2000s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
RobertB
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2010 8:00 pm
Location: Sweden

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1001 Post by RobertB » Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:58 am

I didn't vote, so I'm not going to argue about what should be on the list. In general I like it. I compared it with the list on TSPDT http://www.theyshootpictures.com/21stce ... ms1-50.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; which tends to reflect what the critics say. And I made two lists of films. Showing the differences of the lists.

Films on TSPDT top 20, not on list projects top 50:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Sideways
The Hurt Locker
Far from Heaven
Million Dollar Baby

Films on list projects top 20, not on TSPDT top 50:
Werckmeister Harmonies
New World, The
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Inland Empire
Elephant
Memories Of Murder
L’ Intrus

Looks like the majority of the voters are far less anglophile than critics lists.

User avatar
Michael Kerpan
Spelling Bee Champeen
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:20 pm
Location: New England
Contact:

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1002 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:25 pm

RobertB wrote:Films on TSPDT top 20, not on list projects top 50 * * *

Films on list projects top 20, not on TSPDT top 50 * * *
I like OUR list a lot better. ;~}

User avatar
fiddlesticks
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2007 8:19 pm
Location: Borderlands

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1003 Post by fiddlesticks » Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:49 pm

That's just because you're a "highbrow academic presently preoccupied with East Asian cinema," Michael. :D

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

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1004 Post by zedz » Sun Feb 07, 2010 7:04 pm

Nothing wrote:No need to apologise for Anderson (I voted for The Darjeeling Limited, although not very high up the list).

My theory is that there are two contingents on this board, a more mainstream-leaning mostly anglo-centric contingent and a 'high brow' academic contingent who are presently preoccupied with East Asian cinema and Claire Denis. Films like ITMFL and Yi-Yi rank highly for both, therefore the particular success of these titles. Someone like Ghobadi is too obscure to have been seen by the former and not presently in vogue with the latter, therefore drops off the list completely.
I think I know what you mean, but the lists I received didn't really bear this out. There were a number of the former, somewhat anglo-centric lists in attendance - as there always are - but nothing boilerplate, and apart from a handful of titles, no obvious consensus was represented on a large number of lists.

As for the latter, there were indeed a few heavily East Asian lists submitted, but these tended not to prefer your betes noires and were in fact more heavily skewed towards popular cinema and had lots of unique nominations. The 'consensus', if we can call it that, represented on the final list, really was scraped together from dribs and drabs of a large number of diverse lists rather than arising from bloc voting.

I wouldn't have thought Ghobadi was that obscure (I'd save that term for the Lav Diazes and Raya Martins) and I am surprised he didn't attract more attention. Half Moon was on my shortlist but missed out in the final cut.

Prominent 'art house' directors with a consistent profile on the festival circuit obviously have an advantage over their more marginal colleagues simply because their films are at least somewhat accessible, but I would have thought Ghobadi was firmly amongst their ranks.

(For example, in my very backwards part of the world, at least two of Ghobadi's films have enjoyed theatrical releases outside the festival circuit (Horses and Turtles), an advantage no film by Hou, Hong, Denis, Jia, Tsai or Weerasethakul has enjoyed.)

User avatar
Michael Kerpan
Spelling Bee Champeen
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:20 pm
Location: New England
Contact:

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1005 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Feb 08, 2010 12:37 am

As I recall -- neither Yi Yi nor ITMFL even made it onto MY "regretfully excluded" list. I don't dislike either -- but these would probably not even made it onto my top favorites list even if we had been allocated 100 slots.

Hou, Denis and Jia have all had films show up here in Boston in at least semi-theatrical form (multiple screenings at the Museum of Fine Arts).

Nothing
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:04 am

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1006 Post by Nothing » Tue Feb 09, 2010 3:26 am

Well, first of all, of course, we're generalising, but then that it is the raison d'etre of a list such as this in the first place.

