Archives of Others' Lists, Part 1: ouatitw aka Carmelo

I have made a lot of lists on this blog, but in the words of Confucius I am not an originator but a transmitter. All my lists are nothing more than a compilation of interesting stuff I've found by perusing other lists on various forums and sites. When lists are of particular value to me, I tend to save them on a document, and I'd like to share them here as an extension of my archive, since the originals of these lists are long, long gone at this point. Most of the originals had great images along with them, but oh well. Sacrifices will have to be made.

I had these up on ICheckMovies but I kinda hate that site.

The primary place I have lists from is two forums, YMDb and its re-incarnation The Life Cinematic. I browsed from 2008 onward and posted between 2010 and 2013 when the forum finally died.

The first user I want to focus on went by the username ouatitw (short for Once Upon a Time in the West, a favorite of his), later Carmelo. Carmelo largely enjoyed two kinds of films, as he himself said: films that were highly abstract and could be enjoyed as a purely visual experience, and super cheesy and over-the-top/extreme genre movies, usually from Italy. What this reveals to me is that Carmelo is not interested in films on a theoretical level; he is interested in their effect and immediate ability to be beautiful, funny, shocking, etc. I want to almost say that I don’t see him as being interested in the emotional weight of films, but that isn’t quite right. Surely, he is able to be moved by films that are beautiful, but he is not interested in following a story. I believe he personally once said that the most important thing in a film to him is atmosphere which was paramount, followed by visuals which went along with atmosphere but were a little different, followed by story which he did not care much for, and at the very, very, very bottom was acting which he could care less about.

This comes across very well in his lists: everything in it seems selected for its power to present unusual, unique experiences without caring about how neat or sensical the stories in the films are. Many of these films have little to no story or dialogue at all. And in the case of the ones that do, it’s clear that a coherent, sensical story is not the main attraction. Nor should it be! Film is not literature or theater, and the defining feature of a film should not its story! Carmelo’s taste in genre films, as we see, trends to Italy, and for good reason. Throughout the 60s and 70s, the horror, action, giallo (a special kind of murder-mystery genre), and fantasy genre films from Italy are fascinating in how they pull no punches and make no concessions to “believability,” “good taste,” or even “coherence.” In these films we see pure, unbridled creativity for no other reason than wanting to enjoy lurid, novel, and satisfying content. I feel that this aspect of creativity is something that can only be experienced by looking to what is disparagingly called “low art.” In the “low” there are many special kinds of creativity and unbridled freedoms that “high art” can never touch. And it was Carmelo who taught me this lesson more than anyone.

I like Carmelo’s list because while the films are highly unusual, out-there, and extreme either in form or content, there is a great lack of pretension in it. He loves Heroic Purgatory not for some intellectual comment on Japanese leftist political movements of the 60s, but first and foremost because it is a masterclass of strange, surreal atmosphere and stunningly gorgeous visuals. It is not that Carmelo has no appreciation of the emotional side of filmmaking, but that he wants the emotions to come from a place that is more direct even than a story or characters: he wants them to come from the very form of the film itself. This has a great advantage in that he never resists a film because its story is incoherent or its message is not to his taste. It allows for a great openness and ability to be awe-struck. This all results in a remarkably original and distinct approach that is also deeply open and diverse.

List 1: ouatitw's 100 Favorite Films

None of these are dated in my archive, but this is the earliest one I have. I found this list in a link on the Criterion Forums and was astounded at the kind of out-there, esoteric movies he loved. I'd never seen anything close to this kind of stuff (mostly because I didn't know how to torrent at that time). Here it is for all posterity:

1. Dog Star Man (Stan Brakhage, 1961-1964)

2. The Hart of London (Jack Chambers, 1970)

3. City of the Living Dead (Lucio Fulci, 1980)

4. Nostalgia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983)

5. Film ist. 1-12 (Gustav Deutsch, 1998-2002)

6. L'Ange (Patrick Bokanowski, 1982)

7. Trying to Kiss the Moon (Stephen Dwoskin, 1994)

8. Eden and After (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1970)

9. Blood for Dracula (Paul Morrissey, 1974)

10. That Most Important Thing: Love (Andrzej Żuławski, 1975)

11. Heroic Purgatory (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1970)

12. The Double Life of Véronique (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1991)

13. Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951)

