Name some innovative movies
 

Can you name some movies that pushed the form of cinema, and are still at the frontier by today's standards? How were they original?

To name some examples:
2001: Sparse dialog, with emphasis on the score.
Breaking the Waves: Jump cuts to disorient the viewer.
Magnolia: Illustrations to support the narration.

Many of Akira Kurosawa's movies that were pre-war or early post-war are marvels of composition. They have fluid, modern direction that you would recognize in many movies today.

I second Keith's nomination for Kurosawa. Largely as a result of Keith and Dylan's interest in samurai films I recently purchased a Criterion Collection edition of some of Akira Kurosawa's samurai films. Watching "Seven Samurai" with the commentary track playing is like a mini-film school. I highly recommend this if you're genuinely interested in the fine points of a really fine film. Lest you think that Kurosawa's samurai films are irrelevant, think again. Their basic model of story and many of their visual attributes have been replicated so often during the past 50 years they've nearly become cliche. You'll find the form over and over, even today.

If you really want to look for works that defined the artform you have to travel back to works such as "Birth of a Nation" and Abel Gantry's "Napoleon". The number of noteworthy references is far too numerous to list here.

For a very good tour, get a copy of "A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies".

For more of a cinematographers' perspective, get a copy of "Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography"

Also, much of his catalogue are non-samurai films. "Stray Dog", "Drunken Angel", "Ikuru", "High and Low" are all excellent movies that are set in post-war Japan.

I think Tarantinos PULP FICTION made people step back and look at how movies are made; numerous copycat films because of it. Funny, I always got the impression that his films were very similar to early DePalma (Compostions and Style)

DIE HARD I think changed how the action film is made in terms of PREMISES.

blade runner for sci-fi. will a sci-fi movie ever get made again that is as cool as this one?

Citizen kane, the techincal things they did in that movie were ahead of there time and still used today.

those are the obvious kinds i guess..

i think 3 movies john frankenhiemer did in the 60's were pretty great at pushing film in another direction...

-Seven Days in May
-The Manchurian Candidate (there was an amazing sequence in this movie when some soldiers were being interviewed by officials from china and russia... brilliant!)
-Seconds (my fav)

the way he used wide angle lenses and "Snorri" cams (cameras attached to people with rods ala darren aronofsky) to help push the story along were amazing.

"Last Tango in Paris." First film I studied at university. It opened my eyes for possiblities.

Spike Lee has alot of shots in his movies where the background is moving when characters are walking and talking, but the characters themselves seem to be standing still. Almost like they're floating.

Very different, I must say.

<<"Last Tango in Paris." First film I studied at university. It opened my eyes for possiblities.
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Yes, everyones' attitudes toward butter changed forever.