The Chorus Canon • Page 7

Also 2 lol. I know I’ve seen plenty old westerns and such growing up from my parents/grandparents watching them, but I was too young so they all blur together in my mind. And the big canonical films are just indefinitely on my list

 

Cary Grant alone makes the 30s vital

 

I got curious and wasted 20 minutes checking this:

1920s: 55
1930s: 281
1940s: 412
1950s: 339
1960s: 366
1970s: 344
1980s: 398
1990s: 533
2000s: 724
2010s: 745

That is...a different distribution than I thought I had.

Edit: Give or take an occasional TV movie or miniseries I missed to make the +/- probably around 10-15. I didn't go through with a fine-toothed comb.

 

There’s so much great stuff in the 30s. Early Renoir (my favourite era of his work to be honest), Fritz Lang’s German sound films, foundational films from many of the masters of postwar Japanese cinema (plus the absolute masterpiece Humanity and Paper Balloons, which I just watched yesterday for the first time), von Sternberg’s films with Dietrich in Hollywood, Murnau’s Tabu, Peixoto’s Limite. It is definitely not a decade to be overlooked.

 

watched Its A Wonderful Life for the first time ever over christmas break. enjoyed some of it. why dont the boomers that jerk off over it realize that the end of the movie is socialist? and so were their parents.

 

Hollywood had good contributions at the time, too. Busby Berkeley choreographed musicals. Warner Gangster movies. Universal Monster movies. The Marx Brothers' films. Lubitsch's run of The Love Parade, Trouble in Paradise, One Hour With You, The Smiling Lieutanent, and The Merry Widow, etc.

France was really on the rise with not just Renoir, but stuff like Le Million, Le Jour Se Leve, The Story of a Cheat, The Baker's Wife, etc.

 

Oh yeah, I omitted Hollywood as a broad category since it had been mentioned. I adore the two Dorothy Arzner films I’ve seen from the 30s, to throw out another name.

China also had some interesting films, The Goddess is particularly strong.

The more time I spend with films from that decade, the more I am convinced that it is one of my favourite periods, along with the 60s (obviously) and the 90s.

 

The films being listed are the canon films that most people end up seeing. It does not hold a candle to the late silent era or the explosion of experimentation and artistry of the Fifties and Sixties. Between an economic depression, the rise of fascism, World War II, and censorship, it is hurt.

 

I need to see The Goddess. I'm actually pretty weak on Asia in the '30s. I just have Midnight Song from China and The Story of the Late Chrystanthemums from Japan. It's hard to get myself to watch silents sometimes, so all the '30s Ozu is just looming.

 

To throw a few other out as a recommendation, if you’re interested in exploring more:

Humanity and Paper Balloons (Yamanaka)
Sisters of the Gion (Mizoguchi)
Osaka Elegy (Mizoguchi)
Wife! Be Like a Rose! (Naruse)
Every Night Dreams (Naruse)
The Water Magician (Mizoguchi)
Apart From You (Naruse)

I think only the last three are silents, but the Mizoguchi film circulated with a benshi track, which is an interesting experience in itself. These are mostly less than 90 minutes too, so good when time is an issue.

 

Thanks for the recs. I've heard of Naruse, but never seen anything from him.

 

Mizoguchi is one of the more interesting filmmakers of that era. Always a lot to say in his stuff

 

For people who haven't done a lot of 30s and 40s exploring, watch anything from Howard Hawks. I'm up to 23. I'd like to at least get all his non-silents.

 

A “master” if there ever was one. I’m partial to the 50s work but I haven’t seen a bad film from him. I actually wrote a paper about two of his 30s works in the context of melodrama and the “woman’s film” in a non-Hollywood context last summer.

 

I used to love The Canon podcast. Amy Nicholson and Devin Faraci made a good duo. I'd love for that to make a come back with a different pair of people.

 

she has a similarly one with Paul Scheer I think. I liked the cannon as well until Devin turned out to be a piece of shit.

 

unspooled

 

I love Amy Nicholson even though she has some wild takes (her anti-Goodfellas stance nearly had me giving up on the Canon back when I listened to it). I like Paul Scheer as a comedian and actor but while I appreciate his enthusiasm, I'm not that interested in listening to him talk about cinema.

Amy is a great writer, she did this great profile on a very strange Wal Mart sponsored film festival in Arkansas dedicated to amplifying women filmmakers

In Her Shoes: Finding Feminism, Cynicism, And Geena Davis At A Walmart Soda Counter In Arkansas

 

Amy is an interesting writer, but she kinda drives me nuts on Unspooled.

 

she did a great pod series on Halloween and then an interview series with Tarantino both for the ringer

she also had great takes on an episode of the big picture on i’m thinking of ending things in an episode ruined by amanda dobbins.

 

Her Tarantino series made a drive that year from Detroit to Toronto very pleasant

 

being able to pull talent of that level is the only thing bill simmons is good for

 

Watching Chungking Express

 

All the leaves are, ALLLL the leaves are brown...

 

wow, I wish I'd watched Mauvais Sang a long time ago.