Okay, I recognize that it may have something to do with my gender that I seem to instigate the explicitly collaborative posts here (see the anti-Valentine’s Day movies post) but I need some assistance with a student request. (Okay, I don’t really “need” the assistance…I could do this on my own, but I thought it would be interesting and decidedly more fun to get your insight and see what discussions/debates ensue).
This student is a film major and asked me to give him a list of the top “must-see” pre-1975 films. Now I don't necessarily subscribe to the AFI school of film history hierarchies but I am not one to turn down a student request or ignore a challenge when I see one. He prefers mostly American films but is not picky, and he didn’t specify a number but I will make things interesting by limiting it to 50.
If you feel bold enough to add your picks as RD, bring it on, and put your initials in parentheses…see how the others respond to your choices. If you want a debate, add it to the comments. We can add and delete things based on consensus. I will get us started… (BTW, these are in no particular order).
Citizen Kane (MS)
Vertigo (MS)
Psycho (MS)
Double Indemnity (MS)
All About Eve (LW)
The Sound of Music (LW)
A Streetcar Named Desire (LW)
Blazing Saddles (LW)
The Godfather, Parts One and Two (MO)
La Dolce Vita (MO)
Il Vangelo secondo Mateo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew) (MO)
2001: A Space Odyssey (MO)
La Grande Illusion (MO)
Rashomon (MO)
The Searchers (MO)
Easy Rider (MO)
Don't Look Now (BC)
Crisis (MO)
Shadows (MS)
The Conversation (MS)
A bout de souffle (Breathless) (MS)
Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) (MO)
Ali: Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul) (MO)
Umberto D. (MO)
Roma: Citta aperta (Rome, Open City)(MO)
Nanook of the North (MO)
Hearts and Minds (MO)
Gone With the Wind (MS)
The Best Years of Our Lives (MS)
Sunset Boulevard (MS)
All That Heaven Allows (MS)
Casablanca (MO)
Peeping Tom (MO)
If (MO)
City Lights (MO)
Birth of a Nation (MO)
Sunrise (MO)
Duck Soup (PM)
Il Conformista (The Conformist) (PM)
M (PM)
Persona (MO)
Cleo from 5 to 7 (MO)
Battleship Potemkin (MO)
Lawrence of Arabia (MS)
Pather Panchali (MO)
Meshes of the Afternoon (MS)
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (MO)
Xala (MO)
Dance, Girl, Dance (MS)
Within Our Gates (MS)
THAT'S IT! WE'RE DONE!
They almost made it...but not quite...
Der Junge Torless (Young Torless) (MO)
8 ½ (MS)
Metropolis (PM)
I ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thief) (MO)
Pierrot le fou (MO)
It's a Wonderful Life (MS)
Nosferatu (MO)
Primary (MS)
From Here to Eternity (MS)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (LW)
Traffic in Souls (PM)
The Barefoot Contessa (BC)
La Jetée (MS)
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30 comments:
Going with the instructions of "must-see" films, here are my nominees:
All About Eve - For great dialogue and classic Betty Davis.
Sound of Music - As far a musicals go, this one has some of our best loved songs, great dialogue, some edgy characters, and one of the best screen kisses of all times. Plus, any movie that has spawned multiple city sing-alongs and costume contests deserves mention.
A Streetcar Name Desire - Classic characters, memorable scenes and dialogue ("Stella!" and "I've always relied on the kindness of strangers.")
Blazing Saddles - Classic parody/satire on America, American Westerns, and Racism.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Great writing and acting. Classic characters.
Chinatown - New directions in screenwriting.
It's not gendered, Michele! I have a guilty pleasure in constructing these lists, too. Here's mine, in no particular order:
The Godfather films -- the first one is a beautiful crime/family melodrama, and the second one of the few films I'd call a work of genius. Part II is one of the few sequels that is better than the original.
La Dolce vita -- this might be a better Fellini film than 8 1/2, which can be a little to interior for some students. This is also the film that made Fellini a international auteur. If your student has a taste for the surreal and perverse, you might direct him to Fellini Satyricon.
Il Vangelo secondo Mateo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew) -- hey, we need more people to see and worship Pasolini! This one borrows direct-cinema documentary style and uses Sicilian peasants as actors in an almost literal adaptation of the first gospel.
2001: A Space Odyssey -- the greatest film ever made. The special effects are still dazzling without being gaudy, and it simultaneously demythologizes space as the domain of weirdo aliens and remythologizes it as the key to restoring humanity.
La Grande Illusion -- it has a rather hokey idea of World War I as being an honorable war (no mention of poison gas or trench warfare or mechanized death anywhere), but it's still a fairly touching examination of a fading comraderie between a certain class of soldier.
