The Lists Project

[zedz]

I think in practical terms (i.e. what actual votes are likely to come in), the Out 1s might as well be a single film, and I assume that any votes will be for the full-length version, but if somebody really strongly wants to vote only for the shorter version for a particular reason, I don't care. You could make a ruling one way or the other, but I doubt it's going to seriously impact on how anybody intends to vote, so it would be a moot point. The I Am Curiouses are two different, complementary films that are designed to work together in a yin / yang way as a matched set, so I don't see any particular similarity.

And I don't think anything is inarguable, but Dog Star Man is habitually presented as a unit, is seldom if ever discussed as individual films, and nobody here has expressed any strong interest in voting for one of its component films in isolation. Plus (and this is only a practical consideration, but let's prefer to be practical rather than impractical), intended participants can see the whole thing easily. The component films of HL are habitually seen individually (which is precisely why most of us haven't seen the whole thing), more often discussed as individual films than as a unit, can't be seen in their entirety by most of the participants, and people tend to have differing estimations of their quality and will therefore want to vote for individual components - and this is in large part a factor of how radically different each section is from each other. And, getting back to practicalities, ruling that these individual films do not exist for the purposes of voting, and that one can only vote for all of the films together means that you're banning people from voting for films that they want to vote for, which seems to me completely and utterly at odds with the entire spirit of the list-making exercise.

Gray areas will abound, believe me. I intend to vote for one of Peter Hutton's New York Portraits in the 70s list and another in the 80s one. Do we add the word 'portrait' to the list of magic words or not? And what if Frampton had made the faux pas of calling Hapax Legomena "The Hapax Legomena Heptalogy" or "The Magick Hapax Legomena Cycle", or called it nothing, but just spoke in interviews about how the films were related and liked to screen them together in a particular order. And the 'common factors' you speak about in HL (which I don't dispute) could be generalized to almost all of Frampton's work, and to the entire careers of a good number of experimental filmmakers. I'd say there's a far greater internal coherence in Kurt Kren's body of work, and all of those films are numbered too, but does that mean we have to consider everything he's ever done as one big film?

All of these determinations are hinging on a lot of arbitrary quirks, and I just think the less we try to prescribe and proscribe what contributors can and can't vote for, the smoother the process will be. If the main impact of a rule or exception is "you guys can no longer vote for a film you would otherwise have voted for and which is otherwise eligible," then you need to question the validity and practicality of the rule / exception.

[Mr Sausage]

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.

There are documentaries I really like that, in terms of their actual filmmaking, are uneven or uninspired, but whose subjects are so compelling and affecting that the craft seems beside the point. There is one whose title I can never remember about anorexic women in a recovery centre. The first twenty or thirty minutes isn't very good for reasons I forget (filmmaker is too heavy-handed and maudlin I think), and there's nothing notable about the craft of the thing. But the sheer pain bursting from these women can be so intense that it hardly matters, and you're left with all these intensely memorable scenes (one woman is given a diagram of a body and asked to circle what she feels are her flaws. What follows is a increasingly horrifying montage of her aggressively and minutely circling and annotating the entire diagram until, realizing there isn't a blank spot left, she desperately pencils "help me!" into a small gap). Such scenes push any bland or infelicitous filmmaking techniques so out of mind that you hardly know how to judge it as a film. It may be a mediocre film, but it's great, too.

[matrixschmatrix]

I think I would view that the same way I would a mediocre fiction film enlivened by a great performance- it's still part of the film, and if the filmmakers captured it, they deserve credit for that.

[zedz]

I actually think this phenomenon is going to make for an interesting discussion. I tend to strongly favour 'good' direction, but a great subject can trump that, and let's not forget that truly bad direction can demolish even the strongest material. There's a level of craft just in being able to let your subject breathe, and an even more elusive one in being able to elicit powerful interviews, even if the technical specs of the film are basic.

EDIT: What matrixschmatrix said, basically!

[knives]

We're going to allow Ken Burns films, correct?

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, well documentaries haven't won yet, but if they do- is there any particular reason not to? My inclination would be to accept the various Attenborough nature series, too, as being effectively mini-series.

[knives]

The television thing was the only reason why I'm asking.

[swo17]

I honestly have no idea of the screening history for Hapax Legomena. I've just read here about screenings over the past few years for the entire thing as a whole. Have the individual parts regularly been screened by themselves, or is it only because a select few have been split up on home video that these ones tend to be discussed individually? What if people were allowed to vote either for the components individually or for HL in its entirety, as they see fit? Would you be amenable to that?

As for the "magic words" comment, my thought is that any word in a generally accepted title for a body of work that conveys that there are multiple components to it breaks the rule. So yes, if it were called "The Hapax Legomona Heptalogy" it would break the rule. If it had no generally accepted title, it would break the rule. (Kren's entire oeuvre similarly has no generally accepted title, and so would break the rule.) "Portraits" would also break the rule. The "Elemental Triptych of Spain" would break the rule. Any trilogy would break the rule. Etc.

Doesn't it say something about Hapax Legomena that Frampton named it the way he did, as opposed to one of your alternate universe suggestions?

