Masterpieces of the 60s: Part I
Doctors hate them! They're still as beautiful as ever in their fifties! See these pictures!!!
1. Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (1961)
2. François Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1962)
2. François Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1962)
3. Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (1962)
4. Ingmar Bergman's Tystnaden (1963)
5. Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
5. Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Now I know they all sound kind of dry with the titles being in Italian, French, or Swedish. But they're actually extremely touching and gripping. Just bear with me as I try to convince you why they'll be worth your time.
I don't believe any form of art to be timeless as far as popular appeal goes. An overwhelming majority of my generation -- Millennials -- hasn't even heard of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, or Buddy Holly. There's nothing wrong with that although it's quite saddening.
Each generation has its own unique sensibilities. A piece of art that resonates with one generation -- no matter how great -- may not resonate with another. Every medium of art evolves, and once a work of art is too far up or down the chain of "evolution" from your native sensibilities, it won't connect to you.
Stanley Kubrick's The Shining isn't considered one bit scary by many of my friends. Rapid editing with shaky camera is what does it for my generation. That's what they grew up with. And that's what they can feel and experience most viscerally.
From one generation to the next, film became less of an emotional journey and more of an intellectual endeavor. The focus shifted away from story to plot. Today's blockbusters serve two masters: information and spectacle. The audience expects clever twists and turns and demands big, loud special effects.
As a result, films that wrap you up or sweep you over with emotions have been pushed to the side. Their narrative feels too loose and their images too stagnant. There's a reason why Joey and Rachel from Friends joke about how "boring" Citizen Kane is.
I've watched Citizen Kane over ten times, but the first time I saw it, I was rather "underwhelmed." I simply hadn't seen enough films from the fifties and sixties to let the magic overtake me. Citizen Kane was too far removed from my native sensibilities; I fell in love with cinema through movies like Vanilla Sky (2001), Life Is Beautiful (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Goodfellas (1990), Amadeus (1980), and The Godfather (1972).
The pictures I'm recommending here, however, won't feel too removed to the contemporary audience as "old" as they are -- that is, even if you've never watched a film before the nineties, you'd still be able to enjoy them. (They're all from the sixties and you can argue the sixties is when modern filmmaking started although the legacy seems lost on most directors working today.)
La Notte is a film by the Italian auteur Michelangelo Antonioni, starring the bellissima Monica Vitti. Ingmar Bergman hated Antonioni with a burning passion but even Bergman acknowledged La Notte was a masterpiece. Yes, it's in black and white just like the four other pictures I'm recommending. But you'll end up admitting that the black-and-white cinematography actually adds to the picture.
Antonioni, along with Jean-Luc Godard, was an artist that painted with the camera. What do I mean by that? He composed each shot with a delicate sensibility readily found in the works of great painters.
Photography, perhaps more than any other medium, conveys the artist's disposition with no loss in translation; it requires zero execution unless you're talking about hand-held shots or Steadicam shots. As long as you're capable of feeling something, nothing gets in the way of expressing that emotion. All you need is a sharp eye and emotional depth. Photography in essence is visual articulation of an emotional reality within the photographer.
And with Antonioni's pictures, it's mind-blowing just how every square-inch of each shot is doused in his -- the scene's -- emotions. If Fellini (another Italian auteur) gutted you with his kinetic cuts, Antonioni lured you in with his ever so delicate shots.
In short, visually, this film is as perfect as it gets.
The acting also bears mentioning. The three main actors in this film are: Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, and Monica Vitti. They're all great, great actors. But Jeanne Moreau's performance here isn't as powerful as her performance in Jules et Jim (although it's a bit of an unfair comparison given Moreau's performance in Jules et Jim is one of the best acting performances ever in film history.) Marcello Mastroianni's acting is as deep as you can expect from any big-name Italian actor. But it's Monica Vitti's performance that would probably move you the most.
Monica Vitti is just an unbelievable actress. She is the only actress I can think of as being capable of playing both the role of Carol (played by Cate Blanchett) and the role of Therese (played by Rooney Mara) as perfectly as the two actresses portrayed their respective characters.
