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Post by pacinoyes on May 6, 2018 12:11:59 GMT
Sorry if this has been discussed I couldn't find it - but with Polanski back in the news recently there is major dialog/Twitter ramblings of "what was so great about him anyway?" - now I don't think Chinatown will be thought of as "less" of a classic but maybe it will in some ways.......... its hard to talk about it now without talking about him in negative light and having to defend it. This clearly also occurred with Woody Allen's Manhattan and Dustin Hoffman's The Graduate as example of male, patriarchal "privilege" films. I'm sure there's more but these seem to have been the most obvious ones although The Graduate comes from a different place since Hoffman isn't the auteur of that piece.
Meanwhile at least 2 older films have seen their stature grow immensely imo (not as a result of #metoo but parallel to it for different reasons) - Thelma and Louise and Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce - a film that has just become much more talked about and highly rated over the recent years.
What are some others - I don't mean current films that fit the theme but more older ones that you would see in a new light - good and bad. Are we at the point that say "Klute" and "Diary Of A Mad Housewife" may jump up to a critical level usually reserved for the likes of 2001, Bonnie and Clyde, Graduate, Wild Bunch, Five Easy Pieces level in all time lists and general discussion/awareness? What are the films that could (or should) fall (Carnal Knowledge? Last Tango?).
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Post by ibbi on May 6, 2018 13:38:44 GMT
Films obviously become reevaluated as time passes, and the way people think and feel change. I mean Christ, there's stuff from the 90s that makes your jaw drop watching it today, like... How'd they get away with that? The big reveal in Ace Ventura comes immediately to mind. Friends (FRIENDS!) was just added to Netflix over here, and it caused a mini uproar. But "what was so great about him anyway?" that kind of shit just makes me laugh. It's not even like Riefenstahl's Nazi movies, or Birth of a Nation where the content of the movie is so off putting that people can't seen past it to their qualities. I guess Manhattan kind of falls into this category too, and there have been people (Woody himself longest and most prominently of all) critical of it for a long while, but seeing articles in the New York Times is so funny to me. It's like the Academy expelling Polanski 15 years after giving him an Oscar and partial standing ovation. Still, I would guess that anyone talking about somebody who has little to no overlap between life and work, and asking "what was so great about him anyway?" following moments like these is more than likely the kind of person too stupid to spend any time thinking or talking about anyway. How far do you have to dig into the internet to find such stuff?  |
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2018 15:08:43 GMT
I think you're selling Thelma & Louise short... It's one of those films that became an instant classic upon release, and has long been a source for scholarship and feminist discussion. It was selected for preservation in 2016 - before #MeToo. Are you saying that more millennials will actively seek it out now?
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Post by pacinoyes on May 6, 2018 16:40:02 GMT
I do think more millenials will seek it out, and when I saw the 25 anniversary release in theaters in 2016 you could tell it was building and obviously that's organically and even before/apart from #metoo but now I suspect more so. I mean it is a classic film and a popular one but if you had to pick one American film that sort of was "ahead of the curve" - I can't think of a better one.
In fact, I think you could have got away with not calling it say one of the 10 best American films of its era a little while ago (it wasn't a BP nominee too remember, though it won for screenplay) but now I think if a mainstream publication like say Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly left it off, I think you'd get a lot of grief over that.
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Post by stephen on May 6, 2018 16:47:40 GMT
I don't know if I can think of any films that are "new classics" in the wake of it -- Thelma & Louise was pretty much one of Scott's undisputed "Big Four" (besides Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator) and was cited as a feminist classic pretty much instantly, and it has certainly endured over the years, but I don't think #metoo gives it any more cache than it already had it spades.
What I think you do get out of it is a re-evaluation of films that were hitherto considered classics and now are scrutinized very heavily. Case in point: Last Tango in Paris. You'd routinely see it considered one of the watershed films of the '70s, people would give Brando the win . . . but after people started evaluating what Schneider had said (and coupled it with Bertolucci's hilariously tone-deaf response to it all), people started to sour on it. Kevin Spacey's catalogue might go a similar route (I've already seen American Beauty getting some backlash from people who previously championed it).
