MC Yearly Consensus - 1963

[Spinal]

Submit your five favorite films from this year and in a week I will give you a top ten. IMDb dates will be used.

The point system is as follows

1st Place-5 points
2nd Place-4 points
3rd Place-3.5 points
4th Place-3 points
5th Place-2.5 points

There will be no restrictions on short films. A minimum of three films must be listed. You may edit your post freely up until the time that the voting is closed, which will be in about a week. I will give at least 24 hours warning before tallying votes.

You may begin now.

IMDB Power Search (http://www.imdb.com/list)

[Spinal]

1. Lord of the Flies
2. The House is Black
3. Contempt
4. 8 1/2
5. High and Low

[Raiders]

1. Shock Corridor (Fuller)
2. The Servant (Losey)
3. 8½ (Fellini)
4. High and Low (Kurosawa)
5. Bay of Angels (Demy)

------------------------------

6. Contempt (Godard)
7. The Birds (Hitchcock)
8. The Whip and the Body (Bava)
9. Flaming Creatures (Smith)
10. The Leopard (Visconti)

[Kurosawa Fan]

1. 8 1/2
2. High and Low
3. The Great Escape
4. Contempt
5. Charade

[Russ]

1. Jason and the Argonauts
2. The Haunting
3. Flaming Creatures
4. 8½
5. The Birds

[Spinal]

The House is Black is only 20 minutes long and available on Youtube. Only drawback is that it suffers a bit from the white-on-white subtitles phenomenon.

[Yxklyx]

1. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
2. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
3. Tom Jones (Tony Richardson)
4, The Servant (Joseph Losey)
5. Mahanagar (Satyajit Ray)

6. The Great Escape (John Sturges)
7. Billy Liar (John Schlesinger)
8. Hud (Martin Ritt)
9. High and Low (Akira Kurosawa)
10. The Haunting (Robert Wise)

[Dead & Messed Up]

1. The Haunting
2. The Birds
3. X the Man with the X-Ray Eyes
4. Jason and the Argonauts
5. Black Sabbath

[Lazlo]

1. The Birds
2. High and Low
3. The Haunting
4. 8½

[Duncan]

1. 8 1/2
2. Flaming Creatures
3. Contempt
4. The trailer for Contempt
5. The Great Escape

I've seen a few more of the "classics" from this year, but I don't want to include them. Will watch The House is Black later tonight.

[Raiders]

Wish more people had seen Losey's The Servant.

[Bosco B Thug]

Can I just give all my points to The Birds?

1. THE BIRDS
2. The Servant
3. The Haunting

[Pop Trash]

I think I'll pass on this year...

[monolith94]

1. Tom Jones
2. The Haunting
3. 8 1/2
4. High and Low
5. The Sword in the Stone

[Mysterious Dude]

1. Lord of the Flies
2. The Birds
3. High and Low
4. The Fire Within
5. Vidas Secas

[Melville]

1. The Servant
2. 8 1/2
3. Shock Corridor
4. The House is Black

[baby doll]

1. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
2. Le Mépris (Jean-Luc Godard)
3. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
4. Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith)
5. The House Is Black (Forugh Farrokhzad)

[baby doll]

5. CharadeBoo!

[Boner M]

1. High and Low
2. The Servant
3. The Haunting
4. The Birds
5. Billy Liar

6. 8½
7. The Great Escape
8. The Leopard
9. Shock Corridor
10. Charade

HM: The last segment of Bava's Black Sabbath

Need to see: The House is Black, Le Petit Soldat, This Sporting Life, Flaming Creatures

[soitgoes...]

I'm going to see if I can squeeze in the couple of '63 films I have at my disposal before posting a list.


Wish more people had seen Losey's The Servant.

This is one of them.

[Weeping_Guitar]

1. 8 ½
2. Charade
3. I Fidanzati
4. The Birds
5. The Leopard

[ledfloyd]

1. 8 1/2
2. Charade
3. The Birds
4. The Great Escape
5. Dr. No

[Yxklyx]

HM: The last segment of Bava's Black Sabbath

Yeah, the last segment is great but I liked the first as well and while the second wasn't executed that well it was still a great concept.

