Part 1

I have been a very lucky Media student over the last weeks. This is simply because I had the opportunity to watch many great movies, both on and off the Sight & Sound poll of “the greatest movies of all time” (yes, I put them in quote marks on purpose). We are now half way through the studio and I have already felt that my filmography knowledge has been enhanced by a significant extent, probably due to the fact that I just watched a movie that I have heard of for a very very long time in the form of Citizen Kane. Of course, it was also the number 1 on the Sight & Sound poll for decades, only to be replaced by Vertigo in the recent (well, not so recent) 2012 poll. Now that I have watched both of these great movies, they will perhaps be my start.

Vertigo is a movie about obsession. And not just the protagonist’s obsession but his surrounding as well. Scottie has a demeaning obsession on Judy (or essentially, Madeleine), and at the same time Midge has an overwhelming (perhaps at the same level) obsession on Scottie. I find it really astonishing that this aspect of the fabula on the reviews I read of Vertigo (maybe I have not read that much…) is often left behind. Scottie’s obsession is perhaps based on Madeleine’s sexual appeal – Gavin must know this in order to exploit Scottie along with his vertigo. While how about Midge? She “wanders around” too, perhaps just like how Scottie follows Madeleine around. She is one of those nerdy looking characters that trust if she pursues him dearly, one day he will be hers. She and Scottie even got engaged before himself calling it off. It is a really tragic plot-line (well not if you watch the alternate European ending), and one that is overlooked. Perhaps it is why this movie is so great. The obsession is too gruesome at times that I find the whole sequences towards the end even hard to watch because it grows a sense of uncomfortable in me towards Scottie.

But is it worth being “the greatest movie” ever made? It is worth being on top of Citizen Kane? In my opinion, not. We must take into account the fact that Citizen Kane was made in 1941. When I watched it for the first time a few weeks ago at building 10, present 2019, it does not feel like a movie made before World War II. The flow of the story does not feel like 1941. The story of a man creating an empire and being the focal point of the media world has that USA 2016 vibe. Citizen Kane, at least on the story itself, has so many values that the 2019 world can refer to. The narration of the film, although is nothing too special in the modern day, is quite different and innovative to other classics that I have watched.

And it was made 17 years before Vertigo. Personally, I highly regard films that have their values stood firm throughout the challenge of time. Both of these movies accomplished this, with Citizen Kane having a more successful extent in my opinion. It is structurally dynamic and every scene possesses something that could not keep my eyes from leaving the screen. Vertigo is a movie that leads you into suspense (or what you expect would be suspense) but instead reflects human psychological violence. It is reflected directly through Scottie’s obsession with Madeleine (what could men do when they see beautiful women?), or inferentially elaborated through Midge (certain people could not move on from the ones they love). I feel that it is the haunting, obsessing nature that makes it a great film. It is the best Hitchcock’s movie that I have watched (I also watched North by Northwest but this is certainly a better picture). But certain sequences create a tiring and upset feeling that makes it a bit hard to digest at times.

Paul Schrader in one of the readings that we were provided discusses some basis of the canoning system (which pushes Vertigo to be “the greatest movie of all time”). One of these is the relationship between art and beauty, which concludes with him saying: “without enforcement, the canon resembled not law but a list of personal preferences”. This supports my initial feelings towards the canon, which I have sincerely expressed in the last blog. I still feel that personal preference plays a large part in all top something lists that we have, but essentially now I appreciate that there is a reason why canon must exist. “Canons exist because they serve a function; they are needed”, says Schrader. Kids of my generation (the 90s born) and the one after, and after, and so on are less likely to watch classics. Film-making evolves, and along with that is film-consuming. We are at the age of streaming. Roma, the winner of three Academy Awards in 2018, was only released in theatre for three weeks before being solely on Netflix. We are at the age of superheroes dominating the cinematic world. The effect and influence of Avengers: Endgame or Black Panther, both on and off the screen is hugely significant. Canon as well as the lists exist so that we have the opportunities at least to appreciate the effect (or as Schrader says: repeatability) that movies like Citizen Kane or Vertigo provide.

