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky, Soviet Union, 1966)
19. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, US, 1969)
20. Au Hasard Balthazar (Bresson, France, 1966)

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TMDaines
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#603 Post by TMDaines » Mon May 27, 2013 3:48 pm

OK, this was my first time participating in a project like this and I really enjoyed it, so I'm going do a little write up below of my own ballot. I feel quite guilty at having contributed very little in terms of discussing titles and championing my personal favourites, especially now that I've looked at the results, but I've just been so busy this year in terms of stuff at university and in my personal life, so time was spent watching and not reflecting. I usually can't decide what I want to watch as I'm spoilt for choice but having only a single decade to choose from is great for exploring new movements and countries. There's now so much more that I want to watch in the 60s, than there was before I started, so from that perspective the project was quite eye-opening. Especially, I'd love to spend much more time exploring Czech and Hungarian cinema of the decade, and there's several directors who I didn't give enough time too, namely Bergman and Buñuel. In terms of my personal interest areas, I feel like I covered Germany, both East and West, pretty well, but Italy just has so much to give, especially at the start of the decade, that the more I watched, the more I wanted to watch. Anyway, here's my list in full with orphans in bold red and also-rans in italic blue:
#1) Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock - 1960 - United States)
#2) C'era una volta il West (Sergio Leone - 1968 - Italy)
#3) The Graduate (Mike Nichols - 1967 - United States)
#4) La jetée (Chris Marker - 1962 - France)
#5) Il sorpasso (Dino Risi - 1962 - Italy)
#6) Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Luchino Visconti - 1960 - Italy)
#7) Les parapluies de Cherbourg (Jacques Demy - 1964 - France)
#8) Le Mépris (Jean-Luc Godard - 1963 - France)
#9) 8½ (Federico Fellini - 1962 - Italy)
#10) La ragazza con la valigia (Valerio Zurlini - 1961 - Italy)
#11) Tini zabutykh predkiv (Sergei Parajanov - 1964 - Soviet Union (Ukrainian SSR))
#12) L'armée des ombres (Jean-Pierre Melville - 1969 - France)
#13) Csillagosok, katonák (Miklós Jancsó - 1967 - Hungary)
#14) Le trou (Jacques Becker - 1960 - France)
#15) Divorzio all'italiana (Pietro Germi - 1961 - Italy)
#16) Spur der Steine (Frank Beyer - 1966 - East Germany)
#17) Il bell'Antonio (Mauro Bolognini - 1960 - Italy)

#18) Ostře sledované vlaky (Jirí Menzel - 1966 - Czechoslovakia)
#19) Belle de jour (Luis Buñuel - 1967 - France)
#20) The Apartment (Billy Wilder - 1960 - United States)
#21) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick - 1968 - United States)
#22) Charade (Stanley Donen - 1963 - United States)
#23) Tengoku to jigoku (Akira Kurosawa - 1963 - Japan)
#24) Persona (Ingmar Bergman - 1966 - Sweden)
#25) The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock - 1963 - United States)
#26) À bout de souffle (Jean-Luc Godard - 1960 - France)
#27) Peeping Tom (Michael Powell - 1960 - United Kingdom)
#28) Abschied von gestern (Alexander Kluge - 1966 - Germany)
#29) Jules et Jim (François Truffaut - 1962 - France)
#30) A tanú (Péter Bacsó - 1969 - Hungary)
#31) Una vita difficile (Dino Risi - 1961 - Italy)

#32) Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie (Wojciech Has - 1965 - Poland)
#33) Kes (Ken Loach - 1969 - United Kingdom)
#34) Léon Morin, prêtre (Jean-Pierre Melville - 1961 - France)

