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LE PIMPSTANCE DU MELVILLE

grandpa_shiggrandpa_shig 5,799 Posts
edited August 2005 in Strut Central
so my friend just dumped off like 50 dvd's on me. lots of different stuff. one of which was melville's "le cercle rouge" which i thought i had already seen but, nope. anyways, melville is like my most favoritest french movie dude EVAR. this dude can make the most scrawny sissified french dudes look straight PIMP. i recommend anything this guy has made, and i guess i how you say "celebrate his whole catalog" even though i havent seen all his flicks. but every one i have seen is some of that gangsta shit. seriously, headz need to connaitre this deal. now i know, some of you all are godard-headz, and that's fine and dandy. but godard's stuff is usually of the man/woman relationship variety whereas my dude melville, he's all mans. french-jewish dude with an affinity for cowboy hats and cadillacs. you cant front on that. anyways, go head and er "big up" your favorite french film dudes. as long as you dont mention truffaut we are bon.
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  • gloomgloom 2,765 Posts
    mellville =











    ...



    Mathieu Kassovitz



  • grandpa_shiggrandpa_shig 5,799 Posts




  • p_gunnp_gunn 2,284 Posts
    YO!!!!!!!!!!

    melville is my shit!

    tho, not all of it is fire...

    i.e. some of his black and white shit (one film with blemondo ("les doulous" springs to mind) is paced kinda slow, in comparision to his later work...

    recently saw "le flic", which is not quite as good as "le circle rouge" (his best, i think) or "le samurai"

    le circle rouge also has a great soundtrack...

    still trying to see his french resistantce movie, supposed to be dope, according to the dude who runs my local video store...
  • grandpa_shiggrandpa_shig 5,799 Posts
    you dont like bob the gambler? that's prolly my favorite of his. i hear you on the le doulos. it's just ok. havent seen le flic or that french resistance movie. or maybe i have. what's it called?
  • rape_donkeysrape_donkeys 615 Posts
    what's wrong with truffaut? l'argent de la poche is one i can always watch. and jules and jim is still pretty heavy. the race scene in particular.

    melville is sick too though.

    you know who never gets props? alain tanner. although he is swiss. shit is still in french though. 'la salamandre', 'charles dead or alive', 'jonah who will be 25 in the year 2000', and 'messidor' are all total mindfucks. john berger co-wrote 'jonah' and it is something like reading a book that is glued closed. the only one of his films i've seen and not been blown away by is 'in the white city', but that shit was still decent.
  • PEKPEK 735 Posts


    anyways, go head and er "big up" your favorite french film dudes. as long as you dont mention truffaut we are bon.



    Jacques Becker ('Casque d'or' 'Touchez pas au grisbi')



    Eric Rohmer ('My Night @ Maud's')



    Marcel Carne ('Port of Shadows' 'Daybreak')



    Alain Resnais



    Jacques Demy



    Georges Franju ('Therese Desqueyroux' 'Eyes w/o a Face')



    Louis Malle ('Elevator to the Gallows' - you all know the Miles soundtrack

    'The Fire Within' 'The Lovers')
  • p_gunnp_gunn 2,284 Posts
    L???Arm??e des ombres

    suppossed to be sick... made in like 69, when melville was killing it...
  • p_gunnp_gunn 2,284 Posts
    you dont like bob the gambler? that's prolly my favorite of his. i hear you on the le doulos. it's just ok. havent seen le flic or that french resistance movie. or maybe i have. what's it called?



    see above ^^^^^^



    honestly never checked Bob the Gambler, as Le Doulos scared me away from alot of his earlt stuff, but i've heard good things, might be time to check it out...
  • grandpa_shiggrandpa_shig 5,799 Posts
    aside from le 400 coups, i just cant get into him. though, again, i havent seen even half the movies he's made, but the one's i have seen im always kinda bored with it.

    never heard of the swiss dude. is he from the new wave days or more current?

    i also on these dude's balzac's.

    bresson
    marker
    rouch
  • grandpa_shiggrandpa_shig 5,799 Posts
    oh yeah, and abel gance. i just think he makes neato shit that i cant sit through entirely but still enjoy thoroughly.
  • JLRJLR 3,835 Posts


    Jack Cousteau all the way.
  • PEKPEK 735 Posts

    marker

    Who collaborated w/ Resnais on 'Night & Fog' as assistant director and writin' the narrative...