I'd suggest that the 'They Shoot Pictures' list shows a rather similar tussle going on between the 'anglo-centric' mainstream and the academic community, although, in their case, it is the mainstream that predominates. As their list also shows, anglo-centric is perhaps a rather misleading term: 14 of the films in their top 25 are in languages other than English. What is notable, however, is that all of these films received broad US distribution and publicity (with the exception of Yi Yi, which perhaps benefits from the Heath Ledger factor). Ghobadi, Denis, Alonso, etc, are obscure and difficult by comparison. We then have the more obvious academic choices sneaking in lower down the list (Lazarescu, Syndromes, etc).

What I find interesting, and I guess I'm sounding like a broken record here, but what I find most interesting, especially in their list (and the Canadian one posted a few weeks back), is the superficiality of the academic choices, at least in a political sense. On the surface, these are all strong 'PC' picks that reflect the good liberal credentials of the picker - third world and east european filmmakers, representatives of 'burgeoning' cultures and filmmaking 'movements', who should theoretically be encouraged and welcomed into our mutl-cultural modern world, etc. Whereas, in reality, the listmakers have consistently selected foreign filmmakers with right-wing, bourgeois, US-friendly ideologies (the Romanian anti-comminist 'new wave', the cod-spiritual, bourgeois meanderings of the Fortissimo school, etc) at the expense of those filmmakers (Ghobadi, Suleiman, Mendoza, Barmak, etc) who have genuinely challenged the status quo in their countries, who have championed the lives of the poor and oppressed, often at no small personal risk. So is this igonorance (and/or laziness), or is it a conscious (and therefore, arguably, mendacious and deceptive) political choice?

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

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1007 Post by zedz » Tue Feb 09, 2010 3:06 pm

Well, this is an interesting question, but I don't know that it's the right one in terms of these list-making exercises. For better or worse, I don't think the decision whether or not to confer value on particular films and filmmakers is primarily about politics (or whether it should be, but that's a different argument), and I don't think any of those filmmakers have been particularly shortchanged in the international 'art film' context (if you judge 'success' by selection for and recognition by major festivals and whatever limited distribution follows on from that).

Leaving aside Mendoza, who, on the strength of Serbis (the only film I've seen of his, and I thought that dramatically it didn't really get above the level of a daytime soap) I wouldn't rank with the other three, I'd join you in arguing for the importance of their work (Osama has to have one of the most chilling endings of any film this decade, and Suleiman made my top 50). But I would do so on aesthetic grounds rather than because of their personal bravery or political acuity, mainly because I've seen far too many personally brave, politically acute films that were dead on the screen. And for me, on those terms, the filmmakers compete with Denis, Jia and the other more feted darlings. The political stance of their films, and the circumstances of their production, add to their significance and unique signature, but they can't make a great film out of a mediocre one.

Case in point: all of Ghobadi's films are deeply political, but the one I think is most fully realized and original (oddly enough, since it recombines elements from his earlier films, and is almost a remake of his second one) is the one where the politics are most abstracted, and where they open out into metaphysics. And I find Turtles Can Fly his weakest film by some margin because its political dimension is the baldest and least inflected (I'm not going to mention Loach, I'm not going to mention Loach . . . dammit!) (Haven't seen Persian Cats yet, so I have no idea where this sits.)

Pure speculation on my part, but maybe the political import of these works blinds some viewers to their merits in terms of pure filmmaking. Ghobadi gets pigeon-holed as a 'political filmmaker' and thus the other values of his films are ignored or undervalued (the Loach effect?) How something like this could apply to a filmmaker as formally ambitious and distinctive as Suleiman frankly boggles my imagination, however.

Nothing
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:04 am

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1008 Post by Nothing » Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:47 am

But this emphasis on formal prowess over honesty of representation is a political choice (and rather jejeune, imho). Even more ironic (and depressing) if, as you suggest, the latter quality is actually discouraging for many voters.

p.s. Turtles Can Fly is Ghobadi's weakest film because of the silly spiritualist element.

