WHAT FOREIGN FILMS HAVE YOU WATCHED LATELY?

[MikeBSG]

Is "Beware of a Holy Whore" the one about making a film? Is Eddie Constantine in that one?

That was an interesting movie, but not one of my favorite Fassbinder films. I like "Ali Fear Eats the Soul," "Mother kusters Goes to Heaven," "Lola," "Marriage of Marie Braun," "The Stationmaster's Wife," and "Lili Marlene." I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple of others.

[MichiganJ]

Is "Beware of a Holy Whore" the one about making a film? Is Eddie Constantine in that one?

Yes and yes.
It's more of a character study than Truffaut's Day for Night and the two would make a good double bill.

[MikeBSG]

I really like Kristin Scott Thomas. I'll have to keep an eye open for this one. thanks for mentioning it.

[feaito]

During this WE I saw two excellent French films starring Jean Gabin, with dialogue by Jacques Prevert:

-Poetic realism supreme in "Le Jour se Lève" (1939) with glowing performances by Jean Gabin and Arletty (I wished she would have had more screen time than Jacqueline Laurent, who's rather bland in the role of the young girl for whom Gabin falls). Jules Berry is good, but rather hammy as Valentin. Carné is truly one of the great directors of French Cinema. My favorite film of his is still "Les Enfants du Paradis", an absolute work of art.

- "Remorques" (1941) -thank you Nancy- a beautiful, nostalgic film about love and duty. Gabin is again splendid as the captain of a rescue ship and Madeleine Renaud (first time I see her on screen) gives luminous & ethereal performance as his frail wife. She was a great actress. Michèle Morgan is impressively attractive and gives a strong performance as the woman for whom Gabin falls. She's quite a presence here! A well done and engrossing drama by Jean Grémillon. I wished more Frernch films of the 1930s and 1940s were available with subs!

[charliechaplinfan]

Me too, Nancy did us a great service with the Gabin movies.

[Fossy]

What Is A Foreign Film?

How does one decide what is a foreign film? Is it a film made in a foreign country? For instance, should I regard American or English movies as foreign because they were not made in Australia? Does Feaito regard American or English movies as foreign because they were not made in Chile? Does Charliechaplinfan regard American or Australian films as foreign because they were not made in England?

Or perhaps a more accurate description would be foreign language (non English speaking) films?

[Rita Hayworth]

A Foreign Film in my Mind is this:

1. A film got imported to United States; made Overseas. I'm not an authority on Foreign Films; but let make up a title here for reference use only. Let's say France imported a film called "THE GREAT DIVIDE" starring Eva Green (the Bond Girl) for example and its made in France, with English Subtitles - I would call this an Foreign Film.

2. In France, its not. I would call this film - homegrown and in France the THE GREAT DIVIDE would not be classified as a Foreign Film at all.

3. Now, lets say that this movie was partially made in the USA, and Eva Green and a couple of unknown actors and actresses did a 15 minutes scene in New York City to help explain the story better; then I would still call it Foreign Film as long the Producers of this movie controls the whole production of the movie itself.

4. Let's say that same movie uses a Production Company in USA and the Producers of the film decided that the Production Company to do whatever they pleased as long they follow the "Script of the Movie" ... then the movie is (in my opinion) is not a Foreign Film ... but an International Film because the film uses Production Facilities in both Countries to produce the final material.

5. Let's say that same movie decided to go to USA (brought the Production Facilities with them) and made the entire movie in United States and both Producers and Directors are French Nationals ... then the movie is still Foreign Made because they did not use any resources here in United States.

These points that I made here ... are just my observations of what classify as a FOREIGN film is ... I can handle criticisms here ... but using my logic here ... these 5 points that I brought up is basically what I came up with and why. Its can go either way, but this is what I came up with in an instant.

[feaito]

Hi Fossy, since I'm writing on an American Forum, everything not made in the US, in this case, is foreign for me.

[ChiO]

I find "foreign film" to be not only frightfully U.S.-centric, but horribly non-descriptive. U.S. and Mexican actors (therefore, some speaking in English, some in Spanish, and likely dubbed in both and many other languages) making a movie in Spain with an Italian director, who now lives in France, financed by money from every corner of the globe.

Movies is movies.

[charliechaplinfan]

For me I'd class anything in a non English language, as a Brit I'd never consider an American film foreign but would a French movie, so I think for me it must means a language barrier.

[moira finnie]

The only reason that we set this section up was to share our impressions of non-English language films--it was not intended to impose any cultural superiority or point out any other country's inferiority. The existence of this section resulted from several members, over time, asking about where to put non-English films. Given the fact that we discuss non-English language movies all over this forum, it's pretty obvious that no one is going to be chided for bringing up any movie from other countries elsewhere on these boards. All that is hoped for here is a communal celebration and friendly discussion of the movies, and finding a way to put into words how they affect us without getting too doctrinaire about it.

"Movies is movies" sounds fine, but I sincerely believe that one of the charms of being a film buff is the discovery of the distinctive qualities of other people's films made in their native country and inevitably reflecting something of their own culture. We are all human, but national differences are real and can be appreciated through film, movies, the flickers or whatever people want to call them. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Ingmar Bergman could have been the introspective artist he was without Sweden in his background. Would Fellini's verve and compassionate embrace of life have developed in quite the same way outside of Italy? Could the uniquely spare, bleak yet very humorous and deeply felt films of Robert Hamer, critiquing British social quirks, have occurred outside of the UK? Since one of the things that members share here is the English language, it was not intended in any way to reflect an Anglo- or American-centric POV, but to expand our discussions and discover and appreciate films from around the world. That's the best explanation that I can give for the designation. It was not meant to imply or for anyone to infer that films in English were any better than movies made in any other language--and internationally made movies are always welcome for discussion.

If a member doesn't like this section, its name, or the use of the term "film" as well as "movie" interchangeably, no one is compelled to read posts or write here--though everyone is welcome to write what they like as long as it is within the boundaries set by the code of conduct that we each agreed to when becoming a member.

[moira finnie]

I am sorry if I seem to have over-reacted. What I really wanted to express was that the creation of a foreign film section enables any member to post about a film and allows others to search for discussions of non-English films in a (one hopes) might be a logical spot. I don't want anyone to think that I meant to be censorious. I apologize for more ham-fistedness.

[charliechaplinfan]

I didn't take it that way Moira, it's only when it was brought up that I realised that what counted as foreign to me didn't count as foreign to others and categorising films isn't always easy, they could fit into a number of categories. I like the foreign film forum, with more world cinema films being available to watch on TV and able to buy or rent it is deserving of it's own category.

[feaito]

Hi, I did not take it that way either Moira.

It's funny, since I grew up watching mostly American films on TV (dubbed in Spanish-Castilian though), and since Chile hardly had a Cinematic tradition, for me anything not made in the US was foreign...At the cinema contemporary movies were shown with subs...and still are. Since 1990 Chilean Cinema has been pretty active, but still the films are grew up with are American (or British)...I grew up with Garbo, Hepburn, Grant, Granger, MGM, and all the American TV series & sitcoms (A Team, I dream of Jennie, Dallas, Combat et al).

Today I saw a pleasant French film starring Joséphine Baker: "Princesse Tam Tam" (1935) with Albert Préjean. Miss Baker is a poor Tunisian girl who's taken to France by writer Préjean as a Hindu Princess....she becomes the cream of the French society. There are some fine numbers and one huge one a-la-Busby Berkeley. Enjoyable, but "Zou Zou" with Jean Gabin was better.