Classic Movies to Watch?

[Small Geezer]

I'm on a spree and have free time this weekend.

Any suggestions on some classic films? Not necessarily with a revolutionary theme. Anything, no matter how obscure.

Thank you! :)

[thesadmafioso]

If you haven't already seen it, I would strongly recommend Solyaris.

[the Left™]

On the Waterfront

[Pirate Utopian]

Dawn of the Dead, original from 1978.

[Small Geezer]

Thanks you dudes.

[x359594]

Hollywood Classics (by director): Intolerance D.W. Griffith 1916. The Kid Charlie Chaplin 1921. The Thief of Baghdad Raoul Walsh 1924. The Docks of New York Josef von Sternberg 1928. The Crowd. King Vidor 1927. Applause. Ruben Mamoulian 1929. Frankenstein James Whale 1931. Duck Soup Leo McCarey 1933. Scarface Howard Hawks 1932. The Informer John Ford 1935. The Adventures of Robin Hood Michael Curtiz 1938. Stagecoach John Ford 1939. The Great Dictator Charlie Chaplin 1940. The Grapes of Wrath John Ford 1941. Citizen Kane Orson Welles 1941. The Maltese Falcon John Huston 1941.

European Classics: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Robert Weine 1919. Nosferatu F.W. Murnau 1921. Destiny Fritz Lang 1921. Battleship Potemkin Sergei Eisenstein 1925. Strike Sergei Eisenstein 1925. Zvenigora Alexander Dovzhenko 1928. Napoleon Abel Gance 1927.The Italian Straw Hat Rene Clair 1927. Blood of a Poet Jean Cocteau 1930. La Chienne Jean Renoir 1930. M Fritz Lang 1931. The 39 Steps Alfred Hitchcock 1935. The Rules of the Game Jean Renoir 1939. The Lady Vanishes Alfred Hitchcock 1938.

Japanese Classics: A Story of Floating Weeds Ozu Yasujiro 1934. Osaka Elegy Mizoguch Kenji 1936. Humanity and Paper Balloons Shimizu Hiroshi. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums Mizoguchi Kenji 1939. There Was a Father. Ozu Yasujiro 1939. Genruku Chushingura Mizoguchi Kenji 1941-1942.

There are many more classics from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, but better to be grounded in the early classics so that you can appreciate what comes later.

[Tablo]

2001: A Space Odyssey
Triumph of the Will(yeah, pro-nazi, but a brilliant film for its time)
Akira
Starwars(obviously the original trilogy)
All Quiet on the Western Front(the original 1930 film, though I do still like the 1979 film quite a lot),
Just about any Miyazaki film(Castle in the Sky, Princess Monoke, Spirited Away)
The Vengeance Trilogy(Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance)

Just a few I really like. ;)

[Fawkes]

Everything x2345987203498570 said.

I would strongly suggest anything by Weine, Lang, and Murnau. A familiarity with german expressionism will totally change your appreciation for movies across all genres, but particularly horror and film noir (and Tim Burton). It was an incredibly influential and amazing movement.

I don't know how classic is classic, but watching movies like The Great Train Robbery, A Trip to the Moon, and even stuff by the Lumiere brothers will give you a really good perspective and knowledge on film history. One thing that is really cool to do is to watch movies from the turn of the 20th century and analyze the acting techniques and how they changed during the decades that followed as actors got more accustomed to acting for the camera and not for the person in the back row of the balcony in a 1000 person theater. Compare the guy getting blown up in The Great Train Robbery with Crazy Earl in Full Metal Jacket, it's pretty amazing actually. Also, the manner in which directors utilized the camera changed a lot over the years -- you'll notice if you watch A Trip to the Moon that everything seems really flat and slow moving, and that's cause it is. It took a while for filmmakers to finally break out of the habit of viewing movies as being just recorded plays. I forgot who it was, but one film critic once said that Spielberg was the first to break the proscenium arch with Jaws, and while I don't agree with that, it is true that it took a while for the camera to be viewed as something similar to a paintbrush or pen that can be used to dictate how the story is experienced and be a tool in expressing the inner conflict of characters, not just a means to record everything that happens on the "stage".

