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Selected from | NYU student @ Zhihu Zhuoyang
If you are a veteran fan of literary and art films, then please accept today's must-see list of the world's top film schools.
NYU Grad Film is the alma mater of film masters such as Ang Lee, Martin Scorsese, and Spike Lee, and is also the temple in the minds of future filmmakers. In the United States, the USC and UCLA of the Hollywood Industrial School in Los Angeles and the NYU and Columbia of the New York Independent Film School formed a film education situation on both sides of the East and west sides.
After admitting students, NYU will send a list of nearly 100 films, recommending that students watch these films before starting their studies for reference and discussion in class.
From this list of films, we can still see the taste of NYU as a film academy. American and French films make up most of the country, with the only recurring directors being Woody Allen and Francis Coppola. As for the Films directed by Chinese directors, there are four films in the film list, namely Wu Yusen's "Two Heroes of Blood", Zhang Yimou's "Big Red Lantern Hanging High", Wong Kar-wai's "Fancy Years", and Ang Lee's "Color, Ring".
Let's take a look at what literary films are considered by the academy to need to be studied by young filmmakers, and the film list is fine-tuned every year, and the following is a relatively concentrated part of the selection:
Gold Rush
Charlie Chaplin, Usa 1925
"Gold Rush" is a sign of the maturity and peak of Chaplin's "Tramp Series" comedy, which epitomizes all the advantages of this series:
1. Successfully create the image of a small person with a distinct personality, Charlot, although this character is not proud, he has a kind heart, helps others, and loves to hold unequal and valuable qualities
2. Created a "tearful laugh" style of screen comedy.
3. It was named the first place in the ten best films of the Year in the United States.
The Book of joan of Arc
Carl Theodore de Léer France 1928
Directed by a generation of film masters Carl Theodore Delayer, the film Joan of Arc is known as one of the top ten best films in the world. The film recreates the last moments of the short life of a national hero tortured by the Catholic Church and the British occupation forces with a powerful artistic expression.
"Beauty Plan"
Hitchcock, United Kingdom 1946
"The Beauty Plan" tells the story of After World War II, the daughter of a Nazi spy, Leah is asked by the US federal investigator Dip to go to Rio de Janeiro to investigate her father's old friend Chebas. In the process, Leah and Dipri have a crush, but are unable to be together because of their mission. In order to further investigate Chebas, Leah marries him while bringing more in-depth intelligence to Dip. Chebas gradually discovered Leah's intentions. In order to put Leah to death, Chebas devised a quiet plan. Leah's situation is worrying, and the spy plan is full of suspense.
Truffaut, who devoted himself to and studied Hitchcock, once said that the film "Beauty Plan" was his "favorite Hitchcock movie" and "can be said to be the essence of Hitchcock movies" Compared with Hitchcock's other films, the proportion of love elements in "Beauty" is larger, and at the same time, it does not reduce the suspense setting that Hitchcock is proud of.
Rashomon
Akira Kurosawa Japan 1950
Rashomon is based on the novels "In the Jungle" and "Rashomon" by writer Ryunosuke Wasagawa. The background of the film is taken from the novel "Rashomon", and the plot is mainly taken from the novel "Mang Bush". Unlike the confusion of the original crime, the film gives the truth of the murder through the woodcutter's second narration: the real murderer is the robber Tadashi Maru. However, several of the parties involved claim to be murderers, which is quite amusing, and this matter reflects the complexity of human nature at a deep level. In fact, it is not important to find out the truth, director Akira Kurosawa's intention is to guide the audience to pay more attention to human nature, to pay attention to how to abandon the evil side of human nature, and move towards a bright future.
Tokyo Story
Yasujiro Ozu Japan 1953
Ozu likes to give people in the play the same name, likes to use the same actors, likes to tell similar stories, he is not afraid of audience confusion, perhaps his purpose is this: he hopes that the audience will treat the different stories in the movie as a family story. In the end, the varied life is the same, nothing more than joy and sorrow, sorrow and joy, birth, old age, illness and death.
