Rohmer. Rohmer is a significant figure in the French New Wave, Rohmer really picked up when frankly the best of Godard had come and gone in 1967. Rohmer’s camera style is straightforward, but the placement of objects in the frame and entire mise-en-scene is essential to him. He made the Moral Tales series in the 1960’s and 1970’s and the Comedies and Proverbs series in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Rohmer may not be a world-builder like Lynch, Leone or Wes Anderson—but you know a Rohmer film when you see it with the smart dialogue (often involving love and men and women sparring verbally), intellectual references and carefully arranged interiors (usually involving a window). For the purposes of this list he only has one top 500 film and one top 100 of the decade (My Night at Maud’s) but I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t seen some of these in 15 years (which is why there isn’t a grade for them below) but there is a remarkable uniformity in his work that just isn’t there in so many auteurs (some even above Rohmer on this list).
Best film: My Night at Maud’s
- Genuinely successful exploration and medication on fate
- Heady stuff discussing Pascal, religion
- The 3rd of Rohmer’s moral tales
- Certainly can be pointed to as a precursor to other brilliant dialogue/conversation heavy films like Malle’s My Dinner with Andre and Linklater’s Before trilogy
- I have it as a MS top 5 level film of 1969- I have a hard time going higher, despite the devastating ending, when it’s just so straightforward stylistically
total archiveable films: 10
top 100 films: 0
top 500 films: 1 (My Night at Maud’s)
top 100 films of the decade: 1 (My Night at Maud’s)
most overrated: Summer aka The Green Ray is at #348 on the TSPDT consensus list (one of three Rohmer films currently on it including My Night at Maud’s and Claire’s Knee) and I don’t have it in my top 500.
most underrated: Boyfriends and Girlfriends should be somewhere on the TSPDT top 100- and isn’t. It’s the sixth film in the Comedies and Proverbs cycles. Rohmer’s trademark Ozu-like interiors have never been better—an incredibly attractive film.
gem I want to spotlight : The Lady and the Duke. To be clear, it’s not where I’d start if I were doing a Rohmer study for the first time and certainly isn’t one of his finest overall works (see below) but it is the only Rohmer film (aside from Maud that I’ve seen in the last 5 years and its very fascinating.
- A very unique film- on one hand it is a period piece set in the 18th century—almost Masterpiece theater shot on crude video with Rohmer’s typical captivating male and female moral debate/discussion. On the other hand, the background in the exteriors sequences are from laser-projected paintings. They are stunningly beautiful when serving as long shots or establishing shots.
- mesmerizing long shots, exteriors and establishing shots
- an interesting mixture of artifice
- I wish the film were 80% these sequences and 20% interior costume period drama shot on video without much style– not the other way around
- Rohmer at 82 years old
- Starts the film with a montage of these drawings as we get the backstory.
- The interior sequences are stifling and not great—there are 20 minute stretches (at least twice) where we’re stuck inside without the tableaus
- I’m confident we don’t have an archiveable film if The Lady and the Duke were just the interiors and didn’t have the painted/drawing exterior work
- The exteriors are breathtaking- mostly as establishing shots. When mixing actors in it gets a little ugly as the artifice shows (mixed with the actors in the foreground shot on video). Long shots look fine
- Rohmer’s lead Lucy Russell is a good strong character and the debates here with the Duke are smart politics—she’s a royalist—Rohmer seems offended at how bad the manners are of the revolutionaries. Haha
stylistic innovations/traits: Most auteurs, especially the French, are influenced by Renoir but it’s hard to talk about Rohmer without talking about how from a content standpoint most of his films are about the condition of the human heart and relationships, and visually, his best work, features a tremendous use of windows (as both a framing device within the frame, and a source of natural light). Rohmer, like Ozu, cared dearly about the arrangement of objects, bodies and furniture in the frame. Rohmer made academic, dialogue-heavy films (Maud is one of the all-time great “talkers”).
top 10
- My Night at Maud’s
- Summer (The Green Ray)
- Claire’s Knee
- Boyfriends and Girlfriends
- The Marquise of O
- La Collectionneuse
- Chloe in the Afternoon
- Pauline at the Beach
- The Lady and the Duke
- A Summer’s Tale
By year and grades
| 1967 – La Collectionneuse | R |
| 1969- My Night At Maud’s | MS |
| 1971- Claire’s Knee | |
| 1972- Chloe In the Afternoon | |
| 1976- The Marquise of O | |
| 1983- Pauline at the Beach | R |
| 1986- Summer (The Green Ray) | |
| 1987- Boyfriends and Girlfriends | |
| 1996- A Summer’s Tale | R |
| 2001- The Lady and the Duke | R |
*MP is Masterpiece- top 1-3 quality of the year film
MS is Must-see- top 5-6 quality of the year film
HR is Highly Recommend- top 10 quality of the year film
R is Recommend- outside the top 10 of the year quality film but still in the archives
@Malith. It’s not about just tackling a universal theme (which is easy). It’s about the execution and that Petite Maman does very well. It’s power is in its simplicity, but it certainly does not lack ambition. It has rich imagery and the story is constructed without any gadgetry/gimmicks. Its central concept could easily have gone wrong in the hands of a different filmmaker. Both Moonrise Kingdom and Petite Maman are good films, but they deal with very different issues of childhood/memory. Will have to disagree with you on the artistic merits of these films – they have much more than just their acting going for them in my view.
@Malith. Why? Anatomy of a Fall, Petite Maman and Toni Erdmann are all very good films. Sciamma has probably build the best body of work from those three female directors, but Petite Maman and Toni Erdmann are both top1000 TSPDT films (and believe AoaF will make its way there in due course), so don’t you think there is something you may be missing there? What did you not like about Petite Maman? One of the best films about childhood and loss and almost universally praised by film critics. It’s incredibly refined in its simplicity and there is not an unnecessary scene/frame.
Petite Maman is already in the TSPDT top 1000? Ha? But maybe not surprising because Portrait of a Lady on Fire will make the top 100 soon. Damn.
