Sergio leone's gone with the wind

Bertolucci perhaps.

Tornatore is a bit too sentimental.

Anyway, does the director have to be Italian to do justice to Leningrad (why did I remember it as Stalingrad???) ?

Oh god no, not Bertolucci.
He already failed to do something in this direction with the anaemic 1900. Too intellectual (in a bad way), too cold, too much applied arts (if this is the correct translation for “Kunstgewerbe”). When did he made his last really good film? About 1981?

Ahh, wait, The Dreamers was not bad.

Tornatore.

I had to check what else he did apart from Cinema Paradiso, which was a good film, but too sentimental for my likes. It seems I haven’t seen very much from him, and apparently I can’t remember how I really felt about them. I think I didn’t liked Malena, but I’m not sure now that I think about it.

Actually I think there isn’t another director who could do a film like Leone did them.

[quote=“Stanton, post:22, topic:2034”]Oh god no, not Bertolucci.

I had to check what else he did apart from Cinema Paradiso, which was a good film, but too sentimental for my likes.[/quote]

The Last Emporer was a decent film I think.

I remember The Last Emperor when it came out. Made quite a deep impression.

Stanton… just brainstorming. I don’t think any Italian directors right now can take up Leone’s torch. Tornatore is almost anti-Leone in style; I like his movies but I just find them too sentimental to be effective. Bertolucci has hit and misses and goes overboard with intellectualism, but otherwise a great stylist too.

What about directors from other countries?

Yimou Zhang :slight_smile:

Wong Kar Wai? Or Takeshi Miike :D. But if you go back to Italy…

[size=7]Demofilo Fidani!!![/size]

Miike, WKW, Zhang Yimou? I’m having a seizure! PLS call the ambulance… arghhhh!

We forgot Tsui Hark, Ang Lee and John Woo :smiley:

[quote=“Stanton, post:22, topic:2034”]Oh god no, not Bertolucci.
He already failed to do something in this direction with the anaemic 1900. Too intellectual (in a bad way), too cold, too much applied arts (if this is the correct translation for “Kunstgewerbe”). When did he made his last really good film? About 1981?

Ahh, wait, The Dreamers was not bad.[/quote]

I don’t think 1900 and The Last Emperor were that bad; there were a lot of good things in both films, the problem seems to me that they collapse under their own weight, their own pretentions. Bertolucci wants to be dramatic, epic, romantic, realistic, naturalistic, idealistic, classic and modern, and all this at the same time. It’s okay to have some pretentions or aspirations, be if you want to be Tolstoj, Leone and Marx is one single work of art, you inevitably fall short.

I didn’t know the German term Kunstgewerbe, but the translation seems to be applied art. But Applied Art refers to the aesthetics of smaller objects (objets d’art), especially objects used in daily life. I don’t think that’s what you’re trying to express.
I guess Kunstgewerbe has a secondary, slightly different meaning in German. Arty farty?

The Brothers Taviani probably could have taken over the project when Sergio passed away, they did some very fine and ambitious things in the past (Kaos, La Notte di San Lorenzo)

Kunstgewerbe is Applied Art.
On Leo I found the following arty farty = artificial = gekünstelt :slight_smile:

[quote=“Paco Roman, post:30, topic:2034”]Kunstgewerbe is Applied Art.
On Leo I found the following arty farty = artificial = gekünstelt :)[/quote]

I know, but I can’t see what Stanton means by ‘applied art/Kunstgewerbe’ in relation to Bertolucci’s movies.

If somebody says 1900, or a film like 2001, to take another year, is arty farty I have an idea what’s bothering him, but ‘applied art’ ? I don’t get it.

But let’s see what Stanton himself has to say about it

Yes, a decent film especially in the long TV version, but not a great film.[quote=“Mrs Angel Eyes, post:24, topic:2034”]What about directors from other countries?[/quote]

There are many great directors nowadays, some as good as Leone was imo, but they work in a different style. Their own style.
One reason that I don’t think there is a director who could direct Leningrad like Leone would have done, is that style and technics are changing over the years. The way action scenes were shot has considerably changed in the last 100 years. There are great action films which I can enjoy in all decades, but today no one shoots action like Michael Curtiz did in the 30s. Of course someone could make films in this style, but in reality nobody would do it. Films are following the ideas of older films but they don’t use them 1:1. They transform them in modern film language with the result that they look quite different.

Even if Leone would be alive today, Leningrad would become most likely a very different film to the one he would have made in the 80s.

Kunstgewerbe is maybe often in the end what we call arty farty. The term contains the word art in combination with the words business or industry. Art business would be a good translation.

Kunstgewerbe is if a minor director makes films which should look like great art, but they aren’t art. Then the images look beautiful in a superficial or shallow way. They simply lack the depth of art. The something which makes the images really work in the narrative context. The term Kunstgewerbe implys that here art is made like a mass product to impress an audience which don’t understand real art.

But of course what is art and what is art-business is in the end as always open for interpretation and therefore a matter of taste. If a film is a masterpiece or pretention lies in the eye of the viewer, and not only in the film itself. The gap between art and art fart is often only a small one.

So Kunstgewerbe is if a film looks ambitious, but is not in my view. That’s why we often are often more severe to failed films with ambitions than to failed little genre films.

Really? While much of his stuff is sentimental, some of it is quite violent and disturbing too (of his most recent works, La Sconosciuta comes to mind). Personally I just cannot think of another director with such a distinct visual style (most movies nowadays are generic hodgepodges of influence). He also uses Morricone’s music so well. While Leone is my all-time favorite, Tornatore is my favorite living director.

I failed to get through this on my first attempt (it is 5 hours after all!); on my second attempt I appreciated it more but it is still a struggle in places. Nevertheless, it’s really worth it in the end. Here’s a nice YouTube tributehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNrs1ZspVyc&feature=related to get you all in the mood…

I find Bertolucci films to be easy to watch when it comes to “intelllectual” films. Novecento wasn’t so hard to watch for some reason, because his cinematography is fascinating to watch. I loved The Conformist as well. Bertolucci isn’t my favorite of all time, but I’ve always enjoyed his stuff. I wasn’t so happy with Novocento’s message, but it kept me riveted from beginning to end.

I haven’t seen Tornatore’s latest efforts. I think Cinema Paradiso and bits of Malena were the height of sentimentalism… and dare I say, even Ennio’s music is becoming generic.

Paco, you are really trying to kill me, aren’t you. At least, let me buy insurance first :stuck_out_tongue:

Bertolucci’s film generally don’t give me much.

For me Bertolucci’s best films are his early ones The Spider’s Strategy and The Conformist.

Last Tango seems to me a bit dated from a modern point of view, but it’s impact at teh time of it’s relerase is undeniable. The photgraphy is still outstanding.

La Luna was one of this films which’s beauty is too much on the surface. After The Last Emperor I lost the last interest, but The Dreamers was quite good.

I was thinking that Claudia Cardinale might have made a good female lead (very headstrong like Vivian Leigh).

Claudia would have made a good female lead in almost every movie!

True… True…