Ingmar Bergman vs. The World

Ingmar Bergman was a complex man. He spent a lifetime making emotionally and philosophically complex films. That Bergman was one of the harshest critics of his own films is simply part of his neuroses. You may not be aware, but you should not be surprised, that Bergman was equally harsh on other famous filmmakers in his lifetime. There are some quotes out there from Bergman, regarding other famous arthouse directors, that come across like two divas fighting on a runway. And yet, he also gave effusive praise to other filmmakers. It’s fascinating. Here’s some of what Bergman said about other directors. First, the negatives.

Truffaut with a Hitchcock Candy Shell: Brief Thoughts about The Bride Wore Black

How fitting that the fourth non-new release movie that I’d see on the big screen this year would be a François Truffaut film, The Bride Wore Black (1968), just three days before Truffaut’s birthday. I didn’t have a notebook so I didn’t particularly jot down enough for a full review. But there are several thoughts I’d like to share about the film.

Re-Watchterpiece Theater: Psycho (1960)

Re-Watchterpiece Theater is a series that explores the organic way that attitudes about films change after you watch them a second time, a third time, or more, further down the line than the original viewing. I recently discovered a really incredible theater in my area that specializes in showing the classics. This month, they’ve dedicated a weekend to a few Alfred Hitchcock films. Included was a midnight showing of his thriller/horror classic, Psycho (1960), a film which I’ve seen several times, but never on the big screen. It feels odd to say so, but spoilers follow if you’ve never seen the movie. 

The Intersection of Freud and Teddy Roosevelt: Brief Thoughts about North by Northwest (1959)

After a few months of blathering on and on about seeing more classic films on the big screen, my first chance came earlier this week when a local theater was showing Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) rather fortuitously on my day off from work. It was the first in a list that I hope swells to 15 to 25 classic films seen on the big screen in 2012. I’m not sure that I have enough to say about it to write a proper review or even a Re-Watchterpiece Theater (since I’ve seen the movie before), but I do have several thoughts I’d like to share about it.

The Big Fat List of Directors I Don’t Talk About Enough

I love talking about movies. So do you. Why else would you be here? In the discussion process, it’s very easy to become enthusiastic about certain directors and their films. And the unfortunate byproduct of the genius of these various directors is that it’s easy to fixate on them, often at the detriment of other moviemakers who have plied their craft with similarly deft touches. If you’re a regular reader, you’ve seen at least a few articles about Ingmar Bergman, Buster Keaton, Louis Malle, Luis Buñuel, Martin Scorsese, Edgar Wright, and the Coen brothers. But there is a humongous list of other directors that I love just as much, if not more, than many of the names on that list. Here’s a list of directors that I don’t write about nearly enough.

The Black Sheep of Director Filmographies

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The majority of film directors have a unique style, an imprint that they place on all of their films. It can be something as significant as David Lynch’s surrealism or something as minor as Quentin Tarantino’s car trunk POV shots. A large part of the fun that I have in watching movies is seeing a director’s style develop, recognizing what they’re doing, and seeing the patterns when they do these things again and again. However, there are occasions where directors have films that break from their own conventions. They create something entirely different. They create a black sheep, as it were. These are films that stand out (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse) in their catalogue. Here are several examples:

Director: Robert Altman
Film: Secret Honor (1984)
First and foremost, Robert Altman is known for drowning his viewers in overlapping dialogue. His characters all speak all at once. It’s quite an immersive feature for the viewer. Some may find it distracting. Personally, I find that it makes me feel like I’m in the room with his characters. You find it all over the place in Altman’s movies. Imagine my surprise when I watched Secret Honor, a movie that featured only one character (a fictionalized Richard Nixon) and his endless monologue. It’s a credit to Altman that the film works so well. It’s also a testament to the film’s sole actor, Philip Baker Hall.

Movie Infographics

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A Fab Five of Director’s Acting Troupes

I’ve been (re)watching a lot of Joel and Ethan Coen’s work lately. It started as prep work to get me in the mood for True Grit and spiraled out of control because of how much I thoroughly enjoy their work (more on this in later entries). One thing that’s unmistakeable- there’s a whole armada of actors that they work with time and time again, a troupe as it were. Plenty of other directors work with a lot of familiar actors. Here’s a Fab Five. I’m working off of a definition that these people had to have collaborated on three films or more.

In defense of “Shutter Island”

I’ve seen an awful lot of critics and movie-goers hammering away at “Shutter Island”, and it bugs me. Some of what I’m about to say was covered in great detail by Peter Hall at Horror’s Not Dead:

http://horrorsnotdead.com/wpress/2010/shutter-island-review-warning-spoilery-talk-follows-the-first-paragraph/

(excellent site, by the way- a must-visit for horror fans). Here’s why “Shutter Island” is horribly underrated (here thar be spoilers):