Thoughts on the 2015 Director Breakdown Challenge

Wow- I did it! I set my mind to something, and I did it!

56 films by 13 directors in one calendar year. Actually I finished before November by doubling up in three different months. This project has been a major time-suck but I couldn't be happier that I stuck with it. As a brief reminder, the directors that I watched (in order) were: Jean-Luc Godard, Wong Kar-wai, Terrence Malick, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Robert Altman, Federico Fellini, Francis Ford Coppola, Pedro Almodóvar, François Truffaut, Spike Lee, Michael Haneke, Ingmar Bergman, and Roman Polanski.

I feel much better-versed in the language of film now- some serious knowledge gaps have been closed. And yet, the project was far from perfect. In December of 2014 when I put this little shindig together, I probably didn't spend enough time deciding on who to watch or what films to watch. This is an immense undertaking, and the pre-production could've been handled with a little more care. Why not David Lynch over Wong Kar-wai? How did I pick Alphaville over Week End or Masculin Feminin? Frankly I can't remember. I'm also a little dismayed at how many films I couldn't find via (free) streaming services or on Netflix discs: Day for Night, Short Cuts, Crooklyn, and many more.

That being said, for such a hastily put-together project I'm also pretty proud of how well it turned out. All of these directors have contributed special and impressive things to the art of cinema and I don't regret watching a single one, even if they didn't all agree with me. I discovered that I'm impatient with a certain style of meandering art-house film, and unfortunately that description fits a lot of titles from a lot of the directors on this list. I especially struggled with Wong Kar-wai and Terrence Malick, and it probably didn't help that I watched them back-to-back. Robert Altman's movies are also fairly anti-adrenaline-inducing, and I'm glad that I front-loaded these three filmmakers. If they had come more towards the end I might not have made it.

I actually preferred a lot of the depressing movies on this list to the slow-paced ones. Especially films by Haneke, Bergman, and Polanski. I was either chilled to the bone or moved to tears by some of their movies, but I was never bored (well, maybe once during The White Ribbon). I understand why people don't love to put these movies on on a sunny Saturday afternoon (which is exactly what we did with both The Piano Teacher and The Pianist) because they make you feel shitty, but even when I find the subject matter unpleasant I don't necessarily find the experience unpleasant. I know people (even in the film industry, or perhaps especially in the film industry) who only like to watch popcorn action flicks or happy-ending romantic comedies. That's fine if you're only ever looking for escapism. But then you might forget about the "art" part of cinema that can stretch so many emotional muscles. It's like food- even if you're usually drawn to the sweet (romance/comedy) or salty (drama/action) stuff, I think it gets awfully boring if you don't mix it up with spicy (scary), sour (sad), tangy (experimental), and umami (educational) flavors. There's a whole beautiful spectrum for your palate to experience. The same goes for stylistic choices or black and white films or films with subtitles. Don't knock it till you try it, everyone- you might not know what amazing lovely things you're missing!

My favorite films of this experiment were Contempt, Apocalypse Now, 8 1/2, Jules et Jim, Persona, Repulsion, and all of the movies by Pedro Almodóvar. If you can't tell by that list, I like movies with a certain degree of nastiness in them. I like tension. If I had to pick a favorite genre, it would be Tense. That feeling can come about in psychological horror movies, war movies, or domestic dramas. Tension can rise up and flare in just about any situation, and I like the movies that examine the build-up and fallout that results. I need to give a special shout-out to Almodóvar who made the most colorful, savage, comical, interesting, and intense movies of anyone on this list. I cannot stress that enough. If I hated every other movie I watched this year, this project would still be worth it for introducing me to that man's body of work. 

As the year and the project wore on, I realized I was still missing a few highly-regarded works from these directors. I'd like to fill in the knowledge gaps within the knowledge gaps, and someday soon watch these movies: 

Godard: Week End, Masculin Feminin, Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Goodbye to Language

Almodóvar: The Flower of My Secret, Broken Embraces

Truffaut: Day For Night, Stolen Kisses, The Wild Child, Fahrenheit 451

Altman: Short Cuts, Brewster McCloud, Gosford Park

Lee: Jungle Fever, Crooklyn

Fellini: Nights of Cabiria

Bergman: Cries and Whispers, Hour of the Wolf, Scenes from a Marriage

There are also a number of directors I'd like to add to this list of 13, including: David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Gaspar Noe, Bernardo Bertolucci, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Bogdanovitch, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Errol Morris, Werner Herzog, and Lars Von Trier. Hey that's 11 directors- I could do that in 2016! But maybe I need a year off so I don't burn-out, which almost happened a few times this year.

