1960s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[the preacher]

And where did you find the provisional list for September 2013(?), preacher?

From a preview by TSPDT's webmaster including all the S&S ballots. But they are now working on a Chinese poll and some other ballots so there may be more changes by the end of the year.

[Mike_S]

A couple of spotlight titles from me:

Greetings Brian De Palma, 1968

Not De Palma's first film by any means but the one which first got him serious attention, and the first where the whole thing comes together as opposed to being a collection of brilliant moments. It's still astonishingly fresh and funny in its depiction of three young men in New York waiting for the draft board and variously obsessed with women, movies and the JFK assassination. The performances by Gerrit Graham and Robert De Niro have a delicious comic spin and the former does some of his best screen work during the lengthy scene where he discusses the "magic bullet" theory using his girlfriend's sleeping body. It's also De Palma's first explicitly political film, beginning with LBJ on television and ending in Vietnam, and a further stage in his ongoing obsession with the nature of the gaze - De Niro's character makes "peep art" movies. Every scene gives you the sense of a huge talent just on the verge of breaking out - and two years later, with Hi Mom, the promise was fulfilled. Available on several DVD labels although usually in mediocre transfers.

Play Dirty Andre De Toth 1968

An exceptionally gritty war movie which is the antithesis of the "war is fun" knockabout of most guys-on-a-mission films. It's vicious, cynical, terribly exciting and painfully ironic. Michael Caine unwillingly goes on a futile mission in North Africa, accompanied by a ragtag crew of misfits headed by the always great Nigel Davenport. De Toth's direction is beautifully poised and he never lets the tension drop. Available on MGM DVD.

[puxzkkx]

I'll definitely co-sign on The Swimmer, and Perry's Last Summer is also essential -- a devastating coming-of-age picture featuring one of the decade's great performances in Catherine Burns. It can't possibly be overstated how good she is.

Last Summer will also be high on my list. Perry was one of the most interesting 'second-tier' American auteurs.

[puxzkkx]

The Swimmer

SpoilerShow

displaying the character's initial boundless self-confidence, and then showing this gradually disintegrating into vulnerability and, in the end, totally desolation: no house, no family, no clothes; just swimming trunks and no pool. The symbolism gets a bit overwrought towards the end, especially when he's scrabbling up that bank after the revelation about his daughters, but it's still a very powerful and haunting film overall. I love Lancaster's fatuous little catchphrase - 'Here's to sugar on our strawberries' - and his frustrated, deluded wail in his old flame's swimming pool: 'You loved it!' Oh, and that creepy scene with the young girl after he hurts his ankle.

IIRC Perry was removed from the project before they shot the ending and someone - maybe Sydney Pollack? - directed that scene. So there's your TSH,DT? connection!

[knives]

Il Lavoro (Luchino Visconti, fr. Boccaccio '70 1962) Visconti's "short" is, at 53 minutes, almost a feature in itself, and it shames the segments it appears with by taking a novel and witty approach to the idea of marriage as a commodity. Romy Schneider dishes out some of the finest feminist rhetoric of the decade in Visconti's forgotten masterpiece

I guess I shouldn't be surprised you'd chose this one, but still this one? I thought (and still do) that Visconti's contribution here and in The Witches is not only some of his worst work, but also the worst segment of each of their respective films.

[Wu.Qinghua]

Short addition to zedz' experimental list: I'd consider the collection of Santiago Alvarez' essay films & antiimperialist pamphlets which Facets seems to have released in the US (He Who Hits First, Hits Twice. The Urgent Cinema of Santiago Alvarez) to be essential, too. There's not only the very short Now (1965), but also some more famous shorts like LBJ (1967), his satrirical denunciation of LB Johnson, which is a very strong contender for my top 50 (Derek Malcolm wrote a short piece on it when compiling his canon for the Guardian), Hanoi Martes 13 (1967) or 79 Primaveras (1969).

