Other random tunes...

Here's a sampling of a few of the things currently making the rounds on my computer (my 2011 version of a stereo):

Run DMC - Beats to the Rhyme
Keith Jarrett - Koln Concert
Thelonious Monk - Well, You Needn't (hang in there for Blakey's drum solo)
Duke Ellington - Caravan
MC Lyte - Cappuchino
Georges Delerue - Theme de Camille
GZA - Shadowboxing

All seven tunes can be heard on Youtube.

1967: La Collectionneuse (Eric Rohmer)

1967: La Collectionneuse (Eric Rohmer)
The funny thing about a list like this is that it somewhat misrepresents my favorite films.  Some years contain three of my all time favorites while others are simply my favorite film from that particular year.  For instance, this Rohmer is not even my favorite film from the director. His 1986 film Summer is.  In fact, it's not even in my top three; my next two favorites are My Night at Maud's and Full Moon in Paris.  Yet, I still really love this film and am happy to see it at the top of my list.  I just wanted to clarify before going on.  

I was so sad to hear of Eric Rohmer's passing a couple of months ago. He represented a certain sophistication, elegance, and consistency of output that is becoming more of a rarity with each passing year.  Many people focus on Rohmer's writing and the natural, real quality of the way his characters speak.  I certainly share in that admiration, but what's always most impressed me is Rohmer's ability with actors.  He's simply able to make them seem more real than everyone else.  Sure, much of this stems from the writing, but Rohmer must also create an environment that makes them feel comfortable, then film them in a way that maximizes his goal of dramatizing real life.   

I'm now two paragraphs in and have yet to mention this year's film. Call it a cop out, but I think as much any director that has ever worked in the medium, there's a great similarity to most of Rohmer's films, so much so that it can be hard to remember one from the other.  The things that stand out to me though about this work are the sexiness of Haydee Politoff, the way that Rohmer handles the beautiful countryside location, and most of all, its wonderful, abrupt ending.   

In highlighting the French New Wave, I've already mentioned the playfulness and beauty of many of the films.  One other aspect that I think is somewhat forgotten is the way these directors were able to create some of the best endings in the history of film.  As opposed to many films nowadays, most of the French New Wave films end five minutes earlier than expected and in completely abrupt and unresolved fashion.  La Collectionneuse is no exception and... 

Other contenders for 1967:  I still need to see several titles.  These include:  Jim McBride's David Holzman's Diary, Jacques Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort, Marco Bellocchio's China is Near, Dusan Makavejev's Love Affair; or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator, Miklos Jancso's The Red and the White, and Frantisek Vlacil's Marketa Lazarova.  I need to revisit Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai, Luis Bunuel's Belle de Jour, and Stuart Rosenberg's Cool Hand Luke as it's been too long since I've seen any of them to know where they'd place on this list.  From this year, I really like Monte Hellman's The Shooting, John Boorman's Point Blank, and Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde.  I love Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend, DA Pennebaker's Don't Look Back, and Robert Bresson's Mouchette.  And my closest runner-up is Jean-Luc Godard's La Chinoise.  

6/9/11 I watched Jacques Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort.  Demy definitely has a Technicolor style, wonderful with colors, clothes, sets, and lyrical crane and tracking shots.  But Legrand's music doesn't really do it for me here, and without it, it was hard for me to be completely absorbed by it all.  

6/20/11 I watched Dusan Makavejev's Love Affair; or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator.  Inventive and quite unique in its blending of genres and extreme non-linear narrative.  And some of its sexiness is quite effective.  Overall though more experimental and interesting than fully felt.  

8/26/11 I watched Jim McBride's David Holzman's Diary.  A few very memorable scenes like the conversation with the sex-crazed woman.  But overall, just a little too much ambling and mumbling and not enough lyricism or weight. 

4/20/17 I watched Stanley Donen's Two for the Road.  Unfortunately probably my least favorite movie I have ever seen from a director I greatly admire.  Donen is under the influence of the Nouvelle Vague but this time none of it really seems to work.  

7/25/17 I watched Lewis Gilbert's You Only Live Twice.  A fun, Connery Bond film that really benefits from Asian scenery, a tremendous score and a terrific performance by Pleasance as Blofeld.  

3/11/18 I watched Gordon Douglas' Tony Rome.  I was interested after seeing Douglas' The Detective but found this far inferior.  The most memorable aspect was probably Jill St. John but otherwise pretty messy and unsophisticated.