Pierrot le fou -- I'm not a fan of the New Wave, but this is my favorite film from that movement. The vibrant color and off-hand musical numbers are fun, and it has one of my favorite endings in film history.
Rashomon -- often imitated, never duplicated. Your student will know where Bryan Singer and Quentin Tarantino get their atypical chronological structures from, and see it put to better use.
The Searchers -- the quintessential Western and anti-hero film.
Easy Rider -- for its importance to the countercultural movement.
If we can include films from 1975, then Jaws needs to go here, as it is the best movie ever made, and set the model for summer blockbusters (sort of).
And I second Lori's nominations of All about Eve and Chinatown.
Barefoot Contessa
Don't Look Now
- Betsy
I love most of these and will add to the list (I knew Mookie would come through on the Italian films!)...but I have to ask Lori, who are the edgy characters in The Sound of Music?
Adding all of your films made me hungry for more...
Primary - The contemporary documentary film as we know it would not exist without it.
Shadows - The contemporary American cinema as we know it would not exist without it.
The Conversation - The in-between masterpieces masterpiece.
A bout de souffle (Breathless) - Like an instruction manual for thinking filmmakers.
Michelle,
I think for 1965 the characters of Max Detweiler and Baroness Elsa Schaeder are quite edgy. Here is some sample dialogue between them:
Elsa:
"I'm terribly fond of him, so don't toy with us."
Max:
"But I'm a child. I like toys. So tell me everything. Come on. Tell me every teensy-weensy, intimate, disgusting detail."
Max:
"I'm wondering how will you pull this off?"
Elsa:
"Darling, haven't you ever heard of a delightful little thing called boarding school?"
There is also an edgyness between Herr Zeller the Nazi and Capt. Von Trapp.
In addition there is some interesting sexual symbolism in Capt. Von Trapp: The horse crop, the whistle, strutting in his uniform.
And the relationship between Max and the Baroness suggests a classic "Fag Hag" duo.
Just some of my observations...
Lori and I realized that no one has really mentioned any German films, so I would nominate:
Nosferatu and Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari -- the essential German Expressionist films
Ali: Angst essen Seele auf -- Fassbinder's American melodrama-inspired New German cinema masterpiece
Der Junge Torless -- one of the first German films to address the nation's complicity with and apparent taste for brutality
I also realized I forgot to mention Italian neorealist classics! Let me add:
I ladri di biciclette and Umberto D. -- de Sica's sentimental masterpieces of economic hardship and lingering hope
Roma: Citta aperta -- demonstrates the Italian's felicity with blending tones into a coherent whole
Michele, your nomination of Primary is great, though experience has demonstrated to me that Crisis is received by students better. I'd also nominate Hearts and Minds, one of the first overtly political documentaries, as well as Nanook of the North, for establishing the importance of narrative to documentary from the beginning, and Why We Fight for establishing the model for educational documentary.
As the Italians would say, Dov'e Paul?
You are right, Lori. When you see the dialogue in print, Sound of Music reveals itself to be quite edgy indeed. By the way, Max Detweiler is probably one of my favorite implicitly homosexual characters in all of film history.
Thanks for the new additions Mookie. I have never seen Crisis but will definitely seek it out based on your recommendation.
We seem to be missing some key Classical Hollywood Cinema titles, so I nominate:
Gone With the Wind
It's a Wonderful Life
The Best Years of Our Lives
From Here to Eternity
Sunset Boulevard
Do any of these require an explanation? I think not.
...and (how could I have neglected to add?)
All That Heaven Allows
I know you're not fond of it, Michele, but Casablanca probably deserves to be here. We're also free of British films, so I'll nominate Peeping Tom and If....
I have reluctantly added Casablanca to the list. (As you can imagine, the addition was accompanied by a great deal of loud and exasperated sighing on my part.)
As long as we're talking about British films, what about Saturday Night and Sunday Morning?
RK hasn't arrived yet, but we do need to add some silent American films. I'd nominate Chaplin's City Lights, Griffith's Birth of a Nation (better than the overlong Intolerance and more aesthetically important than Broken Blossoms, and Sunrise. As an example of the shift to color blockbuster films in the 1950s, The Bridge on the River Kwai should be added.
That puts us at 50, doesn't it? Perhaps we should delete some to make room for others -- I don't know that Primary and Crisis need to be on the list, and Young Torless could make way for another deserving film, if anyone had any other ideas.
I'd add:
The Conformist
Traffic in Souls
Metropolis or M (Surely we can bump a few Godard's to make room for a little Lang - I don't think Jean-Luc would mind)
Maltese Falcon
And could we swap out Blazing Saddles for Duck Soup?