Edit: Now is on Youtube and it's only 5 minutes long. If you've not seen it and would like to know what you could do with a few press clippings, newsreels and a song ...

Edit2: To my huge surprise, on repeated viewing I found '79 Primaveras', Alvarez obituary to Ho, more rewarding than LBJ, so I might vote for this one in the first place instead ... (You will want to see it, if you found interest in Vertov's Songs for Lenin.)

[domino harvey]

Il Lavoro (Luchino Visconti, fr. Boccaccio '70 1962) Visconti's "short" is, at 53 minutes, almost a feature in itself, and it shames the segments it appears with by taking a novel and witty approach to the idea of marriage as a commodity. Romy Schneider dishes out some of the finest feminist rhetoric of the decade in Visconti's forgotten masterpiece

I guess I shouldn't be surprised you'd chose this one, but still this one? I thought (and still do) that Visconti's contribution here and in The Witches is not only some of his worst work, but also the worst segment of each of their respective films.

This isn't really an example of off-kilter taste, as I'm hardly the first to single Visconti's segment out-- Eric Rohmer, Jean Douchet, and at least three other Cahiers critics named it (separate from the rest of the film, which they disliked) as one of the best films of the year. I agreed long before I found that out, but I'll still side with mah boyz on this one. Why does it not work for you? Are you positing, for instance, that the De Sica sketch in Boccaccio '70 has more to offer than Visconti's, and if so, what?

[Mr Sheldrake]

Here's my spotlight titles.......

Dont Make Waves (Alexander Mackendrick,1967, MGM, all regions)

It seems everyone connected with this, including Mackendrick and star Tony Curtis, believed they were working on a real stinker, for the paycheck. It was the tail end of the California beach cycle, and the tail end of Curtis' long series of movies playing crass hustlers, and both public and critics dismissed it. The New Hollywood was right around the corner, The Graduate would open shortly, Bonnie and Clyde, too, Don't Make Waves was an instant relic.

I confess I love every minute of it, from Curtis' VW Beetle comically rolling down a hillside, to the bedroom farce scenes with an absolutely gorgeous and quite funny Claudia Cardinale, to the poignancy of the Sharon Tate scenes, to Curtis ruthlessly conniving his way through a skewered Southern California landscape (bodybuilding, beach life, sky-diving, astrology, etc), to the final scenes of his dream house rolling down a mudslide into the Pacific, with most of the cast aboard. Curtis may have played this role many times, but nobody did it better, and however Mackendrick felt about the script, it's very well directed.

Another Mackendrick of the 60s, the much more esteemed A High Wind in Jamaica, adapted from a novel by Richard Hughes is also worth catching. I haven't seen his other entrant, Sammy Goes South (A Boy Ten Feet Tall), with Edward G Robinson, in decades.

The Quiller Memorandum (Michael Anderson, 1966, 20th Century, R1)

The auteur of this spy film is surely Harold Pinter, his 60s era dialogue was at the apex of its poetic power, and a great cast - George Segal, Alec Guiness, Max von Sydow, Senta Berger - catch its rythymns as well as any Pinter stage production I've seen. John Barry provides a signature score, in the finale it literally soars, as Segal in longshot, approaches the schoolhouse where Berger teaches, it's unclear who has betrayed who, and Pinter delivers one of his most enigmatic and haunting scenes.

Other Pinter movie scripts of the decade include the well-known ones he did with Joe Losey (The Servant and Accident), and The Pumpkin Eater, adapted from a Penelope Mortimer novel, that I also recommend. And then there are the adaptations of his own plays, including The Caretaker(The Guest), and The Birthday Party.

[knives]

I think, to go with you example, De Sica's sketch is just better paced. I wouldn't cite it as particularly good (my favorites being Fellini's and Monicelli's segments). The turgid pacing works toward nothing that I can see and it seems almost adverse to Boccaccio with none of the freedom and love that comes from that.

