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In the US: Vertigo on the Big Screen March 18 and March 21

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
28 replies | jump to latest

Turner Classic Movies and Cinemark Classics will show "The 60th Anniversary of Vertigo" in selected local multiplexes on Sunday March 18 and Wednesday March 21.

TCM will have that new "noir movie host" guy introduce it(Eddie something?) instead of Ben Manckeiwicz; Robert Osborne is, alas, long gone.

I'm going. I have to complete "the AFI Hitchcock Four" for a friend of mine and she has already seen Rear Window, NXNW, and Psycho in the past few years via this same series.

All of us know that Sight and Sound critics voted this the Greatest Movie of All Time, and all of us know there will forever be something just plain odd about that.

It replaced Citizen Kane. Which seemed like a fine choice at the time. But why Vertigo and not...Psycho? Rear Window? 2001? The Godfather? (GWTW seems now out of the running and I'm not sure why Casablanca has lost its luster.)

Maybe Vertigo is as fine a choice as any other.

I'd pick Psycho. The world might pick The Godfather. Both of those pictures were far more popular than Vertigo.

In my personal "Hitchcock world," I remain rather intrigued by the status of Vertigo as the Greatest. Rear Window, NXNW, and Psycho were all big hits, blockbuster in two cases(less NXNW.) But Vertigo barely broke even and is an art film.

I guess that's why Sight and Sound chose it.

So I'll always have Hitchcock movies I loved from the start -- Psycho and NXNW uber alles -- and a rather tentative, grudging respect for that oddball Vertigo to haunt me, too.

I do think that Vertigo has the best of the Saul Bass/Bernard Herrmann credit sequences -- one of the best credit sequences of all time; that Herrmann makes the movie as much as Hitchcock(moreso, perhaps than with Psycho, where the shocks rule); and that the gorgeous images of San Francisco, Carmel and thereabouts are "a visual record of Hitchcock's love affair with the Bay Area";

The shot of Kim Novak under the Golden Gate checks off a monument to match the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore in other Hitchcock films(and is a gorgeous shot, to boot.) The sequence where Novak comes out of the bathroom bathed in green light IS a summit(though not THE summit) of the Hitchcock Herrmann collaboration; and the bell tower finale is deeply moving...right up through the final shot of the film...and the final notes of Herrmann's score(compare those final notes to the final notes in NXNW and the final notes in Psycho...all three are perfection for their films.)

I'm going!

PS. It is a sad point that the footage of SF is now heartbreaking given how the city today is a mix of the Silicon Valley ultra-rich and the defecating-on-the-streets homeless

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Saw it.

Small crowd -- maybe 12 or so -- but oh well.

I continue to have issues with a specific segment of the film -- roughly from when Kim goes into San Francisco Bay until Kim and Jimmy arrive at the Mission San Juan Bautista for her "first jump." The difficulty in maintaining the illusion of Madeleine's "being haunted" by Carlotta Valdez(which, I think, Hitchcock fudges even as part of a murder plot -- Madeleine can't commit to being haunted or much of anything other than maybe crazy) leads to one scene after another of Kim acting melodramatically and Jimmy reacting with lugubrious over-solicitious comforting words.

I found myself "flash-forwarding" to the pace and wit that lay dead ahead in NXNW and Psycho, neither of which have the mood of Vertigo, to be sure, but both of which move faster and feel just as "deep" beneath their surfaces.

Indeed, Vertigo reminded me of a lot of fifties movies I've turned on and turned off -- standard melodramas with good scenery and less than gripping plots -- UNTIL Madeleine jumps and "the real movie" begins: Henry Jones heartless hammering of Stewart(I figure this official feels the real problem is that Jimmy tried to steal Elster's girl) , the nightmare, the catatonia and then the main event: the heartbreaking shift to Judy(happy to be reunited with Scottie, hoping for a reconciliation he can't understand) and Scottie's all enveloping madness (he's so DOMINATING all the time, so ornery, that what he does feels a lot more like abuse in 2018 than it may have years ago.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The final third of the film paid off with deep emotion for me, and thus does Vertigo still drive me nuts: its neither perfect nor bad, and its not mediocre, either. Its very much its own thing. It pays off deeply at the end -- and I'm always with Novak in that bell tower.

