Manic, a modest DV movie which preceded Mysterious Skin on the Joseph Gordon-Levitt timeline from TV kid-star to everyone’s favorite indie actor (I presume you’ve seen MS and probably Brick too). A stunning cast for such an obscure film, including Don Cheadle and Zoe Deschanel. I only saw it once when it first came out, but I remember it being good, not great, but with some great performances. And of course Joe was excellent! 
(he’s a pal)
How about some Bengali films? The Bengal school is sort of the art-house cinema of India, I suppose, and have churned out some mighty fine films:
Satyajit Ray (You must have seen some of his): The Apu Trilogy, *Days and Nights in the Forest *and many more. Kurosawa mentions Ray as one of his favorite directors, btw, and he did make some really moving, beautiful films.
Buddhadev Dasgupta (new Bengali cinema): Tale of a Naughty Girl, The Wrestlers
I guess that you already know John Cassavetes - Faces, Shadows, etc.
And then one of my favorite directors, Jørgen Leth:
Among his best (of the ones I’ve seen) are:
The Perfect Human - recently re-issued as extra material on The Five Obstructions - a collaborate effort with Lars von Trier.
Haiti. Untitled. - heart-braking images of Haiti. Beautiful.
A Sunday in Hell - about the Paris-Roubaix classic cycling race.
66 scenes from America - with the famous Andy-Warhol-eating-a-cheeseburger scene. And the sequel New scenes from America.
He has made many more, but these should get you started. The Danish Film Institute have just begun the publishing all of his films. The first box, containing his “anthropological films” is already out - I am eagerly awaiting the “travel” and the “sports” box.
I’ll second Wendell Wagner with 7 Beauties. I thought that film was great.
Go outside!
O.K., that’s three out of the twenty that you haven’t seen. Those were the twenty least well known from a list of my one hundred favorite films. I’ll try to come up with some more obscure films that I like in a day or so when I get a chance.
Angelopoulos is a touch nut, I’ll admit, and I’m not necessarily going to defend UG, but since I know lissener likes Tarkovsky, I thought I’d include him. All of Theo’s films (or at least all the ones I’ve seen) tend more towards the meditative side–really long takes, little “plot” per se, actions and compositions that are deceptively “static” but often informed by rich subtlety.
But they’re definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. The Travelling Players is in my Desert Island 100, and at 4 hours, there are probably fewer than 100 shots in the film (an average 2-hour film from that period would probably have around 1000-1200). But it’s extremely touching, unexpectedly surreal, unapologetically opinionated, and, for me, quite unforgettable.
This is another area where seeing something like Angelopoulos on video simply loses something in translation, however. It’s an immersive experience, and one that demands patience and commitment (without the sweet temptation of a pause button, absorbing 4 filmic hours over the course of a weekend) on his own terms. That’s true for all films, really, IMHO, but though he loves landscapes, his movies tend to be more emotional than visual epics–ones that allow historical incident and individual action to resonate into something deeper–and that can often be diminished by home viewing as well. It’s a tough call, because while I recommend his films, I’ve never seen any on video without first seeing it on the big screen, so I’m naturally coming from a very different orientation than most viewers (as eager as they might be) find possible.
Personally, I find Bela Tarr much more frustrating and problematic (though still remarkable at times), so if you like his films, the Angelopoulos films I mentioned should go down pretty easily (w/Landscape being the most accessible).
That’s fair; I would agree with that observation, certainly. The man definitely knows how to put an arresting image on screen. That said, I did see Ulysses’ Gaze in the cinema, not on video. While the three or four jaw-dropping shots in the movie will stay with me for the rest of my life (e.g. Lenin on the barge), I cannot in good conscience recommend the film as a whole, in any setting. (And I don’t mind “slow,” either. Note my suggestion of Goodbye Dragon Inn earlier in the thread. Ulysses’ Gaze is worse than slow: it’s boring.)
Anything you can find my Mikio Naruse.
He was a Japanese director in the ‘30s through the ‘60s. Every film critic worth his salt LOVES this guy, but until recently, he’s been unreleased in the United States.
His best are Late Chrysanthemums and When a Woman Ascends the Stairs.
Would that include stuff like Oldboy?
Seriously,
Why don’t you write a book about movies?
Seen YiYi. Will look for the others.
Hmm. Looks like a big bite to start chewing. It’s, what, 16 discs? Maybe at some point . . .
Tried it. Sorry, just not a fan. May return some day.
Missed that one. Thanks!
Seen all the Ray I can.
Yes; completist.
Seen a couple. Will seek out the rest. Thanks!
Zackly.
Because that would entail writing a book.
Just thought about this: Do you know ubuweb. It’s a sort of art repository. You can stream (and download) a lot of art/avant garde films, sound clips, interviews with artists etc. Some of the stuff might seem a bit esoteric, but there is lot of good work, too. One of my all-time favorite sites.
Also: Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycle is really mind blowing. Only a small excerpt is out on DVD, so you will have to catch the whole thing in an art house cinema or a museum.
Yes, I meant to come back last night and follow up on my reply to Archiveguy, who first mentioned Naruse above. I knew he sounded familiar. *A Woman Ascends the Stairs *was Criterioned this year. Brilliant. I hope there’s more coming.
Well, Dreyer, Tarkovsky, Mizoguchi, and Renoir are among my top ten favorite directors, and each one likes his shots longer than the other. (Although Hot Fuzz, with its 6,200 cuts, is in my top ten for this year. Go figure.) One of my favorite moments in all of cinema is the opening of Solyaris, where Chris is simply looking around him at the earth, the water, the grass, absorbing all he can of Earth before he has to leave it. So maybe I’ll give Angelopoulos another go.
I was considering suggesting the short subjects of Robert Benchley, but it appears that many of his best short subjects are not available in collected form.