Taking a cue from a Facebook friend, I recently visited a "Movie Challenge" site listing "100 Movies to See Before You Die." I scored pretty well, having seen all but eight of the films enumerated. However, I wouldn't recommend this "challenge" as any sort of test of cinematic literacy; to my mind, that requires a much deeper grasp of film history than this round-up represents. It's a list decidedly skewed toward the relatively recent.
A few observations to illustrate my point:
The oldest movie listed is 1939's Gone with the Wind. This excludes all sorts of foundational works, from films by the German and Soviet masters (Murnau, Lang, Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov) to Hollywood's silent kings of comedy (Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd), from the pioneering shorts and features of D. W. Griffith to thirties musicals.
Roman Polanski's 1974 Chinatown (a great work, to be sure) is on the list, but the hard-boiled detective tradition to which it belongs is otherwise absent. John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep (1946), without which Chinatown would have been inconceivable, aren't there.
Similarly, the only Westerns included are Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) and Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992). Not that these are bad films by any means, but where are John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) and The Searchers (1956), Howard Hawks's Red River (1948) and Rio Bravo (1959), Anthony Mann's Winchester '73 (1950) and The Naked Spur (1953), and Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962) and The Wild Bunch (1969)?
Classic art-house cinema is represented only by Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) and Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960). There's nothing by Renoir, Rosselini, Bergman, Antonioni, Bresson, Ozu, or the French New Wave.
Alfred Hitchcock, arguably the most influential and certainly the most written-about director in the Anglo-American tradition, is represented only by Psycho (1960). Steven Spielberg, on the other hand, is there with four—count 'em, four—films: Jaws (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Schindler's List (1993), and Saving Private Ryan (1998).
And what are some other dubious inclusions? Almost Famous (2000), The Artist (2011), Chicago (2002), District 9 (2009) Donnie Darko (2001), Moneyball (2011), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Superman (1978), WALL-E (2008). None of these is a terrible film, and some of them are actually pretty good. But movies you should see before you die? There are better lists out there. For starters, check out the British Film Institute's "50 Greatest" compilation.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
On (Re)making It
A NY Times reader, in a comment on Manohla Dargis's review of the new Carrie, complains, "The original Carrie is one of my favorite movies. Can't Hollywood come
up with original ideas anymore? I will be sure to stay away from this
remake."
Actually, film remakes are nothing new; in fact, they're as old as Hollywood. The Maltese Falcon, for example, had been filmed twice (in 1931 and 1936) before the version that came to be regarded as definitive was produced: John Huston's 1941 classic starring Humphrey Bogart. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was adapted during the silent era with John Barrymore, and then remade twice within less than twenty-five years in versions starring Frederic March and Spencer Tracy. (Even more versions would follow.) I could go on and on, but these two well-known examples should suffice.
I, too, haven't seen the new Kimberly Pierce version of Carrie, and, who knows, maybe it is junk. I doubt it, however, given that Ms. Pierce is (judging from her previous work) a thoughtful and gifted director. I also like the Brian De Palma version of Carrie (though not the 2002 TV movie, the pilot for a series that never materialized), but I'm willing to give this latest film incarnation of Stephen King's first novel a chance.
Actually, film remakes are nothing new; in fact, they're as old as Hollywood. The Maltese Falcon, for example, had been filmed twice (in 1931 and 1936) before the version that came to be regarded as definitive was produced: John Huston's 1941 classic starring Humphrey Bogart. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was adapted during the silent era with John Barrymore, and then remade twice within less than twenty-five years in versions starring Frederic March and Spencer Tracy. (Even more versions would follow.) I could go on and on, but these two well-known examples should suffice.
I, too, haven't seen the new Kimberly Pierce version of Carrie, and, who knows, maybe it is junk. I doubt it, however, given that Ms. Pierce is (judging from her previous work) a thoughtful and gifted director. I also like the Brian De Palma version of Carrie (though not the 2002 TV movie, the pilot for a series that never materialized), but I'm willing to give this latest film incarnation of Stephen King's first novel a chance.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Cures for the Blockbuster Blahs
If the standard summer fare from Hollywood—comic book adaptations and the lot—has you down, there are a couple of movies for grownups out there, and they're both—mirabile dictu—from American filmmakers. I highly recommend both Richard Linklater's Before Midnight and Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing.
