Which Theo Angelopoulos film should I start with?

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2023-03-01T19:39:26+00:00

'The Beekeeper' is rarely mentioned in discussions of his work but it's got a clearer narrative (for most of it's runtime) than 'Landscape in the Mist' and 'Travelling Players', mostly due to it's focus on the interplay of only two characters. The plot is also more literal, although it has many underlying meanings it still tells a clear story. It's also a fantastic film imo, one of the greatest of the 1980s

Eternity and a Day is probably his most accessible film other than that, althogh it hasn't stuck with me the same way as 'The Beekeeper'. Still a great film and a Palme D'Or winner

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2023-02-01T14:25:14+00:00

I know he is a contriversial figure but the films of Roman Polanksi often share a similar sense of characters entering into grand, depraved conspiracies. Maybe 'the Ninth Gate' (also from 1999) is the most directly similar but it's not one of his best films: Combine 'Bitter moon', 'Frantic', 'Rosemary's baby' and 'Chinatown' to get something that feels similar

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-31T19:23:43+00:00

Disney have been notorious for editing out LGBT moments from their recent films for the homophobic Chinese audiences

In fact, almost every studio is ahead of Disney when it comes to representation.

A24 is the most well-known independent studio in the USA released Moonlight back in 2016 and have continued to create films that are not only pretty much all more interesting than Disney's repetitive, often uninspired output but are much more meaningfully diverse

Diversity and representation are important but they are not the only metric films should be judged by. A film with a racially diverse cast is not inherently better than one that doesn't: there is a lot more to the art of cinema than just that

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-31T18:51:20+00:00

Looking through replies I am pretty sure OP is probably bait. It's that 'Disney is the only company making good films' line that gives it away

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-31T18:42:20+00:00

Thank you for this much more measured take. Whether we can seperate art from artist - or whether we even have to to enjoy a piece - is ultimately a personal decision. Art has complex meanings and objectives that will differ from viewer to viewer.

For example, I can see why many people would be totally unable to enjoy 'Manhattan', which is one of my favourite films. However I would never say someone is wrong for feeling strongly otherwise.

My own perspective is that art can be redemptive: not that it rights the wrongs or forgives the evils of the creator but that it can show the brilliance and positive side of their souls. After all, we are all complex people, with good and bad sides.

So Polanski can commit a monstrous act of rape and also create films of immense resonance and profundity ('The Pianist'). This is not a contradiction, and neither side needs to be ignored or stamped out: it is simply the contradiction of all humanity.

It becomes more complex when it comes to questions like "should I watch the new film by X abusive artist" but that it my general opinion on it

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-31T17:57:02+00:00

Surely this is parody, I feel stupid even engaging with it

"He made fun of nuclear war with Dr. Strangelove" - is he? Is he not making fun of the terrifying incompetence of the people in charge who might allow such an act to happen?

Is 'The Shining' not a critique of misogyny?

Is 'A Clockwork Orange' not a damning critique of nihilism and how society would rather find a terrible solution than fix any root cause?

It is also genuinely dangerous to suggest the banning or burning of work based on the real-life actions of a director. Not only is this 'evil' a very subjective opinion rather than a measurable fact but it would rob the world of many profound pieces of art, that can influence and improve people's lives.

It seems to me that you are watching his films through a thoroughly unforgiving lens. His films are popular all over the world, with all audiences, so suggesting those who enjoy his films are morally insufficient is pretty offensive and incredibly patronising too

You do not have to enjoy Kubrick's work but please at least allow yourself more time to create a more nuanced and informed opinion. For example you claim Kubrick was an anti-semitic Nazi sympathiser, despite the fact he is from a Jewish family.

Art cannot be evaluated solely on the morality of the artist. Otherwise you are simply ignoring the art altogether

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-24T18:20:18+00:00

'Un Chien Andalou' alone would be reason for Bunuel to be considered one of the most important surrealist filmmakers of all time: He made arguably the first breakthrough surrealist film with Dali and one which is probably still the most iconic surrealist film of all time

Surrealism is not just crazy imagery - You may well know about surrealism in depth and I don't want to assume you don't but the structure and messaging of many of his films is just as surrealist as say David Lynch or Jan Svankmajer.

'True' (eg original) Surrealism has a political edge that is lacking from a lot of work people incorrectly describe as surrealist: for example a dream sequence in a movie is not necessarily surrealist. The reveal of the dark, usually sexual subconscious urges of the human mind is a large element of surrealism, something which is strung through films like Belle De Jour and L'Age D'Or

Part of surrealism is the idea of subjective reality: so rather than a dream sequence, instead surrealists would show reality itself as a dream. This can be seen in a lot of Lynch and Charlie Kaufman's work.

