He passed away shortly afterward, his last moments spent cradled in Peter Bogdanovich's arms.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 15 November 2007 23:54 (sixteen years ago) link
Then again, it's conceivable that the directors of The Greatest Story Ever Told and Ben-Hur loved Viridiana and The Milky Way.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 15 November 2007 23:56 (sixteen years ago) link
What about the producer of The Robe, Frank Ross?
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 16 November 2007 00:05 (sixteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― ILX System, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:01 (sixteen years ago) link
l'age d'or.
should have been left to make films of whatever length rather than spin them out to the industry standard.
the welles comment is, typically, cant. "A superb kind of person he must be. Everyone loves him." false on both counts.
what would be the point if everyone loved him?
why is john ford "to be expected" a fan, and "certainly" at that? everyone likes to schmooze a critical favourite, but is there some hidden affinity connecting ford and bunuel?
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:12 (sixteen years ago) link
Don't be cranky! Regarding Welles' comment, the context is clear: Bunuel's a superb person because of his iconoclasm. No analysis is required.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:21 (sixteen years ago) link
Moreover, if I were to judge his acumen by the quality of his oral remarks to the fawning Peter Bogdanovich, Welles was an intermittently superb film critic. Must have been all that time between films.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:22 (sixteen years ago) link
Don't be cranky! Nice try.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:24 (sixteen years ago) link
i think he one of the saddest careers really. he did actually work on, maybe even direct, a few films in the 30s... maybe in madrid even, but somehow never had the opportunities renoir had. 'exterminating angel' and 'discreet' are a great double-feature tho.
redd, i have no idea who you are but you called me a dick on some thread so whatever.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:30 (sixteen years ago) link
Had one of the best careers ever.
No, Enrique, I gave you a hard time on one of those films threads, but I didn't call you that (I think the only time I called anybody that was ethan during Katrina)
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:34 (sixteen years ago) link
What a Bunuel-Carriere script: Ethan During Katrina.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:36 (sixteen years ago) link
He "spun out" his best films following the "industry standard"! He learned concision and restraint -- both Surrealist virtues, no?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:38 (sixteen years ago) link
I used to get annoyed when I would tell my slacker Austin friends I was watching a Bunuel and they'd say "Cool: is it Surreal?"
(Now I remember why I was mad at him. He was accusing everybody of liberal handwringing when many were worried about actual people they knew down there)
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:41 (sixteen years ago) link
I guess I should have said: "They're all Surreal, even when they're not!"
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Saturday, 17 November 2007 00:43 (sixteen years ago) link
x to quitney
I think he got to do mostly what he wanted from 1960 til death. Which is more than most people in his line of work. The 30s movies are something else but the post-Mexico movies wouldn't've been the way they were without that experience of making commercial genre flicks. His intent and execution are along-side Hitch and Lang for me.
― Noodle Vague, Saturday, 17 November 2007 02:45 (sixteen years ago) link
OTM. Years ago I tried to have a discussion here about Hitch, Lang and Bunuel being three directors who had started in the silent era and were still working productively in the 60s but I can't find it. I think it went nowhere because I worded it incorrectly and amateurist jumped on me.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Saturday, 17 November 2007 03:33 (sixteen years ago) link
I voted for "Él" just because it's the craziest indictment of Latin machismo ever put on screen. And Buñuel was a bit of a machista hisself! Also, it's hella Surrealist: amour fou and all that. My second choice would be "L'Age D'or" -- especially because it's sexy as hell. But they're all great!
― Capitaine Jay Vee, Saturday, 17 November 2007 09:48 (sixteen years ago) link
There's only one word for that - bollocks.
― Tom D., Saturday, 17 November 2007 13:33 (sixteen years ago) link
otm
― J.D., Saturday, 17 November 2007 22:40 (sixteen years ago) link
Bunuel's later films >>>>>> Lang and Hitchcock's.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 17 November 2007 22:59 (sixteen years ago) link
Where is the line drawn for "later" with the three?
― Eric H., Saturday, 17 November 2007 23:44 (sixteen years ago) link
after 1960?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 17 November 2007 23:45 (sixteen years ago) link
Lang made movies after 1960?
― Eric H., Saturday, 17 November 2007 23:48 (sixteen years ago) link
Personally, I'd mark the first film of Hitchcock's "late" period as Marnie, which I think is grebt. Not sure about Buñuel, tho. Everything from Viridiana on feels of a piece.
― Eric H., Saturday, 17 November 2007 23:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― ILX System, Sunday, 18 November 2007 00:01 (sixteen years ago) link
The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse was released in 1960 and that was it. But yeah, Alfred's inequality is pretty much otm.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Sunday, 18 November 2007 00:06 (sixteen years ago) link
Two votes for Ensayo!
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 19 November 2007 03:16 (sixteen years ago) link
Why does that deserve an exclamation point? I might have voted for it and made it three.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Monday, 19 November 2007 03:35 (sixteen years ago) link
It was not a predictable choice (I like it fine).
