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Post by manfromplanetx on Mar 8, 2021 4:01:09 GMT
Long Day's Journey into Night (1962) Sidney Lumet directed the film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's 1956 semi-autobiographical play. A harrowing bitter slice of life concerns the dysfunctional Tyrone family, parents James and Mary & their sons Edmund and Jamie. The "Long Day" refers to the setting of the play over just one day, from 8:30 a.m. to midnight at the families seaside Connecticut home...  
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Post by manfromplanetx on Mar 8, 2021 4:32:10 GMT
The Homecoming (1973) Dir Peter Hall. Playwright Harold Pinter raises the roof off an old house, one like many others lining a dimly lit North London street. Inside six characters, Father Max, brutal and physically deteriorating, Uncle Sam, prudish and hypocritical, Brothers Lenny, streetwise and cruel, and Joey, sluggish and slovenly, just returned from years abroad the prodigal son, reserved philosophical Teddy and his wife cool & cryptic Ruth. Reality and absurdity combine in this brilliant piercing Pinter slice of life.  
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Post by london777 on Mar 8, 2021 15:19:36 GMT
The films of Yasujiro Ozu I think this is the best possible answer to the OP's question. I have seven fims by Ozu in my DVD collection and have seen a couple more, and they all exactly fit the criteria for "slice of life" movies. My question to Fox in the Snow (or anyone else who can answer it): are those mature Ozu films which I have not seen all like that as well? (I am guessing they are). I have not been convinced by some of the titles posters have offered, but did not know why. Now, thinking about Ozu movies, I feel that "slice of life" movies should have neither a beginning nor an end. The viewer starts watching, and leaves, at some random point in the sequence of events. That is why I said they are the same as soaps. Soaps are left open-ended so that, if commercially successful, the production company can inflict further episodes upon us. On those grounds I would maybe disqualify my own immediate first choice - It Always Rains on Sunday. It has too dramatic a resolution for a true "slice of life" movie. Yes, it ends on a "life goes on" note, but the events presented were too melodramatic to be part of any typical "slice of life".
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Post by Fox in the Snow on Mar 8, 2021 20:35:04 GMT
The films of Yasujiro Ozu I think this is the best possible answer to the OP's question. I have seven fims by Ozu in my DVD collection and have seen a couple more, and they all exactly fit the criteria for "slice of life" movies. My question to Fox in the Snow (or anyone else who can answer it): are those mature Ozu films which I have not seen all like that as well? (I am guessing they are). I have not been convinced by some of the titles posters have offered, but did not know why. Now, thinking about Ozu movies, I feel that "slice of life" movies should have neither a beginning nor an end. The viewer starts watching, and leaves, at some random point in the sequence of events. That is why I said they are the same as soaps. Soaps are left open-ended so that, if commercially successful, the production company can inflict further episodes upon us. On those grounds I would maybe disqualify my own immediate first choice - It Always Rains on Sunday. It has too dramatic a resolution for a true "slice of life" movie. Yes, it ends on a "life goes on" note, but the events presented were too melodramatic to be part of any typical "slice of life". Without knowing which films you've seen, I'll say for the most part yes. Most of his films from Late Spring [1949] onward follow a pretty similar formula, with most of them ending not so much open-ended, but more as you said "life goes on". The two I'd say were a little more plot driven and dramatic are Tokyo Twilight [1957] and Floating Weeds [1959]. Some of the earlier silent films like Dragnet Girl and Woman of Tokyo are more plot driven also.
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Post by bravomailer on Mar 8, 2021 20:46:55 GMT
The Boys in the Band (1970)?
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Post by manfromplanetx on Mar 10, 2021 23:22:34 GMT
Tam na konecne , There at the End aka At the Terminus (1957) Czech Directed by, Ján Kadár & Elmar Klos, written and adapted by writer Ludvík Askenazy. This excellent film is a highlight of Czechoslovak 50s classic cinema, a compelling dramatic slice of life Czech style, one which will satisfy a hungry appetite. On a loop at the final station of a Prague electric tram railway stands a boarding house, an ordinary house where ordinary people live, each with their own story, with their own destiny. The narrative falls into several micro-stories and as is often the case in close neighborly coexistence, their lives intersect or connect just like the tram tracks outside. These "ordinary people" become the main heroes of the film, and for a short time they can be at least a little special. We watch the residents as they go about their daily routines, leave their apartments, go back to them, pass each other on the stairs, be nice or at times insult each other... In his written work, Askenazy brings a humanistic message, a search for happiness, the meaning of life. He believes in love, cohesion, friendship, but above all he is always interested in the common man, who, for all his faults, imperfections, flaws, can most accurately define the meaning of human existence. The author does not play the role of teacher or preacher, does not condemn, does not denounce moral principles, It is simply a film story that tells about people. Substantive questions about life and death are raised but, as in real life, they are not answered, addressed or explained. Real life goes on, just as the lives of the characters from the house do, in the loop... Beautifully bleak with a fabulous accompaniment, highly recommended.  