Petite Maman just lacks ambition. It has universal themes but still when you compare this with Moonrise Kingdom it’s not a good look for Sciamma. Toni Erdmann is just mostly a very well acted film like Anatomy of a Fall
@Vaanilla-The less said about Anatomy of a Fall being a big film the better. Same with Petite Maman and Toni Erdmann(Another Sandra Huller film). At least she worked with Glazer to give her something great and substantial.
What a disaster she got snubbed at the Oscars for Zone of Interest in a very poor category(the worst in history?). She got nominated for Globe or Bafta but no nomination at the Academy Awards
La Collectionneuse HR
My Night At Maud’s MP
Claire’s Knee MS
Chloe In the Afternoon HR
The Marquise of O R
Pauline at the Beach R
Summer (The Green Ray) MP
Boyfriends and Girlfriends —
A Tale of Springtime R
A Tale of Winter HR
A Summer’s Tale MS
Autumn Tale HR
The Lady and the Duke R
@Drake The point of my comment is not to hail Ebert, I’m actually on board with you when it comes to his lists post 2000. I don’t agree with him much in that span. The point was to show that there’s not only one and only way to view cinema. if I pulled up your and Ebert’s reviews on any film, those would be very different reviews because you are looking for different things. I hate to put the words in your mouth again, but your comments imply that Ebert is somehow not watching movies in the right way, because his criteria is significantly different than yours and you don’t think there’s a choice to be made.
@Chief Keef. Fair. Again- appreciate the dialogue and keeping it civil. Small aspects of subjectivity and differences of opinion with great art will always be there. I’m not denying that. But subjectivity is a slippery slope into total randomness. I would view Ebert’s 2007 both as using different criteria and — well— being wrong– if his goal is to recognize great cinema art. I believe There Will be Blood, Zodiac, Jesse James, 4 Months 3 weeks 2 Days are superior to The Great Debaters whether Ebert (or I) thinks so or not. And when I get things wrong (as I often do– and I may be wrong on Rohmer)– I say it.
If Ebert and I argued The Great Debaters vs. There Will Be Blood my guess is I would point to the text and observations– and he would talk about how he made him feel (he calls it “affirming and inspiring”). We’d have different purposes/objectives here. Draw your own conclusions– but one is feeling (albeit from one of the great writers on cinema we’ve ever seen–Ebert) and one is observing artistic accomplishments. I’m good with that.
@Drake You are doing it again. Framing your criteria as objective while Ebert is “all caught up in feelings”. Good writing doesn’t necessarily have to be in relation with how it made you feel. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are not considered great writers because they made so many people emotional. Again, you are allowed to prioritize whatever you want but calling writing uncinematic and treating it like a non-element while evaluating films is your criteria and not the objective one. It’s not a coincidence that there’s a huge discrepancy in your and TSPDT lists ranking people like Rohmer, Chaplin, Wilder whose main attribute is writing. It’s almost like other people treat it like a cinematic element just like any other. Or they are all wrong and caught up in feelings?
@Chief Keef– Yes, I believe they are wrong. They’re entitled to think what they want– but I’m entitled to think they’re wrong (and vice versa). If your main attribute is writing– yes, I believe that this is, by definition (“having qualities characteristic of motion pictures”)–uncinematic. I’d interpret part of that as “having qualities unique to motion pictures”–. I would never say or treat writing like a non-element (those are your words). But just turning a camera on to record a play or something is, I believe, not as much “cinema” as elements unique to cinema (like film style). Writing, acting, great music– all important and worthy of praise– just a little lower down the line in importance. We’ll never know I guess- but I actually think Ebert would agree with me if I challenged him on The Great Debaters vs. TWBB. I think he’d say something along the lines of, “yeah, TWBB is better but I like this more because it spoke to me personally. This is a list of my 10 favorite films of the year”– which is fine. But that’s not what I’m trying to do here on this site.
@Drake That’s a lot of people being wrong then. Just out of curiosity, do you think that Bergman or Tarkovsky are considered so great because of how their films looked or what they were about? I can assume what your personal stance would be, but what do you think people think in general? What is the main reason critics placed it so high on TSPDT list?
@Chief Keef– well my take is on the pages I have for both- so you don’t have to assume it if you want to check it out. As for the critics in general on Tarkovsky and Bergman– it varies of course. Some will talk about the content and writing, and some will talk about the visual accomplishments– and some both. But I do think many consider both auteurs to be absolute visual and stylistic masters (as I do).
Hi @Chief Keef, I don’t plan on getting into this conversation, just out of curiosity
Do you consider The apartment and Some like it hot, movies 56 and 26 of the story as TSPDT?
@Aldo No, I actually think that Some Like It Hot is one of the most overrated films on the entire list but I’m fine with the placement of The Apartment.
Forgive me for chiming in months later, but I side with Drake on this one. Screenplays are important, but if that’s all a film has going for it then you might as well read it or listen to it as an audio play – and that just isn’t cinematic. There is a difference between qualities unique to cinema, and qualities that cinema has in common with other forms of art such as music, theatre and literature.
Oh what the conversation was here with, i had forgotten what page i was on.
Interesting discussion, Unfortunately neither Chief Keef (who argues very well) nor Drake continued the conversation.
Very interesting discussion here with valid points of view on both sides. In my mind, great films have both substance and style or balances them. A great film is not merely a well directed film or a collection of stylish images, but one that uses all the ‘cinematic’ elements. A good screenplay and bringing that screenplay to life on screen is as important cinematic element, along with the visuals, directing, acting, editing, music, cinematography etc. Writing and acting in cinema is an important part of the art form and different to writing in literature/poetry or acting in theater. Similarly the visuals/imagery in cinema is a different art form to multimedia displays/installations in art museums. Cinema is not about just presenting imagery or the composition of visually appealing still frames or camera shots. Otherwise the list of best films here becomes just a list of films with the best directing / cinematography. A film that has something interesting to say and is well acted could be better than a film that is stylishly shot/directed, but has a poor script or very little substance. The best films (and directors) are the ones which/who bring all these things together and one cannot strip out or disregard these individual elements. Without a screenplay/script or acting you do not have cinema, but merely a multimedia art display. To give an example, I would rate a film like Tyrannosaur (or Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead from the above discussion) as a better overall film than something like Speed Racer (which is listed here as a top 1000 film).
