Yearly Consensus 1960

[Spinal]

Submit your five favorite films and five favorite performances from this year and in a week I will give you a top ten in both categories. 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

10.5 pts will be required to make either list.

There will be no restrictions on short films.

There will be no distinction made between male and female performances.
There will be no distinction made between lead and supporting performances.
Voice acting can be considered a performance.


I would like to be able to count votes as they come in. This means that if you change your vote, you need to make a new post. Please quote your old list and then add your new list so that I can easily track the changes. I will not be looking for edits. Once you make a post, consider your vote cast.

You may begin now.

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[transmogrifier]

1. Le Trou
2. Breathless
3. Purple Noon
4. Peeping Tom

[Spinal]

1. The Virgin Spring
2. L'Avventura
3. Peeping Tom
4. Psycho
5. The Young One

1. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
2. Max von Sydow, The Virgin Spring
3. Monica Vitti, L'Avventura
4. Jack Lemmon, The Apartment
5. Janet Leigh, Psycho

[elixir]

1. La dolce vita (Federico Fellini)
2. L’avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
3. The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman)
4. Devi (Satyajit Ray)
5. Paris Belongs to Us (Jacques Rivette)

1. Marcello Mastroianni, La dolce vita
2. Monica Vitti, L'avventura
3. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
4. Max von Sydow, The Virgin Spring
5. Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment

[B-side]

1. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
2. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini)
3. The Bellboy (Jerry Lewis)
4. The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman)
5. Sergeant Rutledge (John Ford)

1. Marcello Mastroianni - La Dolce Vita
2. Anthony Perkins - Psycho
3. Jerry Lewis - The Bellboy
4. Woody Strode - Sergeant Rutledge
5. Max von Sydow - The Virgin Spring

[baby doll]

Films:
1. Tirez sur le pianiste (François Truffaut)
2. L'avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
3. Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti)
4. The Housemaid (Kim Ki-young)
5. The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman)

Performances:
1. Monica Vitti, L'avventura
2. Janet Leigh, Psycho
3. Jean-Paul Belmondo, À bout de souffle
4. Annie Giradot, Rocco and His Brothers
5. Max von Sydow, The Virgin Spring

1960 movies I haven't seen but want to:

The Bad Sleep Well (Akira Kurosawa)
The Bellboy (Jerry Lewis)
The Cloud-Capped Star (Ritwik Ghatak)
Cruel Story of Youth (Nagisa Oshima)
Devi (Satyajit Ray)
Home From the Hill (Vincente Minnelli)
Night and Fog in Japan (Nagisa Oshima)
Le Trou (Jacques Becker)
Wild River (Elia Kazan)
Zazie dans le métro (Louis Malle)

[Yxklyx]

*** Top 5 Films
1. The Apartment (Billy Wilder)
2. Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti)
3. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
4. Le Trou (Jacques Becker)
5. The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman)

*** Top 5 Performances
1. Jean-Paul Belmondo - Breathless
2. Jack Lemmon - The Apartment
3. Albert Finney - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
4. Shirley MacLaine - The Apartment
5. Donald Pleasence - The Flesh and the Fiends

[Pop Trash]

This year is the shit.

[Lazlo]

1. The Apartment
2. Peeping Tom
3. Psycho
4. Spartacus
5. Inherit the Wind

1. Jack Lemmon - The Apartment
2. Shirley MacClaine - The Apartment
3. Anthony Perkins - Psycho
4. Janet Leigh - Psycho
5. Carl Boehm - Peeping Tom

[Pop Trash]

1. Psycho
2. The Apartment
3. Eyes Without a Face
4. The Virgin Spring
5. Breathless

6. Shoot the Piano Player
7. Peeping Tom
8. The Young One
9. The Time Machine
10. Village of the Damned

Performances:
1. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
2. Jack Lemmon, The Apartment
3. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Breathless
4. Max von Sydow, The Virgin Spring
5. Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment

[eternity]

1. Breathless
2. La Dolce Vita
3. L'avventura
4. The Apartment
5. Peeping Tom
-
6. Shoot the Piano Player
7. The Virgin Spring
8. Psycho
9. Spartacus
10. The Magnificent Seven

One of the best years ever for cinema. God damn.

