Roughly in order (though individual films may rank differently):
Andrei Tarkovsky (whom surprisingly no one has mentioned so far) Ingmar Bergman Stanley Kubrick Kiyoshi Kurusawa Takeshi Kitano
Yeah, Tarkovsky is
I've never made it all the way through Andrei Rublev, but the scene in [i]Ivanovo Detstvo/I> in which Ivan pretends he's found the people that killed his family ...
I'm going to see his latest, "Antichrist", starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg in a couple of days. Apparently it's been stirring up quite a controversy at the Cannes Film Festival. People either love it or hate it (I have a love/hate relationship with his filmography myself), and it's supposedly pretty intense.
I don't want to shift gears on the thread, but real quick -- what's a good Polanski film to start with? I'm
Chinatown
Yeah, Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, and Repulsion are probably the best intros.
I'm also partial to Cul-de-Sac and The Tenant but they are a bit more acquired tastes. Knife in the Water, his first feature, is also arguably his most subtle and "arty" -- a great film, but maybe not the one to start with.
So many mentions of Melville make me curiuos. I'm not sure if I saw any of his films. (Is "Clan of the Sicillians" by Melville?)
Which are the movies that make him Top 5 worthy to you?
My favorites are the best of his gangster films -- Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge, Le Doulos, and Bob Le Flameur, in that order, with Le Samourai as the fave. People also sweat the admitedly great Army of Shadows that was rereleased about 2 yrs back, although I don't rate it as highly as some.
Le Samourai is Alain Delon playing the contract killer right? This for sure is a DOPE movie. I liked the piano player!!!
yup. one of the best viewing experiences of my life was the re-release print of that in the mid-90s, around the same time another favorite, Bertolucci's equally dope The Conformist came out again.
On an unrelated note, don't think I've seen anyone mention Robert Altman or Hal Ashby yet, both in competition for best string of films through the 70s.
My favorites are the best of his gangster films -- Le Samourai as the fave.
this is the most stylish movie ever and so good. alain delon is so handsome and so cool in this movie it's uncanny. francois de lamothe, the set and production designer for this film was a genius. every detail is perfection.
1. chris marker 2. yasujiro ozu 3. oskar fischinger 4. joris ivens 5. abel gance
though admittedly, i am a huge fan of current throwaway hollywood trash. and i do love me some bob le flambeur. also, dardennes are heavy, sometimes i need to prepare myself for thems. hi missbassie!
I forgot Haneke, but I think it's because I'm still holding a grudge against American Funny Games. I would have to squeeze him into my top five. Anyway - can't wait to see his new one.
I think Europa is one of the best films I've ever seen and I am a fan of Von Trier's other films, but again proving (for me anyway), it's better not to get to know your favourite artists too well - the making of Dancer in the Dark showed him to be a very unlikeable and arrogant a-hole. And here's some more info on Von Trier's Antichrist. SPOILERS[/b]
CANNES, France (AFP) - Cannes nearly always has its scandal and this year it came in the form of a Danish "Antichrist" that provoked such a storm its director promised a cleaner "Catholic" version for US audiences.
Lars Von Trier's gothic thriller about love and madness provoked fainting, gasps and walk-outs at the festival with its shots of a clitoris being sliced off with rusty scissors and male genitals smashed with a plank.
It was declared "the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world" by an Ecumenical Jury which every year hands out a minor prize to a Cannes film that celebrates spiritual values.
The jury president, Romanian film-maker Radu Mihaileanu, said he felt the need to hand out a special "anti-prize" this year because the film suggested that "woman should be burnt at the stake so that man can finally stand up."
Cannes festival director Thierry Fremaux reacted furiously.
It was a "ridiculous decision that borders on a call for censorship, (it is) scandalous coming from an 'ecumenical' jury which what is more is headed by a film-maker," he said.
"Antichrist" -- starring French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe of the US -- has Dafoe play a psychotherapist who takes his wife to a log cabin retreat to help her overcome grief at their baby's death.
But instead they descend into a crazed spiral of violence.
Half-naked for much of the film, Gainsbourg masturbates lying on the forest floor in one of many explicit scenes, and subjects Dafoe's character to ordeals that include bashing his genitals with a wooden plank.
She won the Cannes best actress award for the role in which she masturbates Dafoe to bring him to a bloody climax before drilling through his leg and bolting it to a millstone.
Both actors said they were deeply affected by making the movie, with Dafoe saying there was an "intense physical and emotional atmosphere" on the film set.
At leat four people fainted and critics jeered during festival screenings of the film, one of 20 competing for the Palme d'Or top prize that was handed out Sunday to Austrian Michael Haneke for "The White Ribbon."
