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From: leeper@ahuta.UUCP (m.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Obscure films
Message-ID: <434@ahuta.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Feb-85 17:49:46 EST
Article-I.D.: ahuta.434
Posted: Sat Feb  9 17:49:46 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Feb-85 05:52:03 EST
References: <3744@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ
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REFERENCES:  <3744@ucla-cs.ARPA>

 >I'm talking hard core obscurity here,  films that you've seen
 >which you suspect almost no one else (at least in America)
 >has.  Stuff you catch at film festivals, or in university
 >collections, or on one week releases disguised as cheap
 >exploitation films.  
 
Stuff that is unavailable where most people live, unfortunately.  My
best access to obscure films, without a day long trek to NYC, is PBS
and they have not shown as much of late as they used to.  I went
into the city to see an uncut THE LEOPARD, which was decent but flawed
so I won't include it in this discussion, but rarely have high enough
expectation on a rare film (other than a genre film of some sort; I do
go in to see films like WICKER MAN, LAST WAVE, CHUSHINGURA) to
really go after it.
 
 >
 >"Heaven's Gate"

This is a good substantial film about a young West without being a
Western.  The critics seem to either love it or hate it and like with
many such films, I find myself liking it, so I am somewhere in-between.
Portions are over-done for the sake of tone.  I was not fond of the
long roller-skating scene.  I would hate to see someone edit it down
without the director's say so, but I think this one scene was carried
too long.  I would give it a +2 on the CFQ scale.

 >
 >"I Was Born, But..."
 >...An excellent film about the compromises we
 >must make while growing up, and a reminder that there was a
 >great deal more than the code of the samurai in pre-war
 >Japan.

How often do we in this country get to see a Japanese film without a
monster or a samurai (or other historical warrior--GATE OF HELL was, I
guess, set before the samurai period)?  I liked IKIRU a lot, but it may
be the only film from that country that I have had a chance to see that
does not fall into the above categories.  Of course, there are some
very fine films that at least superficially are monster or samurai
films, UGETSU and ONIBA are technically ghost stories, but then so is
HAMLET.  SEPPUKU is quite good for the parts that do not include the
samurai story.

 >
 >"Vampyr"
 >	Almost any Carl Dreyer film turns out to be obscure.  
 
Most people don't care for his pacing.  I don't remember a lot of this
film, but that it was a little slow and that there was an effective
scene in a mill with flour falling on everything like dust.  I remember
a lot of facial expression from PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC.
 
As for obscure film that I have liked, it isn't hard if you let me go
back to the German Expressionist period.  Murnau's FAUST has some
silliness, but also a very effective image of the Devil spreading his
cape over a town.  Also WARNING SHADOWS and DESTINY.  (Not to mention a
host of less obscure films like CABINET OF CALIGARI, THE GOLEM,
NOSFERATU, M, METROPOLIS).

As a science fiction fan I really like Satyajit Ray's DISTANT
THUNDER--not that it itself is science fiction.  It is a true story
about how famine came to a village and how it affected people's
relationships.  There has been a lot of science fiction on the same
subject.

I should be able to think of more, but not a whole lot comes to mind.
It is easy to think of  lot's of obscure films that are good as science
fiction or fantasy films but not that many that are good on an absolute
scale.

					Mark Leeper
					...ihnp4!ahuta!leeper
					(new electronic address)