Exactly. I think it was already official even before I joined iCM.
It was the pdf, but the way the films are mentioned in the book means that there are films which are the actual entries and films like that which are mentioned as references on the list. Personally I think only the actual entries in the book should be in the list, but the list I think has passing entries as well, though possibly not all? Itās such a pain to comb through the pdf, I tried once and got about a quarter of the way through when I decided the formatting was too much for me and I wasnāt sure how accurate the result would be.
It is a pain really. My first thought was to just add the listed films at the end of each section as you mentioned.
The German version makes this distinction even clearer since it is better formatted (still painful but more manageable).
But then I noticed that there are films that Vogel is referencing with images quite a bit without listing them in any section. For example āBlow Upā appears three times (at least thatās what the register says). The first and second time a film still with an extensive caption is featured and the third time it is just a passing sentence about the quality of films religious institutions disapproved of.
The film is however, never included in any of the lists. From the context above I would assume that Vogel would have included the film in his canon. The German reprint also features the exact same film stills with the extensive commentary.
My interim conclusion is to include all films listed at the end of a section but also the films referenced by a film still. These have a caption that is comparable in length to that of many other films.
I started to go through the list as described above referencing both the German and the English version. I had about one third done before I saw Fergenapridoās comment and called it a day. (Link to ICM list)
I am attaching some images to illustrate the Blow Up example.
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So, I went through with the list like suggested and only added films that are listed in the āFilmsā section. In total we have just under 400 films so about 200 films less than before. Please check it out here.
There are some curiosities: The German version lists films that are not in my English PDF. These seem to be films released between 1974 and 1976. Hard to tell since that PDF does not seem to be reliable. The German version was published in 1997 and features a new introduction from Amos Vogel from that year. Vogel specifically points out some ārecentā films he recommends (from the 90s), but in the lists there is no film listed after 1976. I decided to stay with the films listed for now.
I also noticed that my English PDF has a different order compared to the German book. To make future comparisons easier, I will list here the sections and the films in it.
I will also attach a picture that shows all the films on this version not included on the official current ICM version.
There are still 12 films missing. I posted a comment on the list with Info I could find. I donāt think any of them have an IMDb page.
Legend: Range on the ICM list // first film // last film
- Introduction // 1 ā 18 // Blue Moses // Why Not
PART I ā SUBVERSION OF FORM
-
UdSSR // 19 ā 22 // Strike // Man with a Movie Camera
-
Expressionism // 23 ā 33 // The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari // The Reality of Karel Appel
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Surrealism // 34 ā 47 // Aos // The Lead Shoes
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Dada and Pop-Art // 48 ā 58 // Anemic Cinema // Sort of a Commercial for an Icebag
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Destruction of Time and Space // 59 ā 70 // Aktion 540 // Smoking
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Destruction of Plot and Narration // 71 ā 82 // Akran // Celine and Julie Go Boating
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Attacking Montage // 83 ā 89 // Before the Revolution // Wavelength
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The Camera is moving // 90 ā 93 // The Last Laugh // Variety
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Minimal Cinema // 94 ā 102 // Color Film // Sleep
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Boundaries of Film // 103 ā 119 // Bells of Atlantis // Pasadena Freeway Stills (Missing! āFilm before: Line Describing a Cone)
PART II ā SUBVERSION OF CONTENT
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Revolutionary Cinemas // 120 ā 161 // Havoc // More Nuclear Stations (Missing! ā Film before: The California Reich)
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Eastern Subversions // 162 ā 195 // Love Affair // Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
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The Third World // 196 ā 214 // A Very Crazy Asylum // Reed: Insurgent Mexico
-
DDR: Against the West // 215 ā 218 // Holiday on Sylt // The Laughing Man
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Fascist Cinema // 219 ā 221 // Triumph of the Will // The Eternal Jew
-
Secrets and Revelations // 222 ā 246 // Beauty Knows No Pain // La SoufriĆØre
PART III ā FORBIDDEN THEMES
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Nudity // 247 ā 250 // The Bed // No. 4
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Erotic and pornographic film // 251 ā 271 // Beaver-Films // What Goes on at Sex Therapy Clinics (Missing! ā Film before: Take me)
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The End of Sexual Tabus // 272 ā 301 // The Horrible Dr. Hichcock // The Exorcist
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The First Secret: Birth // 302 ā 306 // All My Babies // Window Water Baby Moving
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The last Secret: Death
- Death // 307 ā 329 // The Act of Seeing with Oneās Own Eyes // The War Game
- Concentration Camps // 330 - 340 // Archaeology // Warsaw Ghetto
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Blasphemy // 341 ā 356 // LāAge dāOr // Viridiana
-
Trance and Witchcraft // 357 ā 369 // The Andromeda Strain // Tarantula
PART IV ā FOR A NEW CONCIOUSNESS
- Counter Culture and Avantgarde // 370-385 // Apotheosis // Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000!
Thanks Joschi. I appreciate the hard work youāre putting in to this. I havenāt gone through your lists yet, but Iāll use them as reference for when I go through the pdf later this week.
I am willing to help with this as well. I have got the 1979 German edition of the book.
Which are the 12 films that are lacking an imdb entry?
If you want to cross-check, I already entered all the films into a list on ICM (See above).
On the ICM list I also listed the films that are missing. If I could find some Infos online, I added them via link.
