/film/ - FILM

>>1266

>>1477

There were two films released in the US under the name Leviathan recently. You might be thinking of the Russian drama. It's very good for what it is, which is an uncontroversial - though still intelligent, sensitive and preoccupied - thriller. Sort of like a Michael Mann.

I didn't know the documentary was any good. I flat out ignored its release specifically because I was excited to learn my local arthouse theater was going to screen Leviathan only to see it was just another doc in their long like of uncurated, shallow, trendy festival backwash docs. But I just looked it up and I'm kicking myself because its a Harvard Ethnography School product, everything I've seen associated with them has been worthwhile and also especially lend themselves towards the big screen.

Good list OP, I don't know most of it but what I do, I agree are great.

Can I suggest we don't just make charts but start a mega drive hosting each movie in the charts? Don't be scared, /scurv/ will face trouble long before we do.

>>3686

The old /tv/ chart left out high-level by design. At that point, you can't really pool any of the names together without succumbing to journalist branding rather than the sort of authentic, inspired connections you hope out of well curated group show.

That said, I'd nominate Haroun Farocki as a definitive icon of high-tier taste just as much as Pasolini is of mid-tier - Picking Salo as representative and sticking it in entry-tier demonstrates as corrupt understanding of him as it does for Zulaswki and the same decision for Possession. Are you trying to kill someone? - Which is also where Rohmer definitely belongs, and is distinctly missing Haneke.

I think the entry-level list is flawed. It's not really geared as primer to moving up to mid-tier and is a little superflous since it's mainly just Criterion best sellers. The problem is that it's too effective as a list that people can end with, it doesn't push them to reach further especially as it focuses too much on handfeeding a "representative" film history.

I would suggest it be centered not around movies or influence or film history but directors who represent accessible, straightforward cinema but of a singular quality:

Wenders, Herzog, Greenaway, Malick, Tarkovsky, Kubrick, Ferrara, Kieslowski, Kurosawa, Bergman, Eisenstein, Ozu, Bresson, Fellini, Fassbinder, etc. are fine;

Egregiously missing Almodovar, Samuel Fueller, Altman; I would suggest keeping Mielville but with the red circle, and adding Kubrick and Kaurismaki, and La Jetee should be replaced with Sans Soleil

12 Angry Men, Man with a Movie Camera, Daisies, Imamura or Teshigahara at all (they're minor and Oshima covers the j new wave with more breadth), Black Narcissus, DW Griffith, etc. do not belong. They're not great or deeply inspired movies, you're just sticking them in because you're supposed to.

And they'll mislead plebs. The thing that traps them is not recognizing the huge diversity of the medium, letting them snatch on to dogmatic maxims on how to read films like its all about telling a story or a movie is deep if there's symbolism, and a linear historical narrative of progression. As an entry level list it should prime them as an open receptacles for more daring films, not turn them into ideologues empowered by film history 101. This is the toxic MFA pedagogy of the last quarter century responsible for the current state of western indie cinema. The majority of US film students genuinely are incapable of getting to mid-level, and the way they view entry-level films is destructive anyway.

Likewise I don't believe you need to bother with representing regional cinemas. At the mid level range, people will be capable of doing their own digging if you give enough to hint them in the direction of their own taste. They should be discovering what they like in movies and seeking it out themselves as they continue to make their way through the list, we should be developing a representation of what cinema can offer to us, not what different regions or movements have offered cinema.

At this point, we should also pay attention to cutting through the crap surrounding these fields and directors, by either recommending the more distilled if less popular example of their work or, like you did in the entry level list, just plain ignoring a semi-good director like PT Anderson despite his hype, in favor of genuinely great directors despite their okayish reception.

Here, besides Haneke & Rohmer, I only want to suggest Robert Downey Sr.

Also maybe Jean Jacque Annaud for entry-level. He's the one doing that silly chinese movie about wolves. Always his movie's leading actors are animals but really, they're wonderful

Levithan the documentary is worth seeing I'd say, even if you might not be thoroughly engaged by every minute of it. I didn't know what to expect at all before watching it … I'd say that's preferable to reading much about the project beforehand.

>>4991

None. I've audited some classes at UCLA and know people doing film there and at Chapman which is why I decided not to bother studying film. The undergrad programs are a joke, the kids had really basic taste and everything I saw people making was crap - these are schools known for their film programs. I'm doing undergrad in business + design; I'm only at this uni because my parents were alumni, it was was the most respectable/valuable non-libarts uni I was accepted. The double major's just calibrated to be valuable for future self-financing while still being easy enough to coast through.

I just read stuff in my free time. I don't get why everyone doesn't, it's the same way as watching movies. I have to do it.

A lot of academic works are easy to follow without any commitment, film phil/crit & media theory especially (among other fields like anthropology, history). You can find Harvard & Yale syllabi online, AAAAAARG will usually have the journal-published articles uploaded. But more fun is the not-worthlessly-shallow pop nonfic like what university & paraacademic presses publish.

