Sight & Sound #11 Sunrise (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #59)

Following my coverage of Jeanne Dielman, Beau Travail, and Close-Up, Sunrise is the first film in my Sight & Sound podcast miniseries that I saw before this particular project; however, in all these years of online work I've never discussed it in depth. The F.W. Murnau-directed silent film is famous as, among other things, arguably the first real Best Picture winner at the Oscars (it won a one-time-only "Unique and Artistic Picture" award alongside Wings' canonized victory for "Outstanding Picture"). It's been a mainstay on the Sight & Sound list for decades although 2022 saw it slip slightly from its 2012 peak at #5. The story of a husband (George O'Brien) considering the murder of his wife (Janet Gaynor) because he's under the sway of a diabolical "Woman from the City" (Margaret Livingston), Sunrise makes several unexpected and enthralling swerves in narrative, tone, and character. How in the world does a brooding melodrama set in a rural village find time for a drunken pig on the floor of an urban Jazz Age nightclub dance floor?! I love the film - and Murnau's work generally - for its willingness to wander, but of course Sunrise's appeal goes far beyond the narrative: this is just an absolutely gorgeous film to look at. Re-visiting this movie takes me back to the early days of this site, when I covered silent cinema with much more frequency than in recent years. While the film hails from an era that's now a century past, it's fascinating to consider how close it is to the present - as I point out on the podcast, the three central actors lived into the mid-eighties, all dying within a year of one another and (just barely) within my own lifetime.

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Sight & Sound #9 Close-Up (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #58)

For the third week in a row (and the last time, although two more entries remain) I'm covering a film I'd never seen before as part of my Sight & Sound podcast miniseries. Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up (1990) mixes fly-on-the-wall documentary, manipulative "reality" filmmaking, and re-creation in its depiction of the humble Hossain Sabzian, a cinephile who ingratiates himself with the affluent, cultured Ahankhah family by posing as famed film director Mahmoud Makhmalbaf. Arrested and put on trial for this con, he offers unusual defenses - some perhaps suggested by Kiarostami (who shows up to film the court proceedings and becomes part of the process himself). And amazingly, both the defendant and the family pushing for his prosecution agree to play themselves for Kiarostami's camera, re-imagining their own fateful encounters. Like the two films I discussed previously - Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (with guest Ashley Brandt) and Beau Travail - this is a highly unusual art film pushing the boundaries of cinematic storytelling. No wonder Close-Up placed slightly higher on the directors' list than the critics'; in narrative, theme, and self-conscious approach, this is a filmmaker's film.

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Sight & Sound #7 Beau Travail (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #57)

A week after this Sight & Sound podcast miniseries covered the #1 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles with guest Ashley Brandt, I'm back for a solo discussion of another film I just watched for the first time: Claire Denis' 1999 Beau Travail. Placing high on both the critics' and directors' lists - and shooting way up the ranking since 2012 - the film is a fascinating, deeply unusual exploration of desire, discipline, and repression. Chronicling the idiosyncratic French Legion in former colony Djibouti with dreamlike choreography and elliptical plot machinations inspired by Herman Melville, Denis depicts a tense but indirect conflict between soldiers Galoup (Denis Lavant) and Sentain (Gregoire Colin). Gorgeous visuals and stirring music (ranging from modern opera to nineties Europop) make this film at least as much a sensory experience as a cerebral one, yet I found a lot to talk about with its themes and characterizations. In fact, the vivid viewing experience inspired me to go back and explore Billy Budd, teasing out what Denis changed from the century-old novella she used as inspiration as well as the significance of those changes: shifts in perspective, emphasis on certain characters rather than others, and how the historical context affects what we take away from the central struggles.

