1950s, 1960s cinema, what's worth checking out?

[lilmanjs]

Lately I've been going through the local public libary's collection of Japanese movies and most of them are from the 50s, and 60s and I've been quite enjoying them. So I ask this, what is stuff from those 2 decades that are must watches from around the world. I have to say that the Japanese movie An Autumn Afternoon is a must see.

[MX7]

This is kind of a broad question; LOTS of national cinemas hit their stride in this period. Japanese cinema definitely went through a glorious time, and I would definitely check out Tokyo Story, Tokyo Drifter, Rashomon, Ai no Corrida/In The Realm Of The Senses, Godzilla and Blind Beast as a quick and dirty introduction as to what these decades had to offer.

Elsewhere we have Fellini in Italy, Goddard and Truffaut in France, Hitchcock in America...

[evil_ash_xero]

Japanese films from that time frame make so much more sense that what's come out of there the last few decades. What happened?!

[Skykid]

Japanese films from that time frame make so much more sense that what's come out of there the last few decades. What happened?!

They got really (really) bad at making movies.

[iconoclast]

Woman in the Dunes (1964). One of my favorite movies of all time.

[Mikey]

I liked Woman of the Dunes, even though it drove me nuts.

[Acid King]

The the fifties was the tail end of the film noir era in the states and there are a bunch of good ones. Some of my favorites are Kansas City Confidential, 99 River Street, Crime Wave, Gun Crazy, Pickup on South Street, and the Big Heat. Others worth mentioning are the Asphalt Jungle, the Big Combo, the Killing, Where the Sidewalk Ends, the Killer on the Loose, and Sunset Boulevard among plenty others.

From the sixties I'd say Blast of Silence, Point Blank, the Killers, Le Samourai, and the Trial are mya favorites.

[CMoon]

The 70's are also very good movie-wise (at least in the US.) What you're asking for though is a gigantic list of movies. Almost all of my favorite movies are from this period, so it is really hard to give recommendations without more input.

Are you just looking for Japanese movies? Are you looking for a particular genre? Are there particular directors that you have a hard-on for?

[jugemscloud]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047849/ - bad day at black rock

[lilmanjs]

Uhh, well I've been watching a lot of Crime/Yakuza movies since that's mostly what the Japanese collection is, save for like 2 movies from the 80s, Tampopo and A Taxing Woman and a couple of kid centered drama movies from the last decade. But I know its kinda broad, but was wanting to get a sense of what people around here like from around the world in those decades. I know there's tons of stuff, but right now I guess Crime and drama are what I'm currently going nuts for. Though I wouldn't mind Comedy. And for Japanese movies getting worse as decades go on, that for sure happened all around the world.

[Skykid]

And for Japanese movies getting worse as decades go on, that for sure happened all around the world.

This true.

But Japanese movies to an exceptional level of badness that eclipses the competition. Borderline unwatchable.

[chum]

Czech New Wave: The Cassandra Cat, Daisies, Birds Orphans & Fools, Happy End, The Cremator

Japanese New Wave: Nanami the Inferno of Love, Silence has no Wings, Woman of the Lake, Woman in the Dunes

Kenji Mizoguchi: Sansho the Bailiff, The Crucified Lovers, Ugetsu

Bergman: Persona, Sawdust and Tinsel, Shame

Various others: Play Time, Andrei Rublev, Harakiri, Early Spring, The Ballad of Narayama, Pather Panchali, Week-End, Mouchette, The Exterminating Angel, Red Beard, The Burmese Harp, Zazie in the Subway

That's not mentioning the avant-garde because I wouldn't subject you guys to that

These are all great and worth checking out

[lilmanjs]

Woman in The Dunes is mentioned a couple times. What is so great about this? I've read the back of the dvd release here at the library, but just strikes me as being an odd movie and I've not checked it out to watch. Right now I have Rusty Knife(1958 Japanese movie) and Cruel Gun Story (1964 Yakuza movie) checked out, though I fell asleep within 10 minutes of Cruel Gun Story, but that was to being pretty darn tired.

