| Author | Message | ||
     Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.20.117 |
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time And now my shameful confession: while I own them all, there are two I haven't seen. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
Vertigo the best film ever? I doubt it. Good to see Mulholland Drive, Godfather II and Apocalypse Now so high up the list. And so many french films! Right on. Which ones haven't you seen, Ramsey? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.9.246.251 |
Well, I do think Vertigo is very considerable and profoundly disturbing, and probably Hitchcock's masterpiece. Give me time and I'll reveal my shameful secret... | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.181.208.239 |
"Sight & Sound's 10 Greatest Films of All Time, and their 1 star IMDb reviews"! http://www.ultraculture.co.uk/12342-sight-sounds-10-greatest-films-of-all-time-a nd-their-one-star-imdb-reviews.htm This from the VERTIGO review - "This movie goes on forever and never stops ever until it ends. I wish this film had stayed away from me. It’s all about an old guy in a car who is chasing a woman and that’s it."  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Mick: The 1-star comments to The Searchers alone, sounds exactly like studio-hack script notes....  Roger Ebert's explanation/analysis of his own voting (once every ten years, the only "Best of" list he ever votes for!): http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012/04/the_greatest_films_of_all_time.html | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.136.102.118 |
Personally I don't think Vertogo is hitch's best film. That award has to go to the Birds. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.184.63 |
I woulnd't worry about it, Ramsey. I've seen only 2 of the top ten! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.184.63 |
I tell a lie. It's 3. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
According to Ebert in that article, he thought Notorious was Hitch's best, and only just changed it to Vertigo this year.... And either my memory is failing me... or I'm not sure I've ever seen Notorious!  | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
Only seen three of the top ten myself. Difficult to choose a best Hitchcock. I go back to THE BIRDS most often, but I suspect that's just a case of it appealing to my sensibilities rather than it being objectively "better" than others. (I also have an odd fondness for FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT.) Shame that British films aren't better represented. No THIRD MAN? No Lindsay Anderson? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.184.63 |
Disappointed not to see Smokey and the Bandit there, myself. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
Well, I thought that went without saying. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
I don't rate Persona too highly. I thought it a tad pretentious. And Vertigo - I still HATE that ending. I did not want to laugh but I did (as did many in the audience, and it was an arthouse cinema). And I really resent it because it makes me look unfeeling to admit it. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
Recently I watched Hugo and was hugely disappointed - it had no sense of life to it at all, a film made by a robot. On the other hand I was profoundly affected by Night Flier, which was probably technically a 'dumb' film. The difference was the latter 'worked'. Sometimes skill is not the thing that makes a film 'live' in the mind. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.61.103 |
I suspect Vertigo doesn't work for me because I'd previously read the MAD magazine spoof of Hitchcock films, "MAD goes to an Alfred Hatchplot movie" (as I recall), wherein there were people hanging precariously off bridges, ledges, counters, office desks, whatever, in literally every case of the strip. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.28.37 |
I thought Hugo had a great deal of life myself. I've seen Vertigo a good number of times at the cinema, and nobody laughed. | ||
| Christopher Overend (Chris_overend) Username: Chris_overend Registered: 03-2012 Posted From: 217.33.165.66 |
Shamefully, I've never seen Vertigo, but I have seen you recommend it whole-heartedly, Ramsey, and I do have it at home, so I will remedy that forthwith. I very much enjoyed Hugo; I thought Asa Butterfield and Sacha Baron Cohen were both outstanding. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.20.215 |
I know that these numerical lists of quality are supposed to be just a bit of fun to provoke debate, but their ubiquity indicates that society itself may be becoming autistic. When will we tire of mere quantity? I eventually came to think of VERTIGO as exquisite, but that abrupt ending after such a slow burn does leave me cold. I thought the film found its perfect ending and kept driving right past it! I'm speaking of the hotel room scene in the green neon light. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 91.125.225.205 |
