What are you watching? a.k.a. Film Thread v 2.0

[Guest Len B'stard]

Like some bloke playing a piano in a barnyard completely outside of narrative context you mean? I actually love Goddard.

[Nosaj Thing]

Just watched Rush, what a beautiful yet very intense film. Loved it, specially the final scene.

Also watched Carrie (2013), it was solid. Nothing to talk about though.

[wasted]

Like some bloke playing a piano in a barnyard completely outside of narrative context you mean? I actually love Goddard.

Exactly. But Im not always sure what point hes making. The opening long tracking shot of the traffic jam is meant be a piss of American car chase scenes. But in his theres no chase just a crash and then the reality of a crash. Its all very quaint, his points he makes. Its classic example of how the mainstream takes experimental films and neutralizes them. Like QT used inter titles to sort of signfy hes arty. But he made no political point using them. People like style he shot in but he more time trying to make radical political points.

[DieselDaisy]

Does anyone think old movies are much better than new movies and new movies are basically, cack? I find this particuarly true of Anglo-American productions. It has got so bad, gotten to such a state, that when I see a film in the TV guide and see that the date is in the 21st century, I skip it.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Does anyone think old movies are much better than new movies and new movies are basically, cack? I find this particuarly true of Anglo-American productions. It has got so bad, gotten to such a state, that when I see a film in the TV guide and see that the date is in the 21st century, I skip it.

I tend to watch old movies a helluva lot more and I always have. I've never really understood why either, I've always put it down to it being reflective of a broader range available in the century plus of films that have been made. Furthermore i prefer older films because the reality of their times are more remote to me than a film made recently, it's like a window into a different world. That said i don't have any predudice against new films, I'll watch one if you put one my way that I find interesting or what have you but yeah, were you to go by my viewing habits you'd think I subscribed to your particular perspective but I don't, I'm always ready for someone to shove me towards a film and have it blow my socks off, regardless of where it's from but yeah, generally speaking I tend to watch a lot of older films.

If you really think about cinema history, restricting myself to Hollywood here as it is and has always been my primary field of interest cinematically speaking, there is just SUCH a wealth of films out there, aside from the massive stars of yesteryear like Cagney, Bogie, Cary Grant, once you're done with their movies you got your more under the radar Sterling Hayden etc types, there's just so much for me there yet to explore, as much as i've seen gajillions of films already, there's just more there I guess.

Have you ever watched any of Paul Munis stuff Dies'?

[DieselDaisy]

I have not I am afraid.

I was watching Rebecca last night and thought to myself, ''Hollywood could not actually make a film like this even if they tried''. The directing is superior, the acting is superior, the script is superior, the music is superior. Also, it is the CGI in modern films. Take Zulu. If Hollywood made Zulu they would have CGIed all of the Zulu warriors, unlike, how they did it in 1964 which was, to get the real Zulu nation in.

Thank god for asian cinema or I would lose complete faith in modern cinema altogether.

[Guest Len B'stard]

You should REALLY check out Paul Muni's work, you're seriously missing out I'm sure they could make a movie like Rebecca it's just no one would watch it. It's a commercial enterprise and years of assessment of the audience is what the quality of releases is based on.

The thing about the 60s and the 70s weren't so much that people were more artistically inclined it's just that it was a gestative period of cinema, as was the 60s, an evolutionary period and within that evolution a lot of kinda out there stuff slipped through the cracks but by God they had their fair share of fluff even back then.

I just love movies so much I can even watch a crap one or a not so good one and just take it for what it is, for the level of entertainment it is attempting to provide. I do hate CGI though, it kinda kills the pagentary of the epic.

Have you ever seen any John Cassavetes movies Dies'?

Edited January 10, 2014 by sugaraylen

[Sixes]

I have not I am afraid.

I was watching Rebecca last night and thought to myself, ''Hollywood could not actually make a film like this even if they tried''. The directing is superior, the acting is superior, the script is superior, the music is superior. Also, it is the CGI in modern films. Take Zulu. If Hollywood made Zulu they would have CGIed all of the Zulu warriors, unlike, how they did it in 1964 which was, to get the real Zulu nation in.

Thank god for asian cinema or I would lose complete faith in modern cinema altogether.