6/4/18 I watched Frederick Wiseman's Titicut Follies.  Not for the faint of heart, this edgy, unflinching documentary is the debut from the master documentarian Wiseman.  It is more raw, still to this day, than most anything coming out of the American independent cinema.  Wiseman may not be unheralded, but with each of his films, for me his import only grows.  His films get inside their subjects, no less than a Bresson or a Dreyer.  

10/27/18 I watched Jean Rouch's Jaguar.  This one covers very similar territory to Moi, un noir.  The post-dub soundtrack makes for an interesting and unique artifact but was not as impactful for me as some of Rouch's other work.  

6/13/20 I watched Jerzy Skolimowski's Le Depart.  This freewheeling, Nouvelle Vague-type entry with Leaud did very little to keep my attention.  But it did translate the mood of the Nouvelle Vague and its playfulness and youthful drifting.

12/26/21 I watched Mikio Naruse's Scattered Clouds.  It is Naruse's final film and only the third one of his works I have seen.  Naruse continues to intrigue me even though I have yet to fall in love with one of his films.  This one at times reminded me of Sirk's color melodramas and In the Mood for Love with its repetition around a relationship.  Naruse's filmmaking is mostly exquisite, particularly his work with actors and his visual work around wardrobe, framing and set design.  

1/23/22 I watched Jacques Rivette's Jean Renoir le patron.  Not as interesting as some of the other Cineastes de notre temps episodes I have seen.  Most moving is the 2nd part with Michel Simon.  

2/20/22 I watched Lee Man-hui's Homebound.  Not only my first experience with a film by Man-hui but also probably the first Korean film I have seen that came out before 2000.  To summarize it in broad strokes, it feels like a Sirkian melodrama filmed in a more natural New Wave manner.  Yet, Man-hui gives it certain touches that make it distinctive and take it into territory that is neither Sirk nor New Wavish.  I am thinking about some of the ways Man-hui uses sound and music to draw the character of the military husband.  And, the institutional pressures, marriage in this case, feel even more oppressive than we typically experience in one of Sirk's films.          

1965: Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard)

1965: Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard)
When I was a junior in college, I went to France on one of my school's year long programs.  Part of the deal was that the school paid some young French kids to show us around and, in some ways, be our friends.  

One day, another American and I were sitting in a cafe with one of these French "paid friends", a girl (Magali Faventines), and we got to talking about American culture.  Magali asked us to jot down on a piece of paper our three favorite American movies and three favorite American books.  Then we asked if she'd reciprocate by giving us her favorite French titles.  At this point, I can't remember what books she suggested.  But I distinctly remember her going on and on about this one French director, this guy Jean-Luc Godard.  In fact, two of the three titles she listed were Godard films, Breathless and Pierrot le fou.   

I was 20 at the time and could probably count on one hand the number of foreign films I'd seen.  So of course I'd never heard of Godard.   Lucky for me though, I was living in Paris, cinephile mecca, and it just so happened the following week that Pierrot was playing at one of the local theaters.  So I took this girl I was kinda seeing and we set out to learn a little more about this Godard guy. 

When we saw Pierrot, of course it was in French with no English subtitles.  The girl I was with, another American, definitely found it interesting.  I thought it was absolutely mind-blowing.  In fact, it struck me as the most personal, most intelligent, most liberated film I had ever seen.  And really from that point forward, you could certainly make the argument that my life changed.  I became more and more interested in seeking out films like Pierrot.  In fact, that year, I must have easily seen over 100 movies in the theater.  I had found my path.  

I tell this story because it's hard for me to separate the discovery of Pierrot from Pierrot the film. It is easily the film that has had the greatest impact on me and the one that is almost singlehandedly responsible for me becoming a cinephile and filmmaker.  

What do I think about it now?  I still think it's one of the most personal, liberated, and intelligent films I've ever seen.  I also think it's one of the most beautiful, lyrical, playful, romantic, and dangerous.  A friend of mine used to say, he would show each new girlfriend Pierrot, and if they didn't care for it, that was his litmus test that the relationship was doomed.  My wife has never seen it, and it's not for everyone.  But I think it's in a small group of films that has that "Beatles or Velvet Underground power".  In other words, the kind of film that has some rare transformative charge.

