The First Features List

[soundchaser]

I don't know that it's about gaming the system so much as it is historical accuracy. Almost no one on the planet considers Le Quadrille Rivette's first feature. Surely there's some nuance here related to how certain films were presented, marketed, etc.?

[domino harvey]

IMDb says those two films are exactly 40 minutes, which is not greater than 40 minutes. I wonder if it would simplify things if feature were defined as greater than either 75 or 80 minutes (acknowledging that I do not personally have the authority to change the rules). Are there some key debuts between 40-80 minutes that that would be missing out on?

I mean, I already hate this list, so I’m like one step away from making the cut off 105 minutes. Some of you would have more fun in a contract law class, I think!

I’m amenable to bumping it up to an hour, just to clear out some obvious non-features. And including a chronological commercial screening requirement to weed out these (re)discovered works of youthful ephemera

[knives]

How could you vote for Breathless in that case?

[therewillbeblus]

I don't know that it's about gaming the system so much as it is historical accuracy. Almost no one on the planet considers Le Quadrille Rivette's first feature. Surely there's some nuance here related to how certain films were presented, marketed, etc.?

It's definitely tough whenever there are parameters so I don't envy domino's position here. I was about to promote Tony Conrad's The Flicker but it's only 30 minutes, even if it's a case where it could be two hours and retain the same trance-like experimental effect. Paris Belongs to Us is an example that's so clearly Rivette's first feature that I feel the same way, but I also think for Eustache, The Mother and the Whore is certainly his first feature as well, while Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes is more of a long short (and Extraordinary Stories is also definitely Llinas' rather than that travelogue doc). It's all subjective, and obviously can't be that way for the final list, so I accept whatever rules are imposed or not.

[therewillbeblus]

zedz' aforementioned Boy Meets Girl is going to chart highly for me, though roughly a year later I'm still waiting for someone to engage in a discussion on the ending! I'll post my writeup here just in case that helps that to happen.

Boy Meets Girl

In his first feature, Carax takes the nouvelle vague spirit and mixes it with older filmmaking techniques to facilitate a more emotional and less intellectual experience. Carax repurposes these methods to unlock a buried energy distilled by modern cinema. The nouvelle vague influences are in that recontextualization, though the setup of the shots are rooted in films by Renoir, Vigo, Dreyer, etc. The temperament is new age disillusionment, characters with baselines of emotional dysregulation that exist in a world of promises and evidence of love.

Carax takes Godard’s wild manipulations of the medium’s history and channels his own unique vibe with them. This is a film deeply in love with its characters because it knows them, just as it knows the milieu, a dreamy skewed perspective on our reality. A lot has been said about Carax being in love with his muses, but he also loves Lavant, a surrogate for himself, who can realise the acts and emotions that Carax cannot while also remaining tied to familiar constraints. The environment of this film is simultaneously bursting with opportunities for passion and a cold vacuum that renders them invisible. The camera takes the position of both sides- there are moments where our objectivity is clouded so as to feel detached, and yet even then we can join in the isolation or pain of whoever is gracing us in the frame.

However in atypical fashion, I found that whenever Lavant or Perrier were off screen I was also thinking about them, which insinuates how linked they are. This is especially true in the first section when we are privy to the information that there exists a potential soul mate for the other, while the characters don’t - a wonderful exhibition of the possibilities of life often unavailable to us when we’re in a bout of depression and self-pity. I love how Carax conveys the characters daydreaming with music and images superimposed briefly on corners of the screen, and even a reverse-Spike Lee ‘move without walking’ shot from behind, as Lavant chases Perrier without even realizing it (until he does). It's a spiritual experience- the kind one has listening to Bowie, walking through the streets at night with eyes closed. The energy warms both even with a door between them, at the party when she’s cutting and he’s just behind- they both stop to feel the other’s presence.

Their first real interaction is full of all the idiosyncrasies that occur normally, musing about enigmas (falling in love, discussing dreams, wondering what kind of tea is it in one of the film's most beautiful lines, “the label’s missing- it could be anything”) and binding to reality with army service, professions, suicide, and tangible expressions of love through sharing details of history. The authenticity and trust they bring to the conversation evokes both desperation and uninhibited participation. The beauty of being broken is that you’ve already surrendered and can be your true self around another, especially when you meet a partner starved of life too. Two cracked mirrors can still see themselves in another.

