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 ESSENTIAL VIEWING Why these movies matter |
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Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Serious critics dismissed the film as trash. It's turned out be one
of the most influential movies ever made. By taking that step into the
"forbidden," Hitchcock opened the gates for explorers of humanity's
darker side, which has of course been exploited by people without Hitchcock's
brilliance. |
The Wizard of Oz
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
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All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)
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Beauty and the Beast
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Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
Pandora's Box (G.W. Pabst,
1929) |
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Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
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To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
I find this one almost unbearable, in the way one finds the deepest
love almost unbearable. Maybe it's because my father is
Atticus Finch. Maybe it's because the movie really captures what a certain
kind of childhood feels like. And what it feels like when it's over.
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8 ˝ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
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Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
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Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996)
A very dark comedy of errors that achieves a delicate balance between
a sense of oppression and escape through laughter. The Women (George Cukor, 1939) Great writing, almost timeless, and I love that there isn't a man in
sight. Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese,
1990) If I were to do a "moments" list, the bodies discovered while the "Layla"
coda plays would be near the top. |
The Bicycle Thief
Bringing Up Baby Cary Grant was such a big star that people don't realize what a good
actor he was. This picture is hilarious not so much because of how loony
Katharine Hepburn and her family are, but because of Grant's reactions
to them, desperately trying to escape or at least try to make sense
of the whole thing, and never succeeding. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927).
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City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
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Hitchcock,
always the consummate showman, insisted that theater-goers not be allowed
in once the film had started. While there is a certain narrative motivation
behind the move, the main reason is inevitably tied to the nature of
the film itself. Psycho is a sensational film in the literal
sense, viscerally powerful and visually shocking. The film surprises
at every turn, and is masterfully framed. Definitely one to see before
you read too much about it. -- Ed Owens
He
also took horror out of the old monster movie and put it right next
door, in your neighborhood. 
No
matter how many times you see it on TV (or even with "Dark Side of the
Moon" playing), no matter how much you may read about it, no matter
how familiar it becomes, it just NEVER loses one drop of its magic.
The best film of the 30s and the grandest moment of the immortal Judy
G. 
The
coconuts, "Pink! I meant blue!" "Silly, English, ka-nig-its!" - Monty
Python's skewering of the Arthurian legend is shockingly, ceaslessly
funny, wry, dry, smart and everything else you want a classic comedy
to be. 
An
anti-war film of a very different sort, Apocalypse Now was for
me, on first viewing and on last, as much about the essence of horror
as about the horrors of Vietnam. And more about Vietnam than war in
general. Nonethess, it melds the three together: Vietnam is war exemplified
- confusion, surrealism in the midst of the inescapably real, and horror
beyond words. Beginning with the end as visual foreground, musical background
and symbolic overview, hellfire falls from above and the audience knows
that everything is immediately and brilliantly set upside down. It is
an almost rambling film of the most incisive precisions -: the sound
of a helicopter blade fades into an overhead fan, the silence of the
river is broken by shrieks of attack, bullet sprays from above are conducted
on the downbeat of the valkyrie's musical ride. Coppola called it operatic,
but it is painterly as well. Light and dark, colorful and muted, indelible
images of lushness and despair, insanity and calm, a thrill and a thud.
It is all the more breathtaking for the things the critics criticized,
the change in tone at the core of hell, the center of the earth, Conrad's
revivified Heart of Darkness. Whether by design or by accident,
the shadowy Kurtz is a perfect literal and symbolic translation of Conrad's
own. 
The psychological journey of a man, the psychoses of war, and the psychotrauma
of a nation are weaved together, and Coppola's grandiosity becomes a
cinematic version of le mot juste. It was a film I waited for, anticipated
all the way back when. And yet it did not disappoint. Has never disappointed.
After scores of viewings, it energizes me still. 
More
nasty one-liners than you can shake a stick at - up to and including
the famous Marilyn Monroe line "Why do they all look like unhappy rabbits?"
And of course there's Bette Davis' infamous "Fasten your seatbelts -
it's going to be a bumpy night." Here is a film that goes right to the
top and spills shamelessly over it. Davis is at the peak of her form,
and Anne Baxter is perfect as the starry-eyed Eve who claws her way
up to be the most powerful actress in Hollywood. But my favorite character
is that of the critic played by George Sanders who clearly sees through
the masks the women wear. This is a film made in a time where it was
clear that women were the stars - it brazenly showcases the dames -
the good, the bad and the ugly.