[Yojimbo]

A couple of spotlight titles from me:

Play Dirty Andre De Toth 1968

An exceptionally gritty war movie which is the antithesis of the "war is fun" knockabout of most guys-on-a-mission films. It's vicious, cynical, terribly exciting and painfully ironic. Michael Caine unwillingly goes on a futile mission in North Africa, accompanied by a ragtag crew of misfits headed by the always great Nigel Davenport. De Toth's direction is beautifully poised and he never lets the tension drop. Available on MGM DVD.

I saw this in the cinema, maybe a year or two after its original release: 'Carry Ons' and Hammer horrors, and Clint Eastwood movies were my staple cinema diet back then: I only seem to remember there were a lot of night-time scenes, albeit probably 'day for night'
I'd like to give it a second look, particularly given for De Toth, and the boy Nigel
(and it could double for the war films project)

[Yojimbo]

I would like to submit three titles as my spotlights if I'm allowed!

The first is Mikio Naruse's Yearning, which is maybe his best film and one of the best films of all time. Naruse here tackles a similar theme to Ozu in asking how the war generation will ever cast off the shackles of a limiting gendered/classed/raced/aged social hierarchy and learn to be individuals in a rapidly approaching 'individual age'. His view here is similarly pessimistic which, when elaborated across an entire society, is shattering. The exploration of theme here unfolds gradually but with mounting intensity, culminating in a single image and a single hard cut whose suicidal finality you will never, ever forget.

The second is Nagisa Ōshima's Japanese Summer: Double Suicide. I would spotlight every single one of his 60s films if I could, no other director had a greater decade-long run. This is one of his best, though, an earthbound sci-fi that almost imagines the 'sun tribe' of his earliest works as the survivors of a cultural apoocalypse. The imagery is some of his most arresting. If a criticism of his work is that his treatments are too academic, its proven wrong here - Ōshima's black comedy is hilarious but develops a truly tender, sad side in the extended climax.

.

I love 'Japanese Summer', also; I've got a bunch of unseen Naruses, but I think most are 60s, or 40s film; if Yearning tops 'When A Woman Ascends The Stairs' it would be something special

[knives]

Saw my first film proper for this project and decided to swing big.

Cleo from 5 to 7
Admittedly the love for Varda has largely confused me, but this film in particular seems to go out of its way to avoid praise. It sets up rather interestingly a few compelling exercises like the 'real time' conceit and almost immediately rushes to not follow it. Admittedly the tactic she takes for it is rather interesting avoiding the obvious long shots for the most part and running toward some more experimental overlapping and jumping with the edits which are against the conceit in a way I really would love to see done well, but mostly it just ruins the conceit (though truth be told I don't see how such an approach could work). This doesn't necessarily detract from the story or performances as Varda's a very talented technician, but given the point of the exercise it becomes an unnecessary distraction from the far more interesting to begin with elements such as Cleo herself who is only second to the lead from Vagabond in terms of great people I've seen from Varda. The presentation of her is delightfully free of exposition as the performance becomes the only serious commentary for her. This almost gives a voyeuristic edge to the film which reminds me of Taste of Cherry. As a result I really wish this was the more heavily emphasized aspect because that could make the film great without asterisk.

[zedz]

As threatened, I'm going to be blurbing a whole lot of experimental films this time around, so here goes:

T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (Paul Sharits, 1968) – Mandala Films (Re:Voir) – It was a toss-up which Sharits film I’d include in my write-ups, since I’m also a big, big fan of his semantically overwhelming Fluxus film Word Movie, but I’m alreadly planning to talk about plenty of Fluxus films, and this mind-blower arguably incorporates a lot more of Sharits’ preoccupations. Sharits was a virtuoso of single-frame filmmaking, and he plays mercilessly with continuity and discontinuity from image to image to create really striking effects varying from the stroboscopic to the glacially evolutionary (as when you eventually become aware of a slow progression in what at first seemed to be frantically static imagery). This technique manages to make T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (which even manages to get that continuous / discontinuous paradox into its title) simultaneously assaultive and insinuating. He also selects imagery that is in and of itself assaultive (e.g. the artist preparing to cut off his own tongue) and then fixes it in hard psychedelic amber so that, despite the violence of the visuals, the implied violence of the photographic content never arrives. A further dimension is Sharits the colourist, playing every shade of the rainbow as aggressively as possible through mise-en-scene, tinting, negative printing and so on, building the various colour combinations into further furious polyrhythms and contributing to an exhausting and exhilarating ten minutes.

[tojoed]

A couple of spotlight titles from me:

Greetings Brian De Palma, 1968

Not De Palma's first film by any means but the one which first got him serious attention, and the first where the whole thing comes together as opposed to being a collection of brilliant moments. It's still astonishingly fresh and funny in its depiction of three young men in New York waiting for the draft board and variously obsessed with women, movies and the JFK assassination. The performances by Gerrit Graham and Robert De Niro have a delicious comic spin and the former does some of his best screen work during the lengthy scene where he discusses the "magic bullet" theory using his girlfriend's sleeping body. It's also De Palma's first explicitly political film, beginning with LBJ on television and ending in Vietnam, and a further stage in his ongoing obsession with the nature of the gaze - De Niro's character makes "peep art" movies. Every scene gives you the sense of a huge talent just on the verge of breaking out - and two years later, with Hi Mom, the promise was fulfilled. Available on several DVD labels although usually in mediocre transfers.

You are spot on. Greetings was going to be my spotlight title, but no need now.
The DVDs are all PD releases, but Hi,Mom is available on an MGM disc, which is quite good.

[Michael Kerpan]

Naruse in the 60s:

Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki / When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)

Probably still Naruse's best known film in the US. Acting-wise pretty near perfect. Not at the VERYtyop of my Naruse list, but excellent nonetheless.

Musume tsuma haha / Daughters, Wives. Mothers or Daughter, Wife. Mother (1960)(the US title inexplicably pluralizes 2 out of 3 words -- no real reason for this, all _could_ be plural _or_ singular -- having all terms match (one way or the other) makes more sense and is more elegant).

Hara is quite good here (channeling _Audrey_ Hepburn -- with a hair-do to match). This is the second sprawling, star-studded, wide-screen, extended-family epic Naruse did for Toho (clearly one of Toho's ploys for competing against TV -- it even "made" Ozu do one of these when it borrowed him for Autumn of the Kohayagawa Family). It is a bit diffuse, compared to Naruse's previous norm. Quite watchable, maybe not a masterpiece but a good film.

Yoru no nagare / Evening Stream (co-directed by Yuzo Kawashima, 1960)

Mother (Isuzu Yamada) and daughter (Yoko Tsukasa) are in love with the same (dysfunctional) fellow. Some scenes are clearly Naruse's, others clearly Kawashima's (one of Imamura's mentors), but not _overly_ jarring in terms of style clashes (given the overall nature of the film). A quite interesting film, worth seeing, but probably not a list contender.

Aki tachinu / Autumn Has Already Started (1960)

A rare child-centered film by Naruse, centers on the friendship between a young boy and girl (whose family will soon be moving away). Child performances are good (but not as great as those in Ozu and Shimizu). Might easily be a contender if one is looking for something a bit out of the ordinary.