The use of expressionist lighting to convey emotion is masterful, with darkness falling upon the lovers in a moment of silence, or the screen cutting to a black spot as Lavant remembers the night his ex left, exemplifying an intrusive thought or brief piercing blackout of emotional pain. These come in a late-stage pinball game too when Lavant is elated, blood flowing, winning at a tangible game. It's hard to tell what's more exciting- winning, or being able to focus on a simple, tangible process, in a world that's anything but.

Carax may refuse us a happy ending but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe that love is possible, he just believes that it’s also not-possible. Like Strangulation Blues, Carax dictates his habit of getting caught up in his own solipsism, as well as the breaths where he can bask in the beauty of his world, to create an amalgamation of experience. I think he believes that even if our defective characteristics and personal histories will erupt and destroy part of what they create, these permanent scars don’t need to equate to permanent pain. After all, this is his first feature film- he has a lot more living to do, and he knows it. The shot of the couple in the window looking at the stars is hopeful, before cutting back to the dream of corporeal death.

I’m curious how others read the ending.

[knives]

Just to be further obnoxious does Titus count as a first feature or do those filmed plays count?

[therewillbeblus]

I'd also like to make a plug for Jeff Nichols' first film, Shotgun Stories, which is an excellent portrayal of alcoholism and classism's effects on family dynamics and inherited resentment like a disease, a stripped-down kitchen-sink Hatfield–McCoy feud based on the most logical motive for bitterness one can conceive of in real life: social-emotional disenfranchisement.

[bottled spider]

Seconded. I haven't seen Shotgun Stories for a while, so I can't expand on it, but I remember liking it a lot.

The Rapture (Michael Tolkin). For the first three quarters or so this comes across as a film about religious characters from a skeptical (albeit sympathetic) point of view. Until the Rapture happens for real. Tonally odd and difficult to read. In case it's an incentive, it's widely rumored you can see David Duchovny's balls for a split second. (I must have blinked at the wrong moment myself...).

My Left Foot (Jim Sheridan). Kael's review

In the Bedroom (Todd Field)

Begotten (Merhige). (joking)

I Shot Andy Warhol (Mary Harron) Her best?

The Arbor (Clio Barnard)

What Happened Was... (Noonan)

[therewillbeblus]

Some list-contenders:

Le monte-charge: Bluwal should have had a more lustrous career after making a noir that actually plants you in the anxious confusion right with its central character better than any other (*assuming his TV movies don't count?)

Brick: I know this is a divisive film for some on this board, but Rian Johnson made one of the most brutal and thrilling noirs within a creative melding of specific iconography and timeless tone. I love this movie as much as I hated being part of the systems it exploits, in all its universal and esoteric seediness of circles.

Pretty Poison: Is my list going to be all unique twists on noir? I swear I'm just writing stream of consciousness. Anyways, this film plays out a similarly gradual Perkins-alignment tactic as Psycho in result only, for Noel Black delivers his acidic punch in a much different, unassuming manner. Yet his approach is far more invasive because of its terrifying familiarity in both humanizing the mentally ill, to an unsettling verdict that proposes they are more cognizant of their fatalistic systemically-diagnosed pathology than we realize, and surprising us of the socially-acceptable sleeper-cell sociopaths occupying the house next door and the soul of the object of our affections.

Gone Baby Gone: Fine, another noir, but also one of the best Boston movies ever- a riveting exercise in forward momentum and colorful details that ring true, that raises high-stakes and high-brow questions about morality, that fatally cannot be separated from cultural context, as a special bonus.

Blood Simple: I actually do think my list is going to be mostly noirs. How did this happen? And if you count Breathless, Night of the Hunter, Hard Eight, Paris Belongs to Us... oh man

Adieu Philippine is not a noir! Neither is Brigitte et Brigitte or Ce soir ou jamais. Thank you France. I suspect all of these will make my list, but I don't have much to say about any of them because they're not noirs. Actually I've already written them all up in various threads. I'm capable of talking about movies that aren't noirs anytime I want to. I just don't want to right now. Please believe me

Dutchman: Are we really considering a feature over 60 minutes, because then this film won't count, and it stands a chance of nearing the top of my list. An absolute masterpiece of social horror. Yes, I put it on my Horror list.