I
fell in love with this film the moment I first saw it. I grew up reading
Grimm's Fairy Tales, and they weren't cute, they were fascinating and
dark and spooky, and that's why I liked them. Cocteau managed to translate
that strange feeling of magic and dread onto the screen. For an hour
and half watching this film, anything is possible. Josette
Day is the cleverest Beauty you could imagine - and underneath all that
Beast makeup, Jean Marais turned in his greatest performance. (Supposedly
when Garbo saw the film, she said at the end when the Beast turns into
a man - "Oh, give me back my Beast!") I also love the way
the candles and utensils and other fixtures in the Beast's castle have
faces that turn and look at you. This is a truly poetic film that enchants
both children and adults. 
Fight
Club is that rarest of films, one which is both exhilirating and
thought-provoking. From the opening credits, Fincher spares no expense,
technically speaking, thrusting you headlong into a world that is frighteningly
strange, hauntingly familiar, and, ultimately, surprisingly funny, both
visceral thrill ride and clever satire. Nothing is sacred, as Fight
Club savagely rips through everything from consumer culture to self-help
groups - even cinema itself - asking questions for which there are,
the film concedes, no easy answers. -- Ed Owens
Yes,
this is powerful German expressionism masterfully directed with great
visual economy by Pabst. But damn, does anybody hold a candle to Louise
Brooks? With her jet-black flapper cut and soulful, mischievous eyes,
she looks totally modern, even in 1929. Will anyone say that about Jennifer
Love Hewitt in seventy years?
This
is the quintessential nature-gone-awry film that other attempts aspire
to. But all the Anacondas, Lake Placids and Deep Blue
Seas just can't measure up to Speilberg's nail-biting thriller.
The pacing of the film is the key, with just enough pause between action
scenes to get us to let down our guard before we're jumping at the next
surprise. Excellent writing, and great performances by Robert Shaw,
Roy Schieder and Richard Dreyfuss create action and suspense that few
other films have matched. -- Melissa B. Cummings
A
beloved book made carefully, thoughtfully and beautifully into a beloved
film. One gets the sense that if Harper Lee could have magically given
life to her characters, Gregory Peck, Robert Duvall, Mary Badham and
Phillip Alford would have appeared. The film is just as much a heartwrenching,
slice of Americana as the book. And I still want to marry a man just
like Atticus Finch. 
The
opening sequence of 8 ˝ - a man (Marcello Mastroianni) leaving
his gridlocked car and floating over the sea of traffic below, quickly
establishes the tone of Fellini's most personal film. Fresh off La
Dolce Vita, he was faced with trying to decide what to do next.
He confronted his problem the only way he knew how, by making a movie
about it. The film follows a director as he struggles to follow up his
last big hit, retreating into his own memories and fantasies to escape
the pressure. Fellini fully embraced the style and flair he had been
building towards over his career, resulting in some truly beautiful
sequences that reveal the magic potential inherent in cinema. Intensely
personal, 8 1/2 affords us a rich view into the mind of one of
the world's foremost filmmakers. 
There
is a whole class dedicated to this screenplay at NYU. It was the collaboration
between Polanski and writer Robert Towne that gave birth to one of the
best films ever made. Roman Polanski doesn't believe, nor should he,
that things work out happily in the end, so he made Robert Towne alter
the ending - and in so doing he elevated what would have been a good
thriller into a grand tragedy. Of course Noah Cross would gun down all
that is beautiful in the world, of course it would be the antihero who
does exactly what he promised he would never do - endanger the life
of the woman he loves. And if you don't want to buy into the mythic
part of the film - you can always watch it for the hilarious Polanski
cameo where he slits Nicholson's nose. Nicholson must wear a bandage
throughout the film (another thing they all had to fight to keep in).
Sometimes, it is the films that are the most difficult to get made that
end up being among the best ever made. 
Sunset
Boulevard turns into something of a tragedy towards the end, and
so I think it's easy to forget how damn funny the first hour or so really
is. Wilder and Brackett have a grand time making fun of Hollywood conventions
through the mouthpiece of William Holden's Joe Gillis. Prime examples:
Gillis explaining how his last script was about Okies in the dust bowl,
but you wouldn't know it because when it got to the screen it took place
on a torpedo boat. Or even better, the scene where Norma is describing
Salome looking upon the severed head of John the Baptist, and Gillis
says, "It'll play great in Pomona." Wilder and Brackett had always displayed
a mordant wit, but this movie had to be the high point in that regard.
As a directorial feat, it's clearly Billy Wilder's one bona fide masterpiece.