In the interest of being completist, here is the final list of movies that I watched, their rankings out of 10, and Academy Awards they won:

• Jean-Luc Godard (January)
• Vivre Sa Vie (1962) - 7.5
• Contempt (1963) - 8.5
• Pierrot le Fou (1963) - 8
• Alphaville (1964) - 6
• Wong Kar-wai (January)
• Chungking Express (1994) - 6
• In The Mood for Love (2000) - 6
• The Grandmaster (2013) - 5.5
• Terrence Malick (February)
• Badlands (1973) - 7.5
• Days of Heaven (1978) - 6 - Best Cinematography
• The Thin Red Line (1998) - 7 
• Alejandro Jodorowsky (March)
• El Topo (1970) - 5.5
• The Holy Mountain (1973) - 6
• Santa Sangre (1989) - 6.5
• Robert Altman (March)
• M*A*S*H (1970) - 8 - Best Adapted Screenplay
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) - 8
• The Long Goodbye (1973) - 7
• Nashville (1975) - 7.5 - Best Original Song
• The Player (1992) - 6.5
• Federico Fellini (April)
• La Strada (1954) - 8.5 - Best Foreign Language Film
• La Dolce Vita (1960) - 8 - Best Costume Design
• 8 1/2 (1963) - 8.5 - Best Foreign Language Film, Best Costume Design
• Fellini Satyricon (1969) - 5
• Amarcord (1973) - 7.5 - Best Foreign Language Film
• Francis Ford Coppola (May)
• American Graffiti (1973) - 7
• Apocalypse Now (1979) - 9.5 - Best Cinematography, Best Sound
• The Outsiders (1983) - 6
• Rumble Fish (1983) - 5.5
• Pedro Almodóvar (June)
• Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) - 8
• All About my Mother (1999) - 9 - Best Foreign Language Film
• Talk To Her (2002) - 9.5 - Best Original Screenplay
• Bad Education (2004) - 10
• Volver (2006) - 10
• François Truffaut (July)
• The 400 Blows (1959) - 7.5
• Shoot the Piano Player (1960) - 7.5
• Jules et Jim (1962) 8.5
• The Last Metro (1980) - 7
• Spike Lee (August)
• She's Gotta Have It (1986) - 7
• Malcolm X (1992) - 7
• Clockers (1995) - 5
• He Got Game (1998) - 7.5
• Summer of Sam (1999) - 5.5
• Michael Haneke (September)
• The Piano Teacher (2001) - 7.5
• Time of the Wolf (2003) - 6.5
• The White Ribbon (2009) - 7
• Amour (2012) - 9.5 - Best Foreign Language Film
• Ingmar Bergman (October)
• Wild Strawberries (1957) - 7.5
• The Virgin Spring (1960) - 7 - Best Foreign Language Film
• Through a Glass Darkly (1961) - 7.5 - Best Foreign Language Film
• Winter Light (1963) - 7
• Persona (1966) - 9
• Fanny and Alexander (1982) - 8 - Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design
• Roman Polanski (October)
• Repulsion (1965) - 9
• Tess (1979) - 7 - Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design
• Frantic (1988) - 6
• The Pianist (2003) - 8.5 - Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, Best Lead Actor
• The Ghost Writer (2010) - 7
• Carnage (2011) - 7

That's 25 Oscar wins (including 8 Best Foreign Language wins), and of course that's not counting all of the nominations, Palm d'Ors, Golden Bears, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, etc. etc. that these garnered. It's a prestigious bunch. Perhaps the most shocking revelation is the lack of Best Director wins, which only 1 director got 1 time (Polanski for The Pianist). I thought auteurs were meant to be honored for their visions! As some of these directors might say, c'est la vie.

Well, I think that's just about it. As mentioned above, there's plenty more cinema to explore and in fact I'm probably going to dive right into David Lynch in November. I'll also try to get my hands on some of the films from these directors that I missed. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment. Delicious, sour, spicy, tangy, rich punishment. As for this blog, it has served me well for the purpose of cataloging this year-long journey but I hope to now expand it and use it for other avenues. I want to publish list-icles, movie reviews, op-ed pieces, and anything else that I fancy as it relates to the world of movies. And with <1 average viewer per day, I doubt anyone cares what I do with this blog! So I'll use it how I please! Thanks for reading, mom and girlfriend!!

Michael Haneke (September)

"I want to make it clear: it's not that I hate mainstream cinema. It's perfectly fine. There are a lot of people who need to escape, because they are in very difficult life situations, so they have the right to escape from the world. But this has nothing to do with the art form."

Bleak. Difficult. Inaccessible. This is the strange, sorrowful world of Michael Haneke. There is beauty in the sadness, and the stories he tells have often not been told before. They aren't easily marketable because they are simple and they are tragic, but they are also powerful and emotional. Going into this month I had seen two Haneke films: Funny Games (the original one) and Caché. The former is one of my favorite horror (horror?) movies ever, and the later is a tense albeit slow-paced thriller. I suspected that his worldview (at least as represented by these films) was rather dark and cynical, but I still felt ill-prepared for the sheer amount of despair in the four movies I chose for this project: Time of the Wolf, The Piano Teacher, Amour, and The White Ribbon.

