I have never watched a PTA film. His fanbois in the '90s were so obnoxious that I refused, then NPR embraced him as a genius, and then he made One Leftist Cliche After Another. I'm sure he's made good films, but my tastes run more toward exploitation trash whose makers never could afford pretension.
Thanks. This is completely new grounds for me. I've seen one Giallo film in my entire life but usually watch arthouse or classic films, or modern films from select good directors or A24 films. Honestly I didn't know what an exploitation film is, I thought maybe it's about lower class people. I'm not sure I'm going to watch these as there are a lot of movies on my list already.
Interestingly, I am just starting to explore giallo myself. I strongly recommend Lucio Fulci's The Psychic.
Exploitation films are films that exploit some aspect that audiences will be interested in, like sex or violence. The line between exploitation and "legitimate" film started to get blurred in the '70s when Hollywood realized just how much money they could make by doing exploitation with a real budget. Jaws, for example, was noted by Spielberg as being basically a Roger Corman monster movie.
Godard made a few good movies --- Breathless,Pierrot le Fou,Alphaville, and Contempt --- and is undeniably influential, but his devotion to communism leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I like Truffaut better, both as a human being and as a filmmaker. But the New Wave is something I'm only slightly familiar with, probably because it was treated with such idolatry when I was in film school. I have a copy of Last Year at Marienbad which I still haven't watched (but was talked up to me by more than one person whose taste I trust), and I have The Umbrellas of Cherborg on my to-watch list, but it's ground that's been very well trodden by snide academics, and I generally prefer to find the sorts of things they look down their noses at. Personal quirk, I guess.
The thing is that my approach is completely the opposite. I'm interested in authenticity. Raw, personal stories. I avoid blockbusters both old and new. Gone With the Wind isn't on my to watch list. So this is probably why I only watched one Giallo movie. The only kind of exploitation I can stand is the night flick that has produced many cult movies. I still want to watch El Topo.
The Godard films you mentioned don't really preach communism, right? He had a Maoist period after Alphaville. Those are the movies that don't really get recommended, and even Reddit agrees that he lost his mind then. Maybe Histoire(s) du Cinema is his only lauded movie where his political views can get in the way. I'm not sure as I haven't watched it yet. I don't need to like the director as a person so perhaps that's the difference. I don't even listen to interviews with directors. I'm only interested in their work which I approach blindly.
The French name for Contempt is Le Mepris by the way. There should be an accent on the e but I don't have compose keys setup here.
I'm seconding the recommendation of Last Year at Marienbad. It's one of those movies you watch for its vibe. Not a whole lot happens in the film, it walks you through a story at a very easy pace but damn is it hypnotic. An obscure fact is that the cinematography of this movie served as inspiration for The Shining. It's like there's a secret chain of influence that exists separately from other movies: 1960s = Marienbad + Carnival of Souls -> The Shining (1985) -> Inland Empire (2006). I know many movies reference The Shining, but I'm not sure it influenced cinema in a structural way.
Jess Franco and Jean Rollin were both intensely personal filmmakers. As one person who knew him put it, every time Franco had a choice between more money, or more freedom, he chose more freedom. In the 1980s he was shooting films in a week or two, with a cast of six or seven and a crew of three or four. It's that kind of thing I look for. An analog from literature might be Raymond Chandler, who published in the mystery pulps because he didn't want to bother with "importance", he wanted to write.
Godard's ideology informed his films even when he wasn't being overtly preachy. The never-ending tracking shot in Weekend was supposed to be a blow against the bourgoisie, somehow, for example. (Maybe because expecting a plot, a story, or entertainment is "bourgeois".) He made Le Chinoise in the late 1960s (after the government-induced famine of the Great Leap Forward), and Film Socialisme a few years ago, so it's not like he ever dropped it, even if he wasn't overtly preaching all of the time.
"...I'm not sure it influenced cinema in a structural way."
I'm going to spot you this one. This kind of talk either bores or irritates me (or both) and has since film school. I knew one guy who literally told me: "Plot? Pfft. It's been done." as if that made him superior to filmmakers who could construct a solid plot. (Spoilers: Nobody's ever heard of him now decades later; while plot maestros the Coen brothers remain beloved by film snobs and cineastes alike.) "I'm not going to make regular movies, I am so special that I will change the structure of Cinema Itself, forever!" is braggadocio that impresses midwits who want to be intellectuals.