[gct]

And for Japanese movies getting worse as decades go on, that for sure happened all around the world.

This true.

But Japanese movies to an exceptional level of badness that eclipses the competition. Borderline unwatchable.

IMO movies from mainland China and some other pockets of Asia (unfortunately not including Hong Kong) have been superb in the last decade, I'm sure we already have a different Skykid thread for that so I will not further dilute the original topic here.

[CMoon]

I guess Crime and drama are what I'm currently going nuts for.

Seems no one is hitting the American films, so I'll name drop a few; however I need to first mention that great movies in the US pretty much span the 40 through the early 80's. There's no way I can get into all that and will dodge both the 40's (not qualified) and the 80's (too familiar):

Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950); made many other 10/10 films.

Laughton's Night Of The Hunter (1955)

Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958, restored edition)

John Ford's Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962)

Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969)

Friedkin's French Connection (1971)

A non-US film no one talks about: Bresson's A Man Escaped (1956) is pretty amazing.
Also, since this started with Japanese cinema, no one ever talks about Kurosawa's Stray Dog (1949), which I think is a great minor film.

Curious what MX7 has to say about Hitchcock...only seen a few (NxNW, Birds, Psycho); really need to see more.

PS Woman in the Dunes is great...though the book is even better.

[Skykid]

And for Japanese movies getting worse as decades go on, that for sure happened all around the world.

This true.

But Japanese movies to an exceptional level of badness that eclipses the competition. Borderline unwatchable.

IMO movies from mainland China and some other pockets of Asia (unfortunately not including Hong Kong) have been superb in the last decade, I'm sure we already have a different Skykid thread for that so I will not further dilute the original topic here.

We do:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=40949


And yes, with the exception of precious few directors Hong Kong movies are pretty much trash these days. Whenever I go to the movie theatre to see one I always know what I'm going to get, which actors I'm going to get, and which brand of predictable honour code soap operatics to expect. It's too commercial an industry to be interesting anymore.

[Daigohji]

In Japanese cinema of that period, Kurosawa is a no-brainer, so I don't think I need to champion him. My personal favourite of his is Throne of Blood.

Also, don't stop at Godzilla when it comes to Ishiro Honda. He directed many of the best Godzilla movies in that period (the original, Mothra vs Godzilla, Ghidorah, Monster Zero, Destroy All Monsters), but he and his team were cranking out two or three SF movies per year in the 50s and 60s , and they range from entertaining diversions to outright classics. In particular, check out Matango, Atragon, and Rodan. If that leaves you wanting more, there's also The H-Man, Mothra, Dogora, The Mysterians...the list goes on.

Other great Japanese movies: Kwaidan, Harakiri, House (70s, but deserves a mention), the Yokai trilogy and Daimajin.

[drauch]

I guess Crime and drama are what I'm currently going nuts for.

Seems no one is hitting the American films, so I'll name drop a few; however I need to first mention that great movies in the US pretty much span the 40 through the early 80's. There's no way I can get into all that and will dodge both the 40's (not qualified) and the 80's (too familiar):

Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950); made many other 10/10 films.

Laughton's Night Of The Hunter (1955)

Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958, restored edition)

John Ford's Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962)

Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969)

Friedkin's French Connection (1971)

A non-US film no one talks about: Bresson's A Man Escaped (1956) is pretty amazing.
Also, since this started with Japanese cinema, no one ever talks about Kurosawa's Stray Dog (1949), which I think is a great minor film.

Curious what MX7 has to say about Hitchcock...only seen a few (NxNW, Birds, Psycho); really need to see more.

PS Woman in the Dunes is great...though the book is even better.

I agree with all of these. All great stuff. Just don't suck the Criterion tit. There is soooo much more out there. Fantastic label and great restorations, but it ain't the world.