But Von Trier, who won a Palme for "Dancer in the Dark" in 2000 and made his latest film as as a form of therapy after a mental breakdown, insisted it was the most important work of his career.
The Dane was aware that his film well might spark controversy and had previously decided to produce a toned-down cut of "Antichrist" to satisfy foreign censors, according to his production company.
"We reached an agreement with Lars more than a year ago to make a 'Catholic' version of the movie, to cut some scenes and replace them with others," Peter Aalbaek Jensen, the head of the Zentropa production group, told AFP last week.
"Otherwise it would be impossible to sell (it) to prudish markets like southern Europe, Asia and the United States, where you can't show a naked man from the front," he said.
Von Trier will begin work on the new version "after the Cannes festival," he said.
yes. I thought about these guys too, but chose the others on my list because I've just seen more by them. Though.....Burnett's To Sleep with Anger counts as two or three films it's so good! And Lilya-4-Ever counts as seven or eight - lol
Especially people fixated on sounds. I could watch "Mon Oncle" and "Playtime" countless times. This guy was pure comical genious and the biggest perfectionist ever.
Especially people fixated on sounds. I could watch "Mon Oncle" and "Playtime" countless times. This guy was pure comical genious and the biggest perfectionist ever.
not in my top 5, but no denying his greatness. I've taught a few film-history overview courses (for seniors, which was interesting) and always included clips from his work.
i grew up a kids in the hall fan, and the mr. heavyfoot sketches were supposed to be inspired by tati; i LOVE those sketches, so i think i'm avoiding seeing actual tati because i feel like i've bindair dondat. idiotic logic, i know...i'll check those two you mentioned.
b/w
[at a funeral] Dean Murdoch: Hey, Mrs. Mitchener, you wanna hear a joke? Mrs. Mitchener: Most certainly Dean Murdoch: It's farrel really liked this one. What do you call a guy who's from Pakistani who's seen everything and done everything? Terry: Been everywhere. Dean Murdoch: Yeah. Seen everything, been everywhere, done everything. And he's from Pakistan. Mrs. Mitchener: I don't know. Dean Murdoch: Bindair Dondat.
Comments
Yeah, Tarkovsky is
I've never made it all the way through Andrei Rublev, but the scene in [i]Ivanovo Detstvo/I> in which Ivan pretends he's found the people that killed his family ...
Mel Brooks
Albert Brooks
Ben Stiller
Alfred Hitchcock
Tarkovsky
Truffaut
Cassavetes (no love for him and Truffaut?)
Hitchcock
Don Siegel
Sergio Solima
Ida Lupino
Mel Stuart
Sergio Corbucci
Clint Eastwood gets an honorable mention. "Shut your face!"...haha
I'm going to see his latest, "Antichrist", starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg in a couple of days. Apparently it's been stirring up quite a controversy at the Cannes Film Festival. People either love it or hate it (I have a love/hate relationship with his filmography myself), and it's supposedly pretty intense.
Yeah, Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, and Repulsion are probably the best intros.
I'm also partial to Cul-de-Sac and The Tenant but they are a bit more acquired tastes. Knife in the Water, his first feature, is also arguably his most subtle and "arty" -- a great film, but maybe not the one to start with.
bit slow at first but so f*ckin good...
yup. one of the best viewing experiences of my life was the re-release print of that in the mid-90s, around the same time another favorite, Bertolucci's equally dope The Conformist came out again.
On an unrelated note, don't think I've seen anyone mention Robert Altman or Hal Ashby yet, both in competition for best string of films through the 70s.
this is the most stylish movie ever and so good. alain delon is so handsome and so cool in this movie it's uncanny.
francois de lamothe, the set and production designer for this film was a genius. every detail is perfection.
HITCHCOCK
FELLINI
GODARD
LEONE
KUBRICK
- spidey
1. chris marker
2. yasujiro ozu
3. oskar fischinger
4. joris ivens
5. abel gance
though admittedly, i am a huge fan of current throwaway hollywood trash. and i do love me some bob le flambeur. also, dardennes are heavy, sometimes i need to prepare myself for thems. hi missbassie!
I forgot Haneke, but I think it's because I'm still holding a grudge against American Funny Games. I would have to squeeze him into my top five. Anyway - can't wait to see his new one.
I think Europa is one of the best films I've ever seen and I am a fan of Von Trier's other films, but again proving (for me anyway), it's better not to get to know your favourite artists too well - the making of Dancer in the Dark showed him to be a very unlikeable and arrogant a-hole. And here's some more info on Von Trier's Antichrist.
