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Directors/Actors Who Dislike New Movies

Started by MortSahlFan, October 17, 2019, 11:32:09 PM

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MortSahlFan

I think a few classic greats will always throw in a few current names, but I think its because they don't wanna sound "old" ("get off my lawn" is such an annoying comment), or someone with sour grapes, or directors who must not be "open-minded".. Maybe, they are waiting for a possible collaboration with someone young to make money. Maybe they think criticism will cost them cash and/or legacy.

But better than just saying how they don't like anyone, the various reasons why would be neat to read.

Shaky

I've read your post nearly three times and it still makes no sense.

I thought this would be about Martin Scorsese saying Aquaman is a load of shit.

Inspector Norse

Quote from: thecuriousorange on October 18, 2019, 10:11:03 PM
I thought this would be about Martin Scorsese saying Aquaman is a load of shit.

I heard Jacques Rivette was really down on Sharktopus vs Whalewolf.

MortSahlFan

Quote from: thecuriousorange on October 18, 2019, 10:11:03 PM
I thought this would be about Martin Scorsese saying Aquaman is a load of shit.
I'm sure Scorsese/superhero shit got into my subconscious. But then again, Scorsese has made mostly shit. I don't think I've ever seen a worse movie than 'the wolf of wall street'

Mister Six

Christ almighty you can't have seen many films, then.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Shaky on October 18, 2019, 03:47:39 PM
I've read your post nearly three times and it still makes no sense.

Obviously, Mort means the old favorites who do not capitulate with the "neo" classic movies made a few years back that currently don't tie in with the old "if ain't broke, Ella Rubinstein" mentality that so many so-called Hollywood chancers will embrace. And given today's audiences lack of empathy with "that schtick" these hucksters pedal, is it any wonder?
Over to you.

jenna appleseed


neveragain

It's all a case of Marvin Huxtable if you ask me.

MortSahlFan

Quote from: Mister Six on October 19, 2019, 02:06:25 PM
Christ almighty you can't have seen many films, then.

Then you must have bad taste. I've seen almost 5,000 movies, from many different countries, different decades....

Brundle-Fly


Brundle-Fly

Quote from: MortSahlFan on October 19, 2019, 10:42:32 PM
Then you must have bad taste. I've seen almost 5,000 movies, from many different countries, different decades....

And not one of them was worse than a Scorcese film?


Kind of a bit bowled over that someone who likes Cassavetes would find nothing to love in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore or New York, New York but I guess when your mind's made up it's made up

BTW, many old directors do genuinely like new films, not mainstream Hollywood fare, but probably the stuff being done by the multitude of great filmmakers around the world. The best directors either have a vast, unending enthusiasm for cinema or they don't watch anything at all because they don't want their own creative process fucked with. It's true that auteur-driven stuff has become more difficult to make in America since the early 80s, but that's no reason for anyone's enthusiasm for 'new movies' to end at 1980. You just have to broaden your perspective. I suspect any critical comments that you can find from directors about 'new movies' will pretty much always be about how it's difficult to get good stuff made in the US, which isn't the be all and end all of cinema.

I used to be one of those people whose enthusiasm for popular culture ended at about 1980, and it's very unrewarding, you know? Kind of a form of cowardice, hiding among the stuff that has already been enshrined into legend, never facing the ultimate challenge of self discovery that is forming your own taste independently of whether an artist has several books written about them or not. Branch out, you'll enjoy it!

greenman

I'm guessing most lists of directors favourite films end up being their main influences hence not going far beyond the start of their careers.

Marty getting sniffy about entertainment cinema though is a bit hypocritical considering his tendency to make "cool criminal exposés" from Goodfella's onwards and indeed of actively making genre cinema like The Departed.

the worst Scorsese film has infinitely more texture and vision that even the best Disney Marvel film. even in terms of genre films, the shittiest poverty row Noir has more artfulness than these monuments to corporations squeezing profit out of recently acquired IP. Scorsese's not expressing contempt for the concept of commercial genre fare, he's talked up enough of it in his time, he's talking about films being made in fundamentally bad faith, with the purposes of communicating nothing else except the health of the brand

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Exactly. His comments have been misinterpreted as a grumpy old director having a pop at the blockbusting films they make for young people these days, which isn't what he's saying at all.