Onna no za / A Woman's Place (1962)

(written 7 years ago) Another sprawling extended family story... In part, rather like a first draft of "Yearning". Hideko Takamine is the widow of the oldest son of an extended family -- and runs the family's grocery. The upcoming threat of super-marketization is mentioned in passing -- but not followed through here. Much of the machinations here involve a marriage proposal for one of the younger daughters. The cast is marvelous -- with Chishu Ryu and Haruko Sugimura as the senior generation -- and with Yoko Tsulasa, Reiko Dan, Keiko Awaji, Keiju Kobayashi, Daisuke Kato and Tatsuya Mihashi as just _some_ of the children and in-laws and family connections. The plot starts as wry and sarcastic, but veers into seeming unnecessary high melodrama and pathos right before the end. Even here, a strange sarcastic tone creeps in -- as some of the crew behaves very casually at what ought to be a wrenching funeral.

Tsuma to shite onna to shite / As a Wife. As a Woman (1962)

(also from 7 years ago) Keijiro and Ayako Kono (Masayuki Mori and Chikage Awashima) seem like a picture-book upper middle-class family. He is a respected professor and the couple has two amiable children (a high school-aged girl and middle school-aged boy). But the Kono's domestic siutuation is more complicated than it seems on the surface. The children are actually the illegitimate children of Kono's long-time mistress, Miho (Hideko Takamine). To compensate for giving up the children, the Konos subsidize a bar which Miho operates. Ayako, interested in eliminating her husband's continuing interest in Miho, pays the bar girls to "spy" on Miho, in the hope of showing Miho is not "faithful" to her husband. Miho becomes tired of the situation, and proposes that she break off relations with Kono but be given outright owner ship of the bar. After Ayako flatly rejects this (not wanting to bear the expense), Miho's mother (played by the delightfully redoubtable Choko Iida) suggests that, for leverage, Miho demand the children back. This proposal infuriates Ayako, and she decides to sell the bar out from under Miho.

SpoilerShow

Miho retaliates by telling her son (who thinks she is only a somewhat engaging but disreputable friend of her parents) about his true parentage. He comes home distraught and locks himself into his room; when his big sister persuades him to let her in, he tells her the truth in turn. The two children angrily reject all three "parents". Afterwards, Miho and her mother are seen packing up their belongings, in preparation for a move to more humble quarters and a new job as operators of a street vendor stall. Miho's mother nonetheless sings cheerfully as she packs. To Miho's complaint that singing is out of place under the circumstances, her mother replies that she likes to sing – and things can't be helped by not singing. As the final scene, we see the two children in different school uniforms at a new school, it appears that they demanded to be sent away to boarding school – so as to avoid having to deal (at least for a while) with the problematic adults in their lives.

The color cinemascope photography here (by Jun Yasumoto, who shot Yamanaka's wonderful "Million Ryo Pot" in the 30s and films by Naruse, Inagaki, Toyoda and Ichikawa therafter) is superb. The initial frosty civility and subsequent savage hostility between Ayako and Miho is masterfully handled by Takamine and Awashima. And the mother-daughter interactions between Choko Iida and Takamine are quite delightful (including a number of impromptu "duets"). A Naruse masterpiece that clearly deserves to be better known.

(I still rate this quite highly -- and would note that his not Naruse's prettiest use of color film -- but one in which he and his cinematographer try to use color film as if it were black and white, making more use of shadows etc than was normal in Japan at that time)

Hourou-ki / A Wanderer's Notebook (1962)

Takamine plays (or _is_) Fumiko Hayashi in Naruse's adaptation of this early autobiographical work (with a late career coda -- not written by Hayashi). Opinions of Naruse fans are split on this, some love it, some are quite unenthused. I'm in the first camp. I'd say it approaches near-masterpiece status (at least) -- judge for yourselves (if you can find it).

Onna no rekishi / A Woman's Life Story (1963)

Another family epic. Good performances (again with Takamine at the center), but a sub-standard score. I liked it well enough but not a contender.

Midareru / Yearning (1964)

An essential Naruse film. I second the praise already provided above. Not one of MY very top Naruse films -- but way up near there (out of 68 or so Naruse films seen)

Onna no naka ni iru tanin / The Stranger Within a Woman (1966)

(from 7 years ago) Although Naruse demonstrated mastery of both color and cinemascope in his 60s films, he reverted to black-and-white Academy format for his antepenultimate film. Perhaps this use of a conservative format was intended to counterbalance the fact that this film involves the most shocking plot of any Naruse film to date.

