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I recently discovered a website called YMDb (your movie database), which appears to be nothing more than a massive collection of favorite movie lists from users around the world. Anybody can join, so I quickly logged my top twenty. It’s fun, and it’s free! Choosing favorites can be as painful as passing a kidney stone, but it’s also a healthful exercise in decision-making, and sometimes you discover things about yourself in the process. Here are my current choices, culled mostly from memory and subject to change at a moment’s notice. 12 Angry Men—It would be hard to conceive of my life without this film. It’s gotten to the point where it no longer matters whether it’s any good or not (although few will contest its reputation as a paragon of ‘50s American filmmaking). It’s my favorite, and I’m stuck with it. Sidney Lumet’s film is basically an advanced sociology experiment: put twelve people with disparate personalities and backgrounds in a confined space for two hours and watch them unglue. I’ve seen it ten or eleven times, and I’m still finding new things I love about it. The General—My list wouldn’t be worth its salt without a Buster Keaton comedy, and this one seems to me his masterpiece among masterpieces. More exciting than funny, it uses the locomotive to sustain an environment of constant movement—the ultimate action film. High Noon—It’s really a shame this film is so popular, since its high repute has encouraged a wave of undeserved (and largely reactionary) teardowns from the critical elite. This is really a minor western that became a classic merely because every element coalesces brilliantly. The themes of masculine identity and individual moral integrity are clearly and beautifully delineated, and Tex Ritter’s title ballad gives it all a haunting resonance. The Lady Eve—It’s a toss up between this and Hail the Conquering Hero. I chose this one simply because I saw it most recently. Preston Sturges takes a classic screwball setup and inexplicably turns it into a treatise on how men and women relate to each other. Louisiana Story—Some call it sentimental, but Robert Flaherty’s documentary about the Old America colliding with the New always seemed to me one of the most beautiful expressions of the national character ever produced. The scenes of the Acadian boy floating down the bayou set to Virgil Thomson’s soaring music (one of the five greatest film scores ever written) are a perfect marriage of picture and sound. The Passion of Joan of Arc—No wide shots, just a succession of some of the most extraordinary faces ever filmed by a camera, including that of Maria Falconetti, silent and beautiful, as the most famous of Christian martyrs. Rope—During a revival of Hitchcock’s work at the American Cinemateque last year, I was shocked to discover I actually enjoyed this more than my usual favorite, Rear Window. (Hopefully I’ll return to my senses.) Like most of the Master’s work, this is a study in human evil, and the heavy hypothesizing is justified by the presence of Jimmy Stewart’s college professor, who teaches Nietzschean philosophy in the classroom and is appalled when two of his students carry out its implications. A Man Escaped—It’s very difficult to choose a single Bresson, but this one seems like the logical choice given my fondness for optimistic endings. And rarely has an optimistic ending been so richly deserved. A spiritual thriller, Bresson’s film depicts a prisoner’s flight from a Gestapo prison, guided by a providential force that can only be called divine. F for Fake—Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil, and Chimes at Midnight are in constant rotation as my favorite Orson Welles—but today it’s F for Fake. Now that it’s finally available on DVD, Welles’s playful “essay film” is enjoying a resurgence of interest. Years ahead of its time, it employs sophisticated editing techniques to weave a dizzying web of lies, illusion, and cinematic trickery, all in service of some Quixotic quest for the meaning of art, and eventually, life itself. Mr. Hulot’s Holiday—Playtime is actually the greater achievement, but Jacques Tati’s first outing as Mr. Hulot never ceases to make me laugh. Essentially a story about a seaside vacation gone awry, Tati uses this simple premise to promote an incomparable view of humanity, gentle, jolly, and generous (and French, always French). The bottom half of my Top 20 will be coming along shortly. This is where the list really gets interesting… So what are your favorite films? I’d love to hear from anybody out there reading. Maybe it’s time to consider opening an account at YMDb… |
Comments
Nate, always enjoy reading your blogs, even though I've never even heard of most of the movies you like...until today! 12 Angry Men is one of my favorites as well. I watched the film for the first time last year when I got in to a kind of film noir mood (I viewed Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, The Maltese Falcon, and 12 Angry Men in the same week--what a week that was!).