14. Kill, Baby… Kill! (Mario Bava, 1966)

15. Prigionieri della guerra (Yervant Gianikian & Angela Ricci Lucchi, 1995)

16. A Comédia de Deus (João César Monteiro, 1995)

17. Three Days (Šarūnas Bartas, 1991)

18. Images of the World and the Inscription of War (Harun Farocki, 1989)

19. Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, 2006)

20. Le Révélateur (Philippe Garrel, 1968)

21. Bedsitters (Frans Zwartjes, 1974)

22. Carry on Pickpocket (Sammo Hung, 1982)

23. The Boss (Fernando Di Leo, 1973)

24. Strike Commando (Bruno Mattei, 1986)

25. India Song (Marguerite Duras, 1975)

26. Nocturno 29 (Pere Portabella, 1969)

27. La Vie nouvelle (Philippe Grandrieux, 2002)

28. Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961)

29. The Institute Benjamenta or This Dream People Call Human Life (Stephen Quay & Timothy Quay, 1995)

30. Compañeros (Sergio Corbucci, 1970)

31. Days of Eclipse (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1988)

32. In a Year of 13 Moons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978)

33. L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)

34. Deux fois (Jackie Raynal, 1968)

35. Filmarilyn (Paolo Gioli, 1992)

36. Passion (Jürgen Reble, 1990)

37. The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-liang, 2005)

38. La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)

39. Home Movie, autour du 'Lit de la Vierge' (Frédéric Pardo, 1968)

40. Pastoral: To Die in the Country (Shuuji Terayama, 1974)

41. Re-Animator (Stuart Gordon, 1985)

42. Los muertos (Lisandro Alonso, 2004)

43. Street Law (Enzo G. Castellari, 1974)

44. Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (Sergio Martino, 1972)

45. Dream Work (Peter Tscherkassky, 2002)

46. Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)

47. Un homme qui dort (Bernard Queysanne & Georges Perec, 1974)

48. Forest of Bliss (Robert Gardner, 1986)

49. Nelda (Piero Bargellini, 1969)

50. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)

51. The Silence (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)

52. The Man from Laramie (Anthony Mann, 1955)

53. Zoo Zero (Alain Fleischer, 1979)

54. Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974)

55. Almost Human (Umberto Lenzi, 1974)

56. L'Intrus (Claire Denis, 2004)

57. Portrait (Sergei Loznitsa, 2002)

58. One Hamlet Less (Carmelo Bene, 1973)

59. Dialogue With a Woman Departed (Leo Hurwitz, 1980)

60. Tuning the Sleeping Machine (David Sherman, 1996)

61. W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (Dušan Makavejev, 1971)

62. The Story of Sin (Walerian Borowczyk, 1975)

63. Glen Falls Sequence (Douglas Crockwell, 1937-1946)

64. Liquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, 1982)

65. Sherman's March (Ross McElwee, 1985)

66. Diaries, Notes, and Sketches aka Walden (Jonas Mekas, 1969)

67. La Vampire nue (Jean Rollin, 1970)

68. Deadly Prey (David A. Prior, 1987)

69. Report (Bruce Conner, 1967)

70. Outer and Inner Space (Andy Warhol, 1966)

71. The Street Fighter (Shigehiro Ozawa, 1974)

72. A Married Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)

73. Even Dwarfs Started Small (Werner Herzog, 1970)

74. Corridor (Dietmar Brehm, 1998)

75. The Color of Pomegranates (Sergei Parajanov, 1969)

76. Eugénie de Sade (Jesús Franco, 1973)

77. Tren de sombras (José Luis Guerín, 1997)

78. The Tenant (Roman Polański, 1976)

79. La Nuit claire (Marcel Hanoun, 1979)

80. Through the Looking Glass (Jonas Middleton, 1976)

81. Dellamorte Dellamore (Michele Soavi, 1994)

82. Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (Lam Ngai-kai, 1991)

83. Angst (Gerald Kargl, 1983)

84. Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (Martin Arnold, 1998)

