S7E18: Investigating Creation with Kristoffer Borgli

LMAO at americans thinking us Europeans live in huts

Giovanni Loddo

Glad to hear BEE’s take on Contempt, just saw it for the first time on a big screen in a real theater at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Great film and great seeing it with a large audience.

Mike Rankin

Enough Eagles, please.

Magic Mike

Love this relationship so much. I need Kristoffer's next film like a Russian black market drug

Matt Vogels

Agree completely with BEE's take that La Dolce Vita > 8 1/2

Bazayer

No Cassavetes.

James Beatty

I haven´t heard the whole episode yet, but they are discussing Fellini, and I must say La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2 did not catch my interest, I was much more taken with La Strada and "Le notti Di Cabiria".

Vibeke Garrod

Why should the norwegian director talk about USA and praise the "freedom" there, when this talk is about movies??? And pardon me, look at the american justice system, and healthcare, not too much freedom to praise there. Bret Easton Ellis said in the former episode with Borgli that the people in Oslo was soooo polite and smart, and I totally agree with him <3

Vibeke Garrod

agree!

Collin Myers

Just finished Sick of Myself based on these episodes and it was great. Spot on satire. Highly recommend!

Brad Turner

I think she meant, "Small and boring" which is the same thing.

Travis Films

Raging Bull is one of the worst films I've seen. It's laughable in many moments and just overacted all the way through. Any ranking of movies where RB is 22 and Pulp Fiction is nowhere to be found is ludicrous. Fine, leave PF off the posh list but then throw out RB.

Travis Films

Give me The Killer over Chungking Express any day.

Thomas Matich

Omg I have never heard such truths spoken about Beau Travail 🙏🏻

hollywoodending

Try revisiting Wong Kar Wei. Always beautiful, stylish, great music.

Mary Walker

Thank you for that! And it’s just a list I just got pissy about it but I mean, it’s just a list… :)

Patrick

Pulp is ranked 129th, tied with Raging Bull, His Girl Friday and Fanny and Alexander, in the critics’ poll (which actually includes 250 movies). The directors‘ poll includes 100 movies - no Tarantino on that list. Raging Bull is tied at 22 and Moonlight is tied at 93 on the directors‘ list. The directors put 2001: A Space Odyssey in the top spot. While we may quibble about the order, and certain inclusions /exclusions (part of the fun, really) the poll can‘t help but be interesting to film nerds. The individual critic and director ballots are quite amusing to peruse. Also, for what it‘s worth, Tarantino movies made just as many ballots as Barry Jenkins movies it is just that Moonlight got most of the Jenkins votes and QT votes were more split up (PF and Hollywood got most of the votes).

NLJZ

No QT?! Moonlight is a better movie than Pulp Fiction?! Get the fuck out!!! (Which is apparently better too.) Hard FU to this list.

Patrick

LOL Norway poor an uneducated?

WOLF STAR

I would love for foreign guests to praise America 🇺🇸 more. I just feel foreigners are just too ungrateful. They come here , live here, but don’t give out enough thanks. This guy comes from a very poor and uneducated country. Why not embrace the freedom?

Knokkel knokkel

My favorite podcast episode of the year so far. Excellent commentary on the absurd Sight and Sound poll. I think or hope we can all agree that social justice and PC politics have over played their hand but the vast majority of people including cinema goers are unaware of this list. Nice to see David Lynch in the top ten though. What a unique and visionary director who rarely gets his due in terms of awards.

David Willis

Excellent guest. Thanks again. Agree Spirited Away is overrated. Akira and other Japanese anime easily beat it. For comics meets movies, consider reading Alan Moore's Cinema Purgatorio (and Providence for pure weirdness).

