Masterpieces watched since 2010

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djross
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Masterpieces watched since 2010

Post by djross »

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dardan
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Re: Masterpieces watched since 2010

Post by dardan »

Masterpieces watched since 2010


Pretty much: Image and Image


This is an interesting thread, because it made me realize I have rated films >88 that I don't consider to be masterpieces, while at the same time I have rated films 87<x<80 that I do consider to be masterpieces. This is mostly true for series, as to attain that status it in my book has to provide some new insight or expose mechanisms and structures by which people/ society operate. So even though I consider Breaking Bad to be incredibly well-made from editing to character developments and acting, almost maximizing the potential of what it tries to and can be, it lacks that necessary element to achieve masterpiece status. Either that or there are different kinds of masterpieces.

As for an example of a film which I have rated 88<x<80 and find to be a masterpiece: Rome, Open City (1945). It was too lacking in the enjoyability department, but the excessive schmaltziness was in itself was informative and not bothersome in a way similar to how Birth of a Nation (which isn't a masterpiece) doesn't suffer from its manipulations.

djross
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Re: Masterpieces watched since 2010

Post by djross »

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dardan
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Re: Masterpieces watched since 2010

Post by dardan »

Rating films is at times almost as much fun as watching them, probably because both stem from a desire to understand. I must've spent 50-70 hours literally going through my rankings, doing all sort of stuff ranging from 'triangulation' (haha, well-said) to inventing a new field of mathematics to realize consistency in my ratings. Sometimes I simply stare at a page of 60 rankings until a film comes across as 'odd' in its relative place to my other rankings. In that regard it has probably been good for my life expectancy that multiple tiers of mine had collapsed and had to be reverted into for example 58-55-53 ratings rather than 59-58-57-56-etc..

Even though we are both unable to put into words what the concept denoted by masterpiece precisely is or even if it is singular in terms of both type and construction (i.e. is it an emergent property or can it be reduced to multiple features?), we are probably also referring to the same thing. The ending of Umbrellas of Cherbourg clearly is masterful, as is the case with most tragedies (the best form of dramatic composition), which as a subgenre has in common that certain mechanisms and interconnections are at play not directly apparent to those viewing until usually the ending, and whose individual elements later come to constitute some singular or cohesive and original vision. The ultimate form of a masterpiece is that it at least from a phenomelogical perspective, and this is preferably banking on the validity of the assumption that emergent properties exist, is irreducible to something else. That is to say, a perfect masterpiece couldn't be described other than by referring to it. It's why I often think something is 'Stroszekean' (A tale about how misunderstanding the world, its inhabitants and the self implies miscommunication and subsequently leads to a bleak state of loneliness and despair. Lost in the world, the inhabitants of Stroszeks universe seek to reach the end of a road they don't know the location of. We see them try and fail various paths and we see them try and fail paths they have taken before in a way that only sends them adrift, farther into the dark with every step they take.).

Now, that isn't so much an adequate description of what material elements compromise the concept masterpiece rather than a description of how it, again, behaves and moves in the phenomelogical arena, but it at least is a definition somehow able to incorporate films like the 400 Blows and most of the work of Bresson despite them not really having such clear-set mechanisms and at least it provides a better grip on the handles during the triangulation processes.

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Re: Masterpieces watched since 2010

Post by paulofilmo »

Five films I've rated 80+. They're not Tarky's Zerkalo, but they mean something to me.

Birds, Orphans and Fools (1969)
Morvern Callar (2002)
The Silence (1963)
Yozhik v tumane (1975)
Touch the Sound (2004)

2001 might be on there, but it's a rewatch. I've rated about 480 films since 2010, and another ~60 unrated,

djross
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Re: Masterpieces watched since 2010

Post by djross »

Singularity is everything. Thinking anthropologically, rituals for example are cultural and technical practices through which singular individuals are constituted in their singularity, but are so through, and only through, noetic and affective participation with other singular individuals, who together participate in collectives that are themselves singular, and that are so only in so far as they are composed of singular, participating individuals. This participation is not only between individuals and collectives, however, but also involves a participation going beyond that, a symbolic exchange with the gods, that is, with the world: a cosmological participation. This participation of the individual and the collective (where the collective can be anything up to and including "humanity" in general) with something beyond, something cosmological, is the root of the idea that art involves an enlargement of sense (but even the participation of the individual with the collective involves such an enlargement). Days of Heaven, for example, might be thought to embody a good example of this exchange of significance and insignificance that places human activity within a larger context that both grants to this activity its existential meaning and simultaneously withdraws it.