Anyways, the bottom line is that Monica Vitti's performance in this film is ethereal and that even if you find the "plot" too slow or meandering, her performance alone will make this movie worth watching. So if you've got some time on your hands this weekend, give this masterpiece a try.
In Part II, I'll introduce François Truffaut's Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim) and Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (My Life to Live).
I don't believe any form of art to be timeless as far as popular appeal goes. An overwhelming majority of my generation -- Millennials -- hasn't even heard of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, or Buddy Holly. There's nothing wrong with that although it's quite saddening.
Each generation has its own unique sensibilities. A piece of art that resonates with one generation -- no matter how great -- may not resonate with another. Every medium of art evolves, and once a work of art is too far up or down the chain of "evolution" from your native sensibilities, it won't connect to you.
Stanley Kubrick's The Shining isn't considered one bit scary by many of my friends. Rapid editing with shaky camera is what does it for my generation. That's what they grew up with. And that's what they can feel and experience most viscerally.
From one generation to the next, film became less of an emotional journey and more of an intellectual endeavor. The focus shifted away from story to plot. Today's blockbusters serve two masters: information and spectacle. The audience expects clever twists and turns and demands big, loud special effects.
As a result, films that wrap you up or sweep you over with emotions have been pushed to the side. Their narrative feels too loose and their images too stagnant. There's a reason why Joey and Rachel from Friends joke about how "boring" Citizen Kane is.
I've watched Citizen Kane over ten times, but the first time I saw it, I was rather "underwhelmed." I simply hadn't seen enough films from the fifties and sixties to let the magic overtake me. Citizen Kane was too far removed from my native sensibilities; I fell in love with cinema through movies like Vanilla Sky (2001), Life Is Beautiful (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Goodfellas (1990), Amadeus (1980), and The Godfather (1972).
The pictures I'm recommending here, however, won't feel too removed to the contemporary audience as "old" as they are -- that is, even if you've never watched a film before the nineties, you'd still be able to enjoy them. (They're all from the sixties and you can argue the sixties is when modern filmmaking started although the legacy seems lost on most directors working today.)
1. Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (The Night)
La Notte is a film by the Italian auteur Michelangelo Antonioni, starring the bellissima Monica Vitti. Ingmar Bergman hated Antonioni with a burning passion but even Bergman acknowledged La Notte was a masterpiece. Yes, it's in black and white just like the four other pictures I'm recommending. But you'll end up admitting that the black-and-white cinematography actually adds to the picture.
Antonioni, along with Jean-Luc Godard, was an artist that painted with the camera. What do I mean by that? He composed each shot with a delicate sensibility readily found in the works of great painters.
Photography, perhaps more than any other medium, conveys the artist's disposition with no loss in translation; it requires zero execution unless you're talking about hand-held shots or Steadicam shots. As long as you're capable of feeling something, nothing gets in the way of expressing that emotion. All you need is a sharp eye and emotional depth. Photography in essence is visual articulation of an emotional reality within the photographer.
And with Antonioni's pictures, it's mind-blowing just how every square-inch of each shot is doused in his -- the scene's -- emotions. If Fellini (another Italian auteur) gutted you with his kinetic cuts, Antonioni lured you in with his ever so delicate shots.
In short, visually, this film is as perfect as it gets.
The acting also bears mentioning. The three main actors in this film are: Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, and Monica Vitti. They're all great, great actors. But Jeanne Moreau's performance here isn't as powerful as her performance in Jules et Jim (although it's a bit of an unfair comparison given Moreau's performance in Jules et Jim is one of the best acting performances ever in film history.) Marcello Mastroianni's acting is as deep as you can expect from any big-name Italian actor. But it's Monica Vitti's performance that would probably move you the most.
Monica Vitti is just an unbelievable actress. She is the only actress I can think of as being capable of playing both the role of Carol (played by Cate Blanchett) and the role of Therese (played by Rooney Mara) as perfectly as the two actresses portrayed their respective characters.
Anyways, the bottom line is that Monica Vitti's performance in this film is ethereal and that even if you find the "plot" too slow or meandering, her performance alone will make this movie worth watching. So if you've got some time on your hands this weekend, give this masterpiece a try.
In Part II, I'll introduce François Truffaut's Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim) and Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (My Life to Live).
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