[SirNewt]

Boo!

I've never understood the love that movie gets.

1. 8 1/2
2. Contempt
3. Jason and the Argonauts
4. High & Low
5. The Sword and the Stone

6. The Leopard
7. The Birds

What a year for colour.

[Derek]

Boo!

Yeah. Awful film.

EDIT: Had The House is Black as '62. Added.

1. Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
2. An Actor's Revenge (Kon Ichikawa)
3. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
4. Shock Corridor (Samuel Fuller)
5. The House is Black (Farough Farrokhzad)
***********************
6. High & Low (Akira Kurosawa)
7. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
8. It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (Stanley Kramer)
9. The Girl at the Monceau Bakery (Eric Rohmer)
10. Les Carabiniers (Jean-Luc Godard)

HMs: The Haunting (Robert Wise)
The Servant (Joseph Losey)

*has seen The Servant*

*probably wouldn't consider it worse than ...Mad World had he seen the latter in the last 7/8 years*

*wants to stop posting asides like this, but doesn't know how*

[Watashi]

1. High and Low
2. The Birds
3. Shock Corridor
4. The Great Escape
5. Charade

[Watashi]

Very surprised The Great Escape isn't getting more votes. I thought that film was universally loved?

[soitgoes...]

Very surprised The Great Escape isn't getting more votes. I thought that film was universally loved?I think it's great, Steve McQueen's best performance?, but it will be out of my top 5.

[Ezee E]

1. High & Low
2. Contempt
3. The Great Escape
4. 8 1/2
5. The Sword and the Stone

[Kurosawa Fan]

Boo!

Rosenbaum didn't care for it?

[Grouchy]

1. 8 1/2
2. The Great Escape
3. High and Low
4. The Birds
5. From Russia with Love

[SirNewt]

Very surprised The Great Escape isn't getting more votes. I thought that film was universally loved?

No, because it's 'La Grande Illusion' with Hollywood glitter in place of a heart.

[baby doll]

I've never understood the love that movie gets.After seeing a few of Hepburn's movies, I've come to the conclusion that she's popular precisely because none of her films are better than they have to be. She made nothing but mediocre, disposable, frivilous commercial fare.

[baby doll]

No, because it's 'La Grande Illusion' with Hollywood glitter in place of a heart.So then why isn't it getting more votes?

[Dead & Messed Up]

No, because it's 'La Grande Illusion' with Hollywood glitter in place of a heart.

I think you underestimate the joys of glitter.

[Watashi]

No, because it's 'La Grande Illusion' with Hollywood glitter in place of a heart.

That really doesn't make any sense.

[soitgoes...]

1. Hud (Martin Ritt)
2. Shock Corridor (Samuel Fuller)
3. The House Is Black (Forugh Farrokhzad)
4. Billy Liar (John Schlesinger)
5. The Servant (Joseph Losey)
--------------------------------------------
6. 8½ (Federico Fellini)
7. The Great Escape (John Sturges)
8. High and Low (Akira Kurosawa)
9. The Girl at the Monceau Bakery (Eric Rohmer)
10. The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
11. The Damned (Joseph Losey)
12. The Insect Woman (Shohei Imamura)
13. Mister Twister (Anatoli Karanovich)

[soitgoes...]

I have An Actor's Revenge and Mahanagar, but I'm not sure I'll watch them in time for this.

[soitgoes...]

That really doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, it's a bit of a head-scratcher.

[origami_mustache]

1. 8 1/2
2. The Fire Within
3. Contempt
4. Mothlight
5. High and Low


HM: The Silence, The Leopard, The Birds

[SirNewt]

So then why isn't it getting more votes?


I think you underestimate the joys of glitter.

I'd be content if it was just nice shiny glitter but they covered Renior's film in glue and then dragged it through glitter.


That really doesn't make any sense.