@LeRoi- Enjoying the discussion here- thanks for sharing. Wanted to add one thing – we can prove “without a screenplay/script or acting you do not have cinema” is false though by going doing and looking at the history of great directors who are not on that list because of the strength of their screenplay/script or acting, right?
@Drake. But the best directed films is not always or necessarily the same as the best films, right? A great director working with a mediocre script and limited actors could still produce a good end product, but the overall end product (and accordingly the film / cinematic experience as a whole) would have been better had the screenplay/acting been better. I’m not saying you cannot have a good (even great) film with a limited screenplay or narrative structure, but it needs to work as an overall product and I do not agree that the writing or acting elements of film are ‘uncinematic’. It is not necessarily about the writing on its own, but how it is transposed/transformed to the screen. A great director also needs to ‘direct’ the acting and bring the vision of the screenplay to life on screen (in my view some of the auteur directors deserve some greater credit as the overall end product represents their personal vision to a much greater degree). On Rohmer for example, for his body of work, I would have him ahead of a Nicolas Roeg, Peter Greenaway, Bob Fosse etc. What makes cinema so unique/appealing is the interaction/convergence of various art forms into a motion picture (and not just beautiful imagery / moving visuals). I know you prefer to avoid references to subjectivity and I agree that it is often used as an easy copout, but there are clearly different preferences/approaches amongst respected film critics/connoisseurs which should be recognised and such preferences/approaches will flow through/reflect in choices in rankings etc. One would of course like to keep the subjectivity to a minimum, but I don’t think one can completely get away from it.
@LeRoi- Thank you for the share here and food for thought. Certainly intelligent people can respect each other’s opinions here and see that there is a different sort of set of criteria (even if they have much in common, too) when evaluating film art – and that’s fine. That’s the subjectivity there, right? But I think there’s something different going on as well- an evolution there on sort of the cinematic journey (not to sound too corny about it). There are directors that are more difficult- going for more- more challenging – and I would just not recommend to the “I like smart movies with good acting/writing/messages” movie viewers. I know many of these people- and we often agree. I hope many of them frequent the site and enjoy the site. I’d say Roeg, Greenaway- or someone like Bela Tarr, Roy Andersson (good luck with the script/acting argument there with those two) are examples of those are maybe going for more. And I’d never recommend a film from Bela Tarr or Roy Andersson to these people – at least at first.
@Drake I don’t think it’s necessarily specifically a matter of being script driven as much as intellectual substance that is being put forward by LeRoi here. Béla Tarr does away with a lot of narrative conventions in favor of visual beats, but his movies are very much aimed at an intellectual crowd. It’s Nietzschean, opaque, uninviting and slow. There’s plenty of food for thought to accompany the visual orgasm. Stuff like Last Year at Marienbad is a good example too. You group it as an evolution of one’s eye for the cinematic as a more and more radicalized form to gravit towards over more traditional narratives, and it’s true for a film student subgroup I suppose, but I don’t think it’s the norm. At all. Among critics as well. I’d be a LOT LOT more comfortable recommending Last Year At Marienbad or Tarr to a big Rohmer fan than a big Spielberg fan (who you would classify as more cinematic than Rohmer). It’s a subject matter thing.
Don’t take offense as it’s just a personal preferences thing, but it’s kind of like how I cringe at seeing Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction and Chungking Express over Persona in your top 1000 list, or Heat over Fanny and Alexander as well as Eyes Wide Shut.
Usually 9/10 style and 9/10 substance > 10/10 style and 3/10 substance for most, even among cinephiles who put importance on form.
@Vaanilla- Interesting distinction. You clearly have excellent taste and this is well thought out. I think this is still largely the same discussion as the one @LeRoi. It is the “substance” portion where you lose me a little. @LeRoi (also, who is also very articulate) mentions something similar with the “A film that has something interesting to say” and speaks of films with “little substance”. I think you’ll find that when people talk style vs substance- almost everyone agrees on the style – you can point to it, “this camera shot”, “that composition”, “the editing sequence” – there is evidence to support it. And on the flip side, so many disagree on the substance portion – it is largely subjective and not all that important when talking about art (at least in comparison with style). This is the whole discussion from del Toro in 2022 on Bardo again- it is on the 2022 page. https://thecinemaarchives.com/2023/03/24/2022/
Seeing a Van Gogh and asking for an opinion, and the opinion is, ‘Well, it’s about some flowers in a pot.’ The flowers are OK, the pot is nice, but nobody talks about the brushstrokes, the colors, the thickness of the paint, the color palette. It’s astounding to me.”
@Vaanilla I think the issue here is the attempt to pigeonhole cinema down to a specific, subjective purpose – to explore intellectual subject matter. While I appreciate when a film is able to do this well, it is very much a matter of preference and cuts out a huge chunk of cinema’s most significant artists, including some of its forefathers like Eisenstein and D.W. Griffith.
I’ve come across many cinephiles who love the same highbrow films you mention like Last Year at Marienbad, but they instead place the emphasis on the emotion factor. Which is fine, and I don’t tell them in casual conversation that they’re wrong for enjoying cinema in their own way, but when they make a negative criticism their equivalent way of saying “This film lacks intellectual substance” is “This film lacks emotion.” They may be right in certain cases, but both statements are limited in their perspective of what cinema can and should be, since neither have much to do with the raw materials of cinema itself. I cringe even more when I hear someone praise a film for “having a good message,” but even that falls in with the idea that a film’s quality is based on what an individual is looking to get from it, rather than by the nature of its own artistic composition which remains consistent regardless of who is watching it.