If nothing else, see it if you want to see "passion on fire".  It's not every day the opportunity comes around.  

Other contenders for 1965:   I still have quite a few things to see. These include:  Luis Bunuel's Simon of the Desert, Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee, Marco Bellocchio's Fists in the Pocket, Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More, William Wyler's The Collector, Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker, Ousmane Sembene's Black Girl, Jerzy Skolimowski's Walkover, Milos Forman's Loves of a Blonde, Wojciech Has' The Saragossa Manuscript, and Miklos Jancso's The Round-Up. It's been too long since I saw Roman Polanski's Repulsion and Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight.  At some point I need to revisit both of them to know where they'd place on this list.  And, although I don't have any close runners-up this year, I do really like Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville and Masculin feminin and Howard Hawks' Red Line 7000.

5/14/11 I watched Milos Forman's Loves of a Blonde.  Forman shows a very effortless style and subtle, unforced humanity.  There's also a good bit of humor.  After awhile though, I found it a little aimless to a fault, but overall, a nice, early work.  

5/19/11 I watched Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker.  A tough, uncompromising film with an incredibly depthful and pained Rod Steiger performance at its core.  The ending seems to defy plot logic though (the police never come into the pawn shop?), and Lumet seems a little too enamored with his cross-cutting flashback technique.  

5/20/11 I watched Wojciech Has' The Saragossa Manuscript.  Offbeat, novelistic, and one of the most labyrinthine narratives I have ever seen. Has seems to have influenced later Bunuel and pulls this extraordinarily tale off in a way that seems so confident and effortless. Not totally my thing, but I have the utmost admiration for the cinematic achievement on display.    

5/22/11 I watched William Wyler's The Collector.  Terence Stamp is absolutely fantastic in the role.  But the movie's too one-note and eventually becomes pretty tiresome.

5/24/11 I watched Ousmane Sembene's Black Girl.  My first experience with Sembene, and on first look, it feels like a cinema under the influence of the Nouvelle Vague.  It has its moments of poetry and lyricism, but some of the acting felt forced, and the the direction a little passionless.  Of interest, but didn't impact me at the level of its reputation.  

6/12/11 I watched Luis Bunuel's Simon of the Desert.  Another irreverent and satiric look at religion from Bunuel. This one definitely experiments in an exciting way Bunuel's continued interest in surrealistic techniques, but as is often the case with his work, his irony and lack of much warmth keep me at a pretty good distance.  

4/12/14 I watched Marco Bellocchio's Fists in the Pocket.  It is an incredibly assured and confident debut film.  The acting is probably what impresses most of all at first glance and then Bellocchio's ability to shift between tones and styles.  It is a grim, nearly nihilistic work that is easy to admire but harder for me to love.  

8/7/17 I watched Terrence Young's Thunderball.  Although not considered the best Connery as Bond film, of all that I have seen so far it is Connery at his most brash, his most handsome and at his toughest.  Yes, it has a bit of a bloated ending but there are so many other great moments that far outweigh its final minutes.  

2/27/18 I watched Agnes Varda's Le Bonheur.  Varda has whimsy and her freewheeling sensibility can sometimes be refreshing.  But this film just feels dated and underwhelming compared to the great New Wave films of the same era.  

10/20/18 I watched Noel Black's Skaterdater.  One of the most powerful shorts I have ever seen.  It captures adolescence and Socal in the mid 60s and renders them as vivid as Lamorisse in The Red Balloon. 

12/28/21 I watched Antonio Pietrangeli's I Knew Her Well.  The film is interesting as a combination of Fellini's La Dolce Vita and Antonioni's urban alienation work from the sixties.  

1/13/22 I watched Jerzy Skolimowski's Walkover.  Skolimowski continues to be a filmmaker that intrigues me.  This is the fourth of his features I have seen, after seeing Le Depart, Moonlighting and Essential Killing.  All four films are incredibly different in their style and subject matter although in each Skolimowski proves he possesses an unusually strong cinematic eye as well as exceptional feel for the effectiveness of a camera capturing movement on film.  Walkover exudes that very New Wave quality of youth meandering through a city trying to find purpose and place.  The final ten minutes, in particular, churn up heaps of cinematic energy and leave the viewer with an outlook on life that powerfully captures a new generation's desire to reject the ways of the past.   

