It's not like Moon and District 9 would be American movies. I have seen some other good foreign movies like Das Leben der Anderen, Untergang, Triplettes de Belville, Serbuan Maut, Cidade de Deus, Labirinto Del Fauno, Dogville, Das Experiment, Cache, Amelie, 千と千尋の神隠し etc. It's just that they didn't make it into the list. For some reason, the American ones had more of an emotional impact on me. Anyway, I would be interested to see your 21st century lists.
If i would be the chosen one to form a top10 mustsee movielist with my feelings regarding movies at this precise time and place, then it would be something like :
On April 11 2015 00:39 excitedBear wrote: It's not like Moon and District 9 would be American movies. I have seen some other good foreign movies like Das Leben der Anderen, Untergang, Triplettes de Belville, Serbuan Maut, Cidade de Deus, Labirinto Del Fauno, Dogville, Das Experiment, Cache, Amelie, 千と千尋の神隠し etc. It's just that they didn't make it into the list. For some reason, the American ones had more of an emotional impact on me. Anyway, I would be interested to see your 21st century lists.
Ok, Moon is English, and District 9 only half american... It's really tough for me, as I've said, I don't feel much affinity for a great part of today's cinema. Two excellent recent movies I'd put no question in such a list are A Separation and Holy Motors. Also Weirkmeister Harmonies which barely doesn't make the cut as it's from 2000. After that it gets really murky, I'm thinking of Chihiro, Into The Abyss, Match Point, Mulholand Drive, Blue Ruin, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Elephant but, yeah those movies are good but none of them really makes me enthusiastic... Edit : I want to add that I think american cinema has given the world the most great movies among all nations. Just not 90% of them or something ridiculous
I dont know, the majority of foreign movies seem to be social realist dramas nowadays. Once you have seen ten of those, this stuff just doesn't excite you anymore.
Cinema needs to expand your imagination to leave an impact on you. It is clear that American movies with big budgets (e.g. Avatar, Gravity, Inception, Interstellar) can do that a lot easier via visuals than low budget ones.
However, low budget movies can in theory get an edge by being more artistically daring. There just need to be more Fellinis, Jodorowskys and Bergmans in international cinema.
Bergman could be extremely dry and still visually fascinating. I think Holy Motors managed that in a modern setting. Big budget american movies seems to me of much lower quality than they used to be, out of the two I saw among your examples, I think Avatar is quite good but has a few too many flaws in terms of storytelling, while Inception is imo simply atrocious. I regret the times of let's say Titanic, Terminators, Die Hard 1, Last of the Mohicans, and I'm not even talking of even better ages for Hollywood, when one could give huge budgets to guys like Mankiewicz or Cimino... I do agree with you for the annoying tendency for social drama from the representant of modern intellectual cinema (we have our local blockbusters and terrible comedy in each countries too you know :p ). Some are better than other, but it does look like one of the most widespread dead-end. I can't say I'm really enthusiastic at the idea of seeing another Dardenne movie or worse Haneke's latest misanthropic manifesto. Still, I'd rather see A Separation than another Batman reboot.
On April 11 2015 02:46 excitedBear wrote: I dont know, the majority of foreign movies seem to be social realist dramas nowadays. Once you have seen ten of those, this stuff just doesn't excite you anymore.
Cinema needs to expand your imagination to leave an impact on you. It is clear that American movies with big budgets (e.g. Avatar, Gravity, Inception, Interstellar) can do that a lot easier via visuals than low budget ones.
However, low budget movies can in theory get an edge by being more artistically daring. There just need to be more Fellinis, Jodorowskys and Bergmans in international cinema.
I think that the idea wthat big bugets leaves more opportunity for imagination is extremely debatable, i would argue that big budgets restricts what can be done with the movie because it needs a return on investment. For example, gravity was instersting visually but the scenario and relationships between characters was absolutely uninspiring (i have to admit, i hated that movie so i'm probably not fair with it..)
How can big visuals that you can see and hear expand your imagination, makes no sense to me. Imagination as i understand it is something that you form in your mind that is outside of your senses.
I mean in a broader sense they can expand your imagination but probably not within that movie. What you need is good writing, storytelling that makes you imagine what could have been.
Of course if someone like Kubrick would have made Avatar, it would have been a flawless masterpiece. But such directors never get a big budget in the first place.
Big budget means a lot of people need to see the movie so that it brings back the spent money. As we all know, intelligence follows a Gaussian distribution; most people have average intelligence. That means the movie needs to cater to average intelligence. An artistic masterpiece would not be catering to the masses.
That's why I have learned to live with the fact that visually awesome movies like Gravity follow a mediocre Hollywood formula. Once you go in with that expectation, you can actually enjoy the movie because you know that a perfect version of the movie would never have been made in the first place.
I wonder how outside markets effect it as well. China is becoming a massive market and I bet the government is pretty picky about what it lets in. If studios can make movies like the latest Transformers, which is the absolute low point in movie history, and make a billion dollars off of it because newer foreign markets allow it and gobble it down, they sure as hell will.
On April 11 2015 00:39 excitedBear wrote: It's not like Moon and District 9 would be American movies. I have seen some other good foreign movies like Das Leben der Anderen, Untergang, Triplettes de Belville, Serbuan Maut, Cidade de Deus, Labirinto Del Fauno, Dogville, Das Experiment, Cache, Amelie, 千と千尋の神隠し etc. It's just that they didn't make it into the list. For some reason, the American ones had more of an emotional impact on me. Anyway, I would be interested to see your 21st century lists.
You forgot about Das Boot... You can never forget about Das Boot...
There Will be Blood is personally my favorite movie to come out the last 15 years. Not sure why... I think it has something to do with dairy beverages.
On April 12 2015 02:14 DannyJ wrote: There Will be Blood is personally my favorite movie to come out the last 15 years. Not sure why... I think it has something to do with dairy beverages.
that music... i can't believe i watched this movie 8 years ago, i remember the music so vividly, i need to watch this movie again :D