The film waters down it's subject with the usual Hollywood monetary considerations to the point of adding McQueen's irrelevant American character who in turn only netted the movie a pointless motorcycle chase. The film borrows heavily from Renior's which painted beautiful portraits of the familial relationships between service men. It put on display the rifts between WW I enlisted men and their Royal officers and how those rifts were bridged by love and duty.

As pure entertainment The Great Escape embodies neither enough English cheek nor enough innovative story elements to be exciting. And it has an emasculated Charles Bronson: who as I recall speaks with an obnoxious fake accent.

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

What the fuk? where is I Fidanzati?

1. I Fidanzati
2. I Fidanzati
3. I Fidanzati
4. I Fidanzati
5. I Fidanzati

I hate all of you!
http://animali.tiscali.it/media/foto/animali/06/05/29/Big_Cat_309--309x215.jpg

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

non-drunk ballot

1. I Fidanzati
2. 8 1/2
3. Contempt
4. Shock Corridor
5. The Silence

[dreamdead]

1. 8 1/2
2. Shock Corridor
3. Contempt
4. The Birds
5. High and Low

Still lots to see from this year, though...

[Philosophe_rouge]

1. 8 ½
2. Shock Corridor
3. Charade
4. Le Mepris
5. The Birds

[MadMan]

1. From Russia With Love
2. Charade
3. McLintock!
4. The Birds
5. Contempt

Really I'm interested in viewing more films from this year. And I do have The Great Escape on DVD, I just haven't found time or been in the proper mood to watch it. So it may or may not make this list before voting ends.

[Spinal]

Last day.

[Qrazy]

1. 8 1/2
2. Contempt
3. I Fidanzati
4. The Servant
5. High and Low

[Grouchy]

1. 8 1/2
2. The Great Escape
3. High and Low
4. The Birds
5. Charade
I'm gonna edit my list in the small hope that the best 007 movie of all-time makes it... It's better than Charade anyway, so I'm only being honest.

1. 8 1/2
2. The Great Escape
3. High and Low
4. The Birds
5. From Russia with Love

[Spinal]

The preferred method is for you to edit your original post.

[Grouchy]

The preferred method is for you to edit your original post.
Done.

[Spinal]

Done.

Many thanks.

[Spinal]

#10

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/HouseisBlack.jpg

The House is Black

Director: Forugh Farrokhzad

Country: Iran

A look at life and suffering in a leper colony, focusing on the human condition and the beauty of creation. The director's narration quotes from the Old Testament, the Koran and her own poetry.

Farrokhzad is regarded by many as Iran's most significant female poet of the twentieth century. This was the only film she directed before her death in a 1967 car accident. During the shooting, she became attached to a child of two lepers, whom she later adopted.

"[The House is Black] is the most powerful Iranian film I've seen ... At once lyrical and extremely matter-of-fact, devoid of sentimentality or voyeurism yet profoundly humanist, the film offers a view of everyday life in the colony--people eating, various medical treatments, children at school and at play--that's spiritual, unflinching, and beautiful in ways that have no apparent Western counterparts; to my eyes and ears, it registers like a prayer." - Jonathan Rosenbaum

[Spinal]

#9

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/post1690.jpg

The Great Escape

Director: John Sturges

Country: USA

The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocates them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II.

Earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Editing. Steve McQueen won Best Actor at the Moscow International Film Festival. During the climatic motorcycle chase, Sturges allowed McQueen to ride as one of the pursuing German soldiers, so that, in the final sequence, he's actually chasing himself.

"Modern audiences might be surprised at an action movie that’s paced slowly enough to allow for character development and the accretion of significant details ... It is a tragedy told well, and the uplift at the end seems less phony than redolent of the good old-fashioned movies they used to make. Were it to be remade today, the Nazis would be more evil, the heroes less interesting and the movie a great deal louder." - Philip Martin

[Spinal]

#8

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/charade-image5-time-10941.jpg

Charade

Director: Stanley Donen

Country: USA

A woman returns to Paris from a ski holiday in Switzerland to find that her husband has been murdered. She is told that her husband was one of five men who stole $250,000 in gold from the U.S. government during World War II, and the government wants it back. When her husband's former partners in crime also start calling her looking for the money, a man she encountered briefly on her holiday offers to help find it.

Earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song ("Charade"). Cary Grant was uncomfortable playing a romantic lead with an actress young enough to be his daughter. He was appeased when jokes about the age difference were added to the script. According to Audrey Hepburn, the scene where Regina spills ice cream on Adam's suit is based on a real-life accident where Hepburn spilled red wine over Grant's suit at a dinner party.

"As the title suggests, this is a prankish, playful picture, with a pair of charming jokers at the top of its deck ... They play the movie in what might be called high deadpan. Even when the imperiled Hepburn lets her nerves get the better of her, she puts quotation marks around her frightened reactions that are as exquisite as a pair of Cartier cuff links." - Charles Taylor

[Kurosawa Fan]

:cool:

I was hoping those last two would make the cut.

[Spinal]

#7

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/thehaunting.jpg

The Haunting

Director: Robert Wise

Country: USA

A doctor conducting research to prove the existence of ghosts, investigates a large, eerie mansion with a history of violent death and insanity. With him are a skeptic who stands to inherit the house, a mysterious clairvoyant and an insecure psychic. As time goes by, it becomes obvious that they are up against more than they bargained for.

Wise earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director. Claire Bloom said she got along with everyone on the set, except for Julie Harris, who tried everything to avoid her and not talk to her. At the end of the shoot, Harris went over to Bloom's house with a present and explained that the reason she had kept to herself was to stay in character, because Harris' role in the film was that of an outsider.

"Like any great ghost story, The Haunting creates its best special effects in the mind of its audience. This film does more to create tension or apprehension with a turning doorknob or an off-kilter camera angle than most modern horror films do with gallons of fake blood and CGI." - Paul McElligott

[Spinal]

#6

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/servant.jpg

The Servant

Director: Joseph Losey

Country: UK

A contemptuous manservant slowly realizes and exploits his expanding powers over his 'master' as a dainty Oxbridge twit bachelor steadily loses his authority and becomes enslaved to his own 'employee'.

Earned the Best Screenplay award from the New York Film Critics Circle. When Joseph Losey was hospitalized for two weeks during the shoot, Dirk Bogarde continued filming assisted by minute, daily instructions over the phone from Losey's hospital bed. When Losey returned to the set he did not re-shoot any of the script.

"Scripted by Harold Pinter, it's a very revealing film. It questions our assumptions about relationships and in the process reveals the hypocrisy that abounds throughout society ... Joseph Losey's direction is exciting and the acting by the whole cast is great. However, it's Dirk Bogarde, by virtue of his haunting presence and pointed glances, that dominates the film." - Spiros Gangas

[Spinal]

#5

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/IM0092_zl.jpg

Shock Corridor

Director: Samuel Fuller

Country: USA

An ambitious journalist is determined to solve a murder committed in a lunatic asylum and witnessed only by three inmates. With the help of a psychiatrist, he succeeds in having himself declared insane and sent to the asylum. There he slowly tracks down and interviews the witnesses.

The hallucination sequences include footage shot on location in Japan for House of Bamboo, and footage shot by Fuller in Matto Grosso, Brazil for the unfinished film Tigrero. Early in the film, during the strip club scenes, a photograph of Fuller with a cigar can be seen on the wall.

"It's possible that Sam Fuller went nuts during the making of Shock Corridor. I don't really want to believe that, but after looking at Fuller's wild 1963 melodrama ... I couldn't help but entertain the notion." - Edward Guthmann

[Spinal]

#4

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/contempt2.jpg

Contempt

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Country: France

A writer is hired to make a script for a new movie about Ulysses more commercial. After introducing his wife to his arrogant American producer, he makes a blunder that leads to the disintegration of his marriage.

Fritz Lang plays himself as the director of the Ulysses adaptation. Godard also appears in the film as Lang's assistant director. Based on the Italian novel Il disprezzo by Alberto Moravia.