I would also like to express my shock that a cineaste such as Mort has no time for the films of Martin Scorsese. That's just baffling.

greenman

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on October 20, 2019, 05:54:10 PM
the worst Scorsese film has infinitely more texture and vision that even the best Disney Marvel film. even in terms of genre films, the shittiest poverty row Noir has more artfulness than these monuments to corporations squeezing profit out of recently acquired IP. Scorsese's not expressing contempt for the concept of commercial genre fare, he's talked up enough of it in his time, he's talking about films being made in fundamentally bad faith, with the purposes of communicating nothing else except the health of the brand

Well I'd disagree with you on both counts, I think Marvel have released several films I consider better than something like The Departed. Yes the films are made in a framework focused on profit but those working within that framework have I'd say shown ambition to create something more just as they have with blockbusters going back decades which were also made in a similar climate.

Whats changed I'd say isn't so much the way in which blockbusters are made as it is the gradual elimination of more ambitious mid budget cinema, Disney's lack of interest in that market is I'd say their most negative impact on cinema as a whole.

MortSahlFan

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on October 20, 2019, 02:12:13 PM
Kind of a bit bowled over that someone who likes Cassavetes would find nothing to love in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore or New York, New York but I guess when your mind's made up it's made up

BTW, many old directors do genuinely like new films, not mainstream Hollywood fare, but probably the stuff being done by the multitude of great filmmakers around the world. The best directors either have a vast, unending enthusiasm for cinema or they don't watch anything at all because they don't want their own creative process fucked with. It's true that auteur-driven stuff has become more difficult to make in America since the early 80s, but that's no reason for anyone's enthusiasm for 'new movies' to end at 1980. You just have to broaden your perspective. I suspect any critical comments that you can find from directors about 'new movies' will pretty much always be about how it's difficult to get good stuff made in the US, which isn't the be all and end all of cinema.

I used to be one of those people whose enthusiasm for popular culture ended at about 1980, and it's very unrewarding, you know? Kind of a form of cowardice, hiding among the stuff that has already been enshrined into legend, never facing the ultimate challenge of self discovery that is forming your own taste independently of whether an artist has several books written about them or not. Branch out, you'll enjoy it!

I was referring to that one movie. I love "Taxi Driver", but if you read the script, you'll see the credit goes to Paul Schrader.. and Robert De Niro.

Speaking of "Alice", Cassavetes' wife Gena Rowlands got robbed. "A Woman Under The Influence" is one of the great movies, but that was a very good year.

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on October 20, 2019, 07:20:44 PM
Exactly. His comments have been misinterpreted as a grumpy old director having a pop at the blockbusting films they make for young people these days, which isn't what he's saying at all.

I would also like to express my shock that a cineaste such as Mort has no time for the films of Martin Scorsese. That's just baffling.

There are many better directors, (Vittorio De Sica, Robert Bresson, Frank Capra, Akira Kurosawa, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, John Cassavetes, Ingmar Bergman, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Luchino Visconti, Robert Altman, Billy Wilder, Aki Kaurismaki, William Wyler, Paul Mazursky, Sidney Lumet, Abbas Kiarostami, Stanley Kubrick, etc etc) but many good movies (mostly non-English) that didn't have proper distribution, or low-budget, less than a thousand ratings on IMDB.

Quote from: MortSahlFan on October 20, 2019, 08:24:44 PM
I was referring to that one movie. I love "Taxi Driver", but if you read the script, you'll see the credit goes to Paul Schrader.. and Robert De Niro.

Good god no! Schrader is a genius in his own right, but the script for Taxi Driver is try-hard and dark in quite an adolescent way, Scorsese brought a shitload of vividness and flavour (none of the sly humour at Bickle's expense is present in Schrader's script). The film is great because of four major contributors, Scorsese, De Niro, Schrader and Herrmann.

I'm sorry but there's absolutely no way that William Wyler is better than Scorsese by any reasonable standard! Wyler was largely a competent hack who occasionally hired good DPs!

