The earliest US films were motion studies, most famously Muybridge. But also "the sneeze" etc. According to legend Edison limited the lengths of films in the USA. As the Edison "Trust" cartel collapsed around 1911, European director/producers like Alice Guy-Blaché set up studios in NJ. She had gotten her start, free from Edison's nonsense, at Gaumont. From 1910 to 1935, women are the highest paid screenwriters and they lead the transition toward styles that are already popular in Europe. Audiences in Europe during WW1 skewed female and they brought children with them. The same trend came to the USA right after WW1 and Lois Weber and Mary Pickford become the first women in the world to command incomes over $1-million per year. Pickford co-founds United Artists.
One of the many reasons why sync sound was not adopted before 1927 is that silent films were easier to export. And they never looked as wrong or distracting as a film with dubbed dialog. Hitchcock exported well because he refused to surrender his silent-film aesthetic. Alice Guy-Blaché exported well because she was from europe.
The same kind of Europe-to-US pipeline repeats in the 1950s when the French New Wave precedes and prompts the American New Wave aka New Hollywood.
I worked for Roger Corman's New World in the foreign film division because I spoke four languages and grew up on art house films.
Parasite (2019) - Bong Joon Ho's masterpiece. Another stunning example of the quality of cinema coming out of Korea right now.
Shoplifters (2018, Japan) - I'd like to think this is one of the films that popularized "found family" as a recent subgenre.
"On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by fierce loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence and test their quietly radical belief that it is love—not blood—that defines a family."
Roma (2018) - "Set in 1970 and 1971, Roma follows the life of a live-in indigenous housekeeper of an upper-middle-class Mexican family. A semi-autobiographical take on Cuarón's upbringing in Mexico City's Colonia Roma neighborhood."
Happening (2021) Devastating. Starts with intensity and escalates all the way to the end. An unbelievable performance by Anamaria Vartolomei, intimate, vulnerable, engaging. I had to watch it in two sessions. Emotionally exhausting and plays like a thriller.
"Set in 1963, the film stars Anamaria Vartolomei as Anne, who experiences the emotionally and physically traumatic process of obtaining an abortion in France before it was legalized. "
I have way too many more but this film is/was nearly suppressed. They released a film with the same title to obscure this one:
La Llorona (2019) - "A tale of horror and magical realism, the film reimagines the iconic Latin American fable as an urgent metaphor of Guatemala’s recent history and tears open the country’s unhealed political wounds to grieve a seldom discussed crime against humanity. LA LLORONA marks Bustamante’s third feature and demonstrates his continued efforts to highlight social inequality in his native Guatemala.
Indignant retired general Enrique finally faces trial for the genocidal massacre of thousands of Mayans decades ago. As a horde of angry protestors threatens to invade their opulent home, the women of the house—his haughty wife, conflicted daughter, and precocious granddaughter—weigh their responsibility to shield the erratic, senile Enrique against the devastating truths being publicly revealed and the increasing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes. Meanwhile, much of the family’s domestic staff flees, leaving only loyal housekeeper Valeriana until a mysterious young Indigenous maid arrives."
Escalates nicely. Well paced and delivered. So intense as a thriller that the politics seem incidental. Masterful storytelling.
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