85. The Big Gundown (Sergio Sollima, 1966)

86. The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)

87. Awakening of the Beast (José Mojica Marins, 1970)

88. The Cremator (Juraj Herz, 1969)

89. 6/64: Mama und Papa (Kurt Kren, 1964)

90. Go, Go Second Time Virgin (Kouji Wakamatsu, 1969)

91. Strip Nude for Your Killer (Andrea Bianchi, 1975)

92. Phantasm (Don Coscarelli, 1979)

93. Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise (Ken Jacobs, John Zorn, & Ikue Mori, 2004)

94. Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997)

95. Symptoms (José Ramón Larraz, 1974)

96. Fathomless (James Edward Davis, 1964)

97. N:O:T:H:I:N:G (Paul Sharits, 1968)

98. Moeder Dao, de schildpadgelijkende (Vincent Monnikendam, 1995)

99. Pause! (Peter Kubelka, 1977)

100. The Potted Psalm (Sindey Peterson & James Broughton, 1946)

List 2: Carmelo's 26 Favorite Films
Nothing you won't get from the first list and the next besides a slightly different order, but for the record here it is:

1. Stellar (Stan Brakhage, 1993)

2. The Hart of London (Jack Chambers, 1970)

3. Conquest (Lucio Fulci, 1983)

4. L'Ange (Patrick Bokanowski, 1982)

5. Film ist. 1-12 (Gustav Deutsch, 1998-2002)

6. Behindert (Stephen Dwoskin, 1974)

7. Le Berceau de cristal (Philippe Garrel, 1976)

8. Successive Slidings of Pleasure (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1974)

9. Blood for Dracula (Paul Morrissey, 1974)

10. That Most Important Thing: Love (Andrzej Żuławski, 1975)

11. Prigionieri della guerra (Yervant Gianikian & Angela Ricci Lucchi, 1995)

12. Nostalgia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983)

13. Heroic Purgatory (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1970)

14. A Comédia de Deus (João César Monteiro, 1995)

15. Three Days (Šarūnas Bartas, 1991)

16. Images of the World and the Inscription of War (Harun Farocki, 1989)

17. Filmarilyn (Paolo Gioli, 1992)

18. Light Is Waiting (Michael Robinson, 2007)

19. Kill, Baby… Kill! (Mario Bava, 1966)

20. Bedsitters (Frans Zwartjes, 1974)

21. India Song (Marguerite Duras, 1975)

22. Castro Street (Bruce Baillie, 1966)

23. L'Intrus (Claire Denis, 2004)

24. ...ere erera baleibu izik subua aruaren... (José Antonio Sistiaga, 1970)

25. Cracked Share (Lee Hangjun & Hong Chullki, 2006)

26. Forest of Bliss (Robert Gardner, 1986)

List 3: Carmelo's 125 Favorite Films

This is the big one. The remainder is in alphabetical order, which I always thought was super boring (ranked or chronological FTW), but that doesn't change this being one of the best selections of films ever. To this day, the only one I've never been able to find is Blue Movie and it drives me nuts. I think Carmelo had a DVD set of Marc Adrian's films that must be one of the most rare, effervescent DVD sets ever made. Also he made a mistake and had extra choices for Lynch and Godard despite the top 25. Whoops.

1. L'Ange (Patrick Bokanowski, 1982)

2. The Hart of London (Jack Chambers, 1970)

3. Stellar (Stan Brakhage, 1993)

4. Conquest (Lucio Fulci, 1983)

5. Successive Slidings of Pleasure (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1974)

6. Behindert (Stephen Dwoskin, 1974)

7. Le Berceau de cristal (Philippe Garrel, 1976)

8. JLG/JLG - autoportrait de décembre (Jean-Luc Godard, 1994)

9. Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)