Thomas Edwards

Stalker is one of those films that requires more than one viewing. What Bret said that's true of Vertigo is true of Stalker; you need the first viewing to get the lay of the land, but there are things that are revealed on a second and third viewing. I am still perplexed by it and haunted by it's mystery. It is also one of those films that is more interesting as you read about it. Here's one piece about it: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/08/15/the-sneaky-brilliance-of-geoff-dyers-into-the-zone/

Andrew Stone

Interesting that BEE had the same reaction to “2001” as a child. A neighborhood family invited me to join them to see Kubrick’s new film at a close-to-downtown Seattle cinema (might have been the old UA 150). I was all of five or six years old. The opening scene with the bone-wielding apes was the most frightening thing I’d ever witnessed. I shielded my eyes for the remainder of the film!

Dave

Tarkovsky's Stalker is a gorgeous film. Lynch and Malick were clearly moved by his work. Despite its abstractions, length and dreamlike tone, it manages to be propulsive. The reason he and other Soviet masters didn't make so many movies was because they were constantly censored and repressed. And speaking of a Soviet film that should be on every top ten list: Come and See by Elem Klimov – the greatest war movie ever made. If you haven't seen it, fire up your Criterion right now.

Steven Volynets

Loved the format for this episode. Kris is great. Everyone see Sick of Myself. It’s a satirical masterpiece and towers above the majority of films released in 2023 in almost every way.

Normaling

I think a lot of the “feminists” (not a cohesive group by any stretch of the imagination) who contributed to this list would have voted for films they knew would not feature on male critics/scholars/filmmakers lists (unless they were virtue signalling - as a bona fide feminist scholar I have “issues” with “male feminists”). Hence I didn’t include Hitchcock or Bergman because I knew they’d be on there already, even though I love them. I did vote for Peter Weir, Hal Ashby & Robert Altman though as they’d be less likely to be high up on the list. It’s all ridiculous and strategic ….

Anna B R

I don’t remember where I heard this, maybe it was here, but during the “golden age” o cinema , it was the “woman of the house” that selected the movies the household would watch in the theater . Then youth culture was created with teenagers having a saying, after that it was the time of the movie’ brats generation with their half lists. I call it half lists because I believe Pauline Kale was right when she criticized these guys, “what about the musicals and George Cukor ?”for example. I’m not a fan of the second and third wave of feminism and I don’t like the “diversity movement “ but I can recognize that all these lists were made by men that liked westerns. It’s not so much the women director that is missing but the women’s taste. Regarding the huge influence women had as the audience, more than men, it’s idiotic.

Jorge Espinha

I can listen to BEE and friends talk about film all day. Great episode

Callan Wilks

Work fuck autocorrect

Chris De Burgha

Agreed. Seems to be a popular take in certain circles now that the shining book isn't great. I've always thought it his best worm

Chris De Burgha

it tells us only about you and your friends or whoever.

Oleg

Good episode despite the fact that nobody I know has seen most of the films on this list. What does that tell us? Elitism. And the fact that lists and rankings are inherently interesting.

Steve

The Searchers?

Philip Huntley

Take a look at the Sight and Sound poll.

N.M. Janice.

Completely agree. I would also add that he can be inconsistent. I’ve heard him sing the praises of some films for their nihilism, bleak endings and unlikeable characters, but then he will trash something like Wanda as being a “bummer” like that’s bad in itself. Very much enjoy his criticism for the most part, even when I disagree, but i do wish he wasn’t so dismissive of certain films.

N.M. Janice.

George Quartz

He seems to hate Kelly Reichardt, whom I see as Loden's cinematic inheritor in many ways....so I wasn't surprised he hated it. A lot of my students hate it too. I think art that makes us feel bad often provokes dismissive, silly responses as a kind of defensive mechanism. We don't want to be the container for bad feelings - especially those of women or minorities. It's funny how perceptive he is about so many other films in a unique way (I find his takes on American Gigolo and Zodiac to be original and wholly brilliant) and yet utterly daft about others.