However, of course, the cannoning system does not exist without flaws. I want to bring back the point that one of my classmates made back in week 3: the Sight & Sound list of 100 movies does not contain any Disney animation (or even any animation at all. I do not know all 100 of these movies to provide a good enough comment). It is clear that certain genres, like animation or thriller, are overlooked compared to other dramas. I went to watch a Japanese animation called Weathering with You in cinema a few days ago and the pure feelings it gave me was one of the best cinematic experiences I had so far in 2019. The studio that made this movie also produced Your Name a few years ago, which is one of the best movies that I have ever seen. Then, should we look at another kind of canon? This is not the case if we count the specific lists like the top 20 best animation of all time, for instance. But this general “greatest movies of all time” list certainly is narrow, and hence controversial. And this will be the utmost number 1 positioning statement towards my personal manifesto (if this could be achieved in challenging the canon towards the end of the semester).

Speaking of manifestos, we were shown Manifesto, starring Cate Blanchett. My first impression of it was this is such a peculiar movie. Its start gives me a horror or dark sense, but then the free-flowing nature of it struck me by surprise. Its expressions of the manifestos were clever and funny, and that free-flowing nature expresses perfectly the rather carefree but meaningly nature of manifestos. I found that Cate Blanchett is fascination in this movie. Performing 13 different roles with different accents must not be an easy job for sure.

We were also provided different manifestos of different time. I will call out two of them in this blog. The first one being the Dada Manifesto of 1918 which really challenges the notions of logic and science, and rather calling for freedom, “born of a need of independence, of a distrust towards unity”. The world of 1918 was the world of the First World War, where colonisation in many regions was coming to an end. One of such was the British Empire. Reading this, I could not help myself but ask if somehow they are related. Essentially, this manifesto makes fun of meanings. It then makes sense for calling Dada itself to be meaningless. “WE: Variant of a Manifesto” is also interesting for this is an anti-cinematography framework. “’Cinematography’ must die so that the art of cinema may live”. Dziga Vertov clearly feels that cinematography takes away the beauty of cinema. Does it? Are films like L’Avventura or even Vertigo against the beauty of cinema? At least, I am sure the canon would not say so. Being an all-for cinematography person, I might be a little biased. But I am sure Vertov has a strong sense of originality, and that cinema must be within this pure framework, which is an interesting outlook.

Lastly, I want to comment upon a few more films that we were shown in the last few weeks. We only watch one sequence of Battleship Potemkin is one that gave me a deja vu of Schindler’s List in the essence that it was quite haunting and upsetting, especially when the troops fire into civilians. The scene of the small child also made me slightly uncomfortable. Also in black and white, The Heart of the World by Guy Maddin is a really strange short film. It has a propagandic vibe, certainly concerning many issues in the world that I have not fully understood. I understand Maddin’s message that cinema is the very heart of the world, and this short is a very astonishing way of doing so.

Part 2

1. Any list that contains “The greatest movies of all time” of some sort MUST take into consideration fairly ALL kinds of genre. Not just drama. Not just high concept. Not just Hitchcock. Not just Bollywood. Not just animation. Everything.
2. Any list that contains “The greatest movies of all time” of some sort MUST take into consideration fairly ALL kinds of time and age. Not just Classical Hollywood. Not just New Hollywood. Not just Lumiere brothers. Not just Italia 60s. Everytime.
3. Vertigo, go to hell. Citizen Kane, go to hell. Canon, go to hell. Sight & Sound, go to hell. Film-making is an ART. Film-consuming is a PRIVILEGE. Stop ruining our pleasures. Appreciate ALL KINDS. Praise ALL KINDS.

