The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions (Decade Project Vol. 4)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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knives
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#401 Post by knives » Wed May 27, 2020 11:21 am

I find Kafka hilarious. Is that an uncommon opinion?

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domino harvey
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#402 Post by domino harvey » Wed May 27, 2020 12:41 pm

Guy turning into a bug has got to be a laff riot, right

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#403 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Wed May 27, 2020 12:45 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Wed May 27, 2020 12:41 pm
Guy turning into a bug has got to be a laff riot, right
It's not a patch on wrongful arrest. Has me in stitches every time.


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Feego
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#405 Post by Feego » Wed May 27, 2020 1:29 pm

I mean...

Image

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#406 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed May 27, 2020 1:30 pm

Well Pakula made one of my favorite comedies, and Kafka is funny in how absurdist existentialism is funny and horrifying simultaneously, so I guess that fits this- just in a less intrusive method.

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knives
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#407 Post by knives » Wed May 27, 2020 1:31 pm

Kafka himself thought his works were funny and several such as his Sancho Panza story as pretty straight forward jokes. Even his more clearly dramatic works like The Metamorphosis and Amerika have moments of comedic observation.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#408 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed May 27, 2020 1:39 pm

Right, as I said I don't think you can make those absurdist horror stories of philosophical dread without having some air of wry observation on life as a joke as well as serious. The humor is very complementary to the existential terror.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#409 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed May 27, 2020 2:58 pm

David Foster Wallace has an essay on Kafka’s funniness. Plus there’s that story that Kafka used to have his friends doubled over with laughter whenever he read his works to them.

There is definitely humour in things going endlessly, cosmically wrong. But people these days tend to find Kafka more unnerving than funny. I’d guess a certain kind of black, morbid humour was endemic to the jewish community in Prague that isn’t so common any more.

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knives
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#410 Post by knives » Wed May 27, 2020 3:38 pm

Not just in Prague. A lot of other writers like Schultz and Peretz show the same thing. Also a lot of Kafka's lesser known shorts are basically Laurel and Hardy comic shows.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#411 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed May 27, 2020 7:35 pm

I never understood how people didn't see Kafka as funny (albeit sometimes using very black humor).

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#412 Post by MichaelB » Thu May 28, 2020 3:50 am

Michael Kerpan wrote:I never understood how people didn't see Kafka as funny (albeit sometimes using very black humor).
I gather the initial English translation stripped out a lot of the intended humour, but presumably that’s been fixed since.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#413 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun May 31, 2020 11:23 am

Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock 1951). I wrote this up already for the Hitchcock list project:
Rayon Vert wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2016 12:03 am
This is a prototypical example of Hitchcock’s near-sadistic black-humor-laced thriller style, perhaps at its most extreme (it brings to mind the even more disturbing Frenzy with its similar “perverted” dandy psychopath). It’s only one side of his work, but it’s fully on display here. There’s very little to fault in this recognized classic: strong source material is turned into a film that features some spectacular visual sequences, some of his very best – notably the ones involving the carnival. This film doesn’t have the stronger romantic dimension that – more often than not – characterizes the films of his I like the most, but this is still among the very best ones for me.
I watched this one again because I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d rated it more highly than I actually like(d) it all the way through, which proved right during this viewing. Those bravura pieces (the carnival sequences, the tennis match and the cross-cut editing to Bruno trying to retrieve the lighter) are among the director’s best (the carnival scenes really among his most beautifully shot, and there’s especially nice work framing the carousel’s horses to figure in the fight scene). But in between I’m not as emotionally engaged with some of the director’s other works, it’s more of a pure suspense experience, and eventually the menace that Bruno initially represents is undercut by coming near to a ridiculous figure at times (the strangling the guest scene). Blus writes an interesting psychological analysis of the main characters in his review.

Those best scenes are stellar though. Miriam really is made up to be an unlikeable character,
SpoilerShow
yet her killing is incredibly brutal and realistic and that unlikeability is no longer important and fades away – it’s quite a punch to the gut to experience her death this way.

Bonjour Tristesse
(Preminger 1958).
Like blus, synchronistically, the emotional impact of this viewing was noticeably stronger than previously, and I’m esteeming it more than ever. It’s such an effective film, balancing a light, almost comic tone - that long, street-dancing scene brings the film into quasi musical territory - with that shadow dimension growing ever so more strongly and building to such a tragic, grave ending. There’s a quasi-oedipal aspect to the film, too (has a father and his near-adult daughter ever kissed on the mouth so much?), that’s part of that effect. I think I could live on a diet consisting only of French Riviera films, but with the care in the design and the colors and the compositions, this really is an exceptionally gorgeous film.