For all the reasons you gave, 12 Angry Men is a gem. My appreciation for the script and story was enhanced even more just a month ago when my wife and I went to see the play (based on the film and the not other way around). This is the traveling edition starring Richard Thomas in the role Henry Fonda made famous. It was marvelous. Absolutely captivating. Ninety minutes of rapid fire dialog and raw emotion with no intermission, and the audience was spellbound. Just goes to show what a brilliant film concept Reginald Rose (writer), Sidney Lumet (director) and Fonda (producer) put together.
Thanks for mentioning that, Stan. I'm curious to know how well 12 Angry Men would hold up on stage. After all, it started out as a (TV) play.
Something else I've been noticing lately. Even though I don't identify myself as liberal, I seem to sympathize greatly with the American television writers of the '50s, particularly from the Rose/Serling/Chayefsky camp. These folks were writing about things like racial prejudice before it became fashionable to do so. Must've been risky, baring one's soul like that.
That's an interesting observation, and I like it that you mentioned Serling. Whenever I'm channel surfing and I see a Twilight Zone episode on television, I always stop to watch, if only for a few minutes. I've seen them all, but recently I've noticed what you have, that the themes of that groundbreaking program, many of which are still very relevant today, were no doubt socially edgy for the time. Even though the 1950s and early 1960s seemed like an innocent "Happy Days" era, there were some sinister forces at work: the after effects of the atomic bomb, the blacklisting of the McCarthy era, the threat of Communism, the nuclear arms build up, and so on. Heck, I remember as a kid in grade school doing those drills where we would practice ducking under our desks in event of a nuclear strike (as if that would really help). Our city had these big yellow siren towers that were installed to blast a citywide warning should the Russians unleash a swarm of nuclear missiles in our direction. That seems so surreal, yet it happened. Serling captured that mood with striking and often terrifying realism.
Hey, Nate--
Loved the list! Although I'm with Stan--I didn't recognize a lot of the movies you listed. :) But I'm going to add some to my NetFlix list after reading your blog!
A couple of questions for you:
1. No TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD? Unlike you, I am not an old movie buff :), but that one...yowsa.
2. If you were to make your Top Twenty a list of films that most people HAVE seen, what would be on it? We're allowing you to take off your film student hat for a moment and speak to the people (with this qualification, your fellow critics can't criticize you for not being a top-notch critic--ha!). I'd love to see what movies would make that list.
I'm going to have to check out YMDb...but you're right...trying to come up with a Top Twenty is going to be hard!
Barb
P.S. My first expsorure to 12 ANGRY MEN was our high school production of 12 ANGRY JURORS (we threw women into the mix--I'm not sure our high school drama department had 12 guys in it!). It most definitely works as a stage play (even when performed by 15- to 17-year-olds). The dialogue is what makes it crackle!
I also like To Kill a Mockingbird, Barb. It features what's probably my favorite opening title sequence of all time. Great story, sensitive direction, fine acting (especially the from the kids).
I'll have to think about your second question a little more. I'd like to think that most people have seen Gone with the Wind, Singin' in the Rain, It's a Wonderful Life. I love all of these—I just opted for quirkier, more "personal" choices. There's something a little dismaying about looking at a list and realizing you've seen everything on it. What's left to discover?
Glad you mentioned 12 Angry Jurors. I find the idea of high schoolers storming about the stage, reciting Rose's dialogue extremely amusing. Maybe I'll direct my own version some day…
Okay, maybe not films EVERYONE has seen. :) I guess I'm just looking for a point of film contact with you. What about post-1970 fare? :) I'd put What's Eating Gilbert Grape on there, for instance. I really enjoy Lasse Hallstrom. Don't know how you film critics feel about him, but for me as a movie-goer, he raises the cinematic bar without making a film inaccessible for viewers.
Gosh, Nate, I'm such a compulsive listmaker, but it's incredibly difficult for me to only pick 20 and then rank them. I think I'll just go for 30, keep them alphabetical, and post 'em here. I couldn't imagine going anywhere without these films, and they probably best represent what I look for when watching movies.
MY TOP 30:
Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson)
La belle noiseuse (Jacques Rivette)
Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks)
Calendar (Atom Egoyan)
City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel)
Eaux d’artifice (Kenneth Anger)
Eclipse (Michelangelo Antonioni)
eXistenZ (David Cronenberg)
Good Men, Good Women (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Groundhog Day (Ramis)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese)
Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu)
Mon oncle d’Amerique (Alain Resnais)
Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch)
Ordet (Carl Dreyer)
Playtime (Jacque Tati)
Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
Sans soleil (Chris Marker)
Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton)
Shock Corridor (Sam Fuller)
The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
Waking Life (Richard Linklater)
The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami)
A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes)
The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy)
I really wanted to put Sturges and Polanski in there somewhere, but I couldn't bring myself to select *one* film that I feel best represents their unique talents. Perhaps The Palm Beach Story and The Pianist... I'm not sure.
