The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions (Decade Project Vol. 4)

[domino harvey]

Wait, what? Why did I think this list ended in October?

[swo17]

I don't know, but I had something like that in the back of my mind as well. Do we need a covid extension?

[senseabove]

I'm fine either way, honestly. We've got another four weeks to tweak the list after, still, but I'm not gonna say no to an extra month... Maybe just shave a month off the start of the 2010s since they're just for funsies?

[domino harvey]

I was going to say, since it’s not delaying the 60s list (can we submit a top 100 for that one only?), I don’t think an extension would hurt anything

[knives]

A shrug from me. I'll never get to everything I want anyway.

[therewillbeblus]

I'll probably be continuing my mission already underway of getting a jump on the 60s (it's never too early, I second a top 100), and navigating the Sci-Fi project regardless, but in planning for the August date, I've cut my 50s list from 90 to 60 and am ready to make the necessary edits in time if we hold the deadline

[Rayon Vert]

I'll gladly take the extra month if we can get it, although at this point I'd prepared for the end being what it is (of course using August as well to get through what I need to).

[therewillbeblus]

I think my anxiety that you will run out of time to finally sit down with My Sister Eileen and Peyton Place probably far outweighs your own. I'll vote for another month if that'll help.

[Rayon Vert]

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten you blus, although telepathically perhaps I was starting to sense your anxiety! Although I will be doing the few non-revisit ones for me, including those 2, during August. Presumably they will at the very least be orphans!

But yeah I'd take another month. I'd use it most probably to go through some key 50s Naruse films I stocked up on a long time ago and never watched, for one thing. I'd also started going through (some of) Basil Dearden's films in the 40s list, and would continue what I have for this decade from him.

[swo17]

Alright, another month it is!

[mizo]

Is Whirlpool eligible for this list? It placed on the last 40's list, but IMDb now considers it a 1950 film. (I, for one, would be delighted if it placed in two consecutive decades.)

[swo17]

Sorry to destroy your dreams but no. As consolation though, it is eligible for the all-time list

[mizo]

I guess I'll just have to wait then...

[senseabove]

Moulin Rouge (Huston, 1952) Echoing what folks have said in the dedicated thread, this is a just stunningly beautiful movie (with an excellent restoration), and Huston's composition and camera work are fascinating, feeling at moments twenty years ahead of their time. Unfortunately... the script is terrible, with, among other things, the most clumsily shoe-horned infodump I've ever seen in a prestige biopic (including this gem, only slightly paraphrased and condensed: "You are first cousins, are you not? That is the cause"/cut/"We must not have more children, and so I shall leave") and both José Ferrer and Colette Marchand are unbearable: Ferrer delivers his lines like a bank teller counting coins on a slow afternoon, even when he's supposed to be too shit-faced to stand, and Marchand has two speeds, coy and harpy; neither actor is convincing, interesting, or engaging for a second of their screentime... Luckily, it's so pretty!

[darren17]

New member :) Would love to participate, but apparently I need to work up some discussion points before I'm granted pming capabilities.

Love seeing Kanal mentioned. It will most likely be high on my list, perhaps even top three. I haven't seen Ballad of a Soldier (dir. Grigoriy Chukhray), The Noose (dir. Wojciech Has), Merry-Go-Round (dir. Zoltán Fábri), or Araya (dir. Margot Benacerraf) discussed in the thread yet, but I'm hoping people have seen them/give them a chance. Definitely some gems of the decade.

I am not sure where exactly it will end up but Ballad of a Soldier will definitely be on my list!

First time posting and was really impressed too after my recent watch of Ballad of a Soldier. Manages to be quite romantic in a war setting, without being sentimental. Feels like more of a slice of life picture, in extraordinary circumstances, than a war movie. Though not particularly similar I was also blow away by The Cranes are Flying (Kalatozov, 1957) and I'm looking forward to getting into more Russian movies.

[the preacher]

So an extra month and a 100 films ballot, right?

[TMDaines]

Is Whirlpool eligible for this list? It placed on the last 40's list, but IMDb now considers it a 1950 film. (I, for one, would be delighted if it placed in two consecutive decades.)

Whirlpool bounces between 1949 and 1950 every month or so it seems on IMDb. The problem is nobody has conclusive proof as when it actually premiered. If anyone does and you can provide to Wikipedia and IMDb that would be great!

I think it is probably 1950 on the balance of current evidence, but it was 1949 on IMDb when we did the last round of voting.

[TMDaines]

Alright, another month it is!

