what was the last 'classic film' you watched and were knocked out by?

Of course, it's not easy to tell. James Cagney comes off like a Method student in stuff like White Heat, while Paul Newman glided through the 1980s and 1990s on star power (though he needed twenty years of prefatory Method exertions imo).

XP: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973, Peter Yates)

Also watched Buster Keaton's College recently; I bought several Keaton Blu-Rays a couple of years ago and tossed them on the shelf without watching them. I wouldn't say I was "knocked out" by it compared to, say, Steamboat Bill Jr. College is pretty funny, but once you pick up the structure — basically, Keaton tries out for a bunch of different athletic events, and you gradually realize that at the end he's going to use all those skills to foil the villain — you're just kind of waiting for the pieces to fall into place. Also, there's a blackface scene (he's playing a waiter at a restaurant with an otherwise all-black staff), so be warned about that.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, October 11, 2022 8:19 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

The ending of College is a knockout.

Mitchum in his youth wrote a sympathetic play about a union leader, which he later claimed got praise from Eugene O'Neill. This tidbit courtesy of Lee Server's amazing biography which just drops nuggets like that every other page.

^That book is amazing. Ava Gardner book too.

Panique by Duvivier is a banger, great perf by Michel Simon as the arrogant, anti-social patsy in a gallic take on the old film noir love triangle plot. Amazing sets.

I already knew that French directors who stayed in the industry during Vichy got a rough time afterwards even if their work didn't have any propaganda elements, but have now learned that those who escaped to the US were also derided as cowards who abandoned their country. Can't win!

― Daniel_Rf, Friday,

Will watch tonight.

vampyr d. carl theodor dreyer, 1932

i didn't actually love it tbh but was still knocked out by the gloomy atmosphere. the extended and numerous shots of pages of a book somehow made it creepier.

I saw Vampyr at the cinema earlier in the year. One of the few films I would genuinely consider "dreamlike".

xpost my thoughts as well.

Herzog's Nosferatu is great but not even close to the heights of Murnau's.

I love both.

not wanting to be seen as doing a job that involves gurly FEELINGS and EMOTIONS

I've read that Humphrey Bogart always thought acting was kind of a sissy career

It’s a feeling
You never outgrow

Murnau's Nosferatu is the ultimate classic vampire film but Herzog's version is great too.

I loved William Wyler's The Heiress with Olivia de Havilland and Montgomery Clift, a 1949 reimagination of Henry James' novel Washington Square. It was romantic but ultimately very hard-bitten and cynical like a lot of 40's films

Murnau’s is a horror film; Herzog’s is a tragedy.

The Heiress, Wyler's best film after The Letter, handles the melodrama of James' novel so well that by the time Dr. Sloper's realizing what he's done to his daughter it's a horror film.

"how could you be so cruel?"

"I've learned from the best"

In the novel Dr. Sloper is always right until he's wrong.

Wyler's use of deep focus = A+. And the period interior design doesn't stifle the picture.

I loved seeing Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa again

It still seems contemporary 32 years later.

Herzog’s is a tragedy

I'm a Herzog fan, but I think what I disliked about his Nosferatu is that the unhappy ending felt arbitrary; not in a "senseless whims of an uncaring universe" way, but a twist into nihilism that I didn't feel the earlier part of the film had earned.

The film shows his slow deterioration such that the ending to me is an inevitability, and Adjani's character, thanks to her performance, is just ripe for suffering.

Now, I don't think these elements make tragedy.

What do they make … a milkshake?

Eric, dear, will you check about the hors d'oeuvres? The caterer forgot them, the varnish wasn't dry or something.

you two

if I remember right, at least a few early Dreyer films show images of creepy pages from a book

for example The Parson's Widow, Leaves From Satan's Book

rewatching the Human Condition Trilogy and the 3rd one is the best I think.

(^ this is one of the things in the arrow sale, £15 for the ~9hr trilogy)

Panique was marvelous. The almost-lynching was as harrowing as what it's shown in The Ox-Bow Incident.

Leaves From Satan's Book

showing the titular leaves from satan's book i'm guessing

Been saving Varda's Vagabond for a rainy evening such as this one, and it hit me like a blow to the gut. "Freedom and dirt", as Varda puts it in a 'making of' documentary about the film.

i've been meaning to dig into varda for literally years after loving the gleaner and i. feel like this week is the time.

Check out LE BONHEUR (“Happiness”), one of Varda's most subtle films.. it's a harsh toke but really beautiful to look at

Seconded

Not wanting to give away the ending, I thought that the behaviour of the kid at the end of that movie was entirely off; Varda was completely weighing the scales to make her point.

Third-degree. My theory: Assayas films like [Summer Hours/i], with their lightness and buoyancy about serious matters, and this one are connected.

Er, thirded. I hate phones.

Varda stands charged with third-degree weighing the scales.

I really like the profound 1970sness of One Sings, The Other Doesn't and Jacquot De Nantes is a rare example of a biopic I enjoy.

Is it a "classic film"? Probably the exact opposite of that in most people's minds, but DRACULA A.D. 1972 (which I watched on HBO Max last night) is a lot of fun. It's a perfect time capsule — not of actual yoof kulcha circa 1972, but of a somewhat conservative, censorious film industry's view of same, and it also takes on the Dracula story in an interesting way, in that for a third of its running time (it's only 95 minutes) it's a police procedural, trying to solve these weird sex-cult murders while a guy hangs around telling the lead detective "It's a vampire, I'm telling you!" and the detective says, "Great, but try convincing my boss of that." Plus, you get to see Peter Cushing running around a grimy-looking London while low-budget blaxploitation funk blares on the soundtrack. The actor playing Dracula's servant is particularly good, too — he really seems like the kind of creep who would hang around preying on fog-brained hippies. Can recommend.

otm yeah that one pays off. yeah its always funny to me how many horror movies from that era are really just straight police procedurals, but its just that the criminal is a werewolf/vampire/alien/whatever.

this is a secondhand 'classic film you were knocked out by' but went with my wife to see Nosferatu the other night (Murnau not Herzog), she'd never seen and had no idea what to expect, she was chuckling at the beginning but was legit terrified by the end, was really delightful seeing someone go into it cold and completely fall under its spell.

I watched Kurosawa's "High and Low" a couple of nights ago and it was astonishing. It's remarkable how many police procedurals took from this but none of them are quite as good. Also the first whole hour takes place in the businessman's room and it still manages to be riveting.

Yes, that one is a real nail-biter.

its always funny to me how many horror movies from that era are really just straight police procedurals, but its just that the criminal is a werewolf/vampire/alien/whatever.

ha, we just watched Wolfen and this is the exact plot

I watched Wolfen last October, I think. It was pretty good, though the "wolf-o-vision" shots were pretty bad. Full frontal Edward James Olmos, too, if that's your thing.

I love Dracula AD 1972 - has anyone sampled Johnny Alucard shouting “Dig the music, kids!” during the black mass?

> I watched Kurosawa's "High and Low" a couple of nights ago and it was astonishing. It's remarkable how many police procedurals took from this but none of them are quite as good.

it's an ed mcbain story, one of his 84th precinct books.

87th Precint... "King's Ransom"

It's been long enough (25 years?) since watching H&L to give it a second look. Thanks!