Written on the Wind (Sirk 1956). Narratively this is so excessive it truly is Sirk’s “soapiest” film. Entertaining as hell but I go from finding it fascinating one moment to overly silly the next, unfortunately with the latter being more preponderant towards the end, impacting my ability to feel enough for the characters. In terms of visual style, though (photography, framing, color design), it’s truly and constantly formidable - just stunning.


Mr. Arkadin (Welles 1955).
I didn’t remember how awful a lot of the dubbing here is (which seems to be in almost every scene) – although it turns out to be apropos for the sense of dislocation the film produces. I agree this is quite enjoyable, and the more so the more it advances (I’m watching again the Criterion “comprehensive” version), with the scenes with Akim Tamiroff really the best, creating an absolutely grim horror comedy at that point. I have a hard time labeling this typically masterful Welles film a noir, though, as it’s so much beyond any genre bounds.


Early Summer (Ozu 1951). The conflict between individuation and attachment is the central theme here in the story around Noriko’s marrying, as it is for some of the director’s other films in this period, a duality both made to feel at once universal and indicative of a tension between traditional and modern forces in this particular cultural landscape. I’m struck again how rich and layered Ozu’s films are, and/or especially this one is; even though that plot line is the main strand, it’s set in a larger slice of life framing in which so much other things come into focus – the roles and relationships of the different individuals in this family household, the children’s playfully rebellious behavior and Koichi’s challenge in parenting them, the references to the war’s human cost, characters enjoying the simple pleasures of daily life (a good bath, a meal, a fine day), and on and on. And then you’ve got all of the director’s usual playfulness and exacting preciseness with the visual form. Great acting throughout by the entire cast as well, with Haruko Sugimura as usual standing out, as well as the wonderful Awashima playing Noriko’s friend Aya. This really feels especially and consistently rich and brilliant for me in a way maybe no other of his films match.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#414 Post by dustybooks » Sun May 31, 2020 11:37 am

Rayon Vert wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 11:23 am
the menace that Bruno initially represents is undercut by coming near to a ridiculous figure at times
It was really interesting to read Patricia Highsmith’s novel Strangers on a Train after knowing the film back to front for decades. Apart from being a joy due to her style and eloquence in general, she treats Bruno as much less a larger than life figure than does Hitchcock, denying him the bloody climax we get in the film, but she also has a much darker take on Guy. The major difference is that
SpoilerShow
he actually holds up his end of the “bargain” in the book. It’s much more of a Dostoyevsky-like story of moral conflict in the back half.
i still find the film more effective, partly because the more I see it the more I feel that Farley Granger’s performance (decried at times by both Hitchcock and Highsmith) is more complex than I first appreciated, but moreover because Robert Walker is so brilliant throughout. The novel is a must for its sophisticated and surprisingly compassionate characterization of Bruno though.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#415 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sun May 31, 2020 3:31 pm

dustybooks - I think Early Summer is probably the best possible introductory Ozu film.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#416 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun May 31, 2020 3:45 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 3:31 pm
dustybooks - I think Early Summer is probably the best possible introductory Ozu film.
I think you meant to address that me, Michael?

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#417 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sun May 31, 2020 7:29 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 3:45 pm
I think you meant to address that me, Michael?
Sorry. I did indeed. But I'll say it to any and all. ;-)

This was the film (as part of a double header of sorts with Tokyo Story) that moved me from enjoying Ozu's films (before this was Good Morning and Floating Weeds, I think) to falling head over heels in love with them. (I remember the interactions between the kids and the great uncle cracked me up).

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#418 Post by dustybooks » Sun May 31, 2020 10:24 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 3:31 pm
dustybooks - I think Early Summer is probably the best possible introductory Ozu film.
As it happens, I fully agree!

I saw Good Morning last week; I love seeing Ozu work in color, but I have a strange mental block with the kind of humor exemplified by the film and it kept it from being top-tier for me. I don't really know why I'm like this; it's actually a lifelong issue with scatological comedy. I appreciate that the movie defies the stereotype about Ozu (and arthouse film in general) being staid and humorless, but I don't think the outright juvenilia it contains is my favorite way out of that. I did love the performances by the two children though. Anyway, I might be the only person ever to prefer I Was Born, But..., although this obviously won't be my final goround with Good Morning.

