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Ishtar
(May, 1987)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (OOP)
(Ross, 1976)
The Devils
(Russell, 1974)
The Pirates of Penzance
(Papp/Leach, 1983)
The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
(Kjellin, 1969)
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1973)
Brewster McCloud
(Altman, 1972)
Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)

Reader Submissions
1930's-1950's
The Moon's Our Home
(Seiter, 1936)
Sh! The Octopus
(McGann, 1937)
The Mating Season
(Leisen, 1951)
Bad for Each Other
(Rapper, 1953)
The Phenix City Story
(Karlson, 1955)
Run of the Arrow
(Fuller, 1956)
House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Saint Joan
(Preminger, 1957)
Macabre
(Castle, 1958)
The Fiend Who Walked the West
(G. Douglas, 1958
Five Gates to Hell
(Clavell, 1959)
1960's
Key Witness
(Karlson, 1960)
Summer and Smoke
(Glenville, 1961)
The Chapman Report
(Cukor,1962)
Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu]
The L Shaped Room
(Forbes, 1963)
The Chalk Garden
(Neame, 1964)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
The Whisperers
(Forbes, 1967)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
The Landlord
(Ashby, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
(Perry, 1970)
Tropic of Cancer
(Strick, 1970)
I Never Sang for My Father
(Cates, 1970)
Sometimes a Great Notion
(Newman, 1971)
Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
The Music Lovers
(Russell, 1971)
Drive, He Said
(Nicholson, 1971)
The Steagle
(Sylbert, 1971)
The Last Movie
(Hopper, 1971)
Made For Each Other
(Bean, 1971)
The Day the Clown Cried
(Lewis, 1972)
Hickey & Boggs (OOP)
(Culp, 1972)
The Carey Treatment
(Edwards, 1972)
Pete 'n' Tillie
(Ritt, 1972)
Slither
(Zieff, 1973)
Man on a Swing
(Perry, 1974)
Open Season
(Collinson, 1974)
The Tamarind Seed
(Edwards, 1974)
Law and Disorder
(Passer, 1974)
Homebodies
(Yust, 1974)
Stardust
(Apted, 1974)
Celine and Julie Go Boating
(Rivette, 1974)
1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
(Richards, 1975
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1975)
Hearts of the West
(Zieff, 1975)
Welcome to L.A.
(Rudolph, 1976)
W.C. Fields and Me
(Hiller, 1976)
Citizens Band
(Demme, 1977)
Twilight's Last Gleaming
(Aldrich, 1977)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(Brooks, 1977)
Girlfriends
(Weill, 1978)
Movie Movie
(Donen, 1978)
The Medusa Touch
(Gold, 1978)
American Hot Wax
(Mutrux, 1978)
Hot Stuff
(DeLuise, 1979)
Scavenger Hunt
(Schultz , 1979)
Players
(Harvey, 1979)
Rich Kids
(Young, 1979)
Nightwing
(Hiller, 1979)
Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
Resurrection
(Petrie, 1980)
The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
(Brickman, 1980)
God's Angry Man
(Herzog, 1980)
Fast-Walking
(Harris, 1982)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
(Rudolph, 1985)
When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Old Times
(Curtis, 1991)
Prospero's Books
(Greenaway, 1991)
City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

January 8

Bitch Slap

Waiting for Armageddon

Wonderful World

Youth in Revolt

January 15

January 22

Drool

Extraordinary Measures

The Girl on the Train

Nirvana in Lyon

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"Anyone can formulate a personal version of heaven -- an aerie of angels, a tropical getaway, a cloister with 72 virgins, a sports bar with unlimited beer and bigscreen, or an ethereal place where you could mingle and chat with everyone from Socrates to Groucho Marx," Variety's Todd McCarthy wrote in a 10.22 column. "Last week I discovered the closest approximation of paradise I can imagine for the hardcore film buff at the Grand Lyon Film Festival in the center of France.

(l. to r.) Clint Eastwood, Cecile de France, Bertrand Tavernier, Therry Fremaux.

"This six-day event was defined by three elements: reliably fine films, incredible food and good, smart people to share both with. This setting afforded attendees a state not of ecstasy, perhaps, but of a consistently high mellowness.

