Whats the Most "ahead of it's time" Movie ?

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12-16-07 | 04:33 AM

#151

TheGodfather

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Quote:

Originally Posted by The Nature Boy

Brazil.... grows evermore relevant in the world of mass automation and diminishing individualality.

Not to mention almost every other theme dealt with in the movie:

Paranoia
Terrorism
"Big Brother" type government (Patriot Act esp.)
Plastic surgery gone wild
Overgrown Bureaucracy
McCarthyism
etc.

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12-16-07 | 05:07 AM

#152

baracine

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From: Toronto

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGodfather

Not to mention almost every other theme dealt with in the movie:

Paranoia
Terrorism
"Big Brother" type government (Patriot Act esp.)
Plastic surgery gone wild
Overgrown Bureaucracy
McCarthyism
etc.

My post number 126:

Quote:

Brazil is a very nice sci-fi film but it is not particuarly original. It's mainly a riff on the novel "1984" with an ending borrowed from the "Occurrence at Owk Creek" episode of the Robert Enrico film Au Coeur de la Vie (1963), which is already on my list.

Making a film about McCarthyism 30 years after McCarthyism is not being "ahead of its time". What you mean is Bush's America reminds you of that time...

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12-16-07 | 02:47 PM

#153

Neeb

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Videodrome
Anticipates the mainstreaming of porn and more permissive and violent things on TV.
Proto-cyberpunk if you will

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06-17-08 | 07:18 AM

#154

baracine

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I've added I Remember Mama (1948).

For cinematic, directorial, technical or narrative brilliance ahead of or contrary to its times (and not sci-fi prospective knowledge):

- In the beginning of the film era, almost every new film was breaking new ground, in France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Russia and the United States, until the invention of studios and studio formulas, that is. For instance, Jean Renoir had already perfected most of his cinematic innovations in the silent era in films that are forgotten today but had a huge influence on other filmmakers then. Georges Méliès and Winsor McKay made advances in special effects and animation that influenced everyone. I also mention one film to a director, except for Hitchcock, Mamoulian, Disney, Welles, Fleming, Wise and Fellini, who are special cases. -
Intolerance (Griffith, 1916)
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1919)
Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler Parts I & II (Lang, 1921-1922): Grand-daddy of all adventure-action flicks and blueprint for all commercial cinema to this day. All of Lang's narrative devices were workshopped here.
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925): Marvels of editing
- 1927: Advent of sound film (various methods, sound-on-film winning out in the end.) -
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927): Special effects at the service of supreme and simply human story-telling:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JQxhQsNKJek"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JQxhQsNKJek" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Napoléon** (Gance, 1927): First commercial use of 3-screen process. Silent film at its most expressive, grandiose and romantic. Complete film: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?doc...HNhLXZBg&hl=fr

Blood of a Poet (Cocteau, 1930): Surrealist art film

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ktaDmv_MkjI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ktaDmv_MkjI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Love Me Tonight (Mamoulian, 1932): Sound film (musical, actually) that brought back the freedom of movement that the camera had known in the silent era. This is a tie-in with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (also by Mamoulian and also from 1932) and Le Million (René Clair, 1931), also a musical. The film opens with a revolutionary "symphony of sound":

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cBoRmVpT3MU"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cBoRmVpT3MU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

King Kong (Cooper & Shoedsack, 1933) - Arguably the first talking feature film with a psychological/descriptive/atmospheric/source music original film score (by Max Steiner); advances in stop-motion animation.
L'Atalante (Vigo, 1934): Poetic realism starts here.

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xv8DNfiVkWs"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xv8DNfiVkWs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Becky Sharp (Mamoulian, 1935): First commercial 3-strip Technicolor feature film.
Show Boat** (Whale, 1936): Includes what is possibly the first true music video - where the images are different than just the performer singing.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/I_5qON6LY1c&hl=fr"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/I_5qON6LY1c&hl=fr" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>>

Snow White (Disney, 1937): First feature-length animation film.
Pepe le Moko (Duvivier, 1937): The first film noir.

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/T-1D_DbLb6I"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/T-1D_DbLb6I" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Marie Antoinette (Van Dyke, 1938): Ground-breaking, monumental epic manages to be both romantic and factual; makes Gone With the Wind look like an episode of "General Hospital".