That out of the way, in response to what you actually did say:
One, you would have to convince me that influencing cinema in a structural way is somehow a good thing on its face. I can name several ways that American cinema, at least, has changed in a structural way in the past twenty-thirty years that are, in fact, very bad. Hollywood used to have the institutional knowledge to know what a good, well-structured screenplay was. They also used to have a more rational business model that was built on mid-budget pictures, and now it's all megabudget tentpoles and virtually nothing else. And the ability to make genre pictures seems to have been lost. When was the last decent romantic comedy? They used to be released just about monthly. When was the last solid thriller that had even the slightest connection to reality? Movies like Witness and Malice and Dead Again and Presumed Innocent were regular options not that long ago, now that sort of thing is gone, or turned into excruciatingly paced and preachy streaming series.
But, again, I know that's not what you mean. So...
Two, The Shining has had a massive and world-wide influence, to the point that there are visual quotes of it in Kung Fu Hustle, of all things. If its influence or the change its influence has wrought is less obvious than, say, that of Citizen Kane, it did do one thing that every horror filmmaker since has, at least, noticed, if not embraced.
Kubrick deliberately denied himself the visual tools that all horror films that preceded him had established, and invented an entirely new visual vocabulary for horror. The Shining has no chiarascuro shadows nor any of the other visual hallmarks of horror. It's bright, snow-gleaming even at night, has no spring-loaded cats for cheap jump scares (the only moment that's even close is when Jack kisses the naked woman and she transforms into an old crone in his arms), none of the tropes or tools that horror had traded in for most of a century.
So The Shining created an entirely new toolset for the horror genre, and while it did not cause filmmakers to throw away the old tools, they have taken to using the new ones, too. Seems pretty structural to me, though not in a "change everything" way.
I hope you won't take any of my arguing as ill-intended. Just sharing thoughts your comments sparked.
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Clip from There Will Be Blood (2007) which I highly recommend.
@chakwit @JasonCarswell @RickSanchez
I have never watched a PTA film. His fanbois in the '90s were so obnoxious that I refused, then NPR embraced him as a genius, and then he made One Leftist Cliche After Another. I'm sure he's made good films, but my tastes run more toward exploitation trash whose makers never could afford pretension.
You got examples of that?
Thanks. This is completely new grounds for me. I've seen one Giallo film in my entire life but usually watch arthouse or classic films, or modern films from select good directors or A24 films. Honestly I didn't know what an exploitation film is, I thought maybe it's about lower class people. I'm not sure I'm going to watch these as there are a lot of movies on my list already.
What else do you like? Godard films perchance?
Interestingly, I am just starting to explore giallo myself. I strongly recommend Lucio Fulci's The Psychic.
Exploitation films are films that exploit some aspect that audiences will be interested in, like sex or violence. The line between exploitation and "legitimate" film started to get blurred in the '70s when Hollywood realized just how much money they could make by doing exploitation with a real budget. Jaws, for example, was noted by Spielberg as being basically a Roger Corman monster movie.
Godard made a few good movies --- Breathless, Pierrot le Fou, Alphaville, and Contempt --- and is undeniably influential, but his devotion to communism leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I like Truffaut better, both as a human being and as a filmmaker. But the New Wave is something I'm only slightly familiar with, probably because it was treated with such idolatry when I was in film school. I have a copy of Last Year at Marienbad which I still haven't watched (but was talked up to me by more than one person whose taste I trust), and I have The Umbrellas of Cherborg on my to-watch list, but it's ground that's been very well trodden by snide academics, and I generally prefer to find the sorts of things they look down their noses at. Personal quirk, I guess.
The thing is that my approach is completely the opposite. I'm interested in authenticity. Raw, personal stories. I avoid blockbusters both old and new. Gone With the Wind isn't on my to watch list. So this is probably why I only watched one Giallo movie. The only kind of exploitation I can stand is the night flick that has produced many cult movies. I still want to watch El Topo.