Your list certainly has some interesting choices, although I must admit I'm surprised that you prefer High Noon over any of the Mann, Ford, or Hawks westerns. And I share your affection for Bresson's A Man Escaped, although his Au hasard Balthazar is, to me, something of a miracle--it's impacted me more than any film, both on a spiritual level and on how I've viewed movies afterwards. And although I've never been a big Welles fan (can I say that without being tarred and feathered?), I agree that F for Fake is fantastic and one that is long overdue for a re-view.
That's a pretty formidable list, Jeremy. Most cinephiles need at least that many choices to cover the gamut, but a top ten list is so much more revealing, don't you think? I can't think of anything to add to yours, except to note that I haven't seen the Rivette or the Egoyan, and I'm a bit surprised to see eXistenZ and Night on Earth on there. Surprised and delighted—I think both are consistently underrated. Balthazar is also great, but I have to be honest and admit it didn't hit me on the same level. I think I need to sort out my feelings about the donkey first.
High Noon is certainly out of fashion among highbrows (so is Louisiana Story, for that matter), but I think a closer look will reveal it to be a truly complex, tense and urgent flow of images and sounds, somewhat handicapped by its allusions to McCarthyism. The real-time suspense, Homeric central performance, and poignant soundtrack are what attracted me to it in the first place, and all those things still ring true after multiple viewings. I also came to it at the right time (about ten or eleven years old), and I'm forever indebted to it for awakening my passion for film. I discovered Mann, Ford, and Hawks a little late in the day, and for that very reason find them easier to appreciate on an intellectual level. High Noon will always have my heart.
Here's an agonizing (albeit--you stand corrected--a certainly more revealing) attempt at a Top Ten:
1) Au hasard Balthazar, 2) Ordet, 3) Playtime, 4) The Shop Around the Corner, 5) The Young Girls of Rochefort, 6) Groundhog Day, 7) City Lights, 8) La belle noiseuse, 9) eXistenZ, 10) Waking Life.
Of your list, I admit there are quite a few films I haven't seen yet (Louisiana Story being a notable one). And perhaps I owe High Noon another viewing.
Good list, Nate. It plays to all your interests, though I didn't know about your love for 12 Angry Men. I just love that your list prompted a comment from Lucifer.
"Pleased to meet you. Hope you guessed my name ..."
As for shared titles ... my list might have "Lady Eve," though it's hard to choose between that and "Sullivan's Travels."
Thanks for chiming in, Glenn! I can't believe I didn't mention 12 Angry Men in casual conversation. What can I say? It speaks to the little liberal humanist in me.
Also happy to see you're a Sturges fan. His is one of those filmographies that makes it difficult to choose just one favorite. I think the Coen brothers are the closest we have to a modern day Sturges, but their comedy tends to be derivative, whereas Sturges was a complete original.
Since you well know that "The Big Lebowski" would be on my list of 20 films, I'll only concede that thought about the Coens to a point. They can't match Sturges for comic inventiveness, but Sturges didn't make a stoner version of "The Big Sleep," either.
True. I meant it as an observation, not a criticism. The Coens' work would not be possible without Chandler, Sturges, Hawks, etc. But their style, nay, their entire world view, is completely their own. (At least I think so; it's sometimes hard to interpret exactly what they believe.)
Wow, what a great list! I've only seen 9 of the 20, so I know what I'll be doing with my Netflix queue in the next couple months. :)
The Lady Eve is a tough contender for being my favorite comedy. At one time Rope was my favorite Hitch film, but it was long ago nudged from that spot by The Trouble with Harry. I don't know if I could choose a favorite Welles film, but I'd have to find some way to break the 3-way tie with F for Fake, The Trial, and Touch of Evil. Colonel Blimp is my favorite P&P film, and The Servant is probably my favorite Losey--though Mr. Klein is gaining ground. For Carol Reed, I put The Fallen Idol first, but Odd Man Out is really wonderful stuff. I don't know if I could pick a favorite Polanski or Lynch film. Of Frank Perry's work, I've only seen The Swimmer--is there another Netflix-able film that you'd recommend especially?
It's true what they say about The Trouble with Harry. If you don't understand that film, you don't understand Hitchcock.