The Seventh Victim: Damn, another noir, but one so horrific in its implicit objective nihilism that the Christian prayer usurping the power of the cult is but a folly and no match for the existential disorientation that prevails.

The Virgin Suicides: Sofia Coppola's masterpiece of dedication and passionate curiosity about the enigmatic, among her other masterpieces.

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure: "Where are they hosing him down?!"

Me and You and Everyone We Know: I've tried to explain why I love this movie twice in its dedicated thread and all I can do is throw superlatives its way. This movie is pure emotion. I can't recommend this movie highly enough, especially if you've ever felt so desperate to grab someone's attention, and just be 'seen', that you could light yourself on fire.

You Can Count on Me: The worst Kenneth Lonergan film is still a masterpiece of well-drawn family dynamics and composed of drama so sincere you can taste it.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World: Lorene Scafaria made a film so emotionally honest and philosophically advanced that its bitterly funny observational wit and imaginative setpieces woven throughout are but secondary gifts. Plus the film has the greatest ending in movies, ever.

Fucking Amal: ...Except maybe this movie's ending. The more I watch this film, the more I find myself relating to both central characters in equal measure; Anges in her feelings regarding birthdays, the fantasies of realizing those dreams; Elin in her quirks (when she tells her friends at lunch that she wants to go "beat up a pensioner," it's such a hilariously abnormal outburst, and yet nobody bats an eye- her popularity protects her even though she’s arguably the weirder of the two! ) and painful frustration with feeling displaced in her own skin and social group, never being fulfilled except with distractions of parties or booze or superficial romantic encounters... There's an immediacy to her dysphoria and desire for 'more' that Agnes can help soften with her more grounded resilience. This film reminds me of what a good partner, or friend, gives you- and what you are able to unlock in yourself to give to that person.

There are moments where I still feel like Agnes when she's in her most isolated and hopeless state, and then moments where I realize that times like their intimate convo on the bridge really do occur in real life when you least expect them to- the spontaneity and risk-taking that leads to our greatest experiences. The greatest implicit 'reveal' is that Elin focuses on leaving Amal when she's feeling alienation, but when she's able to connect with the here-and-now through Agnes, she finds the energy to fill her emotional hole right there in Amal. It's a great film about perspective and the opportunities surrounding you regardless of place, if you just look for them. It's also not a noir.

[swo17]

This is a really interesting way to think about films though a lot of them would probably never come to mind without doing a bit of research. Having now done some of that based on directors that have placed on my own personal decades lists, I'm pretty sure all of these that haven't been mentioned yet should be eligible:

Twilight of a Woman's Soul (Yevgeni Bauer, 1913)
The Mysterious X (Benjamin Christensen, 1914)
Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914)
Præsidenten (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1919)
Blind Husbands (Erich von Stroheim, 1919)
When the Clouds Roll By (Victor Fleming, 1919)
L'Auberge rouge (Jean Epstein, 1923)
Maldone (Jean Grémillon, 1928)
My Grandmother (Kote Miqaberidze, 1929)
Good News (Charles Walters, 1947)
The White Dove (František Vláčil, 1960)
A Well for the Thirsty (Yuri Ilyenko, 1965)
Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968)
The Night of Counting the Years (Shadi Abdel Salam, 1969)
The Structure of Crystal (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1969)
The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1970)
Uski Roti (Mani Kaul, 1970)
Szindbád (Zoltán Huszárik, 1971)
Little Murders (Alan Arkin, 1971)
The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)
Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973)
Godspeed You! Black Emperor (Mitsuo Yanagimachi, 1976)
Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977)
Vertical Features Remake (Peter Greenaway, 1978)
Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982)
This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984)
Next of Kin (Atom Egoyan, 1984)
Magdalena Viraga (Nina Menkes, 1986)
Water and Power (Pat O'Neill, 1989)
Society (Brian Yuzna, 1989)
Palms (Artur Aristakisyan, 1994)
In the Company of Men (Neil LaBute, 1997)
Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999)
George Washington (David Gordon Green, 2000)
The Last Train (Aleksei German Jr., 2003)
Primer (Shane Carruth, 2004)
12:08 East of Bucharest (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2006)
Katalin Varga (Peter Strickland, 2009)
Four Lions (Chris Morris, 2010)
The One I Love (Charlie McDowell, 2014)
Life After Life (Zhang Hanyi, 2016)
Towards a Six-Dimensional Cinema (Peter Rose, 2018)