1/14/22 I watched Alexander Mackendrick's A High Wind in Jamaica.  It's a film that sneaks up on you with its unusual treatment of Stockholm syndrome .  Coburn and Quinn are excellent as usual and the performance by young Deborah Baxter is quite affecting.  

7/15/22 I watched Ebrahim Golestan's The Crown Jewels of Iran.  An interesting short that suggests Iran was once a country only interested in accumulating material wealth that has transitioned to placing value on ideas and intellect. 

1963: Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)

1963: Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
I've long considered Paul Schrader the most articulate chronicler of The New Hollywood, that unusually great period for American cinema from approximately 1967-1980.  In much the same way, I've always felt that Jean Douchet, more than anyone else, excelled when it came to looking at The French New Wave.  In his fantastic book, appropriately entitled French New Wave, Douchet makes the following statement:

"This young generation felt that beauty was refracted through goodness and truth, lucidity and struggle, in short, by a spirit of resistance, and that ugliness often prolonged a collaborationist mentality..."

This statement rings especially true for me because when I think about some of my favorite French New Wave films, aside from their infectious playfulness, the thing I love most is their startling beauty.  Take Contempt, for instance, which I consider in the following way:

1.  One of the five most beautiful scores in the history of film.
2.  One of the five most beautiful women, also in the history of film.
3.  One of the five most beautiful color films ever made.
4.  Some of the most beautiful footage of water ever put on film.
5.  And one of the most beautifully perfect endings of any film I've ever seen. 

I think people sometimes forget this aspect of The French New Wave. Sure, there was an emphasis on a certain looseness and a more naturalistic approach.  But that was always at the service of esthetic beauty and lyricism.  And, when it comes to beauty, of all the French New Wave films, I put Contempt right up there at the very top. 

Other contenders for 1963: I have some things I still need to see from this year.  These include:  Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (a bit embarrassed about this one), Luis Garcia Berlanga's El Verdugo, Ingmar Bergman's The Silence, Joseph Losey's The Servant, Robert Wise's The Haunting, Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor, Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor, Alain Resnais' Muriel, Jacques Rozier's Adieu Philippine, and Elia Kazan's America, America.  I haven't seen Peter Brook's Lord of the Flies since we watched it in high school English class.  So I need to revisit it at some point to know where it'd place on this list.  I really like Orson Welles' The Trial and Martin Ritt's Hud.  I love John Sturges' The Great Escape and Stanley Donen's Charade. And my closest runner-up is Luchino Visconti's The Leopard.  

1/5/11 I watched William Asher's Johnny Cool.  It's a worthwhile noir, very obscure, that I was happy to catch.  Henry Silva is fantastic as the titular character.  And the opportunity to see a pre-Bewitched Elizabeth Montgomery is a real treat.  Has a nice naturalism to it and some memorable, raw moments, particularly the bomb in the swimming pool.  

5/12/11 I watched Forough Farrokzad's The House is Black.  This short film has a huge reputation, and I was very glad to see it.  There's a certain poetry in it and an unflinching determination to show leprosy in a non-judging manner.  I admired it, although I can't say I was particularly engrossed in it.  Perhaps I am too uncomfortable with the subject matter.  Whatever the reason, the experience was more one of admiration than feeling.  

5/15/11 I watched Robert Wise's The Haunting.  Did not really do much for me.  I didn't find it terribly atmospheric nor frightening.  But Wise does demonstrate some inventiveness in terms of moving the camera.  

5/17/11 I watched Ingmar Bergman's The Silence.  The first half felt incredibly alive, sexually charged and quite unlike anything else I've seen from Bergman.  But the second half settled into heavy symbolism, Bergman's usual fascination with human pain and suffering, and lost much of its vitality and interest for me.  

6/14/11 I watched Federico Fellini's 8 1/2.  Several of the sequences are absolutely masterful, including the beginning and the ending.  And Fellini certainly shows himself to be one of the most uninhibited filmmakers to ever work in the medium.  But his taste for absurdism keeps me at a distance, and as personal as the film may be, I still find it a bit cold.  

7/15/12 I watched Elia Kazan's America, America.  Although thorough, clearly personal, and more often than not visually stimulating, I also found it uneven and overlong.  I prefer Kazan in more intimate registers.  