User avatar
John Cope
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:40 pm
Location: where the simulacrum is true

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1009 Post by John Cope » Wed Feb 10, 2010 4:37 am

Nothing wrote:But this emphasis on formal prowess over honesty of representation is a political choice (and rather jejeune, imho).
It depends on whether you posit some necessary and unavoidable division between "formal prowess" and "honesty of representation". It also depends on how thorough your notion of honesty is, how much more complete you'd like it to be.

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

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1010 Post by zedz » Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:36 pm

John Cope wrote:It depends on whether you posit some necessary and unavoidable division between "formal prowess" and "honesty of representation". It also depends on how thorough your notion of honesty is, how much more complete you'd like it to be.
I also think it's a false dichotomy, and furthermore it's untenable to assume that anybody whose politics you don't agree with is consequently 'dishonest.'

User avatar
Camera Obscura
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 7:27 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1011 Post by Camera Obscura » Wed Feb 10, 2010 7:01 pm

Nothing wrote:Whereas, in reality, the listmakers have consistently selected foreign filmmakers with right-wing, bourgeois, US-friendly ideologies (the Romanian anti-comminist 'new wave', the cod-spiritual, bourgeois meanderings of the Fortissimo school, etc) at the expense of those filmmakers (Ghobadi, Suleiman, Mendoza, Barmak, etc) who have genuinely challenged the status quo in their countries, who have championed the lives of the poor and oppressed, often at no small personal risk. So is this igonorance (and/or laziness), or is it a conscious (and therefore, arguably, mendacious and deceptive) political choice?
I'm pretty sure most people haven't seen anything by the directors you mention, so political choices in the listmaking seem unlikely to me, and your question (although a reasonable one) seems rather academic.

I suppose most Romanians (or Romanian filmmakers) don't have fond memories of the Ceausescu era, but are you saying the 'New Wave' of Romanian filmmakers are predominantly right-wing, bourgeois or endorsing US-friendly ideologies? For me, most Romanians (and most 'New Wave' filmmakers) are way too cynical to endorse any outspoken ideologies nowadays. They're certainly, as in most former Communist countries, much more acceptant of US culture, NATO or US military interference than in France, Germany or Italy, and I can't blame 'em. Makes perfect sense from their historical and political perspective. I have never seen a Romanian film that I perceived as right-wing by the way, but I'm sure, they're some on either side of the political spectrum.

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

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1012 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Fri Feb 12, 2010 9:50 am

Was going to reveal mine ten at a time (as I started to) but then never re-posted any. So here's all of them basically.

Hidden (Haneke)
In The Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai)
There Will Be Blood (Anderson)
Amelie (Jeunet)
4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days (Mungiu)
The Class (Cantet)
Elephant (van Sant)
The Edge of Heaven (Akin)
The Return (Zvyagintsev)
Ivan's XTC (Rose)

Ten (Kiarostami)
High Fidelity (Frears)
Still Life (Jia Zhangke)
The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck)
Climates (Ceylan)
Let The Right One In (Alfredson)
Far From Heaven (Haynes)
Pan's Labyrinth (Del Toro)
The Headless Woman (Martel)
Dogville (von Trier)

The White Ribbon (Haneke)
AI: Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg)
Talk to Her (Almodovar)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Schnabel)
The New World (Malick)
The Son's Room (Moretti)
House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou)
The Hurt Locker (Bigelow)
Bright Star (Campion)
XXY (Puenzo)

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (Audiard)
2046 (Wong Kar-Wai)
Head On (Akin)
The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming Liang)
Three Times (Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
A One and a Two (Yang)
Once (Carney)
Spirited Away (Miyazaki)
Taxi to the Dark Side (Gibney)
Brick (Johnson)

Mysterious Skin (Araki)
Audition (Miike)
The Child (Dardenne Bros.)
Waking Life (Linklater)
The Day I Became a Woman (Meshkini)
Volver (Almodovar)
In the City of Sylvia (Guerin)
Two Lovers (Gray)
The Piano Teacher (Haneke)
The World (Jia Zhangke)