[Derek]

Great year and yet only the 3rd best year of the 60s.

1. L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
2. Shoot the Piano Player (Francois Truffaut)
3. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Mikio Naruse)
4. Naked Island (Kaneto Shindo)
5. Le Trou (Jacques Becker)

Performances:

1. Hideko Takamine - When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
2. Monica Vitti - L'Avventura
3. Anthony Perkins - Psycho
4. Miyuki Kuwano - Cruel Story of Youth
5. Jack Lemmon - The Apartment

[Derek]

1960 movies I haven't seen but want to:

The Bad Sleep Well (Akira Kurosawa)
The Bellboy (Jerry Lewis)
The Cloud-Capped Star (Ritwik Ghatak)
Cruel Story of Youth (Nagisa Oshima)
Devi (Satyajit Ray)
Home From the Hill (Vincente Minnelli)
Night and Fog in Japan (Nagisa Oshima)
Le Trou (Jacques Becker)
Wild River (Elia Kazan)
Zazie dans le métro (Louis Malle)

When A Woman Ascends the Stairs!? Or have you seen it and don't love it. If not, prioritize it then Le Trou, Cruel Story of Youth and Devi.

I need to get around to Rocco.

[soitgoes...]

1. The Naked Island (Shindô)
2. The Virgin Spring (Bergman)
3. Late Autumn (Ozu)
4. The Apartment (Wilder)
5. The Young One (Buñuel)

Honorable Mentions: Two Women, Peeping Tom, The Housemaid, Rocco and His Brothers, L'Avventura, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs and Le Trou

1. Hideko Takamine (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs)
2. Sophia Loren (Two Women)
3. Max von Sydow (Virgin Spring)
4. Jack Lemmon (The Apartment)
5. Setsuko Hara (Late Autumn)

Pretty great year.

[Watashi]

I honestly haven't seen enough.

[Melville]

1. Psycho
2. Le Trou
3. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
4. The Virgin Spring
5. Shoot the Piano Player

1. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
2. Hideko Takamine, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
3. Max von Sydow, The Virgin Spring

I can't really remember the other performances I might use to fill out the list.

[ContinentalOp]

1. The Apartment
2. The Virgin Spring
3. Spartacus
4. Breathless

1. Jack Lemmon- The Apartment
2. Max Von Sydow- The Virgin Spring
3. Toshiro Mifune- The Bad Sleep Well
4. Shirley McLaine- The Apartment
5. Fred MacMurray- The Apartment

[baby doll]

When A Woman Ascends the Stairs!? Or have you seen it and don't love it. If not, prioritize it then Le Trou, Cruel Story of Youth and Devi.

I need to get around to Rocco.It would in my top fifteen for the year (along with Les Bonnes femmes, which no one's mentioned so far), but not in the top five. Then again, I've only seen it once on VHS and that was a few years ago.

[Russ]

1. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
2. Psycho
3. Inherit the Wind
4. Black Sunday
5. L'avventura

1. Spencer Tracy, Inherit the Wind
3. Fredric March, Inherit the Wind
3. Hideko Takamine, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
4. Setsuko Hara, Daughters, Wives and a Mother
5. Barbara Steele, Black Sunday

[Irish]

1. La Dolce Vita
2. Psycho
3. The Apartment
4. Breathless
5. Elmer Gantry

1. Burt Lancaster, Elmer Gantry
2. Fred MacMurray, The Apartment
3. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
4. Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment
5. Jean Paul Belmondo, Breathless

If it were allowable under the rules, I'd vote for La Dolce Vita and Lancaster five times each.

[baby doll]

If it were allowable under the rules, I'd vote for La Dolce Vita and Lancaster five times each.La dolce vita certainly has moments of greatness (the episode with Marcello's father benefits from Fellini's familiarity with and affection for the lower rungs of show business) and some still resonant insights into the not always clear distinction between journalism and publicity, but large chucks of the plot feel barely sketched in. The sequence involving Steiner's intellectual salon is particularly embarrassing: the guests say incredibly stupid and/or racist things and Marcello nods in agreement as if profound truths are being spoken. And if their ideas are supposed to be stupid and racist, and Marcello a pseudo-intellectual, why is it such a tragedy that he never finishes his book (about which we learn exactly nothing)? I think 8 1/2 holds up a lot better precisely because it depicts a milieu that Fellini was more intimately acquainted with.

