They were all pretty good!

Sansho the Bailiff - Painful admission: my first Mizoguchi! But I quite liked it! Gorgeous emotional/visual textures - there’s a lot of moments of juxtaposing harsh and soft visual elements in the same frame which I love, and the intricate plotting is developed at its own pace (which is to say, way too slow for most of today’s audiences). My friend Tim said, upon leaving, “That’s one of the greatest films ever.” I don’t know if I’ll go that far for my own taste, but it’s certainly an overwhelming experience.

The Lady from Shanghai - One of the great films maudit - hacked to pieces by Columbia execs, it nonetheless betrays Welles’ uncompromising brilliance. Oddball characterization and insanely illogical plotting add to the overall sense of insanity - the most noir of noirs? - the final sequence in the carnival funhouse is maybe one of the best five sequences I’ve ever seen. Really, top notch.

The Phantom Carriage - Bergman calls this a formative experience. I don’t. It’s certainly got aesthetics on its side, and some lovely silent-era special effects, but I think the narrative, taken from a Selma Lagerlof novel, borrows a bit too heavily from a certain work by Dickens to be particularly engaging for me. At times moving, and with an amazing live-piano performance by Donald Sosin - but I don’t know if I’ll ever need to see this again.

Mudhoney - Dark, depressing, furious stuff makes this film. Russ Meyer’s embittered Southern melodrama mixes trashy sex flick with hillbilly hijinks and an exceedingly dark story about a man’s insanity and the way a religion feeds off a small town’s economic and social anxieties. It’s hard to imagine someone being turned on by this, the way Meyer’s early nudie flicks like The Immoral Mr. Teas might - all the sexual scenes end in brutal violence. I never understand why Meyer’s stuff is strictly ‘cult’ affair… there’s a lot here that most audiences will respond to easily.

The Great Silence - At times a little too deliberate for my taste, but this brutal snow-set spaghetti western features an amazing Kinski performance, a beautiful Morricone score, and an evocative sense of location.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! - Seen it before, but watching again confirmed my thoughts on Meyer - completely masterful, entirely engaging. One of the few classic ‘cult’ films that lives up to the hype. Fun, energetic. Love this! Oh, and isn’t it bizarre how much Susan Bernard looks like Lohan before the meltdown?

Werckmeister Harmonies - A masterpiece, through and through. That the first masterful shot (one of 39) lasts about nine minutes and would probably, independent of the film, be one of the greatest shorts I’ve ever seen, is a testament to the power of the long take. But the narrative! Completely overwhelming, magical stuff. As a filmmaker invested in questions of the subjectively mystical, Tarr is in a category with Brakhage, Tarkovsky, Paradjanov! Thorough.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Her - Moments of stunning beauty - some of the most heartfelt and stirring points in his career - buried underneath a huge mess of Godard in full-on didactic post-’66 mode. If nothing else, that coffee cup sequence is the best thing I’ve seen in any Godard film ever.

Old Joy - One of the best films of the year. Feels homemade and intimate in the best way. More on this some other time.

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