Also, sadly not eligible:

Pee Wee's Big Adventure (a 45-minute Disney Channel TV movie preceded it)
Happiness (Medvedkin) (some presumably lost 41-minute film preceded it)
Dog Star Man? (Anticipation of the Night is over 40 minutes per IMDb but exactly 40 per the Re:voir disc)

Also, when is Criterion releasing Bottle Rocket

[therewillbeblus]

Shame about the Burton, but at least it frees up space. A bunch of those were on my preliminary list, though Good News and Little Murders are probably the two that'll chart. I also always forget that Todd Solondz made the compromised Fear, Anxiety & Depression as a first feature well before he returned with the uncompromised Welcome to the Dollhouse, a film that would surely have made my list if it was eligible. Now I guess I should take this as an opportunity to finally see his first film instead of just rewatching all his others..

[swo17]

I don't think he wants anyone to watch it

[Aunt Peg]

A few that come to mind that I don't think have been mentioned:

The Great McGinty (Preston Sturges, 1940)
Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946)
David and Lisa (Frank Perry, 1962)
The Sleeping Car Murders (Costa-Gavras, 1965)
The Sterile Cuckoo (Alan J. Pakula, 1969)
Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens (Jim Sharman, 1972)
Return of the Secaucus Seven (John Sayles, 1979)
Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 1980)
Taxi Zum Klo (Frank Ripploh, 1980)
Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981)
Raggedy Man (Jack Fisk, 1981)
Personal Best (Robert Townie, 1982)
Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983)
Dances with Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1990)
Boyz N the Hood (John Singleton, 1991)
The Hours and the Times (Christopher Munch, 1991)
El Mariachi (Robert Rodriguez, 1992)
The Life of Jesus (Bruno Dumont, 1997)
Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay, 1999)

[therewillbeblus]

Perhaps they're too obvious to have been mentioned so far, but Night of the Living Dead, Reservoir Dogs and Sex, Lies and Videotape were three of the first that came to mind when I thought of the project.

And although I've already done enough championing of it lately, Brando's One-Eyed Jacks will be my western to chart. It's an Antonioni set in the American west, suggesting something far more unsettling about our fractured relationship with morality: that it never existed in the first place

[soundchaser]

If I have time to really participate in this project (no guarantees), I’ll definitely be voting for Pedro Costa’s O Sangue, which is an astonishing exercise in balancing tension and release. Not many things literally take my breath away, but I have a visceral memory of suddenly remembering I had to inhale after an incredible cut. I’m amazed that Costa seemingly sprang up out of nowhere with such a formally coherent work. And don’t be turned off if you don’t like his Fontainhas films — this is a very different beast altogether.

[Maltic]

Nanook of the North 1922
Strike 1925
Cabin in the Sky 1943
They Live by Night 1948
Pather Panchali 1955
The 400 Blows 1959
Shadows 1959
The Bellboy 1960
Lola 1961
Knife in the Water 1962
Catch Us If You Can 1965
Wanda 1970
Play Misty for Me 1971
Dillinger 1973
Dark Star 1974
Hard Times 1975
The Iron-Fisted Monk 1977
Blue Collar 1978
Killer of Sheep 1978
I Wanna Hold Your Hand 1978
Real Life 1979
The Sword 1980
The Evil Dead 1981
That Day, on the Beach 1983
Re-Animator 1985
The Hitcher 1986
House of Games 1987
As Tears Go By 1988
Say Anything… 1989
Metropolitan 1990
Joe Versus the Volcano 1990
Rebels of the Neon God 1992
The Nightmare Before Christmas 1993
Speed 1994
In the Heat of the Sun 1994
Dumb and Dumber 1994
Kicking and Screaming 1995
Mysterious Object at Noon 2000
Freddy Got Fingered 2001
Crank 2006
Bone Tomahawk 2015

