The All-Time List Discussion Thread (Decade Project Vol. 3)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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Minkin
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#626 Post by Minkin » Wed Mar 29, 2017 7:56 pm

zedz wrote:
domino harvey wrote:
Minkin wrote:As for the trend of the five worst films I've seen from the list:
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It's a Wonderful Life
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Actually, that's another film I've never seen (at this point, it's become a matter of perverse pride), which brings my great unwatched total to 19.
That bell and its angel wings can go ring-ting-tingling straight to hell.

I'm glad that I decided to submit a list. Should've done so the first round! I assume I saved a few with my list (Bride of Frankenstein, Tree of Life, Phantom of the Paradise, North by Northwest).

I'm going to duck using the 90s coloring that Domino started and everyone felt the need to copy.

My top ten:
01 Amarcord
02 The Lady Vanishes
03 PlayTime
04 Nosferatu
05 The Third Man
06 The Man with the Movie Camera
07 Phantom of the Paradise
08 The Purple Rose of Cairo
09 Pee-wee's Big Adventure
10 Gold Diggers of 1933

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swo17
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#627 Post by swo17 » Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:02 pm

There was a good long while where Pee Wee's Big Adventure was in the top 100 but I'm sorry we don't live in that kind of a world.

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#628 Post by John Shade » Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:21 pm

But I guess that establishes it's the best film about stealing bicycles. Seems like some of the great Italian films are falling in favor. Also, something about Phantom of the Paradise still kind of frightens me.

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domino harvey
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#629 Post by domino harvey » Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:22 pm

Most of the songs in it are scarily good

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zedz
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#630 Post by zedz » Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:27 pm

swo17 wrote:Kira Muratova, Lois Weber, Lucrecia Martel, Su Friedrich, Jennie Livingston, and Jane Campion also had eligible films here, and yeah, Tarr's wife.
I had five female directors on my list (Friedrich, Akerman, Denis, Deren and Muratova), and four of those were orphaned, so I blame everybody else!

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#631 Post by Rayon Vert » Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:32 pm

JohnShade wrote:But I guess that establishes it's the best film about stealing bicycles. Seems like some of the great Italian films are falling in favor. Also, something about Phantom of the Paradise still kind of frightens me.
The best Pasolinis were definitely not on the list (I'd say these were among the worst!) and my favorite Rossellinis weren't there either (the Bergman & history films). Plus I'd have voted for Il Sorpasso.

For the life of me I cannot comprehend the love for Phantom. A lot of invention but a truly unfunny film with an awful story and screenplay, with painfully unmemorable songs.

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domino harvey
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#632 Post by domino harvey » Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:37 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:For the life of me I cannot comprehend the love for Phantom. A lot of invention but a truly unfunny film with an awful story and screenplay, with painfully unmemorable songs.
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denti alligator
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#633 Post by denti alligator » Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:54 pm

So who put Walking from Munich to Berlin at no. 1?

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Red Screamer
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#634 Post by Red Screamer » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:02 pm

I get that It's a Wonderful Life and its sentimental (Christian) idealism have fallen out of fashion, but what's with all this vitriol towards it? An attempt to get back at its Boomer fanbase or...?

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Shrew
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#635 Post by Shrew » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:07 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Rayon Vert wrote:For the life of me I cannot comprehend the love for Phantom. A lot of invention but a truly unfunny film with an awful story and screenplay, with painfully unmemorable songs.
Image
Well, that's The Hell of It. NOTE: While the linked youtube video has an accompanying slideshow of stills, it is best watched in sync with Domino's gif. This is the new Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon.

Anyway, glad to see The Apartment, The Sweet Smell of Success, and . Sad to see Two-Lane Blacktop, The World, and Docks of New York so far down, but it's worth noting that everyone who voted for Docks put in their top 10!

