The Lists Project

[Gregory]

I still think there is merit to considering The Human Condition as a single work, for reasons I've explained in the past, and I don't believe it was an exception that helped caused a slippery slope. If there is any slippery slope, it started on day one of the first round of this project, or as soon as we started running into what are often arbitrary divisions and distinctions that differ depending on what you consult. I don't think there is a true slippery slope, though; rather there are a number of cases that just need to be decided whether they're single works or not.

But I remember the Human Condition case being met with cries from zedz, whom I usually agree with, that this would lead to "But-I-Wanna-Vote-For-Deadwood (stomps feet)" territory. It's a common logical fallacy. In this case a rhetorical device to make the person one disagrees with seem as ridiculous as Nothing (the would-be voter for a Deadwood season in the Western film list)? Possibly.

And I'm familiar with the Anger films, thank you, but that and the Doinel examples are still quite different from the others under discussion here, it seems to me—let alone The Empire Strikes Back being part of the same creative effort that produced The Phantom Menace about twenty years later. Claiming that's the same thing as the point I was making about Framption films/parts that were basically planned and made all at one go around 1971-72 seems ludicrous to me, but forget it. I really don't enjoy that type of argument, so I'm sorry I said anything in the first place.

[matrixschmatrix]

The Animation list will be finished soon, so here's your chance to vote for our next genre list. Rules are simple: pick your favorite choice from the list above.

[knives]

Do you want a post stating which genre we're voting for (I did 'documentary')?

[matrixschmatrix]

I'm not going to require it, but feel free. It's probably a good idea if you pick 'Other', certainly.

Incidentally, if it's close, or if there's a lot of write ins, I'll do a runoff.

[zedz]

Well, apart from the condensed time frame (which is a really slippery slope - how long is too long between projects?), I really don't see that big a difference. Weren't all of the Frampton films individually conceived and shot separately (the 'rules' of (nostalgia) are completely different to the 'rules' of Poetic Justice, and as individual films go they're far more different from one another than they are from any two components of the Star Wars series, or probably from any two randomly chosen Hollywood films from the same time period), and released / premiered separately? I dare say the number of times they've been shown as a complete series is fewer than the number of times all the Star Wars films or Matrix films have been shown together, and the component parts are regularly presented and considered as individual films (as on the two home video releases in which component films have figured).

Of course they should be considered as a body of work, but that doesn't mean they can't be considered individually, which is how they have been considered for most of their critical lives, including by their maker in A Critical Cinema.

And for the record, I find the idea that these films should not be allowed to considered individually every bit as absurd as Nothing's "But I wanna vote for [selected parts of] Deadwood!!!" whines.

[matrixschmatrix]

I don't really see how a difference in opinion as to what comprises a single work, in a situation in which that definition has explicitly been thrown open for debate, is at all comparable to someone deciding three quarters of the way through a project that everyone else is wrong and dumb for not having made the rules differently in the first place.

[knives]

He's not talking about the context or the person, but rather the idea being presented. In that case I agree with Zedz.

[Mr Sausage]

I won't be participating in a Documentaries list, so, yeah, I'm really hoping for that one to lose more than any one to win (tho' Religious was my vote, easily).

[Gregory]

Desipte that attempt to compartmentalize, it's hard to imagine zedz doesn't know very well the rhetorical effects of repeatedly likening my suggestions to Nothing's and a whole frightening regime of ridiculous whining and stamping of feet, when I've done no such thing and have already pointed this out as a slippery slope fallacy. "Well, if we allow this, then before you know it we'll all be voting for Season 12 of Perfect Strangers!" How is anything I've said like "the idea presented by" demanding eligibility for one season of a TV series in midstream, which fell outside the rules all along and really has no connection whatsoever to the kinds of cases I was discussing—aside from where Nothing's position and mine rate on zedz's personal Absurd-o-Meter, which is a distractions from the discussion at hand.
We have a problem of differences of criteria for inclusion, and I was trying to shed a little light on a filmmaker creating a group of short films under the umbrella of a unified concept. But any potentially fruitful discussion is diverted with the suggestion that my ideas are not only ridiculous but potentially disruptive even though I was simply responding to a prompt for discussion of Hapax Legomena, along the lines of similar cases that have already been accepted.