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kbm_ZUx-zgw"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kbm_ZUx-zgw" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Hôtel du Nord ** (Marcel Carné, 1938): A highly influential "poetic realism"-school film that is not yet available on DVD but whose reputation has kept growing over the last 10 years. There had been studio recreations of street scenes before but never to that extent. All the sets are fake though photo-realist recreations of a real street, hotel and canal in Paris. The cast is stellar (Louis Jouvet, Arletty, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Bernard Blier, Andrex, François Perier and the Carné regulars ) and includes "the most beautiful woman in the world", Annabella (Errol Flynn's main squeeze and the future Mrs. Tyrone Power), who could also act.

Annabella: As she made her film debut in Napoléon, she is also the only actor to have starred in two films on this list, except for Irene Dunne (Show Boat and I Remember Mama).

Faux-popular music by Maurice Jaubert. Extremely fluid camera work, brilliant dialog, a story of doomed and redempted love that is also prescient of France's defeatist attitude. The film that gave us "atmosphère", the most famous tough-guy line in French cinema, and also the ambience that stays with the viewer forever... This was seven years before Children of Paradise.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jxNQvurCqFo"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jxNQvurCqFo" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939): Epoch-making advances in SFX in fantasy-themed and musical film.
Gone With the Wind (Fleming, Cukor, Wood, 1939): First Technicolor film using a more sensitive stock allowing the actors not to perspire their life away under the torrid studio lights.
Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939): Free-form narrative, improvisation-like acting and social commentary united in a way that would inspire countless other directors, including Robert Altman.
The Letter (Wyler, 1940): For sheer technical brilliance.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2W95DOLqN3Q&hl=fr"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2W95DOLqN3Q&hl=fr" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

See also: http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=TdjEKGSuCMA

Fantasia (Disney, 1940): First feature with stereo sound, "Fantasound" (actually 4 discrete optical tracks on an interlocking film, left, centre, right and surround)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941): Narrative brilliance.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Fleming, 1941): Creepy!
Saboteur (Hitchcock, 1942): Model for the modern-day action film.
Ossessione (Visconti, 1943): This is the second film adaptation of James Cain's "The Postman Always Rings Twice". The first was French (Le Dernier Tournant, Pierre Chenal, 1939). Although never shown in America for copyright reasons, this wondrous confluence of adult themes, film noir and neo-realism had a great influence worldwide. Its realism sowed the seeds of discontent in Hollywood and it wouldn't be long before actors like Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift drifted towards Europe for meatier, more interesting material. Hollywood's attempt to reform itself, however, with "profound and daring" films like Desire Me (uncredited, 1947) failed miserably. It's fair to say that if it hadn't been for a more relaxed attitude towards censorship, widescreen movies and TV in the fifties, Hollywood would have gone bankrupt for good. Even a slick adaptation like The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946) looks as Hollywood-artificial as Lana Turner's push-up bra and hair colour by comparison.

Last edited by baracine; 06-18-08 at 07:11 AM.

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06-17-08 | 07:41 AM

#155

RichC2

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Quote:

Originally Posted by baracine

* "Caca" stands for Chicago Authority on Cinematic Art. You'd think that after penning the script to the immortal Return to the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979), Ebert would have been impressed by something more than the squad cars in Blade Runner...

He wound up re-reviewing the Final Cut last year as one of his "Great Movies". Admits the emotional grounding it has but concludes with a logical point "I have been assured that my problems in the past with ``Blade Runner'' represent a failure of my own taste and imagination, but if the film was perfect, why has Sir Ridley continued to tinker with it, and now released his fifth version? I guess he's only... human."

Of course, he doesn't get into the studio politics involved.

Nice list overall.

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06-17-08 | 10:16 AM

#156

toddly6666

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Winsor McCay's GERTIE THE DINOSAUR (1914)

Disney and other animators would be lost without McCay being the first to create keyframe animation.

Check out the clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY40DHs9vc4

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06-17-08 | 11:06 AM

#157

SuckaMC

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I always thought that the Gene Hackman/ Gregory Peck movie Marooned (1969) was just eerily prophetic. It was about some astronauts stranded in space because of malfunctions... the very next year, the Apollo 13 mission went down. Spooky.