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Post by theycallmemrfish on May 6, 2018 16:58:11 GMT
I don't know if I can think of any films that are "new classics" in the wake of it -- Thelma & Louise was pretty much one of Scott's undisputed "Big Four" (besides Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator) and was cited as a feminist classic pretty much instantly, and it has certainly endured over the years, but I don't think #metoo gives it any more cache than it already had it spades. What I think you do get out of it is a re-evaluation of films that were hitherto considered classics and now are scrutinized very heavily. Case in point: Last Tango in Paris. You'd routinely see it considered one of the watershed films of the '70s, people would give Brando the win . . . but after people started evaluating what Schneider had said (and coupled it with Bertolucci's hilariously tone-deaf response to it all), people started to sour on it. Kevin Spacey's catalogue might go a similar route (I've already seen American Beauty getting some backlash from people who previously championed it).Oh sure... now it's cool to hate American Beauty (nevermind those of us who hated it for decades now... with it's OH WAIT I'M TOTALLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I SAY I AM reveals and whatnot)... but back in the day, I just didn't get it. I guess I didn't look closer. |
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Post by stephen on May 6, 2018 17:00:35 GMT
I don't know if I can think of any films that are "new classics" in the wake of it -- Thelma & Louise was pretty much one of Scott's undisputed "Big Four" (besides Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator) and was cited as a feminist classic pretty much instantly, and it has certainly endured over the years, but I don't think #metoo gives it any more cache than it already had it spades. What I think you do get out of it is a re-evaluation of films that were hitherto considered classics and now are scrutinized very heavily. Case in point: Last Tango in Paris. You'd routinely see it considered one of the watershed films of the '70s, people would give Brando the win . . . but after people started evaluating what Schneider had said (and coupled it with Bertolucci's hilariously tone-deaf response to it all), people started to sour on it. Kevin Spacey's catalogue might go a similar route (I've already seen American Beauty getting some backlash from people who previously championed it).Oh sure... now it's cool to hate American Beauty (nevermind those of us who hated it for decades now... with it's OH WAIT I'M TOTALLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I SAY I AM reveals and whatnot)... but back in the day, I just didn't get it. I guess I didn't look closer. Speaking of, I can't tell you how long I stared at that fucking poster, trying to see something that wasn't there. |
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Post by theycallmemrfish on May 6, 2018 17:05:39 GMT
Oh sure... now it's cool to hate American Beauty (nevermind those of us who hated it for decades now... with it's OH WAIT I'M TOTALLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I SAY I AM reveals and whatnot)... but back in the day, I just didn't get it. I guess I didn't look closer. Speaking of, I can't tell you how long I stared at that fucking poster, trying to see something that wasn't there. They're lucky people didn't bother to look closer. It's all surface level shit sprinkled with the aforementioned "twists" and people ate it the fuck up. But this was also the year of Fight Club, another surface level garbage film that people make out to be more than what it appears. IT MAKES A COMPLETE CIRCLE OF A POST! |
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Post by moonman157 on May 6, 2018 17:19:02 GMT
What the fuck are you on about OP? Jeanne Dielman has been regarded as a masterpiece for a long time and I can guarantee you absolutely zero casuals were motivated by the Me Too movement to go into the films of Chantal Akerman. Neither it or Thelma and Louise have suddenly become mass favourites in the wake of recent events.
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Post by Christ_Ian_Bale on May 6, 2018 17:27:51 GMT
Oh sure... now it's cool to hate American Beauty (nevermind those of us who hated it for decades now... with it's OH WAIT I'M TOTALLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I SAY I AM reveals and whatnot)... but back in the day, I just didn't get it. I guess I didn't look closer. Speaking of, I can't tell you how long I stared at that fucking poster, trying to see something that wasn't there. I'll be honest: I was a perverted kid, I guess, and assumed that since the movie was largely about sex (with a particular emphasis on homosexuality) that it meant that if you looked at the bellybutton long enough, it started to look more like an asshole. |
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Post by pacinoyes on May 6, 2018 17:40:09 GMT
What the fuck are you on about OP? Jeanne Dielman has been regarded as a masterpiece for a long time and I can guarantee you absolutely zero casuals were motivated by the Me Too movement to go into the films of Chantal Akerman. Neither it or Thelma and Louise have suddenly become mass favourites in the wake of recent events. ............and that's why the thread is not called that.  ....and the exact people who are seeking it out Jeanne Dielman aren't "casuals"........if they were "casuals" they'd have seen Jeanne Dielman on mainstream top 100 (foreign) films lists.............. which until recently you never saw "masterpiece" or not. Wtf moonman, get your head in the game............geesh |
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Post by stabcaesar on May 6, 2018 17:50:51 GMT
(I've already seen American Beauty getting some backlash from people who previously championed it). Probably because that movie is a piece of shit.  |