The beginning, which starts at the end, is so chilling it hurts. Wilder's
sense of timing, the tension, the sense of cynicism and disgust, is
balanced beautifully with a longing for a more innocent past. Holden,
who is required to hold everything together, excels here. And although
it has become customary to acknowledge that Gloria Swanson is great
in this film, there is danger of losing sight of exactly why and how
she's great. Her melodramatic posturing is not just a dead-on portrait
of the character's psychosis, it's also a sort of distilled essence
of everything that was exaggerated and wrong about a lot of silent film
acting. Swanson could have been more naturalistic in the role, but without
a trace of vanity she skewers the excess and falsity of Norma's self-presentation.
was MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer. The story is that he confronted Wilder
after the premiere of Sunset Boulevard, shaking with rage, and told
him that he was a disgrace to the industry and should be horsewhipped.
I would like to imagine that Wilder knew then that, regardless of how
the film did at the box office, it had succeeded in making its point.
-- Chris Dashiell
Stanley
Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel is one of those
perfect kernel illustrations of the cinematic translation of literary
mood. Kubrick allows Burgess's futuristic alienation and linguistic
significations to resonate on the screen, enhancing them with a lurid
palette, delicious musical ironies and fiberglass modernities. Disturbingly
misogynistic and irredeemably pathological, the screenplay captures
the spirit of its protagonist in a shameless ménage a trois of sex,
violence, and audience fascination, and confuses us in our impulse to
identify with the hero on the screen. And so today, as when it first
appeared, A Clockwork Orange remains among the most frightening
morality plays of cinematic history - all the more terrifying in that
the not quite naturalness of sound and color stop being disconcerting,
just as satiric sharpness makes the ultra-violent cruelties inflicted
by Alex and his droogs 
stand
alongside the unspeakable horror of dehumanization, loss of soul, theft
of free will, and deprivation of joy in music. As Alex says, the colors
of the real world only become real when you see them in a film. A
Clockwork Orange is hard to watch, but even harder to let go of
once you have. The point is sharp, and not to be missed. Quoth the Minister
near film's end, "Observe all." 
Spielberg
works here on an epic scale, but it is in many ways his most personal
film. This is the only film he has made where he's tapped his Jewish
heritage as a source of inspiration. This is the film where Spielberg
grows up. Choosing to work in the muted palette of black and white,
he is unsparing in his depiction of the atrocities committed by the
Nazis. And although he occasionally pours on some unnecessary pathos,
for the most part he is restrained. We are left with a sense of hope
that there were still selfless acts of courage by a few brave souls
during one of the most unfathomable events of inhumanity in history.
Robert
Mitchum's performance as Reverend Harry Powell, a violent, greedy criminal
masquerading as a fervent Christian, is electrifying. Laughton's only
credited excursion as director is a visual masterpiece, with some of
the best examples of the use of shadow and light in the history of cinema.
The film is amazing in its ability to be both strikingly beautiful and
lyrically haunting - sometimes even in a single image - and the performances
are strong all the way around.
Oh,
it's only just the funniest and most inventive movie ever made. Chock
full of astounding stunts and gags, and the first film in which someone
jumps into another film. This is the Keaton movie that I show to people
who want to know what all the fuss is about. 
"I
recall every fall, every hook, every jab...they say my life wasn't drab.
But give me a stage, where this bull here can rage..." Martin Scorsese,
like all brilliant filmmakers, puts everything he has into a film -
this one almost killed him. The combination of Paul Schrader (who adapted
the book), Robert De Niro and Marty is unmatched in American filmmaking.
Each of them brings something to the table that the project would have
suffered without. De Niro wants everything to be right, authentic. Schrader
is dark, bizarre and has no problem sinking down into the depths of
humanity - and Scorsese has the energy, the ambition, the drive to put
it all together. He is also as much a presence in his films as the actors.
You always feel you are looking through his eyes because he films with
such a distinct style. For Raging Bull he wanted us to see the
world through La Motta's eyes, which is to say, through a rather warped
perspective, so he played around with speed - when the pathologically
jealous Jake sees his wife kiss another man, it's in slo-mo. The film
is also memorable for De Niro's physical transformation from lean, mean
fighting machine to paunchy has-been. Raging Bull is in the tradition
of great fight movies, like Body and Soul, and obviously done
in black and white for that reason. The talky scenes between Joe Pesci
and De Niro, especially when it comes to women, are absolutely hysterical.
Who can forget Pesci's infamous line: "Your mother sucks big fuckin'
elephant fuckin' dicks." 
It's
Scorsese's most complex film, both in its technique and its psychology.