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06-17-08 | 11:37 AM

#158

Rival11

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Cygnet74

i assume you are saying 2001 is visually boring (if we are using the standard set by Star Wars), but i hope you aren't insinuating that it is intellectually boring. if this is why you feel it "puts you to sleep", here is a list of things to consider next time you watch it.

1. The theme of 2001 is man's evolution, from ape through Earthman to astral being.

2. In the beginning, the ape has what it takes to make the first evolutionary leap. Presented with the monolith, his curiosity and courage overcome his fear. These innate characteristics -- and not some buzz from the big block -- lead to the ape's subsequent invention, the tool.

3. A million years later, the first tool has become a spaceship and Earthman is soaring at the peak of his evolution. He's so civilized -- when Floyd meets the Russians in the bar, it's: "Dr. Floyd, won't you join us for a drink?" (cf. that with ape hospitality round the last watering--hole we saw).

4. But, immediately, we sense something is wrong. Earthman is just not suited to space. He eats junk. Every step is an effort. Even taking a crap requires advanced technology. What's more, man has become a bore. His emotions are flat. He communicates in banalities. He has lost his sense of curiosity -- meeting the monolith for the second time, he touches it with a cold, scientific, gloved hand, then poses for a tourist snap.

5. The Jupiter mission. What a sad sight, these Earthmen. Bored, boring, all intellect and no feeling. The ones in hibernation testify to man's utter incompatibility with space exploration -- he has to be virtually dead just to get around. Seems like he just doesn't have what it takes to last out here in space.

6. But maybe HAL does. HAL is a tool, no more and no less than that bone wielded by the ape. But he's so smart he beats man at his own game ("I'm sorry, Frank, but I think you missed it....").

7. HAL -- but not the crew! -- knows that Earthman is heading for an appointment with destiny, with higher powers. "But hey," thinks HAL, "who's to say I'M not the Chosen One? I'm a lot smarter than these jerks. And I'm made for space. I don't need to hibernate, I don't need oxygen or phoney cheese sandwiches. Hey, I'm practically immortal..." The ultimate tool, HAL, doesn't need the apes anymore. He's decided to end an association that has lasted a thousand millennia.

8. HAL plots and schemes. And Earthman finally twigs: "I've got a bad feeling..." says Bowman's buddy Poole in the pod, making the film's first reference to feelings. Facing the ultimate, mortal conflict -- although only dimly aware of what's coming -- Earthman regains that old ape intuition.

9. HAL almost succeeds, but Bowman (get it? -- man is culturally so far behind his own evolution he's stuck with a name from the 12th century) outsmarts the machine with his ingenuity, imagination and courage. And he kills HAL using the simplest of all tools, the screwdriver. That's what tools are for, HAL!

10. Man makes his appointment.

11. The room in the 4th dimension is a 'colour negative'.

12. At his last supper, Earthman tips over his glass. The glass breaks -- but the wine is still there. Hey...container/content, body/spirit... Ah!

13. Earthman is dying. Enter the monolith. Have you got it yet, Earthman? As an ape, you touched me with a child's fear and courage. On the moon, you touched me with your cold logic. And now?

14. With his rasping, dying breath, Earthman reaches out to the monolith, at last, with deep understanding and wisdom. The body -- container of his spirit for a million years, but like fish out of water in space -- is cast aside forever. He's ready for the next evolutionary leap -- and the Starchild is born. (Ba--baa--baaa--baaaa baabaaaa!...bombombombombom...)

Afterthoughts/re--elaborations/repetitions:

In space, man finds himself at an evolutionary dead--end, so unadapted to the new environment that he is forced to delegate practically all human functions -- from toilet--work to command decisions -- to his tools/machines. At that point, it is simply "natural selection" for the machine to replace its creator.

That is the crux of 2001: man on Earth used tools -- extensions of his body -- to progress. In space, the tools become so "vital" that they take on a life of their own, detach themselves (remember the floating pen?) and ultimately decide to do away with him.

When HAL threatens to destroy him, Bowman draws on man's innate qualities (his spirit) to outsmart and finally destroy the machine (the screwdriver used to lobotomize HAL represents man's reappropriation of domain over his tools).

At the same time, in destroying HAL, Bowman draws the curtain on **** Utensilis ("lays down the bone", as Geoffrey Alexander puts it) -- he's seen that evolutionary route leads to disaster. And if the tool/machine has exhausted its evolutionary thrust, so, by extension (or intention), has the human body. At that point, all that is left to evolve is the wine in the broken glass, i.e. the spirit in the old man's broken, dying body.