[Raiders]

1. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
2. Peeping Tom
3. Shoot the Piano Player
4. Les bonnes femmes
5. Eyes Without a Face

6. The Bellboy
7. L'Avventura
8. Jigoku
9. Rocco and His Brothers
10. The Apartment

Performances:
1. Hideko Takamine, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
2. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
3. Monica Vitti, L'Avventura
4. Laurence Olivier, The Entertainer
5. Jack Lemmon, The Apartment

[Robby P]

Shoot the Piano Player
Breathless
Eyes Without a Face
The Apartment
Psycho

[Mysterious Dude]

1. Breathless
2. The Virgin Spring
3. Peeping Tom
4. Psycho
5. Le Trou

1. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
2. Carl Boehm, Peeping Tom
3. Max von Sydow, The Virgin Spring
4. Gene Kelly, Inherit the Wind
4. Jean Cocteau, Testament of Orpheus

[Irish]

La dolce vita certainly has moments of greatness (the episode with Marcello's father benefits from Fellini's familiarity with and affection for the lower rungs of show business) and some still resonant insights into the not always clear distinction between journalism and publicity, but large chucks of the plot feel barely sketched in. The sequence involving Steiner's intellectual salon is particularly embarrassing: the guests say incredibly stupid and/or racist things and Marcello nods in agreement as if profound truths are being spoken. And if their ideas are supposed to be stupid and racist, and Marcello a pseudo-intellectual, why is it such a tragedy that he never finishes his book (about which we learn exactly nothing)? I think 8 1/2 holds up a lot better precisely because it depicts a milieu that Fellini was more intimately acquainted with.

I think it's a kind of "Salieri" style tragedy: In La Dolce Vita, Marcello has enough depth and smarts to aspire to something greater, but lacks the faculty to do so. He's stuck in the role of aging club kid and hanger on. His inability to express himself means that he'll never be, in some sense, an authentic human being. And at the end of the movie, he knows it.

I liked the way the movie repeatedly asserts its theme and reveals moments everybody has experienced, and does it in startlingly different ways. The movie star in the fountain, the religious festival, the late night in the town, the exchanges between would-be sophisticates, the boho party. Each of these situations look grand at first glance, both to the audience and Marcello, but then are slowly revealed to be much less than that. There's a universal truth at play behind each of these sequences; even though I've never danced in a fountain with a busty Italian movie starlet, I know exactly what Fellini was saying in that scene.

There's probably a word or phrase for this in German or French -- but this whole movie seems to built around a single feeling: The one you get, for example, after yet another disappointing New Year's Eve, that wasn't quite as good or as fun or as entertaining or meaningful as you thought it would be.

When you're young, you can shrug that off. You can just come back the next year with fresh enthusiasm. But as you grow older, you can't. You know that it's all bullshit, fleeting and ephemeral. This movie says that, over and over again in a few hours of beautiful photography.

There's a bittersweet quality at the end, when you realize everybody learns the same lesson at some point in their lives, and they learn it alone, in their own way. But then there's also comfort in knowing it's also part of the human condition.

I can't think of another movie that says something so fundamental and true and lasting as La Dolce Vita does, or says it with as much grace and beauty.

[Grouchy]

I'd like to abstain from this year. 18 films seem like too few.

I'd only like to recommend that you all watch Narciso Ibáñez Menta's Masterworks of Terror at some point.