MortSahlFan

#21
Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on October 20, 2019, 08:40:47 PM
Good god no! Schrader is a genius in his own right, but the script for Taxi Driver is try-hard and dark in quite an adolescent way, Scorsese brought a shitload of vividness and flavour (none of the sly humour at Bickle's expense is present in Schrader's script). The film is great because of four major contributors, Scorsese, De Niro, Schrader and Herrmann.

I've seen most of Scorsese's movies. He is a little like Tarantino who "borrows". He even said he used a lot of Fassbinder's influence on "Taxi Driver" - who is another director who is better (and more prolific despite dying at 39)... It's just that Schrader's script (compared to other scripts, or outlines), what he wrote became the movie. Even the scene when Travis is on the phone, Paul writes the empty hall-way scene to show loneliness. I remember reading (on a movie forum) someone praising Marty and not Paul.

I was pretty pissed off when Scorsese got paid 50 million for making a credit card commercial.

Personally, I'll take Wyler's movies any day.

greenman

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on October 20, 2019, 08:40:47 PM
Good god no! Schrader is a genius in his own right, but the script for Taxi Driver is try-hard and dark in quite an adolescent way, Scorsese brought a shitload of vividness and flavour (none of the sly humour at Bickle's expense is present in Schrader's script). The film is great because of four major contributors, Scorsese, De Niro, Schrader and Herrmann.

Indeed, I mean considering De Niro's performance to be in isolation of the director of the film in itself would be a pretty questionable claim for me, he obviously played a big part in how Dehe played the role plus indeed in creating the atmosphere of the film as a whole which is IMHO a massive part of what makes it as successful as it is.

Quote from: MortSahlFan on October 20, 2019, 08:52:16 PM
I've seen most of Scorsese's movies. He is a little like Tarantino who "borrows". He even said he used a lot of Fassbinder's influence on "Taxi Driver" - who is another director who is better (and more prolific despite dying at 39)

And of course, as we know, Fassbinder never "borrowed"

chveik

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on October 20, 2019, 09:38:18 PM
And of course, as we know, Fassbinder never "borrowed"

he's full of shit as always, don't bother

rue the polywhirl

Quote from: chveik on October 20, 2019, 09:41:57 PM
he's full of shit as always, don't bother

I was intrigued by Fassbinder upon reading of this thread but if he's full of it as you say he is I guess I won't follow up any of my curiosity into his movies.

MortSahlFan

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on October 20, 2019, 09:38:18 PM
And of course, as we know, Fassbinder never "borrowed"
Did he? I've only seen about 15-20 of his, and never noticed any. But Scorsese actually said "Everyone wanted to have the look of Fassbinder" (American Masters, I think). It's been a while since I've seen any Scorsese, but he had exact scenes from lesser known movies.

I just remembered the ending of "Goodfellas" is the ending of "The Great Train Robbery" (1903)

#27
Quote from: MortSahlFan on October 20, 2019, 11:35:20 PM
Did he? I've only seen about 15-20 of his, and never noticed any.

No idea if you're fucking with me or not now, but Fassbinder's early career featured lots of aesthetic pilfering from Godard, and the latter half of his career is famously, famously defined by his preoccupation with and frequent emulation of the style of Douglas Sirk (Fear Eats the Soul is basically a remake of All That Heaven Allows ffs!). And Fassbinder was fucking great, an absolute king, all the metatextual stuff and homages made his stuff better, 'borrowing' is not an automatic deficiency

MortSahlFan

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on October 20, 2019, 11:41:19 PM
No idea if you're fucking with me or not now, but Fassbinder's early career featured lots of aesthetic pilfering from Godard, and the latter half of his career is famously, famously defined by his preoccupation with and frequent emulation of the style of Douglas Sirk (Fear Eats the Soul is basically a remake of All That Heaven Allows ffs!). And Fassbinder was fucking great, an absolute king, all the metatextual stuff and homages made his stuff better, 'borrowing' is not an automatic deficiency
I have only seen a handful of Godard (60s stuff), so I'll take your word for it.

It would hardly be a novel observation to note that a 70s director took inspiration from 60s Godard, as I think literally all of them did. It's a very basic read. How could someone with even a passing familiarity with Godard's 60s work see something like Der amerikanische soldat and not know what's going on there?