    Eustache, if only for 'The Mother & The Whore,' his depiction of May '68 and the idealism that buoyed it as well as the subsequent burnout thereafter...
  • rape_donkeysrape_donkeys 615 Posts
    word i mean bresson is just as OG as it gets. l'argent and pickpocket are just classic, period. my favortie film of his is mouchette. that shit is just absolutely gut-wrenching.

    and marker is just on his own shit completely. sans soleil? forget about it. insane. that's a film you could watch 50 times and not even begin to get to the center of. you ever see the documentary he made on tarkovsky? the dude runs the bases about 14 damn times. going scene by scene through the mirror and shit.

    have only seen maybe 5 rouch films, but the human pyramid turned my head around for a couple weeks. real detached and naive in that alluring deadpan new wave language.

    yeah man, tanner's classic period is 60s/70s. definitely check for him. 'la salamandre' is probably in my top 5 ever.
  • PEKPEK 735 Posts

    and marker is just on his own shit completely. sans soleil? forget about it. insane. that's a film you could watch 50 times and not even begin to get to the center of. you ever see the documentary he made on tarkovsky? the dude runs the bases about 14 damn times. going scene by scene through the mirror and shit.

    He really is one of those that you either like or dislike - his philosophical reflections/mediations vis-a-vis 'Sans soleil' are dense, but multi-layered and more often than not, especially cryptic... The Tarkovsky doc may be one of the more linear titles in his oeuvre...
  • rape_donkeysrape_donkeys 615 Posts
    oh and yo man, truffaut is a little on the super-romanticized filmmaker breadth of vision all-encompassing artist shit, but when he's on, he's pretty hard to deny. check for argent de la poche (i think they called it 'small change' in english). it's a pretty remarkable film about children that manages not to be pandering or cute. very stark and realistic.
  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    I just saw Melville's "Les Enfants Terrible" at the Harvard Film Archive last week - it was a bit of a surprise, since I was expecting some of that ol' JPM gangsta shit, like "Bob" or "le Cercle Rouge" but it was written by Jean Cocteau, and had his style all over it, the tale of a pair of lazy, crazy siblings, who spend almost their entire lives in a shared bedroom...despite the complete change from his usual fare, it was still a great film, really funny and frequently disturbing - as is Cocteau's specialty.



    Co-sign on the Melville's mentioned, plus "le samourai" with Alain Delon.



    I love the New Wave directors (Melville actually pre-dates "New Wave" of course), but I also have a special appreciation for the "poetic realism" school of French film from the late 30's-early 40's, the films of Marcel Carne, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Julien Duvivier, Jean Gr??millon - many starring a young Jean Gabin - these films are the true precursor to what is known as film noir, and are a fantastic blend of working class drama, crime thriller, and comedic character study. Criterion has released a few of the better ones in the past couple of years, so interested parties should check out their amazing DVD's of Clouzot's "The Raven" (le corbeau), Carne's "Port of Shadows" (le Quai des brumes), and Duvivier's "Pepe le Moko" starring Jean Gabin. Gabin also stars in Carne's "Le Jour se leve" (remade in the US as "The Long Night" with Henry Fonda in the Gabin role), which may be the best of all "poetic realism" films.







  • p_gunnp_gunn 2,284 Posts
    word i mean bresson is just as OG as it gets. l'argent and pickpocket[/b] are just classic, period. my favortie film of his is mouchette. that shit is just absolutely gut-wrenching.