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Post by bravomailer on Mar 11, 2021 3:53:33 GMT
Life inside a French housing project  |
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Post by kijii on Mar 11, 2021 5:54:29 GMT
Idiot's Delight (1939) / Clarence Brown and written by Robert E. Sherwood.
I also wonder about Stanley Kramer's On the Beach (1959) as a group of people thrown together in one location, each person having his own story.
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Post by novastar6 on Mar 11, 2021 6:23:27 GMT
I also wonder about Stanley Kramer's On the Beach (1959) as a group of people thrown together in one location, each person having his own story.
That's the one that came to my mind too.
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Post by bravomailer on Mar 11, 2021 6:38:07 GMT
Freaks has a storyline but the greatness of the film is its depiction of the people and their lives.
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Post by manfromplanetx on Mar 12, 2021 22:26:45 GMT
Decalog (1988) Poland Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski considered one of the key works in contemporary classic cinema. A slice of life divided into ten portions, an intricate work of moral philosophy, a compelling collection of psychologically riveting narratives. The setting is a Warsaw high-rise housing complex, this modern day morality play explores the timeless issues of human existence through its ten tales, each episode features new lead actors, but occasionally several may overlap into multiple episodes. Nine different cinematographers were used to express a change in the way the material is observed and presented, featuring extraordinary music which is always soft, graceful and hauntingly beautiful, there are recurring images and themes that appear throughout. Highlighting human drama with keen observation & exquisite detail, each slice of life is loosely based on one of the Ten Commandments, yet that relationship is so deeply woven into the fabric of everyday life that the connection never feels absolutely clear...  
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Post by london777 on Mar 13, 2021 0:28:04 GMT
Decalog (1988) Poland Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski This would seem to meet the OP's criteria exactly. I acquired it many months ago (at great expense) and am yet to watch it. Every time I settle down to start it, I chicken out at the last moment and pop Out of the Past or A Canterbury Tale into the player instead. Either I am not worthy, or I have an insuperable grudge against Poles after one marital and two World Cup, debacles.
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Post by london777 on Sept 9, 2021 17:25:36 GMT
You Can Count on Me (2000) dir: Kenneth Lonergan A drifter (Mark Ruffalo) comes back to his home town in the Catskills to visit his divorced elder sister (Laura Linney) and her 8-year-old son (Rory Culkin). He intends to bum a handout and promptly vanish again, but hangs around for a few weeks, just long enough to cause turmoil in local lives. When he does eventually depart, superficially not much has changed and life goes on. One of the best US movies of recent decades. 
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Post by hi224 on Sept 10, 2021 1:20:55 GMT
Dom, v kotorom ya zhivu , The House I Live In (1957) Soviet Dir. Lev Kulidzhanov. A new boarding house on the outskirts of Moscow is inhabited by various newcomers, families, people from different professions and backgrounds. The setting begins in 1935, the story follows the residents through the pre war years and after. Love, solidarity, separation , grief and loss, aspiration & dreams, new beginnings a tremendous slice of life... A beautifully composed touching human story ! ....   Really nice camera work here. |
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Post by mikef6 on Sept 10, 2021 4:42:52 GMT
Nothing says “slice of life” like English director Mike Leigh. His now famous technique is to pick performers he knows he can work with, bring them together for long discussions of the characters’ lives and of the story, have them live for weeks as the characters while improvising dialog and situations, then setting a script from these exercises and shooting the film. It has worked in Life Is Sweet (1990), Naked (1993), Secrets And Lies (1996) and my favorite All Or Nothing (2002). Leigh veterans Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville are the couple who are the central focus, but their two children and two of their neighbor families in a lower middle class Council Housing (Public Housing in the U.S.) apartment building in London are part of a complicated tapestry of lives.   |
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Post by timshelboy on Sept 10, 2021 9:30:17 GMT
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Post by hi224 on Sept 10, 2021 15:33:14 GMT
I have become interested in "slice of life" (my term) type movies. These usually revolve around a place where various people's lives play out different story lines in roughly equal weight. By the end of the movie, some stories have come to conclusion, other's not, and new people may arrive- signaling the cycle starting all over again. This type of movie may be an adaptation from a play. The overall feeling of "slice of life" films is that there is something bigger than just one person's story- that we are all in a river shared by others. I have only found three of this kind of movie so far and am interested in others you may know about. Here are the three I have viewed: 1. Grand Hotel (1932)- centered on a luxury hotel 2. Stage Door (1937)- centered around a boarding house for aspiring actresses 3. Dead End (1937)- centered around a poor NY neighborhood I seem to remember some William Warren films that might fit this description but I can't remember the titles Would Chunking Express count?. |
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Post by divtal on Sept 10, 2021 16:37:04 GMT
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good call Mike - I'd struggle to pic a fave but I'll be boring and go for ABIGAILS PARTY - I was lucky enough to see this in TV debut in 77 . NUTS IN MAY from same era a good one. SECRETS & LIES probably his biggest crowdpleaser - NAKED offers a real tour de force lead from David Thewlis.... Thewlis less central in but equally memorable in the neglected CAREER GIRLS with Katrin Carlidge & lynda Steadman 