I brought a companion. This was Vertigo the first time for her, she loved it and said to me: "You probably don't like it because you've seen it 100 times." I said, "no...that's Psycho...which I still like." My companion didn't think Stewart looked too old because "Novak looks matronly in that gray dress."

The TCM host on screen was their noir guy, Eddie Muller. He made the "numbers case" for Vertigo -- how it leaped from 61 to 9 on the AFI lists of 100 greatest films ten years apart(more critics and fewer regular people voted the second time around, says I) and how the Sight and Sound critics knocked off Citizen Kane to make it Number One.

When the movie ended, TCM's Muller came on screen again to say "Whether you think Vertigo is the greatest movie ever made -- or NOT -- it is the greatest movie ever to use San Francisco." Well couched, Mr. Muller.

Muller's last words from the screen: "Thank you for watching...and watch your step on the way out."

We did. A man tripped and fell down the theater steps anyway -- as if Muller had cursed him. No injuries. Older man. We helped him up. "Vertigo in the Cineplex"

I'm glad I went but I tell you. I've read a lot of the reviews of Vertigo, NXNW, and Psycho of the time, and in some ways I think the original critics weren't all that far off to review Vertigo less well than the other two. They were professional critics dealing with what was in front of them at the time ("A Hitchcock and Bull story in which the question isn't so much whodunit as who cares." I think that was Newsweek.) . It took decades and acolytes to bring Vertigo to its high esteem.

Something a little fishy with that.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

PS. Psycho the book hadn't been written yet and Psycho the movie hadn't been made, but it is interesting to see how much the McKittrick Hotel scene anticipates Psycho. With "detective" Stewart questioning the hotel manager at a check-in desk near the staircase, it is as if the Bates Motel and the House have merged as one. Stewart's questions are more direct and stern than Arbogast's will be -- this is an ex-cop of recent vintage -- and the manager has nothing to hide(or does she?) -- but we can "feel" Arbogast and Norman formulating here -- all Hitchcock had to do was to make some changes in lighting, close-ups and camera angle.

Interesting , too how the McKittrick staircase is like the Bates staircase ..but bigger and more opulent (with a "landing" halfway up), and how Hitchcock chose different POV angles of the staircase for Stewart than he would with Balsam two films later(Stewart's POV "moves" to take in the floor to the left of the staircase, coming forward in moving camera shot.)

By the time he got to Psycho and the Arbogast staircase scene -- with a lower budget, less time for more camera angles and a house intended to be less opulent than the McKittrick -- Hitch made some changes in approach.

Always refining the same ideas, thus avoiding copying himself (even as Hitch said: "Self-plagiarism is style.")

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

I continue to have issues with a specific segment of the film -- roughly from when Kim goes into San Francisco Bay until Kim and Jimmy arrive at the Mission San Juan Bautista for her "first jump."

It's funny, that's easily the most conventional part of the film (albeit people aren't as familiar with or tolerant of the (e.g., instantaneous love-proclaiming) conventions of women's movies/melodramas as they used to be), and yet I suppose it does pose the biggest problems in terms of basic credibility (certainly once the truth is revealed - we have to believe that Elster could believe that Judy could pull off being rescued, apparently unconscious, stripped naked, and put to bed in a strange man's apartment - and that's just for starters). Still for all its histrionics and crediblity-straining that half-hour contains the witty replay of Scottie following Madeleine only to end up at his own apartment; the redwoods scene; Midge painting herself as Carlotta - all good stuff in my view.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It's funny, that's easily the most conventional part of the film (albeit people aren't as familiar with or tolerant of the (e.g., instantaneous love-proclaiming) conventions of women's movies/melodramas as they used to be),

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Sitting through this stretch, I came to feel that Vertigo was really more of a "standard fifties Technicolor melodrama" than you might think(given its overall radical plan of narrative and art film tragic ambiguities.) Douglas Sirk time. NXNW and Psycho to follow "took everything up a notch" and feel much more modern as films(the sexual byplay of Grant and Saint in one film and overt half-clad sexual kissing of Gavin and Leigh in the other are part of this, but so are the rat-a-tat-tat one liners in each film.)

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and yet I suppose it does pose the biggest problems in terms of basic credibility (certainly once the truth is revealed - we have to believe that Elster could believe that Judy could pull off being rescued, apparently unconscious, stripped naked, and put to bed in a strange man's apartment - and that's just for starters).