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 19 November 2007 03:48 (sixteen years ago) link
(xpost) But maybe I add a star for that one because of the backstory of Miroslava Stern having an affair with legendary bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin, about-to-be husband of Lucia Bosé, who herself appeared in a Buñuel film or two, and father of Miguel Bosé, who played the cross-dressing judge in Almodóvar's High Heels. Who I don't think is the same Dominguin who helped get Viridiana get made, but is the Dominguin who once said something like "I have over four hundred scars on my body, and every one bears the name of a woman."
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Monday, 19 November 2007 04:00 (sixteen years ago) link
Hm. Looks like he had something going with Ava Gardner too. Yet another reason to finally start reading that Lee Server bio, Love is Nothing.
Wow, I didn't know half the story of Miroslava. Wikipedia en español has the sad scoop, calling her "a Mexican Marilyn Monroe" and providing not one but two versions of her death, one a suicide, and one a complicated mysterious plane crash.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Monday, 19 November 2007 04:31 (sixteen years ago) link
Re Lang, B-pictures like The Blue Gardenia are really pretty well done- by far the best of these is The Big Heat - but still not a patch on the pants of Spies, Mabuse, The Weary Death, etc.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Monday, 19 November 2007 06:11 (sixteen years ago) link
No doubt it helped to have Mr. Nicholas Musuraca behind the camera.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Monday, 19 November 2007 06:17 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh darnit. If I'd seen this I'd have voted Tristana, for the simple fact that he redeemed the elements of the Galdos novel that made me itchy. Novel is quite cool and proto-feminist but then virtually makes Tristana disappear in the end.
― Zoe Espera, Monday, 19 November 2007 08:20 (sixteen years ago) link
At long last: Simon of the Desert on DVD. I can throw away my secondhand VHS copy.
― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 17 February 2009 16:28 (fifteen years ago) link
The Discreet Charm is one of my 5 favourite films ever fwiw, but I only saw it long after this poll closed
― Mequophidiophobia: fear of the beer snake (country matters), Tuesday, 17 February 2009 16:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Have you seen "The Phantom of Liberty" yet?
― Vitbe Is Good Bread (Tom D.), Tuesday, 17 February 2009 16:31 (fifteen years ago) link
I've only seen Discreet Charm and Viridiana which are both awesome, the former more so.
― Mequophidiophobia: fear of the beer snake (country matters), Tuesday, 17 February 2009 16:33 (fifteen years ago) link
Go watch the Criterion prints of The Exterminating Angel and Simon of the Desert. Suffice to say, they've never looked better.
I gotta say: SOTD, one of my favorites, now looks minor: a very amusing one-joke movie (I can't see how it could have been any longer); but TEA is much better than I remembered (I remembered it as a slacker, poorly acted prototype for The Discreet Charm).
― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 27 February 2009 00:49 (fifteen years ago) link
just got the exterminating angel disc. one of my favourite movies of all time.
― s1ocki, Friday, 27 February 2009 01:23 (fifteen years ago) link
i have both but i think i prefer it to discreet charm... more focused, tighter. not sure if it's funnier tho.
― s1ocki, Friday, 27 February 2009 01:24 (fifteen years ago) link
btw my last sigh is really one of the great memoirs. must must read.
Yup. It's the sort of book I want to buy for every friend.
― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 27 February 2009 01:25 (fifteen years ago) link
If Simon is one-joke then the shorter running time doesn't exhaust it, but I disagree. The ending still dives off at this profound tangent that's probably the most moving sequence Bunuel ever made, for me. Anyway I need to get the official DVD, all I've got is an AVI at the moment.
― J.B. "Judas" Priestley (Noodle Vague), Friday, 27 February 2009 01:45 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah, I disagree with Kael's dismissal of the ending -- it's a great party, and not at all the snarky gesture that Bunuel intended.
― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 27 February 2009 01:59 (fifteen years ago) link
Simon has a kind of "My God it's full of stars" look on his face at this point.
― J.B. "Judas" Priestley (Noodle Vague), Friday, 27 February 2009 02:02 (fifteen years ago) link
Then he's just uninterested and a bit sad. I don't think he's a figure of fun by then.
― J.B. "Judas" Priestley (Noodle Vague), Friday, 27 February 2009 02:09 (fifteen years ago) link
"I remembered it as a slacker, poorly acted prototype for The Discreet Charm."
Hmmmm, this is what I still think. May have to give it another go.
― Freedom, Friday, 27 February 2009 12:03 (fifteen years ago) link
Cheers Alfred! I'll track 'em down. :)
― bitch hooligan, pussy ass nobrain dårk (country matters), Friday, 27 February 2009 12:07 (fifteen years ago) link
Yes, I see that it was, more than once
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 22 February 2024 21:53 (two months ago) link
Just finished. I had some vague intention to get over there but somehow something suddenly came up.
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 22 February 2024 21:56 (two months ago) link