There are still great, innovative directors making films that will stand the test of time. Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Christopher Nolan, Steven Soderbergh, David O. Russell, Alexander Payne, David Fincher, Richard Linklater, Quentin Tarantino, Darren Aronofsky, Todd Solondz, Pedro Almodovar, The Coen Brothers, Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu, Gus Van Zant....some of them are older and been making films for 30 years but they are still as vital as ever. So hope is not all lost.

[DieselDaisy]

The 40s and the 50s is my favourite era of cinema; Hitchcock at his absolute peak (love those early American films he made, the BaWs with Selznick); Lean, Huston et al. active; height of the western genre (Hawks and Ford); Kubrick breaking away from the studio system after Spartacus; probably the heyday of Hollywood stardom (Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and numerous others) although you could also make an argument for the '20s and the 30sin this regard. Elsewhere you had the 'golden age' of Japanese cinema, Mizoguchi, Ozu and Kurosawa throwing out masterpieces every year, and Italian cinema went from its neorealist stage to the baroque of Fellini. You also had French New Wave.

Was there a period when genius directors, from all parts of the world, were more active than the 1950s?

The '60s was an interesting time in British cinema I feel. There is something however lacking in the '60s Hollywood film of this era, the legion of disaster films and Elvis Presley musicals. The '70s saw the rise of the 'movie brats' at the expense of the American studio system, Coppola, Scorcese, Pre-Star Wars Lucas et al. A lot of people naturally love that era for just reason.

[Georgy Zhukov]

Another great filmmaker of the late 60's and early is Polanski. He brought all he had went through growing up in Nazi occupied and Communist Poland and brought that to American cinema. I feel Hollywood responded to European, Soviet and Japanese cinema in the 1970's.

[Guest Len B'stard]

The beauty of the history of cinema is that, outside of these broad historical footnotes is a wealth of movies that dont fit the celebrated niches and historical footnotes and as a result don't get highlighted so much. This is the problem with attempting to pin down one decade over the other, it's really a difficult thing to do and you end up selling certain eras short REALLY badly as a result.

The 50s were brilliant in that you had these amazing narrative driven films, genre's had been firmly established and as such some real genre classics came about however they were often subverted too because genre conventions were ripe for exploration based on their having been really nailed down by the studio era...but there was a helluva lot going on in American cinema in the 60s man, a lot of VERY good westerns came about in the 60s, some good movies too like Up The Down Staircase, some wonderful historical dramas, the whole James Bond thing (hate em but they're important), the Sci Fi genre REALLY got off the ground, Independent American cinema kinda came to life in the 60s under people like John Cassavetes and a lot of the 60s counter-culture influence in movies (although to be fair that was the very tail-end).

But broadly speaking, over any given decade, there is so much going on in so many different directions it's hard for me to really pin down one era or decade and cite its dominance.

For the craft of acting for example, some really big evolutionary leaps were made by people like Cagney and Paul Muni and people like that, people think it was like...1920s...and then Brando happened and the world changed but it was altogether more gradual than that. The 60s was also the time when that whole New York Actors Studio mob were kinda finding their feet in preparation for their world shaking films in the 70s and by virtue of that there are some really interesting formative performances from those guys that are really quite important.

[wasted]

Scientology is the method acting of 3D movies.

[DieselDaisy]

If you are discussing the Hollywood 'studio' system, there is no doubt about it that it was poor in the 1960s. 1960s America was churning out Doris Day films, Elvis garbage, lumpy historical flicks and musicals. Box office attendances were at an all time low. You had to look in other countries to find quality films - and indeed, you had some quality films. If Hollywood was not in so much trouble, why did the Vietnam generation wish to destroy the old studio system - or at least render it neutral? Why was there such an anti-hollywood impulse towards the tail end of '60s America?

Understand that Kubrick had ditched the studio system and had migrated to England by this stage.

Edited January 10, 2014 by DieselDaisy

[Guest Len B'stard]

There was no Studio system by the time the 60s came about, there wasn't anything to destroy, the studio era was pretty much killed off by the 50s, star power pretty much had destroyed it by then.