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That's just for starters. The essential aspect of the murder scheme -- Scottie can't make it up the stairs so Elster can cover up the death of his wife -- is actually pretty believable. The build-up to get everything there ---as you've outlined above -- is problematic on various levels. Still -- boy does the scenery almost overcome all that. Those giant sequoias dwarfing time and space in their quiet majesty; the Carmel coastline, etc.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

---Still for all its histrionics and crediblity-straining that half-hour contains the witty replay of Scottie following Madeleine only to end up at his own apartment;

THAT's a great scene, I forget to mention it. Here we had all these scenes of Scottie following Madeleine by car around SF and this time -- he follows her right back to HIS place. The watcher has been traced to his lair by the watchee.

This scene was also a bit dizzying -- all the POVs as the car goes down the hilly streets almost rivals "Bullitt" a bit for stomach-drop. Another reason to see Vertigo, when you can, on the BIG screen.

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the redwoods scene;

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As noted above. Hitchcock certainly liked the visual of "little people versus giant monumental backdrops." The redwoods, the Golden Gate, Mount Rushmore..even the Bates Mansion were all used in juxtaposition with the puny humans near them.

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Midge painting herself as Carlotta - all good stuff in my view.

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Oh, there are good scenes there, to be sure. And beauty everywhere. But the crux dramatics -- Novak swooning, Stewart comforting -- get a bit old-fashioned (conversely, I like the more realistic and tentative "re-meet" on the front porch of Stewart's apartment, and this exchange as Stewart reads from Novak's note to him: Stewart: I do. Novak: What?
Stewart: I do look forward to meeting you again. Novak: You just did.)

I'm not sure I've ever quite gotten the full point of the Midge/Carlotta portrait scene. It gets a laugh, first, but then Stewart's mopey "No...its just not funny" takes it down, and Midge's self-directed rage("Stupid! Stupid!) is a bit confusing too. I'll go for it a bit: Midge has just inserted her down-to-earth girl next door buddy-buddy persona into Scottie's obsessive dream world. And that's a no-no.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I've gotta hand it to Hitchcock, Vertigo, and the critics who have made it the Greatest Movie of All Time. With me, they have created a real internal conflict when I view the picture. It is never an "easy" neutral watch for me.

I respond deeply to all the scenes with Judy and the film's strong shift of sympathy TO Judy(accomplice to murder that she is, THAT doesn't really matter), and I have issues with the other section of the film I've detailed and a general lack of connection to the whole thing.

Keep in mind as a famously personal matter, Psycho practically ruled my childhood as this "horrible thing you shouldn't see" and North by Northwest was quite simply the most exciting movie I'd ever seen up to that point. Vertigo simply didn't affect me the same way. It grew on me, with a lingering belief that something is a bit of a con job about its "greatness." AUDIENCES found Psycho and North by Northwest great.

I might add that I notice a determined cadre out there that throw Vertigo off of lists where you see Psycho and NXNW. Critic William Goldman I think called Vertigo "the most overrated film of all time," and so did some other guy. Same phrase.

But I can't come down THAT hard on Vertigo, ever. The credit sequence, the music, the "sealed in time travelogue visuals," everything about Judy's scenes(I love Scottie's first come-on to her in her hotel room; you wonder: WHY is she letting this guy get close; you find out: she WANTS him to come close but she has to act like she doesn't) The final bell tower scene, as spectacular a climax in its intimate way as the Rushmore chase a film later.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Bonus on this viewing: James Stewart didn't look all that old to me, and projected a certain macho quality I hadn't caught before. I think I've gotten more used to Stewart in recent years re-watching Anatomy of a Murder and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. But this: Stewart's face wasn't that old , but you could see the heavy pancake make-up on his face, really sticks out in this restored print.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

I like the more realistic and tentative "re-meet" on the front porch of Stewart's apartment

Relatedly, rewatching selected scenes from Vertigo just now I noticed for the first time how Stewart (after being on the phone to Elster as Madeleine makes her 'escape') kind of glowers in the half-darkness on the stoop outside his apartment, i.e., as he just misses Madeleine driving off, foreshadows Stewart at the end of the film at the top of the tower. (Midge spies on this scene from *her* car across the street.)