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Post by stephen on May 6, 2018 17:51:35 GMT
(I've already seen American Beauty getting some backlash from people who previously championed it). Probably because that movie is a piece of shit. It is, but that was a vocal minority that proclaimed it as such. |
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Post by skibidido on May 6, 2018 20:16:24 GMT
I don't think peoples perception of Roman Polanski has really changed. I think he has always been viewed as a monster. It's just that the industry has changed their view about him. I still separate the art from the artist and I think most people still do.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on May 6, 2018 20:52:16 GMT
I don't think peoples perception of Roman Polanski has really changed. I think he has always been viewed as a monster. It's just that the industry has changed their view about him. I still separate the art from the artist and I think most people still do. Yeah, was just about to say that while I think Polanski himself faces the stigma of his actions, I don't think his films have been affected as much as Allen's. I think a lot of that has to do with Allen's films being written by and early on often starring him as well as featuring a common trope of an older man in a relationship with a much younger woman. It's pretty much impossible to watch Manhattan without thinking about Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi and Dylan's sexual assault accusation. However, one can easily watch Rosemary's Baby or Chinatown or The Pianist without thinking much at all about Polanski's crime and accusations. I've seen that type of thing before: I know someone who hates Mel Gibson for both his anti-Semitic comments and especially for what he said to Oksana, they thought the idea of him being allowed to be in a family Christmas film ( Daddy's Home 2) was despicable, yet this same person was still able to enjoy Hacksaw Ridge. |
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Post by taranofprydain on May 6, 2018 23:00:56 GMT
Maybe not all-time classic, but among comedies, I can certainly see 9 to 5, a big hit in its day, reemerge in prominence.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 21, 2018 17:45:11 GMT
My friend (female) said over lunch today that Ms. 45 is the best example of this - that she thinks its impossible to view this film in the same way now in 2018 than you would have just as recently as in say 2015 - without a corresponding social movement it "seems" different though of course its not - not that the character is sympathetic or more sympathetic but she's more inclined not to dismiss it now and read it somewhat differently.
Pretty great example I thought .........I mean it's kind of a classic in its own way before #metoo but contextually different
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Post by Mattsby on Jul 21, 2018 19:36:34 GMT
I haven't seen Ms 45 - gotta get to it! (To digress, still anxiously waiting for Ferrara's next which is said to costar Dafoe, Cage, and Huppert)
I'll mention John Carpenter's '78 Hitch-riff Someone's Watching Me! bc it's being released on Bluray August 7 - I don't think anybody was able to see this after it aired until '07 and even then it was in iffy standard-def. Well, for one, it should be seen anyway in terms of filmmaking economy (shot in under 10 days) and for Carpenter (it was released while Halloween was in theaters! and it has the fewest IMDb votes of all his films, oddly). Now the first 20m or so are clunky, especially the writing, but it really shapes up and gets better as it goes on. Some plot descriptions online refer to the lead female (an independent career-woman) as being "on the brink of madness" which just isn't true. She's presented as strong-willed and fully capable of defending herself. She even gets some badass dialogue that can sort of serve as a badge of feminism: "How dare he invade my life" or the extra-badass ending line, "You got too close." (Also gonna add the characters mention Pacino as an ideal handsome guy, so they obviously have good taste too lol)
Another one, Lumet's The Group from 1966.... I often mention as being underrated, and I've yet to meet someone IRL who's even heard of it. It's a feminist epic and resolutely tackles a bunch of daring topics (abortion, abuse, rape, etc) and has what's probably the most positive lesbian portrayal of that era (opposed to the problematic tragically-leaned portrayals in Children's Hour, The Fox, etc) - played by Candice Bergen, she's confident and the most put-together of all the characters. Some kinda reappraisal is in order for this one; whatsup Criterion?
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Post by moonman157 on Jul 22, 2018 4:37:44 GMT
I haven't seen Ms 45 - gotta get to it! (To digress, still anxiously waiting for Ferrara's next which is said to costar Dafoe, Cage, and Huppert) Ms 45 fuckin' rules. It's kinda misinterpreted though. It's definitely a rape revenge film and stands tall for women but it's working towards a larger indictment of capitalism generally. |
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Post by MsMovieStar on Jul 22, 2018 23:06:01 GMT
Oh honey, I love Ms 45!!! I first saw it in a late night double bill in an art house theatre teamed up with John Waters Serial Mom of all things... |
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 6, 2018 13:19:55 GMT
Dusting this old thread off because I stumbled on this Youtube review last night of Suspiria (1977) that analyzes the film specifically as an adult fairy tale and examines the misogyny they see as inherent in the piece from that perspective. This is actually fascinating (but mostly wrong imo) but it can clearly be used to counter-point the 2018 remake to it too. I thought some might enjoy it so I've pasted below - you don't have to agree with the whole thing and it may spur some ideas of your own.
