LawrenceA Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Which directors who work(ed) primarily in languages other than English do you have the most trouble appreciating? I mainly refer to the more recognized, critic's darlings, but feel free to mention any lesser knowns that particularly rub you the wrong way. P.S.: I create this topic as I watch "Les Carabiniers"(1963) by Godard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogie56 Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Which directors who work(ed) primarily in languages other than English do you have the most trouble appreciating? I mainly refer to the more recognized, critic's darlings, but feel free to mention any lesser knowns that particularly rub you the wrong way. P.S.: I create this topic as I watch "Les Carabiniers"(1963) by Godard. I found Marguerite Duras' India Song particularly unwatchable. 39 years later I am just about to build up the courage to view her Destroy She Said. I don't think you could call Jodorowsky a critic's darling, but in any event I thought El Topo and The Holy Mountain were highly over-rated when I saw them back in the stoned age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyM108 Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Sorry to flip the topic, but the easiest foreign directors for me to appreciate would be Kurosawa, Ozu, De Sica, Pontecorvo, Lang, Pabst, early Rossellini, early Bergman, Rohmer and Truffaut, in no particular order. And I guess that Hitchcock might also qualify as a sort of half-foreigner, though I much prefer his later Hollywood movies beginning with Strangers on a Train to his earlier British films. The hardest one for me to appreciate is Marguerite Duras, and I'm not a particular fan of Godard, or Bergman's allegorical films. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HelenBaby2 Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Since we just had a Luis Bunuel night not too long ago, I'd pick him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skimpole Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 Fellini and Lang strike me as the most prominent foreign film directors I don't warm to. But that doesn't mean that Nights of Cabiria and M are not masterpieces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceA Posted February 14, 2015 Author Share Posted February 14, 2015 Recently watched Band of Outsiders. Enjoyed it more than Les Carabiniers but I'm still not crazy about Godard. I've now seen a total of 7 of his films. I have two more around here to watch. I just finished watching The Gospel According to St Matthew for the first time. It's one of the last universally admired films that I hadn't seen. I feel like an ignorant philistine, because I didn't care for it at all. I kept reading how beautiful and poetic it was supposed to be, but to me it's almost the exact opposite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogie56 Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 Which directors who work(ed) primarily in languages other than English do you have the most trouble appreciating? I mainly refer to the more recognized, critic's darlings, but feel free to mention any lesser knowns that particularly rub you the wrong way. P.S.: I create this topic as I watch "Les Carabiniers"(1963) by Godard. I saw one the other night that plumbed new lows. Jauja (2014) by Lisandro Alonso starring Viggo Mortensen. For the first hour or so it reminded me of Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff. Sort of a shaggy-dog story western with people lost in great desert landscapes. Where nothing much progresses. Not to all tastes but not bad in itself. Then Jauja takes a complete left turn with about twenty minutes to go and Jauja becomes a ghost story AND a parallel universe story. And nothing is resolved or really connected. What?? I had to read comments on the imdb to try to figure out Alonso's intentions. They were no help. Even those who attended a Q&A with Mortensen were given no answers. It seems that providing no answers was the intent. And I can buy into films like that too. But not ones that play in reality for over an hour and suddenly become another film altogether in the last twenty minutes. What a mess. And I'm probably making it sound intriguing. Just to finish - no surprise that it was lauded at the Cannes film festival. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sepiatone Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 At first, I was't sure if the referrence was to directors of FOREIGN FILMS, or to film directors who were(are) foreigners to America----You know---like MICHAEL CURTIZ? But, it appears the trend with the thread is to name foreign film directors who made movies the person or persons may NOT have liked, or found hard to fathom. For ME, it was FELLINI. Sepiatone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alliehharding Posted April 14, 2015 Share Posted April 14, 2015 If a foreign film is too hard to watch I usually don't try so I'll stick with what I like the best. My most favorable foreign films are Japanese ones like Tokyo Story and Early Spring that were made in the 1950's. I find it enjoyable seeing how generational themes are portrayed such as taking care of elderly parents. You always see three generations living together in one household and there is always a conflict going on between each with the older parents just trying to get along ant not making waves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misswonderly3 Posted April 14, 2015 Share Posted April 14, 2015 Michelangelo Antonioni. Some like it cold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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