#35) Kirmes (Wolfgang Staudte - 1960 - Germany)
#36) Katzelmacher (Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 1969 - Germany)
#37) Tutti a casa (Luigi Comencini - 1960 - Italy)
#38) The Innocents (Jack Clayton - 1961 - United Kingdom)
#39) I fidanzati (Ermanno Olmi - 1963 - Italy)
#40) Il gattopardo (Luchino Visconti - 1963 - Italy)
#41) Annychka (Boris Ivchenko - 1968 - Soviet Union (Ukrainian SSR))
#42) L'eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni - 1962 - Italy)
#43) I compagni (Mario Monicelli - 1963 - Italy)
#44) La dolce vita (Federico Fellini - 1960 - Italy)
#45) Es (Ulrich Schamoni - 1966 - Germany)
#46) Mamma Roma (Pier Paolo Pasolini - 1962 - Italy)

#47) Lola (Jacques Demy - 1961 - France)
#48) Das zweite Gleis (Joachim Kunert - 1962 - East Germany)
#49) Ich war neunzehn (Konrad Wolf - 1968 - East Germany)
#50) Der geteilte Himmel (Konrad Wolf - 1964 - East Germany)
Fun Facts: 27 Finalists, 13 Also-Rans, 10 Orphans

By Country: Italy - 15; France - 10; United States - 6; Germany, East Germany - 4; United Kingdom - 3; Soviet Union (Ukrainian SSR), Hungary - 2; Sweden, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Japan - 1.
Top Years: 1960 - 10; 1962 & 1963 - 7; 1961 - 6... 1965 only had the one!
Hotspots: Italy 1960 and 1962 had four films each, while 1961 and 1963 had three each. Fourteen films from one country over four years represent a quarter of my list. No other year/country combination had more than two films.
Top Directors: Demy, Fellini, Godard, Hitchcock, Melville, Risi, Visconti, and Wolf all had two entries each. I was very suprised when I checked this that no-one had more. In hindsight, Melville, Godard and Visconti all just missed out on having three entries. Konrad Wolf, whose films received two votes from me, somehow still finishes joint bottom in terms of the directors I voted for, after making the list in #49 and #50 position!
Top Actors: Claudia Cardinale: Six films, four of which are major roles; Marcello Mastroianni: - five films, all as the lead protagonist.
My Top Seven all received their highest (or joint-highest) ranking from me.
Films in the Criterion Collection: 20
Films not yet released on DVD: 2 (Kirmes and Es)
Films to just miss out:
#51) Le doulos (Jean-Pierre Melville - 1962 - France)
#52) The Great Escape (John Sturges - 1963 - United Kingdom)
#53) Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard - 1962 - France)
#54) Kleiner Mann - was nun? (Hans-Joachim Kasprzik - 1967 - East Germany)
#55) Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa… (Luchino Visconti - 1965 - Italy)
#56) La battaglia di Algeri (Gillo Pontecorvo - 1966 - Italy)
#57) Seconds (John Frankenheimer - 1966 - United States)
#58) Per un pugno di dollari (Sergio Leone - 1964 - Italy)
#59) Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski - 1968 - United States)
#60) Signore e signori (Pietro Germi - 1965 - Italy)
Right, after my exam on Wednesday, I'll defend my darlings in the orphans thread!
Last edited by TMDaines on Mon May 27, 2013 4:27 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#604 Post by zedz » Mon May 27, 2013 4:00 pm

swo17 wrote:I don't know how many people participated last time, but just based on how many points were given out both times, there were clearly at least a few more participants this round. (For instance, in the prior list, 90 points were enough to make the top 100. Now a film needed 123.) Just that alone is going to make the final list tend to look a little more "canonical." And plenty of people had votes for a ton of obscure stuff with something like Once Upon a Time in the West thrown in as well.
Yeah, one thing you learn fast when compiling these lists is that the canonical blandness of the finished product is not the result of a large number of canonical lists being submitted. Almost every list submitted is weird and idiosyncratic in its own way, but the more lists are submitted, the more votes for canonical films accumulate. The weight of numbers means that if everybody stuck 2001 in at number 40 on their list, it would wind up on top. It's more about attrition than anything else.

I can't recall how many people voted last time, but the number of participants increased with every decade, and I think the 60s were the last decade when a film that appeared at number one on two different lists but nowhere else could still make the final 100.