Edited January 10, 2014 by sugaraylen

[Sixes]

If you are discussing the Hollywood 'studio' system, there is no doubt about it that it was poor in the 1960s. 1960s America was churning out Doris Day films, Elvis garbage, lumpy historical flicks and musicals. Box office attendances were at an all time low. You had to look in other countries to find quality films - and indeed, you had some quality films. If Hollywood was not in so much trouble, why did the Vietnam generation wish to destroy the old studio system - or at least render it neutral? Why was there such an anti-hollywood impulse towards the tail end of '60s America?

Understand that Kubrick had ditched the studio system and had migrated to England by this stage.

There's also Paul Newman who refused to participate in the Hollywood system after his first few years. His importance should not be overlooked. And John Cassavetes was monumentally important in the coming age of directors and their power as well as the indie scene to come.

Edited January 10, 2014 by axl666axl666

[DieselDaisy]

What on earth are you going on about? You still had MGM, WB, Paramount and Fox. The system was still led by people like Zukor, Warner, Zanuck etc.

You do speak some cack, Len, some of the time. Here is a book recomendation...

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex n' Drugs n' Rock n' Roll generation saved Hollywood by Peter Biskino.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Dies', with respect, you need to read up a little more about this stuff before being so sure of yourself cuz what I'm saying is a fact, despite what Easy Riders and Raging Bulls says, that book is the film theory equivalent of Popcorn by Ben Elton. Not that Wikipedia is Les Cahiers Du Cinema but its a pretty quick reference point for simple facts like the one I'm stating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_system

After the system[edit]

For more details on this topic, see Major film studio.

Star-driven system[edit] “ We find ourselves ... dealing with corporations rather than with individuals. ”

—Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures, 1957^[5]

In the 1950s Hollywood faced three great challenges: The Paramount case ending the studio system, the new popularity of television, and post–World War II consumer spending providing many other leisure options. The industry lost its captive audience, and United States box-office revenue declined. The scale of both successes and flops grew, with what Life magazine described in 1957 as a "dangerous market" in between consisting of films that in the previous era would have made money. A filmmaker stated that "[t]he one absolute disaster today is to make a million-dollar mediocrity. One of those you can lose not only your total investment but your total shirt." By that year Hollywood was only making about 300 feature films a year, compared to about 700 during the 1920s.^[5]

The powerful movie moguls that had led their studios with unchallenged authority were no longer present by the late 1950s.^[5]Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, had no direct involvement with the studio from 1956 to 1962,^[9] and Louis B. Mayer, sacked in 1951 from MGM, died in 1957.^[10] The last old-fashioned studio head was Harry Cohn of Columbia, who was reportedly "aghast" at the changes occurring in Hollywood. Cohn informed investors in the studio's 1957 annual report,^[5] the year before he died,^[11] that:

We find ourselves in a highly competitive market for [stars, directors, producers, writers]. Under today's tax structures, salary to those we are dealing with is less inviting than the opportunity for capital gains. We find ourselves, therefore, dealing with corporations rather than with individuals. We find ourselves, too, forced to deal in terms of a percentage of the film's profits, rather than in a guaranteed salary as in the past. This is most notable among the top stars.

[5]

Financial backers increasingly demanded star actors, directors, and writers for projects to reduce risk of failure. The shortage of such talent increased their salaries, while fewer contract players were available because studios had failed to renew many contracts during the 1950s because of declining domestic revenue. The growing importance of the overseas market—40 to 50% of Hollywood's total revenue by 1957—also emphasized stars' names as box-office attractions. With their new power, the once-rare "working for nothing"—receiving a percentage of profit instead of a salary—became a status symbol for stars. A top actor could expect 50% of profit, with a minimum guarantee, or 10% of gross revenue. Cary Grant, for example, received more than $700,000 from his 10% of the gross for To Catch a Thief (1955), while director and producer Alfred Hitchcock received less than $50,000. In one extreme case, Paramount promised Marlon Brando 75% of the profit of what became One-Eyed Jacks (1961). (Because of Hollywood accounting, studios still received much of the revenue before any profit sharing; thus, they preferred 50% of profit to 10% of gross.) The larger paychecks also increased the power of talent agents such asLew Wasserman of MCA, whose office was now nicknamed "Fort Knox".^[5]