One thing I kept thinking about was how American, or maybe just universal, the story itself seemed -- boys in suburbia wanting a TV set while their parents and neighbors argue -- but I have trouble thinking of any Hollywood movies from the '50s that follow narratives about day-to-day life on this small-ish scale. From the '40s I can think of The Human Comedy that's somewhat along similar lines (and which I don't actually like much) and several from the '30s, and I guess Meet Me in St. Louis qualifies in some ways, but I'm blanking on a realistic American film about childhood in the '50s that was actually made in the '50s. I should probably shut up and consult the childhood films list again...

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#419 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun May 31, 2020 10:38 pm

dustybooks wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 10:24 pm
Anyway, I might be the only person ever to prefer I Was Born, But...,
Actually dustybooks, we're at least two here. I like the film, but I don't find it as funny as the 30s film.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#420 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun May 31, 2020 10:51 pm

I wrote up some thoughts on Good Morning earlier in the thread in response to nitin's appreciation, and touched on the scatological humor's purpose as I see it (but I admittedly find that kind of humor hilarious beyond an analytical level)
therewillbeblus wrote:
Mon Jan 06, 2020 9:52 pm
nitin wrote:
Mon Jan 06, 2020 10:54 am
Yasujiro Ozu’s Good Morning is a tremendously warm and delightful little film that gradually crept up on me with its greatness.

It is deceptively simple in both form and narrative but Ozu layers what would otherwise be a gentle throwaway comedy in most hands with some pretty insightful critique about societal structures and communication.
This is hands-down by favorite Ozu and it’s as much for the terrific social commentary as the fart jokes and cute dynamics of youth. I love that the film does a complete roundabout on the wheel of perspective, resenting conformity and challenging the value of ideology while succumbing to a position that such simple practices of social engagement do hold a value that connects human beings and perseverates kindness and interaction amongst people who are inherently different in personality, a wonderful way to look at culture as perhaps subjective in worth but a necessary and welcome gift for collective support. I love how the children may resent and question these practices as is developmentally appropriate and yet hang onto their own principles rigidly with silent treatment, rejecting the dominant order for their own ethical standards, becoming antisocial based on a different system of communication. I love the toilet humor and how it contrasts with the outer layer of appropriateness in social mores, and yet adults are participating too, the basic most juvenile humor binding people together behind closed doors as much as the socially-imposed ones do outside, showing that despite the personality difference on an executive functioning level, we are all people, we all have commonalities and we can all laugh. I love how laughing and being together is seen as the best experience, better than laughing or being alone. I love this movie.
therewillbeblus wrote:
Tue Jan 07, 2020 11:22 am
nitin wrote:
Tue Jan 07, 2020 7:13 am
One of my favourite scenes was the little brother holding up his hand with the talk symbol to his teacher and her thinking he wanted to go to the toilet! It works as a single self contained joke, a recurring toilet themed joke, and also stands for at least 2 of the more serious themes in the movie.
Yeah, the message that mutually-understood communication practices are necessary to get one's needs met is well-played, but also noteworthy is how the children use a nonverbal method of communication, which I understand is a large part of communication in eastern cultures (compared to verbal in western), so the kids' manipulation of this culturally-consistent detail is both rebellious and conforming to/well within the realm of their social context. I'm not well-versed on eastern cultures but I wonder if the silent treatment and eye-contact/body language/non-verbal communication has a larger significance in younger generations imposing the method while older generations who may be influenced by western cultures are becoming more privy to verbal means, or if there are idiosyncrasies that western cultures may miss as a result of ignorance (I'm sure there are). Forgive me if this post is incorrect or ignorant in and of itself, but I think the film is probably saying a lot about the clash, blending, and potentially uprooting of culture in Japan, even beyond the key variable of technology by way of the television which in many ways serves as the film's focal point to expose the generational shifts in perspective.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#421 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sun May 31, 2020 11:58 pm

I like the fact that the "farts" in Good Morning are not sound effects but rather part of the musical score. ;-)

Not a fan of scatological humor in general -- but the use of this in GM seems (relatively) realistic (i.e. (the kind of thing kids might actually do) rather than silly and gratuitous.

I think I like IWBB and Good Morning pretty equally. They are pretty significantly different from each other (the remake myth was, I believe, rejected by Ozu himself).