Part 1

Part 2

Being a film enthusiast, I have always tried to interpret a film in many ways, one is being able to watch a movie more critically. Film criticism struck me with great interest and is an area that I always want to have a go at. Hence, joining this studio is a no-brainer for me, and I considered myself to be lucky when I found that this studio was added as a whole new option this semester.

When this assignment tasked me with coming with a list of my well-considered 5 greatest movies of all time, I struggled badly. It was mainly due to the fact that I tried to bring a fair judgement into each of the options, rather than sticking with my pure taste criterion. But yet, I am of the belief that personal taste plays a great part into movies making in the lists, while the context plays as catalysts into its influence. It is perhaps why now we think of someone like Alfred Hitchcock, who never won an Academy Award, as being one of the most influential Hollywood film-makers of all time.

I first came into knowledge of Hitchcock’s legacy around this time last year when I was in The Scene in Cinema – a studio working particularly on film-crafting, considering how a scene is shot; how the camera works; how many people there are in a film crew etc. In the end, I thought that the complexity and eye-for-detail that Hitchcock possessed in his films might not have been the taste of the time, and although this is arguable, hence it is why his movies are more appeal to the now so-called film revisionists. It is also why 1994, the great year of Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump and The Shawshank Redemption only gave one of them its justice, but the fact that The Shawshank Redemption now has the highest score on IMDB proves that the criterion in grading films are inconsistent.

I am not a fan of the lists (not just because it took me a week to come up with my top 5 for the sake of this assignment). I think they are reflection of personal or collective tastes rather than showing which movies are truly the best. I appreciate the art of film-making and the effort it takes to make one. Because of my interest in filming, I mainly take glances at them to make my own must-watch or should-watch list, rather than taking in opinions of other film freaks.

That was how I approached the poll of Sight and Sound – I was more into the ones that I have not heard about rather than checking if my favourites are among there. Regarding the fact that Vertigo is ranked first, the article by Owen Gleiberman raises a good point in terms of criterion. In Gleiberman’s point of view, Citizen Kane should be the ultimate number one because of its influence. But this, with the reference to some discussions in class previously makes me ask myself: How do we measure greatness? And above all, are these criterion important? Hopefully, by the end of the semester, I will be able to answer these questions.

I also want to write some words on the four movies that I was required to watch prior to this post. I will divide this into two parts: two dramas in Vertigo and L’Avventura, and two documentaries in Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché and Forgotten Silver. Vertigo is the second Hitchcock movie that I watched (with North by Northwest being the first one). Similar to how I felt during the course of North by Northwest, I constantly asked myself: what is going to happen next? The tension and complexity in the story narration makes me feel that Hitchcock is a man that went ahead of his time. The way his films (or two of them) develop struck similarities to how Christopher Nolan does nowadays, or at least it is on my perspective. In a similar way, L’avventura has quite a peculiar way of telling its story, most particularly its pacing. But I was surprised that we would not learn the fate of Anna, which I told myself this will definitely happen and that the whole story was about finding her but then changes into an affair surrounding who seemed to be a supporting character. I learnt of Antonioni also from The Scene in Cinema, and I was very impressed with the cinematography in his works. L’avventura adds into this impression. The article by Robert Koehler also reveals more about him for me: a man who always tries to redefine his approach. In such a business, I think many directors would try to do things the safe and consistent way, such as many would even work with the same crew film-on-film. But perhaps, not Antonioni.

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché is an extraordinary documentary. I have always been a fan of good documentaries and I had a really good time at Backlot Studios (what a place!). In a way, it is tragic that not many people are aware of Alice Guy-Blaché work and influence. But at the same time, because this documentary portrays to me that these things do happen, I believe in everything I see in Forgotten Silver. Yes, until I found out that it is a mockumentary and start to pick out flaws. I am really enjoying this studio, and hope to watch more and more films as well as finding out the taste of other classmates. And above all, I want to answer this question: Does canon matter???