We do need to winnow this list down. So let the debating begin...(this should be the most fun part of this exercise).
Mookie and I vote for Blazing Saddles because it is one of the first examples of postmodern comedy in American film history.
Do like Duck Soup for the list though. Maybe one of the British or German films can be swapped?
Hmmm...Okay, I will definitely add City Lights, Birth of a Nation, and Sunrise. And, if we are going to go with a David Lean epic, my vote would be for Lawrence of Arabia rather than Bridge on the River Kwai...if only because of Maurice Jarre's gorgeous score and Peter O'Toole's mesmerizing blue eyes. Thoughts?
I will take Crisis off...but strongly believe that Primary should remain.
And, Young Torless will come off...
There are only two Godard films on the list, right? I would vote that we leave both and cut an Italian film or two. Do we really need three neo-realist films?
I don't see any reason why we shouldn't have both Duck Soup and Blazing Saddles on the list...
In terms of Paul's picks...yes, I think that we definitely need some Lang...but M or Metropolis, that is the question...or both in lieu of something else?
And, (not to pick on you, Paul) I am interested in hearing an argument for The Maltese Falcon. It is influential with regard to starting the noir cycle, but I personally find its pace to be painfully slow and think its aesthetics are, in a word, boring.
Michele, I am deeply hurt that you think we need two Godard films, but only three Italian neorealist films. Can't we just make the kid a clip reel of the French films? That way he won't have to sit around waiting for a film to wrap up what was painfully obvious forty five minutes in.
In all seriousness, if one Italian neorealist film were to have to go, I'd tearfully remove Bicycle Thief, as Umberto D. is probably a better example of de Sica's sentimental neorealism. On the other hand, I don't know that we need La Dolce vita and 8 1/2. I'd delete the latter, as you kind of need to have seen the former to get the authorial subtext.
I agree that The Maltese Falcon probably isn't a strong inclusion here. Lori and I saw it at the Hollywood cemetery last summer and thought it was amusing in places, but rather dull overall. It established Bogie's star persona, but Casablanca is already on the list, and Double Indemnity is quintessential noir. Honest question: How many noirs do we need?
I'd also punt Primary in favor of Crisis, not only for the second film's more interesting subject matter, but because it is a "purer" example of direct cinema -- in Primary people speak directly to the camera, lessening the fly-on-the-wall feel.
My only real quibble with Lawrence of Arabia over Bridge is chronological, or perhaps historical: Bridge was released in 1957, placing it smack in the middle of the period when Hollywood was groping for a widescreen epic format to counter the popularity of television, while Lawrence (1962) comes at a time when that format had been established as popular.
Isn't it funny that we're talking about the artistic merits of a genre we now find debased?
Not to complicate matters, but I think we've neglected to add any Ingmar Bergman... is the list complete without The Seventh Seal or Persona?
Here are the films I would delete from the list. I think this will take the list below 50, but that might allow us to repair any oversights.
8 1/2
Grand Illusion
Pierrot le fou
Primary
The Bicycle Thief
Nosferatu
It's a Wonderful Life
Metropolis
I've explained why I think Primary, 8 1/2 and Bicycle Thief should go, and am nominating Nosferatu for deletion because Cabinet better exemplifies all of the hallmarks of German Expressionism. M gets the nod over Metropolis because Metropolis doesn't exist in a complete form anymore, and the various reconstructions all leave someone unhappy. It's a Wonderful Life is a Christmas staple, so it is likely to have been seen already, and this would allow room for the inclusion of a screwball comedy like Bringing up Baby or His Girl Friday or, if you want to stick with Capra, maybe It Happened One Night.
Pierrot le fou could make way for a Left Bank film (Hiroshima mon amour? Cleo de 5 a 7?). Perhaps Grand Illusion should be replaced by a Poetic Realist film like Pepe le Moko or Le jour se leve, which would introduce your student to the curious French notion that boring, narcissistic women are still worth losing your life over.
So to replace the deletions above, I would nominate:
Persona
Pepe le Moko
His Girl Friday
Hiroshima mon amour
Wells thanks a lot Mookie for really complicating things. :-)
I agree with Michelle that Lawrence of Arabia should be included over Bridge over River Kwai. I also agree that the Maltese Falcon should not be on the list. Agree with cutting an Italian film or two. And Also, vote for M over Metropolis.
I vote for Le Dolce Vita over 8 1/2.
I don't know what I was thinking not nominating Persona and/or Seventh Seal. If we are including foreign films, Bergman is a must.
But I'd like to point out that Michelle's orginal request stated "mostly" American films, so can we consider this in winnowing the list?