The scene's beautifully shot by Burks as a kind of Edward Hopper tableau, and when you think about it, the scene has a kind of primal power: behind the charades and twisting plot and separating out all sorts of characteristic Hitchcockian obsessions, Vertigo, like Some Came Running (and really a whole lot of '50s movies starting with things like In a Lonely Place) is at its core about the experience of been-through-a-lot, no-longer-young (i.e., middle-aged or older) people still struggling to connect, find love etc.. Midge, the old college chum represents one way out and a kind of orthodox regression into the past. Madeleine is the altogether riskier option, probably unknowable (but who can at least see you as you are now and not you as you were back in college), who can and will just slip away from you at any time.

Vertigo has its problems but as you get older, and beyond all its tricksiness, it really does hit you where you live (perhaps especially if you're a straight guy), seemingly revealing new features of itself every time you go back to it (in part because you'll be sure to have piled up a few more romantic frustrations or regrets or disappointments or....since your last viewing).

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Relatedly, rewatching selected scenes from Vertigo just now I noticed for the first time how Stewart (after being on the phone to Elster as Madeleine makes her 'escape') kind of glowers in the half-darkness on the stoop outside his apartment, i.e., as he just misses Madeleine driving off, foreshadows Stewart at the end of the film at the top of the tower. (Midge spies on this scene from *her* car across the street.)

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That is a great scene, moody(as so much of Vertigo is), in just the right, lonely way. (And I'll bet its in that 30 minute segment I've so disparaged, yes? Maybe its just Madeleine's "I'm haunted" episodes that bug me). The plot advances...now Midge knows exactly what kind of rival she has(and its not good.) Scottie pines after Madeleine; Midge pines after Scottie...somebody's gonna lose.

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The scene's beautifully shot by Burks as a kind of Edward Hopper tableau,

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Yes, it has that. Something about Stewart's slim figure and his "corner apartment"(rather like that famous Hopper corner diner...)

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and when you think about it, the scene has a kind of primal power: behind the charades and twisting plot and separating out all sorts of characteristic Hitchcockian obsessions, Vertigo, like Some Came Running (and really a whole lot of '50s movies starting with things like In a Lonely Place)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Some Came Running is also from 1958, and certainly has its own sense of middle-aged angst...and tragically unfulfilled love. Somebody dies in that one, too.

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is at its core about the experience of been-through-a-lot, no-longer-young (i.e., middle-aged or older) people still struggling to connect, find love etc..

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Recall that I have recommended Sinatra circa 1958 as fairly good alternative casting to Stewart if "age" is the issue. Having just seen Vertigo again, I'm not so sure (Jimmy was "wrong but right" for this particular role.) But Sinatra could have played it. He's in Some Came Running of course.

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Midge, the old college chum represents one way out and a kind of orthodox regression into the past.

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Interesting. I always see Midge as the kind of "too chummy, too sisterly(or motherly)" female companion to Scottie but hell...she's stuck around since COLLEGE! A long way back and indeed perhaps yet another of Scottie's attempts to "keep the past alive." Hmmm.

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Madeleine is the altogether riskier option, probably unknowable (but who can at least see you as you are now and not you as you were back in college), who can and will just slip away from you at any time.

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Well, yeah. Its kind of easy to see but not quite what it seems. Barbara Bel Geddes is attractive and curvaceous, but girlish. Kim Novak -- even in armored matronly gray -- is a BABE. But, as any guy can tell you...the babe is the risk. What's that old Doctor Hook song? When you're in love with a beautiful woman...

....plus, for better or worse: Kim is crazy.

A whole other attraction for a man.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Vertigo has its problems but as you get older, and beyond all its tricksiness, it really does hit you where you live (perhaps especially if you're a straight guy), seemingly revealing new features of itself every time you go back to it (in part because you'll be sure to have piled up a few more romantic frustrations or regrets or disappointments or....since your last viewing).

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I agree with all of this resolutely. I still have problems with Vertigo "grabbing me" the same way that Psycho or NXNW did, but it has certainly grown in my estimation as the decades have passed, loves have been lost and trying to find a balance between "maturity" and certain longings becomes emotionally dangerous terrain. I knew none of this the first few times I saw Vertigo in my pre-teens, teens and youth.

James Stewart might just be the perfect star for this, after all...