[swo17]

We're going to allow Ken Burns films, correct?

I consider them miniseries, and therefore eligible.

[matrixschmatrix]

Actually, the majority of documentary stuff that comes immediately to mind that one might watch on TV seems like it would be eligible, even if most of it is stuff nobody in their right mind would ever vote for- genuine, open-ended, and ongoing documentary series, such that they wouldn't be eligible, strike me as relatively rare. Even beyond that, I'd be inclined to squeeze something like individual episodes of Morris's First Person in, as with the exception made for the horror list.

Though obviously I'm open to arguments.

There are arguments to be had about the definition of 'Religious', too, though I think they're probably more on the vote-for-it end; the one that comes to mind is whether something like Crimes and Misdemeanors, which has sort of religious philosophical questions but seems specifically atheistic, would qualify.

[zedz]

Doesn't it say something about Hapax Legomena that Frampton named it the way he did, as opposed to one of your alternate universe suggestions?

Possibly, but it could also be an entirely random thing. I doubt he had any set of rules about what does or doesn't constitute an eligible category for the criterionforum.org Decades Lists in mind when he named the thing. So is the plural in Scenes from Under Childhood now to be taken as some big clue that they're not meant to be considered as a single work? What's the difference between a scene and a portrait? Or a screen test? Like I say, this sort of stuff is in large part completely random, and you're going to have to constantly revise or clarify your 'rule' on a case by case basis, which suggests it's not really a rule at all.

EDIT: Oh, and I'm perfectly fine with people voting for the individual films or the collective one as they wish, which is sort of what this whole discussion has been about, but I would hope that only people that have actually seen the entirety of HL vote for it in its entirety. I know "participants have to have actually seen the films they vote for" isn't technically a part of the rules, but that's only because nobody ever considered that this wouldn't be the case!

[zedz]

As for the "magic words" comment, my thought is that any word in a generally accepted title for a body of work that conveys that there are multiple components to it breaks the rule. So yes, if it were called "The Hapax Legomona Heptalogy" it would break the rule. If it had no generally accepted title, it would break the rule. (Kren's entire oeuvre similarly has no generally accepted title, and so would break the rule.) "Portraits" would also break the rule.

You are aware that 'hapax legomena', like 'portraits', is plural? This argument just doesn't hold up even when I play by your rules!

[knives]

Yeah, it was always to my understanding that the joke of the title was in how drastically he changed the style between the films despite each being so repetitive within themselves.

[zedz]

TV will be an issue we'll need to grapple with, since a huge preponderence of modern documentaries are produced with television screenings in mind. It's the basic funding model in most countries, and a lot of docs come in different edits for theatrical (festival, basically) and television screenings. Trying to weed out television documentaries from 'theatrical' ones will be a fool's errand. It's best just to welcome all comers.

Defining 'religious' films will be a large part of the fun! Just vote for what you like and explain yourself afterwards. Or better yet, beforehand. I don't think anybody intends to only vote for Bible stories.

[Mr Sausage]

I think I would view that the same way I would a mediocre fiction film enlivened by a great performance- it's still part of the film, and if the filmmakers captured it, they deserve credit for that.

Yeah, it's not unheard of in fictional films for the central subject to prove powerful enough to make up for the uninspired technical elements. But I think this aspect might even be more to the fore in a documentary, where a lot of the success rest on a well chosen subject.

I think questions of technique only really come to the foreground when:

A. the subject has been done many times before, so you're forced to assess the ways this or that particular documentary handles the material (a civil war documentary for example).

B. when the technique is central to the film's meaning or effect in an outward, noticeable way.

I know that if I were making a list, my top ten would include documentaries whose formal elements are pedestrian or undistinguished simply because I found the subject enormously compelling, while other documentaries with excellent technical elements and interesting subjects--all around 'better made' films--would fare lower. This is not something that would be true of any other film list I'd make for the genre project.

[Mr Sausage]

Defining 'religious' films will be a large part of the fun! Just vote for what you like and explain yourself afterwards. Or better yet, beforehand. I don't think anybody intends to only vote for Bible stories.

Exactly.

My provisional definition is: any film that contains theological or metaphysical elements as its subject is a religious film. So I would discount any film that merely puts one in a spiritual frame of mind or has what a viewer might feel is a transcendental atmosphere, but which contains no theological or metaphysical elements as its subject. But I would define a totally atheistic consideration of a religious or metaphysical subject as a religious film. The latter includes any depiction of an historically located mythology that, at one time, was part of a framework of real belief (euhemerism excepted). I am undecided on how to consider the creation of a personal mythology, especially one that isn't spiritual in any particularly metaphysical way.

Any film that contains a depiction of the afterlife I would include, so Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is in, for example. Life of Brian is obviously in, too. There are a number of science fiction films which are borderline--it's hard to judge how material vs. how metaphysical some of them are, like 2001 or Solaris.

[swo17]

So is the plural in Scenes from Under Childhood now to be taken as some big clue that they're not meant to be considered as a single work?