The Godard films you mentioned don't really preach communism, right? He had a Maoist period after Alphaville. Those are the movies that don't really get recommended, and even Reddit agrees that he lost his mind then. Maybe Histoire(s) du Cinema is his only lauded movie where his political views can get in the way. I'm not sure as I haven't watched it yet. I don't need to like the director as a person so perhaps that's the difference. I don't even listen to interviews with directors. I'm only interested in their work which I approach blindly.
The French name for Contempt is Le Mepris by the way. There should be an accent on the e but I don't have compose keys setup here.
I'm seconding the recommendation of Last Year at Marienbad. It's one of those movies you watch for its vibe. Not a whole lot happens in the film, it walks you through a story at a very easy pace but damn is it hypnotic. An obscure fact is that the cinematography of this movie served as inspiration for The Shining. It's like there's a secret chain of influence that exists separately from other movies: 1960s = Marienbad + Carnival of Souls -> The Shining (1985) -> Inland Empire (2006). I know many movies reference The Shining, but I'm not sure it influenced cinema in a structural way.
@JasonCarswell
Jess Franco and Jean Rollin were both intensely personal filmmakers. As one person who knew him put it, every time Franco had a choice between more money, or more freedom, he chose more freedom. In the 1980s he was shooting films in a week or two, with a cast of six or seven and a crew of three or four. It's that kind of thing I look for. An analog from literature might be Raymond Chandler, who published in the mystery pulps because he didn't want to bother with "importance", he wanted to write.
Godard's ideology informed his films even when he wasn't being overtly preachy. The never-ending tracking shot in Weekend was supposed to be a blow against the bourgoisie, somehow, for example. (Maybe because expecting a plot, a story, or entertainment is "bourgeois".) He made Le Chinoise in the late 1960s (after the government-induced famine of the Great Leap Forward), and Film Socialisme a few years ago, so it's not like he ever dropped it, even if he wasn't overtly preaching all of the time.
"...I'm not sure it influenced cinema in a structural way."
I'm going to spot you this one. This kind of talk either bores or irritates me (or both) and has since film school. I knew one guy who literally told me: "Plot? Pfft. It's been done." as if that made him superior to filmmakers who could construct a solid plot. (Spoilers: Nobody's ever heard of him now decades later; while plot maestros the Coen brothers remain beloved by film snobs and cineastes alike.) "I'm not going to make regular movies, I am so special that I will change the structure of Cinema Itself, forever!" is braggadocio that impresses midwits who want to be intellectuals.
That out of the way, in response to what you actually did say:
One, you would have to convince me that influencing cinema in a structural way is somehow a good thing on its face. I can name several ways that American cinema, at least, has changed in a structural way in the past twenty-thirty years that are, in fact, very bad. Hollywood used to have the institutional knowledge to know what a good, well-structured screenplay was. They also used to have a more rational business model that was built on mid-budget pictures, and now it's all megabudget tentpoles and virtually nothing else. And the ability to make genre pictures seems to have been lost. When was the last decent romantic comedy? They used to be released just about monthly. When was the last solid thriller that had even the slightest connection to reality? Movies like Witness and Malice and Dead Again and Presumed Innocent were regular options not that long ago, now that sort of thing is gone, or turned into excruciatingly paced and preachy streaming series.
But, again, I know that's not what you mean. So...
Two, The Shining has had a massive and world-wide influence, to the point that there are visual quotes of it in Kung Fu Hustle, of all things. If its influence or the change its influence has wrought is less obvious than, say, that of Citizen Kane, it did do one thing that every horror filmmaker since has, at least, noticed, if not embraced.
Kubrick deliberately denied himself the visual tools that all horror films that preceded him had established, and invented an entirely new visual vocabulary for horror. The Shining has no chiarascuro shadows nor any of the other visual hallmarks of horror. It's bright, snow-gleaming even at night, has no spring-loaded cats for cheap jump scares (the only moment that's even close is when Jack kisses the naked woman and she transforms into an old crone in his arms), none of the tropes or tools that horror had traded in for most of a century.
So The Shining created an entirely new toolset for the horror genre, and while it did not cause filmmakers to throw away the old tools, they have taken to using the new ones, too. Seems pretty structural to me, though not in a "change everything" way.
I hope you won't take any of my arguing as ill-intended. Just sharing thoughts your comments sparked.
Daniel day Lewis, gotta admit, great actor