François Truffaut (July)

"I have always preferred the reflection of life to life itself."

Being a Godard lover, I don't know why it took me so long to watch any Truffaut movies. I had seen a total of 0 going into this project- that's shameful. Choosing which of his movies to watch was a little tricky, but there were a few I knew I couldn't miss: The 400 Blows, The Last Metro, and Shoot the Piano Player being chief among them. I also tried to toss in Jules et Jim and Day for Night but inexplicably the latter is not available on Netflix discs. C'mon Netflix, that's an Oscar winner!

Watching Truffaut is interesting for a variety of reasons. For one thing, much like Fellini his films are highly autobiographical. They feature kids with bad home lives or hopeless romantics. Even the bigger films have his style- a trademark mix of the light-hearted and the melancholy. He also helped found the French New Wave movement, although (other than Shoot the Piano Player) his films are not very experimental. Truffaut and Godard had an interesting relationship (he helped write Breathless) which eventually devolved into outright and public denunciations. Strange because their contributions to cinema are so contemporary and entangled...

Anyhoo, The 400 Blows was sad but great. It featured Jean-Pierre Leaud as Antoine Doinel, a sort of alter-ego character representing Truffaut. The director would return and use that character (and actor) many times throughout his career. In this one he was just a child- a bit of a mischief-maker whose circumstances go from typical boyish antics into a much darker place. Truffaut was not one to shy away from a tragic story, even (especially) when it was his own. The Last Metro was a radical change of pace, a story about a Jewish theater director hiding out in a basement while his wife directs a large production. The love triangle is atypical and the portrayal a bit surprising. I liked it! Shoot the Piano Player is a gangster movie that doesn't take gangsters seriously. As I mentioned, it was the most New Wave-y of them and I appreciated that. Lastly, Jules et Jim was a decades long love story about a friendship twisted into something ugly by the introduction of a pretty woman. I wasn't expecting this one to be my favorite, but something about these small, personal, havoc-ridden love stories really speaks to me. And the music was incredible! "Le cimetiére" by George Delarue rocked my socks (in a slow, sad way); Youtube it if you don't believe me.

Overall, I found Almodóvar a verrry tough act to follow but Truffaut carried it admirably- these are damn good movies that I'll one day revisit. Now to get my hands on Day for Night and Fahrenheit 451...

• The 400 Blows (1959) - 7.5
• Shoot the Piano Player (1960) - 7.5
• Jules et Jim (1962) - 8.5
• The Last Metro (1980) - 7

Next month we're (briefly) back to English-language films with the movies, ahem, I mean joints of Spike Lee!

Pedro Almodóvar (June)

"I don't want to imitate life in movies; I want to represent it. And in that representation, you use the colors you feel, and sometimes they are fake colors. But always it's to show one emotion."

I didn't exactly outline a thesis when I set about this project, but my goals were probably to become a more learned film-lover and to discover new films to love. So far all of the movies have helped to satisfy the former, but not all of them the latter. With Almodóvar, I can say without hesitation that I have found new films to love.

Why have I not seen these movies before? I feel like my friends, my university, and everyone else I can point a finger at has let me down in a tremendous way (except Dusty and Lizzie, who unabashedly love this man). Going into the month of May I had seen two Almodóvar films: Dark Habits (thanks Dusty) and the recent body horror/thriller The Skin I Live In. Seeing Dark Habits first was probably a mistake, because while the movie is fun, it is also campy and not altogether great. I should have had that impression washed away, however, by The Skin I Live In which I loved to pieces. Shame on me for not touting that one to all of my horror movie friends. Anyways, for whatever reason those are the only two films of his I'd ever seen and they aren't very indicative of the rest of his body of work. For this month, I chose five films: Bad Education, Talk to Her, Volver, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and All About My Mother.