By 1957, independent producers like Hal Wallis made 50% of full-length American films. Beyond working for others, top actors such as Brando, Gregory Peck, and Frank Sinatra created their own production companies and purchased scripts. Top independent directors like George Stevens, Billy Wilder, andWilliam Wyler also saw their paychecks increase, to about $250,000 to $300,000 by 1957, in part because their involvement attracted star actors. Studios increasingly provided funding and facilities to independent producers as opposed to making their own films. Hollywood had once viewed television as its enemy, but TV production companies like Desilu and the film studios' own TV divisions helped save the industry by using otherwise-unused facilities, and executives expected that television would eventually become more profitable than film. While some studios like Paramount had long worked with outsiders, former leader MGM adapted to the new business climate slowly and experts believed that its survival was uncertain. A possible model for the industry was United Artists, which focused entirely on financing and distributing independent productions.^[5]

Again, with respect, do you actually know what the studio system was and how it functioned? I don't think you do or you wouldn't've said what you said in your previous post.

Edited January 10, 2014 by sugaraylen

[DieselDaisy]

Why are you so dismissive of my book yet you have just produced a load of wikipedia shit. We are basically defining the term, 'studio system', differently. You are being more specific - I think you are referring to the period of contractual stars, of the '20s-30s. I am being more general and am merely referring to the existence of the big 3-4 studios and their dominance on the market. Name an 'auteur' who was active within (so no Kubrick) the studios in the mid '60s. Now, name one in the mid-70s. Much easier, isn't it? Something had changed.

Sinatra, Peck etc are really the ‘old guard’. They are not going to create a Mean Streets, are they?

[Sixes]

Paul Newman dammit!

[Guest Len B'stard]

Cuz i've read the book and i was using Wiki not to go on down some high fallutin road but to make a very simple distinction. Also, you don't get to pick and choose how the term is defined, 'The Studio System' is the name given to a specific thing and movies of a specific time period, there are key elements to what defines the studio system and I am not just referring to it as it was in the 20s and 30s cuz it existed in the 40s too. You can't use specific designated terms, get them wrong, tell the person telling you the right thing that they're talking cack and then go 'well i was being general', the studio system isn't some throwaway term, it's the name given to a very specific era.

Look in any book on film theory in the world, any encyclopedia, any anything and see what the studio system is and what era it covers.

Edited January 10, 2014 by sugaraylen

[DieselDaisy]

I sometimes think you just argue with me for the sake of arguing with me. If I substitute 'studio film' for 'studio system', would that satisfy you? The Hollywood 'studio film', in the way that Gone With The Wind and ET is, and Mean Streets, isn't?

You did not like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls? I love that book. You did not like the anecdotes in it, such as the one about the crew of - I think it was Taxi Driver - leaving naked pictures of Cybill Sheperd around the set because she was such a pain?

[Guest Len B'stard]

For someone thats quite pedantic yourself at the best of times you really don't like being wrong, do you? And this isn't even pedantry on my part, this is like really really basic film theory/history, The Studio System, refers to a specific time and place in cinema history, you cited it incorrectly, said I was talking cack when i told you the accurate definition and then go I'm arguing with you for the sake of it. If you're being that general about it you could say a studio system is in place now.

I don't like it because it is, in terms of film theory, really saying nothing very new and yet it is lauded all up and down the shop as this key piece on cinema, which it's not really, it's kinda like the way you refer to Legend the Bob Marley album, it's kinda like the part-timers must read. It's not bad as such it just doesn't deserve anything like the respect it has.

[DieselDaisy]

I love the book and cannot agree with you, although I do not rate it as some, high brow work on film theory: Easy Riders Raging Bulls is too anecdotal and tabloidesque to have some pretence to that sort of work. The book does not even aim at offering much on film theory - you are judging it for something it does not attempt to do. It is about the characters, the troubles and the scandals surrounding this period in cinema. If you want film theory, choose another book.

[wasted]

The studios now seem to have ejected the need for movie stars. Or they only work with docile ones. Theres hardly any troublemakers left.

[wasted]

Theres also Down and Dirty Pictures and Gods and Monsters.

David Bordwell is pretty solid.

When I was studying film theory, I found it doesnt exist. Its often theory applied to film. The nuts and bolts of what is making films isnt really a theory. Its like they did this and this.