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I think contemporary European Film criticism can be partly thanked for that. At the time, there was this idea that for a film to be truly great and important, it had to tackle concrete, social issues. And these voices were coming from left-leaning, often Marxists, film-scholars. The films of Elio Petri are a prime example of a guy who operated in that milieu. He made highly socially conscious films. And this trickled down to genre cinema as well. Zapata Westerns for examples are just brimming with political undertones about revolution, class-conflict and the relationship between the First World and the Third World. And unlike "serious films", populist entertainment like Zapata Westerns could avoid state censorship and bannishment, becuse they were just trash entertainment.
The downside with this type of Film Criticism is that it was narrow-minded. Masterminds of cinema like Sergio Leone for example was initially dismissed by these film scholars as simple-minded populist entertainment because he didn't explore the themes they wanted. It wasn't until Duck, You Sucker were they finally began giving him his dues, and that was because Duck, You Sucker contains political undertones, but it's odd that Leone would get this acknowledgement for a film that definitely wasn't his best. Likewise, other masterpieces like Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows was denounced simply becuse it wasn't Marxist politically. And Army of Shadows is one of the most brillian and moving films I've ever seen.
Well said. In Italy (during the 60's and 70's) I imagine there was a larger market for radical films as well. Fascism lead to a rise in Anarchists, Marxists and radicals in that part of Europe. After the fall of Fascism in Italy and Germany, it would've been too controversial for those countries to censor the radical left-wingers, and some great movies were produced.
Francesco Rosi is another great radical writer/director from that time period. He's another one who worked to expose the corruption in his country, and in the world. I've only seen a few of his movies, but I enjoyed them all. I plan on watching more of his movies over the coming months.
I watched a German film called "The Edukators" (2004) the other month that was about two anarchists who break into ultra-rich people homes just to re-arrange the furniture in very creactive ways. They would leave them notes saying things like "You have too much money". It had a lot of the same elements that you would get in those older movies, but it turned into a story of a twisted love triangle, and they were forced to kidnap one of their victims, which lead to a good examination of the "Stockholm Syndrome". It featured one of the actors from the Baader-Meinhof Complex.
A also watched another German movie, "Even Dward started Small" a month or two ago. Werener Herzog's first full length movie. I'm still kind of speechless. You would never be able to make a movie like that in in modern times. It pretty much showed why Anarchism is a bad idea. There's huge portions of society that can't be responsible and intelligent when it comes to serious matters. We can overthrow those in power, but what then? There were so many disturbing scenes in that movie that forced you to look into the nature of mankind, power, and in turn yourself. Just, wow. Herzog is a genius.
I've seen one British movie that deeply examined the effects of radical ideology/free thought. Ginger & Rosa (2012) starring the amazing Elle Fanning who gave an oscar-worthy performance. Another deeply-moving, thought-provoking film, that reminds radical people that freedom is not all it's cracked up to be, and it's not the solution. As Emma Goldman used to say "Anarchy is responsibility" and freedom and responsibility don't go hand-in-hand. Power corrupts, but so does Freedom, as per usual the key is to find a balance.
Haha. Yeah I guess that depends on how you define a "war movie".
I was being a little bit sneaky. It wasn't meant as an insult to FMJ, it was meant to hype up Stalingrad which IMO deserves a lot more credit than it deserves from movie buffs, and fans of war films.
Man I hate Siskel and Ebert. Bunch of overrated, narrow-minded reactionaries. They even gave thumbs-down to FMJ for christ sake! Not to mention other milestones like The Terminator. They where the kind of people that where so square and high-strung that they couldn't even notice the bloated, obvious political satire in films like Death Race 2000, (which I think is one of the funniest films of all time), simply becuse it came from the exploitation crowd.
Joe Bob Briggs, that the critic for me. He may be sleazy, crude and uncouth but he's completely lacking in pretension and ardently loves movies.
Haha, as I typed that I figured it would upset you both, but I don't know any other critics (apart from Jay Sherman ) so I stuck with it. After I thought about it, I also became curious, do they hate Siskel & Ebert? probably, but I'll never know if I change it.
I usually just read IMDB reviews. A lot of the reviews are horrible, but you can learn a lot about a movie by knowing who it offends and bores as well. Some of them are so ridiculous that they`re hilarious. The Hateful eight has a ton of 1/10's on imdb. I knew it was going to be amazing after reading some of the ridiculous reviews, the haters literally had nothing real to complain about... which isn't to say the movie was perfect, but they weren't smart enough to figure out the real flaws in the film, beyond "it was slow"
Bullitt is actually a professional, academic film scholar (despite his at-times Martian taste in film). I'm just a guy with to much freetime on my hands.
Great write-up on Stallingrad, btw.
I run a landscaping/lawn-care business in Canada. I have lots of free time during the winter. I've been watching lots of movies lately. I appreciate your reviews and opinions on those movies.
Have you seen Max Manus, or "The Heavy Water War"? I haven't seen much of Scandinavian TV/Movies but I enjoyed those two a lot.
Aww man, that kind of world-building is crack-cocaine for me. Immortal Joe literally creates his own religion so to ideologically control the war-boys and to give them a world-view that justifies their kamikaze tactics. Without it, the war-boys would just look like video-game henchmen, throwing away their lives with high-risk tactics just becuse the script said so. But when you add that societal element, a religion that emphasizes death and martyrdom, their actions become justifiably human.
Well, I might have to watch it again closely, one of these days. That guitar player though... No one could even hear him and he only played when they were moving... what was the point? And that bungee-cord fight-scene... I couldn't take it seriously after that.