What makes the argument even more difficult to pin down is the idea that Blade Runner somehow doesn’t belong in this category of intellectual cinema. You just need to do a quick search on Google Scholar to see how many academics disagree with that, a lot of whom barely even touch on the incredible visual craft and only focus on its explorations of memory, identity, ethics of creation, etc. Same goes for Pulp Fiction and Chungking Express which consider notions of fate, loneliness, and fleeting encounters, even if they are made more widely accessible to audiences by playing with recognisable genre conventions.
@Drake First off, thanks for the compliments. No matter my differences of opinions and taste and whatnot, I highly value your technical observations.
The thing is, the painting is a singular type of art. Akin to a a piece of classical music for example. But if I “consume” said piece not as an isolated experience but in the context of going to an opera concert, Carmen, Fidelio or whatever, other elements are meant to come into the experience, interact with the music, and form the system. There are mise-en-scene standards. I mean, Bordwell includes subject matter and abstract ideas as form. Those determine what the work is about and how it will get shaped, they’re the essence of the work. They will feed the cinematic language and feed off as well. When you see 8 1/2 and look at how Guido/Fellini’s whole artistic agony is that he no longer has anything of value to “tell” and drive the movie he’s making, otherwise it’s pretense and hot air, it’s a significant insight into the weight that substance and meaning occupy in the craftsmanship and artistic intentions of great masters. It’s part of the system.
While cinematographic technique is more physically tangible than abstractions, I don’t think it’s anymore objective and measurable than the treatment and purpose of a subject matter. Oppenheimer is very ambitious film in terms of editing, and in several aspects it does it good, but I would argue that having every shot last no more than 3 seconds hurts both the photography as certain gorgeous shots don’t even have time to imprint and register on the mind, and the thematic aspect of the system as Oppenheimer’s guilt never has the time to occupy the frame and impose itself, everything is fleeting. Form is not just stacking spectacular tracking shots in the highest number, it’s above all the harmony of technique as it interacts with the other parts of the system, and that is going to be highly subjective. OTOH what if Oppenheimer was a cliche story about a success story in academia culminating into a great invention rather than an exploration of the complex guilt that came with the Manhattan project (that, Bordwell also considers a form matter, I believe). My criticism of the editing in regards to form and subject matter would fall apart, but man would the movie lose something more significant in the process IMO.
How do you split hair to determine in what order to rank Tokyo Story and Raging Bull ? They’re both the gold standard of their respective techniques which couldn’t be more different, both highly indicative of their director and unmistakable in the context of their oeuvre in auteur theory. How do you go about quantifying Ozu’s frame obstructions and mise en scene against Scorsese’s editing, tracking shots and lighting in the ring ? I don’t think you can. But I do think I can tiebreak it by highlighting how much more unique within the media yet more universal Ozu’s subject matter is. How much more nuanced and complex it is as it juggles a larger cast. Or you could tell me that De Niro’s performance blows aways anyone in Tokyo Story, also fair. Yes it holds some subjectivity but so did trying to pick a side between their respective visual qualities. You would tell me Dark City is a marvel of set design and mise en scene, I would reply the editing is terrible and Walkabout or Fellini’s Casanova are a lot more confident and mastered visual effort. How do we objectively quantify and match up their visual qualities ? Yet, I don’t think I’d have any issue convincing you that Written On The Wind is not well served by its very lowbrow melodramatic nonsense and can’t even look The Godfather and Manhattan in the eye. Does substance not matter when it becomes a distraction from the visuals rather than interact seamlessly with them ? Or better yet, give us something more to praise the work on ?
Be honest, would we hold Bergman, Antonioni, Kieslowski and Tarkovksy in the same high esteem if they made pretty American Pie -like movies ? Or Hollywood burgers that hand you the tissue with heavy handed music like you’re a kid after you predicted every sequence in advance 5 minutes into the movie and strained your brain into turning it off as to not get offended by how hollow and repetitive the new (competently filmed) car chase is right before Tom Hanks with shallowly explored daddy issues makes a dumb sentimental speech about YEAH AMERICA FREEDOM. Fuck, I would much rather Spielberg shut up and make something like Fury Road and spare me this drivel.
Sorry, this got long, feel free to address it all in three sentences lol.
@Vaanilla- Thank you- appreciate the kind words. @DeclanG does such a fine job expressing what I want to say here. We can agree to disagree amicably here. You’re right- we all consume art. But what is our foundation? Is our criteria consistent and repeatable? Are we observing and analyzing the text or ourselves and how it makes us feel? I’m not calling you out specifically. I get on people all the time who evaluate a movie and use the word “bored” – or the film didn’t line up with their moral, ideological, or political beliefs or something. Putting so much of themselves into the work of art. Pauline Kael had more writing talent in the nail on her pinky finger than I could ever hope to have– I would often read her review and be so impressed with her writing – but she struggled mightily at times as an evaluator of film.
We’re just going to have to disagree on the “While cinematographic technique is more physically tangible than abstractions, I don’t think it’s anymore objective and measurable than the treatment and purpose of a subject matter” take. I don’t think this is close – so I’ll leave it alone.
Also, I should add, I wouldn’t get bent out of shape about Chungking Express or something ahead of Persona on my list. I’ve said this on the site often- the point of the list, or any of my lists, isn’t to argue #27 of all-time vs. #45. I mean it is fun to make lists- but the spirit of it is not to get worked up about splitting hairs. I mean in the scheme of things they are so close. You wouldn’t get a long argument for me if you had them flipped. I may ask why to see if I can learn something new. The point is they’re in the same sort of inner circle in the canon- and if you don’t think they’re close to the same level- I’d look inwards at your criteria- and then revisit the films.
You ask about how we quantify and match up great films. It is a lot of work. You can talk about Gladwell’s 10,000 rule or whatever- but it takes time (not saying you aren’t there – just answering the question about me). I’d focus on what the film or director does well – is there supportable evidence for it, is it repeated, sustained – and interconnected (part of that form). And I still miss on films and filmmakers– Delcan, Harry, James, LeRoi, Malith and too many others on the site through the years and in other aspects of life will challenge me on a film or director and I’ll reevaluate. It happens and it is a good thing. One of the reasons I wanted to comment on @LeRoi’s original remark was I used to have very similar thoughts. This same line of discussion can answer most of your questions on how would one compare Raging Bull and Tokyo Story. If you wanted to use one of those sort of lower criteria as a tiebreaker since they are both so utterly brilliant in their various aspects of film style excellence- I think that makes total sense. They are on the same plane. I will tell you though- what wouldn’t enter my mind is “well this one is more subtle than another, or “this one made me feel more”, or some sort of self imposed criteria that the film isn’t even attempting.