I don't know if you wanna go chronologically or not, but the French New Wave movement of the late 50s and early 60s produced some really great and groundbreaking films, most notably from Truffaut and Godard. Anything by them is going to be pretty damn good, though my favorite is probably The 400 Blows. Sorry if that wasn't too concise or whatever, I am tiiiiiiiired.

[x359594]

...I would strongly suggest anything by Weine, Lang, and Murnau. A familiarity with german expressionism will totally change your appreciation for movies across all genres, but particularly horror and film noir (and Tim Burton). It was an incredibly influential and amazing movement...it is true that it took a while for the camera to be viewed as something similar to a paintbrush or pen that can be used to dictate how the story is experienced and be a tool in expressing the inner conflict of characters, not just a means to record everything that happens on the "stage"...

Fawkes suggests another way to approach the classics here, by following movements such as German Expressionism and later the French New Wave (that I snipped.) I think it's a good way to get a grasp on cinema history, and the point about early films as filmed plays is absolutely correct. One theory holds that the content of the new media starts out with the previous one, so that the content of early cinema was theater and the content of early television was movies.

Some other movements worth exploring are Slapstick Comedy (Keaton, Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy) and Poetic Realism (Renoir's 30s movies, Duvivier, Carne, Pagnol) not to mention the Soviet cinema of the 1920s.

[Rakhmetov]

On the Waterfront

You have to be shitting me, right? With its anti-Union message On the Waterfront belongs in the garbage!

[Fawkes]

You have to be shitting me, right? With its anti-Union message On the Waterfront belongs in the garbage!

It was Kazan's way of justifying (or pathetically attempting to) his betrayal of other industry workers to HUAC. But still, does Birth of a Nation belong in the garbage too? What about Triumph of the Will? Movies can be appreciated for more than just their thematic elements or political subtext. The acting in particular in On The Waterfront is brilliant, and ignoring the movie entirely just because of its political nature is pretty stupid and would cause someone obviously interested in gaining a better knowledge of cinema history to miss out on a widely acclaimed and influential movie.

Pretty much every Western has a pro-manifest destiny message and a whitewashing of American history, should they be ignored too? Should every pre-Sideny Poitier Hollywood movie featuring black characters be thrown in the trash also? What about Casablanca with its sexist portrayal of women and racist portrayals of Germans and Moroccans? No, take these movies for what they are, find what positive elements in them can be appreciated and recognize the negative elements. How can one expect to be culturally and historically literate if they only watch movies that fit their political tastes?

[Fawkes]

One theory holds that the content of the new media starts out with the previous one, so that the content of early cinema was theater and the content of early television was movies.



Yeah, I largely agree, though I'm hesitant to view anything as strictly being a clear cause-and-effect narrative type structure like it seems many people do when adopting that view (not saying that you are at all)


Some other movements worth exploring are Slapstick Comedy (Keaton, Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy) and Poetic Realism (Renoir's 30s movies, Duvivier, Carne, Pagnol) not to mention the Soviet cinema of the 1920s.
Yeah, I'm not a genre nazi by any means, but analyzing film history in terms of certain movements is I think one of the best and most comprehensive methods because of its specificity of geography, time, and thematic/formal elements. Given that, here are some other early movements worth checking out:

1930s American Horror: Dracual, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man, and The Wolf Man (actually 1941). A lot of the filmmakers from this movement were in fact German immigrants that had played major roles in the 1920s German Expressionist films like Murnau, Freundt, Veidt, and Mayer.