And for that reason, it's not his most popular film. But in terms of
pushing the limits of the art, in the level of craft and also the level
of understanding just how difficult and multi-sided people really are,
it's his best film, and in fact no other American film in the last twenty
years can touch it. 
One
of the very few films that plunges you into a world of characters with
the same feeling of richness that you experience from a 19th century
novel. The beautiful courtesan Garance (Arletty) is loved by the mime
Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) and the brilliant actor Frederic (Pierre
Brasseur), but she finds herself compromised by her association with
the nihilistic criminal Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand), and giving herself
to a wealthy nobleman whom she doesn't love is the only way out of her
predicament. That's just the outline of the plot! The film is in two
parts with an intermission; it beautifully evokes the bright world of
Paris in the last century, and the acting is superb and touching and
funny. 
But
most of all, Children of Paradise is about the theater, those
who act in it and write for it, and especially those who go to it, but
can only afford to sit in the cheap seats, way up in the balcony. No
other film has quite this feeling of love for the theater, with all
the underlying themes of masks and performance and the need for the
audience to love you. And even though the picture is over three hours
long, every time I watch it, I just don't want it to end. 
The
tale of a doomed society of the future, and one man's futile attempts
to save it, told entirely in photographs, reflecting on the nature of
moving pictures even as it mimics one (there is one actual film segment,
but you'll have to watch closely to catch it). But if La Jetée
was just an experimental film without an emotional center, it would
only be a gimmick. Fortunately, the man at the center of the story is
engaging, and the film's sense of impending tragedy is haunting and,
ultimately, poignant. La Jetée is a powerful film - moving
without moving- and a shining example of what can happen when someone
decides to take a chance. -- Ed Owens
La
Jetée is deeply troubling, filled with the sort of yearning
that the most romantic tragedies struggle and fail to achieve, the tragedy
of life's impermenance built into the very essence of this movie's form.
Mainly a series of black and white still images with narration, it tells
the story of a man sent back in time to try and save the ruined future.
Haunted by a puzzling and violent image from his youth, by traveling
back (to 1962, presumably) he finds both a love that could never exist
in his own time, and a horrific solution to his own fragmented memory.
The film, with it's neorealistic science fiction tone, speaks to our
twin desires for love and closure, and the terrible cost of resolving
the two. 
You're
never sure when to burst out laughing or to be horrified. The Coens
are masters at walking the line between the utterly comical and the
utterly unbearable. For instance, when Steve Buscemi comes back to the
safe house with half of his head torn off he says "you should see the
other guy." This is a film all about juxtaposition. Marge (Frances McDormand)
a pregnant cop puking from morning sickness while examining the dead
bodies. Jerry (William H. Macy) talking in just-plain-folk Fargospeak
discussing the kidnapping and murdering of his wife. And of course,
the beauty Marge sees in the world pitted against the obvious ugliness
she must confront. All of the performers hit the right notes, but the
real star of the film is the impossibly white, bleak landscape in the
dead
of winter - endless flats of snow that again are the absolute opposite
of the hot red blood that relentlessly splatters it. 
The
greatest masterpiece of the Italian "neorealist" movement
that swept the world and changed the way people thought about movies,
it is suffused with a leftist humanism dedicated to portraying the desperate
working man's plight. What really grabs me are three shots - the warehouse
full of mattresses at the beginning; the son eating mozzarella; and
the final scene between father and son, when the boy realizes his father's
flaws. 
The film moves easily between the innocence of the country and the experience
of the city, given each locale a distinct feel while presenting both
as enchanting in their own way, with each setting being as much a character
as the people that wander through them. In Sunrise, Murnau has
captured one of the purest elements of cinema, telling his story almost
entirely in images. It is a profoundly moving story of forgiveness that
transfixed me the first time I saw it, and ever since then I have had
a deep-rooted attachment to it.
It
wasn't until I saw City Lights at a Chaplin festival screening
that I really "got" what film historians call "Chaplin's genius."
Remarkably funny, heartbreakingly sad, beautifully shot (and beautifully
sound designed by Chaplin), City Lights made the appeal of The
Little Tramp clear to me the for the first time. Yet what makes this
the best Chaplin film, in my opinion, is its wholeness as a work of
art - a clear series of metaphors for our struggle against the vicissitudes
of fortune, topped by perhaps the most perfect ending in the history
of the movies. 
Chaplin
reportedly spent over a year rewriting and reshooting various finales,
but the one he settled on is a beaut, a clear and perfect moment, that
sends the audience out on the tip of their toes. The emotional force
of the entire picture comes down to the last few seconds, in one of
the most poignant, iconographic, and rewarding close-ups in history.