Discussion Thread: What films do you feel are most important to cinema.

[Fried Gold]

Discussion Thread, no one word statements around here.

Good man! I can't abide threads that are basically glorified lists...

 

[Fried Gold]

It also made people think and get into astronomy, teaching, science..So it had an impact in carreer choices.

I'd argue that Star Trek was the cheif impactor* on said professions.

Also, I think bringing Pulp Fiction into this is a joke. I studied film for 3 years, media for 2, and art for 2, and not once did we ever go into any sort of lenghy discussion in regards to Pulp Fiction. Reservoir Dogs, sure, but Pulp Fiction was reserved for the guy in the stupid long leather jacket.

In terms of historical significance, the films of Mellier, Eisenstein, Griffith et al are bound to be thrown into the loop, but that's like claiming that Elgar is the most important figure in the music industry.














*A made up word that rules.

 

[The Amazing Lee]

Well at least I tried.

 

[Fried Gold]

Well at least I tried.

Heh, I respect your effort, man.

 

[The Amazing Lee]

I'm not saying it's a film that changed cinema for ever...I just mean, it's one of them films that is talked about alot in Media Studies (or at least it seems to be in my area)

Another popular one is Seven.

 

[ultimatefan]

Rashomon - To get out a bit out of the American movie thing. This is, along with Seven Samurais, Kurosawa´s most quoted, imitated, satirized movie, and with good reason. Giving a fresh spin on the mystery plot idea, Kurosawa took a single event and made it look like completely different things as they´re reported by different people with their own perspectives and interests. A fun guessing game, an interesting narrative experiment and a very truthful statement on human nature and the nature of storytelling itself. Oh, and Toshiro Mifune was the man...

 

[Sandman138]

Also, I think bringing Pulp Fiction into this is a joke. I studied film for 3 years, media for 2, and art for 2, and not once did we ever go into any sort of lenghy discussion in regards to Pulp Fiction. Reservoir Dogs, sure, but Pulp Fiction was reserved for the guy in the stupid long leather jacket.

I think there is some legitimacy to his claim. While Pulp Fiction wasn't the first movie to play around with chronological order, it was one that took it to an extreme, and one of the first to really be a cultural success. I think its worth discussing why it happened with Pulp Fiction rather than with any of the others that preceded it.

In terms of historical significance, the films of Mellier, Eisenstein, Griffith et al are bound to be thrown into the loop, but that's like claiming that Elgar is the most important figure in the music industry.

Well, they were instrumental in the foundation of the craft. They laid out the basic rules and conventions that are still used today. They're a logical place to start in such an exploration.

 

[ultimatefan]

Humanity Going to HAL: The Art of Understatement in 2001 is an interesting essay about the Kuleshov Effect and how it gives life to HAL.

Oh yeah, I remember discussing the Kuleshov effect in a cinema class in my Journalism course... Very interesting. I remember Anthony Hopkins saying HAL was his inspiration for Hannibal´s voice. He felt the character´s horrifying idiosyncracies would be even more frightening if delivered in an absolutely calm, collected and smooth tone, much like HAL.

 

[Sandman138]

Rashomon - To get out a bit out of the American movie thing. This is, along with Seven Samurais, Kurosawa´s most quoted, imitated, satirized movie, and with good reason. Giving a fresh spin on the mystery plot idea, Kurosawa took a single event and made it look like completely different things as they´re reported by different people with their own perspectives and interests. A fun guessing game, an interesting narrative experiment and a very truthful statement on human nature and the nature of storytelling itself. Oh, and Toshiro Mifune was the man...

Rashomon is one of the better examples of a meta-film. Lots of people love 8 1/2, I couldn't get into it. I need to watch it again, its been a few years, I must have missed something.

 

[Sloth7d]

I forget which Bruce lee movie it was, but I remember one movie of his finally came out in american theatres. Though it shocked the public being one of the first movies where the main character doesn't recieve a happy ending. Because Lee is arrested in the end. I think that had a major impact on current movies now a days.

 

[ultimatefan]

Rashomon is one of the better examples of a meta-film. Lots of people love 8 1/2, I couldn't get into it. I need to watch it again, its been a few years, I must have missed something.

Yeah, i know how that feels, there are some of those "prestiged" films that, no matter how hard I try, it doesn´t work for me for some reason. State Of Things is one of them.

 

[Sandman138]

Oh yeah, I remember discussing the Kuleshov effect in a cinema class in my Journalism course... Very interesting. I remember Anthony Hopkins saying HAL was his inspiration for Hannibal´s voice. He felt the character´s horrifying idiosyncracies would be even more frightening if delivered in an absolutely calm, collected and smooth tone, much like HAL.

Now that's interesting. The entire concept of the way they desinged HAL was to make an inanimate object seem alive, and yet Hopkins used that to make himself seem more inanimate.

 

[Sandman138]

Yeah, i know how that feels, there are some of those "prestiged" films that, no matter how hard I try, it doesn´t work for me for some reason. State Of Things is one of them.

The thing is I can tell that 8 1/2 is a really well made film, and that I should like it. I can appreciate it on a bunch of levels, but it just didn't click for me when I saw it. I love every other Felini film I've seen. La Strada is one of my favorite films of all time. I just don't know why I couldn't get into 8 1/2. The same thing happens to me with Raging Bull.

 

[Fried Gold]

Well, they were instrumental in the foundation of the craft. They laid out the basic rules and conventions that are still used today. They're a logical place to start in such an exploration.

Right, it's one thing to create the rules, but it's another to apply them in an intelligent fashion. Sure, the greats of yesteryear are just as relevant when discussing the evolution of cinema, but we're talking about specific films that helped shaped cinema as we know it. You ask anyone what their fave flicks are and there will be not 1 person at all who would cite anything pre-1920.

They started the ball rolling, but it takes more effort to keep it going.

 

[ultimatefan]

Rome Open City - Considered the inaugural movie of Italian Neorealism. Actually shot as Rome was being invaded, and using it as the plot for the movie. It didn´t have built sets and the actors were basically non-professionals to give it a level of authenticity that hadn´t been seen till then. Scripted by Fellini. Has one of the best meta-film quotes of all times, when a character says, "we thought we were only going to see that in movies!"...

 

[Fried Gold]

I think there is some legitimacy to his claim. While Pulp Fiction wasn't the first movie to play around with chronological order, it was one that took it to an extreme, and one of the first to really be a cultural success. I think its worth discussing why it happened with Pulp Fiction rather than with any of the others that preceded it.

I feel it was timing more than anything else. The early 90s saw the emergence of many an 'indie' filmmaker (Smith, Linklater, Lee...), and the idea of a shoestring budgeted film really caught the imagination of a youth more used to the latest Lethal Weapon film than watching 2 guys sat around talking.

 

[ultimatefan]

The thing is I can tell that 8 1/2 is a really well made film, and that I should like it. I can appreciate it on a bunch of levels, but it just didn't click for me when I saw it. I love every other Felini film I've seen. La Strada is one of my favorite films of all time. I just don't know why I couldn't get into 8 1/2. The same thing happens to me with Raging Bull.

It´s hard for us to admit when we don´t like a movie from a filmmaker we admire and that is considered one of his bestI like Fellini too, but I confess I´m more into La Dolce Vitta or La Nave Va than 8 1/2.

 

[Sandman138]

Right, it's one thing to create the rules, but it's another to apply them in an intelligent fashion. Sure, the greats of yesteryear are just as relevant when discussing the evolution of cinema, but we're talking about specific films that helped shaped cinema as we know it. You ask anyone what their fave flicks are and there will be not 1 person at all who would cite anything pre-1920.

They started the ball rolling, but it takes more effort to keep it going.

It's tough to find pre-1920, but Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which I want to get to later today came out in 1920. Nosferatu in 1922, Metropolis in 1927, and Battleship Potyomkin in 1925. All of them are on my favorites list.

 

[Fried Gold]

Battleship Potyomkin in 1925.

Heh, oh you're one of those...

See, I believe there to be a significant divide between 'enjoyed' and 'respected'. Out of your examples, I'd say I 'enjoyed' Caligari, whereas I merely respected the others (although the score to Potyomkin was awesome).

In regards to the thread, I see a lot of people are merely citing thier favourite films, or those that would gain them kudos with art school girls.

 

[ultimatefan]

It's tough to find pre-1920, but Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which I want to get to later today came out in 1920. Nosferatu in 1922, Metropolis in 1927, and Battleship Potyomkin in 1925. All of them are on my favorites list.

Cabinet and Metropolis are my favorite german expressionism movies. In Cabinet, I love how the set is a character in itself and a subjective expression of a disturbed mind, instead of something "realistic". Metropolis was probably the best example of the fear of the oppressive nature of industrial society that was a recurring theme in that school.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

Star Wars: A new Hope. It changed everyone. It changed the directors, the artists, the workers of this country. People realized the money comes from making movies. Specially, Sci-fi movies like Star Wars. Lucas created the Blockbuster idea, the toy marketing and commecialism based on films.

Star Wars made Harrison Ford who he is today. One of the greatest actors of all time. Also Lucas created ideas..Believe it or not, if it wasn't for him, the internet probably wouldn't exist.

Blockbusters existed before Star Wars, even summer blockbusters - Jaws was released in 1975.

And Lucas having a hand in the creation of the internet.......just stop.

 

[Sandman138]

Heh, oh you're one of those...

See, I believe there to be a significant divide between 'enjoyed' and 'respected'. Out of your examples, I'd say I 'enjoyed' Caligari, whereas I merely respected the others (although the score to Potyomkin was awesome).

In regards to the thread, I see a lot of people are merely citing thier favourite films, or those that would gain them kudos with art school girls.

Heh, these threads will attract that type. I totally understand what you're saying about Potyomkin, and for a while I would have said the same. However, having begun to approach filmmaking from the lens of Cognitive Science, I think Eisenstein was really onto something. I'm a firm believer that montage is directly connected to a cognitive function known as conceptual blending and is part of the "universal grammar" that makes film work. With that in mind, many of the sequences in Potyomkin are nothing short of incredible for me.

And you didn't enjoy Metropolis? To this day I think that is the best cityscape on celluloid.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

In Lucas' favour (or not) his determination to bring simplistic morality and straight-forward cliffhanger action heroics back to cinema changed it completely. Back in the mid-70's, big films were the likes of The Godfather, and even Jaws is more a thriller with fleshed out characters than a simple monster movie. Then Star Wars, then Indiana Jones, and, as a fanous review once said (something along the lines of), "Cinema began in an amusement arcade, so it's only fitting Star Wars is the equivalent of a pinball machine."

The template for an action movie Lucas perfected is still the one used today. You can see Bryan Singer struggling with it in X-Men (2000) because he doesn't naturally make films to that formula, and really wants to make a character-driven thriller. Burton has the same problems with it in his two Batman movies and Planet of the Apes - looked upon as simple action movies they don't work. Return of the Jedi many overlook because it brought the idea of using the entire third act of a film as one huge action sequence (or sequence of action sequences), which is commonplace today.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

And you didn't enjoy Metropolis? To this day I think that is the best cityscape on celluloid.

And many directors would agree with you (Ridley Scott, Tim Burton, etc).

 

[ultimatefan]

One achievement Lucas can be totally held responsible for is getting the biggest blank check in movie history. If I had been one of the Fox executives who granted him total control of the sequels, merchandise, etc. for SW, I´d have blown my brains off...