The singularity of the work of art is then the fact that this enlargement of sense is something incalculable, even if it involves calculation by the artist. It is incalculable because it is infinite (in these terms, only the finite is calculable), and it is as such that it appeals to that in us which is also incalculable, the infinity of our desire. It is this infinity that makes us, each of us, singular, because it is always incomplete, never ending. Incompletion means openness to transformation, or (in Simondon's terms) to individuation. The work of art is one way of participating, individually and collectively, and cosmologically, in this process of transformation. This is why Beuys said that we are all artists. A masterpiece is a work of art that, fashioned by one of us, but one who cultivates the practise of the techniques of his or her art, ex-presses in matter what has been impressed by the world on and in this artist (and this is why the artist is never wholly the author, even if reports of the author's death may be greatly exaggerated), in such a way that it impresses on us, the receivers of this art, this expressive exclamation and thereby opens itself up within us and opens us up, affectively and noetically, to something more, that is, reconfigures what we knew or what we thought we knew, what we understood or thought we understood.

No particular form or genre can be deemed most suited to this process, because what can be reconfigured includes, precisely, forms or genres in so far as they can, and inevitably must, become rigidified, dogmatised. This last is the process of reducing the singular to the calculable, and it is one of the key means by which art is reduced to entertainment (which are not, in fact, opposites, but are made so through this process). No form of art is more calculated than cinema is today, and calculated precisely in terms of dollars, projected dollars. But this is to calculate the artwork by calculating us, to reduce us from being participants to being merely calculable audiences. That is, it is the attempt to remove everything incalculable in the relationship between the producer, the consumer and the work that mediates between them, to exclude the singularity of all three elements of this relationship: or in other words, to exclude any open process of participation between art and audience, to exclude the possibility for the work of art to project us into an open, incalculable future. This is not to say that art should exclude calculation: on the contrary, calculation is essential to artistic technique, and there is no art without technique, or without technics, just as it is essential to reception of the work of art. It is indeed via the calculable that we can access the incalculable. But it is the calculating, and industrial, exclusion of the incalculable as such that is destructive of both singularity and participation. There are few masterpieces of cinema (but not none: and this is what also counts), and fewer today.

LEAVES
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Re: Masterpieces watched since 2010

Post by LEAVES »

I would heartily disagree with your conflation of commerce with anything of significance, as Hollywood filmmaking has always been about money and Communist films were never about money (I see plenty of classic Hollywood in your list, but barely any Polish and Czechoslovak films where viewership was a hilarious irrelevance and the art was the primary and only conern), whereas today we definitely have the greatest number of films made per year which either have little expectation of turning a profit, which is the ideal you seem to be looking for. In this way, we are truly in the golden age of anti-commerce, and we can expect to find the most masterpieces. You won't find them at your cineplex, of course, so if you go looking there then you've ensured the demise of the masterpiece which you have prophesized, by your own definition. Even backed by commerce I managed to see such touching/crazed/unflinching masterpieces as Goodbye, First Love, Enter the Void, Le quattro volte, The Tree of Life, and Force Majeure in theaters - and I hardly ever have a chance to plumb the depths for the hard-to-find stuff these days.

As for the topic of the thread - I can't answer, because I have terrible memory and no tracking system, but I can tell you something from your own rankings list - you've got plenty of masterpieces yet to be reaped both from the past and certainly from the broad fields of present day obscurity. Fear not, all you need to do is change your techniques at the marketplace!

djross
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Re: Masterpieces watched since 2010

Post by djross »

Thank you for this advice, although it seems to contain a few assumptions about the way I find movies to watch and where I see them. Similarly, a few assumptions seem to me to have been drawn without clear justification from what I wrote: I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that my "ideal" consists of movies "which either [sic] have little expectation of turning a profit", but the fault lies, no doubt, with some lack of clarity on the part of the original author. I'm not certain to what your initial disagreement (with my alleged "conflation of commerce with anything of significance") refers, or how it was surmised that this phrase, whatever it means, is an accurate representation of the position I was taking. Whether we are "truly in the golden age of anti-commerce" is something I doubt, although there may be some kind of irony operating here that I am having difficulty fathoming, which may also be at work in your assertion, which I find similarly dubious, that it is an age in which we can therefore "expect to find the most masterpieces". I'm far from convinced that my failure to discover all these hidden recent masterpieces stems from the inadequacy of my viewing practices, although it is of course always possible to make more of an effort. Your description of my list of films seen as containing "plenty of classic Hollywood [...] but barely any Polish or Czechoslovak films" seems a little reductive, even if there's undoubtedly some fine movies in the latter category I am yet to see. Thank you also for mentioning some recent movies you consider masterpieces, although in my view neither of the two I've seen already (The Tree of Life and Enter the Void) fell into this category (but I do think earlier works by both of these filmmakers were indeed masterpieces). But when one considers that the TCI between us is 2.88, or in other words that there are almost three tiers of difference (on average) between us in our assessment of any particular movie, this discrepancy of opinion is perhaps unsurprising.