5/19/14 I watched Jean-Luc Godard's Les carabiniers.   One of those early Godard films I could not find when I first started getting into JLG and then that I kind of avoided thinking it nearly unwatchable.  Well it is a tough watch.  But it's interesting in its deadpan tone and its unexpected lyricism that emerges at moments.  

11/29/15 I watched Terrence Young's From Russia with Love.  Often considered one of the very best of the Bond films, it is pretty taut and well-conceived.  Personally I found the girl lacking much interest but was fascinated to see Robert Shaw in such an early and strong performance.  

5/24/18 I watched Ermanno Olmi's I Fidanzati.  It is this interesting mix of Antonioni visuals and tone of alienation mixed with Rossellini's feel for the people and the working class.  There are some extraordinary scenes, particularly when Olmi drops out all sound such as when the two main characters are swimming together and along the beach.  But in its entirety it never fully moved me.  

4/7/20 I watched Jean Eustache's Du cote de Robinson.  Interesting more than anything else as an early look at Eustache's style, his interest in his generation and the streets of Paris at the fore.

12/31/20 I watched Adolfas Mekas' Hallelujah The Hills.  As Nouvelle Vague as any American film from the early Sixties I have seen.  It is impressive in its looseness and spirit of deconstruction.  But it is difficult to connect very much to anyone onscreen.

7/15/22 I watched Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures.  I did not see a great print.  But my impressions were that it got a little repetitive after a while.  From a stylistic point of view, it seems to have been a massive influence on Lynch, both in the way he utilizes early rock 'n roll juxtaposed with awkward subject matter (Orbison in Blue Velvet for instance) and the masterful way he plays with frame rate in many of his later works, particularly in a staccato and distortive manner.

10/27/23 I watched Sam Peckinpah's The Dick Powell Theatre "The Losers".  Peckinpah seems under the influence of Zazie and even though there are a couple of great moments it all feels thin and dated compared to what he would go on to achieve.

3/31/24 I watched Pier Paolo Pasolini's La Ricotta.  A film that impresses by Pasolini's instinctive feel for the medium.  He has a lightness of touch even as he gazes and ponders serious political and religious themes.    

1962: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford)

1962: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford)
I have a thing for great directors' later works.  I love Dreyer's Gertrud, Bresson's L'argent, even John Huston's The Dead (and the list could go on).  There's an element of spring cleaning that occurs in these later works.  A director looks at their tools and gets rid of all but the most essential.  

I still have a good many Ford films to see, but I've always felt that Ford could take an unusually "spare" eye to landscape.  Meanwhile, to avoid being too minimal, too abstract, Ford would often counter with frames of hundreds of people conversing, battling, or whatever the film might demand.  Valance is the first of Ford films I have seen that keeps everything from the landscapes to the interiors a little more stripped down.  I like the austerity of it and the uncluttered nature of it all.  

I guess I'm also a formalist since certain stylistic elements of filmmaking can singlehandedly determine whether I care for a film. The way that Ford shoots the titular scene is among the most formally solid and brilliantly executed moments I have ever seen.

I love Ford's humanity in the film, but that's not what I love about Valance the most.  What I truly love here is kicking back with a master director as they share a little of the distilled stuff.  

Other contenders for 1962: I still have a number of things to see from this year.  These include:  Arthur Penn's The Miracle Worker, Blake Edwards' Days of Wine and Roses, Tony Richardson's Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Robert Aldrich's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Forough Farrokhzad's The House Is Black, Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel, Yasujiro Ozu's An Autumn Afternoon, Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light, Alberto Lattuada's Mafioso, Robert Bresson's The Trial of Joan of Arc, J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear, and Robert Mulligan's To Kill a Mockingbird.  At some point, I need to revisit Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country, Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water, and Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Doulos as none of them impacted me on first viewing like I would have expected.  I also need to re-watch Jean Renoir's The Elusive Corporal and John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate as it's been too long since I saw either to know where they'd place on this list.  But I really like Stanley Kubrick's Lolita.  I love David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, Howard Hawks' Hatari!, and Andrei Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood. Meanwhile, my closest runner-up is Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie.


4/26/11 I watched Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light.  Although Bergman's religious obsessions are far from my own chief concerns, I did really connect to the previous film in his trilogy, Through a Glass Darkly.  This one though moved me far less.  It felt heavily talky, visually claustrophobic, and even a bit forced narratively.  Its major reputation was a bit lost on me.  