SPOILERS[/b]
CANNES, France (AFP) - Cannes nearly always has its scandal and this year it came in the form of a Danish "Antichrist" that provoked such a storm its director promised a cleaner "Catholic" version for US audiences.
Lars Von Trier's gothic thriller about love and madness provoked fainting, gasps and walk-outs at the festival with its shots of a clitoris being sliced off with rusty scissors and male genitals smashed with a plank.
It was declared "the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world" by an Ecumenical Jury which every year hands out a minor prize to a Cannes film that celebrates spiritual values.
The jury president, Romanian film-maker Radu Mihaileanu, said he felt the need to hand out a special "anti-prize" this year because the film suggested that "woman should be burnt at the stake so that man can finally stand up."
Cannes festival director Thierry Fremaux reacted furiously.
It was a "ridiculous decision that borders on a call for censorship, (it is) scandalous coming from an 'ecumenical' jury which what is more is headed by a film-maker," he said.
"Antichrist" -- starring French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe of the US -- has Dafoe play a psychotherapist who takes his wife to a log cabin retreat to help her overcome grief at their baby's death.
But instead they descend into a crazed spiral of violence.
Half-naked for much of the film, Gainsbourg masturbates lying on the forest floor in one of many explicit scenes, and subjects Dafoe's character to ordeals that include bashing his genitals with a wooden plank.
She won the Cannes best actress award for the role in which she masturbates Dafoe to bring him to a bloody climax before drilling through his leg and bolting it to a millstone.
Both actors said they were deeply affected by making the movie, with Dafoe saying there was an "intense physical and emotional atmosphere" on the film set.
At leat four people fainted and critics jeered during festival screenings of the film, one of 20 competing for the Palme d'Or top prize that was handed out Sunday to Austrian Michael Haneke for "The White Ribbon."
But Von Trier, who won a Palme for "Dancer in the Dark" in 2000 and made his latest film as as a form of therapy after a mental breakdown, insisted it was the most important work of his career.
The Dane was aware that his film well might spark controversy and had previously decided to produce a toned-down cut of "Antichrist" to satisfy foreign censors, according to his production company.
"We reached an agreement with Lars more than a year ago to make a 'Catholic' version of the movie, to cut some scenes and replace them with others," Peter Aalbaek Jensen, the head of the Zentropa production group, told AFP last week.
"Otherwise it would be impossible to sell (it) to prudish markets like southern Europe, Asia and the United States, where you can't show a naked man from the front," he said.
Von Trier will begin work on the new version "after the Cannes festival," he said.
so i'll cheat.
many favorites have already been mentioned...five among them:
stanley kubrick
alfred hitchcock
lars von trier
mike leigh
the dardennes
five more than haven't been mentioned:
satyajit ray
guy maddin
alfonso cuaron
lukas moodysson
charles burnett
i'll third John Hughes as an awesome director.
anyone else think that 'the good thief' was better than 'bob le flambeur'. no diss to melville; 'army of shadows' was a revelation when i saw it.
i'm a big fan of 'rosemary's baby' and 'the tenant'.
really?! i have to see that. people were saying the same thing about his press conference at cannes last week, but i didn't see the big deal: http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/mediaPlayer/9902.html
yes. I thought about these guys too, but chose the others on my list because I've just seen more by them. Though.....Burnett's To Sleep with Anger counts as two or three films it's so good! And Lilya-4-Ever counts as seven or eight - lol
http://www.amazon.ca/Killer-Sheep-Charles-Burnett-Collection/dp/B000VEA3MU
Especially people fixated on sounds. I could watch "Mon Oncle" and "Playtime" countless times. This guy was pure comical genious and the biggest perfectionist ever.
not in my top 5, but no denying his greatness. I've taught a few film-history overview courses (for seniors, which was interesting) and always included clips from his work.
i grew up a kids in the hall fan, and the mr. heavyfoot sketches were supposed to be inspired by tati; i LOVE those sketches, so i think i'm avoiding seeing actual tati because i feel like i've bindair dondat. idiotic logic, i know...i'll check those two you mentioned.
b/w
[at a funeral]
Dean Murdoch: Hey, Mrs. Mitchener, you wanna hear a joke?
Mrs. Mitchener: Most certainly
Dean Murdoch: It's farrel really liked this one. What do you call a guy who's from Pakistani who's seen everything and done everything?
Terry: Been everywhere.
Dean Murdoch: Yeah. Seen everything, been everywhere, done everything. And he's from Pakistan.
Mrs. Mitchener: I don't know.
Dean Murdoch: Bindair Dondat.