My Ten Favorite
Movies
1.
Atalante
(Jean Vigo)
Jean Vigo is a personal filmmaker of the highest order. And I consider that to be the highest compliment. Every shot in
this movie contains an honest human truth. Funny, tragic, poignant, magic, I
love Atalante. It is a black and white genius‘s notebook. It is the equivalent
of discovering Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” in your grandmother’s
basement. It’s that good. It’ proof of the maxim that in order to really get to
the truth of existence, you have to elevate reality. It is Art of the highest
order and the most honestly romantic films I can think of. It’s also a great
snap shot of living on a barge and travelling down the Seine in the early part
of last century. It is a tragedy that Vigo died so young. I think of the sailor
with the tattoos and I cry. I think of a young woman’s lot to build her future
on such an unstable foundation. He fought for his movies like any true
independent today.
2. The Elephant Man (David Lynch)
I rate any film that manages to bring me to honest tears every time my
eyeballs are lucky or unlucky enough to fall upon it. And my heart certainly
cracks every time I think of John Merrick (the character played by John Hurt
who in this film can do no wrong) working on his little models and thinking of
that lady patron at the opera played by Anne Bancroft. With this film, I feel
the reason why we exist. I see meaning to life. At the end of THE ELEPHANT MAN
I feel the cruelty and redemption of man. And it all works in Lynch’s mastery
of both the human heart and his unique painterly canvas for making me feel this
way.
3. The Vanishing (George Sluizer)
It’s my thriller of choice because there is no one who to me, has
created an atmosphere more laden with mystery and realism than George Sluizer
in this one off masterpiece. What is it about that scene at the gas station
that feels so real? Why does it feel like I myself could have lost the love of
my life on that hot day in France during the Tour De France finals and then
spent the rest of my life in dogged pursuit of an idea, not a woman, an idea.
This Dutch movie is a gem and too few people have appreciated its genius.
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg)
It’s my childhood. The beauty of it, it is that it inspired me to run
around the backyard recreating the adventures of Indiana Jones. Thirty years
later, it’s still that good. On VHS, on
repeat on Cable t.v.. On the anniversary DVD. It has lost none of its charisma.
Unlike the various other films in the series, Indiana Jones in the first one is
a flawed adult, with real greed, real fear and a real penchant to treat the
ones he loves like shit. And that is why he is a character that I can come back
to and appreciate. RAIDERS is a real adventure movie. That is, it is laden with
exoticism and flawed reality, and a jerk with a higher moral calling. Indiana
Jones is not against robbing cultural artifacts when it suits him but he sure
doesn’t like those Nazis! And the love
theme! Have you ever really listened and appreciated that love theme written by John Williams? Not the fanfare
that everyone knows, the glorious, hopelessly romantic love theme. It’s the
best one ever written.
5. Punch drunk Love (PT Anderson)
What a jewel of a film. It’s so crazy that one of my favorite films
could star Adam Sandler who I find the equivalent of Velveeta cheese in any
other movie, but here he is magic. His moments in the film seem like pages from
a golden book of magical realist moments. As if PT Anderson found a way of
truly translating Garcia Marquez to the screen. It’s a San Fernando Valley
miracle. I could watch it on a desert island and then die. Emily Watson is
worth her weight in gold. It’s that loud BANG you hear in the middle of the day
that you seem is either the death of you or the very illogical reason your
heart beats.
6. Betty Blue (Jean Jacques Beneix)
I know that in French, this film is called “37 celcius degrees in the
morning” and perhaps in its own convaluted
way, this is a more accurate title. You can indeed feel the heat in this
movie. I would be willing to bet if you ran some of the scenes through a
projector, it would over heat and the film would come right off its sprockets!
But that is just silly talk. Let us be honest here with time. Did every teenage
boy think that Beatrice Dalle was the woman that would open up all the doors to
every sexual fantasy imaginable? Yes we did. Did we also think that this is how
sexy French girls could be? Yes we did. Did we think that Jean Hughes Anglade’s
character was the luckiest guy on the planet, not only to have the devoted sexy
crazy love of a woman like this but also to be an writer free to manifest his
destiny? Yes we did. And that is why Betty Blue remains so palatable in my
imagination. Not a perfect film but like a first adolescent love, impossible to
let go.
7. The Red Shoes (Michael Powell)
Can a film be absolutely perfect? It depends on whose version of perfect you are
measuring it from. In my opinion Michael Powell’s classic take of artistic
sacrifice is the example to end all arguments. Immaculate like the drive of one
of its main characters, the elusive, impulsive, psychotic Artistic director of
the Ballet played for full unrelenting measure by Anton Walbrook, the Red Shoes
is perfection of cinematography, perfection of costumes, perfection of design,
perfection of effects, perfection of musical contributions, perfection of
dance. It all serves one glorious, very personal point of view, that of this
very British of filmmaker Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger who are
convinced that in order to achieve true artistic perfection, you must sacrifice
a piece of your love or your life or (as the case may be) both.
8. Life Lessons (Martin Scorsese)
No, my favorite Martin Scorsese film is not Taxi Driver; it is not
Raging Bull, it’s not even Mean Streets although I think all of these films are
majestic powerhouses of modern cinema. No, my favorite Scorsese film is quietly
tucked away on a compilation film of NY stories. The snapshot of life written
by Richard Price and directed by Scorsese will always hold a little piece of my
heart. I love this portrait of life in New York City. I love the rough and
honest words of Nick Nolte’s life lesson when he tells Rosanna Arquette that
being an artistic is “having no choice but to do it”. I love the space. The use of music. The
atmosphere. I feel like for a short time, I have a little room in this attic
with Nick Nolte and believe it or not, it is an education.
9. The Graduate (Mike Nichols)
How can a lover of honest comedy not be a Mike Nichols ‘ fan? Is he
better than Alexander Payne or Billy Wilder? The jury is out for cinephiles. I
tore myself up about not picking Sideways or The Apartment on this list. But
God knows that doing a movie like THE GRADUATE is hard. It’s hard to get the
level of subtle reaction that Dustin Hoffman gives before the camera in this
movie. The level of off the cuff naturalism provided from a script by Buck
Henry. The Southern California sixties vibe and the heart break in Katherine
Ross’s eyes when she earns that Benjamin has slept with her mother. And then
the full tilt turn around as she realizes that the man of her life may be banging
on the church window. The reason why the
camera is powerful is evident in those beautiful mascara laced eyes alone.
10. The Hustler (Robert Rossen)
For years I could hear Piper Laurie’s strangely seductive drawl in my
head. “I know where you live” I heard. “You live in a locker in the train
station.” The Hustler is not everything we want from movies. Far from it. It’s a tragic beautiful American
cautionary tale. It is the flawed tragic hero turned darkly obsessive, but Paul Newman is so damn inhumanly seductive
that he pulls it off. He’s a drunk, a maniac and a sore loser but god damn he
is sexy. And then you have the towering George C Scott. The danger in his eyes.
And then the cool, ghostly eyes of Fat Slim played by Jackie Gleason. The birth
of the golden age of American maverick cinema of the seventies was not BONNIE
AND CLYDE. It was THE HUSTLER. The glorious, hard on your luck,
quintessentially American hustler.
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