There is such an "ideal" family in "Tokyo Story", but it is the saddest and most emotional one in Ozu's movie. Ozu said: "I want to use the experiences of parents and children to describe how traditional Japanese families fall apart. ”
Song of the Earth
S. Ray India 1955
The film depicts the tragic fate and attitude towards life of a small, desperate Brahmin family in a remote village of Bengal, India, who have fallen into desperation.
An epic film about a person's growth, we can find a lot, they present an epic sense of is a combination of the social environment, people in the face of history small and helpless. This is the first part of the Apu Trilogy, and the Apu Trilogy revolves around only one person, and that is Apu, and it's about his world, his life.
Four Hundred Blows
Truffaut France 1962
The beginning of the French film new wave, one is "Broken Breath", the other is "Four Hundred Blows".
Truffaut is telling us a story of growth, a story of growth that may be cruel or pale. No matter how much twelve-year-old Antoine disguises himself, in the end he is just a teenager with clear eyes and a fragile heart. He looked around, and finally saw a dark adult world behind the barbed wire. The so-called "four hundred blows" is actually a French slang, which means that parents should often hit when educating their children, and it is best to hit four hundred times before stopping, so that children will obey and "grow up".
The Outlaw
Jean-Luc Godard France 1964
Outlaw is a 1964 film by Godard. As the standard-bearer of the New Wave, Godard is also a fan of genre films. And his best "Exhausted" and "Pierrot the Madman" have profoundly influenced the New Hollywood movement and the resulting genre film revolution. "Law" was born out of robber films, but under Godard, who is good at subversion and deconstruction, it is full of anti-robber films, so it can be said that it is a destroyed robber film.
This casual work of Godard has a great influence on the directors of later generations. For example, if you see Arthur, O'Dyer, and Franz dancing in a bar, you will understand what the famous dance in Quentin's Pulp Fiction is like; when you see Arthur's line when he dies: "He saw the strange bird in Indian mythology, it was born without feet and can never fall to the ground..." You will understand what Wong Kar-wai's "The Legend of Ah Fei" is. And of course there are clips like "The Dreamer" that pay homage to it completely.
Once Upon a Time in the West
Sergio Leone Italy 1968
The legendary classic of the Italian Western master Sergio Leon, following the collaboration with Kling Iswett on the "Dart Three Series", Sergio Leon's nearly three-hour long masterpiece is called the greatest Western in the history of cinema.
The story tells the story of a mysterious guest (Charles Bronson) who comes to town and is involved in a land grab between a widow (Claudia Cardinal) and a railway tycoon, the most interesting character of this film is henry fonda, who has always been a righteous image, and it is rare to play a cold-faced cruel killer in this film, with almost no expression from beginning to end, only the occasional small movement in the corner of the mouth, which makes people shudder... When the film was released in the United States that year, it was trimmed by the film dealer because it was too long, resulting in a vague story structure and unclear language.
The Godfather
Francis Coppola usa 1972
The Godfather is a gangster film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, released in the United States on March 24, 1972. Based on Mario Puzo's novel of the same name, the film tells the story of the development of a gangster family headed by Vito Don Collion and how Collion's youngest son, Mike, succeeded his father as gang leader. In 1973, the film won the 45th Academy Awards for Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2007, it was selected by the Motion Picture Association of America as the "Second Best Film in the 100 Years".
Raging Bull
Martin Scorsese Usa 1980
Jack Lamotta, the 1949 World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, wrote an autobiography dissecting his life. De Niro recommended it to Scorsese, and the souls of three New Yorkers of Italian descent resonated.
LaMota hit all the way up, very smoothly, the fist-to-flesh shot is extremely tense under Scorsese's rapid editing, no way, in order not to let the audience pay too much attention to violence, had to adjust the color of the whole film to black and white.
The film received a lot of criticism at its premiere, but de Nero received undisputed praise and won the Oscar for Best Actor, and Schumek also won the Academy Award for Best Editing. Over time, the film was regarded as Scorsese's best work, often topped the top ten films of the 1980s and became a classic of contemporary American cinema.