Wow. Wowie. Wowza. How much praise can I heap unto these films before my hyperbole destroys the credibility of my reviews? Well, I can't help it. Pedro has done something incredible with his body of work. He tells colorful stories imbibed with a sense of magical realism, and yet the characters are grounded and three-dimensional. He tells stories about people, and it doesn't matter their gender, sexual orientation, age, or socio-economic class. He happens to be touted (rightfully) for telling amazing stories about women and members of the LGBT community, but he never calls attention to their minority status or in any way comes off as preachy. And yet how can you not praise the man for giving voices to all of these characters who are so often-relegated to minor or stereotypical roles? You have to praise him, but at the same time you hardly notice because the characters don't draw attention to themselves in that way. They are just a part of the story, and the stories are complex and engaging. There are passions, violence, romance, revenge, addiction, seduction, ghosts, harassment, murder, food, and family dramas! The stories are like novels, stuffed to the brim with characters whose journeys are filled with twists and turns that are exciting but not implausible. And it all feels so perfectly Spanish! The settings, the language, the food, the culture, the colors... and the compositions are stunning, worthy of being framed. And these films don't shy away from the inherent darkness present in families, in societies, and in Spain. These are often disturbing, traumatic films. And so I love them even more.

I am so happy to have discovered this body of work, and sad that it took me this long to do so. I won't get into the details of each film, they demand to be watched and in my case, re-watched. I will say that Bad Education and Volver particularly tickled my fancy, but even Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown (which I enjoyed the least of the group) was great. There were no misses.

• Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) - 8
• All About My Mother (1999) - 9
• Talk to Her (2002) - 9.5
• Bad Education (2004) - 10
• Volver (2006) - 10

I need to say two more things, here in the space usually reserved for a short note about who's up next. One, I just realized that he made those four movies in a row in a 7-year span, and that's frankly unbelievable to me. I would put that up there against any four movies that a director has made in a row as the best 4-in-a-row streak of all time.* And two, I can't express how happy I am that these movies are so much fun to watch! A lot of directors and movies that are well-regarded are also very inaccessible. That's not a knock on them, necessarily- not all movies should be popcorn flicks. Some movies are convoluted, dry, meandering, abstract, absurd, or otherwise not-easy to watch and that suits their purposes and intentions. But these Almodóvar movies are doubly impressive to me that they can be artsy and enjoyable (popcorn-y even) movies at the very same time. Bravo!

Up next is Truffaut!

*Other than Coppola with Godfather, Conversation, Godfather II, and Apocalypse Now. Can't forget about those four. Whoops.

Francis Ford Coppola (May)

"I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be under-ambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life!"

Francis Ford Coppola is a difficult filmmaker to write about in the scope of this project. Going into 2015, I had already seen The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and The Conversation. They happen to be three of my favorite and most-respected movies. With this in mind, I had very high hopes for Apocolypse Now (which I had seen parts of here and there) and didn't really know what to think of Rumble Fish, The Outsiders, and American Graffiti (which Coppola only produced).

I watched Apocolypse Now first and loved it. Loved it. It's the best movie I've watched this year with astonishing performances throughout. When you read about the turmoil behind the scenes, it's even more amazing that such a wonderful polished product came out the other end. This film easily could've never made it to print, like another Lost in La Mancha. I haven't gotten my hands on the making-of documentary Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocolypse that Francis' wife Eleanor directed, but I'd like to. In fact, I was so smitten with the movie that I grabbed the novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and read it within about 36 hours of finishing the movie. I might catch flak for this, but I preferred the film to the source material.

Anyways, after watching that triumph, I turned to American Graffiti. What can I say about this film? It's a classic, and it always makes me smile to know that teenagers have been doing the same stupid things for about 75 years. The back story to this one (and honestly, the whole story of the Coppola-Lucas-Spielberg friendship) is also quite fascinating, and led directly to the production of Apocolypse Now. I doubt I'd ever need to re-watch this one, but I'm glad I've seen it the whole way through now.