My List:
1 The Royal Tenenbaums
2 The World
3 Two-Lane Blacktop
4 Sweet Smell of Success
5 To Be or Not to Be
6 The Docks of New York
7 The Long Goodbye
8 A Canterbury Tale
9 Love Me Tonight
10 Vertigo
11 Henry Fool
12 The Night of the Hunter
13 Stage Door
14 Phantom of the Paradise
15 Fanny and Alexander
16 The Apartment
17 Trouble in Paradise
18 Sherlock Jr.
19 Hail the Conquering Hero
20 Happy Together
21 Rosetta
22 Children of Men
23 Zazie dans le métro
24 The Young Girls of Rochefort
25 Late Spring
26 In a Lonely Place
27 Stranger Than Paradise
28 Celine and Julie Go Boating
29 The Best Years of Our Lives
30 Marketa Lazarová
31 Days of Heaven
32 Written on the Wind
33 Paisan
34 The Wedding March
35 Beauty and the Beast
36 Les Quatre Cents Coups
37 3 Women
38 Do the Right Thing
39 Fucking Åmål
40 Port of Shadows
41 Holiday
42 The Seventh Seal
43 City Girl
44 Make Way for Tomorrow
45 Under the Skin
46 Stagecoach
47 Chameleon Street
48 Children of Paradise
49 Death by Hanging
50 Curse of the Cat People

51 The Lady Vanishes
52 The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
53 Rushmore
54 Charulata

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knives
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#636 Post by knives » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:14 pm

Superswede11 wrote:I get that It's a Wonderful Life and its sentimental (Christian) idealism have fallen out of fashion, but what's with all this vitriol towards it? An attempt to get back at its Boomer fanbase or...?
My problem with the film isn't its idealism, but the conservatism of the dream sequence (which is also not the best way Capra could have ended his narrative) which strikes me as reactionary without at least having the entertainment value of Millius or Morrissey nor the sort of universalism that makes Mr. Smith Goes to Washington better than the sum of its politics.

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Feego
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#637 Post by Feego » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:15 pm

Great work, Swo!

My top 50 are as follows. I had a total of 18 qualifying films, the rest were also-rans. This is the first time I've participated in a list and had no orphans. I don't feel special anymore.

1. Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913)
2. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
3. Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974)

4. Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
5. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
6. La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928)
7. That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Buñuel, 1977)

8. Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
9. Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)
10. Black Narcissus (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
11. Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935)
12. The Man with the Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)

13. The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928)
14. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
15. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
16. Repulsion (Roman Polański, 1965)
17. Fantasia (James Algar et al., 1940)

18. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
19. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)

20. Day of Wrath (Carl Dreyer, 1943)
21. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)
22. Le notti di Cabiria (Federico Fellini, 1957)

23. Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais,1961)
24. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
25. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)

26. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
27. Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933)
28. All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955)
29. The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)
30. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
31. Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)
32. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)
33. Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1981)
34. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
35. Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951)
36. Love Me Tonight (Rouben Mamoulian, 1932)
37. Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)

38. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
39. The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
40. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
41. La Chute de la maison Usher (Jean Epstein, 1928)
42. 3 Women (Robert Altman, 1977)
43. The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock, 1935)

44. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
45. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
46. My Neighbour Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)
47. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
48. Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)
49. Great Expectations (David Lean, 1946)
50. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges, 1944)

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movielocke
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The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#638 Post by movielocke » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:28 pm

knives wrote:
Superswede11 wrote:I get that It's a Wonderful Life and its sentimental (Christian) idealism have fallen out of fashion, but what's with all this vitriol towards it? An attempt to get back at its Boomer fanbase or...?
My problem with the film isn't its idealism, but the conservatism of the dream sequence (which is also not the best way Capra could have ended his narrative) which strikes me as reactionary without at least having the entertainment value of Millius or Morrissey nor the sort of universalism that makes Mr. Smith Goes to Washington better than the sum of its politics.
funnily, it's the libertarian, anti-new-deal attributes of the specific politics of mr smith goes to Washington that's made me like it a little less over time. It's odd to hear it described as having universalism when it's so particular and specific that all federal spending is corrupt and rural electrification is without merit and a sham conspiracy and that the only appropriate place for rural federal meddling is in transportation of unruly urban youths to rural camps for reeducation (and make the kids pay for it themselves).;)

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knives
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#639 Post by knives » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:35 pm

I didn't mean the politics when I said universalism hence the second part of the sentence. Maybe a better way to phrase what I meant is that the nature of the characters and the romance of the characters and for the process is reasonably infectious. It also helps that it is under two hours.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#640 Post by Rayon Vert » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:39 pm

Also a bit surprised at how well Love Me Tonight did. It's not bad but I found it doesn't hold a candle to Lubitsch’s The Love Parade and The Merry Widow (not to mention The Smiling Lieutenant with Hopkins and Colbert instead of MacDonald). The irony, wit and naughtiness just aren’t up to par, and sometimes the visuals seems to draw attention to themselves rather than enhance the story. Some good numbers though.