Strange Shadows in Heaven
Jim Jarmusch Usa 1984
Jarmusch has always been a darling of the Cannes Film Festival, with five films shortlisted for the Palme d'Or in his 25 years, however, it was his 1983 film Strangers in Paradise that first earned Jim Jamsh the honor at the Cannes Film Festival, when he won the Golden Camera Award at Cannes for a film that cost only $7,000. The film can be used as an example of minimalism, and some people have commented that the most amazing thing about this film is that it conveys so many things in such a simple film language.
In the film, life has no purpose. The three characters, including even the aunt, are in a state of wandering life, which is passive, negative, and powerless. For the first encounter, the attitude of the two is absent-minded and even initially hostile. The conversation in two words, without margins, is full of indifferent self-centeredness.
"Blood And Two Heroes"
Wu Yusen China 1989
The whole film from the director, cinematography, script, artwork, editing without a bad, plus several starring actors, is a rare more balanced and perfect production. To say that "The True Colors of Heroes" has created an era of genre films, then "Blood Two Heroes" is the peak of Wu Yusen's directorial level.
In 1999, Time Magazine listed it as one of the top ten Asian films of the century. On the 15th anniversary of the founding of the famous British film magazine "Empire", the 15 most influential films in the past 15 years were specially selected, and "Blood And Two Heroes" was selected.
"The Big Red Lantern Hangs High"
Zhang Yimou China 1991
The movie "Hanging High with a Red Lantern" is the work of director Zhang Yimou in 1991, the film is based on Su Tong's novella "Wives and Concubines In Groups", in the inheritance and development of the original theme and style, but also through Zhang Yimou's unique visual effects and thick historical and cultural heritage, reflecting the "polygamy" feudal family internal calculations, secret struggle of life scenes and corresponding survival principles. The environment in which the whole film was shot is very single, that is, a large mansion of the Chen family. But the singleness of the shooting environment did not bury the delicate emotions of the film and the ideas it wanted to express.
"Fancy Years"
Wong Kar Wai China 2000
This is a film by Wong Kar-wai, the representative director of Hong Kong's postmodernism in the 90s. The storyline couldn't be simpler – it tells the story of two married men and women in extramarital love, and a similar movie is the American "Covered Bridge Dream". The two have the same magic, except that the latter is the Westerners' concept of love, and the concept of love reflected in "Fancy Years" belongs to the oriental feelings of "the white walls and black tiles of that era".
Hidden Camera
Michael Haneke France 2005
The British newspaper The Guardian commented that this film was "the first great film of the 21st century", and after watching it, it was not exaggerated at all. We can interpret the film on many levels: from the personal point of view, there is deception, guilt, jealousy, suspicion, hatred and venting; from the perspective of the family, there is trust, family, parent-child relationship, betrayal; and from the macroscopic point of view, we can see the opposition between the middle class and the bottom, the mainstream and the non-mainstream of society, the conflict between France and Algeria, the incomprehension between the Western world and the Arab world. Any one of these themes can have been a great film alone, but the director has perfectly condensed all these themes together in one film.
"Color, Ring"
Ang Lee China 2007
In 2007, the famous Chinese director Ang Lee's new film "Color, Ring" appeared at the Venice Film Festival, which was shocking.
He stubbornly rooted in Zhang Ailing's text, and through his own understanding, expanded the content of the original work. Many directors can turn a grand story into a 90-minute movie; Ang Lee is good at doing the opposite. He enjoys shooting short stories, lyrically and slowly expanding the story into an epic of human nature.
One of the things he appreciates most about the novel "Color, Ring" is that Zhang Ailing writes the pleasure of women's sexual desire into a war story full of masculinity and machismo, which "although it is a small drop of oil paint, it has a big ripple." Ang Lee valued this drop of oil paint and used imaging tools to render the "big ripples" vigorously.
Literature illuminates life