[swo17]

Very fitting that this discussion should arise for Hapax Legomena, considering the meaning of the phrase!

I don't know how relevant this will be, but here is a thought exercise to consider for any given title: Is there a well-established name for that title (which does not include words like "trilogy" or "films") that alone unambiguously refers to the whole, but when "I," "Part I," "Vol. 1," etc. is appended, specifically refers to that part? If so, perhaps this constitutes a multi-part film, as opposed to two or more separate films.

Some examples:

- If I say "Les Vampires," there is no question that I am referring to all ten episodes as a whole, whereas "Les Vampires, Episode 3" specifically refers to that part.
- If I say "The Antoine Doinel films," it's clear that I'm referring to all of them together, but I had to use the word "films" to do so, breaking my rule above.
- There are only two Gremlins films, which could be interpreted under the inherited rules as them constituting only one film. However, if I simply say "Gremlins," it is not clear that this refers to the two films together as opposed to only the first one. Since there is ambiguity, these should be considered two separate films.
- If I simply say "Back to the Future," it is not clear whether this refers to the trilogy or only to the first film in the trilogy. The only way to remove this ambiguity is to refer to it as the "Back to the Future trilogy," but that breaks my rule above.
- Note that Criterion released The Human Condition as simply "The Human Condition," not as "The Human Condition trilogy." There was no ambiguity as to whether "The Human Condition" would include the whole work as opposed to only the first part of it.
- If I simply say "Star Wars," it is not clear whether this refers to the original trilogy, the original film, or indeed the whole body of films that have followed. Since there is ambiguity, it breaks my rule above.
- Those Kenneth Anger films may share connective tissue, but there's no well-established name for the three of them as a whole, and any name that you could think up would likely end with "trilogy" or "films," breaking my rule above.
- Fischinger's studies would only count as a single multi-part film under my rule above if "Study" unambiguously referred to all 14(?) of them together. You might consider this a rather pedantic point, but it's precisely this difference that I'm getting at. As another example, "Dog Star Man" unambiguously refers to all five parts at once--I don't have to say "Dog Star Mans" or "the Dog Star Man films" for you to know what I'm talking about.

And there's a huge qualitative difference between a film that only survives in truncated form, like Homonculus, or The Magnificent Ambersons, and one which exists intact but which you've only seen part of.

Certainly. Though consider the difference between Dog Star Man and Scenes from Under Childhood. Both films are structured in essentially the same way, in multiple parts. The big difference between these two cases is that Criterion on their Brakhage set decided to present all the parts for one of them and only one part for the other. As Gregory indicated earlier, Criterion's decision as to how to present these films shouldn't be the deciding factor as to whether we call them a single film or a bunch of separate films. If someone only wants to vote for the part or parts that they have seen, I don't see a problem with using the name Scenes from Under Childhood as a catch-all for any part or the whole that receives a vote. This is how we counted votes during the last round for, say, Kill Bill when individuals would vote for just Vol. 1 or Vol. 2.

[domino harvey]

I like all of these, so it's hard, but I'm casting my vote for Documentaries for the simple reason that I'd like an excuse to watch more.

Someone came up with the devilish idea of "Sports" for a possible genre list, which will be my "Other" vote even if I'm not voting "Other." Someday, maybe...

[zedz]

Yeah, I actually agree with that as it pertains to Scenes from Under Childhood (though that doesn't change the fact that I can't vote for it, as I haven't seen it, but it was incorrect to identify it as a special exception, since there are indeed precedents). My issue is with tending to agglomerate films that have traditionally been considered and critiqued as individual works, simply for the sake of. . . what exactly? Who's actually supposed to benefit from these films not being able to be considered individually? Is there anybody here who has seen all of the films, values them all equally and is passionately opposed to talking about them separately?

[zedz]

I voted for docs as well, on the grounds that it was the project most likely to drum up interesting conversations that we might not otherwise have. I'm really looking forward to the eventual religious project, but we talk about those sort of films and issues at the drop of a hat anyway.