1940s Italian Neorealism: the production of these films basically amounted to the anti-Hollywood. They were almost always shot on-location, with amateur actors, and rarely depicted bourgeois life. This had a huge influence on the French New Wave, which, if one was to grossly overly simplify things, was in many ways a synthesis of Italian Neorealism and Hollywood studio era films. The most famous one is 1948's Bicycle Thieves or The Bicycle Thief depending on the translation. It actually got into a bit of trouble with the PCA upon its impending American release due to a scene of a boy starting to pee on a fence and a scene involving a brothel. Some others to check out are Rome, Open City, Germany Year Zero, and Stromboli, which actually starred Ingrid Bergman as opposed to the nonprofessional actors normally used. It's cool to compare Neorealist movies with Expressionist ones, as both were made in countries that had just been devastated by massive warfare and death.

1940s-50s film noir: One of the more widely known and recognized genres. It began in the early 40s and there's debate over whether Stranger on the Third Floor or The Maltese Falcon constitute the first, but most consider the movement to have ended with 1958's Touch of Evil. Really popularized the usage of introspective first-person voice overs and made heavy use of the low-key, high contrast lighting found in expressionist and horror films. In addition to those three, some other good ones are Out of the Past, Rififi (directed by Dassin in France who was exiled by HUAC), Notorious, and Kiss Me Deadly.

Related to film noir, check out some of Theda Bara's films. She starred in a lot, though the vast majority have been lost or destroyed over the years. She's considered by most to be the first femme fatale, and she in effect created/played what was to become one of the two female character types that would be widely used for the following 40 years in Hollywood.

[RED DAVE]

Laura, directed by Otto Preminger. However, for American movies start, always start, with Citizen Kane.

RED DAVE

[Rakhmetov]

Laura, directed by Otto Preminger. However, for American movies start, always start, with Citizen Kane.

RED DAVE


What does Citizen Kane have to tell us except that old whine, "Power corrupts. So don't expect any leader of whatever political persuasion to serve the people and help them achieve dignity and justice."

:rolleyes: Think for yourself.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

What does Citizen Kane have to tell us except that old whine, "Power corrupts. So don't expect any leader of whatever political persuasion to serve the people and help them achieve dignity and justice."

:rolleyes: Think for yourself.

Its an amazingly shot film which sowed the stylistic seeds for many films to follow. Very influential, the last shot alone is worthy of study.

[x359594]

What does Citizen Kane have to tell us except that old whine, "Power corrupts"...

It tells about deep focus, long takes, the subtleties of mise-en-scene, screen acting, and the possibilities of the sound film among many other formal innovations.

[Manic Impressive]

A lot of people will hate this choice but "Mr Smith Goes To Washington" is one of my favourite classic films. Jimmy Stewart plays a naive but honest senator who uncovers corruption of US politics by big business and his struggle to expose them. It's incredibly schmaltzy to the point of nausea but if you can handle that then I'd recommend it.

and it's on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j41Oke9ASEw

[Rooster]

The Man who would be King



One of the last classic movies made. A big epic tale.

"The film follows two rogue ex-non-commissioned officers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-commissioned_officer) of the British Raj (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj) who set off from late 19th century British India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_India) in search of adventure and end up as kings of Kafiristan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafiristan). Kipling is believed to have been inspired by the travels of American (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) adventurer Josiah Harlan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Harlan) during the period of the Great Game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Game) between Imperial Russia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Russia) and the British Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire) and James Brooke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brooke), an Englishman who became the "white Raja (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja)" of Sarawak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarawak) in Borneo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borneo). Like much of his writing, Kipling's original story takes a nuanced view of imperialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism); in Huston's telling, both East and West have their faults and virtues."

Stars Sean Connery and Michael Caine!

"In a retrospective review, the New York Times (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times) called it 'Gloriously old-fashioned in its approach – right down to the characters' politically incorrect attitudes toward anyone who isn't one hundred per cent British – The Man Who Would Be King is pure entertainment in the grand tradition of Gunga Din (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunga_Din_%28film%29).' Roger Ebert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ebert) wrote, 'It's been a long time since there's been an escapist entertainment quite this unabashed and thrilling and fun.'"

