A Canon Tally

"If one took all the masters and models through whom the Filmkritik directors explored their own work, and if one looked at selected works in retrospect next to each other, one could very quickly see the points of aesthetic convergence, and through these roughly sketch out the Filmkritik-style. The next step would be to describe the differences between the individual filmmakers. The great unifying figure, the director whom all honour to the same degree, is Jean Marie-Straub. Among the classical masters, they love Rossellini, Renoir, and Ford; they discover Grémillon and Ophüls again (for themselves); they define their work ethos via the pragmatism of Hawks, Tourneur and Sirk among the acknowledged directors, and in their writings seek proximity to Daves, Lerner, Fejos, and Hurwitz. Among their contemporaries they surround themselves with Pialat, van der Keuken, and Nestler."

-- Olaf Möller.

The trio of "classical masters" and those three 'pragmatists' of the American cinema I have covered fair enough. But Straub & Huillet, as mentioned here recently, I've still seen too little of. Off the top of my head: Grémillon, only one film; Ophüls, I'm still missing a couple of big ones (like Letter to an Unknown Woman); Daves, two or three films; Lerner, only one film; Fejos, no films; Hurwitz, no films; Pialat, six or seven; JVDK, nothing; Nestler, nothing.

Damn, I have work to do!

I plan on getting more regular, and extensive, posts up soon, but I still have problems with my DVD player--I think this is a software problem, as at least the brand new DVD-burner works just fine. All I've been waiting forever to do is take screen caps off of my computer ...