4/30/11 I watched Arthur Penn's The Miracle Worker.  Heavy and unsettling as it is moving and real.  Patty Duke's performance surely must go down as one of the greatest child performances in the history of the medium.  Penn demonstrates a willingness to take on an extremely difficult subject head-on and to go all the way with it.  Even though cinematically I might have wanted some things done differently, Penn really delivers with the emotional elements.  


5/2/11 I watched Alberto Lattuada's Mafioso.  I've long known this as one of Scorsese's favorites, and it certainly doesn't disappoint.  But it doesn't meet expectations either.  There's far less violence than one would imagine.  The tone more often resembles a vivacious and sunny foreign film than a somber and serious-minded noir.  And Lattuada shows an unexpected assertiveness with his editing, movement of the camera, and ability to juggle different genres.  Lattuada also knows how to make great use of music to heighten the action (the jazz leading up to the barbershop sequence) and has no problem leaving the viewer with a great, big lump in his throat.  


5/3/11 I watched Yasujiro Ozu's An Autumn Afternoon.  Another strong film from Ozu.  Ozu seems like he was such a peaceful person, and his films move in a way that's as soft and gentle as anything I've ever seen in the medium.  This one is not as quite as perfect to me.  A couple of the acting and music cues seem slightly unsubtle.  But it's still a deep, engaged work, this time dealing with the emptiness that follows the marriage of one's children.  

5/9/11 I watched Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.  Dated now and feeling badly disjointed, in the Richard Lester style.  It still holds some power in its Tom Courtenay performance and unexpected ending. 


5/10/11 I watched Robert Mulligan's To Kill a Mockingbird.  There is much to recommend here.  The movie captures the phobias and rather unjustified fears that come with childhood.  It also has a nice, surprising warmth and humanity that explains much of its lasting reputation.  The filmmaking is a bit uninspired, for the most part.  But Bernstein delivers musically a score of real strength and atmosphere.  


5/11/11 I watched Robert Aldrich's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?  Aldrich keeps the drama and intensity wound incredibly tight. And the result is disturbing, but I liked it more than I expected.  There are moments that remind one of Aldrich's ability and that he was able to deliver one of the great noirs, Kiss Me Deadly.


5/24/11 I watched Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel.  I can't say that I necessarily understand all that Bunuel is saying with this one. But nonetheless, I feel comfortable saying it's too claustrophobic, morbid, and lifeless to grab me fully.  

9/21/13 I watched Vincente Minnelli's Two Weeks in Another Town.  So much of the film is mature, daringly dark, modern, and full of interesting feelings about Hollywood.  And maybe the tacked-on happy ending is part of that commentary, but it feels unsatisfying when compared to the rest of work.  Highlights include the incredible elevator shot and what feels like a very subtle use of slo-mo as Douglas, his ex, and her new man ride up together.  

11/10/13 I watched Agnes Varda's Cleo de 5 a 7.  More masterful than I remember from my first viewing more than twenty years ago, Varda's work separates itself from many of the early New Wave films by eschewing genre and delivering a film with a focus entirely on character.  Varda's camera glides and records capturing a realness of faces and of Paris.  And what we are left with is, as a capsule of its time, a film as valuable as Breathless, 400 Blows, and any of the other key Vague work from the early sixties.  

8/2/14 I watched Robert Bresson's Proces de Jeanne d'Arc.  One of the few films by the director that I had never seen and yet another reminder of his brilliance, uniqueness and above all clarity of approach.  Bresson is a master of restraint and finding small stylistic touches that add such interesting rhythm to his work, like the repetition of an eyehole and visitors peering through it to comment on  Joan.  Bresson is the Thelonious Monk of cinema or Monk the Bresson of music.  This work may lack some of the transcendence or full blown poetry of some of Bresson's other films - its subject matter and approach almost prevent it from the latter - but it is still a great film by one of the medium's five or ten greatest practitioners.  

9/21/14 I watched Dino Risi's Il Sorpasso.  It is amazing to step back and see the New Wave for what it was not only in France but as it touched Italy, England, Czech Republic and across the world.  What was it?  It was about championing the young over the old, the free over the responsible, the city over the country and beauty over decay.  This film is a great example of what it looked like in Italy in 1962 even if I still prefer how the French did it and particularly Godard, Truffaut, Demy, Rohmer, Rivette and Chabrol.  

