^ this for skitch only (nobody else watch)
^ this for skitch only (nobody else watch)
Neither do I. It's irrelevant, thankfully.Quoting baby doll (view post)
I never said anything about automatic, so I don't see why I need to respond to this.Quoting baby doll (view post)
I never said good films couldn't be made in a free market system, so thankfully I don't need to respond to this either. Of course, the complete collapse of the Japanese arthouse film scene which forced prominent filmmakers into making pinku films makes my point for me, but, again, it's irrelevant.Quoting baby doll (view post)
I don't know what you're talking about with regards to Romantic individualism, nor do I think that art that is funded through the government is fundamentally different "socialist art", so I also don't understand the distinction. I also understand that Tarkovsky dying in exile from an authoritarian government doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with the US publicly funding films.Quoting baby doll (view post)
Strange post, as usual, full of so many red herrings and strawmen. Bizarre.
Last edited by PURPLE; 11-29-2019 at 12:01 AM.
https://books.google.com/books?id=FX...page&q&f=falseQuoting baby doll (view post)
Read a book for once in your life. The proof is in the actual history of an actual nation's actual film industry and its actual filmmakers, not your baseless assumptions.
Better than the original.
Perhaps it would be useful to look at your original post to better understand your argument, since you've made no effort to clarify it here. Your original post began with the claim, "The Red is what we [the United States] need." At the end of your original post, you rephrase this claim as, "Red is the color of great and daring art." Therefore, I take your basic claim to be that the United States needs state-subsidized filmmaking, and more broadly, that such a system produces more artistic films than a purely capitalist system.Quoting PURPLE (view post)
You don't provide a reason to support these claims, but you do cite as evidence the example of Polish system, which you say is "particularly interesting." You then assert the Polish film industry formed units of filmmakers that were "essentially entirely self-directed." Is this in fact true? It would be remarkable if it were in light of the overall history of Eastern Bloc filmmaking, and it would help your argument if you could point to a specific passage in the book you referenced that supports this assertion. Still, you would need to provide a reason why self-directed film units are inherently superior to closely supervised ones.
Furthermore, it's still not clear how the evidence of such a system existing in communist Poland would support your basic claims. Even supposing the Poles did form self-directed film units, it is not self-evident that state subsidies for American filmmaking would lead to a similar system or that such a system would produce similar results (i.e., a handful of art house classics) if implemented in the US.
With regards to what I take to be your larger claim, namely that state subsidized film industries are superior to their capitalist counterparts ("Red is the color of great and daring art," not green), you have provided neither a reason nor evidence for it beyond a handful of well-regarded films and filmmakers. In other words, the evidence you cite is not representative of the total bulk of state-subsidized film production. Indeed, they couldn't very well be representative and extraordinary at the same time, which suggests that the argument you are attempting to advance--i.e., that this small number of exceptional films is representative of Eastern Bloc filmmaking as a whole and therefore the Polish system offers a model to be emulated elsewhere--is fundamentally incoherent.
Last edited by baby doll; 11-29-2019 at 02:50 AM.
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
One factual addendum to my previous post: The most prominent Japanese filmmakers I'm aware of who were "forced" into making pinku eiga are Suzuki Seijun (Gate of Flesh, 1964), Oshima Nagisa (Pleasures of the Flesh, 1965), Masumura Yasuzo (several films including Red Angel, 1967), and Wakamatsu Koji (several films including Sex Jack, 1970). All of these films appeared before the collapse of the Japanese studio system in the early 1970s, and the independent ATG continued to co-produce and distribute films into the mid-1980s (including Wakamatsu's pinku eiga Ecstasy of the Angels, 1972, as well as films by Masumura and Oshima). Certainly Pleasures of the Flesh appeared at a low point in Oshima's career after the poor box office figures for his early independent productions, but he quickly bounced back with a string of masterpieces including several distributed by the ATG (Death by Hanging, Boy, The Man Who Left His Will on Film, Ceremonies). Masumura and Suzuki were both contract directors for major studios when they tried their hands at the genre. Red Angel is generally considered one of Masumura's very best and Gate of Hell was a relatively prestigious A-picture for Suzuki whose films for Nikkatsu were largely B films. Wakamatsu first established himself as a director of pinku eiga and his best known films are all in this genre. In short, directing pinku eiga did not mean having to abandon one's artistic ambitions altogether, nor did it represent the end of the road for any of these directors' careers.Quoting PURPLE (view post)
Last edited by baby doll; 11-29-2019 at 04:16 AM.
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
Filling in my unseen Scorsese on his chronological watch (and hoping these two are not too hot a take). After this, only "Life Lessons", Kundun, and Bringing Out the Dead left as his fictional narratives I've not yet seen, among the rewatches.
The Color of Money (1986)
I’m generally a cinematic-over-story guy, but The Hustler vs The Color of Money provides a fascinating example of how every preference has a limit. The sequel is superior in many respects, especially stylistically; this is not one of Scorsese’s more personal films (despite some slight overlap in its view of masculinity) but his direction and Schoonmaker's editing elevate this so much, adding cinematic thrills to the physical and psychological aspects of pool hustling, and giving visual boost to many stray details and dialogue of hard-edged pleasure in Price’s script. But the core story here is just less powerful than The Hustler, which has a more focused character study and builds mercilessly to a devastating third act that leaves a more lingering, haunting aftereffect. Still, for its minor reputation in Scorsese’s filmography, this sequel is closer in quality to the original (which I love) than I first expected. 8/10
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Admire the conceptual ambition more than love the actual execution, even if the latter isn't lacking so much as I feel the more restrained direction (by Scorsese's standard) doesn't elevate this humanizing attempt. There's still too much of the familiar beatific left in the overall structure that a less sedate style would help the more human depictions of this story to register stronger for me. The "last temptation" and the last scene are both such emotional knockouts to end on though. 7.5/10
Midnight Run (1988) - 9
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
Sisters (1973) - 6.5
Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5
So I took a glance at Marek Haltof's Polish Cinema: A History, which can easily be accessed in its entirety from b-ok.org. From what I've skimmed, the focus is mostly on films and filmmakers rather than an institutional history. Each chapter is divided into sections organized around directors or groups of directors (e.g., "The Polish School Phenomenon"), exemplary films ("Ashes and Diamonds and Nobody Is Calling"), representations of historical topics ("Representations of World War II"), and style ("Neorealist Influences").
I did not find much in Haltof's book about the film units per se. The relevant section appears to be in chapter five, which covers the post-Stalinist period (1955-63), and begins on page 120, under the heading "Organizational Changes." According to Haltof:
As should already be evident, in Haltof's telling, the film units had considerably less artistic freedom than Purple has implied. Later, on page 158, Haltof writes:
And on page 171:
Things did perk up a bit in the 1970s. Also on page 171:
Notice here that the successes 1970s Polish cinema are not attributed to socialism per se, or even the film unit system, but the climate of economic liberalization and the individual competence of the state bureaucrats then in charge of the industry. None of this suggests, however, that Polish filmmakers had unlimited artistic freedom as they were still accountable to the state bureaucracy.
More historical detail about the film units can be found in Dorota Ostrowska's essay "An Alternative Model of Film Production: Film Units in Poland After World War II" in A Companion to Eastern European Cinemas, which Haltof cites in his bibliography and is also available from b-ok.org. According to Ostrowska, shooting in Poland was largely unsupervised but screenplays and finished films had to be approved by the National Film Board. Furthermore, as Ostrowska writes on page 460,
The bottom line seems to be that filmmaking in post-Stalinist Poland involved a series of complex negotiations between individual filmmakers and state apparatuses, which enabled filmmakers to achieve a certain degree of artistic autonomy within a fairly closed society.
Last edited by baby doll; 12-02-2019 at 05:51 AM.
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
To those interested, read the book excerpts without reading baby doll’s commentary. I know I didn’t read the commentary.
As for whatever else you said, I don’t care to converse with you about anything. Have a nice life.
That's too bad, I was rather enjoying this. And now that we at least agree on what the historical evidence is, it seems to me that we're in a better position to understand how it supports, or doesn't support, your basic claims: namely, that America "needs the Red," and "Red is the color of great and daring art."Quoting PURPLE (view post)
The latter claim is directly contradicted by the Polish filmmakers' admission of self-censorship, which indicates they couldn't afford to be too daring. Of course, as in other repressive nations (e.g., Iran), filmmakers can learn how to navigate the system to their advantage, but then you could say the same about filmmakers working in purely capitalistic systems. In an interview on the region 2 DVD of Illumination, Zanussi talks about making films that were ideologically ambiguous enough to be palatable in Poland as well as Western Europe, and according to Ostrowska, Zanussi's film unit is the only one that still exists to this day on account of his business savvy (463-464).
As to the former, it's still unclear how the evidence of the film unit system relates to the claim. Even if the reasoning is that the film unit system has certain distinct advantages over other production models, it's unclear how that supports the claim "We need the Red," since not all socialist countries adopted a film unit system. Even if we were to rephrase the claim to make it narrower, say "America needs a film unit system," we'd still need a reason why film units are inherently superior to other production models irrespective of the bureaucrats overseeing production. If contemporary commercial American filmmaking strikes us as an artistic wasteland and contemporary Japanese cinema is but a pale shadow of its former glory (which is how it appears to me), I would argue this has less to do with the potential for artistic creation within a purely commercial film industry per se than the specific way in which the major studios have been organized since the 1960s and the influence of television on norms of staging and cutting and audience tastes. (Incidentally, the influence of television is less pronounced in contemporary Japanese cinema, where one can still find complex staging in normal commercial films, e.g., the family dramas of Yamada Yoji.)
Last edited by baby doll; 12-03-2019 at 03:06 PM.
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
Hey Irish, did you ever get a new Letterboxd account and if so, what is it? I've gotten a few new followers lately and was curious if any of them were yours.
Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5
615 Film
Letterboxd
We all know that you enjoy talking to yourself.
Please talk to yourself now about your favorite Polish, Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian films made after the Wall fell.
Honestly, stop being a dick.Quoting PURPLE (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
Again, the evidence you cite is insufficient to support the sweeping claims you've made (to repeat: America "needs the Red," and "Red is the color of great and daring art"). Even if we both agree that, notwithstanding the post-1989 films of Béla Tarr, László Nemes, and perhaps a few others (to say nothing of such ambiguous cases as the international co-productions of Krzyzstof Kieślowski), there has been a sharp decline in Central European filmmaking since the end of communism, you still have not demonstrated that it was the end of communism that brought about the decline. (It would be similarly unpersuasive to attribute the successes of Romanian cinema since 2005 exclusively to the advent of capitalism in Southeastern Europe.) After all, Cuban cinema has been moribund since the late 1960s despite the persistence of socialism, and to the best of my knowledge, there has been no appreciable increase in the quality of Venezuelan cinema since the coming to power of Hugo Chavez. A few cherry-picked examples don't make an argument.Quoting PURPLE (view post)
Last edited by baby doll; 12-05-2019 at 02:07 AM.
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
I haven't yet, so none of those people are me!Quoting Ivan Drago (view post)
film of the decade?
In Front of Your Face (Hong Sang-soo, 2021) - 6
Introduction (Hong Sang-soo, 2021) - 6
True Mothers (Naomi Kawase, 2020) - 8
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy - (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021) - 7
Wife of a Spy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2020) - 7
The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion, 2021) - 9
Don't Look Up - (Adam McKay, 2021) - 4
The Matrix Resurrections (Lana Wachowski, 2021) - 4.5
Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven, 2021) - 7
mubi
Def watched it more than any movie this decade.Quoting origami_mustache (view post)
Yikes
I blame Last Jedi haters
Anyone see Aeronauts (on Amazon Prime)?
Saw it in Telluride.Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
There's a couple good sequences, but there's a reason Amazon hasn't made an awards push for it. Probably looked great on paper and a great pitch.
"The movie Gravity... but in 1900's England... with a reunited Oscar couple... and more British!"
So I'm back to doing a series of film shows this January in Buenos Aires. The month's theme is summer movies, since it's summer in the South Pole. This is my slate for Tuesdays:
7/1/20 - Purple Noon
14/1/20 - Y Tu Mamá También
21/1/20 - The Swimmer
28/1/20 - Do the Right Thing
What do you think of it?
I don't want to start a Star Wars hate thing here, but I think the new trilogy must be some sort of conceptual art piece mocking the absurd overuse of deus ex machina in corporate cinema.
In Front of Your Face (Hong Sang-soo, 2021) - 6
Introduction (Hong Sang-soo, 2021) - 6
True Mothers (Naomi Kawase, 2020) - 8
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy - (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021) - 7
Wife of a Spy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2020) - 7
The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion, 2021) - 9
Don't Look Up - (Adam McKay, 2021) - 4
The Matrix Resurrections (Lana Wachowski, 2021) - 4.5
Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven, 2021) - 7
mubi
You'll need to build a case here in that Johnson/Abrams are that far ahead of thingsQuoting origami_mustache (view post)