I’m not sure about the comment on The Godfather and Manhattan- and I don’t want to leap to conclusions so I’ll leave those alone, too.
You ask about Bergman, Antonioni, Kieslowski and Tarkovsky and talk about the potential esteem they would be held in if they made American Pie. It’s such a hypothetical- but I think again you’re getting into a slippery slope of A-film vs. B-film and so called high-art vs. low art— plenty of masters at the level of Bergman, Antonioni, Kieslowski, and Tarkovsky worked in genre (Hitchcock, Ford- Kubrick often worked in genre films, Kurosawa made a ton of samurai films, Ozu worked on domestic dramas).
I’m putting together the 2023 page as we speak – hopefully up soon- so I’ll share more on Oppenheimer there- but appreciate you sharing your thoughts.
@DeclanG I would call it hierarchizing rather than pigeonholing. But yes I don’t see the problem tbh, it’s not even limited to something intellectual and artsy fartsy. At comparable cinematography ( I would even disagree there but I’m going off the rankings here), The Apartment is a lot more precious through its substance than brain numbing stuff like Shawshank and Aliens.
For Blade Runner specifically it’s a whole can of worms and conversation for another day lol.
@Drake I see. I respect the attempt at a methodology that aims at a consistent, all size process, scientific-like, but I just don’t see it. Without falling back to absolute subjectivism as I have a hard time with people who just handwave away critical thinking for personal sentiments, I think it’s still an impossible ideal. We do have conventions of quality and good design across art forms to refer to, hence why we can establish an obvious consensus over films like The Passion of Joan of Arc and Citizen Kane, but the subjective part is unavoidable and I think it’s more fruitful to work with it. If someone can explain critically why X is great while calling attention to reliable measures of quality and putting forward a good reasoning, even if subjective, that’s enough for me. But then again, I wouldn’t want to look at art in the utmost detached manner outside of personal preferences, that would defeat the purpose. There’s an introspective part to the experience. I can’t recall in what film I heard that recently, but something like “a film is a mirror in movement” ? I like that. Not unlike an auteur, there are most likely patterns across my favorite films. Fanny and Alexander, Eyes Wide Shut, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Persona, Last Year At Marienbad, Vertigo, The Third Man, Red Desert, Barry Lyndon, etc. Mirrors, European architecture, candles, murky layers of reality blending, psychological oppression, trickery, and who knows what else lol.
Out of curiosity, what would a top list of yours have looked like when you were at the same step of the process as where you put LeRoi, as you say ?
Fair enough on the interchangeable placements lol. I do think movies in the hundreds and movies in the 20s is a sizeable gap though. And I hope you’ll put a Bicycle Thieves page up sometime, because under your own criteria I must admit I just don’t get it. Formally, to my eye anyway, it’s good but I would say it doesn’t compare to lower placed movies such as Marienbad, Touch of Evil, The Tree of Life, Rashomon, etc. At all. I wouldn’t even put it with The Third Man and The Trial. Even among the neorealists, I was more impressed visually by both Rocco and His Brothers and Germany Year Zero. I don’t think it would be about historical significance either since Rome Open City is much lower. You’re not much of a narrative guy… So what is it about that film ? :p I always handwaved its placement on the TSPDT as a mix of sentimentalism, historical significance and compelling class struggle tale, but I must be missing something.
@Vaanilla- Thanks again for the insight and conversation. I do not have a page on the site yet for Bicycle Thieves as you said- and it has been a minute since I’ve seen it- but I’ll try to prioritize it before the De Sica page update.
As for what my list looks liked it in the past- I’d like to think (I’m sure we all do) that I had good taste- but it certainly was swayed more by good writing, performance, films that either moved me emotionally or intellectually – more so than artistically.
Agreed with @Vaanilla that it is not necessarily a matter of being script driven (there is definitely substance in a Tarr film) and with @Drake that the ‘substance’ part can be more subjective and difficult to define or place in a neat box, but I cannot agree that the substance is “not all that important when talking about art”. From my perspective there should be space/appreciation for different approaches to filmmaking/creativity (and film evaluation) and recognition that you could have a great film which has a traditional narrative structure / creative storytelling, nuanced acting and is well put together, but is maybe not groundbreaking in its technical camerawork / shot composition etc. One has to concede that if you remove writing/narrative storytelling, acting etc completely from film / film history, you’re left with a very limited/incomplete world of cinema. Experimentation is necessary and that is how you develop/advance the art form, but each film’s technical aspects do not need to be innovative or ground breaking and as Picasso said “the people who find are more interesting than the people who search”.
If you compare to art itself (given the Van Gogh reference from Drake), art is not evaluated purely through the artist’s technical proficiency, but also by the expressive qualities, originality, whether it is thought provoking etc. It will be quite limiting if formalism is the primary yardstick and if film appreciation is reduced to a clinical analysis. To ignore the thought provoking or emotive qualities of film would often mean that you are ignoring the filmmaker’s intention. There is of course always the risk of people reading things into a film which the filmmaker did not intend, but by ignoring it completely you could also be disregarding a large part of the filmmaker’s vision/art. This is also clear when reading interviews with many of the great filmmakers when they’re explaining what they were trying to achieve with a particular film. Vaanilla’s opera analogy is apt and it is in the interaction between the various elements (not viewed in isolation) that I see the real art.
@LeRoi- This has been great- thank you for your contribution here. Keep in mind that my “not all that important when talking about art” has a parenthetical “at least in comparison with style” included in it.
In the grand scheme of things – I don’t think we’re far off- my guess is we’d come to an agreement on 8 or 9 out of 10 films and filmmakers.
Also, keep in mind that the archives has over 4000+ films included here and counting. I still watch, study, admire films with great substance, intellect, writing, acting – films that are often made by directors (and crew) with great taste (even if many of them may not be someone we call an artist) who can tell a compelling story. But at some point the nature of the website here was set up to put these directors and films in a list form. The goal was to admire them all- but if you had to start somewhere or prioritize where to spend your time and study- to have some sort of order. I’ll admit I like making lists- I always have- and I guess by nature it sort of pits one director against another or one film against another- but it doesn’t mean I don’t respect and admire films and filmmakers that excel at some of those lesser cinematic criteria. I hope that makes sense.
@Vaanilla I appreciate the intelligent discourse from both you and LeRoi – there aren’t a lot of places online where people can have these discussions, and I really like reading your thoughts even if we come to different conclusions.
I think 8 1/2 is a really interesting example to bring up that comments on the matter, because even though Guido is agonised by his lack of anything to say, I also feel that his character arc moves him past worrying about that in the final scene. Once he is able to let go of the fact that he has run out of intellectual ideas to express, he finds peace in his relationships and memories, and is able to sincerely present himself to the world without pretence, shame, or any grand philosophical ideas. Even though 8 1/2 is definitely a piece of intellectual cinema, I think its final argument is for artistic expression that values organic honesty over intellectual ideas, since an obsession with pursuing them can easily lead to the sort of neurotic pretentiousness that Guido suffers from.
@Declan I mostly agree with your assessment of 8 1/2, but outside of what may be hinting at the idea that Fellini argues against substance. At least not in the way I understand and use it. Perhaps you’d be clearer on what I mean if I said I find substance aplenty in something like Tree of Life (not really intellectual) and the family story, but not so much in Days of Heaven where Malick’s arrangement of (extremely pretty) images ring a bit hollow in the way they’re stitched together and what they may be trying to express. It’s the difference between Proust using his prose to describe the madeleine vs doing a random style exercise about something more lukewarm, if you’re familiar with the analogy. Obviously I still hold Days of Heaven in high regard, all-time cinematography is still huge after all, but Tree of Life’s proximity with its subject matter and substance breaks the glass ceiling if you will.
For 8 1/2 specifically, I think there’s a possible reading that Fellini felt threatened by the rise of directors like Bergman and maybe even Antonioni in Europe alongside him, and felt obliged to try and keep up with it, offer something of comparable value. 8 1/2 is the telling of where it’s getting him. Obviously he’s more of an intuitive and earthy person, and that’s totally fine. Better to own up to it and be authentic, and share his wisdom and insight his own way. It doesn’t conflict with substance to me. I don’t want everyone to be Bergman.
I must admit I’m a LOT lower on self-aware auteurs like PTA and Chazelle than Drake where the organic honesty you speak of and which I value as well, I find very lacking in them. Brilliant technicians, but too often their work leaves me the feeling they were just trying to emulate their idol and be compared to them and hopefully surpass them by putting more fancy shots in, or consciously add a specific thing to their resume, while expressing nothing new or authentic to bring to the table. Thus brilliant technicians but poor artists (PTA has gotten better on that though, at this present time I’m mostly targeting Chazelle and Babylon which I hated). And I much prefer someone focus almost exclusively on style with authenticity and without pretense like Ophuls that I adore, than bloat it with jarring substance. I can’t care for discount Singing in The Rain x 8 1/2 x Boogie Nights trying to sound deep and self-important while piggybacking off greater directors.
@Drake Cool. Not to worry, if I’m to question your rankings it will be in the spirit of how consistent they are to how I understand your methodology 🙂
@Vaanilla Where do you ultimately land on the French New Wave directors like Godard and Truffaut whose self-awareness is such a huge part of their styles, often at the expense of the sort of substance Resnais was working with? Especially in the case of Godard, I feel that it is when he started placing substance over style in his later work that he started to lose steam. Or would you place them in the same category as Ophuls?
It’s a fine line when you’re talking about pretentiousness in directors, since it is so often used by more casual movie watchers as a criticism of anyone with vaguely artistic sensibilities, brushing off the possibility that they have anything of value to say. I think I’ve heard it applied to virtually every one of Drake’s top 20 directors with the exception of maybe Leone and Ford – probably because they deal mainly in genre fare. I feel that every person who uses it has a different definition of what it means.
@Drake. Agreed that we’ll be aligned in most cases. I guess where we’ll agree to disagree is on what is regarded as greater or lesser cinematic criteria. I’ll leave these quotes as a final thought:
Bresson said: ‘You don’t have to make images that are beautiful. You have to make images that are necessary.’
Kurosawa said: “With a good script, a good director can produce a masterpiece. With the same script, a mediocre director can produce a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. The script must be something that has the power to do this.”
Tarkovsky said: “No “mise en scène” has the right to be repeated, just as no two personalities are ever the same. As soon as a “mise en scène” turns into a sign, a cliché, a concept (however original it may be), then the whole thing – characters, situation, psychology – become schematic and false.”