I watched Time of the Wolf first, and I can say that the opening scene shocked me to my core. I suppose there are other movies that have opened similarly, but I can't think of any that basically ruined my disposition for the entire rest of the day. As I'd find in these films time and time again, the characters in Time of the Wolf dealt with loneliness and (often pointless) violence for the duration of the runtime. The Piano Teacher came next, and I'm not sure what I expected but it wasn't what I got. Isabelle Huppert was amazing and the story about someone desperately trying to connect with another human but without the know-how to do so is fairly universal... but the violence, the bullying, the hyper-sexuality and sado-masochism and rape made it a bit difficult to appreciate. Or rather, all of that X-Rated stuff is what hits you first, and it takes a bit of thinking back on the movie to appreciate the more subtle nuances and emotional performances- but they're there.

I watched Amour next, and even though I basically knew what I was in for I still cried and cried towards the end of the film. As much as Time of the Wolf shocked me, Amour shocked me more. I didn't see the ending coming, and it snapped me out of my weepiness. But Jesus, even before the ending I was in love with Haneke for telling this most-difficult of stories. I have members of my family going through similar circumstances, as I suspect nearly everyone on the planet does, but nobody has told this story. The quote I opened this article with is especially poignant seen in the light of this movie: I don't want to think about the death of loved ones, in fact I want to escape thinking about it. But that's not always healthy, and some art is here to help us examine our own complex feelings. I never want to watch it again, but Amour to me is pretty much a perfect film. I finished the month with The White Ribbon, which somehow managed to out-bleak the other movies, which is a fairly monumental task. I found in Ribbon what I found in all of Haneke's work: brilliant compositions, long slow takes, and some of the best performances (from leads and ensemble alike) that I've ever seen. And all of them left me with a frowny-face, but that's not such a bad thing.

• The Piano Teacher (2001) - 7.5
• Time of the Wolf (2003) - 6.5
• The White Ribbon (2009) - 7
• Amour (2012) - 9.5

Also, I just need to point out that after 9 months of article-writing, I'm finally caught up and writing about the director I most-recently watched. Hooray for me! Next up is Ingmar Bergman.

Overview of the 2015 Director Breakdown Challenge

I probably should have made this post on December 31st, 2014 rather than midway through March, but here we are and what're ya gonna do. My new year's resolution this year was to close some gaps in my movie-knowledge by watching some of the classics that I had missed over the years. Rather than throw darts at the "1001 movies you should watch before you die list," I decided to break it down by directors that I appreciated (or who I assumed I would appreciate) who had three or more movies that I hadn't seen yet. Then I could choose 12 directors and knock one out each month.

I scoured the internet for "best-of" lists to narrow down my potential candidates, but in the end it wasn't too tricky. There aren't that many directors who have a very large ouevre, are extremely critically-acclaimed, and are mostly-unwatched-by-me. The ones I did find were mostly white(ish) males, but that group has held the overwhelming majority in this 100-year old industry so I guess that shouldn't have surprised me. In the end I got it down to 13 candidates and decided I could bleed into 2016 if need be. Here they are in alphabetical order, although I've been choosing which one to watch at random:

• Pedro Almodovar
• All About My Mother
• Talk To Her
• Volver
• Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown
• Robert Altman
• The Long Goodbye
• MASH
• McCabe and Mrs. Miller
• Nashville
• Shortcuts
• Ingmar Bergman
• Cries and Whispers
• Fanny and Alexander
• Persona
• Through A Glass Darkly
• Wild Strawberries
• Francis Ford Coppola
• American Graffiti
• Apocalypse Now
• The Outsiders
• Rumble Fish
• Federico Fellini
• 8 1/2
• Amarcord
• La Dolce Vita
• La Strada
• Satyricon
• Jean-Luc Godard
• Alphaville
• Contempt
• Pierrot le Fou
• Vivre Sa Vie
• Michael Haneke
• Amour
• The Piano Teacher
• Time of the Wolf
• The White Ribbon
• Alejandro Jodorowsky
• The Holy Mountain
• Santa Sangre
• El Topo
• Spike Lee
• Bamboozled
• Clockers
• Crooklyn
• He Got Game
• She's Gotta Have It
• Summer Of Sam
• Terrence Malick
• Badlands
• Days of Heaven
• The Thin Red Line
• Roman Polanski
• Carnage
• Frantic
• The Ghost Writer
• The Pianist
• Repulsion
• François Truffaut
• The 400 Blows
• Day For Night
• Jules and Jim
• The Last Metro
• Shoot the Piano Player
• Wong Kar Wai
• Chungking Express
• The Grandmaster
• In The Mood For Love

Whew- that's quite a list! There are a few I maybe saw when I was very young, but they qualified because I cannot remember a single thing about them. I also have seen a number of great movies by these directors (Do The Right Thing, Breathless, Chinatown, etc.) but clearly still missed a lot of their work. Most of them I don't have any excuse for not seeing yet- and that's why I'm doing this! Hooray for filling knowledge gaps!

Once I got started I noticed that many of these directors were from different parts of the world and I decided to try to pair some cuisine with my cinema- that half of the experiment hasn't been going so well (although I'm still trying to make it work). The movie watching has been going swimmingly however; in January I knocked out Godard and Wong Kar Wai, in February (short month) I watched Malick, and earlier this week I wrapped up Jodorowsky. I'll do a full post per director after this initial post (I owe them that much) and then hopefully post more regularly as I go along. Next up: Robert Altman!