By Michael Atkinson
One of the loveliest freeform ideas to find patronage and popularity in the New Wavey 1960s was the omnibus film, a rarely cohesive but always tempting quasi-genre defined as a collection of exclusively commissioned short films. These projects usually began with a general theme but were always most interested in gathering the generation's coolest hotshot filmmakers and encouraging them to whack off and make their special kind of havoc, but in compressed form. The aesthetics of the genre are questionable -- never is the entirety of an omnibus very satisfying -- but its smash-up ranginess of conflicting styles and potpourri perspectives make the movies irresistible. (Favorites of any connoisseur would include 1962's "The Seven Deadly Sins," 1963's "RoGoPaG," and 1969's "Love and Anger," all of which feature the era's most promiscuous omnibus-er, Jean-Luc Godard.) They're still being made: the Korean New Wave collection "If You Were Me" (2003) is a knockout,...
One of the loveliest freeform ideas to find patronage and popularity in the New Wavey 1960s was the omnibus film, a rarely cohesive but always tempting quasi-genre defined as a collection of exclusively commissioned short films. These projects usually began with a general theme but were always most interested in gathering the generation's coolest hotshot filmmakers and encouraging them to whack off and make their special kind of havoc, but in compressed form. The aesthetics of the genre are questionable -- never is the entirety of an omnibus very satisfying -- but its smash-up ranginess of conflicting styles and potpourri perspectives make the movies irresistible. (Favorites of any connoisseur would include 1962's "The Seven Deadly Sins," 1963's "RoGoPaG," and 1969's "Love and Anger," all of which feature the era's most promiscuous omnibus-er, Jean-Luc Godard.) They're still being made: the Korean New Wave collection "If You Were Me" (2003) is a knockout,...
- 10/21/2008
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
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