LEAVES
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Re: Masterpieces watched since 2010

Post by LEAVES »

djross wrote:Similarly, a few assumptions seem to me to have been drawn without clear justification from what I wrote: I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that my "ideal" consists of movies "which either [sic] have little expectation of turning a profit", but the fault lies, no doubt, with some lack of clarity on the part of the original author. I'm not certain to what your initial disagreement (with my alleged "conflation of commerce with anything of significance") refers, or how it was surmised that this phrase, whatever it means, is an accurate representation of the position I was taking. Whether we are "truly in the golden age of anti-commerce" is something I doubt, although there may be some kind of irony operating here that I am having difficulty fathoming, which may also be at work in your assertion, which I find similarly dubious, that it is an age in which we can therefore "expect to find the most masterpieces".
My post essentially revolved entirely around this quote:

"No form of art is more calculated than cinema is today, and calculated precisely in terms of dollars, projected dollars. But this is to calculate the artwork by calculating us, to reduce us from being participants to being merely calculable audiences. That is, it is the attempt to remove everything incalculable in the relationship between the producer, the consumer and the work that mediates between them, to exclude the singularity of all three elements of this relationship: or in other words, to exclude any open process of participation between art and audience, to exclude the possibility for the work of art to project us into an open, incalculable future."

My post was essentially meant to say: I disagree that this "most calculated cinema" which exists represents the whole, and I am quite certain that the state of cinema distribution today is such that an innumerable amount of great films are essentially impossible to watch. I know this because there was a period where I would read through the various major publications that would review films from film festivals and I would catalogue the films I wanted to watch for future viewership. Of the films that I was most interested in (some of the more avant-garde films, to be sure - but where better to find some truly stand-out masterpieces?) a frightful proportion were not distributed theatrically. Or on home video. Or digitally. 5 years on, I would say there are at least 30 films (out of maybe 70?) from a 3 year period that are still impossible to find. A few popped up 3-4 years on via Fandor or some other not-majorly-profitable venue for the filmmakers. In essence, the films were made, they were appreciated in a very limited number of festivals open to avant-garde cinema (often narrative), and they disappear. In this climate, it is easy to despair - it is literally impossible to see these films after one hears of them. And who can be at every film festival to catch every possible film before one even hears of it? I shudder at the possibility, or lackthereof, which is the reality. I shudder at reality. I have no doubt that we are in the golden age of anti-commerce, and I also know that commerce robs us of the possibility of enjoying it. I love Catch-22, though, so not all is lost.
djross wrote:Thank you also for mentioning some recent movies you consider masterpieces, although in my view neither of the two I've seen already (The Tree of Life and Enter the Void) fell into this category (but I do think earlier works by both of these filmmakers were indeed masterpieces). But when one considers that the TCI between us is 2.88, or in other words that there are almost three tiers of difference (on average) between us in our assessment of any particular movie, this discrepancy of opinion is perhaps unsurprising.
The point was not to say that we would agree on films, but to say that these decidedly non-superhero films were released in theaters under the watchful blind eye of this "calculated commerce" and offered at least the opportunity for you to agree. There are cracks in the system (this is to say: in the most calculated age, there is the possibility for your phrase not being the universal rule)... but most of the films fall deep through and are irretrievable, unfortunately.
djross wrote:I'm far from convinced that my failure to discover all these hidden recent masterpieces stems from the inadequacy of my viewing practices, although it is of course always possible to make more of an effort. Your description of my list of films seen as containing "plenty of classic Hollywood [...] but barely any Polish or Czechoslovak films" seems a little reductive, even if there's undoubtedly some fine movies in the latter category I am yet to see.
Well, I didn't try to do much convincing. I am of the opinion that the Polish filmmaking institution under Communism, the Polish name for which escapes me, is the most ideal institution ever created for filmmaking. Essentially, each director was provided with a company of artists (cinematographers, costume artists, etc.) which would work together on projects of the director's choosing. A script would be chosen or written, a budget assembled, funds provided, and the films would be produced. The scripts were not reviewed (or even seen, to my knowledge) by the people granting the funds, and so essentially what you had were semi-autonomous collections of like-minded individuals had a continuous creative relationship based entirely around the works of art that they collaborated on, without regard to cost or content. Several gargantuan productions were undertaken, and only after the films were released were they banned for content. The cracks were deep then just as now . The films survived, though, and many were distributed elsewhere (and are amazing, of course). The directors who stayed or fled or fled-and-returned all had amazing opportunities which never returned in Poland after the wall fell. Some found it elsewhere (Polanski, Forman, Kieslowski, Skolimowski, Zulawski), but many of those Polish films could never have been made anywhere else. Amazing.

In Czechoslovakia the scene was slightly different: To my knowledge there wasn't a continuity in groups of like-minded filmmaking groups, but there was an even greater lenience in the types of films that were made and released. State funding allowed talented filmmakers to be provided with funds irregardless of the subject matter, and as such avant garde productions and abstract comedies and menacingly dark tragicomedies and 2-year-long shoots for dense historical satires were produced simply because the filmmakers had talent, not because of any of this calculated commerce you bemoan. If you're looking for the antithesis of the calculated commerce, these two eras are the pinnacle, and the films don't disappoint. Especially the Slovak ones.

djross
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Re: Masterpieces watched since 2010

Post by djross »

OK thanks for clarifying.

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