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the night watchman
Studio Exec
Joined: 27 Jun 2003
Posts: 1373
Location: Dark, run-down shack by the graveyard.
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 Posted: 03.11.2004 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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Swank list, Fred. I still haven't seen The Tenant yet. How's it compare to Polanski's other forays into horror?
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"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."
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The Third M?n
Studio Exec
Joined: 09 Sep 2003
Posts: 575
Location: Chasing Stef around post-war Vienna
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| Posted: 03.11.2004 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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| I agree; very, very fine list. |
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Fred C. Dobbs
Director
Joined: 11 Mar 2004
Posts: 201
Location: New York
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| Posted: 03.12.2004 12:56 am Post subject: |
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| the night watchman wrote: | | Swank list, Fred. I still haven't seen The Tenant yet. How's it compare to Polanski's other forays into horror? |
Oh, The Tenant is quality! It's a little slow (not be confused with boring) but it's worth it at the end. Really makes you think! The DVD is cheap, too. $9.99! 
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beltmann
Studio Exec
Joined: 26 Jun 2003
Posts: 2341
Location: West Bend, WI
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| Posted: 03.12.2004 1:06 am Post subject: |
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I agree about The Tenant, although I wouldn't describe it as slow (deliberate perhaps). For me, what has lingered is how the apartment building oozes a sense of menace, a creepy, palpable malevolence--when Polanski, exploring his new space, pulls aside furniture to find in the wall a hole containing a human tooth, it just seems a natural part of the building's organic body. Eventually we realize that the tenant has lost his mind to paranoia, and the film's funny, unexplained surrealism becomes very effective; it's a bit like watching a film co-directed by Polanski and David Lynch. Very dark, very compelling, and while I don't consider it the equal of Rosemary's Baby, it remains one of my favorite Polanski pictures.
Speaking of Polanski, I'm still waiting to hear whether anyone has seen Bitter Moon. Anyone anyone?
Eric |
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beltmann
Studio Exec
Joined: 26 Jun 2003
Posts: 2341
Location: West Bend, WI
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| Posted: 03.12.2004 1:18 am Post subject: |
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Welcome, Fred! Excellent choices, by the way. Your list contains many of my personal favorites too: Freaks; Treasure of the Sierra Madre; Night of the Hunter; Citizen Kane; Sunset Blvd.; Taxi Driver; and especially Murnau's Sunrise, which I might admit I'm obsessed with. Speaking of Kane, TCM showed it last week and I got sucked into the circular narrative all over again. I just meant to watch the opening newsreel, and before I knew it the movie was nearly over. I've probably seen that film at least 15 times, and it keeps getting better. I truly love it.
Interesting choice with The Unknown. (I'm assuming you mean the Browning?) It doesn't quite rank among my very favorite silents, but I still adore how sick it is: When Crawford confesses she can't stand the touch of male hands, Alonzo plots to have his arms surgically removed; when he returns from the secret operation, he learns Crawford has fallen for another. At that moment, the look on Chaney's face--the commingling of despair, hysteria, and rage--is simply brilliant acting. And the climax, involving a man about to be torn apart by horses, is expert suspense.
Eric |
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Fred C. Dobbs
Director
Joined: 11 Mar 2004
Posts: 201
Location: New York
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| Posted: 03.12.2004 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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| beltmann wrote: | Welcome, Fred! Excellent choices, by the way. Your list contains many of my personal favorites too: Freaks; Treasure of the Sierra Madre; Night of the Hunter; Citizen Kane; Sunset Blvd.; Taxi Driver; and especially Murnau's Sunrise, which I might admit I'm obsessed with. Speaking of Kane, TCM showed it last week and I got sucked into the circular narrative all over again. I just meant to watch the opening newsreel, and before I knew it the movie was nearly over. I've probably seen that film at least 15 times, and it keeps getting better. I truly love it.
Interesting choice with The Unknown. (I'm assuming you mean the Browning?) It doesn't quite rank among my very favorite silents, but I still adore how sick it is: When Crawford confesses she can't stand the touch of male hands, Alonzo plots to have his arms surgically removed; when he returns from the secret operation, he learns Crawford has fallen for another. At that moment, the look on Chaney's face--the commingling of despair, hysteria, and rage--is simply brilliant acting. And the climax, involving a man about to be torn apart by horses, is expert suspense.
Eric |
Thanks, Eric! There's a very long story to why Freaks (1932) is my favorite film of all-time, but this is another story for another day. 
The Unknown is a personal favorite of mine, but what really all ties it together is Chaney's acting. I've never seen anything like it! Chaney's raw emotion is extraordinary to say the least! One of my favorite scenes is when Chaney goes to light his cigarette, but he uses his feet instead of his hands. As Michael Blake noted in the commentary on the DVD, the scene where Chaney realizes Nanon is getting married to someone else and goes into hysterics...that's brilliant.
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beltmann
Studio Exec
Joined: 26 Jun 2003
Posts: 2341
Location: West Bend, WI
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| Posted: 03.12.2004 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, Chaney's physical dexterity in the picture is mesmerizing.
| Fred C. Dobbs wrote: | | There's a very long story to why Freaks (1932) is my favorite film of all-time, but this is another story for another day. |
I like suspense in a darkened theatre, Fred, but not in real life. Give it up! You're among friends. 
Eric |
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Kenji
Key Grip
Joined: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 29
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| Posted: 12.11.2004 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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FILMS
Sansho the Bailiff- Mizoguchi
Andrei Rublev- Tarkovsky
Paris Texas- Wenders
Mirror- Tarkovsky
2001: A Space Odyssey- Kubrick
L'Avventura- Antonioni
Maborosi- Kore-eda
The Green Ray- Rohmer
Sunrise- Murnau
North by Northwest- Hitchcock
MUSIC
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy- Elton John
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road- Elton John
Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
2nd Symphony- Sibelius
O.K. Computer- Radiohead
My Way: The Best of Frank Sinatra
Tumbleweed Connection- Elton John
Concierto de Aranjuez- Rodrigo
La Boheme- Puccini
1967-70- The Beatles
BOOKS
The Wind in the Willows- Grahame
The Little Prince- St Exup?ry
House of the Spirits- Allende
The Pillow Book- Sei Shonagon
Jacques le Fataliste- Diderot
Tom Jones- Fielding
Life of Pi- Martel
Master and Margarita- Bulgakov
Nature Diary- Opal Whiteley
Manon Lescaut- Pr?vost |
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