Note also that while the ape and **** Utensilis actually had to touch the monolith to get results, dying man only has to lift a finger -- it's his intention that counts this time, not what he does with his body.

That write up has the most logic ever for the movie (2001) - Now you have made me want to watch it again and I will. Funny how simple it is - all right there in front of you, just have to use your noggin in the slightest to figure it out. It's actually scary how much sense it makes as I've been trying to figure it out for a while now.

Very cool and thanks for posting that.

Last edited by Rival11; 06-17-08 at 11:40 AM.

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06-21-08 | 09:16 PM

#159

baracine

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I realize this personal history of the movies is running quite long, so I've added an INTERMISSION and a few surprises.

For cinematic, directorial, technical or narrative brilliance ahead of or contrary to its times (and not sci-fi prospective knowledge):

- In the beginning of the film era, almost every new film was breaking new ground, in France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Russia and the United States, until the invention of studios and studio formulas, that is. For instance, Jean Renoir had already perfected most of his cinematic innovations in the silent era in films that are forgotten today but had a huge influence on other filmmakers then. Georges Méliès and Winsor McKay made advances in special effects and animation that influenced everyone. I also mention one film to a director, except for Hitchcock, Mamoulian, Disney, Welles, Fleming, Wise and Fellini, who are special cases. Films that are "one of a kind" but didn't have any influence, like Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955), Moulin Rouge (Huston, 1952), The Pumpkin Eater (Clayton, 1964) or The Americanization of Emily (Hiller, 1964) are not mentioned.

Intolerance (Griffith, 1916)
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1919)
Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler Parts I & II (Lang, 1921-1922): Grand-daddy of all adventure-action flicks and blueprint for all commercial cinema to this day. All of Lang's narrative devices were workshopped here.
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925): Marvels of editing
- 1927: Advent of sound film (various methods, sound-on-film winning out in the end.) -
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927): Special effects at the service of supreme and simply human story-telling:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JQxhQsNKJek"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JQxhQsNKJek" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Napoléon** (Gance, 1927): First commercial use of 3-screen process. Silent film at its most expressive, grandiose and romantic. Complete film: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?doc...HNhLXZBg&hl=fr

Blood of a Poet (Cocteau, 1930): Surrealist art film

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-jr_AAuMX2s&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-jr_AAuMX2s&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930): A film that says everything there is to know about war and gave other directors the courage to keep on saying it.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Vl5g-REdI-w&hl=fr&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Vl5g-REdI-w&hl=fr&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Love Me Tonight (Mamoulian, 1932): Sound film (musical, actually) that brought back the freedom of movement that the camera had known in the silent era. This is a tie-in with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (also by Mamoulian and also from 1932) and Le Million (René Clair, 1931), also a musical. The film opens with a revolutionary "symphony of sound" and includes this incredible sequence:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uuPBgt5PxWM&hl=en"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uuPBgt5PxWM&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

King Kong (Cooper & Shoedsack, 1933) - Arguably the first talking feature film with a psychological/descriptive/atmospheric/source music original film score (by Max Steiner); advances in stop-motion animation.
L'Atalante (Vigo, 1934): Poetic realism starts here.

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xv8DNfiVkWs"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xv8DNfiVkWs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Becky Sharp (Mamoulian, 1935): First commercial 3-strip Technicolor feature film.
Show Boat** (Whale, 1936): Includes what is possibly the first true music video - where the images are different than just the performer singing.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/I_5qON6LY1c&hl=fr"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/I_5qON6LY1c&hl=fr" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>>

Snow White (Disney, 1937): First feature-length animation film.
Pepe le Moko (Duvivier, 1937): The first film noir.

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/T-1D_DbLb6I"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/T-1D_DbLb6I" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Night Must Fall (Richard Thorpe, 1937)**: Offbeat little MGM murder thriller with great acting (the US actors actually make an effort to sound British), great pacing, a great music score (by the almost forgotten Edward Ward) and lots of suspense, based on an Emlyn Williams hit play. In spite of its staginess and theatricality (yes, there is a difference between the two), it is before its time for bringing adult themes and deep motivational analysis to film narrative, a lesson that wouldn't be lost on the later Hitchcock and a host of film noir and horror directors and writers on both sides of the pond. It probably only got made in the first place because to Americans, anything British is considered "quaint" and therefore acceptable - even when it almost gets away with murder. Still, with its preoccupation with questions of social class and the slightest hint of a happy end, it must have been quite a shock to the system for the British moviegoing public.