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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#641 Post by robert9999 » Wed Mar 29, 2017 10:07 pm

Thanks swo. Another good resource.

Overall I've seen 91 of the top 100 (many more than once) and just over 400 of the original 580+ list. A few holes time will take care of.
Almost half my top 50 made the top 100 - more than I thought.

As swo suggested an unlimited poll would've thrown up a lot of orphans, rough count only about half of my final submitted 50 would make a list of my favorite 50 films of all time atm.
This is something I'd be interested in anyone else sharing if they care too: ball park what percentage of their submitted 50 would make their "unlimited" top 50 of all time.
Having said that a poll like that that might be interesting but may not arrive at much of a consensus.

My list:

1 Three Colors: Blue
2 In the Mood for Love
3 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4 The Leopard
5 L'eclisse
6 Lilja 4-ever
7 Apocalypse Now
8 Fanny and Alexander
9 Blue Is the Warmest Color
10 Three Colors: Red
11 Mirror
12 Mulholland Dr.
13 Persona
14 The Tree of Life
15 Dekalog
16 Brief Encounter
17 Chungking Express
18 The World
19 Yi yi
20 Wings of Desire
21 Chinatown
22 Lost in Translation
23 Millennium Mambo (Orphan)
24 Ordet
25 2001: A Space Odyssey
26 L'Atalante
27 Talk to Her
28 Blade Runner
29 The Wind Will Carry Us
30 Bringing Up Baby
31 Certified Copy
32 Farewell My Concubine
33 Madame de…
34 The Conformist
35 City Lights
36 Pather Panchali
37 Rear Window
38 The General
39 A City of Sadness
40 Goodbye, Dragon Inn
41 Terrorizers
42 The Magnificent Ambersons
43 Partie de campagne
44 Ran
45 Syndromes and a Century
46 Taxi Driver
47 The Red Shoes
48 The Grand Budapest Hotel
49 Once Upon a Time in the West
50 The Wind
51 Flowers of Shanghai

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Shrew
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#642 Post by Shrew » Wed Mar 29, 2017 10:19 pm

I like the Lubitsch musicals (particularly The Love Parade), but I adore Love Me Tonight. It easily has the best music, but it also come up with great ways to stage all of them, particularly the Isn't It Romantic relay. I love the 360-rule breaking rendition of "Mimi" for the way it plays with male/female gaze. And I like a lot of the visual/aural wit, like the quiet horses galloping away.

But perhaps the biggest factor is how progressive the story reads with its gender-inverted fairy-tale narrative. The Lubitsch musicals tend to sour on this front (particularly the ending of The Love Parade). That doesn't stop me from enjoying them, but it is going to knock them down on a list like this.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#643 Post by Rayon Vert » Wed Mar 29, 2017 10:31 pm

On the Bergman front, I'm surprised The Seventh Seal didn't make it, and that conversely Persona did so well. (I didn't vote for any Bergmans but I prefer Seal.) I wonder if that will replicate in the Bergman list.

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domino harvey
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#644 Post by domino harvey » Wed Mar 29, 2017 11:04 pm

Superswede11 wrote:I get that It's a Wonderful Life and its sentimental (Christian) idealism have fallen out of fashion, but what's with all this vitriol towards it? An attempt to get back at its Boomer fanbase or...?
You can read my thoughts on it here

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domino harvey
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#645 Post by domino harvey » Wed Mar 29, 2017 11:28 pm

Love Me Tonight is not one of my favorite Lubitches, but it does have one of the all-time great visual jokes in the history of film
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The montage away from bereavement wherein all of the black wardrobe is replaced with white, capped by the black dog being replaced by a white one
EDIT: Wait, that's from the Merry Widow! I don't even remember Love Me Tonight-- though I remember that it's not even a Lubitsch movie!

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zedz
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#646 Post by zedz » Wed Mar 29, 2017 11:36 pm

Superswede11 wrote:I get that It's a Wonderful Life and its sentimental (Christian) idealism have fallen out of fashion, but what's with all this vitriol towards it? An attempt to get back at its Boomer fanbase or...?
No vitriol from me: I haven't seen it. It was never the seasonal institution over here that it seems to be in the States (likewise The Wizard of Oz), so I never had the chance to see it on TV growing up, and no Capra film I've seen (out of about a dozen) has been great enough to make me go all completist on him.

