I was very dissatisfied with my previous list for numerous reasons, not least of which is how much it has changed since I wrote it. So here's a new one. I'm only allowing myself one film per director this time, and I'm not going to rank them; this is simply a collection of my ten favourite movies, in alphabetical order.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Brazil
Chinatown
The Godfather
Inside Llewyn Davis
Lost In Translation
Reds
Rushmore
There Will Be Blood
The Truman Show
2001: A Space Odyssey
-Stanley Kubrick
The big one, without whom science-fiction would be a very different place today indeed. Firstly, this absolutely has to be seen in a cinema. I watched it on DVD first then had the good fortune of attending a big screen showing in Leeds Town Hall (yet another reason why Leeds is great) and it was as if I'd seen two different movies. Honestly, the difference is astonishing. 2001 demands the biggest picture, the loudest volume, because its themes and its tones are the biggest and loudest, while being the most precise, anti-bombastic anti-Star Wars movie as it could be.
Don't come to this film expecting to follow a plot or dialogue, instead sit back and let the experience wash over you. It is the closest any film has ever come to achieving true artistic transcendence, and so let it do its thing. It has to be followed visually and emotionally or not followed at all.
The monolith, the music, the jump cut, HAL, the stargate, Daisy, the waltz, the star child, the apes, all of these are recognisable in the cultural canon nowadays. In a way, that's really odd because 2001 is in no way a populist movie, at times it deliberately seeks to alienate. The first dialogue we hear is banal to the extreme and the most human character at times seems to be the computer HAL 3000. It is a cold movie, for the most part, as Kubrick always brought a chilly air to his films but in place of humanity and warmth there is instead awe and transcendence.
Kubrick made two truly great movies: 2001 and Dr Strangelove. The latter is completely sublime and could be in my top 10 too, but if Strangelove is a perfect movie then 2001 is a perfect piece of art. Or is it something else entirely? It defies description. That is why I rate it his highest.
Brazil
-Terry Gilliam
If you like your futures bleak, your Christmasses marked by false imprisonment, your machines broken and wheezing and your bureaucracies inefficient then you'll love Terry Gilliam's masterpiece Brazil.
It opens with a Christmastime arrest that immediately places you in Gilliam-world, with a subversion of the Santa Claus myth, the ever present ducts making an appearance and the wife of the arrested man being billed for the service. The rest of the film sees the audience doing their best to hold on as it hurtles through a bewildering array of themes and scenes.
Of particular note are the dream sequences, where a heroically-garbed Sam flies through skyscrapers of filing cabinets, fighting strange Samurai monsters and rescuing his love. These are so imaginative and so well executed that I think I was smiling the whole way through the first time I watched it. The whole movie is that way, full of little surprises and great moments of physical comedy. Particularly the scene below with the shared desk, or where Sam hysterically demands that she drive away.
Though most of my favourite scenes are the ones involving Robert DeNiro in a very unexpected role as a rogue plumber. 'I got into this for the action, you know?'
Those are the funny moments, but just as frequent are the ones with great unease, vague horror and cynicism. Sam's journey from arrest to interrogation is particularly harrowing. The resulting tone is a strange one that will either capture your imagination or completely bore you. I find a peculiar innocence in Brazil; it's a film that exists because Gilliam loves film as an artistic medium. Its immersive quality is never more apparent than in films like this.
Special mention goes to the music; the eponymous 'Brazil'. It is a great film indeed in which a blend of samba and sci-fi urban decay seems to work. The bleak ending in particular feels suddenly horrific with the jaunty dance playing over it.
Chinatown
-Roman Polanski
"What did you do in Chinatown?" "As little as possible"
So answers Jake Gittes in this movie. He means that in Chinatown, a place of many languages,cultures, alliances and grudges, it can be impossible to know whether an action will make the situation better or much worse for anybody. Best to just leave it alone.
But this time the whole of L.A seems to be Chinatown, and Jake Gittes finds himself having to meddle. This is my favourite Jack Nicholson performance; he finds a perfect balance between being Jack Nicholson the legend and Jake Gittes the character. Faye Dunaway is great too, a fragile, damaged screen presence, concealing everything but showing all the pain in her eyes.
