Best Scene: Being given alibi.
4. Fernando Rey in Elisa, Vida Mía - Rey's working with a limited role but is effective in the different perspectives he is presented in.
Best Scene: Teaching.
3. Bruno S. in Stroszek - S's role is limited though there is something innately captivating about him once again.
Best Scene: Street performance.
2. William Devane in Rolling Thunder - Devane manages to maintain a captivating portrayal of a soldier lost at home and revenge, even though his film is all over the place.
Best Scene: Time to kill.
1. Boris Plotnikov in the Ascent - Plotnikov gives a truly haunting portrayal of a man finding his passion for life just as he is about die.
Best Scene: Final scene.
Next: A few 77 supporting reviews.
39 comments:
And no I didn't forget Keitel, I'm moving him over to supporting.
Louis: Ratings and thoughts on the rest of the lead performances.
Your Female Lead and Supporting top 20s with ratings and other 4+ honourable mentions.
And your wins.
Final films To Watch
Sorcerer
Sleeping Dogs
Jabberwocky
Pete's Dragon
If Keitel's Supporting, does that mean you've upgraded him.
I'm happy that you've upgraded Coburn as well.
Louis: If it's not too much to ask, could you make the time to rewatch CE3K, A Special Day, and Saturday Night Fever? Just curious what your overall thoughts on those films would be.
Louis: Thoughts on Shepitko's direction of The Ascent?
Really hoping a surprise 5 for Ford. On my last rewatch (it was Despecialized, mind you) I was relieved that only did he add to Han the way I remembered, but even better. His delivery of "May the Force be with you" might be the most moving moment in the film.
Louis: Your 6-10 for Best Director, and when you have time, your Top 25 films of 1977.
Hello Louis!
Tell me from the year 1977 which are your Top 7 with ranking of:
- Song
- Score
- Poster
- Editing
- Screenplays (adapted and original)
- Cast
So glad you loved The Ascent. Interesting that you're moving Keitel over to Supporting.
Louis: Thoughts on The Duellists screenplay and cinematography.
Harrison Ford- Star Wars
Some players from A Bridge Too Far
Francois Truffaut- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
John Cassavetes- Opening Night
Maximilian Schell is a definite, would like Caan and Ford to get write-ups as well.
Hopper won't lose in Blue Velvet. So I think it's very likely that Keitel will win supporting, just like Day Lewis did in Gangs of New York.
I'd give him the runner-up spot if I too put him in Supporting Actor.
Shaggy: What does Blue Velvet have to do with it?
Matt: I wouldn't take much notice of it, he's been wanting a change in overall winner for near enough every year since he's been active on the blog.
Louis: Do you have any interest in seeing Rumours or Disclaimer? And it was a while ago at this point, but thoughts on the Sinners trailer?
For a start will get to all thoughts.
Luke:
Kazakos - 4(The performance manages to find enough of the fine line between sort of the grandiose of Greek tragedy with a much more basic reality within his performance. Allowing his work to be able to be genuine while also still selling the specific notions of the Greek tragedy without being over the top. And in a way he pulls it off by just playing it straight and with conviction even when the character is speaking of sacrifices to the gods that is usually left for less tangible stories, this one Kazakos's performance grounds it with the real guilt of a father. And that is frequently where the power of his work exists because he does very much grant the sense of love of the father in the sacrifice, even as he goes through it with the desperation of a man needing this to "work for him" that central facet is never lost. And even as he commits the horrible act, you see how it rips him apart, even if that also doesn't stop him.)
Radziwilowicz - 4(An effectively charismatic performance as we see his progression go from the image of a hero carefully constructed to becoming the man who is directly fighting against injustices as a much more real hero. His performance brings with it the right cultivation of heroism within his work essentially by slowly cultivating his passion to show the true spirit of the man as he becomes less so the "hero" the state wants him to be and is rather the actual hero to the people. He's also quite good in his final two scenes in very much emphasizing different elements of his performance to still show that he's the son of the man, but also is a different man at his core.)
Chamberlain - 4(Manages keep his head above best he can in terms of conveying the existential dread in his performance while also tempering it with the reality of the man just trying to figure out what is actually going on. He brings the right sort of internalization in terms of trying to contain the disparate threads in a single performance. I won't say it quite makes the film come together in terms of his own work, but Chamberlain is always captivating to an extent in managing to find the right tone even if the film doesn't quite let him take the next step.)
