Man With A Movie List

Director: Yuan Muzhi Year: 1937 Run-time: 1 hr 31 min - A couple sources claim this film was inspired by Frank Borzage.  I've always thought that the left wing Chinese melodramas that have appeared so far bear close kinship to Borzage, even though they weren't explicitly romantic in the same way, so it didn't surprise me to see a film that may have been more directly inspired.  Thus it surprised me that Street Angel  is quite often very funny in a physical way, although it does veer towards tragedy at the end (in a way that felt a little forced to me). It even has musical scenes with our list's appearance of a bouncing ball (that goes right-to-left to match the Chinese subtitles).  It's a strange film to be sure, and very different from its Chinese forerunners.  But I do really like the characters, and the odd frenetic pacing makes for something exciting and different.

Director: Sadao Yamanaka Year: 1937 Run-time: 1 hr 25 min - This is actually the third of Yamanaka's films to appear on the list, but the only one that seems to have gotten any physical release outside of Japan.  That's really unfortunate - this film has an incredibly forward-thinking style, and I would really love to see the others.  Despite being set in feudal Japan, with samurais, this has almost nothing in common with Kurosawa.  Instead it's a story of class-based oppression, that left me drawing comparisons to Altman in the way that it weaves between characters.  The tragedy really hits hard by the end.  So glad the list is here to introduce me to films like this that I would otherwise never encounter.

Director: Fernardo de Fuentes Year: 1934 Run-time: 1 hr 25 min - This is the first Mexican film on this list.  I watched an interview with Guillermo del Toro in which he remarked that until a landmark film in late 20th century (whose name I have unfortunately forgotten), Mexican films were mostly "folkloric" in nature.  I don't think that's fair to the quality of a film like El Compadre Mendoza , but it is accurate in the sense that the film is proud to display Mexican song and culture, and I can't fault it for that.  There's a lot of wonderful song, as well as distinctive costumes that come with the Revolutionary setting.  The story builds to something really interesting by the end, even though it's not unpredictable and the acting leaves something desired.  Ultimately, it's an important reminder that the "golden age" of film is not contained to the three pillars of Japan, France, and the US.  These early efforts outside these countries ...

Director: Jean Renoir Year: 1937 Run-time: 1 hr 54 min - I've always been a little skeptical of Renoir's reputation, despite the generally high quality of his films, but this is the first one where I think I understand. In the late 1930's, Renoir was likely the only director that could pull a feat like this off.  He puts so many coherent and moving messages into a film that's still fun and accessible.  To put it succintly, La Grande Illusion  is  The Great Escape , with three times the heart and no less excitement. - I could say much more, but for a list watcher the excitement here is seeing three big names combine.  The excellent Jean Gabin from the last film isn't really the star performer here, since he gets to share the screen with Pierre Fresnay from the Marseille trilogy, and, strangely, Erich von Stroheim, the director of Foolish Wives , who just steals the show whenever he appears.  Dang, this film is really good.

Director: Julien Duvivier Year: 1937 Run-time: 1 hr 34 min - It still blows me away how much versatility there was in French cinema of this period.  I like others think of the New Wave as the "peak" of French cinema, but there was so much to admire about the earlier works.  This film is the first on the list to feature Jean Gabin (who will reappear in the very next list film).  He seems to me to strike a rare balance between masculinity and emotionalism, and this film epitomizes that.  Here we have a dangerous criminal in the vein of Fantomas, to hear the police talk of him, who gives himself over completely to love.  It's a surprisingly sweet story, with a great setting and some interesting colonial subtext.

Director: Leo McCarey Year: 1937 Run-time: 90 min - McCarey, also the director of Duck Soup , helms this evolution of the screwball comedy that, along with the entire genre of romantic comedy, originated with It Happened One Night .  While that film maintains a lot of sweetness and heart along with its wit, The Awful Truth  doesn't really strive for any real chemistry between its leads.  It doesn't really have to, because it's very funny and it has Cary Grant.  Much of the behavior of these leads scans as cruel to a modern eye (or alternatively freeing on the woman's part) but it all somehow works with the frenetic pacing.  I liked it quite a bit.

Director: Yasujiro Ozu Year: 1936 Run-time: 1 hr 22 min - And now Ozu enters the scene, with a style already fully developed.  Clare and I recently watched his 1950's color film Good Morning  since it appeared in Criterion Channel's Saturday Matinee series, and we got to see his (very) funny side which doesn't often show up in his most recognized films.  The Only Son  is definitely on the other side of that spectrum, but it's still an excellent film, and it's one that really hit home for me, coming coincidentally near Mother's Day. - Here we have the first time that math education features on the list, with a classroom full of students copying down one of Euclid's proofs, presumably.  Being a "night-school teacher" is here the symbol for the protagonist's thwarted dreams in the big city, and man, can I relate (although I have it much better than he does, I think).