This is a complicated story in a film that feels dense, dark ,twisting and paranoid throughout, but such is Polanski's storytelling skill that we remain riveted throughout, fully aware of the unknown dangers lurking offscreen. Of course, this should be true of all good noir films, and time has treated Chinatown favourably, such that it now seems not neo noir at all but pure old-school noir. A worthy successor to a great tradition of movie making.
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| "I like breathing through it" |
Saying that, there is a dirty, unsavory aspect to the plot and characters that is atypical of the genre. Particularly, Jake Gittes is not a hard-boiled, unfeeling tough guy. Indeed, occasionally he exhibits behaviours that would seem to suggest he is unsuited to this line of work. 'I'm in matrimonial work; it's my metier'. When he stumbles across a plot of extortion, murder and incest he is not excited by what he finds, but disgusted.
Forget it, Jake.
The Godfather
-Francis Ford Coppola
Stanley Kubrick apparently considered this the best movie ever made, are you going to disagree with him? I am for now writing only about Part I, not Part II, although I love both equally.
'I believe in America', and immediately, we know this isn't an ordinary gangster film. In a virtuoso opening sequence, we are immersed in both halves of the Corleone world; business and family. We meet them all; Sonny the hothead, Tom the advisor, Fredo the wannabe, Michael the outsider and of course, Vito the respected old Don. Then Michael tells us a story about his old man, which exemplifies the curious attitude of audiences toward the family. They are murderous criminals, but we are fascinated by them. We in, fact, care about them. We root for them! Ebert found a problem with this, particularly in Part II. But I don't think Coppola wants us to like them, far from it. This is no Wolf of Wall Street . The genius of the film is that we are in two films, the gangster movie and a family drama. They exist simultaneously and complement eachother.
The success of this balancing act is in no small part due to the wonderful music by Nino Rota. Never has there been a greater marriage of subject and music; the love theme in particular encapsulates the grandeur, tragedy and danger of the Corleone saga. Some of my favourite moments in all cinema are those in Sicily, the gorgeous tones of the cinematography matching those of Rota's score.
This is perhaps the most quotable and quoted movie of all time, a deserved accolade for a film with some of the best dialogue you'll ever hear. Again, we find the mix of business and family: 'Leave the gun, take the cannoli' 'He made him an offer he couldn't refuse'. The scene in the garden with Vito and Michael is an absolute masterclass in acting. It is not two actors acting but two people reacting. Wonderful.
I would also like to acknowledge two other Francis Ford Coppola films: The Conversation and Apocalypse Now. The former is the quintessential paranoid thriller with a fantastic performance from Gene Hackman. The latter the greatest war film ever made, a horrifying journey into the heart of darkness.
Inside Llewyn Davis
-the Coen Brothers
Now this was a difficult choice. I don't believe any other living filmmakers have a canon so rich, so original and so important as Joel and Ethan Coen. Their movies are so distinctive yet so varied, a class in filmmaking could be had from their output alone. They have covered so much ground in such a sincere way, they deserve utmost praise.
I really had a hard time deciding which of theirs to pick. It came down to A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Fargo and True Grit. I could easily put all four in my top ten. A Serious Man may be their best. Fargo may be their most original and best executed. But Llewyn Davis hit me hard and connected with me deeply.
I saw it three times in the three weeks or so it was in the cinema, and I believe I would have gone to see it again.
It opens beautifully; Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) plays his wonderful version of Hang Me, Oh Hang Me to a rapt audience in the Gaslight Cafe. We know right from the start how good he is and what he can do with a captive audience, but the rest of the movie shows us why he can't pull in an audience of his own. 'I miss Mike', says a character at one point. So does Llewyn. Mike was his partner who threw himself off the George Washington Bridge. Mike is the unseen second lead throughout the movie, the reason behind most of Llewyn's actions.
He can't catch a break, he doesn't even have a winter coat. At this point, it seems he's about ready to give up. The plot of the film, as I see it, is Llewyn being presented with choice after choice, with him turning every one down or failing. Finally, he takes the coward's way out and decides to give up and re-join the merchant marines. But he can't even afford to do that. So he's stuck, in the right place at the wrong time. He missed the boat before he even realised it was in the dock.
It sounds thoroughly depressing, and in a way it is. The beauty of the movie is in its tone; a vinyl film in a world of compact discs, and in its performances.It is often funny and often deeply sad, but always compelling and sincere.
'Play me something from inside Llewyn Davis...'