Linklater's film is the third in his series about the romantic fortunes of Céline (Julie Delpy), who is French, and Jesse (Ethan Hawke), who is American. Before Sunrise (1995) was about their meeting on a trans-European train and decision to spend a few hours together walking and talking along the streets of Vienna. In Before Sunset (2004), they are reunited in Paris when Céline shows up at a booksigning for Jesse, who's just a published a novel based on their encounter of nine years earlier. There's more walking and talking, much as there was in the first film, and the two end up in Céline's apartment. His romantic spark with Céline rekindled, the unhappily married Jesse decides to miss his flight back to the States.
In Before Midnight, we learn that the two have been living together ever since in Paris, and are now the parents of twin girls. This time they're in Greece for a vacation of sorts: there's still more walking and talking—and also driving and talking, dining and talking, and just sitting around and talking. In the last third of the film, all that talking escalates into flat-out argument as contentious issues—hinging mainly on the conflict between Jesse's desire to move to Chicago to be near his son from his first marriage and Céline's to stay in France as she takes on a new, high-responsibility job—come to the fore. It's hard to think of a film outside of anything by Eric Rohmer in which sheer conversation manages to be so riveting. I liked the first two movies a lot, but I think this one is by far the best.That climactic argument, followed by (SPOILER ALERT) a tentative reconciliation, feels heart-achingly real while managing to be quite funny at the same time. Kudos to Linklater and to stars Delpy and Hawke, who collaborated with the director on the script and deliver pitch-perfect performances.
Whedon's movie, of course, is an adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy of love, gossip, envy, and misunderstanding, which was previously filmed in period costume and a Tuscan setting by Kenneth Branagh (1993). Whedon opted for a microbudget approach, shooting most of it at his own home in Santa Monica and using a cast largely familiar from his television work. Plus it's in black and white. (From what I've read, I gather that Whedon undertook it as a kind of therapeutic break from his directorial duties on last summer's big comic-book blockbuster, Marvel's The Avengers.) If you're the sort of purist who disdains modern-dress Shakespeare and insists on British accents, this may not be your cup of tea. But see it with an open mind. I found it delightful.
Linklater's film is the third in his series about the romantic fortunes of Céline (Julie Delpy), who is French, and Jesse (Ethan Hawke), who is American. Before Sunrise (1995) was about their meeting on a trans-European train and decision to spend a few hours together walking and talking along the streets of Vienna. In Before Sunset (2004), they are reunited in Paris when Céline shows up at a booksigning for Jesse, who's just a published a novel based on their encounter of nine years earlier. There's more walking and talking, much as there was in the first film, and the two end up in Céline's apartment. His romantic spark with Céline rekindled, the unhappily married Jesse decides to miss his flight back to the States.
In Before Midnight, we learn that the two have been living together ever since in Paris, and are now the parents of twin girls. This time they're in Greece for a vacation of sorts: there's still more walking and talking—and also driving and talking, dining and talking, and just sitting around and talking. In the last third of the film, all that talking escalates into flat-out argument as contentious issues—hinging mainly on the conflict between Jesse's desire to move to Chicago to be near his son from his first marriage and Céline's to stay in France as she takes on a new, high-responsibility job—come to the fore. It's hard to think of a film outside of anything by Eric Rohmer in which sheer conversation manages to be so riveting. I liked the first two movies a lot, but I think this one is by far the best.That climactic argument, followed by (SPOILER ALERT) a tentative reconciliation, feels heart-achingly real while managing to be quite funny at the same time. Kudos to Linklater and to stars Delpy and Hawke, who collaborated with the director on the script and deliver pitch-perfect performances.