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zedz
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#605 Post by zedz » Mon May 27, 2013 4:03 pm

YnEoS wrote:Pasolini actually ranked really high on the director list, so I would assume vote splitting and his lack of 1 single standout title that everyone could rally behind was the main reason he didn't do better.
Pasolini is the Kinks of cinema.
Vláčil did a lot worse than Pasolini, but since all his votes seemed to funnel straight into Marketa Lazarová, it placed quite high.
And Vlacil is its Love.
Even though Yoshida had a big rally title, he seemed to suffer from a little bit of vote splitting as well, and had less overall support than either of the other two. Still, I think just making the top 100 in a list this competitive is a huge achievement.
Uh. . . Captain Beefheart?

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Tommaso
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#606 Post by Tommaso » Mon May 27, 2013 4:05 pm

I love all those directors, but none of these musicians...

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Siddon
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#607 Post by Siddon » Mon May 27, 2013 4:28 pm

My Top Twenty

1. High and Low, Akira Kurosawa
2. Woman in the Dunes, Hiroshi Teshigahara
3. Once Upon a Time in the West, Sergio Leone
4. Wait Until Dark, Terence Young
5. The Naked Prey, Cornel Wilde
6. Night of the Living Dead, George Romero
7. The Lion in Winter, Anthony Harvey
8. Targets, Peter Bogdanovich
9. The Innocents, Jack Clayton
10. The Exterminating Angel, Luis Bunuel
11. The Sword of Doom, Kihachi Okamoto
12. Seance on a Wet Afternoon, Bryan Forbes
13. Kwaidan, Masaki Kobayashi
14. Lord of the Flies, Peter Brook
15. A Married Couple, Allan King
16. Young Torless, Volker Schlondorff
17. Warrendale, Allan King
18. The Virgin Spring, Ingmar Bergman
19. Pepping Tom, Michael Powell
20. Don't Look Back, D.A. Pennebaker

Orphans
Black Sun (Koreyoshi Kurahara, 1964) 49
The Curse of the Werewolf (Terence Fisher, 1961) 30
Don't Look Back (D.A. Pennebaker, 1967) 20
Homicidal (William Castle, 1961) 32
The Inheritance (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964) 45
The Lion in Winter (Anthony Harvey, 1968) 7
A Married Couple (Allan King, 1969) 15
The Naked Prey (Cornel Wilde, 1966) 5
The Rite (Ingmar Bergman, 1969) 47
Seance on a Wet Afternoon (Bryan Forbes, 1964) 12
Wait Until Dark (Terence Young, 1967) 4

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colinr0380
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#608 Post by colinr0380 » Mon May 27, 2013 5:44 pm

Good luck with your exam TMDaines!

The problem I have is that I find that the 60s are full of un-excludable titles, more so than any decade with at least the top 20 being movable but not droppable, so any new discovery has to be really good to get in there to fight for the remaining spots and/or come to mind at the time of the list being prepared to have a better chance of being placed (sorry Peeping Tom!). My top ten to twenty are probably set at this point, although I would dearly love to find something better than Contempt, my number 1, and have to remind myself that I only discovered Antonioni's early 60s films around ten years ago.

One of the things that I find most interesting is that I love almost all Bergman films from this decade except for his higher placed films on the list, Persona, The Virgin Spring and Hour of the Wolf (I even rewatched both in the last month and, nope, I'm still left cold by them). Shame and The Passion of Anna in particular I think are quite underrated, so I did try to boost these.

Similarly I'm more of a Dolce Vita to an 8 1/2 fan!

The great thing about these lists though is the change and development - if I ended up with a 'definitive' list of films to submit that were totally immovable there would be no fun to looking forward to the next list to jig things around (That said it will be fascinating to see what the first pass at a 2010s list will throw up when we get there in a year or two!), and I particularly like coming away from each of these lists with a page or two of titles that need to be tracked down!