Nothing
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:04 am

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1013 Post by Nothing » Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:30 am

John Cope wrote:It depends on whether you posit some necessary and unavoidable division between "formal prowess" and "honesty of representation".
I merely note that in what are increasingly looking to be the golden years of arthouse cinema (c. 1950-1986) a combination of both was near-essential for critical and commercial success; twenty-odd years later, the filmmakers who consistently deliver on both fronts can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
zedz wrote:it's untenable to assume that anybody whose politics you don't agree with is consequently 'dishonest.'
Would you consider Jud Süß to be an honest representation of the Jewish character? How about the depiction of the negro in Birth of a Nation?

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1014 Post by knives » Mon Feb 15, 2010 2:15 pm

Aren't those extreme examples though. Just to pick up on what you said earlier, is 4 months inherently dishonest?

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

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1015 Post by zedz » Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:20 pm

Nothing wrote:
zedz wrote:it's untenable to assume that anybody whose politics you don't agree with is consequently 'dishonest.'
Would you consider Jud Süß to be an honest representation of the Jewish character? How about the depiction of the negro in Birth of a Nation?
But we're not talking about Jud Süß or Birth of a Nation. Do you realise how desperate your rhetorical plight appears when your first resort is to tar the contemporary filmmakers you don't like with those particular brushes? Countdown to Hitler analogy: 5, 4, 3. . .

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1016 Post by domino harvey » Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:33 pm

Is this the right thread for my thoughts on how Sean Penn is the worst actor since Kurt Gerron?!

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

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1017 Post by zedz » Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:43 pm

domino harvey wrote:Is this the right thread for my thoughts on how Sean Penn is the worst actor since Kurt Gerron?!
It is now!

Nothing
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:04 am

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1018 Post by Nothing » Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:48 am

knives wrote:Aren't those extreme examples though
Define extreme (ie. where do we draw the line?)
zedz wrote:But we're not talking about Jud Süß or Birth of a Nation... Countdown to Hitler analogy: 5, 4, 3. . .
How about, instead of making excuses, you actually answer the question?... Yes, I know, you want to pretend that all politics are relative, that each of the filmmakers listed here is simply expressing their valid 'view' and 'opinion' of the world - post-modernism dictating that no single viewpoint is more 'correct' than any other - and, yet, at the same time, your ingrained sense of liberal-capitalist decorum would not allow you to defend Riefenstahl or Griffith in the same way. And therein lies the contradition, the hypocrisy in your argument - so better just to cry 'ad Hitlerium!', huh?

Btw, having some knowledge of the situation, I do actually find Syndromes & a Century no less offensive - and racist - than Birth of a Nation.
knives wrote:is 4 months inherently dishonest?
Haven't seen it, very little interest in seeing it. However the generic focus of these kinds of films on the negative aspects of the Chauchescu era, ignoring the numerous problems and challenges that exist in the present day, and the celebration of this genre by complacent liberal-capitalists such as Steven Frears, is inherently mendacious on some level - especially when the filmmakers are from the bourgeois minority who have profited from this modern shift in ideology.

User avatar
MaxCastle
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 1:37 pm
Location: Manchester, UK

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1019 Post by MaxCastle » Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:03 am

Nothing wrote:
knives wrote:is 4 months inherently dishonest?
Haven't seen it, very little interest in seeing it. However the generic focus of these kinds of films on the negative aspects of the Chauchescu era, ignoring the numerous problems and challenges that exist in the present day, and the celebration of this genre by complacent liberal-capitalists such as Steven Frears, is inherently mendacious on some level - especially when the filmmakers are from the bourgeois minority who have profited from this modern shift in ideology.
Don't most of the films of the Romanian new wave - those that have been most obviously championed by Western critics/commentators, at any rate - have a broadly contemporary setting, though? They're concerned at least as much with the privations, compromises and hypocrisies of latterday, post-Ceausescu society.

User avatar
Sloper
Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 10:06 pm

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1020 Post by Sloper » Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:46 am

This isn't my argument, and I haven't seen most of the films being discussed here, so I probably shouldn't dive in. But what the hell...

Nothing - I think if you actually saw 4 Months, you would realise that it isn't a film defined by its 'generic focus', nor is it primarily a political statement about anything. Mungiu himself said that one of the reasons his generation are proving able to make films (successful ones) about the Ceausescu era is because they have a sense of distance and detachment from it, and this detachment is one of the film's strong points. I came to it from a position of almost total ignorance about that period in Romania, and generally speaking I have a strong dislike for polemic of any kind - and I loved it. The main reason it's successful and lauded is because it's a compelling, well-made film, not because it panders to any particular ideology. If 'complacent liberal capitalists' champion it in ways you find objectionable, I guess it's fair enough for you to call them all liars - but how does that make the film itself 'mendacious'?

This whole business of saying that film-makers are being 'dishonest' is mind-boggling to me. And to answer your earlier question, yes The Birth of a Nation is an honest representation of 'the negro' by an extremely racist man. Why would anyone want to dispute its honesty?

And there is a problem with your having chosen extreme examples: yes, the 'let everyone have their voice' perspective turns problematic at a certain point, but so does any perspective. Yours, for example, is so extreme that it actually causes you to flagrantly write off an acclaimed recent film simply because you've decided that its politics and supporters are 'mendacious'. (At least I'm assuming this is why you have so little interest in seeing it?) Your question, 'where do you draw the line?' is one that needs to be asked in all and any circumstances. We're not talking about films which deliberately promote racial persecution here, or even about letting Nick Griffin on Question time, and I guess if you want to justify bringing up someone like Griffith then you need to explain how the films you're objecting to caused innocent people to be persecuted and murdered, which is what The Birth of a Nation did. In what way is 4 Months (or Syndromes, which I haven't seen) pedalling an ideology that causes anything like that much damage? And I realise you may think that 'bourgeois complacent liberal capitalism' causes untold suffering - it probably does - but there's something very un-nuanced about your targeting of film-makers, especially if you're objecting to something like 4 Months; are these films (and film-makers) and the people championing them really the ones responsible for the tangible evil effects of bourgeois liberal (etc)?

I follow your arguments on this board sometimes - your posts are a pleasure to read - but it seems to me you're often talking about politics, and the way films are received by critics, not about the films themelves films. A lot of the things you say seem completely detached from the actual content of the artworks you refer to, and I would tentatively suggest that this may be why others have difficulty getting on board with what you have to say, however valid your position may in fact be. (Not trying to sound presumptuous here.)

Phil
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:51 pm
Location: NYC

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1021 Post by Phil » Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:36 pm

Nothing wrote:Btw, having some knowledge of the situation, I do actually find Syndromes & a Century no less offensive - and racist - than Birth of a Nation.
As someone who cannot claim anything resembling a significant amount of knowledge w/r/t contemporary Thai culture, could you expand on what you find so despicable about it?

Also, is there any chance you could post your own list? I would be genuinely fascinated to see what's on it.

User avatar
John Cope
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:40 pm
Location: where the simulacrum is true

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1022 Post by John Cope » Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:06 am

Phil wrote:
Nothing wrote:Btw, having some knowledge of the situation, I do actually find Syndromes & a Century no less offensive - and racist - than Birth of a Nation.
As someone who cannot claim anything resembling a significant amount of knowledge w/r/t contemporary Thai culture, could you expand on what you find so despicable about it?
He already has.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1023 Post by knives » Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:38 am

While I tend to disagree with Nothing's emphasis on the political he kind of makes sense with his criticisms of Syndromes.

Phil
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:51 pm
Location: NYC

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1024 Post by Phil » Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:43 am

Thanks John.

User avatar
Sloper
Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 10:06 pm

Re: 2000s List Discussion and Suggestions

#1025 Post by Sloper » Wed Feb 17, 2010 4:58 am

Well I guess that post kind of shut me up, at least until I see Syndromes...

Post Reply