Whedon's movie, of course, is an adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy of love, gossip, envy, and misunderstanding, which was previously filmed in period costume and a Tuscan setting by Kenneth Branagh (1993). Whedon opted for a microbudget approach, shooting most of it at his own home in Santa Monica and using a cast largely familiar from his television work. Plus it's in black and white. (From what I've read, I gather that Whedon undertook it as a kind of therapeutic break from his directorial duties on last summer's big comic-book blockbuster, Marvel's The Avengers.) If you're the sort of purist who disdains modern-dress Shakespeare and insists on British accents, this may not be your cup of tea. But see it with an open mind. I found it delightful.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Not Exactly a Film Post but . . .
. . . I thought I'd put it up anyway. Last week, on The Daily Show, substitute host John Oliver (ably sitting in for Jon Stewart, who's in the Middle East directing a movie) noted the return of the insufferable Sarah Palin to Fox News. Midway through the bit, to great applause, he announced a "new segment" for the show: "Wait a Second, Why Don't We Just Ignore Her?"
One can only hope that the "real" news outlets (and in that capacity Fox doesn't qualify, with or without the quotation marks) follow suit.
One can only hope that the "real" news outlets (and in that capacity Fox doesn't qualify, with or without the quotation marks) follow suit.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Should We Keep Calling It 'Film'?
I read recently in Film Comment that one of the main reasons why the venerable (and finacially troubled) firm of Eastman Kodak continues manufacturing film stock is because several prominent directors—Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Christopher Nolan, among them—persist in shooting in that format as opposed to using HD digital technology. It appears, alas, that these auteurs now form a distinct minority. Theaters are overwhelmingly switching over to digital projection—it matters not how the movie was originally shot—so the handwriting is clearly on the wall. It makes you wonder how much longer those holdouts for celluloid (or, more accurately, thermoplastics) can, well, hold out. It also makes you wonder whether the word "film," as a synonym for movie or motion picture, will itself endure. I hope so. Digitalmaker just doesn't have the same ring as filmmaker.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Roger Ebert, 1942–2013
Last year it was Andrew Sarris (see my post of June 21, 2012); this year it's Roger Ebert. Another significant loss to intelligent film reviewing has occurred.
I confess that when it came to appreciating Ebert, I was a late arrival. For years I was dismissive, mainly because of my first encounter with him in print.
The piece in question was an article, originally published in the Chicago Sun-Times, which was reprinted in Reader's Digest, that dependable dispenser of conservative middle-American wisdom. The year was 1967. I was fifteen at the time; Ebert was twenty-four and only just starting his journalistic career. (Apparently it was among the earliest of his by-lined pieces to appear in the paper that would become his permanent professional home.)
The article was not a review, really, but an account of a matinee screening Ebert had attended of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. The fellow attendees were mostly kids, aged nine or so, who thought they were going to see a conventional Hollywood horror film of the time. Of course, Romero's Pittsburgh-shot, independently financed, and slyly subversive gorefest (a key initiator of the changing directions in the genre) was anything but. The kids were severely traumatized, according to Ebert, and in my memory, he denounced both the makers of such garbage and the exhibitors who screened it.
Actually, Ebert liked Night of the Living Dead. He didn't say so in this particular article, but neither did he excoriate the movie as trash, as I had recalled. He did have a beef, however, with the theater operators and local authorities who deemed it OK (in the interests of commerce) for kids to see it.* In the closing paragraphs of his piece, he pointedly declared that "censorship is not the answer" but that some reasonable restrictions on who got into the theaters were necessary. (I may be wrong, but I think those final paragraphs were excised from the Reader's Digest reprint.)
In any event, as I aged into my twenties and grew a bit more savvy (and, dare I admit it, snobbish) about movies, the article stuck in my head—wrongly—as evidence of Ebert's conformist, stuffily moralistic, and not particularly sophisticated tastes. And after he became a TV personality offering those famous thumbs up/thumbs down judgments, I put him in the same box with such clueless wonders as Rex Reed and Gene Shalit. That was profoundly unfair. Ebert—though perhaps not the most graceful of prose stylists—was considerably more thoughtful and discerning than I had thought him to be. And as I learned, he was perhaps as devoted a cinephile as any who has ever lived: giving new meaning to the phrase "work ethic," he continued to pound out column after column even as he battled the cancer that took away his jaw and ultimately his life.