"The St. Peter of this blissful environment was Thierry Fremaux. Though Fremaux is best known to the world as major domo of the Cannes Film Festival, his professional base has long been his native Lyon. There, working with fellow Lyonnois Bertrand Tavernier, he has been director of the Institute Lumiere, a superbly administered shrine to the fathers of cinema, Auguste and Louis Lumiere. The brothers' stately home is maintained as a beautiful museum devoted to the movies' earliest days in the 1890s; right next to it is an intimate modern cinema where the institute runs an outstanding year-round screening schedule of classics, strongly contributing to the city's conspicuously avid and film-literate population.

"The new film festival could accurately be called 'Cannes Classics X 10,' a notable magnification of the annual Cannes sidebar Fremaux initiated to spotlight the latest in global archival restorations. Part of Lyon's charm is that it doesn't show bad films. The reason is that it doesn't show any new ones, except for the odd documentary about cinema subjects.

"In the fest's inaugural year, two of the major retrospectives were devoted to Sergio Leone (the complete works) and Don Siegel. The first Prix Lumiere, an award Fremaux expects to present annually and ambitiously conceives of as 'the Nobel Prize of cinema, was bestowed upon Clint Eastwood, many of whose films as a director were also shown.

"The 79-year-old actor-auteur was busy in Lyon for four days, during which he was feted as the special guest at several dinners; gave a press conference introducing Siegel's 1958 pic The Lineup; accepted his fest award at a public ceremony before 3,000 people; kicked an opening ball at a soccer game in front of 40,000 fans; and introduced a large-screen showing of a new print of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for 5,000 rabid cinephiles.

"At each event he caused a rock star-like frenzy. Fremaux was able to lure nearly 40 international directors to the fest's opening night; within my first five minutes at a reception, I bumped into Alfonso Cuaron, Jerry Schatzberg, Emir Kusturica and Claude Lelouch. The great restaurant Le Passage functioned as the festival's canteen, open at nearly all hours, and the central tented meeting place featured an embarrassment of enticing books and DVDs for sale.

"To my knowledge, there isn't another film festival quite like Lyon anywhere else in the world. Bologna specializes in old films and rarities but remains rarefied rather than public, Pordenone focuses on silent cinema, Telluride maintains equally high standards but concentrates on the new. Roger Ebert's annual fest is perhaps closest in its devotion to past and neglected glories but shows far less."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on October 30, 2009 at 4:57 PM

comment #1

lazarus says ...

Clint Eastwood, auteur? Give me a fucking break.
.

Posted by lazarus at October 30, 2009 6:29 PM

comment #2

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Nice comment. And expansive too.

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at October 30, 2009 6:53 PM

comment #3

Joe G says ...

Of course Eastwood's an auteur. You can watch two minutes of any film he directed and tell immediately it's his stuff. Okay, five minutes. But that's what an auteur is. Is he Hitchcock? Is he Bunuel? No. But an auteur? Mos def, as the kids say (or did circa 2002).

Posted by Joe G at October 30, 2009 7:25 PM

comment #4

lazarus says ...

Exactly what are the hallmarks of an Eastwood film, Joe? Let me know so I can put on Blood Work, Space Cowboys, True Crime, or Absolute Power and look for them. You know, aside from Clint actually appearing on screen. I can't think of another director who wasted their clout on such tripe after a supposed masterpiece like Unforgiven.

Posted by lazarus at October 30, 2009 9:37 PM

comment #5

M. Hulot says ...

Lazarus,

Judging from your last post, you have a clear lack of understanding of what makes one an "auteur."

Posted by M. Hulot at October 30, 2009 10:50 PM

comment #6

Uncle Milty says ...

" Let me know so I can put on Blood Work, Space Cowboys, True Crime, or Absolute Power and look for them. "

You don't even have the balls to name his best reviewed films. I could name four bad Hitchcock movies without even checking IMDB.

Posted by Uncle Milty at October 31, 2009 12:45 AM

comment #7

lazarus says ...

Really? Whatever examples you want to throw out; Torn Curtain, Family Plot, Under Capricorn, Topaz, The Trouble With Harry, I Confess, Stage Fright...all of them are worth watching and contain moments of brilliance in them (and all have very staunch defenders). There isn't a outright "bad" or disposable Hitchcock film in his entire post-silent filmography.

Those Eastwood films I mentioned are devoid of any artistic merit, and aren't the work of what I consider an auteur to be. Who cares if in between those he made A Perfect World, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and The Bridges of Madison County? They were reviewed better but aren't anything special.