Looking back, Art Center in Pasadena seems to have the best CA film program, I regret not going. It's primarily focused on practical industry skills. It seems a lot safer and clean cut than the 90s Art Center that stood toe to toe with 90s calarts etc (ie the one in Kraus' Videogreen, I don't think any of LA's artschools are anymore; USC's entire MFA class just dropped out…) but according to a friend going there, the more radical taste can still be found in some professors… and the idea of a university that recognizes itself as an efficient institution built to to produce knowledge and skill, rather than whatever other crap, is really refreshing. And I preferred living in LA, I'm sure even in pasadena.

I don't know anything about the uni's in chicago. I just moved there last year and still have yet to meet anyone working in film. SAIC seems a lot more open-ended than CA's art schools, and I like their strong emphases on art history, practice & crits. I only know MFA's but they're all satisfied.

I don't think you can expect much until grad school. I'd like to go to Harvard GSD. Or European Grad School. Art Center -> AFI seems to be the most ultra-practical/cynical if you're aiming for security in the festival - mainstream market; cynicism is very healthy in this industry. I haven't identified any consistency for a secure route into a film based gallery practice.

Also I take back what I said about chicago. Someone posted the 'cine-file' newsletter in the resource thread, it looks like there's a lot more screens running here than I realized. Too bad I don't know anybody to go with.

>>5022

>I'm from socal

Where about? OC?

I'm coming back to LA in 2 weeks. I stopped making movies after highschool. I have vague plans to start work again, I intend to purchase some camera equipment when I get back to the US, and my watching process has me sort of pairing consumption with organizing/collecting research for some seed of a project, but I don't have much intention to develop anything in the near term beyond personal experimentation. Because I dodged around art school but am still pursuing a financially sustainable degree, there's no obligation to solidify a professional practice for some time.

Are you german? When I was in highschool, I wanted to apply to schools in germany. But I didn't know german. Your country has a good tradition of alternative schools - high professor:student ratio, unstructured grading, biased curriculum; which I think is the best fit for a film education. Besides technical training, courses on film history, phil or crit aren't that much more relevant than any oher art hist/crit etc., they're all just something to be mined for inspiration. And since technical training isn't as primary in filmmaking, especially for a director, as it is for say, architecture, the most valuable part of your education is going to come from a forming strong connections with inspired professors; which is what appeals about EGS and is usually the draw of a good MFA program.

I don't remember what german schools I had in mind for their film programs. There was ECLA, which taught in English, had primarily Harvard/Yale professors and was an open application. It was my definite goal, until Bard College swallowed it whole the year I intended to apply, renaming it Bard College At Berlin and replacing the application requirements to fit Bard's shallow criteria, marketing it as basically an exotic Bard satellite. Fuck Bard.

The other ones I remember are the Film Academy at Baden-Württemberg and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. What appeals to me about them, especially the latter, is similar to Art Center, they seem unintrusive and unpretentious. A school like Chapman imprints a coherent, industry-received frame onto the students to read and view movies. It's not just the students that are disengaged from any critical exploration, but most of the professors and their curriculum as well. And it's not easily ignored or rejected because of the highly structured grading in that sort of uni.

So I made an entry level chart based mostly off >>2855 just to have something to build off of.

What do you guys think should be changed?

>>5946

I did some (very rough) touch up and added a few more films.

Anything else to change? Any issues with the selected films?

>>5959

I subbed in L'age d'or for Wages of Fear and The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant for Beware of a Holy Whore, and I (hopefully) fixed the text issue with Hiroshima mon amour.

I made this mostly just for fun, attempting to get familiar with image editing.

Is there another actor where this happened more often? I was surprised to find so many.

New chart for city movies

started from this thread >>4165

>>6367

Enjoy

>>6375

I ordered 4 different collections of his:

Fassbinder on Melodrama:

-EFFI BRIEST

-MARTHA

-FEAR OF FEAR

Fassbinder on Terror

-Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven

-The Third Generation

Fassbinder on Society

-Katzelmacher

-Chinese Roulette

-Satan's Brew

Fassbinder: The Gangster Films

-Love is Colder Than Death

-Gods Of the Plague

-The American Soldier

and The Merchant of four seasons

Haven't touched his stuff before, but heard it was worth it-

I've approached entry and mid level art house films by country- I started with Japan (Kurosawa/Ozu/Nakagawa) now I'm heading down German way hence the purchase

>>6393

Well firstly there is a small part of me thats intrigued by Werner himself, I find his destructive lifestyle interesting and I want to know more about hime through his films

But the main reason is the availability of films here in Australia is trash. Obtaining this stuff legally is hard to do, our main outlet is Madman Entertainment who provide a lot of great stuff but it's no where near as expansive as say the criterion collection. So i figure the more support I can give to fuel their expansion the better.

On top of that I pirated a lot of stuff and I feel like making amends.