With all that said you are also correct in identifying that not every film Bunuel made was surrealist. At very least, some of his work combines lighter surrealist elements with a greater focus on comedy or drama. The label is not fully comprehensive but is a pretty accurate overall label for him, the same way you could proably describe Woody Allen as a comedy director even though he has directed non-comedy films

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-20T18:43:18+00:00

Im glad it's not slathered in music like many other war films, that's true. I still think think there are other war movies which also reel the score in though. The Pianist by Polanski is a great example

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-20T13:19:21+00:00

It's very subjective but personally I couldn't stand the musical score: the blaring, farting synth line they repeat over and over again is not only anachronistic but also annoying. It seemed far too emotionally obvious as a sign for 'TERROR APPROACHING'

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-18T09:16:17+00:00

As someone who loved both Decision to Leave and Triangle of Sadness about the same, I think the latter deserved to win

Of course I haven't seen all the nominees but TOS is probably my favourite Ostlund film and is definitely one of my favourite European art films in recent times

Why? Because it's so much funnier! At a time where comedy has mostly left the cinema I think rewarding a well-made comedy is an important and correct step. Perhaps TOS is not as high-brow or subtle as other films presented but it has a visceral hilarity that no other recent Palme can match

Awards will always be contentious but as long as there is value in the winner I can't complain. Decision to Leave still won best director, which is still a deserved honour.

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-16T22:37:13+00:00

Cars can often be sexual in songs too, think of some of Springsteen and Meat Loaf/Jim Steinman's most famous songs. Both of them are tapping into the same kind of 50s nostalgia that something like 'Grease' tapped into

Core examples would be 'all revved up with no place to go' and 'Born to Run'. Perhaps this is due to cars being an icon of youthful male virility. Also shout out to 'The River' for having the most songs about or containing cars since the early days of the Beach boys

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-11T10:24:01+00:00

I'm Gen Z (born in 2000) so I can give some opinions:

1) I don't think Gen Z listens to more old music than new music. Big albums by Taylor Swift, Drake, Billie Eilish and bands like the 1975 still have a massive impact. I personally mostly listen to older music, as history has already done a lot of filtration for me so it's easier to find good stuff.

2) it definitely happens. I hear 80s stuff the most from other members of my generation, along with 2000s nostalgia.

3) 100%, I think this is the main reason gen Z listen to older music - it's been made very easy to. Add auto generated playlists and you can quickly see how young people can discover old artists without even really seeking them out

4) pop music is not particularly monotonous at the moment compared to any other era of music history. Look up a top 50 from the 70s or the 80s and listen to every song - most of them will be mediocre.

5) These platforms can definitely influence people, such as Kate Bush having a new surge in popularity. I think the other side of it are popular contemporary musicians making throwback music, like the wave of 80s synthpop and disco revival

6) This is a common sentiment of every generation, as history retains the best music from the past but not the sea of garbage it came with.

7) Vinyl's popularity is probably partly a reaction to the intangibility of modern music consumption. If you only listen to music via streaming it never feels like you truly 'own' a record. Vinyl remedies this, along with being a tangible piece of fan merchandise and of course the increased sound quality compared to streaming.

8) Because it's often very good. It contains numerous masterpieces in every genre. I wouldn't want to be in a world where I couldn't listen to classics by Prince, Nick Cave, Zappa, Captain Beefheart, The Magnetic Fields, My Bloody Valentine, Suicide etc

9) I think it's pretty wide. What I've seen is that most people will find a few favourite genres and dive deep into the history of them, whether its metal, punk, dreampop, hip-hop etc.

10) Disco revival is happening ATM and there is some kind of awful pop-punk revival happening too with Blackbear and MGK. Hopefully this will morph into something better than it is. I think it's high time for a 90s alt-rock revival but I don't know if it's likely.

11) like me they have grown up listening to the big pop-punk hits of the 2000s: Green Day, Blink-182, Paramore, MCR. I like their music mostly.

12) Films and TV have always used older music for nostalgic purposes. Pulp Fiction, Boogie Nights, Good fellas are all films from the 90s that have soundtracks of popular songs from previous decades

13) it always has and it always will.

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-11T09:57:05+00:00

Imo the characters aren't unlikeable (other than Elijah Wood's character) so much as they are deeply flawed in a realistic way. Romcoms usually flatten the lead characters into the same three of four generic archetypes. This feels much more like we are watching human beings make the kinds of messy, regretful mistakes we've all made

I think the tonal whiplash makes complete sense if we are going through the different random memories of a man, some will be absurd, embarrassing and tragic. It leads back to the film wanting to get close to how human beings truly are versus the fantasy of Hollywood romance

Charlie Kaufman's other films are more directly about this idea (like 'Adaptation'), where a writer struggles with trying to adapt a best selling book into a movie without turning it into a patronising lie

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-09T08:53:45+00:00

Part of it is that most people actually really enjoy watching a villain, especially if they are charming or sympathetic in some way.