Again the film focuses on an ostensibly normal family father (plauyed by Keiju Kobayashi), mother (Michiyo Aratama) and two adorable young children. Tragedy strikes the family of their best friends (Tatsuya Mihashi and Mitsuko Kusabue) soon after the film begins, the wife of this childless couple is found murdered in her bed.

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Through flashbacks and confessions, it is gradually revealed that Kobayashi and Kusabue were carrying on an affair and that she enjoyed "rough sex" (which one day went too far, ending in her accidental death). Aratama's goal is too keep her husband from confessing, and ruining the family's honor and comfortable middle-class existence. He, however, is subject to ever-increasing throes of guilt and remorse. Aratama is left with the dilemma of what to do....

This film is as visually striking as it is sensational in terms of plot. Despite the out-of-the-ordinary subject matter, Naruse typically tends to downplay any sense of hysteria treating the events almost as if they depict just another little slice of ordinary suburban life. A fascinating film albeit more reminiscent of Nomura's work than of the "typical" Naruse film.

(an eventual must-see for Naruse fans -- but not necessarily a contender for the list).

Hikinige / Hit and Run (1966)
This film strikes me as having been made under the influence of The House Maid (the Korean shocker that was one of the first Korean films to really get attention in Japan). Here, a working class woman's only child is run over (and Killed) by a wealthy woman. Unable to get any legal redress, the bereaved mother (Takamine) takes a job as a maid (and baby sitter) in the wealthy woman's househopld.

Naruse tries a lot of new things here, but it never quuite works, all things considered. Probably primarily for Naruse completists.

Midaregumo / Scattered Clouds (1967)

Naruse's last film (he got too ill to work after this was made). This _seems_ at first like it might be a return to the family epic format, but it soon enough homnes in on one relationship between a woman whose husband died in a car accident (Yoko Tsukasa) and the driver of the car who (Totally unavoidably) caused the accident (Yuzo Kayama). A wonderful film -- with (ultimately) a level of sadness that equals that in Yearning.

[puxzkkx]

Some other 60s films I've seen this year that I like/love:

Woman in the Dunes - What is poverty? A castle of sand that you must continuously struggle to maintain lest it collapse around you. Teshigahara has a genius metaphor and illustrates it beautifully with intriguing characterisation, a gripping narrative and hypnotic imagery.

Memories of Underdevelopment - a prism of contradictory feelings towards the Cuban revolution expressed as a dazzling docufiction stream of consciousness.

I Knew Her Well - Fractured, sometimes hallucinatory look at the traps society lays for young women. Bravura style.

The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman - Okamoto uses every trick in the book to bedazzle the inner life of the most ordinary of people. Perfect mix of comedy and drama.

Wings - Sociopolitical irrelevance rather than death is the catalyst for a former pilot's life flashing before her, and our, eyes.

The Innocents - Erotic and terrifying.

The Insect Woman - The anthills climbed by a peasant-turned-prostitute mirror the historical trajectory of postwar Japan.

Boy - Oshima trades explosive anger for bitter sadness in his most classical social exposé since his 1960 trifecta.

A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs - Explosive anger again from Oshima, but just as energising and thought-provoking (with catchy songs!)

The Sword of Doom - Nihilistic, almost existential chambara explores themes of responsibility and identity with a furious, brutal and devastating ending.

The Baby Carriage - Bittersweet look at youth culture malaise in Sweden.

Black God, White Devil - Toned-down Rocha compared to his later works, but a (relatively) straightforward presentation helps the political thesis fly high.

Late Autumn - Ozu looks at what the postwar social power shifts have done to women. Beautiful colour, ineffably sad.