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| "I don't see a lot of money here" |
-Sofia Coppola
I'm really not a fan of Sofia Coppola's other works, I think she makes the fatal error of confusing the morose with the interesting and taking a slow, contemplative pace but removing the contemplation. However she really made something special in Lost In Translation.
I had a little look at this already in another post, so I shan't keep you long, but briefly: this is an adult movie. I mean that in the sense that it is about adults and their adult emotions and made for adults to reflect on.
I've never seen another movie that looks at a (possibly) romantic relationship that didn't grate on me at some point. Movies are never truthful about love or two people who are just getting along well, so they always just do movie love instead. Lost In Translation doesn't. It does two people, suddenly finding themselves utterly lost and without anchor, so they find each other instead.
Bill Murray gives a truly wonderful performance that seems entirely inappropriate to label a performance at all. He is so utterly within the character that, in the words of almighty Ebert, It's sometimes said of an actor that we can't see him acting. I can't even see him not acting. He seems to be existing, merely existing, in the situation created for him by Sofia Coppola.
This may be Scarlett Johansson's finest role too. She has a reputation as a Hollywood uber-babe, but in the right role, she shines. Here she has an aching sadness about her that , with Bill Murray, lifts the movie into glory.
The ending is perfect. We don't hear the words they say to each other, but we don't need to. It barely even matters; we can see from their actions that they are happy with this outcome, and that is enough. They have earned their privacy.
Reds
-Warren Beatty
I started watching this film because I noticed it had Jack Nicholson in it. What a surprise then when I realised the many riches Reds has to offer.
It is a truly sweeping epic story, following the American Communist journalist John Reed , and those close to him, through the major events in his life. And what events they were. This is a movie about politics, real politics, the kind driven by fundamental rights, the drive to realise them in law and the determination to affect real change. We see the kind of politics that doesn't exist anymore, the kind that takes place in basements and beer halls and goes all the way to the top. How refreshing to see a film take on such a subject and not dilute it or romanticise it but show it in its gritty, raw and complex truth. Even when looking at petty infighting, it's gaze is not averted.
But there is a personal story here too; the characters brought to life by some of the best acting I have ever seen. Warren Beatty, Paul Sorvino and Jack Nicholson truly are wonderful, but the star of the show in my opinion is Diane Keaton. I found myself hanging on her every word and expression, constantly interested in what she was thinking.
Both the politics and the people in the film are given depth by the genius addition of 'the witnesses'. Interviews with the real people who knew the real figures involved. The resulting film is just fascinating. It is long and at times hard to follow, but I was just enthralled.
Rushmore
-Wes Anderson
To quote Matt Zoller Seitz, a greater Anderson authority than I, 'There are few perfect movies. This is one of them'.
'Sharp little guy'. 'He's one of the worst students we've got'. So introduced is Max Fischer, perhaps my favourite movie character of all time. He goes to the prep school Rushmore. He is 15. He is founder or part of; the French Club, the Debate Team, the Lacrosse Team (manager), the Calligraphy Club, the Astronomy Society, the Fencing Team, the choir, Bombardment Society, Trap and Skeet Club, Rushmore Beekeepers... He loves Rushmore.
He befriends Bill Murray, as a lonely steel tycoon. He falls in love with an undeniably lovely teacher. He puts on school plays the likes of which have never been seen before. Jason Schwartzman plays him such that despite acting in very questionable ways at times, we still love him. How could we not? Max just loves life, and lives it the way he wants to.
This is one of my favourite films because it has a real rebellious, fuck you streak to it that is somewhat absent in later Anderson movies. It is also very fair to its characters. Max , obviously, cannot be with Miss Cross. In pursuing her, he is making life much more difficult for her, for Blume and not least for himself. But the movie understands why he does, and why he needs to realise this himself. There's a naivety and a knowing cynicism to Rushmore , there's joy and deep sadness.
This is present most of all in the final scene, after the premiere of his play. 'At least nobody got hurt' , 'Except for you', replies Miss Cross. Meaning both in his play and in his life. She is about to dance with him, the look on her face meaning everything and nothing at once, the end and the beginning.
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| "I think I can safely say I've never met anyone like you either" |
But this film is also just so funny. Bill Murray ducking behind a tree, the Kubrickian children loitering in the grounds, the frightening Scotsman, the Max Fischer players, the Grover Cleveland fencing club. Like most Wes Anderson films, it is a joy to watch. Being able to smile at a particular cut or music choice is a rare thing, the form often forgotten in place of content. But Anderson pulls it off.