[StanleyK]

Films:

1. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini)
2. The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman)
3. Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick)
4. Eyes without a Face (Georges Franju)
5. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)

Performances:

1. Jean Seberg (Breathless)
2. Max von Sydow (The Virgin Spring)
3. Gunnel Lindblom (The Virgin Spring)
4. Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita)

[Weeping_Guitar]

1. The Apartment
2. Shoot the Piano Player
3. Late Autumn
4. Wild River
5. La Dolce Vita

HMs: L'Avventura, The Virgin Spring, The Bad Sleep Well, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Paris Belongs to Us, Les Bonnes Femmes,

1. Lee Remick (Wild River)
2. Setsuko Hara (Late Autum)
3. Shirley MacLaine (The Apartment)
4. Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita)
5. Max von Sydow (The Virgin Spring)

[Dukefrukem]

1. Psycho
2. La Dolce Vita
3. Peeping Tom

1. Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita)
2. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
3. Carl Boehm, Peeping Tom

[dreamdead]

1. The Housemaid
2. L'Avventura
3. Psycho
4. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
5. Peeping Tom

Performances:

1. Jeung-nyeo Ju, The Housemaid
2. Hideko Takamine, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
3. Max von Sydow, The Virgin Spring
4. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
5. Monica Vitti, L'Avventura

Haven't seen Eyes Without a Face...

[Thirdmango]

I'd like to abstain from this year. 18 films seem like too few.

:lol: Ha Ha Ha, you guy.

I'll put up my list as soon as I watch Psycho.

[Boner M]

1. Psycho
2. Le Trou
3. The Apartment
4. Eyes Without a Face
5. The Young One

HM: The Bellboy, The Virgin Spring, Saturday Night & Sunday Morning, Comanche Station

Been too long: Peeping Tom, L'avventura

Performances:

1. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
2. Albert Finney, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
3. Jack Lemmon, The Apartment
4. Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment
5. Jerry Lewis, The Bellboy

[Dead & Messed Up]

1. Peeping Tom (Michael Powell)
2. The Apartment (Billy Wilder)
3. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
4. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini)
5. The Time Machine (George Pal)

1. Carl Boehm, Peeping Tom
2. Shirley McLaine, The Apartment
3. Janet Leigh, Psycho
4. Anthony Perkins, Psycho
5. Spencer Tracy, Inherit the Wind

[Raiders]

1. Peeping Tom (Powell & Pressburger)

Heh. Let's not gip Leo Marks of his due.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Heh. Let's not gip Leo Marks of his due.

Coulda sworn both the Archers were involved.

[Llopin]

1. The Apartment
2. Le trou
3. Jigoku
4. El cochecito
5. The Approach of Autumn

1. Jack Lemmon, The Apartment
2. José Isbert, El cochecito
3. Max Von Sydow, The Virgin Spring
4. Hideko Takamine, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
5. Anthony Perkins, Psycho

[Thirdmango]

Dang, don't think I can get around to watching Psycho before the deadline. :(

1. Breathless
2. The Apartment
3. Ocean's Eleven

[Spinal]

Been working on a grant application for my theatre company. Apologies for the delay.

[Sycophant]

If it's not too late:

1. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
2. The Bad Sleep Well
3. The Apartment
4. Spartacus
5. Jigoku

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

#10

Sometimes, we deliberately step into those traps.

Janet Leigh, Psycho


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Did you know?

Through the strength of his reputation, Hitchcock cast Leigh for a quarter of her usual fee, paying only $25,000 (in the 1967 book Hitchcock/Truffaut, Hitchcock said that Leigh owed Paramount one final film on her seven-year contract which she had signed in 1953). His first choice, Leigh agreed after having only read the novel and making no inquiry into her salary.

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

#9

Don't use the brakes. Cars are made to go, not to stop!

Jean-Paul Belmondo, Breathless


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Did you know?

Belmondo is saluted in a 1967 episode of the U.S. television sitcom Get Smart. In the episode "The Spirit is Willing" a top agent of the sinister spy agency KAOS is named Paul John Mondebello.

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

#8

Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is? It's fear.

Carl Boehm, Peeping Tom


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Did you know?

In 2009, Boehm provided the German voice for Charles Muntz, villain in Pixar's tenth animated feature Up.

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

#7

I don't believe in your aggressive, sticky, maternal love! I don't want it, I have no use for it! This isn't love, it's brutalization!

Marcello Mastroianni, La Dolce Vita


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Did you know?