Marie Antoinette (Van Dyke, 1938): Ground-breaking, monumental epic manages to be both romantic and factual; makes Gone With the Wind look like an episode of "General Hospital".

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kbm_ZUx-zgw"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kbm_ZUx-zgw" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Hôtel du Nord ** (Marcel Carné, 1938): A highly influential "poetic realism"-school film that is not yet available on DVD but whose reputation has kept growing over the last 10 years. There had been studio recreations of street scenes before but never to that extent. All the sets are fake though photo-realist recreations of a real street, hotel and canal in Paris. The cast is stellar (Louis Jouvet, Arletty, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Bernard Blier, Andrex, François Perier and the Carné regulars ) and includes "the most beautiful woman in the world", Annabella (Errol Flynn's main squeeze and the future Mrs. Tyrone Power), who could also act.

Annabella: As she made her film debut in Napoléon, she is also the only actor to have starred in two films on this list, except for Irene Dunne (Show Boat and I Remember Mama).

Faux-popular music by Maurice Jaubert. Extremely fluid camera work, brilliant dialog, a story of doomed and redempted love that is also prescient of France's defeatist attitude. The film that gave us "atmosphère", the most famous tough-guy line in French cinema, and also the ambience that stays with the viewer forever... This was seven years before Children of Paradise.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jxNQvurCqFo"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jxNQvurCqFo" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939) and The Thief of Bagdad (Powell, Korda, et al., 1940): Epoch-making advances in SFX in fantasy-themed and musical film.
Gone With the Wind (Fleming, Cukor, Wood, 1939): First Technicolor film using a more sensitive stock allowing the actors not to perspire their life away under the torrid studio lights.
Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939): Free-form narrative, improvisation-like acting and social commentary united in a way that would inspire countless other directors, including Robert Altman.
The Letter (Wyler, 1940): For sheer technical brilliance.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2W95DOLqN3Q&hl=fr"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2W95DOLqN3Q&hl=fr" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

See also: http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=TdjEKGSuCMA

Fantasia (Disney, 1940): First feature with stereo sound, "Fantasound" (actually 4 discrete optical tracks on an interlocking film, left, centre, right and surround)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941): Narrative brilliance.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Fleming, 1941): Creepy!
Saboteur (Hitchcock, 1942): Model for the modern-day action film.
Ossessione (Visconti, 1943): This is the second film adaptation of James Cain's "The Postman Always Rings Twice". The first was French (Le Dernier Tournant, Pierre Chenal, 1939). Although never shown in America for copyright reasons, this wondrous confluence of adult themes, film noir and neo-realism had a great influence worldwide. Its realism sowed the seeds of discontent in Hollywood and it wouldn't be long before actors like Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift drifted towards Europe for meatier, more interesting material. Hollywood's attempt to reform itself, however, with "profound and daring" films like Desire Me (uncredited, 1947) failed miserably. It's fair to say that if it hadn't been for a more relaxed attitude towards censorship, widescreen movies and TV in the fifties, Hollywood would have gone bankrupt for good. Even a slick adaptation like The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946) looks as Hollywood-artificial as Lana Turner's push-up bra and hair colour by comparison.

*********************************
INTERMISSION
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Hello, Dolly! (Gene Kelly, choreography by Michael Kidd, 1969)
It suddenly dawned on me that Hello, Dolly! was largely unrecognized as the last and possibly the greatest achievement in movie musicals of the last century, using modern technical advances in the staging and photography of a traditional musical, before the genre almost disappeared.

*********************************

- 1972: Coppola Era Begins: The Godfather, a Mafia soap-opera (with dismemberments) makes graphic criminal violence into the dominant theme of all popular American cinema to come. -
- 1977: Star Wars Era Begins: 5.1 surround sound becomes the new standard. Computer-tracking of SFX shots. Marks the start of the tyranny of the dumbed-down CGI-heavy, action-adventure-comicbook films/sequels aimed squarely at the young 'uns and the reign of the summer blockbuster which stills controls the industry.
- 1977: The first VHS VCR for home use, the VBT200, is released. Home theatre will eventually provide better sound quality than is found in most movie houses. Uninterrupted and uncut, non-current films (and hardcore porno films) become readily accessible to home viewers everywhere. -
Halloween (Carpenter, 1978): Widely imitated and influential "slasher" film: the female victim fights back!