@LeRoi- Yes, we can respectively agree to disagree. I think most movie lovers would agree with you for what it is worth (I don’t think much – but hey). I’ve had this discussion (or a variation on it) many, many times over the years – unfortunately the discussions are not all organized on one page so they flare up here and there on various pages- so many times I can’t recall where. I’ll try to remember the Rohmer page for next time. Again, I don’t know where you are in your journey through cinema- but as I’ve said, it’ll be interesting to see if you still feel this way in 5 or 10 years if you keep at it (which I hope you do -and if this doesn’t apply to you, don’t take it the wrong way- it was meant with good intentions). These are good quotes- thanks for sharing- Kurosawa is just wrong here- should be self-evident by how many times a great film doesn’t need a great script. Bresson didn’t really make beautiful images (largely)- so I see this working for him. The same quote could be applied to any director wanting to just shoot the screenplay… yuck- no thanks. Guillermo del Toro’s quote on the 2022 page works better when discussing the full possibilities of the medium and art in general. It is interesting that you said we disagree on what is greater or lesser cinematic criteria when the first oxford definition for “cinematic” is “the visual qualities or aesthetics of a film or video.” But I digress- anyways- thank you again for the discussion
@Drake. Thanks for the reply. I don’t think Bresson’s point is merely around the merit of making beautiful images, but that beautiful images on their own is not necessarily enough and that they should serve the purpose of the film. Otherwise (as Tarkovsky alludes to), it could become false. I don’t think the etymology of the word cinema aids the discussion much. My main concern with placing such an emphasis on the formalistic elements is that it (in many, if not most, cases) disregards the filmmaker’s intention with his/her piece of art (which often includes his/her intent to be thought provoking, challenge the viewer, tackle a particular subject, make a particular point or just to tell a good/engaging story). But at least I understand your approach better now and can view the lists/rankings in this light. Have been on my own cinema journey for a long time and my tastes have definitely developed and become more refined over time, but we may just have something different that we try to take from the art.
@LeRoi- Sounds good- I think most would agree with you and their main take away is this section ” tackle a particular subject, make a particular point or just to tell a good/engaging story”- I’m just going for something different or (in my opinion) beyond/above this.
@LeRoi What are some of your favorite films ? Just so I can get a feel of how “form-conscious” you are towards the media.
I believe you were very very high on Anatomy of a Fall recently, weren’t you ?
@Vaanilla Some all time favourites include Godfather Part II, 400 Blows, Apocalypse Now, Deer Hunter, Taxi Driver, Lawrence of Arabia, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, Mulholland Drive, Annie Hall, Once upon a time in America, Au Hazard Balthazar, Thin Red Line, the Apartment, Au Revoir les Enfants, Rear Window, Amorres Perros, Wild Strawberries, High and Low, In the Mood for Love, Underground, Three Colours Red, Yi Yi, 1900, Do the Right Thing, La Notte, My Night at Mauds, American History X, Rocco and his Brothers, Rosemary’s Baby, History of Violence, Drive, Le Mepris, Being There, Big Lebowski, In a Lonely Place, Paris, Texas, Irreversible etc
For the past few years, yes I do rate Anatomy of a Fall quite highly, as well as Decision to Leave, As Bestos, Tar, Petit Maman, The Worst Person in the World, Boiling Point, the Holdovers, Banshees, Killers of the Flower Moon etc.
@DeclanG-Godard had substance in his later works? That’s a first. Didn’t he literally forget about any sort of narrative and just threw in cutaways in the 80’s and beyond?
He was definitely more pointed with his politics and saw cinema purely as a medium to get those messages across, like that clumsy speech slapped right in the middle of Weekend (even if the surrounding film is a huge success). That said, I do get your point – there were plenty of substanceless failures there too.
I see Truffaut as a very meat and potatoes storyteller, so he would certainly be all-style as far as I’m concerned. I suppose grouping him with Ophuls would work yeah, although both Truffaut’s subjects and cinematic style interest me a lot less than Ophuls. I’ve seen only five films of his I think. I certainly wouldn’t put Jules and Jim nor the 400 Blows ahead of the tracking shots and mise en scene work of Lola Montes and Madame de…, putting so much stock into the freeze frames for evaluation goes above my head (although I did find it tasteful specifically in the ending of 400 Blows)
To Godard, to me has a lot more substance. Contempt is all at once the anatomy of a dying marriage (La Notte) that echoes his own in real life, with meditations on cinematic codes as are all his films and especially music use here, a commentary on the movie industry (Lang and Palance) and a critical essay to deconstruct Homer’s Odyssey. He often likes to look at language and the function it serves in a meta way. As you pointed out, he’s also very political. I think he’s very much both style and substance. Breathless and Pierrot Le Fou might be both mostly style exercises, but I think being self aware and deconstructing your medium on screen should count as substance. Shallow by his standards, maybe. I think he just became more narrow and less accessible as he got older, more concerned with concepts than narrative and picture in the traditional sense. Obviously it doesn’t align with Drake’s (and perhaps yours) criteria on style but I still would say it registers as concern with form. Then again, I think form extends beyond style and aesthetic concerns. Dogville might be called ugly here, but I have a hard time not seeing it as cinematic and formal.
I purposely didn’t use “pretentious” as I agree with you that it’s a loaded term with various connotations. The reasoning behind my issues is laid out however. Babylon spends a lot of time trying to justify its importance to the viewer (the Brad Pitt and movie critic scene, the ending meta montage coupled with the talk of “inheriting”, yuck) while borrowing its substance left and right from well known “auteur” classics with much worse execution, and has all the specs of oscar chasing trying to coexist alongside it. It’s to be Singing in the Rain, 8 1/2, and Wolf of Wall Street/Babylon all at once to get praise from all sides. It also tries to be a dark mirror to La La Land of sorts. It seems utterly image driven, defined by a concrete real life results to be achieved rather than spontaneous and sincere artistic expression. La La Land also kind of fed the narrative of the prestige of reviving a dead genre (musicals) with the most obnoxious marketing campaign I had seen in some time, only to find out that while it’s a good movie, the musical part is very basic and clearly wasn’t all that important when the leads were chosen. Image of art rather than art.
In a less bothersome fashion, I have mixed impressions watching early PTA because the strings of him trying so hard to be Scorsese, Altman, then Kubrick, in a calculated and emulated manner, feels like I’m told how I should see him and whatever the film is about, and it simply ceases to register as recognizable, personal and authentic expression.
Needless to say I’m not claiming any objectivity or consistent methodology on whatever I just put down, but you seemed interested in what I look at for substance, and how I approach the media. Hopefully this is informative, or at the least somewhat interesting.
@Vaanila-What is the Brad Pitt and Movie Critic scene in Babylon? That clearly went over my head. I think he gives the best performance in the film
@Vaanilla Definitely informative, you articulate your points very well. Much appreciated!
@Malith Yes Brad Pitt is very good, both the best performance and the best thing in the movie as far as I’m concerned actually. He’s not on blast.