Devi - A maelstrom of sound and image reflects the bad trip of religious fanaticism and the suffocating force of patriarchy.

Belle de Jour - Bunuel as sly as ever, drawing up erotic situations and drawing out the poisons inherent in them.

La hora de los hornos - As a 'documentary' it is mulishly didactic (of course) but the insane, inspired juxtapositions of sound and image are incredibly powerful.

Hunger - Works primarily as a showcase for the incredible performance of Per Oscarsson, but the drifting focus of its adaptation works perfectly to explore the psyche of an artist starved of both sustenance and affection.

The Catch - something of a companion piece to The Christian Revolt, it too has an almost stately classicism that makes the breaks in its formal system even more shocking. Powerful.

Underworld, U.S.A. - Fuller at both his silliest and his most serious. Pulls the rug from under you with some unexpected emotional heft.

Double Suicide - Theatrical modes of address integrated into film with style and shrewd political acuity.

Onibaba - Mesmerising horror/social drama.

All These Women - Bergman's ballsy, sarcastic small miracle of structure and visual humour. Some great montage.

Our Daily Bread - A young wife's inner world seen through a heat haze. Arresting images.

The Sterile Cuckoo - Pakula's roomy aesthetic suits this relationship drama which is both wispy and incredibly powerful. Fantastic screenplay and shattering Minnelli performance.

Chronicle of a Lonely Child - Silence and surrealism colour a social drama of a child caught between physical and economic prisons.

Many of these will make my list.

[matrixschmatrix]

Oh, shit, I forgot about The Innocents. It may be too high profile to bother, but I want to make that my spotlight, because that movie is amazing.

I'll write it up later, because I need to rewatch it first.

[Yojimbo]

I'm definitely going to include one of the Zatoichi films as one of my spotlights.
I had seen the Kitano 'Zatoichi' in a festival screening a few years back and been hugely disappointed but I think by that time Kitano films were too much about Kitano.

For whatever reason I decided to give the original series a shot and I was amazed at the quality, of both script and film-making, - and then, of course, there's the great Shintaro Katsu, - so I jumped at the opportunity of acquiring the complete set.

I've watched at least four, possibly five, but I'll probably give the complete set a run-through and recommend at least one of them.
I'll certainly be including one of the films in my final 50; hopefully the standard of the series will be strong enough for two to make my final list.

I love the 'Thin Man' series; and most 'Mr Moto' films I've seen; I haven't been as impressed by the 'Charlie Chans' I've seen, but as of now, the Zatoichi series must be the best ever
(a blind swordsman, yet!; who woulda thunk it?)

[Mike_S]

The Innocents will definitely be making my list. For my money, the best ghost story ever filmed.

[Wu.Qinghua]

Looking through the old 60s list, I've been a bit surprised that this film got no votes last time round

Katzelmacher (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, FRG 1969)

I'm aware that you could come up with a lot of criticism, and I'm also aware that it's rather slow paced, a bit stagey and made on the cheap with heavy cameras and static camera work, but: It's a key film of the so-called New German cinema. zedz has already written a few words in the Fassbinder thread and I haven't seen it for quite a while, but I'll surely vote for it as it's one of my favourite Fassbinders, so please have a look at it if you've not already seen it. You just have to keep in mind that it's not only low budget, but also canned theatre for real ('Katzelmacher''s one of Fassbinder's stage plays and was performed by the Munich' antiteater, which he lead in the late 60s) and that the film is not about migration in the first place (even less than the play), but about the German past and present, as they were widely conceived then, and even more about the authoritarian personality as has been researched and portrayed by Adorno around 1950. So you might label it one of the key films of the German antiauthoritarian movement, too.

And if you should be able to understand German (no subs available, afaik), you could watch it back on back with Peter Fleischmann's Herbst der Gammler (1968) which is a beautiful and very interesting documentary about the Munich' beat scene and the way ordinary folks reacted when being confronted with them. Just make sure you know who the much-praised Adolf might be.