Mike_S
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#609 Post by Mike_S » Tue May 28, 2013 2:57 am

I think a lot of the Hammer titles were mine :)

Thanks for all your hard work swo17. It's an endlessly fascinating list. I was particularly delighted to see "Seconds" getting the attention it deserves.

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Wu.Qinghua
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#610 Post by Wu.Qinghua » Tue May 28, 2013 5:24 am

swo17 wrote: And plenty of people had votes for a ton of obscure stuff with something like Once Upon a Time in the West thrown in as well.
I don't know if I could apply for having voted for obscure stuff; I ran in with at least 23 also-rans and 17 orphans, most of them being rather minor movies. But I can't deny that I accidentally gave 'Once upon a Time ...' a big boost, as it somehow ended up in my Top 10. (And I doubt it ranked that high on my Western list.):

Man is not a Bird (Dusan Makavejev 1965)
Katzelmacher (Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1969)
Saturday Night & Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz 1961)
Trace of Stones (Frank Beyer 1966)
79 Primaveras (Santiago Alvarez 1969)
Once upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone 1969)
La Noire de … (Ousmane Sembene 1968)
Daisies (Vera Chytilova 1966)
When I'm Dead & White (Zivojin Pavlovic 1967)
Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo 1965)

Anyway, it's been an interesting adventure again, as I felt compelled to watch quite a few films I would have missed otherwise (though most of them didn't make my list in the end), although I hadn't had as much time as I hoped. In the end, I even missed Tommaso spotlighting 'Eros & Massacre', which I thought not to be eligible for the 60s list; and when I spotted Tommaso's post, it was already too late for hunting it down and watching it. Sorry for that.

And a big 'Thank you' to swo17 for moderating and tallying as well as
colinr0380 wrote:Good luck with your exam TMDaines!

bamwc2
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#611 Post by bamwc2 » Wed May 29, 2013 2:01 pm

Whew! I just finished going through the list. Every time that I think I'm getting a grip on cinematic history, a list like this reminds me of how truly little I've seen. There's so much stuff on here that I've never even heard of before. Thanks for the recommendations, everyone.

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domino harvey
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#612 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jun 02, 2013 11:27 am

Some disappointments to be sure, but how amazing is it that Pretty Poison made the final 100? Wow

Top Ten + Orphans

01 Breathless
02 Pierrot le fou
03 La chinoise
ALSO ORPHAN
04 the Apartment
05 Zazie dans le Metro
06 Les Demoiselles de Rochefort
07 Red Desert
08 Last Year at Marienbad
09 Shame
10 Les Bonnes Femmes


11 Brigitte et Brigitte
24 Il lavoro
25 Tall Story
26 Bedtime Story
31 Isabel
32 the Man From the Diner's Club
36 the Family Jewels
41 Le Père-Noël a les yeux bleus (Santa Claus has Blue Eyes)
43 Sex and the Single Girl
44 Sympathy for the Devil / One Plus One
45 the Milky Way
47 A Big Hand for the Little Lady
48 Sweet Bird of Youth
50 Lover Come Back


My sympathies to the poor soul who had Lord Love a Duck at 48, since so did I before I had to bump it with a last-minute addition. Also props to whoever included Quine's Suzie Wong

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Murdoch
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#613 Post by Murdoch » Sun Jun 02, 2013 12:56 pm

domino harvey wrote:My sympathies to the poor soul who had Lord Love a Duck at 48, since so did I before I had to bump it with a last-minute addition.
Guilty, funny enough it was a last-minute addition for me. It was really the sweater scene that pushed me toward including it, that will never leave my memory *shudders*

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domino harvey
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#614 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jun 02, 2013 1:03 pm

I showed the whole hot dog and sweaters sequence earlier this semester to the high school film class I teach and let me tell you, the response to it will always be one of my fondest memories

Mike_S
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#615 Post by Mike_S » Sun Jun 02, 2013 4:05 pm

My top 10:

1. The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
2. Seconds (Frankenheimer)
3. Persona (Bergman)
4. Psycho (Hitchcock)
5. Rosemary's Baby (Polanski)
6. The Apartment (Wilder)
7. Harakiri (Kobayashi)
8. Ride the High Country (Peckinpah)
9. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford)
10. The Leopard (Visconti)


My orphans:

17. A Bullet for the General (Damiani)
18. These Are the Damned (Losey)
19. The Fall of the Roman Empire (Mann)
28. The Damned (Visconti)
32. Dark of the Sun (Cardiff)
38. For a Few Dollars More (Leone)
39. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (Mazursky)
40. Play Dirty (De Toth)
44. Greetings (De Palma)
45. Quatermass and the Pit (Baker)
47. Alice's Restaurant (Penn)
48. The Devil Rides Out (Fisher)
50. The Charge of the Light Brigade (Richardson)

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TMDaines
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#616 Post by TMDaines » Thu Jun 20, 2013 10:01 am

swo17 wrote:knives is seeking:
I tre volti (Michelangelo Antonioni) w/ english subs
Flesh and Blood (Arthur Penn)
Some nice chap has now done English subtitles for the TV rip of I tre volti that is floating around online.

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knives
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#617 Post by knives » Thu Jun 20, 2013 11:43 am

Yay, now I won't have to go by a very limited understanding of Italian.

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Lighthouse
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#618 Post by Lighthouse » Fri Jun 28, 2013 3:28 pm

Flesh and Blood (Arthur Penn)

What's that? A TV movie?

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knives
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#619 Post by knives » Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:00 pm

Yes.

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YnEoS
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#620 Post by YnEoS » Fri Jul 05, 2013 4:15 pm

So I was planning on writing up Cecile Tang Shu Shuen's film The Arch in this thread, but wasn't quite sure if I was going to include it on my list, so I passed. I recently saw an archival print of this, and now I would say I definitely would've included this film on my list if given a second chance. Cecile Tang Shu Shuen was there for a Q&A after. Anyways I'll write a bit on the film not, and strongly recommend checking it out.

The Arch
(Cecile Tang Shu Shuen, 1969) - A real oddity for HK at the time, an independently financed B&W period piece heavily influenced by Satyajit Ray and Italian Neorealist films. The film is focused almost entirely on an inner emotions, and repressed sexual desires. It also has some wonderful experimental passages that grow more intense throughout the film.

Cecile mostly talked about her influences and collaborators on this film. She made it right after attending school at USC, where she met Les Blank, who edited the film for her. She credited Les Blank with the more experimental aspects of the film, saying her main interest at the time was in Satyajit Ray films. James Ivory introduced her to Subrata Mitra who then became cinematographer for the film. Apparently she also created some sort of tinting process to get the film shown in HK, because most theaters in HK wouldn't show B&W films. The print we saw didn't have this tinting process, and she was a bit unclear exactly what it looked like, only saying that it looked like old Chinese scrolls. She also said she's not sure why she decided to make a period film despite Ray and Neorealist films all taking place in the present.

Just a really masterfully made film, completely out of nowhere from HK films at the time, and with a really fascinating set of collaborators who all clearly leave their mark on the finished film.

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the preacher
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#621 Post by the preacher » Sat Jul 06, 2013 3:42 am

The Arch was one of my three finalists from Hong Kong, beside The One-Armed Swordsman and The Wild Wild Rose. Only the Chang Cheh's film got a place in my ballot.

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domino harvey
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Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

#622 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jun 16, 2018 12:06 am

And another deep dive into my unwatched pool dredges up some sixties movies, but no overdue classics:

A Fine Madness (Irvin Kershner 1966)

More like “A Fine Mess” haha amirite high five u guys
I’ve seen some lame attempts at excusing the boorish behavior of artists but this movie is on another level. Sean Connery plays possibly the least appealing human being ever depicted on screen, a shitty poet who treats everyone he meets with contempt and disdain. So of course beautiful ladies line up to be schlepped by him, because this film thinks precious little of women. To give you some idea of the laffs the film thinks it offers, let me share the finale to this movie, which I won’t even bother to spoiler tag because it doesn’t deserve the courtesy of being hidden: Joanne Woodward, who as the wife of Connery has endured the endless indignities of his assholery for the entire picture (including being thrown down the stairs and breaking her foot), tells Connery she’s pregnant. He responds by punching her in the jaw and knocking her out. You may think I’m exaggerating, but I am not. This movie really is that much of a piece of shit.