[swo17]

My issue is with tending to agglomerate films that have traditionally been considered and critiqued as individual works, simply for the sake of. . . what exactly? Who's actually supposed to benefit from these films not being able to be considered individually?

I just think that however you define things, there is still going to be some gray area, and I'm thinking through this, trying to create a more robust definition of what constitutes a single film vs. multiple films to eliminate as much gray area as possible. For instance, I think we both agree that Dog Star Man should count as a single film, though I don't think that the inherited rules (i.e. "two-part films released separately count as one film") technically cover this, whereas my more robust definition does.

[MichaelB]

I've yet to take part in one of these, but Documentaries is the one most likely to pique my interest - and also the one to which I can probably contribute the most, given the vast number I've watched over the last decade or so.

[Cold Bishop]

Why do you people hate Science Fiction?!

(But yeah, I'm probably going for Documentary for the same reason as dom, although that reasoning isn't quite working out for the Animation list).

[matrixschmatrix]

So, I'm going to keep voting open until 8pm next Wednesday, and run off the two highest voted options- unless the other two haven't gotten enough votes to make a difference.

[swo17]

1. The two versions of Out 1 get absorbed into a single entity, correct?

By reputation anyways they're so different that I figure they should be considered two different pieces edited from the same cloth.

I think this is another case that the inherited rules do not specifically address. (Nor does my suggested rule wording regarding multi-part films.) But I think we have sufficient precedent for treating cases like this as single films. Perhaps it would be worth adding a line to the rules going forward:

"Films that exist in multiple versions (e.g. theatrical vs. director's cuts) are collapsed into a single entity for voting purposes."

One potential hiccup: Could A Short Film About Killing/Love be considered as alternate versions of Dekalog, suggesting that they should all be collapsed into one entity?

[zedz]

Okay, here's my position in as basic a statement as I can manage.

The lists project has always been based on the strong presumption that an individual film is an individual film, to facilitate the easiest voting process. Thus we even allow for contributions to portmanteau films to be considered on their own. Where exceptions have been made (such as the two-part and mini-series rules), it's been overwhelmingly because nobody in their right mind would consider an individual episode of Berlin Alexanderplatz (or one half of Andrey Rublyov) as an independent work, and nobody in their right mind would want to have to allocate fourteen of their fifty available slots in order to accommodate Fassbinder's film. The point of the rules is to be as straightforward as possible (which is why we have the imdb date rule) while still conforming as much as possible to common sense, so that we spend our time talking about the films and not the rules by which they qualify, and so that the votes can be tallied in a reasonably straightforward manner. Sometimes there are ambiguities between two-part films and film / sequel, but, again, common sense to the rescue. Nobody has ever suggested that Cat People and Curse of the Cat People should be considered as a single entity, and nobody has ever tried to vote that way.

What is being suggested in the Frampton example is a reversal of that presumption of discreteness, and I'd say it was a clusterfuck waiting to happen if it wasn't already a clusterfuck that hit the ground running. There's simply no need to complicate things. Hell, not even Frampton thought all of the films were of a piece, and was perfectly comfortable differentiating between them and evaluating them as individual works. The Dekalog is a mini-series, consider it one unit. The Short Films are individual feature films, released individually and independent of the mini-series: they're feature films, oddly enough. Out 1 is a very long movie, or a mini-series; Out 1: Spectre is another movie, not quite so long. The principle of discreteness is easy enough to implement on a common sense, case-by-case basis, so why turf it out? If some cheerful lunatic is dead set on voting for both La Belle Noiseuse and Divertimento, what's the harm in letting him do so? Personally, I'd love to read the argument behind that decision.

The alternative is a morass of uncertainty, and even if you thrash out every problem case that people think to bring up in the discussion thread, there will be other instances that people vote for that weren't discussed, and there will be contributors who didn't read every newsletter and foolishly persist in their Wrong Thinking that Film A is actually Film A, and not a subset of Films A to F.