Tess (Polanski, 1979): Extreme technical brilliance.

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Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott): State-of-the-art science-fiction at the service of tragic poetry. Frankenstein's monster recites Hamlet:

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It never fails to amaze me (or then again, maybe not) that Roger Ebert, the Big Caca* from Winnetka, didn't see its greatness.

Dig the nerds:

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Bram Stoker's Dracula (Coppola, 1992): Widely imitated camera moves and editing techniques.
C'est arrivé près de chez vous/Man Bites Dog (Poelvoorde, Belvaux, Bonzel, 1992): A documentary camera crew follows an oaf of a serial killer around, gradually partaking in his crimes. It's a comedy that pokes the wind out of violence and sadism on the screen and the complicity of the media in our age of overwhelming violence. It's as if a Godard film actually made sense... A 1992 Belgian B&W student film by and starring Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux and André Bonzel, it not only predicted the onslaught of reality TV but also prophesized, satirized, pre-empted and nullified the ultra-violent, crime-glorifying sagas to come, like all of Tarantino's films, Natural Born Killers and Irreversible - with a little Blair Witch Project thrown in for good measure. (It's in the Criterion Collection.)

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Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993): Notable advances in CGI animation.
Toy Story (Lasseter, 1995): First all-CGI animation feature.
The Fifth Element (Besson, 1997): Star Wars's technology at the service of a truly brilliant and original sci-fi comedy where Feydeau meets George Bernard Shaw meets Preston Sturges meets Tex Avery.

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Vidock (Pitof, 2001): First entirely digital feature film, ahead of Star Wars: Episode II. Pitof, who had been Jean-Pierre Alien Resurrection Jeunet's artistic director also directed Catwoman, by the way...

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Le Pacte des Loups / Brotherhood of the Wolf (Christophe Gans, 2001) : On top of exquisitely fine photography, special effects, editing, lighting, direction, music, art direction, acting, etc., this ambitious, period adventure-mystery-horror hybrid has a perpetually moving camera for 98 % of its running time creating hallucinating 3D effects. The only time the camera is still is when the hero discusses the intricacies of the case and argues with the King's representatives. This free and generous use of the steadycam - which really originates in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) or Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968) before that - has had a major influence on every important atmospheric horror or action film made since.

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American Splendor (Berman & Pulcini, 2003)***

For sheer narrative brilliance and advances in the art of characterization as well as computer animation:
The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004) ***
Ratatouille (Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava, 2007) ***

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Wall-E **(Andrew Stanton, 2008) ***

* "Caca" stands for Chicago Authority on Cinematic Art. You'd think that after penning the script to the immortal Return to the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979), Ebert would have been impressed by something more than the squad cars in Blade Runner...
** Not yet available on DVD in Region 1. Napoléon has never been successfully transferred on anamorphic for widescreen DVD, necessary for its "triptych" finale. Los Olvidados is forever on the horizon, probably from Koch Lorber, who owns the best restored print. Show Boat is available on laserdisc, VHS and on youtube.
***These last films are the only ones I could think of that showed any originality in narration in the past four years or so, IMHO.

Last edited by baracine; 02-27-09 at 07:31 AM.

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07-22-08 | 08:43 PM

#160

baracine

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I've added Night Must Fall (1937) to the preceding list. Yes, it was playing on TCM tonight...

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09-28-08 | 12:48 PM

#161

baracine

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I've added All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), a film that says everything there is to say about war and that gave other directors the courage to keep on saying it.

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09-28-08 | 02:05 PM

#162

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This list is one of the deepest and most thought out posts I have ever seen on DVDTalk. Well done overall and I appreciate the respect for Brotherhood the Wolf.

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09-28-08 | 02:28 PM

#163

baracine

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ardathbey

This list is one of the deepest and most thought out posts I have ever seen on DVDTalk. Well done overall and I appreciate the respect for Brotherhood the Wolf.

Thank you. It's been years in the making. As nobody ever posts compliments on dvdtalk anymore, I will treasure this one.