Which leaves us with the two S.E. Hinton adaptations, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, released in the same calendar year. I don't really know what to make of these movies. They're both decently well-liked, and the former has a truly stellar ensemble cast. I'm glad I've seen the "stay golden, pony boy" line now with my own eyes. But frankly, I found these movies odd, scatterbrained, and often dull. The denim-gangs-getting-into-trouble story was similar in both films, and I was thoroughly confused by the chemically-colored fish in the otherwise black and white Rumble Fish. Mickey Rourke was quite good-looking in his day, though. That's about the highest praise I can shell out for these movies.

• American Graffiti (1973) - 7
• Apocolypse Now (1979) - 9.5
• The Outsiders (1983) - 6
• Rumble Fish (1983) - 5.5

The Coppola name/family is now basically an entire industry in Hollywood, but the patriarch who started it all hasn't made a well-liked movie in about three decades. After making some of the most beloved movies of all time, that's a pretty tough break- sorry Francis. Anyways next up are the fantastic films of Pedro Almodovar!!!

Federico Fellini (April)

"All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography."

Watching Fellini's films is a wild ride through a history of the man, a history of film technique, and history itself. As the above quote suggests, Fellini left a lot of himself in each of his works, but over the course of his life the style of his work changed radically. He came out of the age of Italian Neo-Realism in which films were severely "authentic" in stark contrast to the French New Wave stylizations that would follow. His early films in the 1950's were of this type, including La Strada which was one of my favorites. The man himself might disagree with these characterizations and categorizations, having once said "realism is a bad word. I see no line between the imaginary and the real." Moving forward in time, Fellini would go on to create some of the most beloved films in all of cinema, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and Amarcord. As expected, I enjoyed these movies as well.

As I mentioned, Fellini started out in realism and then migrated towards more stylized artsy fare. His work can be divided into eras and decade: realism (50s), stylization (60s), and nostalgia (70s). La Dolce Vita was the bridge between the first two groups, and caused quite an uproar upon its release due to its fervent sexuality. The films tend towards the long-side, but they have a kind of necessary momentum to them that fuels them forward from the start to the end. Apparently Fellini filmed chronologically and didn't review his footage before moving on to the next scenes. Ray Bradbury quoted him as saying, "Don't tell me what I'm doing. I don't want to know." His artsier movies, 8 1/2 and Fellini Satyricon are easy to get lost in. There are dreamlike visuals that demand study, but the next scene is underway before the last is clearly understood. In 8 1/2 this momentum works. Many filmmakers have tried to make a "meta" movie about filmmaking (this was Fellini's 8 1/2th film, having made 7 and a short before this), but few have succeeded in making it so dramatic, so complicated, so compelling, and so gorgeous. In fact I can't think of any, other than maybe Contempt which I watched earlier for this same project. On the other end of the spectrum, I found Fellini Satyricon (so named because "Satyricon" had a copyright issue) to be sloppy and extremely difficult to stay engaged with. The visuals are striking, for sure, but the plot and story (mostly just ancient myths) were all over the place. Though it came last, I actually watched Amarcord first. It surprised me with its frank look at religion, sexuality, and other such themes subtly tucked into a bildungsroman story in a small Italian town. It was funny too, which I always appreciate.

I had never seen any Fellini before this project, and now it's easy for me to understand why the man is so highly regarded. He dealt with depression and other demons throughout his life, but he never hesitated to turn the script and camera inward to take a serious and interesting look at himself through the lens of art. He shared this art with the world, and the world is better for it.

• La Strada (1954) - 8.5
• La Dolce Vita (1960) - 8
• 8 1/2 (1963) - 8.5
• Fellini Satyricon (1969) - 5
• Amarcord (1973) - 7.5

Next up is Francis Ford Coppola. 

Robert Altman (March)

"Maybe there's a chance to get back to grown-up films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human emotions and gets down to what people are to people."

