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I took nearly every German rec from this thread so any lack of success is on the foot of those who didn't recommend.

Tommaso wrote:

lubitsch wrote:Harumph. Did you see at least Kirmes by Wolfgang Staudte?

If you had given us some recommendation for it, I might have...

Guilty. I thought film and director had enough of a reputation. It's really and not only IMHO one of the four, five best films ever made in this country.

You told me to watch it too, and I will before the deadline.

knives wrote:I took nearly every German rec from this thread so any lack of success is on the foot of those who didn't recommend.

In case nobody's mentioned it yet, Signs of Life will be my highest ranking German film. The only other one that made my top 50 was Die Parallelstrasse. Sorely regretted exclusions: Yesterday Girl, Lust for Love, Love Is Colder than Death.

Okay, so unsurprisingly the one German film that made it onto my list (in case you haven't guessed it yet) is Herzog Blaubarts Burg, made for some regional German TV station and directed by Michael Powell. If you liked "The Tales of Hoffmann", this is an easy recommendation. It's very similar in style and also features similarly marvellous sets by Hein Heckroth and, well, it's simply stunning. Very difficult to find except for a reasonable hard-subbed print floating around in the backchannels, but I hope that after Bartok is dead for 70 years in 2014, CC will finally get around to publish this unknown masterpiece.

Otherwise, German filmmaking will come to the fore on my list with the 70s. But it won't be too much Herzog, Fassbinder, or Wenders for sure.

I have a huge amount of German, mainly DEFA, stuff I'm going to get my teeth into next week, but this strikes me as the two countries' weakest decade - maybe the 50s provides some competition though? At the moment Abschied von gestern will certainly make it. Katzelmacher, Es, Brutalität in Stein and Kleiner Mann - was nun? all have a chance to a varying extent too.

zedz wrote:

knives wrote:I took nearly every German rec from this thread so any lack of success is on the foot of those who didn't recommend.

In case nobody's mentioned it yet, Signs of Life will be my highest ranking German film. The only other one that made my top 50 was Die Parallelstrasse. Sorely regretted exclusions: Yesterday Girl, Lust for Love, Love Is Colder than Death.

I spent about a month searching for a copy no joke, but none of the libraries in the entire county have a copy and the OOP disc is going for $40+. That is (plus The Land of Silence and Darkness) the Herzog I'm hoping Crit rescues. Though looking again it seems the Italian disc does have some english subs which is making me kick my boot.

You're on the Internet: just download it in that case!

I'm uncomfortable about watching downloads of things with legit (and legit good) releases. I can easily buy the disc next paycheck.

I'm the same too, even when that said release doesn't have English subtitles. I'm not one to pay silly money for OOP releases though, because it's not as if I'm supporting the filmmakers/owners.

knives wrote:I'm uncomfortable about watching downloads of things with legit (and legit good) releases. I can easily buy the disc next paycheck.

Download it now, buy it when you feel like you have enough cash to justify it. It's really only unethical if you plan never to pay for it. In the mean time, you can watch it for the list today if you want, without hassle.

TMDaines wrote:I have a huge amount of German, mainly DEFA, stuff I'm going to get my teeth into next week, but this strikes me as the two countries' weakest decade - maybe the 50s provides some competition though?

Weakest? Absolutely no. The decade model is somehow ill fitting since 1965 is the year which totally changes German film, far more so than 1933, 1945 or 1990. In the West it's the year of the first success of the Young German Film, there's very few young cinema in the years before and very few old one after, it's like a razor cut. In the East it's the famous purge and ban of much of the year's output.
The West German films 1965-69 feature lots of young filmmakers who later got forgotten and pushed aside by the household big names and the films themselves are sometimes not easy to come by. Not my cup of tea though Sabine Sinjen in Es is one of the knockout performances of the 60s even though Schamoni cuts the film into pieces. But 1960-64 is a pretty interesting affair because in the collapsing industry some old professionals get the green light for unusual projects which are an intriguing blend between classicism and modernism. Tremper's Die endlose Nacht was just released on DVD, Käutner did intriguing stuff in Schwarzer Kies and Die Rote, but Kirmes is the one must-see.
In the east the years 1960-65 are arguably the best of the whole DEFA output. Frank Beyer had one of the best runs in German film history and Der geteilte Himmel by Konrad Wolf is also stunning. Some not so secret tips are Der Fall Gleiwitz by Gerhard Klein and Das zweite Gleis by Joachim Kunert and most of the forbidden 1965 films.
Again the great charme of these films is their merging of modernist tendencies and classical filmmaking.

knives wrote:

zedz wrote:

knives wrote:I took nearly every German rec from this thread so any lack of success is on the foot of those who didn't recommend.

In case nobody's mentioned it yet, Signs of Life will be my highest ranking German film. The only other one that made my top 50 was Die Parallelstrasse. Sorely regretted exclusions: Yesterday Girl, Lust for Love, Love Is Colder than Death.

I spent about a month searching for a copy no joke, but none of the libraries in the entire county have a copy and the OOP disc is going for $40+. That is (plus The Land of Silence and Darkness) the Herzog I'm hoping Crit rescues. Though looking again it seems the Italian disc does have some english subs which is making me kick my boot.

I've got the Raro (Italian) disc, and it's fully Englished, plus it includes a bonus disc of his early shorts, if you haven't got those. (Last Words would probably have made my list if it ran to 100.)

The transfer on the Raro is an improvement over the New Yorker as well. Also, my city library has a copy of the New Yorker available.

swo17 wrote:The transfer on the Raro is an improvement over the New Yorker as well. Also, my city library has a copy of the New Yorker available.

Now I just need to move east.

zedz wrote:I've got the Raro (Italian) disc, and it's fully Englished, plus it includes a bonus disc of his early shorts, if you haven't got those. (Last Words would probably have made my list if it ran to 100.)

Shit... I bought the German Arthouse disc a few months back and, from looking at the Raro online now, the German disc has two less shorts and no subtitles at all. It does have a German-language commentary though. I see the Raro also has a booklet and an interview.

Edit: I forgot that the Raro was OOP and RHV now have the rights in Italy. They released it without English subtitles and with only two shorts. Pity.

In that case, this film really does need to be rescued by Criterion. I'd love to see it in HD.

Since everyone else is doing it, here's the breakdown of films by country from my list:

USA- 15
France- 10
Italy- 5
Japan-5
UK-5
USSR-3
Czechoslovakia- 2
Cuba-2
Hungary, Spain, Sweden- 1 each

I probably have the most US centric list of any so far, which is a little odd since my highest ranking American film clocks in at 7.

Oh, and if I were counting co-producing countries, then my first two films would both put Algeria on the list. One of them is probably easy to guess, while the other one would be a bit more difficult.

Well, since we're doing a whole breakdown, mine goes like this:
France, Japan - 9
USA - 6
Czechoslovakia - 5
USSR - 4
Italy - 3
Germany, Hungary - 2
Austria, Brazil, Canada, India, Iran, Mexico, Poland, Spain, UAR, UK - 1

Is my math off or is that only 48?

That is a square 50.

Also because I have no originality and surrender to peer pressure easily
USA-----------------------------11
UK-------------------------------10
Italy, Japan, France----------------7
Brazil, Czechoslovakia--------------2
Canada, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Spain----1

Well, I'm picking that our Spanish titles are the same, knives.

I'd assume, though by our luck it's same director different film (in fact I seriously considered a second).

knives wrote:That is a square 50.

Missed Germany and Hungary sharing "2"