Shaw - 3.5(Is the most engaging actor in the film though the role is pretty limited as he basically needs to do Quint without the substance. Nonetheless, Shaw's captivating in his usual way in making the most of giving gravity and a bit of that sea salt energy to whatever lines he does have.)
Scott - (His rendition of Hemingwayesque is entirely good, though like the film it is lacking a certain extra something. I don't really think this is on Scott. He's good; he brings the right sort of tempered macho presence, though undercuts it effectively in the moments of being a bit more of a silly dad, and introspection. Altogether this is most promising, unfortunately the film doesn't take him past a certain point in this exploration leaving it as a good performance though limited.)
Tikhonov - 3.5(Charming enough goofball performance, though I think a bit overshadowed by his co-star who is more consistently dynamic, meanwhile he mostly just needs to do the nervous nerd routine, which he does perform with enough of an endearing quality to be sure.)
Carradine - 3.5(Sometimes seems a little lost within the narrative, and yes his character is supposed to be lost but Carradine himself seems lost too. There are moments though where he seems to find the right thread to grasp onto in portraying the character's intensity of his emotional desperation he tries to keep in, and in those moments Carradine is actually most impactful. Unfortunately those are more often the exception, though obviously a major step up from Bergman's previous English language lead.)
Marconi - 3.5(A limited but largely decent performance that very much serves the very specific vision of the film. As the character isn't quite a non-entity however part of it is just going through the motions of experience in a way and not becoming the active participant as is the usual protagonist. His performance I wouldn't say comes to life beyond that expectation but delivers at least in creating the specific type.)
Rey - 3.5(Overdubbed here, though he certainly sells physically the sense of swings between arousal and then frustration, with the latter growing each time. Conveying his way of looking kind of through the women just focus on the lust and see how that instantly becomes his choice, yet getting swept up each time in the same way.)
Denner - 3(I was okay with him in the early scenes where we see him going about his methods with a certain horny disregard for the typical manner, though consistent in his approach. Unfortunately there's a moment where I went "we're stuck with this guy?". And that's where it becomes less interesting as he just isn't terribly interesting, and as the more we see him with more women the more limited he seems to be on the whole. This is writing to be sure, but it is also Denner whose performance just doesn't quite sell the appeal of this man that all the women are interested in.)
Nolte - 2.5(Seems mostly lost in his performance as just trying to find something to work with, but there's just little to work with other than moving from one scene to another.)
Pacino - 2.5(Speaking of lost, Pacino seems adrift much of the time in portraying the romantic lead, if not maybe a little bored at times as well. There are moments where we see Pacino come to life in the role, but more often than not it feels like an actor regretting the choice to star with such rote material.)
Winkler - 1.5(Winkle can be charming obviously but you won't find any of that charm here. In fact this is a prototypical example one can use for a bad Oscar bait performance where every element feels like an actor trying to force out an Oscar winning performance. Winkler overplays the eccentricity to make it just that, eccentricity rather than the honest mania of a man. He overplays the attempts at charm within the role making him instead come off as extremely cloying at every point. Never do you sense a real trauma the man is going through just as an actor trying and failing to make a name as a dramatic performer. There was a pathway for this to work, even with Winkler, but he needed much better direction to point him in the right direction, which he does not have.)
Actress:
1. Shelley Duvall - 3 Women
2. Sissy Spacek - 3 Women
3. Gena Rowlands - Opening Night - 5
4. Geraldine Chaplin - Elisa, Vida Mia
5. Diane Keaton - Annie Hall - 5
6. Monique Mercure - J.A. Martin Photographer - 5
7. Lily Tomlin - The Late Show
8. Sophia Loren - A Special Day
9. Isabelle Huppert - The Lacemaker - 4.5
10. Diane Keaton - Looking For Mr. Goodbar - 4.5
11. Alisa Freindlich - Office Romance
12. Krystyna Janda - Man of Marble - 4.5
13. Simone Signoret - Madame Rosa - 4.5
14. Kathleen Quinlan - I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
15. Jane Fonda - Julia
16. Tatiana Papmoschou - Iphigenia - 4
17. Angela Molina - That Obscure Object of Desire - 4
18. Carole Bouquet - That Obscure Object of Desire - 4
19. Therese Liotard - One Sings, The Other Doesn't - 4
20. Jessica Harper - Suspiria - 4
Supporting:
1. Irene Papas - Iphigenia - 5
2. Shelley Winters - An Average Little Man -
3. Diana Rigg - A Little Night Music - 4.5
4. Liv Ullmann - The Serpent's Egg - 4.5
5. Joan Blondell - Opening Night - 4.5
6. Vanessa Redgrave - Julia
7. Liv Ullmann - A Bridge Too Far
8. Brigitte Fossey - The Man Who Loved Women - 4
9. Janice Rule - 3 Women - 4
10. Svetlana Nemolyaeva - Office Romance - 4
11. Belinda Meuldijk - Soldier of Orange
12. Bibi Andersson - I Never Promised You a Rose Garden - 4
13. Alida Valli - Suspiria - 4
14. Lisa Kreuzer - The American Friend
15. Diana Quick - The Duellists
16. Leslie Caron - The Man Who Loved Women - 4
17. Sylvia Sidney - I Never Promised You A Rose Garden - 4
18. Susan Tyrell - I Never Promise You a Rose Garden - 4
19. Joan Bennett - Suspiria - 4
20. Melinda Dillon - Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Tony:
I'll try to re-watch those.
