2/19/2009 3:15 PM
posted awhile ago
Re:Which of these film movments have produced films that you enjoy the most?
 pippin06:
This is out of my league too. I consider myself an average to above average filmgoer/viewer but am not sure if I've seen anything in any category (maybe I have and I didn't know it...but maybe not). Like I said, I saw a lot of French films in college, but who knows if they fall under New Wave or something like that...
...but maybe we could somehow start a discussion somewhere where people schooled in these film schools could make recommendations for beginners. That would be cool, right? Or, maybe it's already somewhere...anyone know?
Ok, well I'll try to give some insight on what I know about them and any recommendations I may have.
Czechoslovakian New Wave may be one of the lesser movements listed here. It kind of started in the 60s. A discription from wikipedia says "Trademarks of the movement contain long unscripted dialogues, dark and absurd humour, and the casting of nonactors." I don't know if I've actually seen any, but some of the more popular ones are available from the Criterion Collection like The Shop on Main Street (which people have mentioned on Spout before), Closely Watched Trains, and lots of Milos Forman's (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Man on the Moon, Amadeus) early work like Loves of a Blonde and The Fireman's Ball.
Dogme 95 was an official movement started by Lars Von Trier and a few other Danish filmmakers that had specific rules about it. You could actually submit your film to them to be labeled as an official Dogma 95 film. You can probably find the rules online somewhere, but it involved using only digital film and found locations, props, and costumes. You aren't supposed to add any special effects. The full rules are of course available at good old wikipedia. The most famous of the films would probably The Celebration, The Idiots, and my favorite, Julien Donkey-Boy.
The French New Wave is a pretty broad movement usually referring to the iconoclastic filmmakers from France. I think the tail end of the 50s is really when this started to get into full swing. Like Tennenbaums mentioned earlier, Jean Luc-Godard and François Truffaut are often the most identifiable filmmakers with the movement, although there are probably dozens if not more who have been lumped into this movement. SkyPilot mentioned Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur. I have seen that one and was disappointed. I've also seen Godard's Breathless and Truffaut's Jules and Jim both of which I did not enjoy. Truffaut's The 400 Blows I appreciated a bit more, but still not a favorite. Some people throw Éric Rohmer into this category as well, although some argue his style is considerably different and stems from somewhere other than many other of the French New Wave filmmakers. I have enjoyed what little I've seen of his work.
Expressionism was a movement in Europe in the early 20th century. It stressed intense emotion conveyed through exaggerated and distorted style and forms. The Germans took this movement and put it in film. I'm sure you recognize famous directors like F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. Some of these films had extremely expressionistic and highly unrealistic visuals like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Some like The Last Laugh were just more more distorted versions of reality. With all the Dracula talk that has happend on Spout at times I'm guessing you've also heard of Nosferatu. Some of Lang's works that came a bit later that are well known might also count like M and Metropolis.
When I looked into it, I can't really define Iranian New Wave any better than just saying it's basically films that were made in Iran. I guess the most popular filmmaker is Abbas Kiarostami. Look him up and you may recognize a lot of his films. Maybe not. I have seen two films from Majid Majidi and would recommend The Color of Paradise. It's kind of recent though so I don't really know if it's a good representation of the first wave of the Iranian New Wave.
Italian neorealism is what it probably sounds like. Italian films that stressed trying to give a realistic depiction of every day working class people. They did this by shootings things on location and often with non-actors. And a lot of the the "boring" action of normal life that might not find it's way into other films is here. Although I sure don't find it boring. The time frame we are looking at is the later forties. The most famous example is Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief which I would highly recommend, although De Sica's Shoeshine and Umberto D are also amazing. Other big name directors are Luchino Visconti and Roberto Rossellini.
The Japanese New Wave like the French New Wave were a bunch of iconoclastic filmmakers that started with works being released around the end of the 50s through the 70s. You could put Seijun Suzuki in this category who is one of my favorite directors. Tokyo Drifter, Fighting Elegy, Branded to Kill, and Youth of the Beast are all fims of his that I love and are available on the Criterion Collection. Hiroshi Teshigahara also has some of his movies released through Criterion, one of which, Woman in the Dunes, I just saw recently and is amazing. Shohei Imamura also has some of his movies available through Criterion (this is basically just a big Criterion ad). Nagisa Oshima is probably the biggest name from this moment in my mind and I'm rather embarassed to say I still haven't seen any of his films.
Mumblecore core is the newest term on this list and has gotten a lot of press on Spout, so maybe you've heard of it. I don't know if I've really seen any movies that would fit this category hardcore, but you probably recognize the trend in independent cinema. I think it has a lot to do with young adults living in big cities. Very low budget. Lots of slang and hip music and culture references with a realistic style. Correct me if I'm wrong on this. Joe Swanberg had a short film series on Spout for a while I think.
New French Extremity is the other really new term here. I just came across the name recently to refer to a recent wave of confrontational French films ove the past decade or so. You know how we had a group here on spout called "extreme films"? Well a lot of these would probably fit in nice there. They show you the extreme fifth, cruelty, and violence of humanity often in graphic detail. You may recognize a lot of these names. Gaspar Noé's Irreversible is one of the most well known state side I think. It's the one that runs backwards. I've seen his I Stand Alone and let me say it's pretty striking and depression, very confrontational to the dark and depressing side of the human condition. Other examples are some of Claire Denis' and Leos Carax's recent work, Bruno Dumont (The Life of Jesus, Humanité), Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl). Maybe you have also heard of the infamous Baise-moi (**** Me). If you listen to a lot of the horror fans we have on the site too you may hear them rave about many of the violent horror films comming out of France recently. These could probably fit in well too. The most well known now being High Tension.
As for New German Cinema, you've heard of Werner Herzog right?? He's one of my favorites (check out The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Stroszek, Fitzcarraldo). Well he and some other German folks such as R. W. Fassbinder (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, The Marriage of Maria Braun, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (the guy made well over fourty films in a span of sixteen years including the fifteen hour long Berlin Alexanderplatz)), Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, Paris, Texas), Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum) and several others started making the first original movies starting in the late 60s since before the rise of the Nazis (Werner Herzog even made a remake of the classic German film Nosferatu). Finally Germany was a force in the world of Cinema making original and revolutionary films again.
Anyone have anything to add?
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