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Do people even remember his films outside of Virginia Woolf and The Graduate?

posted 7 years ago by LetThemEatCake (2717)
9 replies | jump to latest

I don't know. He is an epitome of the new wave. Hollywood went from producing epics, both in scale and emotional content and beauty and did away with that, to then make films about ugliness and schmucks like Dustin Hoffman. It's ironic really and it is a testament how the new wave did not produce A SINGLE ARTIST that anyone is going to put up in a poster in their room. Very telling. And they haven't stood the test of time, all these ugly films about mediocrity, yuck. Very few exceptions. Now Hollywood grandeur is coming back but it's about special effects now, not about beauty and spectacle, but thank god the ugly films about schmucks like kramer vs kramer are gone.

[–] CountJohn (602) 7 years ago

It's weird, The Graduate is such an incredible film and so well directed. You could almost pause the movie for every shot and explain why it's a perfect shot and why it's exactly how you should shoot a movie. But after that he was pretty much a director for hire and never had that kind of vision again. I always think of him as a "great director" but post-Graduate his film career got a little weird.

[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 7 years ago

I saw The Graduate over 10 years ago, I really enjoyed it, haven't seen it since but I'm sure it's still a good film but I wouldn't say every shot is perfect. I think it looks kinda ugly. Like I said, the New Wave was just doing away with the Hollywood glamour and making things as gritty as possible and focusing on things and people that no one would have thought to make a movie of, for many reasons. And some of those films are genuinely good, but the more I learned about Golden Age Hollywood, the more the New Wave paled in comparison. I tried watching Wolf the other day, a movie of my childhood that had mystique for me and I couldn't get past the horrific film stock they used, the ugliness, the banality. A gorgeous shot at the end of Michelle Pfeiffer is ruined by the ugly lighting and excessive grain of low quality film. I also struggled with the story, who the fuck wants to know about a two time book editor? I'm not saying that every single film needs to be made about a great subject, but Hollywood focused on that for a reason, they were incredibly compelling stories. And even the smaller films were grand in exploring the human condition. All of that was denied by the New Wave, and it was cool at the time but like I said, nobody is going to hang out posters of Dustin Hoffman in their rooms. While Golden Age Hollywood remains indestructible as usual.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I do. I've enjoyed most of his films.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

All his movies have something. And cool it with the anti semitic remarks.

[–] huwdj (4571) 4 years ago

Yes, lots of them. To be honest I didn't think of most of them as Mike Nichols films but I do remember them.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8800) 4 years ago

Same. I was surprised to look up his filmography and see that he was the director on several of his films.

I just re-watched Wolf last October. First time I had seen it in probably 25 years. That's an interesting film.

Regarding Henry is also a good film that I assume a lot of people remember. I also watched Primary Colors for the first time about a year or so ago.

[–] kungfulord (957) 4 years ago

You dont know nothing about cinema, dont you? what you call new wave is the time when most of the greatest movie ever produce in hollywood were made was a time when the artist director and writter have more freedom and more oportunity to experiment as a result of the dead of the old studios system people like Martin Scorssese, Woody Allen, William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, Francis Ford Coppola, Roman Polanski, Robert Altman, Sam Peckinpah were the artist in that era maybe the generation most influential in cinema history, only an ignorant person would say that generation dindt produce a single artist

I suppose we should only see movies about biblic characters and pharaons and roman emperors always playing in sumptuous way disconected of history and reality people abandon the golden era because become boring and predictable and shallow of course in that era you have some great and influential work of art like Gone with the wind and mostly all the career of David Lean and many others but i prefer the gritty, urban and complex and human stories of the 60's and 70's wich didnt need sumptuos and shallow decorations and set up and was more about human emotions and struggles of complex and tormented individuals was more an exploration of human soul and society

[–] christomacin (4673) 4 years ago

This guy is a moron. He has no idea what he is talking about, so just ignore him.

"It's ironic really and it is a testament how the new wave did not produce A SINGLE ARTIST that anyone is going to put up in a poster in their room. Very telling. "

What does this sentence even mean? Is he saying that people don't have nude pin-ups of Scorsese or Allen or Altman in their rooms? Or is he talking about movie posters? Or what? Most people don't decorate their rooms with movie posters after they get out of college, but even if he's talking about movie posters, then he clearly knows not what he speaks of. Many people have French Connection, Exorcist, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange (is Kubrick considered "New Wave"?), The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, etc. posters adorning their dorm rooms even today, especially if they're film students. They're pretty iconic. The design of the Godfather poster with the marionette puppet strings is commonly seen and well-known even today. I'm sure the very famous Apocalypse Now poster is also hanging in some film student's dorm room right now as we read this.

[–] BourbonKing (5781) 4 years ago

He's not a household name anymore if that's what you mean.

Most people under 30 don't even know who Robert Altman, John Houston, Orson Welles, or Walter Hill are.