Re: Best Movies - Only American Movies
by abhishek on Oct 08, 2008 03:09 PM Permalink
I would strongly recommend you to go back to school and start learning to read. The guy has already mentioned in the article that he is only considering Hollywood movies here because even he wont be able to select best 10 if he has to choose from the world cinema.
Then there were 'Born Free', 'Jungle Book', 'Planet of the Apes'.. yeah the list is long. To digress a bit, is it true that movies in Hollywood (and Bollywood) have deteriorated in intellectual content since the 60s or is it that I'm living in the past..? If the former, is it a dumbing down of our people or have we drastically changed ? These are loud thoughts, need not be answered!
Re: Loud thinking
by Sreehari on Oct 08, 2008 03:21 PM Permalink
June, It's not about deterioration.. But it's like.. Today we are too hell-bent on approaching the medium of film-making with the attitude of a Capitalist... When I say "The Attitude of a Capitalist" I don't necessarily mean that we want to make money.. "Making Money" and "Wanting People to see your movie" (Being an Audience Whore.. Like Bergman once put it)is a desire that exists among all artists.. But these days.. People go to the movies to actually seek solutions.. "Taare Zameen Par" for example.. We want succesful protagonists who truimph against all odds and stuff.The concept of "Me the Sinner" is slowly running out.And these days, its not artists but marketing people who r running the movie-business. So it's not about creativity anymore. What marketeers essentially do is study a succesful commodity of the past and synthesise their present based on that study. Which is not how art works (Look what Aurindam Chaudhari tried doing with his first movie and what happened).. True artists unlike the players in other fields are not necessarily driven by an optimism that arises out of a succesful past. They are driven by the miseries of the present and try merely thru their art to bring people together and share those miseries.. Which is the basis of such classics as "Through a Glass Darkly", "La Dolce Vita" etc. To achieve contact with people... There are too many "cinephiles" these days.But there arent too many people who are passionately interested in human beings..
I can't comment about Bollywood, but I don't feel that intellectual content in Hollywood has decreased over the years. If you make a list of all American movies made in the last 20 years, and remove all the big budget & star power ones (which are all dumb), you will be left with quite a few excellent independent movies. Look at the Coen Brothers' movies for example - high on intelligent content.
It just seems like things have ben dumbed down or that we've grown stupid because of the growth of Hollywood - these days they make more movies with big budget special effects when compared to the sixties; as such, the better movies with good content tend to get pushed into the shadows.
Re: Loud thinking
by abhishek on Oct 09, 2008 02:14 AM Permalink
I agree, still some excellent movies are made, its just that the number of stupid 'flicks' has increased by a lot making it harder to find a good piece of art.
Re: good choice!
by abhishek on Oct 08, 2008 12:42 PM Permalink
well, most of the movies mentioned here are excellent! But they missed "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"(1966)!!! It was one of the best movie in Western Genre made in hollywood. It truly deserved to be on this list.
Re: good choice!
by Daniel DeMello on Oct 08, 2008 05:52 PM Permalink
Again, that's a Sergio Leone film. I think being a Spaghetti Western, they've excluded it from the list.
Re: good choice!
by abhishek on Oct 09, 2008 02:15 AM Permalink
yeah he has mentioned about not considering Sergio Leone movies. But he has taken almost all the genres on his list, it would have been good to have one western as well.
Re: good choice!
by Raja Sen on Oct 09, 2008 01:53 PM Permalink
Guys, in my opinion The Good The Bad The Ugly is the single finest Western of all time.. however, the spaghetti flicks were made in Italian and dubbed in English, which is why I didn't count it as the English-language flicks...
am enjoying the messageboard discussions a lot though. cheers.
Where's "Bonnie and Cyde"??? Damn.. this list sucks... I mean it.. The best films of any era are those that set standards for the films that follow.. The sequences of violence in "Bonnie and Clyde" is what inspired even "The Godfather"...
Where's "The Apartment"?? Where is Peckinpah's "Wild Bunch"??
And you have "The Sound of Music" in there... Holy Cow !!!.. (ala Seinfeld... :) )... I understand that the writer here has sought anticipatory bail by stating that he would be sticking only to the English Films of the 60's... But atleast, atleast for the 60's... he should have chosen a wider canvas. Because it truly was a watershed decade for world movies..