Links:
http://www.letmewatchthis.ch/watch-21114-The-Man-Who-Would-Be-King

[Wanted Man]

Plenty of choice. What kind of films do you like, which have you seen already? I'm fairly certain that most people could think of Citizen Kane or The Maltese Falcon for themselves, or otherwise find it in one of the many "100 best..." lists on the internet. Lots of great suggestions in this thread, though.

And God I wish Rakhmetov would just unplug his keyboard.

[CommieTroll]

A movie I always enjoyed was Fight Club, it has a good message and its what got me interested in a leftist way of thinking.
And one/two movie(s) I recently watched was Che Part 1 & 2. A Really good account of Che Guevara's epic life.

[Marks of Capital]

My recommendations:

Salt of the Earth
A 1953 movie about a 1951 miners' strike in New Mexico. So good it was banned. Most of the actors were miners.

Reds
This is supposed to be good, right?

Matewan
A great movie about the mine strike that led to the Battle of Blair Mountain. Probably my favorite movie.

Battle of Algiers
Story of the FLN in Algiers, and the French reaction. Some of the revolutionaries play themselves. The Pentagon showed it to top officials at the start of the Iraq War.

F.I.S.T.
Sylvester Stallone plays a union organizer based on Jimmy Hoffa. Perfectly ridiculous.

I Compagni
About union organizing in the textile factories of Turin. English title: The Organizer.

Newsies
Christian Bale stars in this musical about a newspaper boy strike. Sort of based on a number of strikes that actually happened.

Wind that Shakes the Barley
Ken Loach's film on the Irish independence movement, and the struggle to turn independence movements into real revolutions, rather than just changing the accent of your oppressor.

Land and Freedom
Ken Loach's film on the Spanish Civil War. Very similar to Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. Stalinists hate it.

Libertarias
Film about the Mujeres Libres, the Free Women of Spain, during the Spanish Civil War.

Pan's Labyrinth
Beautiful magical realist film that takes place after the Spanish Civil War.

Primer
The best movie made about time travel.

[DarkNation]

I just have to say Seven Samurai and 12 Angry Men. Don't know if somebody already suggested them, but they're absolutely wonderful movies.

[Fawkes]

A movie I always enjoyed was Fight Club, it has a good message
What? That society is becoming "feminized"? That consumerism results in a total emasculation of men that can only be combated and rejected through a complete assertion and affirmation of ones manliness by mindlessly beating each other? That women are unimportant as anything other than plot devices to add sexual interest? That the means by which this feminizing can be stopped is through destroying all progress and reverting back to nothing?

It's no coincidence that it was a testicular cancer meeting that led to Tyler forming fight club.

[Tablo]

What? That society is becoming "feminized"? That consumerism results in a total emasculation of men that can only be combated and rejected through a complete assertion and affirmation of ones manliness by mindlessly beating each other? That women are unimportant as anything other than plot devices to add sexual interest? That the means by which this feminizing can be stopped is through destroying all progress and reverting back to nothing?

It's no coincidence that it was a testicular cancer meeting that led to Tyler forming fight club.
I agree. I do still enjoy the film, but it certainly is not something I would consider progressive by any stretch of the imagination. Even the anti-consumerism crap around the end doesn't do much for me.

[Os Cangaceiros]

What? That society is becoming "feminized"? That consumerism results in a total emasculation of men that can only be combated and rejected through a complete assertion and affirmation of ones manliness by mindlessly beating each other? That women are unimportant as anything other than plot devices to add sexual interest? That the means by which this feminizing can be stopped is through destroying all progress and reverting back to nothing?

It's no coincidence that it was a testicular cancer meeting that led to Tyler forming fight club.