Since this is a pedagogical issue, I think the student's interests in "mostly American" films should be ignored - in fact, critiqued. It's not appropriate to perpetuate a blinkered perspective. (After all, think how you'd react if someone said "I'd like to get to know people in the area, but mostly whites, please.")
Just because I like to complicate things -- as Rob perhaps unconsciously alluded, we sure do have us a white list of films here. The list has one Japanese film, Rashomon, and everything else is by white filmmakers from Western Europe and the United States. In fact, they're all male filmmakers to, I think.
So, I amend my previous Left Bank recommendation to Cleo de 5 a 7, and think we need to find room for Ousmene Sembene's Xala (1975) and Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.
Oh, and I think we're missing Battleship Potemkin.
And I agree with Rob that we need to push the student to watch more foreign films. As it is, I think our list is still more than 1/2 American films anyway.
I agree that we should definitely include more films by women and people of color.
I agree with Cleo from 5 to 7 (and wish that Jeanne Dielman had been made one year earlier so it would fit within the periodization).
In terms of American films that definitely should be included:
The Blot
Dance, Girl, Dance
Meshes of the Afternoon
Fuses
And, I also agree with Sweet Sweetback's Badaaaaaass Song
What about
Cotton Comes to Harlem (which is considered the first film of the new Black Cinema/blaxploitation movement)?
and/or
Within Our Gates?
(Killer of Sheep should be on the list but it was made two years too late...)
We also have neglected to include any third world cinema. Shouldn't at least one title from Satyajit Ray be on the list?
Mookie, I can back up all of your deletions/replacements except for one - Grand Illusion...I think that it is a must-see. I will go ahead with all of them except that one and we can discuss further.
I would sacrifice From Here to Eternity and would suggest sacrifice of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for one of the titles above.
Mookie, I didn't mean to overlook your inclusion of Xala...sorry about that. Great idea.
I agree with the Satyajit Ray inclusion -- Pather Panchali is easy to come by, I believe. Meshes is a good addition, as well.
A recommendation: Go through the list make sure each nation that we want to include is represented at least once before more than one film from a nation is. That way we can see which nations might be over-represented when we make the final edits.
This is starting to make my head hurt. Unless people think that there are any more glaring omissions, I think that we should add one third cinema film (I would very much appreciate suggestions as this is really not my area of expertise...the only one that comes to mind is Memories of Underdevelopment) and then stop brainstorming and work with the films that have already been proposed. We could probably go on with this exercise forever if no one cut us off, couldn't we?
So, I am adding:
Pather Panchali
Meshes of the Afternoon
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
Xala
Since there weren't any objections to cutting One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and From Here to Eternity, I will go ahead and do that to make room for these.
I still feel fairly strongly about including an Oscar Michaeaux film (Within Our Gates) and Dorothy Arzner film (Dance Girl Dance). Thoughts?
I'm OK with adding an Arzner film and don't know enough about Micheaux to make any informed comment.
My home internet has been my worst enemy over the last couple of days which explains the lack of resolution on this.
So, in order to make room for Dance Girl Dance and potentially Within Our Gates, we need to delete three films. My vote would be for:
Traffic in Souls...Don't know much about it, and (sorry Paul) need to hear more of an argument on its behalf.
The Barefoot Contessa...This is a great film but do we need two Mankiewicz/multiple narrator films? If I had to choose between the two, I would go with All About Eve.
Gone With the Wind...eh, one of my favorite films but might not pass muster in this company.
I think All about Eve is a better movie than The Barefoot Contessa.
I love Gone with the Wind (even though it is terribly racist at times)and feel it a very important movie in many ways. I would vote to keep this one, but will bow to others here. "Oh, I'll think about that tomorrow."
I think GwtW needs to remain, particularly as it is the only studio system-era epic on the list. The Barefoot Contessa probably is redundant (though not unworthy!), and I haven't seen Traffic in Souls, so can't recommend it. My other nominee for deletion would be La Jetee. The list would still have an avant garde film (Meshes) and, beyond inspiring 12 Monkeys, I don't know how influential or important La Jetee is. It's certainly a fascinating film and something your student should see, but the restrictions on this list might be enough to squeeze it out.
Okay. Done and done. While I am sad to lose La Jetee, I am very happy to have my old childhood friend, Gone With the Wind, back on the list. I was willing to give it up for the team but am pleased that Mookie and Lori are preventing me from having to do so! I am posting the official list right now. Thanks for your help everyone. This has been fun!
Thank you everyone for your assistance. I am now working my way through the list. And yes, the "mostly American" part of the request was an unfortunate mistake -- thanks for ignoring it. I appreciate that the list is more than just a group of favorites. There are books that need to be read and movies that need to be seen, a sincere thanks for your thoughtful assistance.
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