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1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die


dalsh327

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Just now, DieselDaisy said:

During that era Germany reigned supreme, Murnau and Lang.

And rightly so but still, my point stands, British cinema deserves respect.  Lang was a fucking genius really, aside from his big pictures even his smaller ones, in certain very restricted eras, were brilliant.  There's this one he did with Spencer Tracey who gets wrongly accused of something or other and gets burned to get by a mob is like...a really really brave film to have made, especially in America and bearing in mind what the film was actually saying about contemporary society.  A true genius of cinema was ol' Fritzie.

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I think British cinema is respected. The following are widely considered to be some of the masterpieces of (global) cinema,

The 39 Steps

Long Good Friday

Get Carter

Alfie

The Italian Job

Trainspotting

British cinema is seen as relatively un-artsy-fartsy and gritty, unlike French cinema say which is seen as incredibly pretentious.

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10 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

I think British cinema is respected. The following are widely considered to be some of the masterpieces of (global) cinema,

The 39 Steps

Long Good Friday

Get Carter

Alfie

The Italian Job

Trainspotting

British cinema is seen as relatively un-artsy-fartsy and gritty, unlike French cinema say which is seen as incredibly pretentious.

It has its moments but its not ever so highly regarded.  Part of it i think is to do with how highly politicised a lot of it is, like your Ken Loach stuff etc.  We make fantastic films though, i signed up to the BFI website and theres a wealth of all sorts of forgotten or lightly regarded modern British classics there.  Lindsay Anderson, people like this make brilliant movies.  And even the more mainstream types like Shane Meadows bring out some pretty quality cinema.  

There was a stigma attached to it pre 1960s that it was all like Rex Harrison stuff, with a revolving door of like...15 or 16 actors that star in em all.  England has given the world some of the best social realism in films that I can think of.

What I really would like a return to though is the old teleplays, these were on throughout the 50s 60s and 70s and there is just an abundance of riches in them, Play for Today and all that stuff, its like television theatre, something like that would be brilliant for today, to showcase new talent in acting and directing and writing,  a lot of great directors like Ken Russell got their start in stuff like that.  It would take a lot of bottle for the BBC to commision something like that. 

And it does even have to be high brow play stuff, do it for sitcoms and such too, like The Comedy Playhouse, which was like a show that broadcast pilots, Steptoe, Til Death Us Do Part, The Liver Birds, tonsa great sitcoms got their start like that.

I suppose the expansion of media has kinda put the mockers on that cuz back in them days you were guaranteed a certain audience whereas now, even if the play or pilot was amazingly good how would you judge it based on viewing figures because most people'd just miss it I suppose.

I do love that idea of transplanting theatre onto television, I think it would do wonders for contemporary culture, dont you think?  

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Britain has never really had a great cinematic 'era' per se like Germany in the '20s or Japan and Italy in the '50s. Our masterpieces tend to be scattered chronologically. Also (modern) British cinema tends to be separated into two distinct categories, gritty crime ridden social realism, and, floppy haired toff comedies. There is little middle ground between the two extremes!

 

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On 18/01/2017 at 4:26 PM, DieselDaisy said:

Britain has never really had a great cinematic 'era' per se like Germany in the '20s or Japan and Italy in the '50s. Our masterpieces tend to be scattered chronologically. Also (modern) British cinema tends to be separated into two distinct categories, gritty crime ridden social realism, and, floppy haired toff comedies. There is little middle ground between the two extremes!

 

Id say the late 50s was a great era...the 60s in general were pretty good. 

Edited by Len Cnut
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On 18 January 2017 at 10:31 PM, John Daker said:

 

Well, damn, you've seen a good chunk of what I was going to recommend. I'll make a list of 50 or so from the remaining films. I'll have it for you later today

Yeah at a glance I hadn't seen all of them but I've seem the name or semi famous ones. Wilder is one I could watch more of. 

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