10. That Most Important Thing: Love (Andrzej Żuławski, 1975)

11. Blood for Dracula (Paul Morrissey, 1974)

12. Nostalgia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983)

13. Film ist. 1-12 (Gustav Deutsch, 1998-2002)

14. Heroic Purgatory (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1970)

15. A Comédia de Deus (João César Monteiro, 1995)

16. Three Days (Šarūnas Bartas, 1991)

17. Images of the World and the Inscription of War (Harun Farocki, 1989)

18. Filmarilyn (Paolo Gioli, 1992)

19. Kill, Baby… Kill! (Mario Bava, 1966)

20. India Song (Marguerite Duras, 1975)

21. Castro Street (Bruce Baillie, 1966)

22. L'Intrus (Claire Denis, 2004)

23. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992)

24. Strike Commando (Bruno Mattei, 1986)

25. Vampire's Kiss (Robert Bierman, 1988)

13 Lakes (James Benning, 2004)

6/64: Mama und Papa (Kurt Kren, 1964)

A Journey That Wasn't (Pierre Huyghe, 2006)

Almost Human (Umberto Lenzi, 1974)

Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (Martin Arnold, 1998)

Angst (Gerald Kargl, 1983)

Awakening of the Beast (José Mojica Marins, 1970)

Bedsitters (Frans Zwartjes, 1974)

Beginning (Artavazd Peleshian, 1967)

The Big Gundown (Sergio Sollima, 1966)

Blue Movie (Marc Adrian, 1969)

The Boss (Fernando Di Leo, 1973)

Breach (Sam Taylor-Wood, 2001)

The Brood (David Cronenberg, 1979)

Carry on Pickpocket (Sammo Hung, 1982)

Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise (Ken Jacobs, John Zorn, & Ikue Mori, 2004)

The Children Trilogy (Joseph Cornell, 1938)

The Color of Pomegranates (Sergei Parajanov, 1969)

Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, 2006)

Compañeros (Sergio Corbucci, 1970)

The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)

Consume (Dominic Angerame, 2003)

Corridor (Dietmar Brehm, 1998)

Cracked Share (Lee Hangjun & Hong Chullki, 2006)

The Cremator (Juraj Herz, 1969)

Cycles (Guy Sherwin, 1977)

Days of Eclipse (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1988)

Deadly Prey (David A. Prior, 1987)

Dellamorte Dellamore (Michele Soavi, 1994)

Deux fois (Jackie Raynal, 1968)

Dialogue With a Woman Departed (Leo Hurwitz, 1980)

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches aka Walden (Jonas Mekas, 1969)

Diary (David Perlov, 1983)

Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951)

The Double Life of Véronique (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1991)

Dream Work (Peter Tscherkassky, 2002)

The Energy Angles (Józef Robakowski, 1975)

...ere erera baleibu izik subua aruaren... (José Antonio Sistiaga, 1970)

Eugénie de Sade (Jesús Franco, 1973)

Even Dwarfs Started Small (Werner Herzog, 1970)

Everything Visible Is Empty (Toshio Matsumoto, 1975)

Eye Lands (Myron Ort, 1970)

Fathomless (James Edward Davis, 1964)

Forest of Bliss (Robert Gardner, 1986)

Fuses (Carolee Schneemann, 1967)

Glen Falls Sequence (Douglas Crockwell, 1937-1946)

Go, Go Second Time Virgin (Kouji Wakamatsu, 1969)

Home Movie, autour du 'Lit de la Vierge' (Frédéric Pardo, 1968)

In a Year of 13 Moons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978)

The Institute Benjamenta or This Dream People Call Human Life (Stephen Quay & Timothy Quay, 1995)

La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)

La Nuit claire (Marcel Hanoun, 1979)

La Vampire nue (Jean Rollin, 1970)

La Vie nouvelle (Philippe Grandrieux, 2002)

Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961)

L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)

Light Is Waiting (Michael Robinson, 2007)

Liquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, 1982)

Los muertos (Lisandro Alonso, 2004)

Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997)

The Man from Laramie (Anthony Mann, 1955)

Ménilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926)

Milk of Amnesia (Jeff Scher, 1992)

Mirror Mechanics (Siegfried A. Fruhauf, 2005)

Moeder Dao, de schildpadgelijkende (Vincent Monnikendam, 1995)

N:O:T:H:I:N:G (Paul Sharits, 1968)

Nelda (Piero Bargellini, 1969)

Nocturno 29 (Pere Portabella, 1969)