2/9/17 I watched Terrence Young's Dr. No.  Connery looks great and immediately announces himself as one of cinema's most entertaining icons.  But the plot of this one is a little weak and very little of it rises to the level of the very best Bond.  

10/29/17 I watched Jacques Rozier's Adieu Philippine.  I watched a version on YouTube without subtitles so was unable to catch every word.  But, the film feels like the male version of Jules et Jim, or in other words, one male and two females.  I don't know Rozier's cinema yet but if this film is any indication he has the New Wave's keen interest and eye in youth, female beauty and the sea.  

10/27/18 I watched Jean Rouch's La punition.  Rouch stays in the streets of Paris and poetically captures a day in the life of a young Parisian girl during her formative years.  Most interesting are the last five minutes as the film shifts tone and becomes an expressionistic rumination. 

9/7/19 I watched J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear.  The first half was pretty unaffecting but Thompson shows some talent as he builds to the drama of the last thirty or so minutes.  Not top shelf noir in my book but still several great passages that are worth a watch.

3/27/20 I watched Blake Edwards' Experiment in Terror.  Until now, I thought Edwards was a filmmaker who was pretty adept at making light, entertaining trifles.  But this film proves he could also do dark and moody when he set out to.  I could feel the New Wave's influence as Edwards does an extraordinary job capturing authentic San Francisco streets and homes and venues.  An ignored film from this period that deserves a much larger reputation. 

10/24/21 I watched Jean Renoir's Le caporal epingle.  Renoir's second to last feature revisits some of the same subject matter as La Grande Illusion but perhaps due to the Nouvelle Vague's influence takes on a more playful tone.  There are several wonderful scenes and Renoir's ability with actors is very evident but it never comes together fully like some of my favorite work by the French master.  

8/8/22 I watched Eric Rohmer's The Sign of Leo.  What is most striking is how different it feels from most of the rest of his work.  Whereas most of his movies focus on intereaction and long conversations between characters, this film mostly follows one character's greater and greater descent into isolation and despair.  In this way, it feels the most like Italian Neorealism.  I would argue that it's a director still in search of his strengths and his style while others praise it as one of the director's great works.

1/18/23 I rewatched Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country.  Timing is a critical part of appreciating certain works of art.  Sometimes you discover them when you're too young, sometimes when you're too old, and sometimes the timing is just right.  I have probably watched this early Peckinpah western 2 or 3 other times, never quite clicking it with like some of my peers.  But this time it was different.  As can be expected with Peckinpah, it takes you into some dark, uncomfortable places (Elsa's wedding night!)  What's less expected are the final minutes, the depth of humanity of Peckinpah's characters and the weight Peckinpah is finally able to leave you with as he pays tribute to the slow disappearance of a certain kind of man in a certain kind of world.  

1959: Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)

1959: Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)

Restraint, specificity.  Simplicity, cinema distilled.  I understand that Bresson's approach is not for everyone, but I have always gravitated towards things that are spare, spartan, and clean.  Bresson's cinema is like meditation for me.  I enter all clumped and cluttered and exit reminded of what is most essential.


Or imagine being stuck on an island, without food for four or five days. Then, after an excruciating period, someone suddenly shows up with the most appetizing, most gourmet entree you've ever tasted (not a very large portion, mind you).  That's the way the ride feels for me with most of Bresson.  It is slow-going, even tough at times, but when the journey ends, it makes sense.  I understand the reasons I was subjected to such an experience.  


Pickpocket is my favorite Bresson.  I like Bresson in the contemporary, urban setting.  But I also love Mouchette, Au Hasard Balthazar, A Man Escaped, and L'argent. 


My biggest artistic obsession is a concern over our world (and movies) getting louder and faster every year.  Although even more extreme than where I'd like to land, Bresson is a template for me in terms of how to go in another direction. 
    

Other contenders for 1959: I have a good many gaps from this year, too.  These are:  Andre De Toth's The Day of the Outlaw, Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face, Kon Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain, Budd Boetticher's Ride Lonesome, Satyatit Ray's The World of Apu, Jean Cocteau's Le testament d'Orphee, Fritz Lang's The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb, Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents, and Yasujiro Ozu's Floating Weeds.  I really need to re-watch William Wyler's Ben Hur and Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour as it's been too long since I saw either to know where they would place on this list.  I also need to revisit Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest as it's never impacted me like some of the other Hitchcock.  But I do really like Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder, Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura, John Cassavetes' Shadows, and Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge.  I love Roberto Rossellini's General della Rovere, Claude Chabrol's Les Cousins, and Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows.  And my two closest runners-up are Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless and (another one of my favorite films of all time) Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo.