My lack of familiarity with Robert Altman's body of work was deeply troubling to me leading up to this little experiment, so he was one of the few directors I had chosen for the list right from the start. The only Altman I'd seen before the month of March 2015 was Popeye, and even that I don't remember at all (probably for the best). But Altman's big hits had always loomed over me begging to be seen, so of course I had to choose MASH, Nashville, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Beyond those three I wasn't quite sure- I had been reading a bit of Raymond Chandler so I threw The Long Goodbye on there and I confused Raymond Carver with him so I also added Short Cuts to my queue. Even after I realized my mix-up I was excited for that one but alas, Netflix did not have it available (even on disc! the horror!). I wanted one more so I chose The Player over Gosford Park, being a fan of Hollywood meta-strories and Tim Robbins and all.

Of course, I would soon find out that Altman is just as meandering as Wong Kar Wai or Terrence Malick on their slow days. The movies aren't plotless per se, but they do have an interesting "let's-just-see-what-happens" sensibility. I liked these better than the other guys' though, and I'm having a hard time articulating why. Perhaps it was the casting: Elliot Gould, Warren Beatty, Tim Robbins, and other effortlessly charismatic leading men can't help but enrapture an audience. Also, the dry humor and self-awareness sprinkled throughout these movies meant you could never quite get bored, even if the anti-story began to drag. At any rate, I can see why MASH, Nashville, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller are all pretty much universally lauded as classics, and I also enjoyed The Long Goodbye and The Player.

Unlike some of the other directors I've watched for this project, Altman seemed to have a lot more fun behind the camera. Certain elements are definitely carefully plotted, but a lot of the time it felt like he let the actors slip into character and then just rolled film. How much of the aforementioned films were actually improvised is unclear, but perhaps that's a testament to how comfortable everybody really was that I can't tell! Anyways, these movies have definitely aged a bit (MASH in particular has quite a bit of racism that I wouldn't want to expose my hypothetical children to) but Altman has made a strong case for himself and is my second-favorite director from this project (behind Godard) so far. Note to self: if I ever make a movie, make sure to cast a ridiculously charming and handsome lead. Other note to self: find and watch Brewster McCloud; that movie sounds totally bonkers.

• MASH (1970) - 8
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) - 8
• The Long Goodbye (1973) - 7
• Nashville (1975) - 7.5
• The Player (1992) - 6.5

For April: Fellini!

Alejandro Jodorowsky (March)

"My films are like clouds: their meaning keeps changing every minute."

There is only one reason Jodorowsky made this list of directors, and that is because I read Dune last year and became wholly obsessed with it. The timing of this obsession serendipitously coincided with the release of Jodorowsky's Dune, a documentary about the failed adaptation Alejandro tried to produce back in the day. The documentary showcases the director's gigantically ambitious plans for a film version of the classic novel; it also is a wild ride through the psychedelic art, music, and science-fiction movements of the 70s. Dali, Pink Floyd, and Geiger are all involved- seriously everyone should see this doc. Anyways, in the movie there are some brief clips from Jodorowsky's other works, and the sheer strangeness of those visuals intrigued me enough to seek out more.

Which brings me to the works themselves: El Topo, The Holy Mountain, and Santa Sangre. It's extremely difficult to review these movies in any sort of sensible way. They are so far "out there" in terms of their storylines and visuals that there is little I can compare them to. Jodorowsky is a mystic and a surrealist who doesn't shy away from the absurd or the obscene. There is graphic depiction of animal slaughter, sex, incest, and that's only scratching the surface. All three movies are very different, but each share striking visuals and themes such as family, perseverance, and religion. There is also usually a quest element. Beyond that I can only say that these are basically acid trips in cinema form. In fact, El Topo is one of the original "acid Westerns" which I can honestly say is a genre I had never heard of until I Wikipedia'd this movie.

Giving these films a numerical rating strikes me as exceedingly pointless. They shouldn't really be compared to any of the other movies I'm watching as a part of this exercise, except for maybe Satyricon by Fellini. People who happened to be in the room with me while I watched these called them "easily the weirdest movie I've ever seen" and (other than maybe Holy Motors) I can't think of much to disagree with them. By the way, these films aren't exactly meandering or plotless; in fact the story in Santa Sangre (of a circus boy who must act as his amputee mother's murderous hands) was very captivating and I think ripe for a remake. But they're so damn weird it's somewhat easy to forget that you're watching a movie with a distinct beginning, middle and end. One thing's for certain: the movies are better after having watched Jodorowsky talk about his process (in the documentary) because he's not simply a madman- there is a spark of genius lurking somewhere beneath the absurd.