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#422 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Tue Jun 02, 2020 5:25 am

domino harvey wrote:
Tue May 26, 2020 12:13 am
Image

Caught up with Clouzot's Les espions (1957), I was stunned at how thoroughly this movie anticipated the post-JFK/Watergate series of conspiracy thrillers in its confused paranoia. Here a dumb local doctor with barely any patients is chosen for a simple spy task: hide a man as a patient for a few days. What follows is a riptide of colorful thugs and untrustworthy strangers entering into the man's life as he does the absolute stupidest things possible in any given scenario-- which, as we discover, isn't a screenplay flaw and is rather why he was chosen! Everything and everyone in the doctor's life becomes instantly duplicitous, and there's no turn one can make when you're placed in the hamster wheel of a conspiracy. Jaffe and Ustinov walk off with the film whenever they're on the screen, especially during their first scene, which is delivered like some kind of proto-David O Russell centerpiece of bluster and noise and forward momentum. I was a little disappointed near the end of the film when things actually started making sense, as I don't think the "What" here really matters at all. But the journey is great fun, even if it would have worked a little better if the protagonist made a few less idiot plot decisions. Recommended, especially for Kafka/Pynchon/Pakula fans.
I love this film which inexplicably caved with the public and critics alike . Maybe you're right that its themes of corporate and state induced paranoia didn't chime well in a pre-1970s world. A quick survey of contemporary reviews torpedo it with " inarticulate'' "self-parody" " not cinematic'" " bogged down with exaggerated and superfluous dialogue" a misfire of absurdist drama of no consequence etc etc. For starters I would never call any of Clouzot's work non cinematic and as a sucker for all forms of absurdism this is where it scores for me. I would also add to Domino's list of 'fans of' the name Beckett and the two goons acting as the guards in the hospital could have walked off 'Waiting for Godot'. Truffaut garbaged it for not showing any emotional reality sacrificing this for 'sordid detail'. (Strange that he should borrow some aspects of the absurd in the portrayal the two hit-man in Tirez sur le pianiste or maybe he thought that there were enough emotional hits to compensate?) I am relying on the not insubstantial anathema to Truffaut's criticism on this board to attract more potential viewers to les Espions. I am convinced that Jarmusch and Kaurismaki would love it too.
I note that one of Truffaut's most notorious dismissals - that of British cinema in the 1950s does seem to have struck a chord here given the dearth of British films being mentioned in this thread.
As a small and probably untimely intervention let me give a shout out for Thorold Dickinson's 'Secret People' from 1951 starring Valentina Cortese and Serge Reggiani no less. This even more than Espions is way ahead of its time, set in the 1930s with a group of foreign anti-fascist activists plotting the assassination of their dictator in London. There is even a scene of a police interrogation where the emotional development had me mentally spooling back to Desplechin's Roubaix.There! I have baited my hook the rest is down to you the public.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#423 Post by knives » Tue Jun 02, 2020 7:27 am

I quite like the British cinema of this period. A number of documentary shorts will surely make my list, John Krish at the fore, it just so happens not many features are seen by me which limits my ability to talk.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#424 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Tue Jun 02, 2020 8:20 am

knives wrote:
Tue Jun 02, 2020 7:27 am
I quite like the British cinema of this period. A number of documentary shorts will surely make my list, John Krish at the fore, it just so happens not many features are seen by me which limits my ability to talk.
Krish is great and so is Denis Mitchell's work from this period. I am about to start working my way through the sub-category of post-war 'Bomb-site kids' which has thrown up a remarkably fruitful crop. Nothing yet of the intensity of Rossellini but will report if anything stands out. Starting with the well known Hue and Cry, Crichton's Ealing comic strip yarn it brought me to his strange buddy film' Hunted' where a murderer on the run (Dirk Bogarde) teams up with a 6 year old kid escaping his abusive foster parents. The inevitable sentimentality is kept well balanced and the young boy's performance is engaging and natural. This has more in common with Scarecrow or Kolya for example than Disney.
(This is Jon Whiteley an award winning child actor that never made a film as an adult and became an art historian).
Last edited by NABOB OF NOWHERE on Tue Jun 02, 2020 8:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

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knives
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#425 Post by knives » Tue Jun 02, 2020 8:46 am

I did manage to see Green Grows the Rushes though which is a charming little piece. Not great cinema, but absolutely fun. A good hang out movie.

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