4/5/11 I watched Budd Boetticher's Ride Lonesome.  Subtle and spare, Boetticher shows that he is one of the absolute masters of the austere, adult western.  It's also as clear as ever that Boetticher likes to present a certain code and morality, and that his eye for the outdoors was almost on par with that of Anthony Mann.


4/7/11 I watched Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face.  Almost feels like a Tourneur-Lewton film but even more dark and disturbing.  A unique and strong horror film, with some gut-wrenching scenes like the one up-close operation and the dog slaughter at the end.  


4/8/11 I watched Kon Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain.  The horrors of war, and Ichikawa just keeps pounding this idea, image after image, scene after scene.  I found it more claustrophobic than The Burmese Harp and less satisfying as a result.  


5/24/11 I watched Yasujiro Ozu's Floating Weeds.  A revisit of one of his earlier works, this feels like minor Ozu.  Humanistic and full of some moments of great forgiveness but without the great depth of my favorite Ozu films.  


3/18/12 I watched Andre De Toth's Day of the Outlaw.  Raw, dark, and artful, there's something absolutely uncompromising about De Toth's work here.  The tone almost makes you think you're watching a horror film, but the pacing and cinematography feel more like European art film.  One of the most unique westerns I have ever seen and a key work of any genre.  

9/6/14 I watched Yasujiro Ozu's Good Morning.  Ozu continues to dazzle.  There is so much life captured in his work.  And there is a surpising amount of levity to his approach and tone.  Although I might prefer a few of his other films, Good Morning would be an absolute masterpiece by most filmmaker's standards.  As a portrait on the fear of Westernization in the late fifties, this one has few if any rivals.  And it is interesting to see it as an influence on Kitano's style and as a bit of a sibling film to The 400 Blows.

9/7/14 I watched Roberto Rossellini's India: Matri Bhumi.  Yet another brilliant piece by one of my all time favorite filmmakers.  Rossellini teaches us about animals and makes us see them in ways we never have.  In the process he also makes us think about our own lives and how many humans have a choice to hunt, be hunted, or like Ramu the monkey at the end actually have no choices at all.  A brilliant look at India and a beautiful meditation on life.  

12/31/15 I watched Samuel Fuller's The Crimson Kimono.  Fuller's camerawork impressed me the most, it is expressionistic and it is emotional.  Unfortunately some of the writing lets him down and I never fully believed some of the emotional conflict which is really the hinge of the final half hour.  

2/19/17 I rewatched Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour.  I had not seen this since I first saw it in a Parisian arthouse in 1994.  It's a challenging film, strange and a bit of a huis clos but clearly the work of an unusally smart and thoughtful team (I'm thinking Resnais, Duras, Vierny and Delerue).  

6/10/18 I watched Jean-Pierre Melville's Deux Hommes dans Manhattan.  The black-and-white photography of the City is fantastic and it is pretty snappy for a Melville pic.  But I was never terribly invested in the plot.  Nothing really did it for me except for maybe the final minute.

3/30/20 I watched Fritz Lang's The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb.  I have long wanted to track down these two films that were made right at the end of Lang's career.  I knew they had a large reputation among some people I admire and were a little different than anything else he had done.  They actually share a lot in common with some of his pre-American work such as Spies or The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.  But what is new is the Indian setting and Lang's attitude and perspective.  As to be expected, Lang shoots precisely and constructs a number of excellent set pieces throughout the two films.  And the film's influence can be felt in films as different as Pierrot Le Fou  (Godard's shot directly looking at the hot sun) or all throughout the Indiana Jones trilogy.

4/11/20 I watched Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow.  With Abe Polonsky penning the script, there is certainly some interesting subtext, particularly related to racism.  But all in all, only a mediocre noir compared to the great films the genre has produced.

10/15/23 I watched Aram Avakian and Bert Stern's Jazz on a Summer's Day.  Most noteworthy for the footage of performances by Mahalia, Louis, Thelonious, Gerry Mulligan and Chico Hamilton.  Not terribly memorable otherwise.