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

First of all, these movie lists are nothing short of absurd! The Oscars are bad enough, but for several decades AFI
has "decided" the top-ten musicals, the top-ten musical numbers, the top-ten comedies. Super dumb. And anyway,
it's all about money and selling more Blu Rays.

We don't have lists that tell us Dickens is greater than Steinbeck; Sargent is greater than Da Vinci.

Movies are omnipresent. Too many talented people are involved in the final results. And not everyone reacts to
films in the same way. "Voting" them down to number one is nothing short of ridiculous and insulting to people
who have great taste, but different likes and dislikes. And in the end, it all boils down to opinion anyway.

Just last night, I FORCED myself (yes, forced) to watch 1987's "Dirty Dancing", a film that's never appealed to me.
To my surprise, it wasn't just bad, it was AWFUL. A terrible, boring, cliched script, an ugly 27 year-old, charisma-
challenged actress trying to play a 16 year-old with 1980's hair in a 1963 setting. Pure '80's schlock. I sat
there mind-boggled that this turd of a movie is supposed to be a "classic." I don't get it.

Getting back to the subject, it's hard to compare "Vertigo" to "Psycho" when they are vastly different films. I love
"Vertigo" more, and would instantly choose it on that proverbial desert Island before I would "Psycho", but many
people would do the opposite. Even Woody Allen (am I allowed to say his name?), who worships Hitchcock dislikes
"Vertigo" as he finds it slow and dull. Many people do.

My advice: If you liked "Psycho", you may like shorter, leaner films with slasher scenes. This won't guarantee that you'll
like "Vertigo."

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

First of all, these movie lists are nothing short of absurd!

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Well, yes they are.

Funny thing: when its a top 100, its pretty much the SAME top 100, give or take.

I've shown some of my list of "favorite films of the year" to me personally, and you can be sure they AREN'T going to make those kinds of lists. North Dallas Forty. Used Cars. Er, Love Actually. Plus movies that aren't even Number One, but that STILL beat classics. I like Rio Conchos better than Ordinary People. I like Hotel better than Kramer vs Kramer.

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The Oscars are bad enough, but for several decades AFI
has "decided" the top-ten musicals, the top-ten musical numbers, the top-ten comedies. Super dumb. And anyway,
it's all about money and selling more Blu Rays.

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I'd agree its infamy but then -- they named Psycho the Number One thriller. So I got some satisfaction there.(Remember, it wasn't even NOMINATED for Best Picture.)

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We don't have lists that tell us Dickens is greater than Steinbeck; Sargent is greater than Da Vinci.

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I'll bet somebody somewhere wrote one. But you're right: movie lists sell Blu Rays.

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Movies are omnipresent. Too many talented people are involved in the final results. And not everyone reacts to
films in the same way. "Voting" them down to number one is nothing short of ridiculous and insulting to people
who have great taste, but different likes and dislikes. And in the end, it all boils down to opinion anyway.

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Yep. But maybe that's the point too. Our opinions reflect US. And our opinions shape us. I think in some sort of final showdown, for Hitchcock, its down to Psycho or Vertigo as "the best." Maybe its that O on the end. The films are very different, and yet: they cover the same thematic territory(the grip of the past over the present; trying to bring back the dead) and even share some visuals(the staircase at the McKittrick Hotel.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Just last night, I FORCED myself (yes, forced) to watch 1987's "Dirty Dancing", a film that's never appealed to me.
To my surprise, it wasn't just bad, it was AWFUL. A terrible, boring, cliched script, an ugly 27 year-old, charisma-
challenged actress trying to play a 16 year-old with 1980's hair in a 1963 setting. Pure '80's schlock. I sat
there mind-boggled that this turd of a movie is supposed to be a "classic." I don't get it.

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Ha. Well, I think its what they call a "pop classic." A classic that's almost entirely an audience classic.

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Getting back to the subject, it's hard to compare "Vertigo" to "Psycho" when they are vastly different films. I love
"Vertigo" more, and would instantly choose it on that proverbial desert Island before I would "Psycho", but many
people would do the opposite.

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Here we are, together. That's why there are 31 flavors!

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Even Woody Allen (am I allowed to say his name?),

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Yes. Also Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein. Free speech, what a concept.

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who worships Hitchcock dislikes
"Vertigo" as he finds it slow and dull. Many people do.