Friedkin's masterpiece in my opinion is Sorcerer, but if you're sticking with the 50s and 60s, go ahead and check out Clouzout's version, The Wages of Fear. Both are quite different, but Friedkin's is much more grittier and bleak.

Stray Dog is great stuff as well, especially if you like Noir. It's a shame his samurai stuff outshadows almost everything else. The Hidden Fortress is probably my favorite film due to my infatuation with adventure flicks, but Ikiru would be one of my nominations if you're talking about Kurosawa.

If I had more time I'd write up a bunch of garbage nobody wants to read. Here's some more films(!):

The Bridge on the River Kwai, North by Northwest (basically all Hitchcock during the 50s--The Trouble with Harry is my favorite), Roman Holiday, Rio Bravo, The Seventh Seal, Paths of Glory, The African Queen, The Searchers, The 400 Blows, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (the best of the Harryhausen Sinbad films), A Face in the Crowd (evil Andy Griffith!), Curse of the Demon, Army of Shadows, Quatermass and the Pit (my favorite Hammer!), Charade (also People with Talk with Cary Grant, although Holiday is better and similar thematically, but was '38), blah blah blah. Also really second Bad Day at Blackrock, what Daigohji said with JP stuff. Amazing stuff!

[CMoon]

Nice list Drauch. Funny, sorcerer was on my list to see next. Nice summation of Kurosawa too...you can search far and wide, but ultimately it comes down to a small handful of samurai films. For me, it is everyone's favorite: Seven Samurai. Kinda assume everyone has already seen it though. Yojimba scores second for me, and I think it is the film where everything comes together perfectly (direction, acting, cinematography, soundtrack, etc.), but Seven Samurai is the better story IMO.

[neorichieb1971]

The only Western movie I like in the era is Northwest Frontier (aka Flame of India). Its about the last train leaving a palace that tries to save a little boy prince. The journey is full of danger. Made in 59.

[BIL]

HARAKIRI. Blood simple slow burning tragic exploder. Demolishes the badass samurai myth to become the ultimate badass samurai flick. The Sword of Doom and Samurai Rebellion are similarly iconoclastic and also thoroughly excellent.

[CMoon]

HARAKIRI.

Amazing director (Kobayashi); Kwaidan is also required viewing. Haven't made it through The Human Condition (something like 9 hours long...), but apparently this is also worthwhile.

Speaking of suckling at Criterion's tit...

[Skykid]

Curious what MX7 has to say about Hitchcock...only seen a few (NxNW, Birds, Psycho); really need to see more

Hitchcock was marvellous. Do yourself a favour and sit down with Rope, Rear Window and Vertigo.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Don't agree with Skykid at el's opinion that Japanese cinema has turned out garbarge only in the last couple of decades (see Kitano, Miike, Tsukamoto, Oshii) but Hitchcock is indeed awesome.

Was going to ask something else: has any of those of you who have seen the original Harakiri seen Miike's remake? Haven't seen the original (yet, kinda), but despite some flaws (too much melodrama, too slow at times) I really enjoyed Miike's version, and I'm wondering how it compares.

[MX7]

Curious what MX7 has to say about Hitchcock...only seen a few (NxNW, Birds, Psycho); really need to see more

Hitchcock was marvellous. Do yourself a favour and sit down with Rope, Rear Window and Vertigo.

Yes this. Talking about Hitchcock too much before watching his films is not a great idea, they're just wonderful to discover, dissect, then discuss. Personally I'd suggest the holy triumvirate of The Birds, Psycho and the glorious, glorious Vertigo, but you really can't go far wrong. Even more maligned films like Marnie are fascinating in their own way.

Regarding the state of Japanese cinema today, I have some time for Miike. Mainly because he directed Visitor Q. I thought 12 Assassins was almost excellent. Shinya Tsukamoto is far more consistent, and with far more (readily apparent) auteurstic qualities, but even his output has become less interesting. I really haven't seen much to inspire in modern Japanese cinema. Every quirky comedy i saw killed me a little until I gave up entirely.