Of course you could remove Argento here entirely and replace him with his US doppelganger (for a bit) De Palma whose had his mid-70s horror masterwork remade too. Argento's famous bit of middle finger provocateur-ism that he'd "rather see a gorgeous female body be murdered that than an ugly female or a man" is noted just at face value, instead of the malicious wit (and defined cinematic history) in which he made that statement.
At a certain point the piece goes so far into the "fairy tale" aspect so deeply that it neglects the pivotal horror component - it's more 20th century horror film than 19th century Grimm after all - but there's some really good food for thought along the way.
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Post by Mattsby on Nov 14, 2018 20:32:00 GMT
Here's a quote from Linda Fiorentino to possibly stir some debate--
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 14, 2018 22:26:28 GMT
Love that Fiorentino (and Bridget or Bitchit - don't call me that!) quote. Actually it's funny that the films called overtly feminist are the more obvious ones when by definition they likely floated under the radar where we didn't look for them (like your examples) - I'd argue that for example Messidor pre-dated everything in Thelma & Louise by a dozen years. But by the same token people expect it in a foreign Art flick and T&L gives things them in an agreeable, easier to get sort of way.
Not mentioned in this thread and a film that is sort of like a genre crime version of a lot of these films (a rarity) - Bound (1996), which was almost dismissed as "cute" in 1996 although the reviews were good and I find has quite the feminist following now, the POV post #metoo seems stronger.
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Post by Film Socialism on Nov 15, 2018 3:06:46 GMT
I don't think peoples perception of Roman Polanski has really changed. I think he has always been viewed as a monster. It's just that the industry has changed their view about him. I still separate the art from the artist and I think most people still do. Yeah, was just about to say that while I think Polanski himself faces the stigma of his actions, I don't think his films have been affected as much as Allen's. I think a lot of that has to do with Allen's films being written by and early on often starring him as well as featuring a common trope of an older man in a relationship with a much younger woman. It's pretty much impossible to watch Manhattan without thinking about Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi and Dylan's sexual assault accusation. However, one can easily watch Rosemary's Baby or Chinatown or The Pianist without thinking much at all about Polanski's crime and accusations. I've seen that type of thing before: I know someone who hates Mel Gibson for both his anti-Semitic comments and especially for what he said to Oksana, they thought the idea of him being allowed to be in a family Christmas film ( Daddy's Home 2) was despicable, yet this same person was still able to enjoy Hacksaw Ridge. this might be true for like casuals but i feel like so many of polanski's films being about rape would be something that kind of turns people off a la the woody allen stuff but alas i realize social trends are not always purely logical |
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 15, 2018 12:06:22 GMT
Yeah, was just about to say that while I think Polanski himself faces the stigma of his actions, I don't think his films have been affected as much as Allen's. I think a lot of that has to do with Allen's films being written by and early on often starring him as well as featuring a common trope of an older man in a relationship with a much younger woman. It's pretty much impossible to watch Manhattan without thinking about Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi and Dylan's sexual assault accusation. However, one can easily watch Rosemary's Baby or Chinatown or The Pianist without thinking much at all about Polanski's crime and accusations. I've seen that type of thing before: I know someone who hates Mel Gibson for both his anti-Semitic comments and especially for what he said to Oksana, they thought the idea of him being allowed to be in a family Christmas film ( Daddy's Home 2) was despicable, yet this same person was still able to enjoy Hacksaw Ridge. this might be true for like casuals but i feel like so many of polanski's films being about rape would be something that kind of turns people off a la the woody allen stuff but alas i realize social trends are not always purely logical The casuals argument is the key I think because as movie fans here we always differentiate our arguments vs. the general population and the two overlap in many more ways - which is fine, that's social trends just settling to find their place. For example, I'd argue (and I have) that none of Polanski's films are "about" rape (and certainly never "pro-rape ") but you can't make that argument if someone says "don't care it still makes me uncomfortable" - same with Allen who almost is never age inappropriate in films he acts in (with the exception of Manhattan) but again, if the first reaction is "don't care he's still gross" - that casual argument wins out for a large percentage of the audience. That's reallly why those 2 guys are almost outside this thread because they open up all sorts of discussions (there was a thread somewhere on here recently about Polanski being "removed" from promotional and extras material on the new anniversary edition dvd for example - now that's a much bigger deal than just saying "I just saw A League Of Their Own (for example) for the first time in years and now with the #metoo movie I think it's an underrated feminist classic!"........etc.) |
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