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I read a "second hand" quote on Hitchcock from Woody Allen that I couldn't believe. Now, I don't. It was "Hitchcock makes movies that are like paperbacks you read on an airplane and leave on your seat when the flight's over." I couldn't believe that.

I don't find Vertigo slow and dull. I find it languid and haunting and deeply emotional at the end. But as screenplays go -- in terms of structure and dialogue -- it just doesn't hit all the heights for me.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

My advice: If you liked "Psycho", you may like shorter, leaner films with slasher scenes. This won't guarantee that you'll
like "Vertigo."

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Well, I liked Psycho, but I don't much like other slasher movies(and I DO consider Psycho, and not Halloween, to be the first slasher movie.) But I think I like Psycho for the "total package" : structure, dialogue, visuals, music, atmosphere.

I think you are onto something there about my liking "lean" movies.

Usually thrillers: Psycho, Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick, Bullitt.

But also dramas: 12 Angry Men, Network...I dunno.

Anyway, thank you for joining in. This is not an OT thread -- how Psycho relates to Vertigo is part of the essence of both movies.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

The shower scene is a slasher scene. Vertigo does not have that. I could argue that Psycho is much more of
a "crowd-pleaser" than Vertigo, much more astutely paced. Even people who don't have particularly great taste
love Psycho (like they do Jaws) because its "entertainment" value is so mainstream. Vertigo is not. Even for
1958 audiences, whom I would argue had more sophisticated taste than moviegoers today.

But, then...that's my opinion.

Woody Allen: I've never read that airplane quote, and I highly doubt he said that, as he LOVES Hitchcock. He
just doesn't like Vertigo.

More on Woody Allen: I'm NOT CONVINCED he molested Dylan Farrow. He might have, but innocent until
proven guilty. There are too many weird characters in this story, including vengeful, nutty Mia Farrow,
who "coached" her children (according to Moses, who disputes his sister's story as real). Weinstein and
Spacey are different balls of wax - we KNOW they are guilty!!

Many of my favorite films aren't even considered "good movies", but I love them. 1945's "Yolanda and the
Thief" bombed, and nearly destroyed Fred Astaire's career, but I find it an amazing technicolor MGM musical.
1956's "The Catered Affair" also flopped, but Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine are amazing as a poor
Bronx couple who cannot afford to give their daughter (Debbie Reynolds) a white wedding. It moves me
every time. I'm sure you'll agree it's often more fun to love a film that (seemingly) nobody else does. It's
like you get to be one of the chosen.

I'm not big on Westerns, but I do love John Wayne's "True Grit." Simply an amazing film.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Just last night, I FORCED myself (yes, forced) to watch 1987's "Dirty Dancing", a film that's never appealed to me. To my surprise, it wasn't just bad, it was AWFUL. A terrible, boring, cliched script, an ugly 27 year-old, charisma-challenged actress trying to play a 16 year-old with 1980's hair in a 1963 setting. Pure '80's schlock. I sat there mind-boggled that this turd of a movie is supposed to be a "classic." I don't get it.

I watched DD for the first time only a year or two ago and enjoyed it a lot. I found it far more sensitive to issues of class than most teen movies; it has a sub-plot about pre-Roe abortion realities that feels real (and the sort of thing that most teen films don't go near); it's basically sex-positive in a girl-centric way - Baby isn't shamed or punished for being sexually active - there's definite female wish-fulfillment going on for Jennifer Grey to get Patrick Swayze (up there with a talentless Bridget Jones getting Mr Darcy) but that's allowed (God knows there are indefinitely many schlubby guy gets ultra-hottie films out there!). The dancing in DD is fun and sexy - it made Swayze a star and deservedly so in my view. Learning to dance in the film is basically equated with learning to have good sex....and it looks good and fun. Yay.

I haven't thought about DD much recently but my sense was that it was quite well shot in its one (Jewish?) summer mountain camp-type location. I felt the specificity of the setting (very unlike most teen movies).

One can I think quibble with the music to some extent: the biggest numbers are pure '80s pomp-pop, while the movie's supposed to be set in the early '60s! But, really, after you've laughed once at the basic musical conceit it's time to get into what's on offer.... which just works much as having Bacharach songs in Butch Cassidy did and 30-years-out-of-date Joplin tunes did in The Sting.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

We'll just have to agree to disagree (and my opinion certainly isn't greater than yours).

