My Sight & Sound list
And that time comes once again, that
time every ten years where the BFI does their “OH YES THESE ARE THE
TEN BEST MOVIES EVAAA!” list. Rather, this magazine, which for
some reason or another has the super-air of respectability (and I
don't say that sarcastically, I just assume the BFI is all-powerful
and all-knowing cause, you know, they're British, hard to argue
that), has polled critics and directors every ten years since 1952 on
what could constitute the “best” work.
It really goes like this – they ask
the critics and directors (and also programmers, archivists, etc) to
make up their ten best list – and some, like Quentin Tarantino, get
greedy and make a list of 12, how they get away with that I've no
idea – and then they tally how many times it appears on lists, and
that's how they get their 'ten best' lists, or top 100, or more, or
whatever (indeed because there are apparently more critics than
directors voting, by a margin of 3 to 1, there is a slight inbalance,
especially as so many critics and some directors are just stunningly
unknown to me – and yes, it's all about ME isn't it?) This is why
Citizen Kane got knocked off the list, despite showing up on more
lists than before, because the critics just got even more of a fervor
for Vertigo (previously #2).
It's an arbitrary list ultimately,
because who can really make a 'ten best' list when if you really love
films they should be like your children... well, maybe parents do
have favorites if there's a whole bunch. So, with this in mind, I
decided to take a crack at my top 12 (cause like QT I'm a greedy
fuck), and like almost all of the voters I've ranked them
alphabetically. There is actually one new-ish entry in the top
category just as of yesterday really, which is why I'm making this my
official ranking for now:
"It's judgment that defeats us..."
Still the Mother of all War movies,
because it's succinctly about madness, which is what war ultimately amounts to,
especially Vietnam where there was really little motive for fighting
in the first place aside from “Communism, the insidious evil”. I
prefer the original cut to the Coppola's 'Redux' (not that the latter doesn't
have some worth with its extra scenes, mostly as the Playboy bunnies
sequence gives more light to the darkness in the men on the boat),
and of course the 'Valkyries' sequence is a stunner every time one
watches it in terms of choreography of the copters and the people,
the mayhem, the napalm, the music, and Duvall's grandstanding. But
it's really the film as a whole that has to suck you in; some
complain about Brando's performance, yet I find him to be more and
more affecting on subsequent viewings, the figure of total, haunted
madness that has shattered hope.
"You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a
million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars *next*
year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year,
I'll have to close this place in... 60 years."
Do I need to go on about this? There's
little else to add to the discourse. Sure, Touch of Evil has a
grittier edge, Magnificent Ambersons more somber, and The Trial is a
deranged madhouse of wonders. But Kane is where it started, and in a
sense where film ends. It's hard to get past all of the technical
wonders (deep focus, special effects, forced perspective), but it's
the writing by Mankiewicz and Welles and the acting by the Mercury
group that I think has kept it so fresh. All of the acting is top
notch, and in a way Cotten gets a meatier role than Welles has. It's
essential to the cinematic vernacular as Hamlet, and while it's got a
dark center it's surrounded by a lot of fun and comedy and wonderment
at a man's ambition.
"We'll cure you!"
Possibly the most polarizing of
Stanley Kubrick's films (yes, more than Barry Lyndon or Eyes Wide Shut), and
certainly the most grungy and unforgiving of human nature. But it's
also the film of Kubrick's I return to the most, for its energy, its
daring, McDowell's funniest-harsh-dramatic-everything-horror-show
performance, and for music. It's a savage satire, and yet I think
it's oddly quite hopeful for the good in humanity as it shows what
evil comes from the machine of the system-at-large. It may be hard
to defend against a behemoth like 2001, but I get more pleasure out
of it as a masterpiece of a 'midnight movie'.
"Marijuana isn't a drug. Look at what goes on in Vietnam. From the general down to the private, they all smoke."
"As a result, once a week they bomb their own troops."
"If they bomb their own troops, they must have their reasons."