Charly (Ralph Nelson 1968)
Cliff Robertson is the titular mentally retarded janitor who becomes smart for a while in this adaptation of Flowers for Algernon. The movie’s a mess of styles and approaches, both aesthetically (the film’s Expo ’67 stuff is stale, but not the only issues here) and in terms of Robertson’s performance and character. The film leans so heavily on pity points for Poor Charly that it becomes hard to invest in, as pity is just a nicer word for contempt. The Simpsons episode parodying this material had more to say than this movie does about the nature of intelligence, and that’s ridiculous.

Come Blow Your Horn (Bud Yorkin 1963)
Few words are more horrifying than “Based on the Play by Neil Simon” popping up in the credits, and this adaptation does not buck the trend. Groovy bachelor Frank Sinatra teaches his young pup little bro about how to womanize and be a piece of shit, bro turns into piece of shit, Sinatra marries Barbara Rush, leaves bro to be a piece of shit with his blessings. I did like, if that’s the right word, how the film suggests that Sinatra’s behavior is only unacceptable because he’s too old for it, not because the behavior itself is problematic— weirdly both regressive and progressive at the same time. But this film has a ridiculously hostile attitude towards women, especially Jill St John’s dopey wannabe actress, and the cliched Jewish parents don’t fare much better.

the Glass Bottom Boat (Frank Tashlin 1966)
Everyone thinks Doris Day is a spy. Spoiler: she isn’t. This is a depressing collection of the kind of unfunny and longwinded gags that have never been amusing to anyone but those who find It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad, Mad World a riot. I mean, if Paul Lynde dressing in drag sends your funny bone a’ achin’, then good news! All others needn't apply. This is a good example of the flaws of the Auteur Theory, as anything here that could charitably be called “Tashlin-esque” is indistinguishable from the work any Hollywood hack could have done with this material. This is just bad sitcom junk filmed in ‘Scope. Oh, and the recurring musical motifs are sung to the tune of “Hush Little Baby,” which if you didn’t already hate before watching, you surely will after the nth iteration with different lyrics here.

the Gypsy Moths (John Frankenheimer 1969)
Burt Lancaster, Gene Hackman, and Scott Wilson are a trio of skydivers who mope around a small Kansas town in the days leading up to their performance. This is a classic late 60s-early 70s Hollywood pic, in that it mistakes aimlessness with insight. Burt Lancaster’s actions in the finale are laughable in their faux Importance, and completely unearned by the narrative we got leading up to it. Only Gene Hackman comes out of this unscathed, as he just does his cocky Gene Hackman thing unencumbered by any other plot requirements. You really gotta wonder what Deborah Kerr and Sheree North saw in this project to both drop trou for no particular reason…

Ieri oggi domani (Vittorio de Sica 1963)
Portmanteau film with three unfunny segments, all starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. Loren’s appeal is an eternal mystery to me, and nothing she does here as three vapid, surface-level cliches (Literally the mother and the whore plus a rich ice queen— tcosì creativo!) changes that. I already know better than to expect laughs from a 60s Italian comedy, so I can’t claim surprise, this is all on me. This film won the Oscar over Les parapluies de Cherbourg and Woman in the Dunes, and that at least is all on a whole bunch of someone elses!

John and Mary (Peter Yates 1969)
Dustin Hoffman picks up Mia Farrow in a bar by defending Jean-Luc Godard’s Week End, so obviously this should be a great movie. But it’s not. After this one night stand, the two dawdle around Hoffman’s apartment thinking outloud while not saying anything with their lips ala Garfield. This coupled with the flashbacks and imaginary flashforwards makes for tedious entertainment. The film clearly has ambition to be sophisticated and in touch with young people in the sexual revolution, but it feels about as inauthentic as imaginable.