Anna B R

I think there is always a political element in any kind of list making or canonisation of art. I'll certainly be interested to see what happens in the 2032 poll - which I likely won't be asked to vote in (I think the inclusion of feminist film scholars was largely tokenistic and a deliberate ploy to tick their diversity and inclusion quota). I was well aware I was likely being asked for my opinion for the purpose of optics, but thought it was a fun, diverting exercise nonetheless which took ten minutes of my day. It's important not to take this stuff seriously: there are many amazing films that aren't even close to making that silly 'top 100' any time soon. That said, Wanda got screened at the BFI and is on a streaming service in Sweden I think largely as a result of this list....so good things occasionally come of ridiculous opinion polling.

Anna B R

Wanda is a great film. Bret is totally wrong on that one. He sometimes has a knee jerk, dismissive attitude towards some films that is unwarranted. It’s not even out of step with a lot of the bleak, nihilistic 70’s character studies that he often lauds.

N.M. Janice.

I like Dielman and Akerman in general. She is definitely an important filmmaker who deserves to be on the list. I just think that it jumping to #1 is ridiculous and feels transparent. Dismissing great works of art, because they are made by marginalized people is certainly abhorrent, but artificially inflating the reputation of these works is also a problem. I hope one day we can judge art just on the merits of the work alone and the identity of the creators become irrelevant. Bret is totally wrong about Wanda. He needs to give it another chance. It’s a fantastic film.

N.M. Janice.

Wanda is, for me, the reckoning that contemporary feminism precisely needs right now. I wrote a book on every single shot of the film.

Anna B R

No westerns ?!

John Pineda

I'm not claiming that Akerman was labouring away in obscurity - but it took a while for Vertigo, for example, to be recognised as a cinematic masterpiece and rightly to have its moment at number one. I can recognise that Jeanne Dielman has, in terms of film history, had and will continue to have a similar impact. That said, when they take the next poll in ten years, I doubt that it will still be at number one. It's been an exceptionally important film in terms of feminist history and feminist film festivals. It deserves to be recognised in this way.

Anna B R

Finally getting the recognition it deserves? It ranked 36th in 2012. The 36th greatest film ever made according to critics. How is that not the recognition it deserves?

Adam

Nice episode so far. But Wanda is terrific, tough and bleak.

Chris Jones

I enjoyed this episode despite being one of the feminist film scholars who was asked to vote this year - and thus likely one of the people Bret is railing against here. This poll is merely the marker of a cultural moment: everything has its place and I am glad that Jeanne Dielman finally got the recognition it deserves by being placed number one. That said, I didn't vote for Akerman's film - but I did vote for Loden's 'Wanda', which Bret seems equally perplexed over.

Anna B R

Read the Rosenbaum review of Jeanne Dielman years ago. Great critic. Cool film

Darren Ankenman

https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2021/02/jeanne-dielman-23-quai-du-commerce-1080-bruxelles/

Darren Ankenman

am going to listen on my run. will say more later, after my run.

richard owain roberts

👏👏👏

Patrick

He said LA KNOT again

Keith campbell

Bret is incorrect, Wendy and Dick Halloran do not get married at the end of The Shining…I just read it recently as well as reading Dr. Sleep right after. The Overlook Hotel blows up and they all recuperate at a cabin, followed by Wendy and Danny moving to Maryland and then Florida, where Wendy contacts Dick for help and to come for a visit because Danny’s issues with the dead are still haunting him.

Ashley

Feels like Sight and Sound totally over played their hand. I would have expected some changes in the list motivated by inclusion as that is the moment that we are in, but it’s so egregious and ridiculous to the point that it’s lost credibility. Which is unfortunate, as I often reference the 2012 list and was excited for the new one to come out. What a disappointment.

N.M. Janice.

Pure excellence. Perfect episode. Thank you!

Jorge Espinha

Fantastic episode

PETER GREER

This is probably not the place but, I would love to hear your comments on Asteroid City. I went to see it in a theater. Monday night. About 70% full, great audience. Quiet at the right moments & laughed at the right moments. A movie theater experience that I haven’t had in a long time. As far as a review, GO BEE. Great, perfect episode BTW!

honker_2021