[Yojimbo]

Looking through the old 60s list, I've been a bit surprised that this film got no votes last time round

Katzelmacher (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, FRG 1969)

I'm aware that you could come up with a lot of criticism, and I'm also aware that it's rather slow paced, a bit stagey and made on the cheap with heavy cameras and static camera work, but: It's a key film of the so-called New German cinema and of the German '68 movement. zedz has already written a few words in the Fassbinder thread and I haven't seen it for quite a while, but I'll surely vote for it as it's one of my favourite Fassbinders, so please have a look at it if you've not already seen it. You just have to keep in mind that it's not only low budget, but also canned theatre for real (Katzelmacher's one of Fassbinder's stage plays and was performed by the Munich' antiteater, which he lead in the late 60s) and that the film is not about migration in the first place, but about the German past and presence and even more about the authoritarian character as been researched and portrayed by Adorno around 1950. So you might label it one of the key films of the German antiauthoritarian movement, too.

And if you could understand German, you could watch it back on back with Peter Fleischmann's Herbst der Gammler (1968) which is a beautiful and very interesting documentary about the Munich' beat scene and the way ordinary folks reacted when being confronted with them. Just make sure you know who the much-praised Adolf might be.

I've really only picked up on early Fassbinder during the past year, when I've been working my way through those box-sets I bought all those years ago.
What I'd never really picked up on when my Fassbinder experience was limited to his late period, more widely available, films, was his wonderfully wry, deadpan humour, and I might even find a place for this.

But I wonder how much of an influence was it on Linklater's 'Slacker'?
EDIT: and 'Do The Right Thing'

[zedz]

Katzelmacher (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, FRG 1969)

If I can squeeze it in, my Fassbinder vote will probably go to Love Is Colder Than Death, simply because it's stylistically so very strange - not even necessarily in a good way - but Katzelmacher is probably the best representation of Fassbinder's very early style.

In terms of New German Cinema recommendations, my highest ranking will probably go to Signs of Life, which is up there with Every Man for Himself and God Against All as my favourite Herzog feature. It's a beautifully shot, bizarre, and completely individual first feature, but with a solid emotional core.

[swo17]

Signs of Life

Is the Raro DVD English-friendly? And does anyone know where it can be purchased?

[zedz]

Signs of Life

Is the Raro DVD English-friendly? And does anyone know where it can be purchased?

Completely English-friendly, including the bilingual booklet.

Seems to be OOP - not available directly from Raro anymore, and not available directly from Amazon.it (but there is a marketplace seller offering it for 25E - it's listed as Cofanetto Werner Herzog).

In completely non-60s, but very exciting, news, my amazon.it search revealed that RHV have released a two disc set of Herzog's 'Cinema Lessons'. To the best of my knowledge this is the first release of these films anywhere, and they're one of the few remaining gaps in Herzog's filmography on home video. Unfortunately, there seem to be Italian subs only (sigh).

[zedz]

While I'm firing off random recommendations, my favourite sixties film that isn't available anywhere* (it was number three on my list last time, and I see no earthly reason why that would change) is Susumu Hani's Inferno of First Love, a very dark and disturbing, and formally stunning, New Wave gem.

A lot of the 'unavailable' films on my list in previous go-rounds have now, thankfully, become available, but Japanese New Wave films remain the major hold-outs, particularly three of Oshima's greatest films, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, Boy and Death by Hanging. Yoshida's The Affair and A Story Written with Water will probably both be on my final list as well (and Eros Plus Massacre too, if I can find the space). If you understand Japanese, can read French, or can figure out where to find English subtitle files, those French Yoshida releases are essential for this project. Film for film, Contre le melodrame is one of the greatest box sets ever released.

At present, the only other unavailable film from my last vote is Abdelsalam's The Night of Counting the Years, which we're assuming Criterion is sitting on.