The Criterion Collection

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by filmmusic

I see.
Well, i don't understand that, since I wouldn't prefer an inferior release at a much higher price just for a cover, or just to buy an OOP Criterion.
It doesn't seem logical to me.
But to each his own I guess.

People collect what they like to collect. There's rarely (if ever) rhyme or reason for it.

[Vinyl]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

Has anyone here seen Kuroneko?

How good is it?

Does it feel like a horror film?

...is it scary?

It's more in line with Japanese horror where it is atmospheric and creepy instead of using jump scares and other cheap tricks. I consider it better than Shindo's other Criterion film, Oni Baba, but both are entertaining and have great cinematography.

[malakaheso]

Originally Posted by adamhopelies

I like Bela Tarr, but find Satantango to be far too irritating and tedious. It's weird, especially as I'm a great fan of Jeanne Dielman, but with that (and Out 1) I find the rhythm of the work far easier to slip in to.

But Dielman is easier to watch than Satantango. Jeanne Dielman is a very similar film to Haneke's The Seventh Continent in terms of what it's saying about modern life. It feels a bit reductive to me, even if the film is extremely well made, especially considering her age when she made it. It's difficult to really pin down the meaning of Satantango I think.

Having said that, being 'attune' to the rhythms of a director's work is important, and not all of these 'long shot' directors are going to be appealing. Tsai Ming Liang,for example, frequently bores me. I sense close to zero rhythm in his early work. They are just boring urban alienation films to me, but many people love them.

It's all so subjective. Horse Money is the best film I've seen all year, yet I know plenty of film fans that either hated it or couldn't stand the lift sequence which I thought was brilliant.

[Banned User]

Originally Posted by Vinyl

It's more in line with Japanese horror where it is atmospheric and creepy instead of using jump scares and other cheap tricks. I consider it better than Shindo's other Criterion film, Oni Baba, but both are entertaining and have great cinematography.

I'm the opposite. I prefer Onibaba to Kuroneko. Really once you've seen one the other tends to feel like you've seen it before. Very similar themes. Mostly the same actors, same director. Though Onibaba ups the nudity a good bit. The difference is in Kuroneko its about revenge and in Onibaba the characters are scavangers trying to survive by killing wounded Samurai and selling their goods. Onibaba has those swaying fields that really play a huge role in the film and that mask is still the creepiest looking mask I've ever seen. It is more grounded in realism as the film can be taken as not having a supernatural element while Kuroneko is a true ghost story. The black and white cinematography in both are wonderful. Both the movies are more about ambiance, mood and character then any overly complicated storylines.

I do consider Kuroneko a classic Japanese horror film and feel its way underrated. The beginning static camera shot is excellent and really sets the mood. The whole atmosphere is foreboding and menacing from the shots of the Gate to the bamboo forests. When compared to the many other ghost films I feel it is one of the better ones out there. Though I am a huge fan of japanese cinema and dark atmospheric films in general so I may be biased on the subject. For me it was one of those films that's better on subsequent viewings.

As far as "Is it scary". Really no horror films scare me. I prefer films that set the mood like The Innocents and cannot stand jump scares or other standard horror movie fare. IMO the ability for a horror film to get under your skin is based more off mood, atmosphere and imagery then anything else.

[kuro_sawa]

Originally Posted by filmmusic

I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you would buy the Third Man at a high price, when there is the recent 4K restoration released on a region free Bluray at UK.

It's how we can separate the good crazy from the bad crazy around here, at least.

[kuro_sawa]

Originally Posted by Vinyl

It's more in line with Japanese horror where it is atmospheric and creepy instead of using jump scares and other cheap tricks. I consider it better than Shindo's other Criterion film, Oni Baba, but both are entertaining and have great cinematography.

I've always considered Kuroneko to be an average film, Onibaba a great one. The Naked Island is my favourite of his though

[bwdowiak]

Thanks to those who recommended Kobayashi's Harakiri. It lived up to the hype. I like

[Show spoiler]how the POV does a complete 180 degree shift. In the beginning of the film, the viewer is compelled to agree with the decisions made by the Iyi clan. Through great story telling, we come to understand and empathize with Tsugumo and that shabby looking ronin who we suspect, along with the leaders of the Iyi clan, to be a schemester, turns out to be the true bad ass.

Like another forum member (it was oildude, I believe) who said that he wasn't exactly warm to the samurai genre, I, too, went into Harakiri thinking that samurai films might not be my thing. They still may not be. What's great about Harakiri, however, is that it transcends the genre and becomes so much more than just swords and funny hair cuts. Highly recommended - especially for those who might have fantasies about giving the middle finger to authority.

[kuro_sawa]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

Thanks to those who recommended Kobayashi's Harakiri. It lived up to the hype.

Like another forum member (it was oildude, I believe) who said that he wasn't exactly warm to the samurai genre, I, too, went into Harakiri thinking that samurai films might not be my thing. They still may not be. What's great about Harakiri, however, is that it transcends the genre...

That's a great point, I think it does transcend genre in many ways. It's undoubtedly a masterpiece. I've always been sort of horrified/amused by the guys who rake the sand after there is blood shed. They just go about it as normal.

[Roninblues]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

Thanks to those who recommended Kobayashi's Harakiri. It lived up to the hype. I like

[Show spoiler]how the POV does a complete 180 degree shift. In the beginning of the film, the viewer is compelled to agree with the decisions made by the Iyi clan. Through great story telling, we come to understand and empathize with Tsugumo and that shabby looking ronin who we suspect, along with the leaders of the Iyi clan, to be a schemester, turns out to be the true bad ass.

Like another forum member (it was oildude, I believe) who said that he wasn't exactly warm to the samurai genre, I, too, went into Harakiri thinking that samurai films might not be my thing. They still may not be. What's great about Harakiri, however, is that it transcends the genre and becomes so much more than just swords and funny hair cuts. Highly recommended - especially for those who might have fantasies about giving the middle finger to authority.

Another slant to the Samurai tales you might enjoy is Yôji Yamada's The Twilight Samurai

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by Roninblues

Another slant to the Samurai tales you might enjoy is Yôji Yamada's The Twilight Samurai

Cool. I'll keep my eye out for it. Kobayashi's Samurai Rebellion sounds like it'd be worthwhile, too.

[Feiereisel]

Originally Posted by SkyAntoine

Finished watching Hiroshima mon Amour at lunch today. It is going to get a 2nd viewing because I totally must have missed what has garnered so much praise.

Beautifully shot...beautiful actress...beautiful dialogue...so boring. I had a difficult time getting into this and I wonder if it because I was put off by the adulterous encounter from the get go. He should have been happy at the end because

[Show spoiler]she is damaged goods.

Any rebuttals?

Maybe you should review the film--this kind of character-specific reading seems reductive in a way that undercuts the murky morality of the film's story-world.

Rebuttal:

[Show spoiler]It's a story about pain and displacement that stems from the psychological and physical damages following the war. Alienation is central to the narrative, hence the sense of loneliness that frames the characters' couplings; they may be close physically, but their emotional distance is vast.

Take the film's opening passage, a love scene intercut--punctured--with images of atomic decimation. The shots, alternating images of intimacy and inhumanity, are joined together by the characters' ongoing conversation as well as the formal aspects of the editing.

Images of human destruction--the bracing, documentary-style footage of civilians mangled by the bombs, the destroyed buildings--reflect the fractured mindsets of the film's characters, alienate the viewer, and also imply that developing and dropping the bombs was itself inhuman. As a result, the characters seem to inhabit a space without love or compassion.

The film's fractured chronology reinforces this sense of confusion and disunity. Likewise, though the anti-war conceit of the film that Elle is acting in seems to posit that films can be used to reactivate the rekindle love and care, the story of the film proper and facts of the characters' "reality" draws attention to the phoniness of the film-within-a-film and underlines the new, disheveled status-quo.

(Other postwar films harness this disorientation in a similar manner by conspicuously foregrounding rubble and destruction. Examples include The Third Man and the more recent Phoenix, in which destroyed structures and the shadows that play across them suggest characters' chaotic postwar identities.)

Finally, "damaged goods" is a really loaded term to use in describing Elle because it pigeonholes her into a stock-character type inimical to the amorphous moral space of the film. Everything is damaged--cities, people, the concept of love--by the atomic and human horrors of war. The film's major flashback informs her character, but also highlights the inhumanity of her prior punishment in a manner similar to the atomic destruction.

The cinematic structure fuses images postwar intimacy and inhumanity, linking together and even occasionally confusing many types of carnage-- physical, emotional, societal--explore the detritus, the metaphorical fallout or "falling out", of the postwar world.

[SkyAntoine]

Originally Posted by Feiereisel

Maybe you should review the film--this kind of character-specific reading seems reductive in a way that undercuts the murky morality of the film's story-world.

Rebuttal:

[Show spoiler]It's a story about pain and displacement that stems from the psychological and physical damages following the war. Alienation is central to the narrative, hence the sense of loneliness that frames the characters' couplings; they may be close physically, but their emotional distance is vast.

Take the film's opening passage, a love scene intercut--punctured--with images of atomic decimation. The shots, alternating images of intimacy and inhumanity, are joined together by the characters' ongoing conversation as well as the formal aspects of the editing.

Images of human destruction--the bracing, documentary-style footage of civilians mangled by the bombs, the destroyed buildings--reflect the fractured mindsets of the film's characters, alienate the viewer, and also imply that developing and dropping the bombs was itself inhuman. As a result, the characters seem to inhabit a space without love or compassion.

The film's fractured chronology reinforces this sense of confusion and disunity. Likewise, though the anti-war conceit of the film that Elle is acting in seems to posit that films can be used to reactivate the rekindle love and care, the story of the film proper and facts of the characters' "reality" draws attention to the phoniness of the film-within-a-film and underlines the new, disheveled status-quo.

(Other postwar films harness this disorientation in a similar manner by conspicuously foregrounding rubble and destruction. Examples include The Third Man and the more recent Phoenix, in which destroyed structures and the shadows that play across them suggest characters' chaotic postwar identities.)

Finally, "damaged goods" is a really loaded term to use in describing Elle because it pigeonholes her into a stock-character type inimical to the amorphous moral space of the film. Everything is damaged--cities, people, the concept of love--by the atomic and human horrors of war. The film's major flashback informs her character, but also highlights the inhumanity of her prior punishment in a manner similar to the atomic destruction.

The cinematic structure fuses images postwar intimacy and inhumanity, linking together and even occasionally confusing many types of carnage-- physical, emotional, societal--explore the detritus, the metaphorical fallout or "falling out", of the postwar world.

Props to you on your analysis. Are you the author of the essay in the booklet?
I will give it a couple months and revisit. Maybe I just was not in the correct mindset to watch the film.

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by Feiereisel

Maybe you should review the film--this kind of character-specific reading seems reductive in a way that undercuts the murky morality of the film's story-world.

Rebuttal:

The film's major flashback informs her character, but also highlights the inhumanity of her prior punishment in a manner similar to the atomic destruction.

..and I expected something profound considering Resnais chose to draw parallels (rather cheaply and in an unmerited fashion, I might add) to such an ENORMOUS human tragedy. Instead, Marguerite Duras gives us

[Show spoiler]some clumsy swapping of pronouns when Elle is describing her German lover who was killed.

Is that supposed to be poetic or artful?

[Feiereisel]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

..and I expected something profound considering Resnais chose to draw parallels (rather cheaply and in an unmerited fashion, I might add) to such an ENORMOUS human tragedy. Instead, Marguerite Duras gives us

[Show spoiler]some clumsy swapping of pronouns when Elle is describing her German lover who was killed.

Is that supposed to be poetic or artful?

It is what it is. I didn't claim that films need to be flawless to be moving or worth watching.

On further reflection, I'm not sure Resnais' parallels are meant to argue that the tragedies are equally horrific from an objective standpoint--it's not a geometric proof--as much as they're meant to resonate and create a density of anguish that Elle can't escape, even though she's far (geographically speaking, at least) from her wartime trauma.

Maybe narrow, maybe selfish; maybe not as profound or shocking as it was decades ago.

Stuff ages, changes, and morphs--that's half the fun of this.

[repulsed]

Originally Posted by jayembee

I read the first book of that trilogy, and quite enjoyed it as a potboiler. Haven't had the time to read the others. As for the show, I watched the first season, and thought it was "meh". I'm not feeling compelled to watch the second.

I almost gave up after the first season too as I thought it went downhill after 6 or so episodes and it disappointed me but man, am I glad I kept watching. The second season is so good and if you attach it to season one it makes the disappointment I felt with that season almost non-existent

[Lordy]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

My Criterion Blu-ray of Dressed to Kill arrived in the mail from Amazon today.
...and it's the first printing.

*sigh*

I was really hoping that I would not have to deal with this.

I could return this to Amazon, or I could email Criterion for a replacement disc. I think that I'll do the latter and get the replacement disc straight from Criterion, since I know that they'll send me the correct one. While I'm at it, I'll request compensation from Amazon...perhaps a $10 credit for my inconvenience.

Argh.

This is exactly the reason I'm waiting for the next B&N Criterion sale - so I can be sure this doesn't happen.

Any news on the dates for the next sale coming in November?

[captveg]

There's taste (much of Fellini leaves me cold) and then there's objective criticism.

Fellini and Bergman are both masters, even if some of their great films aren't to my personal liking.

It's not just a matter of groupthink. The majority of their films stand up to serious study and analysis by any one who approaches them honestly.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by captveg

It's not just a matter of groupthink.

Making an accusation of "groupthink" is lazy criticism. Assuming that just because a majority of people have the same opinion that it's a case of "groupthink" is no better than dismissing a different opinion by suggesting that that person is nay-saying just to appear to be not part of a herd.

[oildude]

Originally Posted by Roninblues

Another slant to the Samurai tales you might enjoy is Yôji Yamada's The Twilight Samurai

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

Cool. I'll keep my eye out for it. Kobayashi's Samurai Rebellion sounds like it'd be worthwhile, too.

Absolutely agree. Loved Yamada's The Twilight Samurai (available from Twilight Time). If you caught the vibe of Harakiri, then The Twilight Samurai is a modern take on the samurai genre that will resonant with you. It sure did for me.

One note of caution, and it is a minor one, the color gamma on The Twilight Samurai has been shifted to a desaturated palate that is kind of unappealing (at least it was to me, as if viewing things through a fog of pale brown). From what I have read, this gamma shift is common on some Japanese blu-rays and not a mistake in the transfer. The cinematography is gorgeous beyond words. A little adjustment on your television to realign the gamma will make a world of difference. Not a deal breaker, the movie is very very good, and transcends the genre, as you aptly put it for Harakiri.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by oildude

So you joined this forum just to provide us with that astute analysis? You have watched all 94 films? Congratulations! IF they were that bad of directors, I would have quit after watching a few. You obviously have an ass of iron to sit though so many bad films, and a brain to match.

In the unlikely event he's telling the truth, it's obvious he went into the majority of them expecting to hate them for no reason other than to be able to make posts like this. Congrats, being such a forced contrarian is just as intellectually bankrupt as groupthink. I, too, HATED the first Fellini I saw and didn't really like the second, but had the good sense to stop there and the lack of attention-whoring personality not to continue or pretend that they were actually worthless movies and that my opinion was more valid than decades' worth of writing and adulation.