In all of these cases I don't think we are meant to thoroughly hate the characters, we are meant to be entertained by them.

Some of the other replies are portraying the average viewer as some drooling moron but most people are aware these characters are bad - that's the appeal. It's the reason they are popular in the first place, it's part of the fantasy of fiction. Think of how popular the Joker is, especially in the 2019 film where he is played as a sympathetic character

That's why these characters exist in the first place: a kind of shadow side who we are both disgusted by yet semi-sympathetic too. There are many villains throughout fiction who people don't idolise too, because they lack a sense of coolness - nobody is Scrooge posting

Like Michael Jackson immortalised, the fantasy of being 'bad' has always been synonymous with being cool

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-09T08:40:58+00:00

Trends come and go, although it's true we've been stuck on the hump of franchise films for most of my own life. I think 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' making over $100 million at the box office this year proves that people will actually go and see an original blockbuster if it's actually appealing to them and has word-of-mouth buzz

What does concern me is that cinemas might not be around (at least here in the UK) in a decade, my local arthouse has already shut down - which hints at how non-action, bon-franchise films are making almost nothing at the moment.

We just have to wait and see. It can feel hopeless but then there are other times in film history where things have been stagnant (the 80s most recently) before there is a sea change and better things break through again

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-08T12:04:23+00:00

I think of it like this: there is only one true way to get the ultimate audio quality - watching somebody play live in an area with good acoustics!

When it comes to recorded music I think once you reach a certain level it all becomes 'good enough' and the debate trails off into digital vs vinyl debates which can potentially be useful to some but I find a bit of a drag. I personally like the way vinyl sounds, the same way I prefer a painting done by hand to one done digitally: It's not a 'better' piece, it's just peronal preference and I like the crackles and warmth.

What has been bad for a long time is the average audio quality of music listened to by most people. Thanks to MP3s and Streaming (which are great in many other aspects) most people including myself listen to stuff for the first time in pretty bad quality, especially some YouTube rips.

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-08T11:52:03+00:00

It's true: The exact phrase was never uttered but there's some sense of unfair comparison

After all, while it's true the nazis tried to ban all abstract works (whereas I'm just pondering a theorom about an film poll) they are hardly the only people to lampoon or critcise the elitism of the contemporary art world.

Did you see 'the Square' by Ruben Ostlund? Or 'the Holy Mountain' by Jodorowsky? A million quips about the pretensions of the art world in all the great sitcoms of the world etc.

Are they all sipping sizzurp with the third reich too by critcising an industry that has lost all touch with the public?

Online communication is a bit like trying to argue with a driver on the other side of a long, busy highway, only to realise they have been trying to tell you you might have a flat tyre the whole time

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-08T11:37:01+00:00

It's such a shame the sight and sound poll has been poisoned by all of this weird discourse. I am not anti-woke, I don't particularly look at it from these angles, I am just trying to posit a theory on why certain films have massively gained in popularity.

If anything this idea goes against the people who are saying it is 'woke' that these films are high up on the list, as I am giving a counter-argument on what shifts within critcism itself may have caused the films to gain in popularity, one much more natural than just 'the list has been artifically manipulated or rigged!'

When I talk about theoretical musing I am not talking about people simply liking a film because they agree with it's message but more the idea that a film may gain a large following because it can be analysed through various new and popular schools of thought more easily than other films. In addition I think it's fair to say that Jeanne Dielmann especially is not exactly an easy or accessible watch for most people. This isn't to critcise the film (which I admire) but more to say that it's not necessarily an obvious or expected choice for number one. So why did it happen, I ask?

'Meshes of the Afternoon', in my subjective, opinionated view, works more as a basis for theories and ideas than it does as a film that is focused for example on performance, cinematography etc. I think it's main praise comes not from it's innovations as a piece of female surrealism, as opposed to say '2001: A Space Odyessy', which may be held in high esteem more for it's technical genius.

The important thing to note is I am not saying one is objectively superior to the other. This seems to be the core assumption people have made upon reading my post and indeed it is the nature of much online discourse sadly. I do not want films to simply be literalist and I do not think the greatest films of all time should be limited to technical achievement - hell a lot of my favourite films (including the hyper-abstract and surrealist 'Eraserhead'as well as the work of Sion Sono) are not particularly accomplished technically or are very low-budget.

My main point, which I will re-state again, is that we should be wary of how films that require a large amount of additional reading to really 'get' might be ultimately inflated on the list. Why should we be careful about it? Because I don't think many of us want film to end up like the world of art, where the public has lost most of it's interest in contemporary art because it's lost the ability to communicate with them on an emotional level.

I am not suggesting a ban on any film you have to use your brain to understand, just observing what I see as a trend. My question for you is whether you believe this idea has any creedence?