Can we cut the mock 2010s list down by a month to compensate? It's not for keeps anyway.

[swo17]

Probably, and people can submit top 100s if they like, but I'm only counting the first fifty

[domino harvey]

Thanks swo50

[swo17]

I mean this is the 50s list after all

[domino harvey]

Moulin Rouge (Huston, 1952) Echoing what folks have said in the dedicated thread, this is a just stunningly beautiful movie (with an excellent restoration), and Huston's composition and camera work are fascinating, feeling at moments twenty years ahead of their time. Unfortunately... the script is terrible, with, among other things, the most clumsily shoe-horned infodump I've ever seen in a prestige biopic (including this gem, only slightly paraphrased and condensed: "You are first cousins, are you not? That is the cause"/cut/"We must not have more children, and so I shall leave") and both José Ferrer and Colette Marchand are unbearable: Ferrer delivers his lines like a bank teller counting coins on a slow afternoon, even when he's supposed to be too shit-faced to stand, and Marchand has two speeds, coy and harpy; neither actor is convincing, interesting, or engaging for a second of their screentime... Luckily, it's so pretty!

Wow, I don’t agree with your estimations of Ferrer and Marchand at all. I think they both provide extremely lively and contemporary-feeling perfs that stand out as being whatever it is method actors thought they were bringing to the party. The film is above all a cutting look at a toxic relationship, and I think both actors rise to the challenge. It’s a beautiful film that makes you feel like shit— isn’t that every art house film lover’s favorite thing?

[therewillbeblus]

I had to refresh my memory with my initial writeup to remember why I felt the performances were the standout parts of the film! I don't remember specific lines of dialogue, but their nonverbal expressions communicate depths of complicated emotions, and I guess that usually trumps the written word for me.

Ferrer is a chameleon of an actor and sells his character well as a complicated man barely hanging on yet conveying a strange confidence halfway between humble acceptance and completely giving up on life, a vast gap that he somehow nails. Marchand inversely plays a chameleon within the film, a resilient yet poisonous tormentor to Ferrer’s vulnerable loner, puncturing the emotional hole he’s desperate to fill. Flon is perfect as a self-conscious complement, and watching her and Ferrer shyly yearn to blossom and share their love in scenes together is one of the film’s many beautiful and tragic assets. The journey of the narrative is one that layers socialization and culture atop loneliness without pretending that they can cure the ennui of isolation without deeper, intimate connection, instead wisely serving to heighten this realization. The wonders of art and the pleasures of culture cannot compete with human connection, but they can make life worth living for a little while.

[senseabove]

Maybe I was too distracted by all the Shiny WOw to catch the subtleties of their performance, but I was definitely not on their wavelength, and it's the nonverbal expressions that most especially didn't work for me. If method acting, extremely reductively, is about building up an internal and physical experience of emotion that grounds an outward expression, that's exactly what was absent: this felt like so much dumb show, on both their parts, with no sense of an interior life for either of them. Ferrer in particular was distractingly irritating in his commitment to underplaying everything. He gave me no humble acceptance or struggle between acceptance and futility, only "giving up on life"—and acting—to the point, for example, of my being thoroughly blind-sided (and not in a good way) when his character talked to the stranger on the bridge, because the notion that he would feel so moved by what he saw is unfounded and the notion that he would otherwise be motivated to bother a pretty woman has been thoroughly, repeatedly, emphatically established as impossible. And from Of Human Bondage to Fat City, toxic relationships aren't such a rarity on screen that I found anything particularly valuable about this one. Here's hoping I come 'round to y'all's side on a future viewing, though.

[therewillbeblus]

I have a lot of admiration for underplaying, as well as when actors take an opportunity to idiosyncratically convey surface level behaviors that are out of step with their barely-hinted internal states, or that fail to follow a consistent logic with their other behaviors shown. Providing “no sense of an interior life” can often lead to a more authentic performance, rather than feeding the audience with clear personalities formed between actions and dispositions, which are more comfortable characters to align with but are a bit artificial and negate the complex mess of the psyche, behavioral inconsistencies, or the impenetrable nature of characters from the viewer’s vantage point. Ultimately I think that in failing to play by cinematic rules of accessibility, these kinds of performances take larger risks at alienating their audiences. If they didn’t work for you that’s fine, but I wouldn’t call them a “dumb show” because they don’t follow the expected cookie cutter format. There’s an intelligence that exists outside the box, though it’s hard to make tangible what’s going on, it just feels like truth. Certainly not all of them work for me either, but that’s the gamble.