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Sight & Sound #1 Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles w/ guest Ashley Brandt (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #56)

My Sight & Sound podcast miniseries, covering the top five films I'd never covered before from the 2022 critics' and directors' lists of "greatest films of all time", starts at the very top. (Last week I offered a rundown of lower entries with links to my previous work.) The #1 movie I'd never written, podcasted, created a video essay, or even composed a visual tribute about was also the #1 movie on the entire list: Chantal Akerman's 1975 Belgian three-hour minimalist quasi-melodrama Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, the story of a middle-aged widow (Delphine Seyrig) going about mundane tasks - and some unexpected, even shocking, activities - in her Brussels apartment, told in a series of long takes and static shots, released when the filmmaker was just twenty-five. The critics' choice (it placed fourth on the directors' list) caused quite a stir when it was chosen nearly a year ago, displacing 2012's choice Vertigo - which itself knocked Citizen Kane off its perch for the first time in forty years - and placing a female filmmaker atop a list where only men had cracked the top thirty.

Joining me for this discussion is Ashley Brandt (host of the podcast Twin Peaks Peeks, among other outposts), whose enthusiasm for Jeanne Dielman encouraged me to move forward with my planned Sight & Sound series despite a crowded schedule. In this case, it turns out, she was not just a conversation companion but a guide into this legendary work of art. Much to my surprise, when I finally popped the DVD of Jeanne Dielman into my player this summer, I discovered that the memories of my presumed first viewing from a decade ago were foggy for a very good reason: presumptions aside, I'd never actually seen the film before! And so I was able to watch this classic with completely fresh eyes. Here is my initial response to Jeanne Dielman, recorded eight months after the international poll canonized its high placement and fifteen years after I proclaimed this a "holy grail" film I hoped to seek out.

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The Sight & Sound Top 100 Films: which have I discussed? Announcing a new miniseries... (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #55)

Late last year, Sight & Sound Magazine released the results of its eighth decennial critics' and directors' poll to determine "the greatest film of all times." I think it's fair to say that, due to the massive expansion of the voter pool and the consequent shake-up in results, this was the most provocative, exciting, and controversial list in the poll's history. Citizen Kane, which landed at #1 five times in a row until it was unseated by Vertigo in 2012, has now been dropped to #3. Vertigo has been pushed back as well, with a film previously ranked #36 rocketing all the way to the top spot. Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles - its mouthful of a name announcing its challenge to film conventions at the outset - presents a radical detour in many ways: lengthy runtime, pared-down approach, and a female filmmaker as a stark departure from seventy years in which only men cracked the top ten (or, once longer lists began to go public in 2012, even the top thirty). Debate raged; did this - and other notable elevations of the work of female, queer, and/or people of color - represent a courageous revolution or superficial tokenism? And what of the unabashed inclusion of more recent works, following decades of midcentury emphasis with barely any forays into the eras millennials or zoomers grew up in?

Amidst all the discourse, I realized I didn't have much to say - either in the past or the present - on the top film or other major movement within these rankings (aside from breakthroughs for personal favorites like Meshes of the Afternoon). Several of the highest-ranked films had never been discussed by me on my site; some I'd never even seen. And my memories of the cinematic centerpiece were surprisingly fuzzy, although I was certain I must have seen Jeanne Dielman at some point following its Criterion release, probably between 2010 and 2012 (after all, I'd proclaimed my interest back in the blog's early days when the now-greatest-film-of-all-time was still quite hard to see). I'll save the details of that (re-?)discovery for next week's episode on Jeanne Dielman, because I ultimately decided to record podcasts on the top five films (on the combined critics' and directors' lists) about which I hadn't previously written, recorded, focused on in a video essay, or otherwise covered. Here is this week's episode announcing the miniseries:

Back in June, when I released what seemed like an epic guest conversation on Southland Tales (wait until you see the length of the Jeanne Dielman one), I thought I was concluding this Lost in the Movies podcast feed...but here we are again. I do plan to wrap up my public film/TV work in late October but I couldn't resist this opportunity, especially once a prior Twin Peaks Conversations guest (Ashley Brandt, of Twin Peaks Peeks) expressed her interest in talking about Jeanne Dielman. Even just setting up this introductory episode, I initially found myself going on way too long - the initial recording was thirty-eight minutes! - so I tried to keep it simple and pare it down. This kickoff alludes to past work on many other Sight & Sound picks; if you want to actually visit these links, scroll down and gorge to your heart's content. Aside from that, see you in a week, and then every week after that until we reach the fifth film (all five revealed in this episode as well as the line-up below)...

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