I thought Grey was flat-out ugly, had the personality of a wet dish rag, and she looked ALL of her 27 years. The
plot was tacky, lumpy, loaded with cliches, which the producers tried to disguise with too many '60's oldies
(which didn't make me believe that this was the '60's, due to Grey and Swayze's '80's hair).

I thought the ending with the father suddenly welcoming an obvious mid-20's dance instructor as his under-age
daughter's boyfriend ludicrous. Not a shred of emotional truth.

You might argue that it was a huge hit, and remains well-liked. But Roger Ebert hated it, and so did other critics.
Grey was NOT star material at all, and Swayze didn't really get a chance to show us what he could do when he
was saddled with a character straight out of an Elvis movie.

To each is own.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Some links:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/16/patrick-swayze-dirty-dancing-feminism
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/09/dirty-dancing-ghostbusters-80s-films-hadley-freeman
And for a guy having a come-to-Jesus moment about DD (which somewhat mirrors my own experience with the film) go about half an hour into this podcast ep.:
http://myelbow.libsyn.com/taatm-186-dirty-dancing-vs-peggy-sue-got-married

The best, indeed near-perfect films for me from 1987 were Wings of Desire, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Withnail and I, Raising Arizona, and The Year My Voice Broke. Beneath that level, however, 1987 overflowed with terrific crowd-pleasers. Dirty Dancing isn't ground-breaking but it's a well-crafted entertainment a la Robocop, Untouchables, Princess Bride, Fatal Attraction, Moonstruck, Broadcast News, Wall Street, Predator, Evil Dead 2, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Near Dark, Lost Boys. All of these films like DD found an audience at the time, and also cleaned up on cable/vhs/dvd ever after. Hollywood was on its game then.

[–] Ray (33) 7 years ago

The fact that critics voted Vertigo the Greatest Movie of All Time makes perfect sense to me really. It is the "artsiest" film in Hitchcock's filmography obviously. It's visually innonative. It had a significant influence on cinema. It's a mystery full of elusive clues (critics love that; Citizen Kane is also a mystery for example). It explores the theme of voyeurism -- which is the very nature of cinema itself. Of course they chose Vertigo.

They would never choose Psycho -- because of its transgressive subject matter. Even though it was way more influential and groundbreaking than Vertigo. A film that tricks us into sympathizing with a deranged serial killer -- a diabolical trick performed so marvelously -- could never be chosen as the Greatest Movie Ever Made by Sight and Sound critics.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

@Ray. All of your points are well-taken in my view, but it's also worth taking into account just how specific and downright odd Sight and Sound's voting and tabulation rules really are.

Here's how their poll works: they solicit *unordered* top tens from about 1000 critics/academics/programmers etc., i.e., *not* from any directors/screenwriters/producers/film-makers more generally, and they get about 850 positive responses back. They then count up how many lists each film appears on.

This is incredibly limited data! Think of the tabulation possibilities if ordered lists had been asked for or much longer lists or both, e.g., ordered top 100s (maybe quasi-orders that allow for equalities could be allowed).

To get a sense of how strange the data was consider that the ~850 lists S&S got in 2012 barely overlapped. Just over 2000 films appeared across the lists so around 25% of the average list wasn't rated by anyone else! Near the other end of the spectrum, appearing on just 34 out of the ~850 lists was enough to make Psycho 35= most popular overall, and the bottom films (93=) in the top 100 are those that appear on just 17 critics' lists. This is kind of crazy: support by just 2% of critics (i.e., being officially ignored by 98% of the critics polled!) was enough to get a film into the top 100, and support by 4% (i.e., being officially ignored by 96% of critics polled!) was enough to get into the top 35.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

The tabulation ends up equating films with radically different statures and actual profiles of support, i.e., which the weak data can't capture.

Consider, for example, Godard's (in my view preposterous, rightly little seen) documentary/essay Histoire(s) du cinéma. It appeared on 30 critics' lists which was good for 48= overall.

As far as the data went Psycho got 34 votes and Histoire(s) du cinéma got 30, hence it was a close run thing between them. This is insane, and is strictly a reflection of the garbage data used. I'd guess that Psycho would have been on half of top 100s if they'd been solicited, whereas I'm confident that Histoire(s) du cinéma's whole base of support was the 30 hard-core Godardians who put it in their top 10s. The vast majority of critics, let alone the public, have never seen (8 hours+) Histoire(s) du cinéma, and almost everyone who's seen it detests it! Extending to Top 100 ballots would not have turned up any additional significant support for it.