Posted by lazarus at October 31, 2009 1:25 AM

comment #8

Noiresque says ...

That last post indicates that M. Hulot is correct - lazarus has no idea what an auteur actually is.

Posted by Noiresque at October 31, 2009 3:05 AM

comment #9

Uncle Milty says ...

I disagree with you on Hitchcock. He made some bad films. I think you're confusing your opinion with the overall opinion.

Woody Allen, who I thnk is a genius, has made probably 10 bad films, and a few of them are almost unwatchable.

And yeah, you don't know what an auteur is.

Posted by Uncle Milty at October 31, 2009 10:09 AM

comment #10

lazarus says ...

I'm sorry if I don't believe that there's a distinct stamp on Eastwood's films, or that they are all part of some comprehensive vision. If the jury is still out on someone like John Huston (there was recently a pretty intense debate over on Jim Emerson's blog, if I'm not mistaken), then it's certainly fair to raise the issue with Eastwood.

But please, explain to me exactly what I'm missing here.

Posted by lazarus at October 31, 2009 10:24 AM

comment #11

Gaydos says ...

Thanks to lazarus, I think we're making progress. 25 years ago, when I interviewed Paul Morrissey, he shocked me when he said, "Clint Eastwood is the most exciting director working in America today." He explained to me why "Sudden Impact" was a great movie, how it exemplified the personal vision of Eastwood and couldn't have been made by anyone else.

It took another seven years before Eastwood knocked "Unforgiven" out of the park and the world saw what Morrissey saw.

Now the debate has moved on to whether or not Clint's a true "auteur." His success and impact and stature as a director isn't questioned, but his status in the pantheon of the world's most distinctive film artists is being debated.

I love Clint but I don't believe there's a single film in his oeuvre I wouldn't rather have directed by Don Siegel.

Does that mean I agree or disagree with lazarus?

I think it means I disagree, but with an asterisk.

BTW: Just got "The Killers" on Criterion which has the Siegel, the Siodmak and Tarkovsky's student version of the Hemingway yarn.

PS: Even Sarris dropped his opposition to Huston after John's late innings rally in the 70s and 80s. Sarris reappraised both Huston and Wilder and admitted he had given Huston's indifference too much weight, his vision too little. And his resistance to Wilder's misanthropy also faded as time was on the side of Wilder's best work.

Such will be, I would guess, the prevailing critical verdict on Eastwood. "Blood Work" will fade and "Misty" and the others will hang in there.

Posted by Gaydos at October 31, 2009 2:56 PM

comment #12

lazarus says ...

Thanks for the extensive musings, Gaydos, and I like your observation re: Don Siegel. Looking over Clint's resume, which amounts to roughly 30 features, I'm only seeing about 10 films that are often highly praised (and some of these I don't even agree with). Considering that for most of his career, he's been able to produce the films he's wanted to make, that's not a very good average, is it? And despite his recent WWII two-fer, it's not a very adventurous filmography, either.

Isn't it possible for someone to make a handful of great films and NOT be an auteur? I guess what I'm asking is, among notable directors, who isn't worthy of the classification? Because if we're going to reject people like William Wyler or Fred Zinnemann, doing the same to Eastwood isn't out of line.

Posted by lazarus at October 31, 2009 3:59 PM

comment #13

Krillian says ...

I'm sad this string is dedicated to one guy trashing Eastwood and others having to defend him. Eastwood's one of my fave directors working today. There are only a handful of directors where I have to see them no matter what the movie is, and Eastwood's one of them.

One thing I like about Eastwood is that he keeps getting better. How many good or great directors have just shrivelled up as they get older? The best days of Coppola, Allen, Lee, Stone, to toss off a few, are clearly behind them.

I actually don't reject Wyler either.

Posted by Krillian at October 31, 2009 9:09 PM

comment #14

Gaydos says ...

Re: Krillian's comment on Wyler: If I see one movie from Hollywood this year as good as Wyler's "Dodsworth" I'll consider it a good year.

Posted by Gaydos at October 31, 2009 11:12 PM

comment #15

lazarus says ...

This thread is probably dying soon, but in response to Krillian I wanted to say that I've never seen an Eastwood film with as much imagination, artistry, and passion as Coppola's Tetro. Or Youth Without Youth.

As for Wyler, again, you can make some great films and not be an auteur. I ask you again, who isn't one?

Posted by lazarus at November 1, 2009 9:21 AM

comment #16