"Bardot's icy, almost lifeless cipher of a blond is Godard's metaphor for cinema: a big, plastic bit of good-looking nothing." - G. Allen Johnson

[Spinal]

#3

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/r4_6.jpg

High and Low

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Country: Japan

An executive learns that his son has been kidnapped and that the ransom demanded is near the amount he has raised for a critical business deal. He is prepared to pay the ransom - that is, until he learns that the kidnappers have mistakenly abducted the wrong child.

The last section of the film originally had a great deal of dialogue, but Kurosawa opted to omit all of it. The literal translation of the Japanese title is 'Heaven and Hell'. Loosely based on the police procedural King's Ransom by Ed McBain.

"High and Low is, in a way, the companion piece to Throne of Blood -- it's Macbeth, if Macbeth had married better. The movie shares the rigors of Shakespeare's construction, the symbolic and historical sweep, the pacing that makes the story expand organically in the mind." - Paul Attanasio

[Spinal]

#2

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/sjff_01_img0060.jpg

The Birds

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Country: USA

The quiet coastal town of Bodega Bay is suddenly and inexplicably attacked by an ever increasing number of vicious birds.

Earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. There is no musical score for the film. Composer and frequent Hitchcock collaborator, Bernard Herrmann, is credited as a 'sound consultant'. The famous poster art for the film where a woman is pictured screaming is not Tippi Hedren but is in fact Jessica Tandy taken from the scene where the birds come down the chimney.

"Most intriguing is the cue [Hitchcock] takes from the Italian films of alienation. The Birds' lack of explanation for its horrors and question-mark finale dovetails the arbitrary cruelties of the macabre tradition with modernist narrative deconstruction, loudly introduced to cinema audiences by Antonioni with L’Avventura ... The film also plays with the apocalyptic hint of La Dolce Vita’s finale – that the rotting, hedonistic world will keep fiddling as beasts lurch from the sea." - Roderick Heath

[Spinal]

#1

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/85.jpg

8½

Director: Federico Fellini

Country: Italy

An Italian film director has lost all inspiration for his upcoming movie and it's too late to back out. Meanwhile, his mistress, wife, producer and all the rest of his friends are pressuring him about one thing or another. So he retreats into his dreams to shelter himself, and there, starts to recall major happenings in his life, as well as all the women he has loved and left.

Earned Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film and Best Costume Design (Black-and-White). Also nominated for three other Oscars including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Also named Best Foreign Film by the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review. Fellini attached a note to himself below the camera's eyepiece which read, "Remember, this is a comedy."

"I have seen 8 1/2 over and over again, and my appreciation only deepens. It does what is almost impossible: Fellini is a magician who discusses, reveals, explains and deconstructs his tricks, while still fooling us with them. He claims he doesn't know what he wants or how to achieve it, and the film proves he knows exactly, and rejoices in his knowledge." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

1. 8 ½ (90.5)
2. The Birds (53)
3. High and Low (49.5)
4. Contempt (47.5)
5. Shock Corridor (30)
6. The Servant (25.5)
7. The Haunting (23.5)
8. Charade (20.5)
9. The Great Escape (19.5)
10. The House is Black (15.5)

Also rans:
I Fidanzati (12)
Jason and the Argonauts (11.5)
Flaming Creatures (10.5)

[Duncan]

Re: The House is Black

Farrokhzad is regarded by many as Iran's most significant female poet of the twentieth century. This was the only film she directed before her death in a 1967 car accident. During the shooting, she became attached to a child of two lepers, whom she later adopted.

Interesting. Didn't realize it was directed by a woman. I wonder if any of her work is available in English.

[Bosco B Thug]

#2

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/sjff_01_img0060.jpg

The Birds *swoons*

Btw, cheers for incidentally bringing that review you quoted to my attention (in its entirety here (http://ferdyonfilms.com/2006/10/the-birds-1963-1.php))! It is f**king fantastic.

[origami_mustache]

The Birds is soooooo bad haha

[Raiders]

The Birds is soooooo bad haha

This is sooooooo wrong lol