I didn't think it was as much about masculinity as it was about nihilism, personally. The philosophy of the main character seemed to be that (to put it in very simple terms) people were being too serious, and serious over even trivial things like consumer goods, when in reality people are just decomposing hunks of more-or-less worthless flesh, and that people should embrace the kind of brutish, self-destructive activity that "fight club" was for example.

[Tablo]

I didn't think it was as much about masculinity as it was about nihilism, personally. The philosophy of the main character seemed to be that (to put it in very simple terms) people were being too serious, and serious over even trivial things like consumer goods, when in reality people are just decomposing hunks of more-or-less worthless flesh, and that people should embrace the kind of brutish, self-destructive activity that "fight club" was for example.
That was definitely some of that too, but I did feel like the film had some masculine and sexist overtones.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Fucking hot linking bullshit:

1. M.
2. Great Dictator.
3. Paper Moon.
4. Metropolis.

[Rakhmetov]

Its an amazingly shot film which sowed the stylistic seeds for many films to follow. Very influential, the last shot alone is worthy of study.


It is prolefeed!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolefeed

[Fawkes]

It is prolefeed!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolefeed

No one here is championing some revolutionary themes or radical political subtext of Citizen Kane, just like the Soviets at Gerasimov weren't championing messages of equality and solidarity found in Birth of a Nation when they watched it so many times they had to buy a new copy.

[Fawkes]

I didn't think it was as much about masculinity as it was about nihilism, personally. The philosophy of the main character seemed to be that (to put it in very simple terms) people were being too serious, and serious over even trivial things like consumer goods, when in reality people are just decomposing hunks of more-or-less worthless flesh, and that people should embrace the kind of brutish, self-destructive activity that "fight club" was for example.

Yeah, I agree that that was a major part of the movie, but that "seriousness" was blatantly and negatively deemed a sign of femininity and the encroaching womanizing of humanity, and the only way to embrace oneself and reject this consumerist culture is through an overt show of masculinity. The movie had a lot of thematic potential (I haven't read the book), but it was sexist in everything from its dialogue ("we're a generation of men raised by women") to its symbolism (the testicular cancer meetings, Bob the former bodybuilder's "***** tits", and the sexual significance of the opening scene where Norton is on his knees with a gun in his mouth) to its characterization (early on, Marla is already set up as an amoral and self-destructive pseudo-villain, serving to justify the sexism throughout the rest of the movie given that she is the only female character).

This fear of emasculation is prevalent in a lot of American movies from the late 80s into the 2000s, and was a reflection of the anxiety many men felt about their perceived loss of dominance as women began to obtain higher positions in the workforce. The "Michael Douglas Trilogy" are great examples of this: Disclosure, Fatal Attraction, and Basic Instinct. It's almost as if those movies said "shit, we've got a problem here" and Fight Club came along a few years later with the "solution".

Also, in addition to the sexism and pseudo-primitivism, Fight Club's got a lot of fascist undertones:

Humanity needs saving because of this false sense of degradation resulting from a permeation of femininity (or Judaism). The means by which humanity can be saved is through the formation of this small, secret, and regimented group led authoritatively by a seemingly omniscient and mythical person (Nazis and Hitler). All of the members of this group are nameless until they die, at which point they are made into legends (Robert Paulson) that are used to justify the reactionary war they're waging. This group's existence can only be validated through violence, because it is only through destruction that they can show their power while simultaneously obscuring the reactionary underpinnings of their politics (fascist fetishization of war). Fight Club is like the NSDAP. Also, could the Holocaust soap reference be any more blatant....

Lastly, even if it wasn't for the sexist, primitivist, and fascist elements, I would still see Fight Club as a failed critique of American culture because of its focus on consumerism while totally ignoring the other effects of capitalism, particularly those that more greatly effect poorer sections of the working-class. The blame is placed all on the consumers as being the ones that perpetuate their own "meaningless existences" -- and that's supposed to be stopped by punching each other in the face? Throwing out all your Ikea furniture and bombing the Bank of America isn't gonna change shit. Consumerism is an effect of capitalism that aids in its perpetuation, it's not the root cause of our unhappiness and feelings of emptiness.