I'm pleased to say now that my copies of Ebert's books The Great Movies and Awake in the Dark are becoming increasingly well-thumbed. Pun intended.
_______
*The MPAA rating system was not in effect at the time.
I confess that when it came to appreciating Ebert, I was a late arrival. For years I was dismissive, mainly because of my first encounter with him in print.
The piece in question was an article, originally published in the Chicago Sun-Times, which was reprinted in Reader's Digest, that dependable dispenser of conservative middle-American wisdom. The year was 1967. I was fifteen at the time; Ebert was twenty-four and only just starting his journalistic career. (Apparently it was among the earliest of his by-lined pieces to appear in the paper that would become his permanent professional home.)
The article was not a review, really, but an account of a matinee screening Ebert had attended of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. The fellow attendees were mostly kids, aged nine or so, who thought they were going to see a conventional Hollywood horror film of the time. Of course, Romero's Pittsburgh-shot, independently financed, and slyly subversive gorefest (a key initiator of the changing directions in the genre) was anything but. The kids were severely traumatized, according to Ebert, and in my memory, he denounced both the makers of such garbage and the exhibitors who screened it.
Actually, Ebert liked Night of the Living Dead. He didn't say so in this particular article, but neither did he excoriate the movie as trash, as I had recalled. He did have a beef, however, with the theater operators and local authorities who deemed it OK (in the interests of commerce) for kids to see it.* In the closing paragraphs of his piece, he pointedly declared that "censorship is not the answer" but that some reasonable restrictions on who got into the theaters were necessary. (I may be wrong, but I think those final paragraphs were excised from the Reader's Digest reprint.)
In any event, as I aged into my twenties and grew a bit more savvy (and, dare I admit it, snobbish) about movies, the article stuck in my head—wrongly—as evidence of Ebert's conformist, stuffily moralistic, and not particularly sophisticated tastes. And after he became a TV personality offering those famous thumbs up/thumbs down judgments, I put him in the same box with such clueless wonders as Rex Reed and Gene Shalit. That was profoundly unfair. Ebert—though perhaps not the most graceful of prose stylists—was considerably more thoughtful and discerning than I had thought him to be. And as I learned, he was perhaps as devoted a cinephile as any who has ever lived: giving new meaning to the phrase "work ethic," he continued to pound out column after column even as he battled the cancer that took away his jaw and ultimately his life.
I'm pleased to say now that my copies of Ebert's books The Great Movies and Awake in the Dark are becoming increasingly well-thumbed. Pun intended.
_______
*The MPAA rating system was not in effect at the time.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
What the Summer Promises—Yech!
I went to a local cineplex yesterday to see Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects (not a bad movie, by the way, buoyed mainly by a fine performance by Rooney Mara), and the experience included eardrum-shattering trailers for the following: Kick-Ass 2, an Evil Dead remake, Iron Man 3, Man of Steel (a new entry in the rebooted Superman franchise), and The Hangover 3.
No further comment is necessary.
No further comment is necessary.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
That bin Laden Manhunt Movie
So much ink (and whatever the Web equivalent of ink is) has been spilled over Zero Dark Thirty that I don't have a whole lot to add. (My own views, more favorable than not toward the film, align most closely with those of Glenn Kenny, Mark Bowden, Manohla Dargis, and Tom Carson.) Nevertheless, I offer here, in passing, a few random observations. For what they're worth. Just to get them off my chest.
Although I think Zero Dark Thirty is easily the better film, Argo (this year's Best Picture Oscar winner) did do something I wish ZDT had done. At the start, Argo offers a brief history lesson on the ignominious rein of the Shah and the U.S. role in bringing him to power in Iran, thus providing crucial context for the events it depicts, a little-known rescue operation that came amid the 1979–81 hostage crisis. I wish that ZDT had managed some similar acknowledgment of why so many in the Arab world were—and are—so mad at us. (This would be not to justify what happened on 9/11, by any means, but to suggest a bit more of the complex historical forces at work.)