Luis Bunuel is one of the masters, so
you gotta have one of his up here. Un chien Andalou is the
groundbreaker, Los Olvididados is more important, and Belle de Jour
is sexier, but Bourgeoisie is unique in that it looks at the stinking
rich (maybe not too unlike my next pick) with a degree of not so much
sympathy but curious human interest. These are wicked people these
six men and women, but hey, as Tom Waits says you are innocent when
you dream, and so dreams fall within dreams (maybe even another
dream? Have we been incepted here? At one point in the 'reality'
there's the sound of an airplane going over the dialog... inside a
police station). It's my favorite 'classy' comedy, the kind of
dark-twisted satire you could show your grandmother.
Ingmar Bergman may be the single
supreme dramatist in 20th century cinema, and yet, as
Woody Allen also pointed out, it's not a chore to sit through his
films (unlike, say, Antonioni to an extent). It's totally absorbing
when seeing one of his films, even ones that don't entirely work
(i.e. The Serpent's Egg), and when you're wrapped up in it you can
feel the darkness but also see the light somewhere cracking through
the edges of the pyscho-drama, existential angst and sexual
frustrations. Fanny and Alexander is his triumph though (and in this
case a great example of a director's cut being better than
theatrical), because it fully embraces the idea of what family is or
aught to be, and he does something so wonderful by letting us see
what is great in the Ekdahl family before the big conflict comes up
in the second part. It's everything that was great about the
filmmaker, and also it brings out the best in the cast, especially
Bishop Vergerus as a screen villain so malicious and yet achingly
human. It's five and a half hours of magic that feels as long ans
never misses a beat.
"I know some people like my friends who would've gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn't. I gotta admit the truth, it turned me on."
The greatest contemporary American film
ever made, a rock and roll trip through the life of a
not-made-but-well-to-do gangster and what ultimately happens when the
'life' collapses and he has to be an average nobody again. What I've
always loved about Scorsese's storytelling, via Henry Hill and
Nicolas Pileggi, is that I could see people I knew in this world, and
even see myself going through this life if I had just been in that
street looking out over the gangsters having a life of no limits.
But far from being preachy it's quite the opposite, it lets you
(dangerously perhaps) make your mind up for yourself, to the point
where you might really feel sorry for Hill and his exploits. Hell,
you'll feel sorry for Pesci's Tommy, and that's really something.
Oh, and it's deliriously entertaining, and a highly quotable film
aside from the visual splendor.
"'I liked her first!' What are you, six years old? Jesus."
Woody Allen apparently didn't like what
he'd done with this film (he asked the studio to get rid of it and in
return he'd do a movie for them for free!), yet he underestimates
what he succeeded with here, which is the most romantic story of loss
done with his style of reality vs. fantasy. This is what Isaac Davis
wrestles with, the reality that he's dating a 17 year old, but the
fantasy that it is love... or is that reality too? Gordon Willis'
triumph as well (who wouldn't want, I dunno, a dozen or more single
frames of the film hanging on your wall?), and piercingly funny about
the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the middle-upper class in NY (maybe
the Discreet Charm of Pretentious New Yorkers?) And the Gershwin.
And the ending... oh man.
"This is no longer your film."
A film that you should watch three
times. For me, the first time I was mesmerized, and knew I liked it
a great deal, but also was not totally sure what I had seen. What
was with the blue phone? Or the Robert Forrester cameo? Or those
little old people coming out of the couch trying to kill Naomi Watts?
What the fuck was this? But I knew I had to return to it since I
saw it at a time that, like Blood Simple also did and Lynch's own
Eraserhead, a film could wash over me completely, and this did that
so breathtakingly with its sense of mystery and allure and nuance.
The second time I knew it was the best film of its year, and saw more
in it than before. Then the third time around, I suddenly saw it a
whole different way – that the first two thirds and the last third,
how I thought about them, were really the opposite of what they were
supposed to mean in its relation to what was “real” - and it
washed over me all over again. It's a delirious but tight look at
love, obsession, and cinema as the ultimate mind-fucker; just that
one shot alone with 'Sixteen Reasons' being sung that pulls out to
reveal more than what we saw before is worth the price of admission.
But it's also dangerous to forget how good Watts and Harring (who we
don't see much in movies anymore sadly) are in the film and together.