I agree. I do still enjoy the film, but it certainly is not something I would consider progressive by any stretch of the imagination. Even the anti-consumerism crap around the end doesn't do much for me.
Yeah, I mean, all of that said, the movie is amazing in most of its compositional and formal elements. Almost everything about it, particularly the editing and effects, is really great, and I definitely appreciate it in that regard, I just can't get on board with the notion of it containing anything revolutionary.

[SHORAS]

Sorry if any of these have been mentioned.

La Battala de Chile (1975?)
Society of the Spectacle (1973)
Le fond de l'air est rouge (1977)
Winter Soldier (1971)
Les Statues meurent aussi (1953)

They should all be available online in one place or another. Can't recommend them highly enough.

[SHORAS]

Seeing as the OP said they don't have to be political I'll mention Vanishing Point (1971). Cult classic before Tarantino made a complete hash of it.

[Philosopher Jay]

Two recent movies that I would recommend are "The Invention of Lying," and "Agora." The first suggests that "lying" is not natural to human beings, but is the result of capitalist oppression. The second shows that Christianity bred fanaticism and hate even in its early years.

[Dunk]

Haven't read the thread, not sure if anyone actually likes anime feature films, but Grave of the Fireflies is not a movie you will forget. It's one of the best anti-war films I've ever seen.

[MockDoctor]

The most brilliant (as well as the longest) of all classical movies must be Sergei Bondarchuck's "War and Peace".

Movies such as "Ship of Fools" "The Defiant Ones" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", directed by the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Stanley Kramer, are all equally worth a watch (or ten). Especially "It's a Mad,Mad,Mad,Mad World"; it's one of the funniest comedies I've ever seen and it's socialistic undertones are brilliant.

Also, "Spartacus" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" are also great classical US-American movies.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Louis de Funes' movies, such as the Fantomas series, "Le Grand Restaurant", and the Gendarmes de St. Tropez series.

[Princess Luna]

My favorite classic movie is Paths of glory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paths_of_glory#Reception), in my personal opinion its Stanley Kuberick's best film

[Octavian]

Falling Down-The plot centers around a man on his way to his daughter's birthday party when he gets stuck in a line up in traffic. So he gets out and goes on a journey through LA. He essentially is an archetype every day American who comes to terms with the society he lives in criticizing it as he goes along.
China Town- A newer but classic noir film

[Sasha]

Some i missed ^ :

in the name of the father (best movie made about the troubles, will leave you foaming at the mouth + incredible acting)
richard III (the one with ian mckellen, brilliant fascism meets shakespeare allegory)
once were warriors (impressive movie about the hardships of the maori)
man with an movie camera (awesome avant-garde work of 1929 russian art)
reefer madness (if you like to smoke that is)

[Diello]

Some of my very favourite films, arranged chronologically:

O Lucky Man! (UK, 1973) - An allegorical musical satire about the evils of capitalism, focusing on an up-and-coming young coffee salesman.

Blue Velvet (USA, 1986) - A college student returns home to visit his sick father, and discovers that his idyllic hometown harbors a dark, sordid underworld.

Naked Lunch (Canada, 1991) - After accidentally killing his wife, a writer flees to a Moroccan port town where he becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue conducted by talking insects; inspired by the writings of William S. Burroughs.

Velvet Goldmine (UK, 1998) - An orgy of mystery, angst, and gay sex during the fabulous glam rock era of the '70s; very loosely based on the life of David Bowie.

[Commissar Rykov]

Fucking hot linking bullshit:

1. M.
2. Great Dictator.
3. Paper Moon.
4. Metropolis.

Agreed, I really enjoyed M.