I would argue that there's still a lot to discover from recent decades, especially if you're willing to delve in to underground films, with many 'lost' films suddenly available to non-Japanese speakers through torrent sites.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Curious what MX7 has to say about Hitchcock...only seen a few (NxNW, Birds, Psycho); really need to see more

Hitchcock was marvellous. Do yourself a favour and sit down with Rope, Rear Window and Vertigo.

Yes this. Talking about Hitchcock too much before watching his films is not a great idea, they're just wonderful to discover, dissect, then discuss. Personally I'd suggest the holy triumvirate of The Birds, Psycho and the glorious, glorious Vertigo, but you really can't go far wrong. Even more maligned films like Marnie are fascinating in their own way.

Regarding the state of Japanese cinema today, I have some time for Miike. Mainly because he directed Visitor Q. I thought 12 Assassins was almost excellent. Shinya Tsukamoto is far more consistent, and with far more (readily apparent) auteurstic qualities, but even his output has become less interesting. I really haven't seen much to inspire in modern Japanese cinema. Every quirky comedy i saw killed me a little until I gave up entirely.

I would argue that there's still a lot to discover from recent decades, especially if you're willing to delve in to underground films, with many 'lost' films suddenly available to non-Japanese speakers through torrent sites.

How underground do you want to get? I can recommend Shozin Fukui's Rubber's Lover and Pinocchio 964. Fukui was part of Tsukamoto's Tetsuo crew, and it shows (although he's interested enough in his own right). Rubber's Lover especially is fucking awesome but surely not to anyone's taste...

Miike is pretty much hit or miss, but for every shitty film he's also made an awesome one (Ichi, Audition, many of his Yakuza films, especially Graveyard of Honour if you like serious films and especially Gozu).

[drauch]

Eh, the whole 90s Japanese cyberpunk comes off as a bit too pretentious and amateurish for my taste. There's so much 90s SOV stuff. The only thing I could really recommend from that time period would be Entrails of a Beautiful Virgin. Total softcore nonsense like a lot of the earlier Roman Porno stuff, but the ending is just so bizarre it makes it worth the while.

Miike is indeed very hit or miss. I've basically given up on him. You can only crap out so many films a year before it's just routine. I can recommend Visitor Q, Happiness of the Katakuris, The Bird People in China, and Audition, and that's really about it. Really annoying how he's basically just taking the Tarantino route now and just remaking Kinji Fukasaku films, amongst others. Kitano was great in the 80s and early 90s, but I've basically ignored him after the abortion that is Brother. I dunno, Japan seems to really lose it some time in the 80s for live-action stuff in my opinion.

[drauch]

HARAKIRI. Blood simple slow burning tragic exploder. Demolishes the badass samurai myth to become the ultimate badass samurai flick. The Sword of Doom and Samurai Rebellion are similarly iconoclastic and also thoroughly excellent.

Been meaning to watch that forever. Sword of Doom is indeed frickin' sweet. Tatsuya Nakadai always plays such a bastard. Criterion has a bunch of good samurai stuff streaming on their Hulu account, most of which isn't on DVD. All Zatoichi films as well, amongst the Hanzo the Razor films (70s), Three Outlaw Samurai, 47 Ronin, and more. AniMeigo has also released tons of great stuff through their Samurai Cinema line. Just got the Shinobi no Mono series and part of the Sleepy Eyes of Death films today in the mail. Unfortunately a lot of it is out of print, but there's still plenty out there, a lot of which fall in the 60s.

[Jonathan Ingram]

I can recommend Visitor Q...

Did the OP ask for sick fetish porn recommendations?

[drauch]

I can recommend Visitor Q...

Did the OP ask for sick fetish porn recommendations?

Did the OP ask for unrelated, superfluous posts?