    (co-sign)


    i once saw a double feature of "pickpocket" and "pick up on south st"... ahhh, the harvard film archive... gritty b&w to the max...
  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    I can't decide if this is art-nip or art-fag talk





    shit
  • generiquegenerique 625 Posts
    Louis Feuillade



    I saw some of the serial stuff he did in the beginning the 1910s. It's mindblowing, fast paced, surreal, without to much logic. He did countless shorts on Les Vampires and Fantomas, international master of crime.



    The other Fantomas films are nice too liike those from the sixties or this one from 1947:









    Hiroshima Mon Amour by Resnais is probably my favorite French film. I really liked Fahrenheit 451 by - cough - you know who and - cough - you know who's La Peau Douce is also an all time favorite. A fuck, I just say it: Truffaut is mad good.



    I should check out Melville more though.



    This is a great thread. The knowledge in here... this gives me some new titles to get from my videostore.



    Cosign on *Jack* Cousteau (I would liked to have seen his collection of library records!)
  • rape_donkeysrape_donkeys 615 Posts
    fuck man, i forgot chabrol. dude is severely underappreciated. 'le boucher' is just the most sickeningly romantic portrait of insanity ever committed to film. 'le beau serge' is also some wholly other shit. beautifully maudlin. 'les bonnes femmes' as well. the ending in that one comes out of fucking NOWHERE. and the women in it seriously make me want to just give up on living. i think i definitely gravitiate toward the real methodical, heavy pacing around a room sweaty type of film.
  • grandpa_shiggrandpa_shig 5,799 Posts
    word i mean bresson is just as OG as it gets. l'argent and pickpocket are just classic, period. my favortie film of his is mouchette. that shit is just absolutely gut-wrenching.

    and marker is just on his own shit completely. sans soleil? forget about it. insane. that's a film you could watch 50 times and not even begin to get to the center of. you ever see the documentary he made on tarkovsky? the dude runs the bases about 14 damn times. going scene by scene through the mirror and shit.

    have only seen maybe 5 rouch films, but the human pyramid turned my head around for a couple weeks. real detached and naive in that alluring deadpan new wave language.

    yeah man, tanner's classic period is 60s/70s. definitely check for him. 'la salamandre' is probably in my top 5 ever.

    based on your taste, i shall be checking for that tanner joint.

    a smart film dude once explained sans soleil as having an origami editing motif where all the edit fold in on itself to make something beautiful. i dont really know what that means but it sure sounds good.

    and, dude, pickpocket AND pickup on south street double feature? damn. french dudes mustve been creme fraiching in their trousers.

    im a mild fuller fan. sometimes i just cant get into it. but i give him super duper props on his portrayal of ethnic minorities. i mean, if i remember correct, in pickup there's this white dude in nyc chinatown that was ordering food with a damn good accent. his grasp of american social relations were always somehow embedded in his flicks. oh, and my grandpa had a speaking role in fuller's crimson kimono. he played the buddhist minister which was no stretch since that's what he was. they even shot part of the movie in his church in little tokyo.
  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    fuck man, i forgot chabrol. dude is severely underappreciated. 'le boucher' is just the most sickeningly romantic portrait of insanity ever committed to film. 'le beau serge' is also some wholly other shit. beautifully maudlin. 'les bonnes femmes' as well. the ending in that one comes out of fucking NOWHERE. and the women in it seriously make me want to just give up on living. i think i definitely gravitiate toward the real methodical, heavy pacing around a room sweaty type of film.

    Craziest shit is, dude is still making the same films today. It's like how Hitchcock started out in the 20's, and made the same type of film more than 50 times in 50 years. Chabrol is right there, making his thrillers for 50 years now. IMDB shows 67 films (including television) directed by him since 1958. That's just nuts.
  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    we need a "thread killah" graemlin.