The Old Place (Jean-Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville, 2000)

Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)

One Hamlet Less (Carmelo Bene, 1973)

Outer and Inner Space (Andy Warhol, 1966)

Passion (Jürgen Reble, 1990)

Pastoral: To Die in the Country (Shuuji Terayama, 1974)

Pause! (Peter Kubelka, 1977)

Phantasm (Don Coscarelli, 1979)

Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974)

Portrait (Sergei Loznitsa, 2002)

The Potted Psalm (Sindey Peterson & James Broughton, 1946)

Prigionieri della guerra (Yervant Gianikian & Angela Ricci Lucchi, 1995)

Re-Animator (Stuart Gordon, 1985)

Report (Bruce Conner, 1967)

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (Lam Ngai-kai, 1991)

Rolling Thunder (John Flynn, 1977)

A Rubber Dinghy and Oysters (Ursula Pürrer & A. Hans Scheirl, 1985)

Sherman's March (Ross McElwee, 1985)

The Silence (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Charles Reisner & Buster Keaton, 1928)

The Story of Sin (Walerian Borowczyk, 1975)

The Street Fighter (Shigehiro Ozawa, 1974)

Street Law (Enzo G. Castellari, 1974)

Strip Nude for Your Killer (Andrea Bianchi, 1975)

Symptoms (José Ramón Larraz, 1974)

The Tall T (Budd Boetticher, 1957)

The Tenant (Roman Polański, 1976)

The Eye Above the Well (Johan van der Keuken, 1988)

Through the Looking Glass (Jonas Middleton, 1976)

Tren de sombras (José Luis Guerín, 1997)

Tuning the Sleeping Machine (David Sherman, 1996)

Un homme qui dort (Bernard Queysanne & Georges Perec, 1974)

W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (Dušan Makavejev, 1971)

Warrendale (Allan King, 1967)

The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-liang, 2005)

Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (Sergio Martino, 1972)

Zoo Zero (Alain Fleischer, 1979)

List 4: ouatitw's Favorite Directors

The original had his top five favorites under each, but I didn't save those. It's still up on his Livejournal. And yes, I blatantly stole this format for my favorite directors lists xD. Sue me!

1. Stan Brakhage

2. Lucio Fulci

3. Andrei Tarkovsky

4. Stephen Dwoskin

5. Alain Robbe-Grillet

6. Robert Bresson

Dario Argento

Šarūnas Bartas

Mario Bava

Carmelo Bene

Patrick Bokanowski

Walerian Borowczyk

Enzo G. Castellari

Philippe Garrel

Paolo Gioli

Sammo Hung

Sergio Martino

Bruno Mattei

João César Monteiro

Shuuji Terayama

Tsai Ming-liang

Peter Tscherkassky

Yoshishige Yoshida

Andrzej Żuławski

Frans Zwartjes

List 5: Carmelo's Favorite Albums

Carmelo himself said he was far from a music aficionado and we're much closer twins with films than music but there's tons of great stuff here...

1. Rainbow (2006) by Boris With Michio Kurihara

2. Future Days (1973) by Can

3. Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

4. Your Funeral… My Trial (1986) by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

5. Pour un pianiste (2005) by Michèle Bokanowski

6. Dopethrone (2000) by Electric Wizard

7. 71 Minutes of Faust (1989) by Faust

8. New Picnic Time (1979) by Pere Ubu

9. This Heat (1979) by This Heat

10. For Your Pleasure (1973) by Roxy Music

11. Low (1977) by David Bowie

12. Ash Ra Tempel (1971) by Ash Ra Tempel

13. Another Green World (1975) by Brian Eno

14. Heavier Than a Death in the Family (1977/2002) by Les Rallizes Dénudés

15. 666 (1972) by Aphrodite's Child

16. The Ascension (1981) by Glenn Branca

17. Hypnotic Underworld (2004) by Ghost

18. Bitches Brew (1970) by Miles Davis

19. Metal Machine Music (1975) by Lou Reed

20. Bone Machine (1992) by Tom Waits

Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978) by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

Children of God (1987) by Swans

Akuma no Uta (2003) by Boris

The Drift (2006) by Scott Walker