The scene in question is already kind of obnoxious because like in Birdman there’s some sort of undermining of professional critics, a preemptive damage control over criticism that may come the film’s way. It feels insecure and preachy, a guilt trip, controlling the viewer’s experience. But the truly annoying bit is that the critic in question tells Pitt that though he’s all washed up and his time is past, in 50 years a child –not children, a child specifically– will take notice of him, befriend him and honor him. The movie at that point is about the talkies and Hays code transition, so around 1934-35. You’re already kind of feeling the fourth wall break (one child and 50 years are oddly specific), but to drive the point into the ground with the subtlety of a hammer: Damien Chazelle is born in 85. This is so freaking self-important I just can’t… And the whole movie is that, it keeps telling the viewer what it is and the value of what it is doing. It rides the coattails of classics (Singing in the Rain, 8 1/2, Boogie Nights/Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and more) with sometimes explicit callbacks, and it desperately forces a connection, an heritage, a parallel, on the viewer. Nothing organic. The movie critic scene is one, the Singing in the Rain multiple on the nose references is another, and the ending montage is tying the ribbon by definitely and unquestionably linking the film to a line of important works of the media. Except all I just saw is a messy downgraded mixture of these quoted films, and no additional value except telling me the obvious of how they great they are. I know they’re great, and with all your fourth wall breaking telling me how great you are because of them, I just want to turn off this messy self-important nonsense and watch them instead !
Form wise we can probably already formulate criticisms over how messy the subplots structure is handled I the editing as it jumps back and forth, Chazelle is no Nolan, Altman or Griffith, or how suffocating and nauseating Chazelle’s consistently extra camera movements and effects with four people talking over each other with bad language is, but Babylon fails hardest at the substance side of things. It’s distractingly awful.
@Vaanilla-Ah. I thought that woman who tells Brad Pitt his time is up is a film producer. I think that Asian woman stole every scene she was in Babylon. I don’t think there is much of a form in Babylon but still the first half or so is very good.
It’s crazy to me Chazelle’s previous film was First Man. They couldn’t be more different. First Man is like the perfect well acted snooze fest of a movie while Babylon is this big extravaganza. Completely different films.
@Malith I thought the Anna May Wong character was wasted. And the snake scene was especially goofy and…kind of racist ? The black jazzman was wasted too. They got shortchanged in their arc compared to the trio, it really felt like filling quotas for the oscars
I haven’t seen First Man yet, and to be honest I’m not sure I want to considering your description and how frustrated I was following 3 hours of Babylon lol… Some annoying aspects of Babylon could already be seen in smaller doses in La La Land, but it was minimal enough that it barely impacted my positive opinion. If he continues on the same track as Babylon though, which he might not considering how much American critics slaughtered his film and he seems to really want that oscar, I might just be done with his stuff.
I wasn’t talking about any particular scene or whether it is good or bad. Just whenever she appeared on screen, she commanded it. It was pretty impressive. Chazelle already won the Oscar for La La Land if I remember correctly.
First Man is not really annoying whatsoever. It’s just a well acted film. Directing style was pretty invincible however. It’s worth a watch.
@Drake The dispute here is on what do we consider cinematic and I definitely think there is a choice to be made.
@Chief Keef. Fair. We can agree to disagree respectively. I just think it is an evolutionary process as I had similar views years ago and view things differently now. I appreciate the dialogue and thoughts on Rohmer.
@ O.W. – thanks for the comment and for visiting the site. That seems high.
What’s funny is that I think he is closer to the truth than you are haha
In all seriousness, I can see why someone like Rohmer would fall so low on your list since you are primarily focused on visuals and he is someone who barely moves the camera and does virtually no editing with single takes lasting up to 10 minutes. On the other hand it fits his style and I can’t imagine how he would do what he does any differently. As you pointed out placement of objects in frames is something he excels at. It’s always symbolic and in relation to what he is trying to say with the film. His strongest traits are both verbal and non verbal communication. I don’t know who would I put ahead of him when it comes to dialogues, maybe only Kieslowski, but the point being they are so real and nuanced, he really mastered human character. Even more masterful in my opinion is his direction of actors and non verbal communication and that’s why I disagree with your pick for overrated – The Green Ray. I think it’s his best film because the way Delphine (Marie Riviere) walked, talked, her mannerisms fit her character perfectly and while you have to give the credit to the actress it’s obvious that Rohmer’s work there is what should be praised the most. The same thing with My Night at Maud’s – you get the feeling that every move (coming closer and then moving away), smile, glance they made during that famous dialogue had significance and added the new layer.
@Chief Keef– I don’t think I’m “primarily focused on the visuals”. I think I’m prioritizing cinema art as I should… on what’s cinematic.
“People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God’s sake, I’m not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I’m making a movie that people are going to look at.” – Ridley Scott
You basically both denied and confirmed that you are focusing on visuals in the same comment… Many critics including Ebert pay more attention to substance than form in their reviews and I think he would know a thing or two about what’s cinematic. You are free to have your own criteria and I’m aware what to expect when visiting the website, that’s why I tried to point out things in line with that such as mise-en-scene and directing of actors but I can’t agree with the exclusive nature of your response.
I apologize if I misinterpreted your views or offended you, I love your work and it’s a great website.
@Chief Keef. I’m going to take the cinematic over the uncinematic every time. That’s all I was saying. I’m not prioritizing anything–that would imply there’s some sort of choice to make on cinematic art. You can disagree with that of course- that’s your right.
@Chief Keef… and I love Ebert– He’s 100X the writer I could ever dream of being. But his system wasn’t as rigid as mine. Perhaps that’s good and you prefer that, more about content and emotion. Or perhaps it leads to top 10’s for 2007 like this one sort of just writing.. lost…
1. Juno
2. No Country for Old Men
3. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
4. Atonement
5. The Kite Runner
6. Away From Her
7. Across the Universe
8. La Vie en Rose
9. The Great Debaters
10. Into the Wild
For you Rohmer is 147th. For me is number 1 or 2.