I'll certainly watch Rumours at some point. I have been watching Disclaimer (I'll say the auteur taking on a miniseries is something I'm automatically intrigued by), beautifully shot (Delbonnel/Lubezki team-up is kind of a mind-blowing event) and have found it rather compelling so far, Blanchett, Cohen were quite good in the first two episodes, though Kevin Kline has been absolutely brilliant so far.
Sinners is my kind of trailer, nothing but mood, and what a thick potent mood is in that trailer. Makes you ask many questions in the right way and gets you just intrigued for the lurid southern gothic horror it seems to be running with.
Louis: Is Kathleen Quinlan a 4 or 4.5 for I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
Louis: Reading your Dreyfuss review, I was wondering, have you ever had any other "Eureka" or revelation moments where a movie or performance suddenly *clicked* for you?
Also, do I by any chance have any requests left?
Louis: Updated thoughts on Keaton in Annie Hall?
Louis: Thoughts on Myagkov in Office Romance.
Thoughts on the Female Performances.
Louis: Thoughts on direction, production design and cinematography of Suspiria.
RIP Mitzi Gaynor
your 2020s cast and Directors for Gaslight and The Grape of Wrath?
A:
Shepitko's direction is outstanding work again like Come and See and the Human Condition III, there is a very specific world and psychological place that it crafts as a kind of apocalyptic world though based on a very real time not long ago. Shepitko's sense of place is tremendous in the focus on the snowy uncompromising landscapes where you can feel that chill in the air as the men fail to find respite in any place. The use of the men within the cold spaces, and the construction of the interiors being just as uncompromising makes it as though the men are claustrophobically caught despite being in the open world before they are caught. When they are caught Shepitko adjusts her approach naturally to go from the literal world closing in, to the men being closed into the space of their mind. And her use of closeups in particular is just astonishing in what she is able to capture and the way the faces of the two central characters reflect two very different states of mind within the same situation. Her way of focusing on their eyes piercing through the screen particularly is unforgettable and makes it as though you see directly into the men beyond the typical point of your run of the mill closeup. This is along with her depiction of the whole process of dealing with prisoners, where there is a brutality but also this quiet matter of factness within those perpetrating the actions that makes it all the more callous and uncompromising. That would be enough but Shepitko's work has these couple key moments of sort of stepping aside from an exact reality, though not breaking it both that reflect the men's final scenes, one where there is this ascent and one where it is a descent. Her exact choices in her realization of each are brilliant because she doesn't fully break the canvas of the reality of the situation but amplifies just enough that it feels as tangible and also most emotionally powerful.
Jonathan:
The screenplay is marvelous work that is a key part of the efficiency in the piece and it is pretty incredible the way it is able to construct itself in so many ways all part of the same thing. To explain, there is a beautiful simplicity about the piece in the way he constructs itself out of the duels and near duels, you know the duel is the expectation and there is a straightforwardness within its storytelling. That is all the same thing, in that all points lead back to the duels which act as ideal set pieces for each chapter. But the greatness of the work is how much it manages to cover so efficiently in between the duels, while also making sure all of that also ties back into the duels. The most remarkable being the politics of Napoleon, as we go through his rise, downfall, comeback and then final exile through how it impacts our men. We know what happens to Napoleon but we also feel what happens by seeing how it changes the lives of each man. This is even more emphasized in the way through the characters around the men, the change in culture and basically what the expectation and reaction from each duel is. How it also naturally makes it so personal in the growth of each man's career but also their exact social standings intertwined with their romantic relationships. But what is amazing is how each all this intertwined within screenplay, punctuated by the duels, so as much as it is a petty thing, there is so much worked within from the deeply personal level of one trying to live his life to being interrupted, to the other defining himself by this singular phony attempt at an accomplishment, to the broadly political of one man representing Napoleon falling out of favor to the other finding his life in the reinstated gentry. And this is all made to look so easy in the screenplay, because it all feels so relaxed at the same time, no rush, despite so much time passing, while also just finding so much wit and humor in the ridiculousness of the situation, while never compromising the genuine drama.
The cinematography I might gather has a lot to do with Ridley Scott only because Tidy's otherwork doesn't have the brilliance of this work, where many Scott films look great, but regardless of the truth, it is a brilliantly shot film. And obviously influenced heavily by Barry Lyndon, but what it excels with is taking ideas from Lyndon but not trying to copy it. Where Kubrick/Alcott focused on picture perfection of recreating period portraits with natural light, Scott/Tidy take the aesthetic of the cinematography built on the naturalistic light, but rather than crafting it as specific in being picturesque makes it more interpersonal in the approach, less pristine theoretically, but also more visceral. Not that I would say the Duellists bests Lyndon in terms of cinematography, it doesn't (though the last shot does challenge it), but it is completely successful in taking the influence and finding its own approach. Making the word "dirtier" for the lack of a better word, though also as beautiful in capturing such different moods in a historical setting so pointedly again with the naturalistic lighting that again crafts such distinct atmosphere, while also being eye catching, which has the added benefit of making the this far away place in time feel completely tangible. And again, *that* final shot.
Watched 1408. Didn't necessarily expect this to be the case but Cusack is absolutely worth the eventual review.
Cusack-4.5
Jackson-4
McCormack-3
Shalhoub-3(Very brief appearance, but he adds a nice bit of colour)
Cariou-3
Anthony-3
ANYBODY WHO HAS NOT SEEN 1408, SKIP PAST THIS!
Matt: Your thoughts on the scene with Cusack and his daughter? you know exactly which one
Tahmeed:
6. Sam Peckinpah - Cross of Iron
7. George Lucas - Star Wars
8. Dario Argento - Suspiria
9. David Lynch - Eraserhead
10. Steven Spielberg - Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Brazinterma:
Song:
1. "Nobody Does It Better" - The Spy Who Loved Me
2. "New York, New York" - New York, New York
3. "Stayin' Alive" - Saturday Night Fever
4. "If I Can't Have You" - Saturday Night Fever
5. "How Deep Is Your Love" - Saturday Night Fever
6. "The Greatest Love of All" - The Greatest
7. "It's Not Easy" - Pete's Dragon
Score:
6. Sorcerer
7. The Duellists
Poster:
1. Sorcerer
2. Cross of Iron
3. Close Encounters of the The Third Kind
4. That Obscure Object of Desire (Lips)
5. Eraserhead
6. Stroszek
7. Star Wars
Editing:
1. Star Wars
2. Sorcerer
3. The Duellists
4. A Bridge Too Far
5. The American Friend
6. The Suspiria
7. The Ascent
Adapted:
6. An Average Little Man
7. A Bridge Too far
Original:
6. Star Wars
7. A Special Day
Ensemble:
1. Cross of Iron
2. The American Friend
3. 3 Women
4. A Bridge Too Far
5. The Duellists
6. The Late Show
7. Iphigenia
SPOILERS FOR 1408
Tim: Probably what surprised me the most about the movie is scenes like that. It's a great scene that has a tremendous emotional power and adds a gravity to what we're seeing beyond just "spooky". Cusack is actually amazing in the scene as we see everything he's been holding onto the whole movie come out in full force and it's absolutely devastating and I would say is one of his best acted scenes ever for sure.
Regarding Brothers, all over the place and a great example of how *not* to balance drama and comedy. The swings will give you whiplash, but worse is they just make neither tone work particularly well. This is despite most of the actors trying desperately to make it work, even Brendan Fraser, though his performance works the least, but he's trying to sell the way broader comedy his character's in than what Dinklage and Brolin are in. The latter I will also give the most credit for keeping his head up even in the most atrocious scenes (the CGI Orangutan being especially egregious). This is one where the theoretical ingredients probably could've made an enjoyable comedy, but they are cooked together horribly.
Brolin - 4
Dinklage - 3.5
Tomei - 2.5
Paige - 2.5
Close - 3
Fraser - 2
Walsh - 3
Louis: Thoughts on Myagkov in Office Romance and thoughts on the Female performances.
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