No, because each segment is titled with "Scenes" already pluralized, and saying "Scenes from Under Childhood" (the name shared by each segment) unambiguously refers to all of the segments together. If each segment were called "Scene No. 1," "Scene No. 2," etc., it would be a different matter.

You are aware that 'hapax legomena', like 'portraits', is plural?

Yes, but again, the point isn't necessarily that there is a plural word in the title, but whether or not you are having to pluralize one of the individual segment titles to get to the title for the group. If each segment were called "Hapax Legomenon I, II, etc." with the group as a whole called "Hapax Legomena," this would break my rule.

In any case, it seems like we're fine with people being able to vote either way?

Regarding Out 1, as a practical matter, I can see a lot of people voting simply for "Out 1" without specifying which version. It would probably be less of a headache (and make little difference in the end anyway) if we just considered them both one film for our purposes. Would anyone oppose this?

[zedz]

I can't recall any instance where it's actually become an issue (i.e. any case of people specifically voting for different versions of a particular film), but you might want to formulate a consolidation rule that covers all such instances. The ones that spring to mind for me are Pedro Costa's multiple passes at the Tarrafal / Rabbit Hunters material and Where Lies Your Hidden Smile? / Cineastes de notre temps.

Lots of Rivette and Welles examples, and A Brighter Summer Day, of course. Technically, La belle noiseuse and Divertimento don't share a single frame of footage, but they could be included as well, unless somebody squeals.

[zedz]

If each segment were called "Hapax Legomenon I, II, etc." with the group as a whole called "Hapax Legomena," this would break my rule.

Well actually, the way Frampton referred to the films was (nostalgia), Poetic Justice, Critical Mass and so forth. From his interviews, I get the impression that he really wasn't hung up on this. But logically, his choice of the collective name for the series implies that each film is a hapax legomenon. As knives nicely put it, the idea is that each of these is a one-of-a-kind type of cinema.

[swo17]

I'm no expert on this, and I've certainly seen the component films referred to just as you mention, but I've also seen them in numerous places as "Hapax Legomena I: (nostalgia)," "Hapax Legomena II: Poetic Justice," etc. Granted, it could just be that a lot of different places are copying IMDb. But where did the longer names originate?

For what it's worth, I just reviewed the essay on Hapax Legomena in the Criterion set. It starts off with a Frampton quote calling this a "single work composed of detachable parts" (emphasis not mine) and then goes on to describe how it was screened in various ways, all together, individually, and as a work in progress. Given all of this, I think it makes sense to have it eligible both as a whole and individually for each of the component parts, as was suggested earlier.

[MichaelB]

Actually, the majority of documentary stuff that comes immediately to mind that one might watch on TV seems like it would be eligible, even if most of it is stuff nobody in their right mind would ever vote for- genuine, open-ended, and ongoing documentary series, such that they wouldn't be eligible, strike me as relatively rare. Even beyond that, I'd be inclined to squeeze something like individual episodes of Morris's First Person in, as with the exception made for the horror list.

Though obviously I'm open to arguments.

One useful guiding principle might be "does this rule exclude Michael Apted's ongoing Up project? (7 Up, 14 Up, etc,)". Because it seems to me that this particular work is so colossally important and influential on so many levels that it clearly has to be eligible in some form, although I agree it could pose a challenge.

[knives]

God, I'd have to limit myself to just one because otherwise I'd have to include all.

[matrixschmatrix]

I would assume those would count as an ongoing series of individual films, such that you could vote for say 21 Up but not The Up Series

[colinr0380]

This is also another discussion best left for a future documentaries project thread, but I wonder how easy it is to critique 'reality' and how we might be able to break it to someone that we preferred the narrative arc of a particular part of their life better than another one?: "I'm sorry but you're boring now that your life is together - do you think you could commit a crime before the next one?"

(Which also gets into the area of ramping up real life for dramatic documentary purposes, and whether every documentary does that, turning the haphazard and lucky moments of life into one driving, almost pre-destined narrative)

[swo17]

I can't recall any instance where it's actually become an issue (i.e. any case of people specifically voting for different versions of a particular film), but you might want to formulate a consolidation rule that covers all such instances. The ones that spring to mind for me are Pedro Costa's multiple passes at the Tarrafal / Rabbit Hunters material and Where Lies Your Hidden Smile? / Cineastes de notre temps.

Lots of Rivette and Welles examples, and A Brighter Summer Day, of course. Technically, La belle noiseuse and Divertimento don't share a single frame of footage, but they could be included as well, unless somebody squeals.

Good suggestions, though there seems to me to be a distinction to be made between cases of this that share a root name in common (as is the case with both Out 1s) vs. two completely different names altogether. It's easy to say that "Touch of Evil" covers the whole cult of Touch of Evil, including the multiple versions that exist as well as perhaps the Platonic form of ToE that only exists in each of our minds. In contrast, it would seem a bit awkward to combine, say, Dog Star Man and The Art of Vision. Would I have to present this film in the results as "Dog Star Man/The Art of Vision"? Or does one title absorb the other, and if so, which one and why?