The Silver Screen Oasis

I love foreign movies Masha but my preference is for the work of Mizoguchi and Naruse and Italian neo realistic films and the Italian comedies made from the 40s to the 60s with odd exceptions outside that era. Then it's Japanese and French cinema, I'm also quite a fan of early Swedish cinema and Ingmar Bergman films. There's not a country I wouldn't watch a film from. I'm not well versed in Russian cinema though.

Hi Masha,
If you would like we can add a poll to this thread regarding the sources of our favorite foreign films and allow a comment regarding the reasoning behind each member's choices if each person wished to comment as well. Please let me know if you would like this feature added here. I would be happy to help.

Moira

Masha, I'm glad to help. All members have the ability to create a new poll when they create a new topic. As you can see in the image below, the poll creation tab is just below the message box:


This is how the blank poll looks before you set it up:


Since at this point, if you are interested in the preferences of each member generally, you could ask each member to name, for example, three or five of the countries whose films are most appealing to each individual. Here's what a poll for three of these preferences would look like:


If this is satisfactory for you or if you would prefer each member to enter their choices in the form of a comment instead, please let me know. I can edit your first post in this thread and set the poll you see above or leave things as they are.

By the way, personally, I find foreign movies made in France, Italy and Germany to be the most appealing to me--perhaps in part due to early exposure or simply because some (but hardly all!) of the language spoken in these films is easier for me to comprehend even without subtitles.

I have set the poll up as discussed, Masha, but please don't worry about not noticing that tab for poll creation earlier. I find that much of our multi-layered site takes a long time to notice and I am constantly unearthing new aspects/quirks about it!

Please enjoy.

I love all kinds of foreign (to me) movies. from the 50's/60's output of Japan, to German expressionism/new wave, to French new wave, all of Dreyer's and Bergman's films, to Yimou's 90's output in China w/Gong Li.

If I could only pick one however, I would have to choose Italy, possibly because there are so many different types of movies: silents, neo realism, art films, spaghetti westerns, giallo, poliziotteschi, political movies, comedies, etc. Also, you have to take into account the Italian culture, where the local movie house was a gathering place and many people well into the 70's still did not own TV's. This created a huge demand for product and as a result, we have a wealth of material to choose from. Some of it is amazing, some of it awful, but the sheer volume and high talent gives better odds on finding something you might enjoy than many other countries.

I'm in a similar boat. After Welles, Dreyer is my favorite director -- but his films are, to the best of my recollection, the only Danish films I've seen other than a few of Von Trier's (and he makes some in English) -- and my favorite Dreyer film is French. Max Ophuls -- German to English to French. What to do?

Do I love Japanese movies? Sure, but I really haven't seen much other than Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kirosawa (and, of course, Honda). Ditto with Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Senegal, Iran, India, Great Britain, Sweden, Spain....

Kind of like watching the movies of Welles, Ford, Hawks and Scorsese (or Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko and Tarkovsky), liking them and then, based on that limited viewing alone, deciding I like U.S. (or Russian) movies.

I obviously need to watch more non-English language hack work.

I chose Spain (#1), France (#2), and Other to represent Denmark (#3).

For spanish and danish cinema I am interested mostly in the contemporary, 1980's onward. For french cinema I enjoy both classic and contemporary.

Most of the foreign films that I watched in my lifetime were either French and Russian. Because they have subtitles built in ... but; I find films made in Germany and Italy are pretty darn good but I just find them very difficult for me to understand.

I just have issues with foreign films because if they don't have subtitles and closed captioning ... I will not watch them at all. I just (because of my hearing handicap) I find these films aren't my cup of tea. That is why I don't share much on this forum about films made in other lands and if I do ... It would be a great film and its has great legacy that goes with it.

That is my 2 cents worth ...

I bent the rules a tad in order to justify a vote. I took into account those directors who made their greatest impact outside of the country I voted for, but whose directing roots -- their start and style -- were in that country.

Murnau, Lang, Ulmer, Sirk, Ophuls, Wyler, Zinnemann, Lubitsch, Wilder, Siodmak (Robert & Curt), Preminger, Herzog, Fassbinder, Wenders.