The famous scene in the Trevi Fountain was shot over a week in winter. Fellini claimed that Ekberg stood in the cold water in her dress for hours without any trouble while Mastroianni had to wear a wetsuit beneath his clothes - to no avail. It was only after the actor "polished off a bottle of vodka" and "was completely pissed" that Fellini could shoot the scene.

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

#6

... I am convinced you could make really beautiful things.

Monica Vitti, L'avventura


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Did you know?

Vitti's image later appeared on an Italian postage stamp commemorating the film.

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

#5

Just because I wear a uniform doesn't make me a girl scout.

Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment


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Did you know?

The film earned MacLaine her second Oscar nomination. She later said, "I thought I would win for The Apartment, but then Elizabeth Taylor had a tracheotomy."

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

#4

"... one of the most striking, gifted, and charismatic stars in Japanese cinema." -- Phillip Lopate

Hideko Takamine, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs


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Did you know?
Her first role was in the Shochiku studio's 1929 film Mother (Haha), which brought her tremendous popularity as a child actor.

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

#3

Mrs. MacDougall, I think it is only fair to warn you that you are now alone with a notorious sexpot.

Jack Lemmon, The Apartment


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Did you know?

In a scene where Lemmon was supposed to mime being punched, he failed to move correctly and was accidentally knocked down. Wilder chose to use the shot of the genuine punch in the film.

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

#2

You are not alone, Mareta. And God alone bears our guilt.

Max von Sydow, The Virgin Spring


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Did you know?

His first work with Bergman occurred on stage at the Malmö Municipal Theatre.

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

#1

She might have fooled me, but she didn't fool my mother.

Anthony Perkins, Psycho


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Did you know?

His widow, Berry Berenson, was killed on American Airlines Flight 11 during the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

[Spinal]

Favorite Performances of 1960

1. Anthony Perkins, Psycho (59.5)
2. Max von Sydow, The Virgin Spring (43)
3. Jack Lemmon, The Apartment (37.5)
4. Hideko Takamine, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (29.5)
5. Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment (28.5)
6. Monica Vitti, L'Avventura (22.5)
7. Marcello Mastroianni, La dolce vita (21)
8. Carl Boehm, Peeping Tom (15)
9. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Breathless (14.5)
10. Janet Leigh, Psycho (13)

[Spinal]

#10

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

Shoot the Piano Player

Director: François Truffaut

Country: France

While playing in a bar, a pianist is approached by his crook brother who is being chased by two gangsters. He helps his brother to escape, but upsets the two criminals.

Among the films referenced in Shoot the Piano Player are Hollywood B movies from the 1940s, the techniques of using an iris from silent films, Charlie being named after Charlie Chaplin and having four brothers (and one named Chico) being a reference to the Marx Brothers, and the films structure and flashbacks being similar to the structure of Citizen Kane. This was also Truffaut's first film to include a murder, which would often become a plot point in many of his films and was influenced by Truffaut's admiration of Alfred Hitchcock.

"... Shoot the Piano Player is the most purely enjoyable movie Truffaut ever made. It's also the quintessential nouvelle vague film, a blatantly cinephilic combination of vivacious vogueing and soulful sentimentality." -- J. Hoberman

[Spinal]

#8 (tie)

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

Le Trou

Director: Jacques Becker

Country: France

The film tells the true story of five prison inmates in La Santé Prison in France in 1947. The five dig, tunnel and saw their way in an attempt to break out of prison.

La Sante prison was replicated right down to the smallest details, thanks to the help of the three actual members of the escape whom Becker hired to serve as production consultants. Director Becker died a few months after the completion of shooting and before the film's release.

"It's a prison-break film, based on a true story, that follows the dictates of the genre almost every step of the way but makes the conventions shine with new life and meaning. The suspense is built slowly and carefully, through finely perceived physical details and quirks of character. The obvious comparison is to Bresson's A Man Escaped, but Becker has none of Bresson's taste for abstraction; his film is rooted in the immediate, the concrete, the human." -- Dave Kehr

[Spinal]

#8 (tie)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/When-a-Woman-Ascends-the-Stairs-003-20080602-121550-medium.jpg

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

Director: Mikio Naruse

Country: Japan

The story of Keiko, a middle-aged geisha who must choose to either get married or buy a bar of her own. Her family hounds her for money, her customers for her attention, and she is continually in debt. The life of a geisha is examined as well as the way in which the system traps and sometimes kills those in it

Naruse filmed economically, using money and time-saving techniques that other directors shunned, such as shooting each actor delivering his or her lines of dialogue separately, and then splicing them together into chronological order in post-production. This reduced the amount of film wasted with each retake, and allowed a dialogue scene to be filmed with a single camera.

"The drama builds slowly, playing out against the backdrop of a polite Japanese society where few speak their mind, and Naruse's insistence on focusing on inconsequential everyday behaviors and transactions may initially seem perplexing. Yet it is all prelude to a raw, brilliantly sustained final half-hour where Keiko bares her soul to a lover unwilling to listen..." -- Keith Uhlich

[Spinal]

#7

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/55jmlavventura.jpg

L'Avventura

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

Country: Italy

A group of rich Italians head out on a yachting trip to a deserted volcanic island in the Mediterranean. When they are about to leave, they find Anna has gone missing. While looking for the missing woman, Claudia, Anna's friend, and Sandro, Anna's boyfriend, develop an attraction for each other.

During its notorious first showing at Cannes, one scene in particular drew specific derision. It is the scene when Monica Vitti rushes down a corridor looking for someone. Audience members were repeatedly shouting "Cut" during this lengthy scene. The film received a Condemned rating from the National League of Decency when it opened in the US.

"Why don't we have movies like L'Avventura anymore? Because we don't ask the same kinds of questions anymore. We have replaced the 'purpose of life' with the 'choice of lifestyle.' I used to think Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?' was the saddest song. Antonioni can think of a sadder one: 'More.'" -- Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#6

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/doc-701-2.jpg

Peeping Tom

Director: Michael Powell

Country: UK

Mark works by day as a focus-puller for a London movie studio. He moonlights by taking girlie pictures above a news agent's shop. But Mark has also taken up a horrifying hobby: he murders women while using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.

Martin Scorsese mentioned that he first heard of the film as a film student in the early 1960s, when it opened in only one theatre in Alphabet City, which, Scorsese notes, was a seedy district of New York. In 1978, Scorsese was approached by a New York distributor, Corinth Films, which asked for $5000 for a wider re-release. Scorsese gladly complied with their request, which allowed the film to reach a wider audience than its initial cult following.

"I have always felt that Peeping Tom and 8½ say everything that can be said about film-making, about the process of dealing with film, the objectivity and subjectivity of it and the confusion between the two. 8½ captures the glamour and enjoyment of film-making, while Peeping Tom shows the aggression of it, how the camera violates... From studying them you can discover everything about people who make films, or at least people who express themselves through films." -- Martin Scorsese

[Spinal]

#5

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

La Dolce Vita

Director: Federico Fellini

Country: Italy

A journalist struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.

Perceived by the Catholic Church as a parody of Christ's second coming, the opening scene and the entire film were condemned by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in 1960. Subject to widespread censorship, the film was banned in Spain until 1975 after the death of Franco. Fellini scrapped a major sequence that would have involved the relationship of Marcello with Dolores, an older writer living in a tower, to be played by 1930s Academy Award-winning actress Luise Rainer

"Fellini is nothing if not fertile, fierce and urbane in calculating the social scene around him and packing it onto the screen. He has an uncanny eye for finding the offbeat and grotesque incident, the gross and bizarre occurrence that exposes a glaring irony. He has, too, a splendid sense of balance and a deliciously sardonic wit ... In sum, it is an awesome picture, licentious in content but moral and vastly sophisticated in its attitude and what it says." -- Bosley Crowther

[Spinal]

#4

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/55dossier1.jpg

Breathless

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Country: France

An irresponsible sociopath and small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders the motorcycle policeman who pursues him. Now wanted by the authorities, he renews his relationship with a hip American girl studying journalism at the Sorbonne.

Godard envisaged Breathless as a reportage (documentary), and tasked cinematographer Raoul Coutard to shoot the entire film on a hand-held camera, with next to no lighting. No permission was received to shoot the film in its various locations (mainly the side streets and boulevards of Paris) either, adding to the film's spontaneous feel.

"The film is light and playfull and off-the-cuff, even a little silly. Yet the giddy, gauche characters who don’t give a damn — the hood who steals a car, kills a highway patrolman, and chases after some money that is owed him for past thefts so he and his impervious, passively butch girl can get to Italy — are not only familiar in an exciting, revealing way, they are terribly attractive." -- Pauline Kael

[Spinal]

#3

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The Virgin Spring

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Country: Sweden

In 14th century Sweden, a young virgin is brutally raped and murdered by goatherds. By a twist of fate, the murderers ask for food and shelter from the dead girl's parents.

The film is based on the 13th century Swedish ballad, 'Töres döttrar i Wänge'. In the ballad, it is not one but three daughters that are slain by the herdsmen, and the springs gush as they're beheaded at the very end. The three herdsmen are all adults, and the last one is left alive by the father. Fort Worth, Texas, banned showings of the film because of the rape scene, and the Texas Supreme Court upheld that ban.

"It isn't hard to see why it divided viewers, since it seems divided against itself. Von Sydow questions his faith in God, but when he finds what looks like proof of God's existence, it doesn't clear up any of his questions. Maybe Bergman wrote the movie off because he was on the verge of giving up on God altogether, but today, its tangle of doubt, religion, loss, revenge, and regret seems as timely as ever." -- Keith Phipps

[Spinal]

#2

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Psycho

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Country: USA

A young woman steals $40,000 from her employer's client, and subsequently encounters a young motel proprietor too long under the domination of his mother.

Alfred Hitchcock bought the rights to the novel anonymously from Robert Bloch for only $9,000. He then bought up as many copies of the novel as he could to keep the ending a secret. Walt Disney refused to allow Hitchcock to film at Disneyland in the early 1960s because he had made "that disgusting movie, Psycho."

"The one thing we would note with disappointment is that, among the stuffed birds that adorn the motel office of Mr. Perkins, there are no significant bats." -- Bosley Crowther

[Spinal]

#1

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The Apartment

Director: Billy Wilder

Country: USA

A struggling clerk in a huge New York insurance company discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder - by lending out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. One night he's left with a major problem to solve.

According to Fred MacMurray, after the film's release he was accosted by a strange woman in the street who berated him for making a 'dirty filthy movie' and hit him with her purse. The film was the basis of the 1968 Broadway musical Promises, Promises, featuring book by Neil Simon, music by Burt Bacharach, and lyrics by Hal David.

"Why has The Apartment never entered the pantheon along with similarly acidic Wilder masterpieces like Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot? To me it is a much more humanistic and relevant film -- funnier, too. One explanation for its secondary status is that its tawdry premise is unacceptably realistic ..." -- Graham Fuller

[B-side]

An unspectacular film for #1. Shame.

/awaits Qrazy's derisive remark about my taste

[Spinal]

FAVORITE FILMS OF 1960

1. The Apartment (56.5)
2. Psycho (52)
3. The Virgin Spring (38.5)
4. Breathless (37.5)
5. La Dolce Vita (32.5)
6. Peeping Tom (31.5)
7. L'Avventura (27)
8t. Le Trou (25)
8t. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (25)
10. Shoot the Piano Player (24)

Eyes Without a Face (15.5)
Spartacus (13)

2008 poll:

1. Psycho (93)
2. The Apartment (70)
3. L'Avventura (61.5)
4. La Dolce Vita (61)
5. Breathless (53)
6. The Virgin Spring (52.5)
7. Peeping Tom (39)
8. Shoot the Piano Player (34.5)
9. Eyes Without a Face (31.5)
10. Le Trou (25.5)

Also rans:
Black Sunday (15.5)
Spartacus (14)
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (12.5)
Inherit the Wind (11)

[Melville]

I only vaguely remember The Apartment. Nice that the Naruse made it on. I think that was one of the first movies I ever wrote anything about on match-cut. Interesting that L'Avventura dropped so many points. Also interesting that Watashi voted four years ago but says he hasn't seen enough to vote now. I blame him for the decline in voter turnout.