• El Topo (1970) - 5.5
• The Holy Mountain (1973) - 6
• Santa Sangre (1989) - 6.5

By the way, everyone should peruse Jodorowsky's quotes; I had a helluva time just picking one out for the head of this post. I also enjoyed, "I am like the rain, I go where I'm needed" and "Failure doesn't exist. It's only a change of direction." I for one am quite glad that that crazy old man is still out there trying to make art and movies. P.S. Robert Altman is on deck for March. 

Terrence Malick (February)

"I film quite a bit of footage, then edit. Changes before your eyes, things you can do and things you can't. My attitude is always 'let it keep rolling.'"


Terrence Malick's films make Wong Kar Wai's looks downright compact. Malick is famous for shooting hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage and then editing until the last possible minute before the premiere. After starring in a more recent Malick flick (To The Wonder), Ben Affleck tellingly said, "Terry uses actors in a different way- he'll [have the camera] on you and then tilt up and go up to a tree, so you think, 'Who's more important in this- me or the tree?' But you don't ask him, because you don't want to know the answer." Earlier in the same interview, Affleck had also mentioned, "...I realized that he was accumulating colors that he would use to paint with later in the editing room." Painting in the editing room seems to be the name of the game for Malick, who often cuts away from "action" (little that there is) to scenery or wildlife. He also loves to utilize voiceover, which adds to the surreal dreamlike quality of these movies. His films are highly stylized art pieces, often hewing closer to visual poems than narrative fiction with clear distinctions between beginning, middle and end. For the most part, somehow, he can usually make it work.

And say what you will about the guy, but damn can he put together an impressive cast. Over the years he's worked with Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Jessica Chastain, Martin Sheen, Ben Affleck, Sissy Spacek, Richard Gere, Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Adrien Brody, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Jared Leto, John Travolta, Nick Stahl, Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer, Christian Bale, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem and more. And that's just in 6 or so movies, and sometimes his A-list actors end up on the cutting room floor! It's mind-bending.

ANYHOO, going into this project I had seen The New World (I didn't enjoy this movie but it was lit naturally and looked beautiful) and The Tree Of Life (I actually denied having seen this because I couldn't make heads or tails of it or my emotional response to it. I think it was... good...maybe?). After decades of incredibly sparse output (2 movies in 30 years), Malick would release 3 movies and schedule 2 more in the 2010s. These new ones were not on my must-see list. Rather, I went back to the beginning and watched his first three movies: Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line. 

Badlands was very good, and you can tell it was made in 1973 because it somehow has a PG rating despite being about patricide (although I guess some Disney movies are as well). Martin Sheen is a great Rebel-without-a-cause-style Canadian-tuxedo-wearing badass, and Sissy Spacek is good as his impressionable young love interest. The song from True Romance is at play here too, which my old roommate Andy was shocked to discover. The movie meanders a bit. Days of Heaven was less enjoyable to me, although it's fun to watch a young Richard Gere and the scenes at the farm (especially with the fire) were all beautiful. The movie meanders quite a bit. The Thin Red Line is the meandering-est of all and was pretty difficult for me to follow closely. Apparently the movie went way over-budget, and I feel like most of that is because Malick assembled one of the greatest ensemble casts in movie history but spent hours filming iguanas. But that's his style and the movie was nominated for 7 Oscars, so what do I know? Anyway it was nice to finally watch these but I doubt I'd ever feel very compelled to rewatch them. Cheryl Gibson said to me they're a bit more like computer screen savers than movies, and depending on the moment and the movie I pretty much agree with her. They're damn poetic screen savers though.

• Badlands (1973) - 7.5
• Days of Heaven (1978) - 6
• The Thin Red Line (1998) - 7

Next up is the weird wacky world of Alejandro Jodorowsky.