I think The Swimmer is far and away Perry's greatest achievement (and one of the best films of the '60s), but David and Lisa was the one that got him on the map. Time hasn't been very kind to it, but I think it's redeemed by the good performances and by Perry's studious direction.
Ladybug, Ladybug is also an extremely interesting film, but it's ridiculously hard to find nowadays.
I have a difficult time with a 'Top 10' or 'Top 20' list, but I'd say that my core indispensable films are these, in no particular order:
Once Upon a Time in the West - (Leone)
Ran - (Kurosawa)
The Big Lebowski - (Coen)
Mulholland Dr. - (Lynch)
Andrei Rublev - (Tarkovsky)
Vertigo - (Hitchcock)
Track of the Cat - (Wellman)
To Kill a Mockingbird - (Mulligan)
Sling Blade - (Thornton)
The inclusion of "Track of the Cat" will strike many as odd, even perverse. It's talky and melodramatic, and not really a great film. Sick and home from school one afternoon, I stumbled on it when I was a kid (I can't imagine how, as a ten-year old, I was able to sit through it) but for some reason it really caught my imagination back then, and I've watched it 4 or 5 times since and still find it fascinating despite its flaws. As one commentator described it, it's really a sort-of art film masquerading as a Western.
My 2nd-tier group would include such films as Ikiru, Rear Window, The Machinist, Ben Hur, The Innocents, The Third Man, Time Out and The Road Home. Also, as a child, I was a huge fan of Japanese sci fi films, and I still find some of them a lot of fun in a goofy way. If I thus feel compelled to include a representative of that genre amongst my all-time favorites, it would have to be 1995's 'Gamera: Guardian of the Universe,' which was a big budget production with pretty good performances and nice SFX. The plot is fairly ridiculous but I find the whole thing hugely entertaining.
Rob, you seem to speak my language (except for the Japanese sci-fi; although Infra-Man and Son of Godzilla were favorites growing up). Track of the Cat is weird and intense, and the Cinemascope compositions are haunting. I'd like to see it back to back with Wellman's Ox-Bow Incident. Let's have more art films masquerading as Westerns! (Oh, wait, we've already got The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.)
Lists!!! I love lists! The Passion of Joan of Arc and High Noon frequently make my own top ten lists, though I have to confess that my all-time top ten list of all-time is usually pretty predictable, with Gone with the Winds and It's a Wonderful Lifes and Casablancas popping up all over the place! But when I'm doing my "rolling top ten" of stuff that I'm totally in love with Right This Minute, it's usually a little more interesting.
Rolling Top Ten right now?
Shadow of a Doubt
The Strawberry Blonde
The Grand Illusion
Talladega Nights
Ride the High Country
The Shining
Viridiana
Gypsy
The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford
Pride of the Yankees (hey, it's baseball season)
Honorable mention goes to Mr. Lucky with Cary Grant. The Australian slang he uses in that movie is enough to make it a minor classic!
Delightful list, Derelict! Anybody who finds space for The Strawberry Blonde earns a gold star in my book. I especially love Olivia in that one. Wasn't she the prettiest girl in movies in the '40s?
What, no Waterloo Bridge this time? Guess I'll have to wait for it to roll in.
De Havilland has always been a beautiful woman (and she still is, going strong at, like, 90), but you're so right, in Strawberry Blonde she's absolutely gorgeous (and just generally all-around wonderful). Cagney's amazingness (and hilarious performance) goes without saying. I've been going around all week saying, "Well, that's the kinda hairpin I am." No one knows what I'm talking about, of course, but I get a chuckle out of myself just the same. Yeah, shut up, I'm a dork, I know. ;)
Waterloo Bridge! I can't believe you remembered my affection for that one! Seriously, if I had written my post one day later, Waterloo Bridge would have been on the list. I just read an article yesterday that referenced it and brought back all the old warm and fuzzy feelings. There's no doubt I'll be dragging my dvd out and watching it soon. :)
Nate, I think that the abiding attraction for Japanese s/f movies might be age related. You look to be a good bit younger than me (I was born in 1961) so those movies were mainstays of my childhood Saturday afternoon and late-night viewing. To the chagrin of my friends and family, I never really grew out of them! ;-)
Rob, I probably feel toward Hammer horror films the way you feel about Japanese monster movies. They left an indelible impression on my adolescent brain, and I now feel obligated to make intellectual arguments on their behalf! I don't think they will ever leave me, and I don't think I want them to.