"Which one of you nuts has got any guts?"
Another film about madness, but this is
perhaps more 'conventional' than Coppola's film. Nevertheless it's
massively entertaining, and a superlative ensemble cast (William
Refield, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, Brad Dourif) outside of the
ultimate Good vs Evil story where little shades of gray peek in on
each side: is the Nurse totally evil, and is McMurphy totally good?
I don't know, but it's always a pleasure, and dramatically absorbing,
to see how they spar off one another. I may also have a soft-spot
for it because it's Nicholson's best day in the stadium, and he's a
favorite actor/star, but it's just a fascinating, heartbreaking story
from Kesey that keeps it going so strong past being a 70's
anti-establishment tome. That shot where McMurphy just sits there
during a party and looks on silent, occasionally smiling, his eyes
going off into the distance, is one of those magical-ambiguous
moments in movies I love so: what is he thinking?
"All I do is dream of you the whole night through; with the dawn I still go on, dreaming of you..."
This is the most recent addition to
this list; previously it might've been, I dunno, number 40 or
something in a top 50. But upon a subsequent reviewing of Gene Kelly
and Stanley Donen's masterpiece, it's clear to me now, and I should
resist denying it, that it's really the best that Golden-Age
Hollywood had to offer as far as pure escapism. Like Sunset
Boulevard (or, now, The Artist) it's about the changing of the guard,
but you never get bogged down in the sadness of this. On the
contrary change is seen as a good thing, and its message about doing
what you love and doing it the best you can is inspiring. But you
don't need to see it as that: it's just a completely pleasurable
experience as both a meta-movie (see the sequence of 'Broadway
Melody' a 'What makes life worth living' thing for me, where it's an
idea visualized as a movie in a movie in a dream), and as musical
comedy in pure form. Its cast is glowing, its set-pieces
magnificwent (only the one with the dresses is less than perfect, but
still fun to watch), and it's really just prozac in cinema-form: you
sit and smile or laugh the whole way through.
"FLIKE!"
Bicycle Thieves, great as it is, isn't
quite the limit of neo-realism. Umberto D is, and in it Vittorio De Sica
found a story of an old man and his dog that captured the simplicity
of a fable from the silent-film era but submerged in the despair of
post-war Europe. It's a 'pull at your heartstrings' movie, but
without a shred of sentimentality (or if it has sentiment its earned
in every bone of its being). And I even love small things in the
film like the sub-plot with the girl maid in the home Umberto lives
at. But really the film belongs to Flike the dog – if the last ten
minutes don't get to you, just check your heart in for a tune-up or
something. It moves like an aching, sad but strangely hopeful poem.
Not even E.T. gets at this kind of pathos.
"Here I was born, and there I died. It was only a moment for you; you took no notice."
Like Bunuel, you gotta
have the other Master on here, and for Alfred Hitchcock this is his most
personal effort along with being a kick-in-the-head mystery. You can
read so much into its themes, the layers of context, the psychology
of the characters, but it's also if you want to watch it as such just
a masterpiece of colors, uncomplicated (but complex) camera movement
and perspective, and James Stewart's finest dramatic performance
(yeah I said it George!) It's also grown in stature in my
consciousness as I've gotten older, from a film that I was moreso
told to like when I was younger (as an adolescent I preferred
Psycho or The Birds or Shadow of a Doubt), and maybe that's why it's
now at #1 in the Sight & Sound as the public has grown with it as
the years go on and its theme of being love while also being cinema
continues on. Not to mention, best zombie movie ever?
OTHER FILMS I WISH I COULD PUT ON HERE
BUT THEY GOT LOPPED OFF:
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
SCHINDLER'S LIST
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
SCHINDLER'S LIST
PULP FICTION
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
THE DEVILS
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
THE DEVILS
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
JAWS
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
TAXI DRIVER
THE THIRD MAN
CITY LIGHTS
THE GENERAL
THE GENERAL
WEEK END (Godard)
DAWN OF THE DEAD (Romero)
DAWN OF THE DEAD (Romero)
And the beat goes on and I'm not so
wrooong.
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