In Rushmore he introduces a preoccupation with death and memories that would echo through his films, from the Royal Tenenbaums up to the Grand Budapest Hotel. Death and darkness behind the quirky Anderson facade, so cleverly ingrained in the movie that the thoughtfulness and sadness behind his movies could easily go over the heads of the casual movie goer.
(and of course, there is a great soundtrack)
There Will Be Blood
- Paul Thomas Anderson
A very divisive film, as many of the greats are. Starting with Punch Drunk Love and, as of March 2014, culminating with the Master, PTA moved from Scorsese-esque stylish pieces looking inside a particular culture to more Kubrickian, ambient portraits of singular men. These latter films, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood and the Master are distinctly different from Hard Eight, Boogie Nights and Magnolia. They take a much more distanced, objective look at their protagonists and for the most part, that's all they do. Plot takes a major back seat to atmosphere, character and pure old fashioned film making. It's often forgotten that story is only one aspect to a movie, that film can be transcendent and reach to the emotions and not just to the mind.
There Will Be Blood finds the perfect balance between all these things. From the abstract horror of the opening sequences (and the opening shot itself) to the hypnotic speechifying of Daniel Day Lewis' incredible Daniel Plainview, to the madness of the final scene, this movie is a complete cinematic experience.
Daniel Plainview appears from nowhere, alone, clawing and attacking the earth itself, until he becomes drenched in its blood; oil. Like some kind of elemental creature, he is silent and driven and brutal, a creature of oil and the land, hand risen to the sky, claiming the Earth. This is all before he says a single word.
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| "There's a whole ocean of oil under our feet! And nobody can get at it except for me" |
This movie works on the same level as another on my list, 2001: a Space Odyssey. It goes beyond dialogue and plot into an emotional, visceral experience that bypasses the literal part of the movie-going mind. Saying this, the film is also very quotable too. The dialogue is fantastic; Daniel Day Lewis does indeed breathe physical life into Daniel Plainview but his method of control over his surroundings lies in his words. "I have a competition in me, I want no-one else to succeed". "I can't keep doing this. With these...people."
If I were doing more than one film per director I could possibly add even two more PTA films: Magnolia - an Altman-esque look at one extraordinary day in the lives of an interconnected group of L.A residents and: Punch Drunk Love a really wonderful 80 min movie starring Adam Sandler. A masterpiece that gets lost amongst PTA's other more obvious masterpieces. Watch!
The Truman Show
-Peter Weir
This is the first film I can recall enjoying beyond a purely superficial level. It has a wonderful visual aesthetic with a very thoughtful underpinning that appealed to me greatly. To find Jim Carrey pull off a role like this so perfectly is also a joy.
It is difficult to imagine how differently this would have been perceived at the time of its release; one person is secretly filmed living their life , the footage then broadcast on television. A far fetched concept at the time. People I have asked who saw the film's original release recall thinking, 'why would anyone watch?'. As each year passes it becomes maddeningly closer and closer to reality. The sheer number of 'reality' shows is astonishing, and as these people allow more and more invasion into their private lives, the less fictional the world of the Truman Show seems.
Peter Weir plays with the grammar of television and film to reveal how hollow it can be; look at the shot when they reunite Truman with 'his dad'. The music swells, hoping to capture our emotion, and at its peak, cut to Christof in the control room, signalling for more music. Moments like this, where the director pulls the rug out from under us, are part of the magic of this movie.
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| "I'd throw myself in front of traffic for you" |
The magic can also be found in the performances of the actors. In a movie like this, the strong concept has the potential to overwhelm the human side of it, but the cast hold their own. Jim Carrey is of course wonderful, he projects his characteristic charm in a particular way that seems naive and completely likeable. As if , in fact, he'd lived his whole life among actors in a world with no danger to him.
I hope that in describing this film, I don't fail to convey the emotional aspect to the movie. It is indeed a movie rich with ideas and themes, but there is a great human story too. I believe it is the first film i cried at, and subsequent viewings haven't diluted this effect. Who could remain unaffected by the glorious end sequences? Wonderful.
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| "You never had a camera in my head" |
Films that narrowly missed out:
The Aviator
North By Northwest
Synecdoche, New York
Jackie Brown