Whatever arguments are brought for agglomerating Hapax Legomena into an undistinguishable mass are going to apply in spades to Magellan: Drafts and Fragments, which, to the best of my knowledge, is a 'film' that has never been shown in its entirety. At which point this ceases to be an exercise in ranking one's favourite films and simply becomes an exercise in disappearing up one's own arse.

Oh, but lest we forget: whatever arguments those are don't apply to The Magick Lantern Cycle, because in that instance the director was overruled by somebody on criterionforum.org. So I guess we'd need to amend one of those new rules to "unless the name includes 'trilogy' or 'films' or 'magick'." Or whatever word we need to add to account for the next figleaf.

[zedz]

When you post the results, can you also let us know what genres were suggested under "Other," so we can consider them for future rounds?

[matrixschmatrix]

Sure, but so far I haven't seen anything that isn't openly in the thread.

[colinr0380]

I was trying to decide which to choose - I could see Documentaries causing lots of conflict as they bring up political matters that might split the forum into factions, or we offend someone by not taking their favoured three hour black-and-white diatribe on whaling practices in the South Seas seriously.

Then again War films could led to arguments over "which war was better", that could run the risk of escalating into blind, ugly violence. The exact opposite of what a war film should stand for.

So I went for Religious films instead, since there is no way that subject could stir up controversy.

[swo17]

Please don't mistake my ramblings for an attempt to force my own new set of rules on everyone. I think we all need to be in agreement on which films are eligible and in what way, but I'm happy to have the rules set up in the way that the most people agree to. I agree that common sense should prevail, but I don't know that we all agree in every case what common sense dictates. I've only seen the longer Out 1, so maybe I'm missing something, but I actually thought that the common sense solution in that case would be to combine those two films, like we've combined I Am Curious, or like you might combine the theatrical cut and the director's cut for any number of films. I'm not trying to be difficult, just trying to understand the "spirit of the law" as best as possible to properly apply it in some of these more ambiguous cases.

You bring up a good point about the Magick Lantern Cycle. (I'd forgotten that all of Anger's films could be referred to that way.) EDIT: Though I think the word "cycle" works the same way here as the words "trilogy" or "films" in the more robust definition of what constitutes a multi-part film that I suggested earlier. This would prevent Anger's entire body of work from being considered as a single entity.

I guess I still don't necessarily see how it's common sense that Dog Star Man is inarguably a single film but Hapax Legomena isn't. Does it have to do with whether the individual parts are routinely screened as a whole? If so, isn't this true of both of them? Does it have to do with cohesiveness between the individual parts? For DSM, I feel like there is a world of difference between, say, the Prelude and Part I. For HL (speaking only of the four parts I've seen), it's true that the rules that Frampton applies are different for each individual segment, but the series as a whole seems to me to be about generally deconstructing the audiovisual experience, throwing some hurdle at the viewer to interrupt how sound and images are typically processed when watching a film. Indeed, each segment is questioning what a film really is. I find this concept fascinating, particularly the very different ways in which it is employed in each segment, though I don't necessarily favor one segment over any other. In short, I think the whole may exceed the sum of its parts, and I feel like I'd have an easier time including this on my list as a whole rather than selecting one segment. (Yes, I am actually seriously considering including this film in some form on my '70s list. I'm not just bringing something like this up purely for the sake of having an argument.)

Finally, I don't see any of this discussion as opening up the floodgates to mass voter confusion. I brought this issue up here, a month prior to starting the '70s project, so that the thread itself could be reserved for discussions of the films themselves. And the only reason I brought this issue up in the first place was that I had just reviewed a massive list of eligible films for the '70s, and Out 1 and Hapax Legomena were the only two titles that stuck out as representing something of a gray area to me. I think that however we define things, that gray area will still be there, though I always seem to be able to count such examples on one hand.

[swo17]

Documentaries are tough. Do you rate films based on their subject or their artistry? For many (mostly modern) documentaries that I really like, I would never call the actual filmmaking behind them anything more than adequate.

[knives]

Obviously such discussions should wait until the list is in process, but for me I judge docs much like I judge anything else plus the question of reality becoming more pertinent. Something poorly shot like those modern docs will have no place for me such as modern comedies shot indifferently today will not feature for me when we get there.