In sum S&S's data doesn't distinguish between films that are rabidly supported only by a few % of critics and are unseen or hated by everyone else on the one hand, and films that everyone's seen and almost everyone regards as utterly essential (even if only a few % put it in their top 10s) on the other hand.

[–] Ray (33) 7 years ago

Thank you for your insight, highly appreciated. It does look crazy.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

@Ray. You're welcome. Given that S&S's procedure computes a quasi-ordered long-list from a set of unordered, otherwise-unrestricted, very-short-lists (hence the computation logically *must* be largely arbitrary), it's actually pretty amazing that their overall lists are as intelligible as they are. As the pool of critics S&S uses expands and diversifies, however, the procedural weakness is inevitably going to create more and more painful anomalies and unintelligibilities.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Those Sight and Sound computations are beyond comprehension but...they yielded some familiar international titles(not all that many American studio films, right?) and got Vertigo to Number One.

It does seem that, for all the lists of greatest movies put out by periodicals like Entertainment Weekly and, well...who else, really?...finding acceptable "greatest" lists has been tough to measure.

AFI seems to be out of the list business for now, but they gave us a "100 Best" list in 1997 and 2007(what WAS Number One? Citizen Kane? The Godfather?) , and a one-year only "Best Thriller" list that yielded Psycho as Number One and a one-year only "Best Comedies" list that yielded Some Like It hot as Number One(the fealty to the 50's/60's cusp, Hitchcock and Wilder struck me as Mainstream to the Max.)

The Oscar Best Picture List would seem to be solid gold, but it isn't really, is it?

Here's the 60's:

The Apartment
West Side Story
Lawrence of Arabia
Tom Jones
My Fair Lady
The Sound of Music
A Man For All Seasons
In the Heat of the Night
Oliver
Midnight Cowboy

...that is certainly substantial enough, but that MISSES all sorts of great things like Psycho, Strangelove, 2001, Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, The Wild Bunch, etc.

The 70's is a bit better:

Patton
The French Connection
The Godfather
The Sting
The Godfather Part II
Cuckoo's Nest
Rocky
Annie Hall
The Deer Hunter
Kramer vs Kramer

...but that still misses a lot of great ones, yes? MASH, Dirty Harry, Cabaret, The Exorcist, American Graffiti, Chinatown, Jaws, Network...

Despite or "irregardless" of its cockamamie vote count system, I guess S and S gets credibility for its critics voting base and its international emphasis.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Possibly the one set of lists that DOES matter of "Best Movies" is that series of lists composed by the Library of Congress each year so as to determine what films should be preserved, conserved, and saved from physical ruin. THAT's when rankings matter. Psycho and Vertigo and North by Northwest are on those lists, they will be saved. The poorly reviewed Topaz and the well-reviewed Frenzy are not, they may NOT be saved...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Dropping by to note that even as we downgrade the concept of "movie lists," Vulture internet magazine has put together a list of Steven Spielberg's entire canon, ranked worst to best. They couldn't help themselves. Its in honor of his new(and CGI tiring-looking) release "Ready Player One."

Interesting: the worst is "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull" or whatever it was called (Indy 4.)

The best is "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

I sense a little contrarianism going on there. The top four:

Raiders
ET
Schindler's List
Jaws

Fair enough, but I'd put Jaws up top(Spielberg never had such great characterization and structure again) and Raiders lowest of the four(it rather climaxes 2/3 of the way through and winds down thereafter.)

The list elects to put War of the Worlds quite high, and I must admit, the big attack sequences of that film ARE stunning and bleak("This isn't a war," says Tim Robbins' character, "its an extermination," and we sense how these aliens are out to simply wipe out all mankind -- scary movie but too perfunctory and terrible at the end.)

Lincoln gets high marks. And so does The Post.

I dunno. I still think that Spielberg's REAL career was from 1971(Duel) through 1982(ET.) Everything else was haphazard after that, too many bad movies, not enough memorable blockbusters.

I guess I'm like those guys who hated North by Northwest and Psycho and only loved The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes.