Not Coming to a Theater Near You

I Vitelloni / Italy / 1953

Is it me, or is this basically Old School in postwar Italy? I mean, no one runs down the street naked or ties a rope to their nards (regrettably), but the whole male bondo retarded adolescent fear of responsibility thing is remarkably prescient. I’d make a case for Federico Fellini as most overrated filmmaker of all time, but I think Oliver Stone and John Ford have that category all sewn up.

by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
27 Sep 2006 10:22 AM | Comments (15)

Comments / 15 total / Submit Comment

1. leo / 27 September 2006 / 8:03 AM / URL

   Tom, I think you’ve dropped something. Sounded like a gauntlet.

2. tom / 27 September 2006 / 9:23 AM / URL

   Yeah, the level of debate ’round these parts is all getting a bit highbrow, figured a good old fashioned ‘my guy’s worse than your guy, you don’t know what you’re talking about’ argument ought to help clear the air in time for horror month. Bring it on.

3. leo / 27 September 2006 / 9:52 AM / URL

   Unfortunately, you’re not going to get a great deal of objection from me. I like Fellini’s films well enough, but return to them very infrequently. Same goes for Ford, though I think he’s undoubtedly a fine cinematic narrator. And Stone — well, that’s like shooting fish in a barrel. I didn’t realize he was rated at all, let alone overly so.

4. Conor / 27 September 2006 / 8:45 PM

   Fellini is out. He’s not money. He’s obscure cinema. Ford could be it. Ford might be it. Stone is a good director. But over-rated? Come on. In terms of what? Money? Box office receipts? (By money I mean prestige.) Surely Ford has it.

5. tom / 28 September 2006 / 2:36 AM / URL

   You’d be surprised the number of people who still rate fat Ollie, who attempt to persuade you that Platoon is a masterpiece and JFK was the best film of the 90’s and that Nixon wasn’t just Tony Hopkins in a Droopy costume growling at the Chinese and the hippies. Any Given Sunday is still the only movie I’ve ever paid to see then walked out of. Sooooooooo boring.

   With Ford, I realised after writing that that The Grapes Of Wrath is actually one of my very favourite movies. I guess it’s just the Westerns I find such a yawn.

6. scot / 28 September 2006 / 5:50 AM / URL

   I don’t think I’ve ever watched a Fellini film a second time. Once is always plenty.

   Oddly enough Any Given Sunday might be the only Ollie Stone movie I actually didn’t hate!

7. Chiranjit / 28 September 2006 / 7:26 AM / URL

   I can see why people have problems with Fellini’s films since they can be excruciating at times, but I’m not really sure the term “obscure cinema” applies to the guy who directed La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and La Strada. All these films have been included in “the canon” at various times and regularly show up on the well-recognized BFI’s polls. He’s generally regarded as one of Italy’s master filmmakers so I doubt people have to rummage in dark rooms to find his movies. His films are widely available compared to works by Rossellini, De Sica, Antonioni, or Visconti.

8. Conor / 28 September 2006 / 10:17 AM

   regarding the obscure cinema comment, i was thinking of the rubric of american unipolarity and the resulting trends. fellini is not near the top of the pole at this point. whereas ford and stone are both commonly exported to the european markets and maybe beyond? to my knowledge fellini is nmot.

   not sure how the bfi adjusts the european viewing habits en masse. itself is kind of obscure in wider america, no? maybe not a useful index? globally i mean.

9. tom / 28 September 2006 / 11:43 AM / URL

   To be honest, I’d say most casual film enthusiasts could name more Fellini movies than John Ford movies. Or rather, they’d attach Fellini’s name to his movies more readily than they would Ford, whose westerns, for instance, would be more identifiable as John Wayne movies. But that’s very much an English perspective.

10. Chiranjit / 29 September 2006 / 7:45 AM / URL

    This discussion kind of depends on what population we frame the conversation around. If we are talking about people who frequent the local big-box multiplex and are excited to see the new Dane Cook/Jessica Simpson movie, or the people who are ticked off when all the copies of Poseidon are rented out at Blockbuster, then yes, I’m sure John Ford and Oliver Stone are more recognizable names, mostly because they are both American directors who direct English-language movies and Stone is still making films. Perhaps in terms of the global marketplace for average movie audiences, Ford and Stone are more recognizable because America has exported their culture so successfully.

    However, I’m kind of making the assumption that when someone (American, European, Asian, etc) is actually somewhat familiar with each director’s (Ford and Stone) body of work, and knows them as more than just some name they’ve heard, they would also be fairly familiar with Fellini. Even the most casual film enthusiast has some sort of knowledge of the blandest versions of “the canon,” and it’s hard to avoid a mention of Fellini somewhere along the way. In terms of your average English-speaking film enthusiast, I would say The Searchers and Stagecoach are only slightly more recognizable than 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita. In terms of an average film enthusiast, I would also say that the BFI list is rather prominent, if it hasn’t already been dismissed by some for being overly popular.

11. leo / 29 September 2006 / 8:20 AM / URL

    Like Kafka, Fellini also has a very prominent ‘-esque’ adjective tied to his name, one used apparently to describe something with lots of midgets. Whether or not one has actually seen a Fellini film, this description is common enough in American popular culture, at least. We can thank Janus for that.

12. Rumsey / 29 September 2006 / 8:37 AM / URL

    Like Kafka, Fellini also has a very prominent ‘-esque’ adjective tied to his name, one used apparently to describe something with lots of midgets.

    That would be Browning-esque, no? Fellini’s the guy with all the cherubic clowns and stuff. Browning’s the guy with all the dwarves.

13. tom / 29 September 2006 / 9:29 AM / URL

    I thought David Lynch was most famous for dwarves. And he doesn’t have an ‘-esque’ at all, he has an ‘-ian’. I reckon Browning also has an ‘-ian’, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the dwarves, I think it’s a consonant thing.

    And I definitely knew who Fellini was before I knew John Ford, but like I said it’s a cultural issue. I don’t know who Dane Cook and Jessica Simpson are.

14. Chiranjit / 29 September 2006 / 9:54 AM / URL

    Consider yourself very lucky, Tom (though Dane Cook has his rare moments).

    I always thoght that The Metamorphosis was very Kafka-esque.

15. leo / 29 September 2006 / 10:07 AM / URL

    Browning’s the guy with all the dwarves.

    Well, I never said the adjective was accurate, any more than ‘kafkaesque’ is.

    But what the hell do I know? I laugh at that Employee of the Month commercial every time I see it.