I realize that these are all quite different movies from each other, but I have been intrigued by "Element of Crime" and "Shock Corridor" for awhile just from reading the back of the covers. "Sisters" I don't know much about other than it was done by DePalma, who's alright at times IMO. Anyway, which of the three would you recommend? Also, as a point of reference, include the names of some of your favorite directors and/or movies if you don't mind. Thanks a lot...

[Edited by AmonTwin on 05-10-01 at 11:45 AM]

Sam Fuller & Lars Von Trier are two of my favorite directors, DePalma is OK at times. I also like Bunuel, Lynch, Cronenberg, Verhoeven, Jodorowski, Fellini, Godard, Chabrol, Herzog, Fassbinder, Nick Ray, Ferrara, Argento, Bava, Frankenheimer, Suzuki, Bergman, Lang, Alex Cox, Hitchcock, Soderbergh, Jarmush, Aldrich, L.Cohen, Ferreri, Anthony Mann, JP Melville, Oshima, Pasolini, Roeg Russell, Welles and others.

Anyways, All of these films are great. Sisters is probably my favorite DePalma. I own all three and have watched them each numerous times. Element of Crime has a fifty minute documentary about Von trier's career that is quite good.

Once had Element of Crime and for the life of me, I really wanted to like this movie, but I found the documentary about von Trier more enjoyable. The sepia toned cinematography with the occasional and isolated flash of blue light was spectacular, but I found the melodramatic tendencies (firing a gun out the window screaming in pain) just too much for myself--though I did not find Dancer in the Dark to be like that....Style over substance is how I found TEOC (though not necessarily a bad thing for film)...Sisters is the one I really like and have kept for my permanent collection. De Palma's use of split screen is well, just cool and the hallucination scenes create a bizarre climax to the film. Always wanted to see Shock Corridor, so I can't help you there... For favorite directors: Lynch, Fincher, PTA, Figgis, Malick, Kar Wai, Stone...

I love Sisters. It ranks up there with Carrie, except its use of split-screen is infinitely better than in Carrie. I'd go so far to say that it has the best use of split-screen I've yet seen in a film. As for Von Trier, well, I love the Golden Hearts Trilogy, and it sounds like Element of Crime is right up my alley. Favorite directors: Kubrick, Lynch, Kurosawa, Gilliam, and Herzog.

Of the titles you mentioned, I have Sisters CC. It is a great film and a great disc. Its imagery, haunting score, and yes, the use of the split screen make it a great film. The DVD also comes with an interesting booklet that I found very informative.

Understand that The Element of Crime is absolutely nothing like the Golden Heart Trilogy. It might as well have been made by an entirely different director. In fact, I can't think of another director who's later work is so utterly different from his early work.

And while I much prefer the looser, more organic, more improvisatory, more emotionally pure films of the Golden Heart Trilogy, I also appreciate von Trier's earlier work. The Element of Crime is a meticulously crafted film, a hermetically sealed universe that seems to exist only within your deepest subconscious. Hypnotic, hallucinatory and horrifying.

And maybe some other adjectives that start with "H"...

This film doesn't grasp for spiritual meaning - in fact, it subverts itself and any meaning you may feel compelled to derive from it - but nonetheless it does owe quite a stylistic debt to the deeply spiritual films of Andrei Tarkovsky. Think long, low, tracking closeups hovering over ravaged landscapes strewn with all manner of debris, and deep dark pools of water suggestive of deep Tarkovskian mysteries. Horses, hypnotists, and other things beginning with "H"...

[Edited by Richard Malloy on 05-11-01 at 09:21 AM]

No contest....Sisters!

The only one of these I have seen is Shock Corridor. This is a strange mix of elements, but never anything less than entertaining. At one point this film might have been considered shocking in its ideas and imagry, but now it seems pretty tame, even campy at best. I rented this and suggest you do the same.

PS. Best line- "NYMPHOS!" You will laugh.

I would recommend all three.
Sisters
De Palma makes this one work in 1973 as well as today. I viewed this one the first time in 1985 when I was 12. I was terrified back then. The second time I viewed it was a week ago, and the second time around I was more intrigued by the story. Definitely worth buying.
Grade: 9/10
Shock Corridor
Sam(uel) Fuller, do I need to say more? Shock Corridor is a film that works fine, and for me it worked ok even though I have a degree in psychology (you know when you see it). Of course, the lightening of the film is somewhat horrendous at times, but the story is stimulating and interesting. However, the film definitly made for a different cohort.
Grade: 7/10
Element of Crime
The Danish Lars von Trier, made this film and made me admire his skill of directing. Yes, he is a great director. It is just too bad that the does not have the budget to work with as Steven Spielberg or James Cameron has.
Grade: 9/10

Some of my favorite directors are:
Akira Kurosawa
Ingmar Bergman
Luc Besson
Orson Welles
Steven Spielberg
Alfred Hitchcock
Charles Chaplin
Jean Renoir
Giuseppe Tornatore
Pedro Almodóvar
Woody Allen
Stanley Kubrick
Terry Gilliam
Gus Van Sant

I hope this helped.

I didn't care too much for Shock Corridor. It was fine, but in the "watch once" category for me. I have not yet watched my copy of Element of Crime, but I'm certainly intrigued.

My review of Sisters:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?id=1216

Thanks for all your replies. I am probably going to go with Sisters for sure and probably Shock Corridor. I, too have a degree in Psychology and that was probably why I was intirgued by it in the first place. Sisters seems to be liked by all, but especially by those who seem to like similar directors as I do (my favorite directors are almost identical with DVD Smurf). That is why I asked what directors you may like because in the past, people would be raving about some movie and I wouldn't end up agreeing with them at all (didn't really think Wonder Boys or Almost Famous were really all that) so at least I know kind of your tastes. Well, thanks again for all your help...

what films encorporate this "trilogy"?

Breaking the Waves
The Idiots
Dancer in the Dark

Oh, I realize that his early films and later films are utterly completely different. But I happen to love both styles of filmmaking, so that's why I said it would be up my alley.

Then you'll definitely like it - it's an extraordinary transfer!

(Some have said it's a bit too much on the orange side - should've been more sepia-toned and faded-out - but I'd never seen it theatrically, and it looks amazing to my eyes.)

thanks for the info

Breaking the Waves
The Idiots
Dancer in the Dark [/B][/QUOTE]

thanks for the info [/B][/QUOTE]

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