  • grandpa_shiggrandpa_shig 5,799 Posts
    far from dead broughammie! yeah, so when i was a kid i saw abel gance's "napoleon" at i think universal studios. it was a big deal cuz they were gonna show it in it's original format and in it's entirety. i dont know how we wound up here cuz my parents arent really art-fags or art-nips for that matter, but there we were. it was projected with 3 synced projectors and that shit blew my mind. i fell asleep but i'll never forget what i saw when i was awake. it was pretty cool.
  • spaceghostspaceghost 605 Posts
    I can't decide if this is art-nip or art-fag talk





    shit

    i think the appropriate term would be film-nip. can i get a ruling from the off-field official?
  • generiquegenerique 625 Posts
    far from dead broughammie! yeah, so when i was a kid i saw abel gance's "napoleon" at i think universal studios. it was a big deal cuz they were gonna show it in it's original format and in it's entirety. i dont know how we wound up here cuz my parents arent really art-fags or art-nips for that matter, but there we were. it was projected with 3 synced projectors and that shit blew my mind. i fell asleep but i'll never forget what i saw when i was awake. it was pretty cool.

    I remember going to the same thing. It was with a live orchestra and I think with music by Coppola's father. This is a wild movie. With the huge camera tied to some horses back, running through these battle scenes. I think also with some color experiments. And the three screens. Ha ha. Very boring too, but in a good way, not like Birth of a Nation or that kind of torture.
  • bassiebassie 11,710 Posts

    "le samourai" with Alain Delon.
    Clouzot's "The Raven" (le corbeau)
    Carne's "Port of Shadows" (le Quai des brumes)
    Duvivier's "Pepe le Moko" starring Jean Gabin.

    Yes to the power of four - I saw The Raven recently - so good.

    Can I please add Elevator to the Gallows (Malle)? And The Bride Wore Black (Truffaut)?
  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    i fell asleep but i'll never forget what i saw when i was awake. it was pretty cool

    That's understandable, it is 4 hours long - I saw Tarkovsky's Andrei Rubelev in the theater a couple of years ago, and that is like 3 1/2+ hours long. It was broken into like 40 minute "chapters" and I fell asleep at the beginning of the 3rd and woke up at the beginning of the 4th. I think it actaully enhanced my enjoyment of the film...everything I watched was excellent, and I had a nice, peaceful sleep in the middle. I wonder if what I missed ruined my overall understanding of the film, though, and I just don't realize it...
  • mandrewmandrew 2,720 Posts




  • edith headedith head 5,106 Posts
    alain delon is a pimp indeed and a super superfox in his prime







    (wipes drool)



    but ooh did you hear of that stunt he pulled on sofia coppola?



    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001068/news



    Coppola "Furious with Deceptive Delon"

    4 April 2005 (WENN)

    Oscar-winning filmmaker Sofia Coppola is "furious" with legendary actor Alain Delon - after the Frenchman reportedly used her offer of a role in upcoming movie Marie-Antoinette for his own publicity. Lost In Translation director Coppola is currently shooting her film in France and thought she'd found the perfect actor to play monarch Louis XV in screen star Delon. However, Coppola eventually settled on US actor Rip Torn after Delon turned her offer down - leaving Coppola upset. A source tells website Pagesix.Com, "Delon led her to believe she could talk him into accepting the role. He invited her to see him in a play, and she went backstage afterward where there were two photographers waiting to take pictures of her and Delon. Then they went out to dinner. The next morning, the photos of her and Delon appeared in the papers having been obviously pre-planned, with captions saying that Delon had refused Coppola's offer. He has gone on to say that he can't be in a movie where he has to wear a wig, but that he would do any contemporary movie she offered him. Obviously, Delon had staged the evening as publicity for himself. Sofia is furious." A spokesperson for Coppola says, "Sofia is too busy right now to be upset, and she is quite happy with Rip Torn in that role."



    le cercle rouge is good. bob le flambeur is good. melville is good.
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