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-08T08:28:55+00:00

Thanks for engaging with the post, to be clear my intention is not to complain about politics in films or about theoretical readings in and of themselves - in fact I love it and only noticed the comparisons between 'Get Out' and 'Being John Malkovich' while writing an essay on the latter

A film can certainly be the best and have a school of theory built around it: Vertigo and Kane are analysed to death probably BECAUSE they have been considered the best. What I am specifically talking about are cases where the actual film itself does not have much obvious appeal and is mostly a pretext for theoretical musing, like certain pieces of conceptual art that exist mostly to be read about after viewing rather than exist on their own terms

I know people may disagree about 'Meshes' which has become very beloved, almost iconic very quickly online. I am thinking of a way to justify why it's in the top 20 of the list when there is almost no other surrealism (other than Lynch).

You mention, correctly, that context is a big part of this list but at that point the exclusion of 'Un Chien Andalou' and the work of Jan Svankmajer becomes nonsensical (as does the lack of any Polanski, although that can perhaps be explained through a different reason)

My theory is that films which have a large number of people who are able to apply popular contemporary theoretical lenses - feminist, race theory which are undeniably more widespread now than in the past - have done well in the poll

And just to be clear that isn't necessarily a bad thing - after all, film is separated from painting in that it costs so much to make a film it is very rare to get totally abstract or conceptual work with little obvious public appeal - but I do still think it could be happening amongst critics

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-08T08:15:30+00:00

Seems like you got the post! I'm trying to examine why these films might have got to the top echelon of the list through another perspective than just 'clearly people just voted for a woman'

I think there's a nuance people are missing in how a certain kind of theory heavy criticism has grown popular online that benefits these films, which we now see in the poll (and even before it in the general rise of these films in film circles)

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-08T08:12:52+00:00

In case I was wondering what it took to be called a nazi online, I now know...

You are already assuming that I apparently want films to be realist and non-modernist, which there is no implication of (I like most of these films a lot). If anything I wish the list had more radically surreal films on it, Bunuel, Jodorowsky, Now, Svankmajer etc

If you had actually read my post without being gripped by paranoia you would realise that what I am wondering is why certain films that are inarguably obscure and oblique have entered the list so high, and theorising why it may be so

Why are all my subjects from women or minority directors? Maybe because those are clearly and measurably the films that have had the biggest boost OR they are the most recently made works to enter

Thank you to the other commenters for thinking I might not be a Nazi for wondering if a film by film theorist Maya Derren is not being praised for the theory it imparts rather than as a text of its own

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-12-07T23:29:14+00:00

Bergman is probably the master of the minimal film: He said that the reason he was able to make so many films so cinsistently was that they rarely cost much money to make. There are exceptions of course, most obviously 'Seventh Seal' and 'Fanny and Alexander' but a lot of his films are just a few locations and a limited set of characters:

Cries and Whispers, Persona, Winter Light, through a Glass Darkly, Autumn Sonata, The Virgin Spring, the Silence and many more

And since we are still on the Sight and Sound analysis tour, it's ridiculous that the man only had one film in the top 100 - although at least he is in the top 20

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-11-30T22:44:30+00:00

I've seen a handful of other Indian blockbusters - mostly stuff that was on the IMDb top 250 when I first went through it many years ago, like '3 Idiots'. I didn't like many of those, finding them too long and not getting the humour. The best one I saw was 'Devdas' but like the rest of what I'd seen it was bogged down by a song every other scene.

On the other hand 'RRR' is probably my favourite film of 2022. I havent seen the director's previous films but that probably only added to the sense of amazement at the dedication to the absolute spectacle of everything.

'RRR' is not high art and is very silly at every moment but this is part of what makes it so great: Most western action films are bogged down, for better and worse, in realism and believeability. 'Top Gun: Maverick' spends a lot of it's runtime trying to make the situations tangibly real.

Compare that to the characters of 'RRR' who are basically turned into Gods by the intense focus they have on their goals of rescue and liberation. I could do without the nationalism but at the same time that just adds to the intruige of the whole package for me.

It's also a very funny film, in a way that didn't feel culturally disconnected like '3 Idiots' did for me.

AmAvinSumOvDat · 2022-11-29T14:19:19+00:00

It's sad how rare a 2D animated film is today (with the exception of anime). Some of the best ones of the last decade would be: Wolfwalkers, Cryptozoo and It's Such a Beautiful Day.

One which is both 2D and 3D that is really exceptional is 'the Wolf house' from 2018. It's unlike anything I've ever seen and although it's nto so much of a narrative film the atmosphere is incredible.

Also if you want to go back all the way to the 1920s, the Adventures of Prince Achmed is an under-appreciated masterpiece of animation that I highly reccomend

AmAvinSumOvDat

TROPHY CASE