A number of writers and critics I admire, including Chris Hayes and Stuart Klawans, have raised thoughtful objections to the film and what they perceive as its position on torture—i.e., that it endorses torture's efficacy in the finding of bin Laden. I happen to disagree, but whatever one's view, I think it's undeniable that the film has helped reopen a vigorous and healthy debate on the subject that seemed to have tapered off pretty quickly after President Obama announced that he preferred to "look forward" rather than backward when it came to the "enhanced interrogation" program authorized by his predecessor. For bringing up the issue again, ZDT deserves a little credit.
Finally, amid all the back and forth in the media about the movie's early torture scenes, not enough has been said (IMHO) about its ending. Following the raid on bin Laden's Abbotabad compound—brilliantly staged, as one would expect, by director Kathryn Bigelow—the film doesn't register the easy note of triumphalism that another filmmaker might have included. One of the Navy SEALs lets out a whoop upon arrival back at the U.S. air base in Afghanistan amid some "job well done" chatter, but that's about as far as the self-congratulation goes. Bigelow quickly cuts to her protagonist, Jessica Chastain's dogged CIA analyst Maya, hovering anxiously nearby. Maya, whose life has been utterly consumed for eight years by the manhunt, quietly identifies the body with a nod of her head and little betrayal of emotion. We last see her boarding a transport plane as its sole passenger. "Where do you want to go?" a crew member asks. Saying nothing, she sits down, framed in medium close-up, and she begins to sob. End of film. It's a perfect moment of ambiguity. Bin Laden is dead, but what has been accomplished, beyond a symbolic victory and simple revenge? His organization, as we all know, will continue. What is Maya thinking? Hard to say; Bigelow keeps the same cool distance at this significant moment that she has maintained throughout the film. Has it all been worth it, for Maya and for us? You decide.
Although I think Zero Dark Thirty is easily the better film, Argo (this year's Best Picture Oscar winner) did do something I wish ZDT had done. At the start, Argo offers a brief history lesson on the ignominious rein of the Shah and the U.S. role in bringing him to power in Iran, thus providing crucial context for the events it depicts, a little-known rescue operation that came amid the 1979–81 hostage crisis. I wish that ZDT had managed some similar acknowledgment of why so many in the Arab world were—and are—so mad at us. (This would be not to justify what happened on 9/11, by any means, but to suggest a bit more of the complex historical forces at work.)
A number of writers and critics I admire, including Chris Hayes and Stuart Klawans, have raised thoughtful objections to the film and what they perceive as its position on torture—i.e., that it endorses torture's efficacy in the finding of bin Laden. I happen to disagree, but whatever one's view, I think it's undeniable that the film has helped reopen a vigorous and healthy debate on the subject that seemed to have tapered off pretty quickly after President Obama announced that he preferred to "look forward" rather than backward when it came to the "enhanced interrogation" program authorized by his predecessor. For bringing up the issue again, ZDT deserves a little credit.
Finally, amid all the back and forth in the media about the movie's early torture scenes, not enough has been said (IMHO) about its ending. Following the raid on bin Laden's Abbotabad compound—brilliantly staged, as one would expect, by director Kathryn Bigelow—the film doesn't register the easy note of triumphalism that another filmmaker might have included. One of the Navy SEALs lets out a whoop upon arrival back at the U.S. air base in Afghanistan amid some "job well done" chatter, but that's about as far as the self-congratulation goes. Bigelow quickly cuts to her protagonist, Jessica Chastain's dogged CIA analyst Maya, hovering anxiously nearby. Maya, whose life has been utterly consumed for eight years by the manhunt, quietly identifies the body with a nod of her head and little betrayal of emotion. We last see her boarding a transport plane as its sole passenger. "Where do you want to go?" a crew member asks. Saying nothing, she sits down, framed in medium close-up, and she begins to sob. End of film. It's a perfect moment of ambiguity. Bin Laden is dead, but what has been accomplished, beyond a symbolic victory and simple revenge? His organization, as we all know, will continue. What is Maya thinking? Hard to say; Bigelow keeps the same cool distance at this significant moment that she has maintained throughout the film. Has it all been worth it, for Maya and for us? You decide.
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