Actually I'm delighted Vertigo finally hit the top spot because (as well as it being my personal favourite) I genuinely believe it to be the greatest film ever made, and have thought so since the day I first saw it, completely unaware then of the scale of its reputation. It seems to me to epitomise the best in every aspect of the art of cinema; screenplay (there's a double meaning in seemingly every other sentence - certainly one of those films that is more rewarding upon any subsequent viewing!), its perfomances, the precise and scrutinizing camerawork; its cinematography (its incredible use of colour), music (Hermann's haunting score is, pound for pound, the greatest film score ever written by my book), editing (its wonderful, dream-like pace), and I've got to mention Saul Bass's beautiful opening titles sequence. Its dark, disturbing and very bleak view of human nature is still incredibly affecting, and I can only wonder at how brave and way out of its time it was. Its alleged plot holes and infuriating inconsistencies are, to me, almost irrelevent, and seem as pointless as picking plot holes in, say, Hamlet or King Lear. And while I've mentioned that, this film does seem to me to have something of the scope of Shakespearean tragedy about it. To quote Martin Scorsese, "...morality, decency, kindness, intelligence, wisdom - all the qualities that we think heroes are supposed to possess - desert Jimmy Stewart's character little by little, until he is left alone on that church tower with the bells tolling behind him and nothing to show but his humanity." On a personal level, it also moves me like no other film ever has done, save one or two. To me, it really is just the epitome of "total cinema". I've also seen this at the cinema (twice, in fact) and similarly nobody laughed. There was silence, I remember, and then applause. Anyway, I love its abrupt ending, if you want to call it that. If I had to choose one film to represent my case to someone, defending cinema's right to be granted the same credence and respect as the other great art forms, I'd choose Vertigo. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.47.138 |
I just remembered: the nightmare scene wherein James Stewart's head emerges from a whirlpool of light like a Warner Bros. cartoon? Very funny. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
Proto - yes, the ending feels such an error of judgement to me I drop it. You know, I feel compelled to apologise for my laughter. I love the film to that point. (And yes, the Warner Bros head - it is a little amusing.) My son thought the best scenes in Hugo were the Mellies scenes. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 129.11.77.197 |
Sorry, but I do believe that if you laugh at the end of Vertigo, you haven't really been watching it. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
I have! It just became - for two minutes - a Naked Gun film. I wish I could track those other laughers down as witnesses. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
There's a nun, and a comedy scream. Help me! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
Some of these are informative. The storyboards for SHADOW OF A DOUBT are stunning works of art in themselves. http://filmmakeriq.com/2010/11/hitchcocks-storyboards-from-13-classic-films/ | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Holy crap! That Jimmy Stewart head in the whirlpool is the source of the Nile for the world's internet memes!  | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
Stop laughing It's not funny. It can't be funny. It's art. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.18.139 |
Well, I haven't started laughing yet. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.57.217 |
I'm laughing right now, and every time I see that image. So many emotions left on the palette. I remember his swoon from the stepladder is kinda funny too. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.103.100.222 |
I do confess to laughing at the end of the BBC filming of Antony and Cleopatra. however. All those deaths . . . | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
We can't help what we laugh at - and it's not a sign of bad taste or psychopathy. Unless it is. And what to do? The above picture is funny because it's the kind of thing the Mighty Boosh do, or Vic Reeves. I *love* Vertigo - *but it has funny moments*, and for me they do detract from my overall pleasure at the film. We've all written or read a story with a line that clangs. Sometimes the best story has a clanger. And sometimes the clangers aren't noticed by others, or are only perceived as being clangers by some. This probably can never be sorted out. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.184.207 |
We must remember Hitchcock withdrew this film from release and wonder why. Maybe it was for these reasons? | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.181.208.239 |
He withdrew five(?) films from release - VERTIGO, ROPE, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY, REAR WINDOW and (I think) THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH - the 'fifties version. I recall reading he'd planned to re-release them in his old age to boost his pension but I don't know how true that is. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.181.208.239 |
Some interesting reading about how much money VERTIGO made and about dual ownership of right with Stewart here:- http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/part-three-of-vertigo-and-c onclusion.html |