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Shrew
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#647 Post by Shrew » Wed Mar 29, 2017 11:41 pm

Image
Blind Spots
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me.

If you kept track at all of your unwatched films, feel free to post the list or send it to me privately. This is compiled from 17 Lists (*updated 4/2). Here are the 119 most overlooked films from our all-time list, each unseen by at least 8 people.

14
Days and Nights in the Forest
The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrowna
Heimat
The Asthenic Syndrome

13
Taipei Story
Blind Justice
Through the Olive Trees
Drôle de drame
Hear My Cry
My Joy
The Cow

12
Inferno of First Love
Underground
Irreversible
Maskerade
The Stone Wedding
Unter den Brücken
Flowers of Shanghai
The Seventh Continent
Chameleon Street
Nénette et Boni
A Midsummer Night's Dream

11
The Man Who Planted Trees
Dorian Gray as Represented in the Popular Press
Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht
Manoel on the Island of Marvels
Rapt
The Last Flight
The Hole
A Diary for Timothy
35 Shots of Rum
Hell's Hinges
Yellow Earth

10
Finis terræ
Flowing
Yearning
Henry Fool
Deep End
The Ear
Manufacturing Consent
At Long Last Love
Lilja 4-ever
Modern Romance
The Human Condition
Histoire de Marie et Julien
Opfergang
The Convent
Regeneration
The Blue Bird
The Falls
About Elly
The Tribe
Fires Were Started
When the Clouds Roll By
Morning's Tree-Lined Street
Chocolat
L'Annulaire
Paris Is Burning
Police, adj.

9
Inland Empire
A City of Sadness
Maldone
City of Pirates
Songs from the Second Floor
Syndromes and a Century
The Mother and the Whore
Du côté d'Orouët
The Turin Horse
Carnal Knowledge
Little Big Man
L'Humanité
Sherman's March
To Sleep with Anger
The Good Fairy
Diary of a Shinjuku Thief
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors
Cabiria
Hypocrites
Au bonheur des dames
La petite Lise
Medea
The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting
Præsidenten
La Roue
The Wedding March
A Moment of Innocence
After Death
Il fuoco
The Dying Swan
Mommy
La Gueule ouverte

8
Ritual in Transfigured Time
They All Laughed
The Girl Can't Help It
Mysteries of Lisbon
Exotica
Taste of Cherry
A Page of Madness
Eaux d'artifice
Margaret
The Red and the White
Love Streams
Some Came Running
Come and See
Sink or Swim
Mädchen in Uniform
Head-On
A Cottage on Dartmoor
Shoah
Les Vampires
Black Rain
Liebelei
The Goddess
The Outlaw and His Wife
Blind Husbands
Gueule d'amour
A Man There Was
Mauvais sang
Terrorizers
Last edited by Shrew on Sun Apr 02, 2017 11:36 am, edited 4 times in total.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#648 Post by Rayon Vert » Thu Mar 30, 2017 12:03 am

Shrew wrote:I reverse-engineered rayon vert's
Good on you for going through that trouble! I made an edit though: I did see Zulawski's Possession. I was focusing on the director's name and not the film title.

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movielocke
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#649 Post by movielocke » Thu Mar 30, 2017 12:14 am

My bottom six, worst is last:
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Pierrot le fou
Porcile
La Cienega
L'Argent
L'Avventura
Goodbye, Dragon Inn

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The All-Time List Discussion Thread

#650 Post by Rayon Vert » Thu Mar 30, 2017 12:15 am

Re: It's a Wonderful Life. I never really watched it until I went through Capra's oeuvre. I find the film a delight from beginning to end. Though an “ideas” film like most of Capra’s work, that dimension never overshadows the story and characters (unlike many of his 30s/early 40s films where the "message"-emphasis spoils it for me). It’s beautifully photographed and acted - there's a richness to the look of the film that's missing from most of Capra's '30s Columbia work. And that small town in the snow is one of the best looking towns in classic Hollywood. Though the film is best known for its fantasy/Christmas elements, when one watches it the whole way through, we notice those elements don’t come into play until the last third of the film and what we have in effect is the epic-sweep of one human life in the 1910s to 1940s where every sequence is a delight of concept and realization. But I see there are extremely polarized opinions about that!

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