Prune Flat (Robert Whitman, USA, 1965) after Le sang dāun poĆØte p. 97
Pasadena Freeway Stills (Gary Beydler, USA 1976) after Line Describin a Cone p. 137
Delaware (Newsreel, USA 1968/1969) after Deadline for Action p. 143
Lovejoyās Nuclear War (Dan Keller, USA 1976) after Troublemakers p. 159
More Nuclear Stations (Per Mannstaedt, Denmark, 1976) after The California Reich p. 159
Strahov (Anonymous, Cz, 1967) after Per Aspera Ad Astra p. 170
Acupunctural Anaesthesia (Peking TV, China, 1971) after Beauty Knows No Pain p. 205
Beaver Films (USA, 1970ā¦) after No.4 p. 248
What Goes On At Sex Therapy Clinics (Community Medical Cable Casting, USA, 1972) after Take Me p. 264
Posledni veci cloveka (Jovan Kubicek, Cz, 1967) after Ikiteite yokatta p. 306
The Race (William Copland, Australia, 1970) after Winter Soldier p. 310
Les Camps de la Mort (France, 1947) after Mesto darovanƩ p. 313
Oh, ok, so you did it all already. Great work, I much prefer your lists, especially because they are ordered according to the sections of the book, not alphabetically.
Thanks - I appreciate it! The PDF I found of the American version is all over the place, so I hope the sections will make cross-referencing easier.
If you donāt mind looking, I would be interested if the 1979 version also lists the films released between 1973 and 1979 as these entries donāt seem to be in the original American version from 1974. (For example āSaloā or āF for Fakeā)
Thanks and best regards!
Just want to say I appreciate you two doing this, Iām seeing if I can get the US paper copy to verify things, though with COVID I donāt know when Iāll be able to do so. Verifying a list is easier than creating one so your work will definitely be very helpful.
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Maybe you forgot to check or you werenāt able to verify the sources, or Iām wrong (than Iām curious which source you used), but nothing has changed in this - in my opinion - wrong listing of the Shiva-titled entriesā¦
This source: https://www.brattlefilm.org/brattle/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Story_of_Film-Notes.pdf
Lists the film as 2006.
Iāve checked the film and can confirm:
Itās possible that the film mislabels the film, but having not seen either I couldnāt say.
Thanks, Iāll check and post my sources. Keep you updated
Yeah I think the documentary The Story of Film mislabels the film. I checked my dutch copy this evening and it is as your screen cap. Strangely the book by Mark Cousins doesnāt mention the film at allā¦
Check the Telugu movie from 1989 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRVHoabpSoI
The scene is at 1:55:15
Confusingly the info at YouTube states this is the 1990 version (with the same title from the same director) but this film is the 1989 version in Telugu remade in Hindi at 1990 (which clearly had a longer running time and is currently showing on MUBI)
Other sources:
Wikipedia (for whatās it worth) states the documentary uses the 1989 version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Film:_An_Odyssey (episode 5)
So does this link: http://files.thelenches.org.uk/uploads/1/3/1/3/131380868/1565515.pdf
Hey Fergenaprido,
any updates on this list or any way I can assist you?
Thanks and have a great weekend!
Josh
Yes, in the 1979 German edition there are films releases between 1973 and 1979. āSaloā and āF for Fakeā are both present in the book with a paragraph about each movie.
Hey Joschi.
Apologies for not getting to this sooner. Iāve just finished moving countries, and while I thought I would have time to work on this the past month, I spent more time than I expected tying up loose ends and packing everything up before I moved (plus an inordinate amount of time freaking out that I didnāt have enough time left to get it all done - I still have to cancel my internet and phone even though Iāve already left the country).
Iām now in a mandatory 14-day quarantine, and I have much less on my plate at the moment, so Iāll try and do some calibration these next two weeks. Since youāve done a lot of the leg work, this will hopefully take less time than I initially thought it would.
Iāll get back to this thread within two week.s
Iāve finished combing through Part One of the PDF.
There seem to be three types of entries, all of which appear to have been included in the original ICM list.
- At the end of each chapter, there is a āFilmsā section, where each film is listed with itās year, rating, director, and a small blurb. Sometimes a photo is also included, or an extended text after the blurb.
- Sprinkled throughout the text are photos of films, which follow an identical format: title, year, rating, director, and a small blurb (Blow-Up is an example of this, as mentioned by Joschi above).
- Some films are only mentioned in passing in the main text of a chapter, or in the text of a specific film.
I think that films of type 1 and 2 should be included in the list, but type 3 should be excluded.
More to come in my reply to Joschiās posts.
Aside from some films being in a different order, I noticed there are films missing from the German version that are in the English version, and vice versa. Such a mess lol.
One thing is clear: the order of the official ICM list is all over the place, and includes a lot of films that should not be included.
I know your revised list excludes the ācaptioned photoā only films, but I think we both (all?) agree that those should be included.
The German book seems to be better than the English PDF, but for now I think we need to have the English PDF as the source since it was originally published in English. Once we get our hands on a copy of the original English book (or any updated version I suppose), we can switch to that.
In terms of ordering, I think we have two options.
- Include all the films listed in the āFilmsā section of each chapter first, and then all of the photo-only films in order of appearance.
- Include all the films and photo-only films in order of first appearance, except if a photo-only film shows up later in a Films section, it should be ordered based on that Films placement.
Thoughts?
I found a reference for the Acupuncture film: https://blogs.harvard.edu/houghton/acupuncture-anesthesia/
Prune Flat was a performance art, so that might be why itās not on imdb. Not sure if they actively exclude those or not.