Re: Again..
by Sreehari on Oct 08, 2008 12:21 PM Permalink
Sound of Music is an evergreen classic.... Oh yeah... And Usha Uthup is stunningly sensual :))
Re: Again..
by gerard dsouza on Oct 08, 2008 12:45 PM Permalink
well see it again carefully!the musical compositions seem ordinary but they are quite sophisticated...genius is simplicity!
Re: Again..
by Sreehari on Oct 08, 2008 12:38 PM Permalink
I am sorry if I sound too dogmatic or pendantic in my views here... But lemme tell you something that Mr. Sen has not told you ... "Bonnie and Clyde" was "The Most Significant American Movie" of the 60's"... For the way it shattered many an existing prototypes... From "The Killing of the Great American Dream" to presenting its protagonist as someone with sexual inadequacies.. Journalists have an easy time ingratiating themselves with wit, humour and nicely compiled texts... But, what's most important is to truly understand that they are not creating something.. They are just documenting an era bygone.. And faithful documentation should always come before self-ingratiation..
Re: Again..
by Raja Sen on Oct 09, 2008 01:57 PM Permalink
Sreehari, I agree that B&C was an incredible film -- and I have lamented for having had to keep out the same on the last page -- but lists of this nature are always subjective and the 60s was such a decade for New Hollywood that it's really hard to boil it down to 10.
It is a mammoth achievement, I agree. I just couldn't squeeze it into the top ten, though.
let's hope you and I have a more compatible outlook on the 70s -- or a more interesting battle :)
What kind of an insipid list is this? I understand its the writer's POV thats working here, but still.. If u r capturing an era at hindsight, and if you are doing it by following an artistic route, what u essentially need to do is trace back the general public and artistic sentiment that drove the pictures of that era.. And the primary artistic sentiment that drove the films of the 60's was an EXISTENTIALIST feel that found its source in the films of Bergman towards the end of the 50's and further accentuated by Antonioni's films like L'Avventura towards the start of 60's... The spirit of these stark, bleak films were then merged with the general Hollywood prototypes and that's how "The French New Wave" of Truffaut, Godard and others was born.. Significant Films that ought to have made it to this list at the expense of ANY film from this list in my opinion are: Persona, Yojimbo, Jules and Jim, L'Avventura, Winter Light,Charulata among others... 60's is a highly significant period because that's when the Americans themselves started to move out of the regular Hollywood Films and venture into Europe and Asia for artistic satiation.. Scorsese, Altman, Woody Allen, Coppola and Lucas among others have cited the importance of the European and Asian Films of the 60's in shaping their cinematic outlook. These directors further went ahead and carved the cinematic style for the modern era This is "Raja Sen's favorite films of the 60's" and not the "Best Films of the 60'"
Re: This is not what the 60's stood for..
by Brahmanan on Oct 08, 2008 02:53 PM Permalink
What about Cast Away, Jurasic park, Jaws, Schendler's list???
Re: This is not what the 60's stood for..
by Raja Sen on Oct 08, 2008 11:49 AM Permalink
I like how you have a perspective but refuse to actually *read* the slideshow which speaks specifically of it being about 'English-language cinema'..
as for world cinema.. picking ten was too hard and I gave up.
and yes, every list made by anyone is made up of what *they* think are the best. which is why they ask for your feedback. reading the text instead of the headlines would be most appreciated, as would your telling me which English films you liked best from the period.
What kind of an insipid list is this? I understand its the writer's POV thats working here, but still.. If u r capturing an era at hindsight, and if you are doing it by following an artistic route, what u essentially need to do is trace back the general public and artistic sentiment that drove the pictures of that era.. And the primary artistic sentiment that drove the films of the 60's was an EXISTENTIALIST feel that found its source in the films of Bergman towards the end of the 50's and further accentuated by Antonioni's films like L'Avventura towards the start of 60's... The spirit of these stark, bleak films were then merged with the general Hollywood prototypes and that's how "The French New Wave" of Truffaut, Godard and others was born.. Significant Films that ought to have made it to this list at the expense of ANY film from this list in my opinion are: Persona, Yojimbo, Jules and Jim, L'Avventura, Winter Light,Charulata among others... 60's is a highly significant period because that's when the Americans themselves started to move out of the regular Hollywood Films and venture into Europe and Asia for artistic satiation.. Scorsese, Altman, Woody Allen, Coppola and Lucas among others have cited the importance of the European and Asian Films of the 60's in shaping their cinematic outlook. These directors further went ahead and carved the cinematic style for the modern era This is "Raja Sen's favorite films of the 60's" and not the "Best Films of the 60'"