Matrimonio all'italiana (Vittorio de Sica 1964)

Faring slightly better than the last Loren/Mastroianni/de Sica matchup, this tale of a prostitute who tricks a businessman into marrying her is at least more subdued in its comic sequences and amps up the melodrama where applicable. I didn’t find Loren or her plight all that compelling, but I was tickled to finally learn where TMDaines’ avatar comes from!

Othello (Stuart Burge 1965)
A stagebound filmed perf of the Shakespeare play, but a strong one. Laurence Olivier infamously plays the title role in blackface and with an exaggerated, often comic vocal inflection, but I admired how wholeheartedly he went into this strange interpretation. Frank Finlay as Iago matches him step for step in the overacting contest by plying his villainy in obvious, mooning asides and facial responses better fit for a proscenium than a movie screen. And yet, as with Olivier, it works. Maggie Smith and Joyce Redman as the respective wives of the two fare worse, but this isn’t really a play that gives them much to do. All four were nominated for Oscars, though Redman’s nom is a bit of a headscratcher, unless the Academy was really impressed with her yelling til she lost her voice in the finale. As an aside, the 1965 supporting acting Oscar nominees might be the worst, most random selection in the history of the award. By no means did Martin Balsam deserve to win for A Thousand Clowns regardless, but perhaps the Academy was punishing the more deserving Findlay for one of the earliest category frauds, as Iago is of course as much a lead as Othello. Recommended.

Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa… (Luchino Visconti 1965)
Claudia Cardinale returns to her ancestral home and picks up her since-discarded incestual relationship with her brother. Cardinale’s Sandra drives men wild, often for good reason— she’s a frustrating character, childish and vindictive and petty, one who seems to have coasted by solely on the attraction of men. Her toying with her brother leads to his downfall, and the film is ambiguous as to whether or not the forbidden love affair was ever realized in past or present, or if Sandra just entertained claims of plausible deniability. As I'm rounding the corner on seeing all of Visconti's films, I’m more convinced than ever that he’s a third tier auteur at best, but this is okay in a never need to see or think about it again fashion.

the Yellow Rolls-Royce (Anthony Asquith 1964)
Retread of the VIPs from the same creative team, only instead of intertwining the various Big Star stories, the film lines them up one after another. None of the three tales tangentially related to the same titular car are worth much, though. The first is a little bit of nothing as Rex Harrison discovers wife Jeanne Moreau is unfaithful. The second involves Shirley MacLaine as mobster George C Scott’s moll, who flirts with infidelity with Alain Delon. MacLaine can and did play ditzy dames like this in her sleep, but I at least enjoyed the all too brief montage of her looking shittily at all of the actual location shooting in Italy like this

Image

which is an amusing undermining of the picture postcard approach so many international film productions took this decade. And finally, the third segment involves Ingrid Bergman making a literal rape joke and saying the word “bitch,” so at least it has that going for it. Completely forgettable nothingness on the whole, and good lord, a yellow and black Rolls-Royce might be the most hideous automobile imaginable!

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BenoitRouilly
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2018 5:49 pm

Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

#623 Post by BenoitRouilly » Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:13 pm

Nice Top100! To me this is THE best decade in cinema history.
Are you going to do a re-vote soon? I would like to participate this time.

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swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

#624 Post by swo17 » Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:29 pm

Thanks! We're currently doing the 1930s. The 1960s should be up again in 2020.

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BenoitRouilly
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2018 5:49 pm

Re: 1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

#625 Post by BenoitRouilly » Mon Jul 16, 2018 4:22 pm

Really? It's almost as long as a Sight&Sound poll.
Ok I'll hold on to my ballot then, and maybe visit unseen titles from this poll.
I noticed the 30ies closed off just last month... looking forward to the results.

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