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Word: films (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
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...prison to trap his characters. In Skidoo the brilliant opening confirms beyond a doubt that Preminger's art is visionary (note the shot, when Gleason and Arnold Stang go upstairs, consisting entirely of croped details of frame elements, showing nothing as an independent whole). More simply, Preminger films the wide-angle claustrophobia of a Hippie bus to contradict their professed freedom, just as the immaculately confident space of the California courthouse is violated by the encroaching teen-agers. If we know how to read the content of Preminger's images, Skidoo is often scary, often moving (an LSD sequence...

Author: NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED | Title: The Ten Best Films of 1968 | 1/14/1969 | See Source »

Madigan. Donald Siegel's elegant classicism imparts thoughtful ambiguity to this excellent police melodrama. The honesty of the filming (and of Siegel's fine actors) make the fate of the characters a matter of some importance to the audience. As we become involved, the script's resolutions assume moral force, and the inconclusiveness of real-life relationships is ably conveyed through intelligent use of genre. Siegel makes few personal judgements along the way and we are left to our own instincts in dealing with Madigan, his wife, and the Police Commissioner; consequently, Madigan's death doesn't resolve anything neatly...

Author: NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED | Title: The Ten Best Films of 1968 | 1/14/1969 | See Source »

...political content is lightweight (contrary to American popular opinion, Godard is anything but the idol of the French student revolutionaries) but it contrasts well with the other-facets of the film. For example, having established a motif of red paint on white walls, the multi-shaded greens of the train and apartment-house assassination sequences make the real world a complex support of Francis Jeanson's assertion that the students are drasticalliy oversimplifying. But the ending replaces conclusive directorial statement with irony, and signifies that Godard didn't know what kind of statement he wanted to make...

Author: NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED | Title: The Ten Best Films of 1968 | 1/14/1969 | See Source »

Petulia, a sad and moving film by Richard Lester, shows its director capable of insight into his characters and instinct toward his actors. Lester's cinema is generally defined by tricky and overcontrived camera gymnastics (Petulia has its share of this, and none of it is good)--but here we have him leaving his camera rolling when his actors begin to groove, plainly sacrificing editorial cleanliness for dramatic punch. Petulia's occasional messiness is much to Lester's credit: the film ends at least six times in its attempt to chronicle a relationship realistically, but just before its strange construction...

Author: NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED | Title: The Ten Best Films of 1968 | 1/14/1969 | See Source »

Coogan's Bluff, Donald Siegel's second film of 1968 falls just short of Madigan by virtue of less serviceable writing and blunter editing. Nonetheless, anyone willing to bypass an unfortunate reliance on convention gets caught up in a compelling and consequential morality play, honestly acted and extraordinarily well filmed...

Author: NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED | Title: The Ten Best Films of 1968 | 1/14/1969 | See Source »

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