[Maltic]

IMDb says those two films are exactly 40 minutes, which is not greater than 40 minutes. I wonder if it would simplify things if feature were defined as greater than either 75 or 80 minutes (acknowledging that I do not personally have the authority to change the rules). Are there some key debuts between 40-80 minutes that that would be missing out on?

I mean, I already hate this list, so I’m like one step away from making the cut off 105 minutes. Some of you would have more fun in a contract law class, I think!

I’m amenable to bumping it up to an hour, just to clear out some obvious non-features. And including a chronological commercial screening requirement to weed out these (re)discovered works of youthful ephemera

[Aunt Peg]

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Elia Kazan, 1945)
Raat Bhore (Mrinal Sen, 1956)
Accattone (Pier Paolo Passolini, 1961)
La Commare Secca (aka The Grim Reaper) (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1962)
The Householder (James Ivory, 1964)
Enter Laughing (Carol Reiner, 1967)
Titicut Follies (Frederick Wiseman, 1967)
Promises in the Dark (Jerome Hellman, 1979)
Windows (Gordon Willis, 1980)
L.I.E. (Michel Cuesta, 2001)

[therewillbeblus]

I'm looking too far in the past, Promising Young Woman qualifies for its first list!

Also, I don't think these have been mentioned yet:

10 Cloverfield Lane
Another Earth
Bachelorette
The Blackcoat’s Daughter
Ceremony
The Day a Pig Fell into the Well
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Frailty
Funny Ha Ha
It’s Such a Beautiful Day
Michael Clayton
The Myth of the American Sleepover
Perdrix
Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical
The Room
Saint Maud
Sound of My Voice
Thoroughbreds
Wedding Daze
Wet Hot American Summer

[lzx]

Distant Voices, Still Lives 1988

Unless the current rules change I don't think this qualifies sadly since Davies' Children (1976) is over forty minutes long!

[MichaelB]

Perhaps they're too obvious to have been mentioned so far, but Night of the Living Dead, Reservoir Dogs and Sex, Lies and Videotape were three of the first that came to mind when I thought of the project.

The latter was technically Steven Soderbergh's second feature, since it was made after his 67-minute Yes documentary 9012Live (1986).

[bottled spider]

Accattone (Pier Paolo Passolini, 1961)

An extraordinary debut. I didn't realize at the time I watched it that it was his first. I was skeptical of this topic when it first popped up, but skimming through the suggestions thus far, there are more excellent first features than I initially imagined.

[MichaelB]

IMDb says those two films are exactly 40 minutes, which is not greater than 40 minutes. I wonder if it would simplify things if feature were defined as greater than either 75 or 80 minutes (acknowledging that I do not personally have the authority to change the rules). Are there some key debuts between 40-80 minutes that that would be missing out on?

A sensible yardstick might be to ask "will this exclude Jan Němec's 67-minute Diamonds of the Night?"

And if the answer is "yes", then the rule needs changing.

(Actually, I suspect there are quite a few sub-70-minute films that are entirely uncontroversially regarded as feature debuts.)

[therewillbeblus]

Extending it to 75 or 80 minutes feels a bit much, since The 7th Victim and Brigitte et Brigitte would be excluded (would anyone argue that Les Contrebandières was Moullet's first film?); thought at ~54 minutes, Dutchman is unquestionably a feature as well

[swo17]

45 minutes could be a good practical cutoff point because that's how IMDb tags shorts, making it much easier to skim through a director's filmography and identify the first feature. (Note though that some films for which the runtime has not been identified will obviously not be tagged this way.)

Then there's also the question of how to pit impressive debuts from cherished directors against films that are the best (or perhaps only noteworthy) thing that director did. For instance, Hard Eight is awesome but also the most generic film PTA has made. Personally, I think I'd tend to favor more of the one-offs